Part of the natural coalition speaks.
The Democratic Party has cast off in word, deed and, worse!, in silence the old partners in the Civil Rights coalitions. They never developed a populist economic message to extend to the South post Reagan… over and over thru decades they enabled. Gays were neglected, sold out…. Don’t ask don’t tell. Carter telegraphed Clinton immediately upon election advising him to open mil service to gays thru executive order. Move swiftly Carter advised, the nation would survive and over 4 years he would indeed be re-elected.
Civil Rights.
The great umbrella under which we might all have stayed Democrats (and slept at night). Or been independent but honest partners of a modern Democratic Party. One with broad coalitions.
Read this from Glen Ford and Peter Gamble of the Black Commentator and hear the reverberations. I have sent it to the DC office of Senator Obama (from his recent missive):
And further, it will require us to innovate and experiment with whatever ideas hold promise (including market- or faith-based ideas that originate from Republicans).
As well as to my representatives, Dianne Feinstein, Barbara Boxer and Nancy Pelosi.
And to Harry Reid. Who should go back to NV if he will not assist in mounting a Democratic challenger to Ensign.
Who are these people that they lecture us.
Black Commentator
There is something very wrong going on in the Congressional Black Caucus. However, the malady has a long history. A class of Black politicians think that we exist to support them, rather than that they are elected to support us. […]
The “derelicts” had voted against the interests of their constituents – the people who voted them into office – in favor of the corporate agenda pushed by the Republican Party. At the top of the list were Rep. Harold Ford, Jr, of Memphis, and David Scott, of suburban Atlanta. Riding right behind them on the corporate money train were Representatives Sanford Bishop (D-GA), Albert Wynn (D-MD), Artur Davis (D-AL), Gregory Meeks (D-NY), and William Jefferson (D-LA).
All had crossed over to the Republican side of the aisle on a number of key economic issues, including the bankruptcy bill that threatens to further impoverish Black communities that are already encircled by predatory lending agencies.
[…]
But CBC chairman Mel Watt (D-NC) doesn’t see the bright lines. Although Watt has voted as a consistent progressive, as CBC chairman he has shown no inclination to rein in the opportunists in the CBC ranks – those who sell out to the corporations that contribute to their campaigns.
Instead, he has allowed them to clone themselves, and proliferate throughout the key positions of the Caucus and the Democratic Party.
It seems the CBC Monitor hit a nerve. A deep one. The point that Mel Watt appears to be trying to make is that Black folks shouldn’t criticize Black leadership. Otherwise, we are helping white folks. This is ridiculous, and denies us our right to democratic action. We became citizens, finally, in the Sixties. No Black man is going to extinguish that. Not even Mel Watt.
The fact is, the CBC is broken, and cannot make a decision that represents the Consensus of the Black community, because it is infested by corporate money. Watt denies that economic issues, which were the basis of the CBC Report Card, are key Black issues. Watt told the CBC Monitor’s Leutisha Stills that “the bankruptcy bill or CAFTA wasn’t going to have the effect on the Black community as been perceived.” [Sirota on the CAFTA vote]
Obama yet again:
”And a pro-union Democrat doesn’t become anti-union if he or she makes a determination that on balance, CAFTA will help American workers more than it will harm them.”
What Mel Watt and an apparent consensus of the CBC’s leadership (not its members) have seemed to decide, is that no position can be taken if there is no unanimity. That means that any corporate whore who gets bought can stop the machinery.
If this remains the norm, there is no reason for a Congressional Black Caucus. In fact, there is a need for split that would allow the truly progressive Members to act.
Splits are difficult. They should not be taken lightly. But what Mel Watt spoke lays down the line – that there should be no criticism of Black politicians by Black people. That is unacceptable. We will no longer worship Black elected officials who do not represent.
Yes, hear the reverberations. The people are angry. Authority is nervous.
x posted at Liberal Street Fighter
great post Marisa! thanks for putting it up!
”And a pro-union Democrat doesn’t become anti-union if he or she makes a determination that on balance, CAFTA will help American workers more than it will harm them.”
Do you suppose that the union reps who are talking to Republicans about the ‘Melissa Bean problem’ are now standing with obama?
And further, it will require us to innovate and experiment with whatever ideas hold promise (including market- or faith-based ideas that originate from Republicans).
“We will not throw away money on social programs that don’t work like public education and affirmative action.”
Here’s an idea — why don’t we cut a deal with Republicans? This way, the GOP can unload their special interest groups on the Democrats, who are awaiting them with open arms and some faith-based initiatives.
that there should be no criticism of Black politicians by Black people.
wow, they think that line will work on anyone in 2005? Gay on Gay? Hispanic on Hispanic? How about accountability over pure partisanship?
. . . so we aren’t the only ones, after all.
Splits are difficult. But as progressives we already know that, because we’ve had that same tactic used against us for what sometimes seems like forever. No more. It’s “come together” and “stand and deliver” time.
It’s good to see you posting again.
indeed this aspect of Obama’s sermonette was the most annoying…well aside from the fact that he obviously was getting pretty drunk on spiked kool aid. Just the sheer pedantry of it.
Call me touchy if you must but I don’t care to be told what to think or what to do, especially politically, by some punk senator who hadn’t even taken his first breath when i began in politics.
In fact you kinda have to question the political skills of some guy who is naive enough to approach what, 60,000 members of the netroots as if they were in kindergarten.
My take is taht this whole thing, this script, was dreamed up in Reid’s office and doled out to Obama because they thought the teaspoon fulla sugar blah blah from Obama would be better received than from Reid. Nice try, fellas.
These airheads actually think pushing back, and that is what this is, is gonna work, don’t they? Well, it ain’t workin’ for me.
exactly. my intuition was it didn’t even originate in his office. it was handed to him.
