[Sosfbay-discuss] BARACK OBAMA

Sat Feb 10 14:43:07 PST 2007

Amen and Amen Alex. When I heard about Barack I wanted so hard to be  
a believer but those little nuances gave him away as a sentimental  
imperialist. At least he did admit that some of what the US has done  
isn't ALL good :-)

Peace

On Feb 10, 2007, at 2:08 PM, alexcathy at aol.com wrote:

> Dear Green Friends,
>
> I watched Sen. Barack Obama on C-Span today.
>
> I haven't said too much about him.  I am sort of in the "wait and  
> see" camp.  Most of my wife's family still lives in Illinois and  
> so, I think the first time I ever heard about him was from my  
> brother-in-law, Martin Deppe, who told me about a bright young  
> state senator from Southside Chicago that was starting to make a  
> big splash.  He gave a fiery anti-war speech at one of the first  
> big demonstrations in Chicago before the war back in 2002 and his  
> candidacy for the U.S. Senate in 2004 partly came out of that.
>
> Santa Claus brought me his book The Audacity of Hope over the  
> holidays.  I've read most of it, but I haven't finished it, because  
> frankly, it's a campaign book full of "on-the-one-hand" and "on-the- 
> other-hand" stuff.
>
> I've seen a lot of politicians.  Obama is good.  Make no mistake.   
> He’s good.
>
> He's young.  He's good-looking.  He's sharp.  He can rap.  He WILL  
> inspire a new generation of activists.  No doubt about it.  There  
> was a time (when I was still young and naive), when I would have  
> signed up for this campaign right away.
>
> Let's just say he represents the best... of mainstream...  
> Democratic Party neoliberalism.   Let me just say that with all the  
> good and bad that this implies.  Right in the prologue to his book  
> -- page 10 -- he writes:
>
>
> I am a Democrat, after all; my views on most topics correspond more  
> closely to the editorial pages of The New York Times than those of  
> The Wall Street Journal.  I am angry about politics that  
> consistently favor the wealthy and powerful over average Americans,  
> and insist that government has an important role in opening up  
> opportunity for all…
>
> From there Barack goes into a little catechism of “I Believe”  
> statements:
>
> I believe in evolution, scientific inquiry, and global warming; I  
> believe in free speech, whether politically correct or politically  
> incorrect, and I am suspicious of using government to impose  
> anybody’s religious beliefs – including my own – on nonbelievers.   
> Furthermore, I am a prisoner of my own biography; I can’t help but  
> view the American experience through the lens of a black man of  
> mixed heritage, forever mindful of how generations of people who  
> looked like me were subjugated and stigmatized, and the subtle and  
> not so subtle ways that race and class continue to shape our lives.
>
> But that is not all that I am …
>
>
> So far, so good.  He’s a nice liberal.
>
> Now comes the other shoe:
>
>
> But that is not all that I am.  I also think my party can be smug,  
> detached, and dogmatic at times.  I believe in the free market,  
> competition, and entrepreneurship, and think no small number of  
> government programs don’t work as advertised.  I wish the country  
> had fewer lawyers and more engineers.  I think America has more  
> often been a force for good than for ill in the world; I carry few  
> illusions about our enemies, and revere the courage and competence  
> of our military.  I reject a politics that is based solely on  
> racial identify, gender identity, sexual orientation, or victimhood  
> generally.  I think much of what ails the inner city involves a  
> breakdown in culture that will not be cured by money alone, and  
> that our values and spiritual life matter at least as much as our GDP.
>
>
> People who know me well can guess which parts of this that Alex  
> Walker doesn’t like.
>
> “I believe in free speech, whether politically correct or  
> politically incorrect…”
>
> What “political correctness?”  When are people going to drop this  
> silly cliché that was funny for about fifteen minutes back in 1991?
>
> “I believe in the free market, competition, and entrepreneurship…”
>
> Why do “good liberals” always have to genuflect to the hegemony of  
> corporate capitalism?  When I read stuff like this (and I read it  
> everyday), I realize that, philosophically, I’m still socialist and  
> Green.
>
> “I wish the country had fewer lawyers and more engineers…”
>
> Nice touch -- when both you and your wife are Harvard lawyers.
>
> “I think much of what ails the inner city involves a breakdown in  
> culture… our values and spiritual life matter at least as much as  
> our GDP…”
>
> Blame the victim!  Blame for the victim for her terrible  “Culture  
> of Poverty.”
>
> Remember, this section is about ways in which being a Democrat and  
> being Black is “not all that I am.”  In other words, this section  
> is implicitly about how he is not about Democrat “liberal  
> permissiveness” and the “black pathology” which "everybody" knows  
