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Here's another interesting perspective, Alex.<div>Have you seen this from TOM PAINE, blog by David Sirota writing about the 2008 Class War? What's your take on his comments?</div><div><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></div><div>---------------------------------</div><div><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px; line-height: 15.0px"><font face="Arial" size="3" color="#333333" style="font: 12.0px Arial; color: #333333">The two taboo subjects in American politics, class and race, are now front and center in the Democratic nominating contest. As my <a href="http://action.credomobile.com/commentary/2008/02/the_democrats_class_war.html"><font color="#810028" style="color: #810028"><b>new nationally syndicated newspaper column</b></font></a> shows, the former is driving voting behavior and the biases against the latter are making it more difficult for Barack Obama to court lower-income voters.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px; line-height: 15.0px"><font face="Arial" size="3" color="#333333" style="font: 12.0px Arial; color: #333333">Exit polls show Hillary Clinton winning votes from those making under $50,000 a year. She is the candidate of NAFTA, the candidate on the cover of Fortune magazine, the candidate of Big Money. And yet, she is winning the working class. Much of that, as I say, has to do with Obama not running an economically populist or class-based campaign. He simply hasn't been appealing to working-class voters in any direct way.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px; line-height: 15.0px"><font face="Arial" size="3" color="#333333" style="font: 12.0px Arial; color: #333333">That tactical decision, of course, has at least something to do with the fact that Obama, too, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/17/AR2007041701688.html"><font color="#810028" style="color: #810028"><b>raises huge amounts of corporate cash</b></font></a>—cash that would not necessarily come to him if he started talking about corporate power, inequality and greed.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px; line-height: 15.0px"><font face="Arial" size="3" color="#333333" style="font: 12.0px Arial; color: #333333">But the decision also likely has to do with the fact that Obama knows that if he voiced a more full-throated populism, he would be depicted in the media as a race-centric candidate—even if his populism was race-blind. As my column shows, power-challenging African-American politicians have been marginalized in this way for the better part of a half century. The moment a black leader talks about class or threatens the Establishment, he or she is billed as a race-centric radical.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px; line-height: 15.0px"><font face="Arial" size="3" color="#333333" style="font: 12.0px Arial; color: #333333">The best contemporary example of this came from Time Magazine's Joe Klein. In a <a href="http://www.time.com/time/nation/printout/0,8816,1193981,00.html"><font color="#810028" style="color: #810028"><b>2006 column</b></font></a> that no one other than the blogosphere flagged as wildly offensive, Klein called populist Rep. John Conyers as:</font></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px; line-height: 15.0px"><font face="Arial" size="3" color="#333333" style="font: 12.0px Arial; color: #333333"><i>"An African American of a certain age and ideology, easily stereotyped [and] one of the ancient band of left-liberals who grew up in the angry hothouse of inner-city, racial-preference politics."</i></font></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px; line-height: 15.0px"><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#333333" face="Arial" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;"><clip></span></font></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px; line-height: 15.0px"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Arial; font-size: 12px; line-height: normal; ">The problem for Obama is the big states coming up in the contest. As <a href="http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles/080206nj1.htm"><font color="#810028" style="color: #810028"><b>National Journal's Ron Brownstein</b></font></a> reports, the key contests on March 4th are Texas and Ohio. "In both states, the upscale white voters who have bolstered Obama are scarce," Brownstein reports. Put another way, Obama needs to make some sort of populist pitch to speak directly to these voters, but is constrained by his knowledge that the media and the Clinton machine will quickly label him "the black candidate" if he does just that.</span></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px; line-height: 15.0px"><font face="Arial" size="3" color="#333333" style="font: 12.0px Arial; color: #333333">That last point about the Clintons is very important. It was no coincidence that the moment Obama started talking about NAFTA and class in South Carolina, Bill Clinton made an unprompted remark likening Obama to Jesse Jackson, and an unnamed Clinton aide told the Associated Press Obama is <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/27/clinton-camp-says-obama-i_n_83451.html"><font color="#810028" style="color: #810028"><b>"the black candidate."</b></font></a> The Clintons are playing an ugly game.