“here, have this posted under your name.”
That’s right. They’re scared. Afraid of loosing their perks and power. We’re approaching a sea change and they can feel it. Les ancien regime is on the way out. They don’t want new rules because they can’t navigate them, so they want to keep the rules the same.
Just as John F Kennedy ushered in a new generation, the internet is ushering in a completely new operating system and new ideas about the uses of power.
Agree, he was not resistant, and as #99 he read the script.
BC has reported extensively on Obama. This is editon 45, from June 2003. Interesting quotes about the war, quotes from a speech that was later rmoved from his campaign site, and background on his politcal campaign work in ’92. BC also reported in Editions #s 46, 47 and 48 as Ford and Gamble engaged in an exchange with Obama to ensure he withdrew, at least officially, from the DLC, where he was listed, but claimed it was an error.
Yes, not interested in a lecture, especially not, as it happens, one peppered with the names of Paul Simon and Martin (Luther King).
Not interested. It smacked of sending the nice nurse with the medicine.
You know, the Religious Right didn’t take over the Republican party with a brilliant strategy of appeasement and settling for just any candidate chosen for them by the establishment.
Heck, they abandoned GHW Bush Sr because he was a disappointment to them.
Why oh why do so-called “mainstream progressives” think the path to victory lies with waiting for scraps from the establishment and keeping our mouths shut?
As for the Black Caucus, like all politicians, I’m sure the process of being corrupted by money was a slow one:
Under the pressure cooker, its easy to get burned. And when the water is heated slowly, the frog doesn’t notice until its already cooked.
From the other side, if you’re a big corporation concerned with labor costs, environmental costs, regulation, or anything else that could interfere with Wall Street’s expectation that you enhance earnings 20% per year that your stock holdings/bonuses depend on, its just business.
If you miss numbers, your personal wealth as an officer of the company or board member could drop 10-20% in short order. These government regulations “cost” you millions of dollars. Your podunk congressman’s election costs were only 1-2 million last cycle. Other businesses are in your situation. For just 50-100,000 you’d be placing a bet on overturning even just one of these regulations, and it’d pay for itself. Don’t ask the congressman for something he already isn’t inclined to do. A little favor leads to a bigger one. Take him out, show him the bigger picture. Hire a relative or liked former staffer. You’re getting far better returns off these bribes, er, “donations” than you would on R&D of a new product.
Corporate money is a disease on politics. The rules of our corporations encourage the destruction of democracy.
And our politicians are already bought and paid for. The times they do help us is more like charity or pro-bono work.
When our candidates realize this, and follow the example of the few who actually manage this dangerous juggling act by sticking to their principles… we’ll all be better off.
Thanks for posting this!
I’m a Detroiter, so I’ve enjoyed Conyer’s re-emergence into national prominence. I just wish his type of activism extended locally. We do see this tendency locally to remain silent about undesirable or divisive actions of local politicians. Our overwhelmingly Dem city continues to elect persons who feather their own nest rather than sticking with the principles of the people they are supposed to represent. That’s what “represent” should still mean, not silence in the face of members of a group who have departed from the group in their actions, if not their apparent identity. For example, our local person in charge of elections has just again defied state law and court order in her conduct of the next election’s absentee balloting. But she will be re-elected, of that I am certain. To oppose her publicly, as a few have, is to be called racist.
This has, of course, allowed the white Republican outstate folks to take advantage of the persons who will vote with the Republicans, against their groups interests. It also makes it easy for Repubs to point to the city and each year, subtract more and more resources away from the citizens here.
The social issues – payoffs to Black ministers, gay marriage, etc. are being used if not to recruit Black persons to be Republicans, to at least cast doubt on Democratic candidates and induce feelings of apathy about voting. It has worked. A decade of a Republic governor who would never have been elected without lots of Democrats staying away from the polls. . .massive blindness to corporate welfare and systematic transfer of state funds from poor inner city children to white middle class kids.
And a distinct inability of white Democrats to work with minority Democrats in the state. It is quite frustrating. I envy Conyers his work on national issues – his ability to work on local ones is not nearly as great. It’s a small mirror of what’s also happening to a looser, traditionally less loyal group, Democrats in general.
And a distinct inability of white Democrats to work with minority Democrats in the state. It is quite frustrating.
I envy Conyers his work on national issues – his ability to work on local ones is not nearly as great. It’s a small mirror of what’s also happening to a looser, traditionally less loyal group, Democrats in general.
So very true, Kidspeak. BC has an earlier piece, linked to in the article iirc, where in they rate those who ”stand tall”. OF course Conyers is at teh forefront. This new grading card, the CBC Monitor, has ruffled feathers.
But the electorate, those of us paying attention, is not going to stop. No reason to stop.
Yes, I read the Black Commentator occasionally and read this issue from the link, which was very convenient. I’m sure those ratings did raise many hackles!
Conyers supports the community much more than people realize, that’s why he’s been pretty invulnerable to challengers, though the target of the opposition in the state for eons. As a small example, he showed up at a tiny cafe and ate breakfast with four of us who were about to canvas a precinct in his neighborhood for Dean – how he knew about it was a mystery, but there he was. The big question now as he is getting well up in years is who will replace him. I hope he can hang in there through the rest of our sentence to Bush leadership.
WOW…I think the most impressive thing is that he tppk the time to even care and to show up…
I think what is so dissappointing about Obama’s scold is that he came, he spewed, he left… truly dissappointing indeed.
vine vidi emeini!!!!
I think what is so dissappointing about Obama’s scold is that he came, he spewed, he left…
Yes agree, considering that a brand spanking new senator was acting as a pater familias of the Dem Party… it would have been wise to have a staffer attend to that thread for an hour or two. NOt sure it would hve smoothed the “take”… those who choose to be reverential when elected officials show up, tend that way, and the rest of the electorate is exhibiting all manner of dissafection, distress, anger… you name it.
