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<div class="MsoNormal">Dear Green Friends, <br>
<br>
I watched Sen. <span class="correction">Barack</span> <span class="correction">Obama</span>
on C-Span today.<br>
<br>
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 <span class="correction">Deppe</span>, who told me about a bright young
state senator from <span class="correction">Southside</span> 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. <br>
<br>
Santa Claus brought me his book <b><i>The Audacity of Hope </i></b>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. <br>
<br>
I've seen a lot of politicians. <span class="correction">Obama</span> is
good. Make no mistake. He’s good.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">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 <span class="correction">naive</span>), when I would have signed up for this campaign
right away. <br>
<span style=""> </span><br>
Let's just say he represents the best... of mainstream... Democratic Party <span class="correction"><b><i>neoliberalism</i></b></span>. 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:<br style="">
<br style="">
</div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="margin-left: 0in;"><br>
<font color="#3333ff">
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.</font><font color="#3333ff"><span style=""> </span></font><font color="#3333ff">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…</font> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">From there Barack goes into a little catechism of “I
Believe” statements: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="margin-left: 0in;"><font color="#3333ff">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.</font><font color="#3333ff"><span style=""> </span></font><font color="#3333ff">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. </font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 0.5in;"><font color="#3333ff"> </font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font color="#3333ff">But that is not all that I am …</font> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">So far, so good.<span style="">
</span>He’s a nice liberal.<span style=""> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Now comes the other shoe:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font color="#3333ff">But that is not all that I am.</font><font color="#3333ff"><span style=""> </span></font><font color="#3333ff">I also think my party can be smug, detached, and dogmatic at
times.</font><font color="#3333ff"><span style=""> </span></font><font color="#3333ff">I believe in the free market,
competition, and entrepreneurship, and think no small number of government programs
don’t work as advertised.</font><font color="#3333ff"><span style=""> </span></font><font color="#3333ff">I wish the
country had fewer lawyers and more engineers.</font><font color="#3333ff"><span style="">
</span></font><font color="#3333ff">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.</font><font color="#3333ff"><span style=""> </span></font><font color="#3333ff">I reject a
politics that is based solely on racial identify, gender identity, sexual
orientation, or victimhood generally.</font><font color="#3333ff"><span style=""> </span></font><font color="#3333ff">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.</font> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">People who know me well can guess which parts of this that
Alex Walker doesn’t like.<span style=""> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><i>“I believe in free speech, whether politically correct or
politically incorrect…” </i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><i> </i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">What “political correctness?”<span style=""> </span>When are people going to drop this silly cliché that was funny
for about fifteen minutes back in 1991?<span style="">
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><i>“I believe in the free market, competition, and
entrepreneurship…” </i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Why do “good liberals” always have to genuflect to the
hegemony of corporate capitalism?<span style=""> </span>When
I read stuff like this (and I read it everyday), I realize that,
philosophically, I’m still socialist and
Green.<span style=""> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">“I wish the country had fewer lawyers and more engineers…”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Nice touch -- when both you and your wife are
Harvard lawyers.<span style=""> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">“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…”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Blame the victim! Blame for the victim for her terrible<span style=""> </span>“Culture of Poverty.”<span style=""> <br>
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><br>
<span style=""></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style=""></span>Remember, this section is about ways in which being a Democrat and
being Black is “not all that I am.”<span style=""> </span>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.<span style=""> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">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.”<span style=""> </span>Let him tell that to the boys at the Wall
Street Journal and the New York Times.<span style="">
</span>This "breakdown" occurs all over the world wherever the “free market”
religion takes hold.<span style=""> </span>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). <span style=""> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Last, but certainly not least, comes this: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">“I think America has more often been a force for good than
for ill in the world…<span style=""> </span>and revere the
courage and competence of our military…” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><br>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Ah! The age-old myth of “American Exceptionalism.”<span style=""> </span>When I was still young and naive (that is,
before I was forty), I used to genuflect at this altar.<span style=""> </span><span style=""></span>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.<span style=""> </span>When I ran for office,
my original design for a campaign flyer included a little American flag in the
corner.<span style=""> </span>Thank goodness Carole Hanisch,
my graphics expert, convinced me to drop that bullshit.<span style=""> </span>The end result was much more attractive and
effective.<span style=""> </span>Today, I agree 100% with
Howard Zinn, who recently wrote a powerful essay on this matter.<span style=""> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 6pt;"><br>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 6pt;"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 6pt;"><font color="#3333ff">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.” </font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 6pt;"><font color="#3333ff">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. </font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 6pt;"><font color="#3333ff">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. </font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 6pt;"><font color="#3333ff">. . . </font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 6pt;"><font color="#3333ff">Some liberals in this country,
opposed to Bush, nevertheless are closer to his principles on foreign affairs
than they want to acknowledge. </font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 6pt;"><font color="#3333ff">. . . </font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 6pt;"><font color="#3333ff">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 (</font><font color="#3333ff"><em>The Washington Post</em></font><font color="#3333ff">,
</font><font color="#3333ff"><em>The New York Times</em></font><font color="#3333ff">). 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.</font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 6pt;"><font color="#3333ff">Only a couple of days before Bush
uttered those words about spreading liberty in the world, </font><font color="#3333ff"><em>The New York
Times</em></font><font color="#3333ff"> 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.</font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 6pt;"><font color="#3333ff">.</font><font color="#3333ff"><span style="">
</span></font><font color="#3333ff">.</font><font color="#3333ff"><span style=""> </span></font><font color="#3333ff">.</font><font color="#3333ff"><span style=""> </span></font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><font color="#3333ff">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, </font><font color="#3333ff"><em>The
Liberator</em></font><font color="#3333ff">, were the words, “My country is the world. My countrymen are
mankind.”</font></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><br>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Dennis Kucinich is the best progressive (The Black
Commentator has said Dennis is “the blackest” candidate), but Dennis probably
cannot be nominated.<span style=""> </span><br>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><br>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Edwards may be stronger on domestic policy.<span style=""> </span>Edwards is
sharp but Obama is sharper.<span style=""> </span>Some naïve
souls may think the white guy from North Carolina will do well Dixie like
Carter and Bill Clinton.<span style=""> </span>Carter and
Clinton did what they did then.<span style=""> </span>This is
now.<span style=""> </span>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.<span style=""> <br>
</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><br>
<span style=""></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style=""></span>Finally, as I have already said publicly many times, Hillary Rodham
Clinton, with her ethically-challenged Clintonesque wishy-washiness is a
disaster.<span style=""> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">In conclusion, Barack Obama is a good guy.<span style=""> </span>He may be the best and the brightest that
the Democratic Party has to offer.<span style=""> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">I leave it to you to interpret my meaning.<span style=""> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal"> </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">Alex Walker </div>
<br>
</div>
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