</font></p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 12.0px 0.0px; line-height: 15.0px"><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#333333" face="Arial" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; line-height: normal;"><br class="webkit-block-placeholder"></span></font></p></div><div><div><div>On Jan 26, 2008, at 4:39 PM, <a href="mailto:alexcathy@aol.com">alexcathy@aol.com</a> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Dear Friends, <br> <br> See below excerpts and a link to my blog post. <br> <br> </font><h2 class="nodeTitle"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="http://www.greencommons.org/node/952">Let's Talk About Race? NO! Let's Not</a></font></h2><span class="submitted"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">by Alex Walker <br> </font>Sat, 01/26/2008 - 7:26pm.</span> <div class="taxonomy"> <div class="links inline"><span class="first last taxonomy_term_51"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br> </font></span> </div> </div> <div class="MsoNormal"><span>Barack Obama says: "The press has been focused, almost, you know, maniacally, on the issue of race." Meanwhile, a chorus of self-serving, neurotic black intellectuals who supposedly love Brother Barack, bleat: "Let's talk about race!"</span></div> <span><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br> </font>No. Let's not. <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br> <br> </font></span> <div class="MsoNormal"><span><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/opinion/25fri1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin"><em>The New York Times</em></a> endorsed Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination. This pompous, condescending, intellectually-dishonest, hypocritical editorial reminded me of all the things I disliked about New York "liberals" when I lived in New York through the "Reagan Revolution." It reminded me of Murray Kempton's observation about New York Times editors waiting "till after the battle to come down from the hills to shoot the wounded." While gently urging Clinton "to take the lead in changing the tone of the campaign," the supposedly "ultra-liberal" <em>NYT</em> sneered at the "raw populism" of John Edwards and contrasted the "incandescent" Obama with the "brilliant" Clinton. Never mind that Hillary may be the most polarizing, hate-inspiring politician today, the <em>NYT</em> says "We know" Clinton is "capable of both uniting and leading." </span></div> <div class="MsoNormal"><span>One of the juiciest parts was the way the <em>New York Times</em> trashed Rudy Giuliani:</span></div> <blockquote> <div><span>The real Mr. Giuliani, whom many New Yorkers came to know and mistrust, is a narrow, obsessively secretive, vindictive man who saw no need to limit police power. Racial polarization was as much a legacy of his tenure as the rebirth of Times Square. </span></div> </blockquote> <span>Almost eight years after Giuliani left office as Mayor and more than ten years after they enthusiastically endorsed Rudy for reelection in 1997, the so-called Newspaper of Record finally discovered that a crypto-fascist was running their own city for eight years. <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br> <br> . . .<br> <br> </font></span><span>We know we cannot trust the media to deal fairly with the race question within this context because of the way they continue to indulge their irrational hatred of Jesse Jackson.<font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br> <br> . . .<br> <br> </font></span> <div><span>In 1988 Jesse Jackson won 11 primaries and 4 caucuses, including a 55% landslide in Michigan. On "Super Tuesday" Jackson won Virginia, Louisiana, Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama. His second place showing in Wisconsin, a state with a small black population, garnered more votes than Gary Hart's win in 1984. At one point Jackson led in delegates and in the polls. Jesse stirred white farmers in Minnesota, white miners in West Virginia, and Latino trade unionists in Colorado, another state with few blacks. Gentle reader, here's a good rule: Whenever a media blowhard says Jesse was "just a black leader" and Barack is "the first serious black candidate" you know this is a person too blinded by prejudice and ideology to deal honestly with the race question in America.<font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br> </font></span></div> <div><span><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"></font></span><br> </div> <div class="MsoNormal"><span>I have pondered this while considered Uzodinma Iweala's Op-Ed in the <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-iweala23jan23,0,4547635.story"><em>Los Angeles Times</em></a> criticizing the "media-concocted fiction" that "not speaking about race is the equivalent of making progress" in race relations</span></div> <br> <span><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">. . .