Yes it did smack of dump the assignement and run.
Was he blogging or just having someone from his office post what (with no comments included after his entry) was a Press Release? I saw it was linked to his Gov Blog. Senators/Congresspeople who come and just dump their press release’s hoping we will treat them as dialogue/discussion will realize we are to smart to buy into that kind of BS.
It’s good to see the disaffection is spreading, amongst many communities. It’s past time to move beyond the party-and-a-half system we have now. Solidarity across the progressive spectrum.
The hard part is doing it, but I don’t know if it really takes active cooperation. The left needs to learn to do what the fundies & corporatists learned to do: we know what each other needs, what our broad shared goals are. Start pushing hard for the things that will benefit ALL of our communties.
Personal autonomy/privacy/freedom, universal healthcare, and end to gov’t secrecy. Those are my suggestions.
The hard part is doing it, but I don’t know if it really takes active cooperation. The left needs to learn to do what the fundies & corporatists learned to do: we know what each other needs, what our broad shared goals are. Start pushing hard for the things that will benefit ALL of our communties.
I’ve been reading PEWs political typology lately, mostly in response to the centrist’s perennial chant to liberals in the party which goes “You’re a small weak portion of the huge ‘big tent’ and deserve nothing. The ‘moderates’ agree with us, not you and your wild eyed purism and emotionality. We’re ‘reaity based and adult. We’re the experts.”
According to PEW, liberals are the largest voting bloc the Democratic party has and the most rapidly growing demographic of all their typologies since 1999. They cannot win an election for dogcatcher without us. And liberals are also the largest source of grassroots fundraising, not to mention volunteer activists. They really cannot win elections without us.
Combine liberals with diadvantaged Dems and you have a voting bloc which would swamp ‘centrists’ and, I might add, a genuinely populist strategy.
They really cannot win elections without us.
Bingo. The liberal left, the activist progressive factions need to form voting blocs. What I call the Paul Weyrich model. Play for the long haul. And be tough.
It is what Malcolm said within a year of the coming enactment of the Voting Rights Act, they cannot win without us. Again, a truth.
I believe in voting blocs. I LOVED it when Paul Weyrich went into the CNN studio (wheel chair and all) this past election cycle to say: IF the president does not stand with conservatives, conservatives will nto stand with the president.
Own your vote.
Yesterday evening, someone anonymously linked this BC article on my blog accusing both Senator Obama of having no mind of his own and being only just a front for the Clintons on race issues, and accusing me personally of “implying” (how I don’t know, since I never said anything remotely like this, but projection is a bitch) that there could be “no criticism of Black politicians by Black people”, merely because I posted my positive opinion about Senator Obama’s diary on DailyKOS on my website. (I plan on responding on my own blog to this person more completely, but unfortunately Blogger is now 15 hours into a 2 hour maintenance period, and for reasons unknown I can’t yet “reply” to the post.)
If truth be told, given the tone and the anonymity, I suspect the person who wrote me is really a Kossack afraid to post under their own handle for whatever reason who was righteously pissed that I took folks to task (rightfully, in my opinion) for the manner and level of disrespect shown in some responses to Senator Obama and his diary. With notable exceptions that were both disagreeing and yet approached the diary in what I felt was the appropriate level of respect for a sitting US Senator — particularly one that we claim we want as an ally — most of those responses emoted all over the place, projected all over creation, put words into Senator Obama’s mouth and found metamessages that I did not see at all within the original diary. Most also appeared to be notably focused on how upset they were about being “lectured”. Perhaps this is why someone actually referred to Senator Obama not once, but after someone asked whether this was a typo, twice, as “Osama”, i.e. Osama Bin Laden — and yet there was not a mumbling word other than mine about how utterly inappropriate this cute little “renaming” was (the only other comment other than mine and the original inquiry expressed that it was funny. Do you find it funny?)
I don’t understand what it is, exactly, that is going on. How does someone get from a rather politely expressed diary about commonsense notions (it is ill advised politics to completely write off anyone based on a single vote even as you rightfully continue to hold them to task for the things they do that piss you off) to “Barack Obama’s a traitor that hates America?” (which is where some of the nastiest complaints seemed to go, particularly the fucked up person who used the name “Osama” to refer to him). It seems to the same kind of (absent) reasoning that gets someone from “Shanikka agrees with Senator Obama’s diary” to “Shanikka thinks that Black people shouldn’t criticize Black politicians”. How this process of thought actually gets born is a mystery to me, but such leaps in (ir)rational thought no longer surprise me, sadly, as I spend more and more time in the blogosphere (instead of what used to be the case, which is more time actually talking to folks on the street and in the community). Unfortunately, much of it also proves the ultimate truth of what I took to be the the primary message of Barack Obama’s diary: political discourse on the left has now truly become take no prisoners, even if means that you end up alienating if not outright killing those who would otherwise be in coalition with you, a coalition that we need to take back the country so that we can get some real work done for the liberal cause.”
I’m therefore curious what relationship the OP sees between Barack Obama’s diary and BC’s article about Mel Watt’s shit talking about Black people to Black people, and why she sees this article as a “warning sign” from the grassroots to Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi or the other politicians she’s mentioned. Her own thought process wasn’t clearly set out, so I’m trying to understand how she sees the issues raised by BC (Black writers writing in a forum directed at Black people about Black people) as connected as related to everything else she wrote. Seriously. Because I don’t get it. And want to.