> is about all you need to know about "being Black” in America.
>
> He just said “I believe in the free market” but here he says “our  
> values and spiritual life matter at least as much as our GDP.”  Let  
> him tell that to the boys at the Wall Street Journal and the New  
> York Times.  This "breakdown" occurs all over the world wherever  
> the “free market” religion takes hold.  It is one of the central  
> contradictions of capitalism (but alas, the fact that I even use a  
> phrase like “contradictions of capitalism” shows how “smug,  
> detached, and dogmatic” I am).
>
> Last, but certainly not least, comes this:
>
> “I think America has more often been a force for good than for ill  
> in the world…  and revere the courage and competence of our military…”
>
> Ah! The age-old myth of “American Exceptionalism.”  When I was  
> still young and naive (that is, before I was forty), I used to  
> genuflect at this altar.  As late as the 1991 Gulf War I was one of  
> those suckers who insisted on displaying an American flag at all  
> our antiwar events.  When I ran for office, my original design for  
> a campaign flyer included a little American flag in the corner.   
> Thank goodness Carole Hanisch, my graphics expert, convinced me to  
> drop that bullshit.  The end result was much more attractive and  
> effective.  Today, I agree 100% with Howard Zinn, who recently  
> wrote a powerful essay on this matter.
>
>
> The notion of American exceptionalism—that the United States alone  
> has the right, whether by divine sanction or moral obligation, to  
> bring civilization, or democracy, or liberty to the rest of the  
> world, by violence if necessary—is not new. It started as early as  
> 1630 in the Massachusetts Bay Colony when Governor John Winthrop  
> uttered the words that centuries later would be quoted by Ronald  
> Reagan. Winthrop called the Massachusetts Bay Colony a “city upon a  
> hill.” Reagan embellished a little, calling it a “shining city on a  
> hill.”
> The idea of a city on a hill is heartwarming. It suggests what  
> George Bush has spoken of: that the United States is a beacon of  
> liberty and democracy. People can look to us and learn from and  
> emulate us.
> In reality, we have never been just a city on a hill. A few years  
> after Governor Winthrop uttered his famous words, the people in the  
> city on a hill moved out to massacre the Pequot Indians. Here’s a  
> description by William Bradford, an early settler, of Captain John  
> Mason’s attack on a Pequot village.
> . . .
> Some liberals in this country, opposed to Bush, nevertheless are  
> closer to his principles on foreign affairs than they want to  
> acknowledge.
> . . .
> The major newspapers, television news shows, and radio talk shows  
> appear not to know history, or prefer to forget it. There was an  
> outpouring of praise for Bush’s second inaugural speech in the  
> press, including the so-called liberal press (The Washington Post,  
> The New York Times). The editorial writers eagerly embraced Bush’s  
> words about spreading liberty in the world, as if they were  
> ignorant of the history of such claims, as if the past two years’  
> worth of news from Iraq were meaningless.
> Only a couple of days before Bush uttered those words about  
> spreading liberty in the world, The New York Times published a  
> photo of a crouching, bleeding Iraqi girl. She was screaming. Her  
> parents, taking her somewhere in their car, had just been shot to  
> death by nervous American soldiers.
> .  .  .
> The true heroes of our history are those Americans who refused to  
> accept that we have a special claim to morality and the right to  
> exert our force on the rest of the world. I think of William Lloyd  
> Garrison, the abolitionist. On the masthead of his antislavery  
> newspaper, The Liberator, were the words, “My country is the world.  
> My countrymen are mankind.”
>
>
>
> Dennis Kucinich is the best progressive (The Black Commentator has  
> said Dennis is “the blackest” candidate), but Dennis probably  
> cannot be nominated.
>
> Edwards may be stronger on domestic policy.  Edwards is sharp but  
> Obama is sharper.  Some naïve souls may think the white guy from  
> North Carolina will do well Dixie like Carter and Bill Clinton.   
> Carter and Clinton did what they did then.  This is now.  I agree  
> 100% with Thomas Schaller who flatly says that it’s high time for  
> Democrats to forget about the South because the Republican “own”  
> the South today.
>
> Finally, as I have already said publicly many times, Hillary Rodham  
> Clinton, with her ethically-challenged Clintonesque wishy-washiness  
> is a disaster.
>
> In conclusion, Barack Obama is a good guy.  He may be the best and  
> the brightest that the Democratic Party  has to offer.
>
> I leave it to you to interpret my meaning.
>
>
> Alex Walker
>
> Check out the new AOL. Most comprehensive set of free safety and  
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