<br> <br> </font></span> <div class="MsoNormal"><span>US Income inequality has reached the highest levels since the 1920s. The US today is the most unequal society in the industrialized West. Funny, that even though <em>class matters</em> the media never trots out bloviators crying "Let's talk about class." </span></div> <div class="MsoNormal"><span><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br> </font></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal"><span><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"></font>The awful truth is </span><span>nearly 100% of prominent black intellectuals advocate "race talk" because they all rose to prominence doing "race talk" (including "color-blind" conservative hypocrites like Thomas Sowell and Shelby Steele). Los Angeles journalist Larry Aubry and his daughter Erin Aubry-Kaplan are two generations of race-talkers. The "media-concocted fiction" is that superficial "race talk" is good for you. </span></div> <div class="MsoNormal"><span><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br> </font></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal"><span><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"></font>One of the definitions of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result and in recent years we've been led down this same path a dozen times: </span></div> <ul><li><span>1992 Rodney King violence. </span></li><li><span>1994 Anti-immigrant Proposition 187. </span></li><li><span>1995 O. J. Simpson case.</span></li><li><span>1996 Anti-affirmative action Proposition 209. </span></li><li><span>1998 President Clinton's "Conversation About Race." </span></li><li><span>1999 Amadou Diallo, unarmed innocent man, killed by 41-shots from N.Y.P.D.</span></li><li><span>1999 Ramparts scandal at L.A.P.D. </span></li><li><span>2000 Election in Florida - massive black disenfranchisement. </span></li><li><span>2001 September 11th attack --- Our national slogan: "United We Stand." </span></li><li><span>2005 Hurricane Katrina destroys New Orleans. </span></li><li><span>2006 Immigration issue draws thousands into the streets. </span></li><li><span>2008 L.A.F.D. discrimination case; L.A.P.D. MacArthur Park police riot. </span></li> <div class="MsoNormal"><span><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"></font><br> </span></div> </ul><span>Each time "race talk" quickly degenerated into a bunch of clichés and stereotypes.<font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br> <br> . . .<br> <br> </font></span> <div class="MsoNormal"><span>As a black active Green Party man, I have no dog in this Barack - Hillary fight. It's true Hillary shilled for Wal-Mart like Inglewood, California's black Democratic Mayor Roosevelt Dorn. It's true Barack carried water for a slumlord like Los Angeles Democratic State Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas carried water for Anschutz Entertainment Group. You can't be a successful Democratic politician in Little Rock or Chicago or New Orleans (or San Francisco or Los Angeles) without playing ball with sleazy interests. </span></div> <div class="MsoNormal"><span><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br> </font></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal"><span><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"></font>Hillary and Barack agree with McCain and Romney about maintaining a permanent US military presence in Iraq, which is all about our planet-killing oil addiction. </span></div> <div class="MsoNormal"><span><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br> </font></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal"><span><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"></font>Hillary, Barack, and California Democrat Fabian Núñez agree with McCain, Romney, and California Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger that the first principle of health care is profit.</span></div> <div class="MsoNormal"><span><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br> </font></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal"><span><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"></font>Talk about “change” and the Democratic Party in one-party Democratic Los Angeles is a contradiction in terms. The Establishment is, sure enough, kicking Barack Obama to the curb, but not because of his race or his radicalism. The main "threat" from Obama is the independent young voters he inspires which strikes terror into the bipartisan Establishment. </span></div> <div class="MsoNormal"><span><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br> </font></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal"><span><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"></font>Let's talk about race? </span></div> <div class="MsoNormal"><span><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br> </font></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal"><span><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"></font>No.<font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br> </font></span></div> <div class="MsoNormal"><br> </div> <div class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Let's not. <br> </font></div> <div class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br> </font></div> <div class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Read More and Leave a Comment At: <br> </font></div> <div class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br> </font></div> <div class="MsoNormal"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><a href="http://www.greencommons.org/node/952">http://www.greencommons.org/node/952</a> </font><br> <span><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"></font> </span></div> <br> <span><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><br> </font></span><div class="AOLPromoFooter"> <hr style="margin-top:10px;"> More new features than ever. 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