Perhaps this is why someone actually referred to Senator Obama not once, but after someone asked whether this was a typo, twice, as “Osama”, i.e. Osama Bin Laden — and yet there was not a mumbling word other than mine about how utterly inappropriate this cute little “renaming” was (the only other comment other than mine and the original inquiry expressed that it was funny. Do you find it funny?)
Of course not, but did you really find that this childish and inflammatory ‘renaming’, along with “Barack Obama’s a traitor that hates America?” (if this was actually said) to be representative of the responses?
I did not read all of the threads, so I’m not sure. I will say that I did read many responses that indicated growing frustration not with one single vote from an otherwise reliable Democrat, but rather, the general trend of appeasement by the Democrats.
how she sees the issues raised by BC (Black writers writing in a forum directed at Black people about Black people)
I am not the OP but I will make a quick comment. From an earlier issue of BC :
The rest make baffling appeals to their fellow Democrats to stay on the sinking ship. “The smartest thing Democrats can do is be supportive,” opines former Clinton press secretary Mike McCurry. It has to be an historic first for a political party to make a conscious decision not to kick an opposition that is on the ropes.
Shanikka, I understand that BC is Black writers writing in a forum directed at Black people about Black people. However, I have been reading it for a while for the excellent stories that often strike a chord with this non-Black reader. In fact, as soon as they post their patron policy, I will be contributing.
The cited comment could be any one of us, anywhere.
No. But the dead silence, knowing that thousands of folks were reading these threads, the tacit approval through silence for the act, was representative of the majority. With all due respect, equating Barack Obama to Osama Bin Laden for any purpose is not just “childish and inflammatory”. Those words do not even begin to respond to the type of hateful and psychotic thought process it takes for such an analogy to pop up in anyone’s mind. And the mass silence in the face of it — when folks put so much effort are ranting and railing about what he had to say — does leave the impression that this “Obama=Osama” moment it is in fact representative of what people felt at that moment. A displacement of anger that in its implications about what folks really think about Barack Obama when he’s not making them happy is rather frightening to me, I’ll be honest.
I read that too. And that’s part of what troubled me so much about the reaction to Senator Obama’s diary — a legitimate sense of anger about the “general trend of appeasement by the Democrats” was displaced with a vitriol onto this one Democrat and his one diary that I have never seen matched. I’ve done a lot of thinking about what may be behind it and part of it may be a displaced form of “hero disappointment”. In other words, Barack Obama for that diary — and frankly, throughout his short time in the Senate — has gotten far harsher, far earlier and far nastier in the aggregate criticism for not “behaving properly” for both his measured tone in talking with “the enemy” or the substance of his votes than a single person deserves, particularly one who most of his votes have indeed been on the side of liberal causes. In other words, he was scapegoated – folks literally took out their aggregate anger and disappointment on him, and felt entitled to do so in a way they didn’t feel entitled to do when Senator Kennedy posted his one diary; didn’t feel entitled to do when Max Baucus posted his single diary; and the list goes on. I think it bears examination about why that’s the case and I do think people having elevated Barack Obama into some sort of pure “savior” for progressives without really thinking about whether that was appropriate or fair to him, given that his approach now is the same approach that he had before he even became a senator.
Yes, but that doesn’t mean that by saying it, BC would be saying the same thing for the same reasons as all of us. I said this once in an unrelated context: if we don’t understand and accept the different paths of reasoning that those who could be our political allies take to end up at the same political place, we will always continue to cut our own throats demanding that agree with everything we say and how we say it about each and every issue. The history of coalitions has shown time and time again that a demand for ideological purity is almost a death sentence because when the nuances of people’s underlying differences come out, folks are too much in the habit of getting ugly, having lost sight of the forest for the trees. (Yes, I’m a fan of Bernice Johnson Reagon). When I read your linked comment from BC in its larger context, I read it from a difference lens of understanding that someone who isn’t Black. Different issues come into the mix for me, even if I agree with the bottom line 100% (and I do). If you, for example, compare the list of political priorities that BC BC makes clear it has with the list of priorities that take up so much time on liberal blogs, you see an obvious and fundamental disconnect about why things matter. Even if the bottom line about suggested approaches ends up being exactly the same. And thus, when BC writes its words to a primarily Black audience (about white Democrats, BTW, not Barack Obama; and it’s important to acknowledge that because some of the “sturm and drang” actually accused Barack Obama of, effectively, not caring about his own people because he allegedly wasn’t “angry enough” or “outraged enough” in that person’s mind; even though of course such a charge was never heard — perhaps because it’s too easy to find the Senator, even with his measured words, out early and often post-hurricane — until that person got angry about being “lectured” in the now (in)famous diary).
As far as white people reading BC, that’s a blessing, (our voices are never made the center of anyone’s thought process) so I don’t see why anyone would conclude that I think that someone shouldn’t be reading it merely because they are white. I only caution that folks shouldn’t make the mistake of assuming that agreement with BC about the bottom line in any particular moment means that BC would agree with your path about how and why you got to that agreement. That’s the caution that I inartfully was trying to express, and the reason for the question that I posed to the OP.
I think you are viewing this too narrow. Personally Obama should be ashamed of himself being sent out to “clean up the mess”… and rightly so he has hurt his own integrity.
This is what I wrote yesterday;
Trot out the “Trusty Negro” to sell the natives our plan for capitulation.
There is something about his “presentation” on Kos that reeks of Powells presentation to the UN… all Obama needed was a Power Point presentation detailing the location of the Democratic Party Spine and photos of the roving Democratic Spine Mobile.
I think he has been hanging out with the Clintons too long… he is beginning to triangulate in his sleep.
I wonder if Obama is now going to be trotted out everytime some senator sells out the party base. I also find it interesting that he did not include the habitual other sell outs ie LIEberman, Salazar and Nelson in his plea for mercy… That kinda supports my initial theory that the librul Dems traded places with the likes of Hilliary and Reid.
“Trading Places” with their votes to not “typecast” anyone pro or against Roberts and a perfect 21/21 split not to typecast the Democratic Party pro or against Roberts. Gee with leadership like this who needs to be an opposition party.
I guess Feingold and Leahy were assured that progressives would NOT attack progressive Senators over ONE VOTE, Obama made clear to state. Looks like they were shocked when progressives saw this not as ONE VOTE but a series of Democratic failures…
So when the natives became restless they threw out their ace “Colin Powell” card and trotted out Obama.
The moment Obama claimed that it was “Just One Vote” he lost me because he was being completly disingenuous… this is more that just one vote… it it like saying when the SCOTUS voted in favor of Bush…it was “Just one case”.
Frankly, Obama was sent out on a suicide mission. ….The Democratic leadership fucked up….ONCE AGAIN pushing the base too far in it’s gross incompetence and arrogant enough to think people like Kos and Co could quell the masses… well they got another thing coming to then and they freaked out… and trotted out the one person left who had some sort of credibility with the progressive base …since they had just destroyed the credibility of Feingold and Leahy.
They also misunderestimated the “power” of Kos and DailyKos (he is just a boy with a blog)… there have been so many purges and pummelings there that it is quite tame… I think the real heat Feingold and Leahy are receiving is from the thousands of women’s organizations around the country with one million marches…yes Kos marches do have a prupose…they raise awareness…
In the typical bonehead-ness of the Democratic Leaderhip (or lack thereof) they favorite game is to play chicken with the base…. I guess some one FORGOT that just last year there was the largest march for reproductive freedoms ever in the history of the United States…. these women are still organized and Obama begging on an anti-woman blog (remember Kos kicked off the most strident women). .. aint gonna fix Feingolds and Leahy’s reputations… they were opportunistic pigs and as such deserve every kick in the balls they recieve.
Next time Reid and Hilliary should not hid behind a brand new junior Senator and take the mission on themselves..
All of the points you’ve made are valid and one, in particular, is what I was planning to write in my own diary about Senator Obama, except I decided that I was not going to beat up on the brother when he’d already taken far greater an asswhupping than he deserved for the diary.
The one I was going to write about was about the danger of carrying water for other people who need to be talking to their own constituents, but were so spineless they sent the popular junior senator to do it for them because they were too chicken to face their own music or put their own asses on the line for a chewing, if things went badly. The same gambit that caused Bush to send Colin Powell to the UN.
Had I read a lot of diaries about how fucked up the other people for who Senator Obama was carrying water for were for sending him, I might have felt very differently than I have felt this past two days. But I think anyone who is honest or who followed it all knows that the discussion became about how fucked up Senator Obama was – even as people knew (because he said) that he was both hoping that people wouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater (something he’s always said, even when he wasn’t a senator) and that people would not write off his colleagues on the basis of “one vote” (a phrase that I agree with you misses the truth; that folks have seen a series of bad decisions from Democratic leaders to the point where there is not only “one vote” that can be considered.)
No. But the dead silence, knowing that thousands of folks were reading these threads, the tacit approval through silence for the act, was representative of the majority.
On my first reading of your post, I assumed that most did what I do with these types of posts — I take the ‘don’t feed the trolls’ route from the old USENET days.
On second thought however, I’ve forgotten that a solid number of users must have the power assign a ‘0’ — and if they didn’t ‘disappear’ the offensive remarks by doing so, I agree with your observation that it may be viewed as tacit approval. Or, perhaps in these peer pressure situations, too many are afraid to make the first move.
When I read your linked comment from BC in its larger context, I read it from a difference lens of understanding that someone who isn’t Black. Different issues come into the mix for me, even if I agree with the bottom line 100% (and I do). If you, for example, compare the list of political priorities that BC BC makes clear it has with the list of priorities that take up so much time on liberal blogs, you see an obvious and fundamental disconnect about why things matter.
I agree, and with some embarrassment will tell you about a fairly recent conversation I had with a Black co-worker. When we were alone, I asked her why she wasn’t angrier (like me, natch) about the week after Katrina. She said, and I quote: “Look, we know where it’s at, but frankly, right now I, and everyone I know am dealing with the fact that we all know someone who is taking in a family. And that’s not just one or two people — it’s big Momma and sister Shirley, and … So the reality is, right at this moment we don’t have the time or energy to be angry. We are working at keeping our families together.”
Well, that took the wind out of my sails. A clear and fundamental disconnect on why things matter in a situation where I realized instantly I had no authority. Nevertheless, in a broader context, we did share a connection — the need to discuss our opinions in private as to not ‘disturb’ our co-workers, who made it clear that they had absolved themselves from any further personal responsibility or participation by virtue of a Red Cross donation.
I would like to cite an editorial remark on Peter Irons’ book: A People’s History of the Supreme Court,
a never-ending appeal of the powerless to the powerful: of the just over 100 supreme justices who have sat on the court, all but two have been white, all but two have been men, and all but seven have been Christian, whereas the supplicants to our nation’s highest bar are typically racial minorities, women, and deviants in some way from the religious and social mainstream
to continue my response. If you accept the above, you realize immediately (perhaps involuntarily) that one way or another, you are the powerless and you are the supplicant.
Perhaps it’s because you wrote a diary where you literally pleaded and begged for a Senator to listen to you. Perhaps it’s because of identity politics — you are a member of a recognized minority class. Or, perhaps it’s because you are not a member of a recognized minority class, leaving you on the outside looking in while bearing the accusation of demanding ‘special rights’. Or, perhaps you’re not a member of a recognized minority class who is wondering why the heck so many around you, in your mind, receive special benefit via state and federal entitlement programs — a special benefit that you, damnnit, are subsidizing involuntarily while dying on the vine without a safety net.
Senator Obama defended the need to question the efficacy of “certain affirmative action programs”. And later stated:
that being bold involves more than just putting more money into existing programs and will instead require us to admit that some existing programs and policies don’t work very well. And further, it will require us to innovate and experiment with whatever ideas hold promise (including market- or faith-based ideas that originate from Republicans).
I admit to having a strong, negative, visceral reaction to these words. Let’s talk about the efficacy of certain affirmative action programs — if we dare.
I was a graduate student at a large public institution in a scientific field where women/minorities are woefully underrepresented. During the Clinton administration it was quite common to see successful grant applications to “study” the “problem” of women/minorities in my field, either outright, or as an “outreach” attachment to a block grant. Millions of dollars. Where did the money go? 50% to the university administration for university “overhead”; the other half to the sponsoring faculty member for his programs.
In turn, ‘superstar’ faculty, deemed as such for their grantmanship prowess, command salaries in excess of $150K, with $200K not uncommon. On the other end of the spectrum, the target class of women/minorites fared less well. They received an RA (research assistant) — the same, old crappy 12K/yr RA that their white male peers receive automatically just for being themselves — but with an albatross attached: the perception of financial support in the form of a “handout”. This albatross becomes the lens by which these potential scientists are judged, which, in my opinion, leads to a high dropout rate. You’ll be happy to know, however, that this keeps the numbers nice and low so that universities can re-apply to “study the problem” anew.
I hear in Senator Obama’s words his sense of urgency in appealing to the mainstream. I believe that his party wishes to unload this very same albatross — the perception that Democrats support programs that benefit the minorities, the supplicants, the deviants, at the expense of the mainstream. I sense the unloading of political baggage in the form of a private sector handoff — the Republican-inspired ideas that “make sense”. I do not see real discussion but a simple transfer of the monies to, coincidentally, the benefactors of our political class.
I read BC because I realize that we each have our own lenses through which we determine priorities. I wish to better understand your priorities so that we can do the impossible and work together. This is the first step.
If the Democrats are now denouncing accountability to the ‘special interest’ groups, I say that perhaps it is their fault because as leaders, they have failed in bringing us together but instead, play us off against one another as we supplicate before them for their attention — which, in part, has led to the jousting and such on these internet threads. I am crossing into your worlds and reading your words because I feel manipulated into being in a perpetual war against Eurasia. I am tired of the blame-the-victim arguments from the politicians. No, I do not wish to make more credit card payments towards the “battle” with the “evil” GOP while “Team Dem” is perpetually in search of the mainstream. It’s over. That doesn’t mean however, that I am now a member of the bitter electorate Senator Obama describes. It just means that I am reshaping where I direct my efforts, my money and my priorities.
I did not post anything to your site!
I don’t believe I said that you (or anywhere else here) did?
By ”she” and ”her” are you attempting to address me? Or by “OP”?, whatever that means, a mystery to me.
I am unaware of what was posted at your blog, link to it if you wish anyone to know, that would be my suggestion to you.
As you are entitled to your take on the Obama diary, I am entitled to mine. I read obama’s diary, most of the thread (I stopped at about 400 posts) and I read the Rena reply. I read none of the thread at her Dkos diary and roughly half of the thread to her diary here. I stopped there.
I am rather disinterested in the straggle of sturm and drang diaries that normally play out for days, post some “event”, across the Dkos site.
Nor did I ever consider myself a “KossacK”, since you use that term in your comment. I tend not to diminish my online persona with extraneous sub text and in any case that was originally started, quite literally, as a light hearted diversionary device. I never concerned myself with its use beyond that, despite the efforts of the “community”.
I am a member of the electorate and my take is my take.
I see connections in the BC article (which is read by more than black people). I am a long time observer of Dem party dissafection in the ranks. Obama’s diary, imo, was a reaction, a push from Dem leadership to soft ball the base. I sum up the diary in the last line.
Yes, yes and yes. By OP I mean “Original Poster.” (sorry thought that was an acronym known to everyone).
I genuinely have lost your train of thought here. What does that have to do with what I said to you? The term was used to describe what I believe to be the reason someone posted on my site. But that has nothing to do with your diary – if I had many assumptions about whether it was you, I’m certainly woman enough to ask you directly.
What was posted at my blog is secondary to the questions I asked here about this diary. I mentioned my blog only because it seemed to be the same sort of linking of disparate issues that I saw in this diary. Thus, me mentioning the diary was not accusing you personally of doing anything (it seems as if this is how you took it, but you shouldn’t have). It was merely a jumping off point to help you understand my “background” when reading your diary. Take it as a jumping off point for discussion and no more, OK?
Of course you have a right to disagreement – I’m not sure why would infer I would say anything different. I have never told anyone that they were not “entitled” to their opinion about the Senator’s diary either, so I am also lost as to where you got that feeling, either.
But I also feel you haven’t helped me understand the connection you are trying to draw in the diary between what was said in the BC and anything said by Senator Obama in the diary. Is it because you feel that the connections are so “obvious” that they jump out? I’m saying they don’t. Honestly – I’m truly missing the connections you see there. And wouldn’t have posted to ask if I wasn’t genuinely interested in hearing your reasoning and having a dialogue.
BTW Rena’s diary was one of the ones I felt was most eloquent in the entire, still ongoing, sturm and drang (to use your phrase.)
There is long term dissafection in the Democratic/Democratic leaning voter base. Not breaking news. It has, in a long wave, built post GE/2000, post Bush v Gore, and all that proceeds from that event. For me, others, it goes back decades but it sure came above the fold under Bush 43. People are disgusted that Democrats go along with so much of the Bush agenda. We really ahve a roughly 75/25 senate. Or for the Roberts vote a 78/22 senate.
FOr many of us long time Democrats, voters, activists, (or as I consider myself) the politically astute, we see a crest in view. And we see top down push back. Not too effectively done, either, imo. whiffs of fear, frantic fear. Desperate to hold on to entrenched power. Desperate to keep us in line for ’06, ’08. But not desperate enough to DELIVER.
There is deep schism in the ranks, sharpened by Bush, the war and corporate influence (and the votes of the 108th and 108th congress, see the Sirota link in the diary). The top down influences in the party and in congress want to just bleat “unity” or threaten the electorate (the dissafected) that somehow leaving the party, considering split, strategic voting or, as I advocate, voting blocs that play steel toed hard ball, is detrimental to us, the electorate.
It does not play out as logical to me. One reason I raise the hard reality of Paul Weyrich up thread and the conservative voting bloc.
In my view Obama was sent out to reinforce the very ”strangle game” that Watt hopes ot impose, to circumvent the CBC Monitor grading, to cut off a critical look and perhaps a turning away from entrenched elected officials.
BC has long documented their issues iwth the CBC and I see that too coming to a head. Ford/Gamble make it clear. No missing the use of “worship”. I see too much worship of elected officials, too much reverence. I was not raised to elevate them to some class that is beyong being answerable. They have to prove relevance every day, imo.
The dissafection fo the electorate will have differnt issues depending on many factors. But it is DEEP.
And all manner, color/white/non-white, of authority is threatened.
I take heart from this article in BC… and I agree with it.
I agree with the BC article too. And for much of what you have clarified here.
So thanks for doing so.
wow, so none-black voters can’t learn from what black writers have to offer re: the current political dynamic? Some of the greatest insights into modern life have been offered by black artists, musicians, lawyers, philosophers … now we can’t learn from them?
Black Commentator is one of the most refreshingly insightful and blunt forums for parsing current American society. I wish the Nation and some of the other “white” liberal mags were half as sharp.
It seems clear to me that Marisacat was highlighting yet another constituency, another group of voters, who have HAD IT with the corruption of corporate money into our political system.
We’re all be sold out TOGETHER. As the people sold out the most often and the most egregiously, it would seem to me that many of us have a lot to learn from disaffected voices in the Black community. There were Americans of many stripes left to drown in the gulf, but it was the poor and black who were rescued LAST.
You always seem very quick to claim the ground that divides those of us on the left from each other, usually from a moral high ground that you define. I suppose we all do that to a certain extent. I know I’m accused of it frequently. However, it seems plain to me that the various writers, the various groups on the left, are ALL seeing the same traitorous behavior from the “leaders” of our various communities in Congress. It’s time for us to recognize those shared behaviors, and see first what we all have IN COMMON.
Senators and Congresspeople WORK FOR US. I will show them the same respect they show us. When they condescend, when they betray, when they side with those bleeding our country dry, when they give carte blanche to criminal oil men to wage imperial wars, they have forfeited that respect.
wow, so none-black voters can’t learn from what black writers have to offer re: the current political dynamic?
This is such an unfair reading of what I wrote that I have to ask you exactly what path of reasoning you took to get there. I mean that sincerely.
What I said (as opposed to what you apparently heard) was that BC was writing in a Black voice to a Black audience about Black people. Now, how you get from that to “Shanikka says non-Blacks can’t learn anything reading Black writers on current political dynamics” I’m really interested in understanding.
(I will set aside the logical question – if I genuinely believed that non-Black people could learn nothing from Black writers, as you posit, why would I bother to post anywhere but majority Black blogs? You’d have never heard of me, had what you just written even had a modicum of a relationship to the truth. Perhaps by now you wish you hadn’t?)
That may be what she was trying to say. Since I didn’t understand it, or understand what relationship that had to Senator Obama’s diary, which was not about buying and paying for political power with corporate money, but instead about tone in political discourse and throwing babies out with the bathwater, I asked.
As for the remainder, about being disrespectful because you feel disrespected when someone doesn’t say exactly what you want to hear, we just have to agree to disagree. There is a difference to me between how you talk to someone walking around on the street and a sitting US senator.
By the way, one more thing:
An interesting comment, which I will assume you made in good faith having read what I’ve written over the months. (Of course, nobody else does this in the bulk of their political dialogue at all about “hot button issues, right?). But I’m not sure what you mean at all by “claiming the ground” so I’m going to again ask. If what you are trying to say is that I highlight differences between members of the progressive coalition, you’re right – because I care about truly understanding everyone on the progressive side to build lasting coalition, not assuming that they think like me about everything and then, when I find out they don’t, acting as if somehow they’d called my mama a ho and had never been working side by side for however long they had actually been doing so.
It seemed plain to me that the BC article was interesting b/c it showed how the disaffection with elected leaders was apparent across multiple communities, and that the source of that disaffection is rooted in a strong understanding that corporate money has “turned” elected officials of ALL stripes. It seemed pretty apparent, the connection, but I guess it’s just me. I was reacting to your assertion that it was blacks talking about black reps to other blacks. The mere focus on race and stating it the way you did implies exclusion. I may not have any right to walk into the black communtity and tell them how to solve their problems (which white liberals have been doing to everybody’s detriment for the four decades I’ve been alive) but I think it is to everybody’s benefit to compare notes and find common problems and try to forge common solutions. It seems apparent that we need to form a broad-based coalition on the left OUTSIDE THE TWO PARTIES to force the government back away from the direction its going in.
As for the repeated charge that I get upset when some Senator and/or Rep doesn’t say “exactly what you want to hear”, I call bullshit. I want to see some sign that they vote:
I am and remain a strong Feingold supporter, despite a couple of votes I strongly disagreed with. I wish I had a Rep as strong and out front as Rep. Conyers is, but I did have the pleasure of voting for Rep. Gwen Moore to the House, and she’s voted in the direction her stated ideals and policy stands asserted she would. I still hope beyond ALL hope that Dean will figure out a way to reform the party from within. What I WILL NOT compromise on is my belief that there are fundamental human rights that should be protected from incursions by the states, by the churches and especially by greedy businessmen and corporations.
I stayed out of the Obama diary b/c it was already past 400 comments when I got home and could even read it. When I did read it, it was just a well-written slab of “trust us, respect us, do as we say” pile of sludge that we get out of Reid, Schumer, HRC and many of the rest. There was no sense of dialogue. No sense that anybody was LISTENING to the reasons for people’s outrage. Merely that they were attacks on the people who failed to represent. No acknowledgement that that failure was the problem.
What I see you frequently do is attack other progressives for being racist whenever they disagree with you.
As for showing respect for Senators because they are Senators, I say “sir” and “ma’am” to EVERY adult I come across, from the highest office to the street person I accidentally bump into. I start from respect, but when someone repeatedly lies to me, or fails to fulfill promises or sells out me and mine and the ideals we believe in, they have forfeited respect.
As for the repeated charge that I get upset when some Senator and/or Rep doesn’t say “exactly what you want to hear”, I call bullshit.
Given some of the things you’ve said in response to what I said, let me be clear – I was not speaking to you, i.e. “Madman in the Marketplace” individually. And to the extent that you took it that way, I’m sorry for my lack of clarity. I meant a pattern of behavior that I see in progressives in the aggregate, a pattern which I admit I saw in most of the over-the-top angry comments in response to Senator Obama’s diary in terms of how they responded to it (not the substance, the tone.)
I’ve now reminded you what I said. But, instead of just admitting that I never said what you originally claimed and apologizing for it, and saying that your own emotional reaction was that you felt excluded because you like BC, you now say that I implied it. But I’m still asking – why is it that what I said necessarily implies what you took from it? Perhaps it is the same thing that caused you later to write this:
Well, since this is so over-the-top offensive and a demonstrable lie, I’m going to call you out on it.
Prove it. Not with “implications.” With actual statements that came from my keyboard.
I’ve written very very carefully when it comes to racism. I’ve been very clear about racism, institutionalized racism, unconscious racism and most notably that racism is a disease that affects everyone born and raised in the US that has not actively did the hard work of unlearning it (work that involves lots more than just holding up Black heroes like Dr. King). I’ve also written about what it means for progressive coalition that white liberals avoid acknowledgment of their own racism like the plague.
But I’ve also regularly applied the label racist to myself. Unlike many progressives, I’m not stupid enough to believe that just because I’m somehow in a minority, just because I’m progressive, I’m somehow immune from the thought disease that still affects virtually everyone in this country. Including progressives, who too often talk about this issue as if only Republicans are victims of it and take deep offense when you try to tell them differently. I genuinely believe that this country will never truly change until this particular disease is cured – a cure that it seems will never come, given that it appears that one can’t point to any difference relating to Blackness without non-Black folks accusing you of excluding and injuring them.
So I’m asking you to prove what you say using my own express statements (as opposed to what you say I “imply”; since I neither have a history of implying, or a need to imply, anything – I’m more than happy to state it plain). Or go back and ask yourself why it is you felt you needed to go there.
Feel free to write me about it since I’ve now come to a place where I’ve gotten clarification of what the OP meant and felt and thus don’t want to spend any time on personal back and forth between you and I over this.
Directed at Cream City, for no reason I could discern.
Isn’t it possible that many people just DISAGREED with Senator Obama? Yet you jump to the immediate assumption that it was based on race. If they had sent Tammy Baldwin or Dennis Kucinich in, the reaction would have been the same.
As for my own racism, I’m a misanthrope. I find people almost universaly disappointing. I find the tendency of people to find comfort in the stereotypes attributed to them to be sadly common and utterly depressing. I too have every ugly prejudice in this culture implanted onto my “hardrive” by the relentless drumming of our media, our shitty educational system and especially by people who do their best to conform to exactly what is expected of them, and that ESPECIALLY goes for fucking rednecks, a group of people from which I’m descended. THEIR resistance to change makes me immediately suspect to ANY minority I meet, at least for a few seconds. The reaction I get makes ME suspicious in return. It goes on and on and on.
I can understand the touchiness, though. And while I haven’t read the thread there, and feel little inclination to go ruin a perfectly beautiful Sunday by going there, I think that even if I had read it all, I could not say that there’s no unexamined racism in the left.
There’s certainly a buttload of unexamined chauvinism and misogyny in the left, yet most try to deny it.
I look at the polls that asked Americans whether they thought race played into the emergency response in the Katrina aftermath, and am just dumbfounded when I see that what, 70% (?) of whites thought race played no role. That means even if every single Republican felt that way, which I sincerely doubt, a very large portion of white Democrats would seem to be blind to the racism in this country. If you couldn’t see it in how things played out then, how would you see it in schools or anti-poverty programs or flypaper “safety net” programs and so on?
But I have to agree with you in that Barack really made is mark in the convention last year, and so perhaps to some his recent remarks would seem like a course reversal, and the same from Kucinich would receive the same welcome.
I would add, though, that Sen. Obama has been on television quite a lot, and always the voice of compromise, and to me it seems like a disconnect from the advocacy of progressive values he seemed to back before. Where he could be a King, he’s been more of a Colin — respectable, but you wonder what he’s waiting for?
The Dems have been especially weak since Senator Wellstone’s plane went down mysteriously, right when his virtually solitary campaign against the war was gaining popularity.
It just is outrageous how when people get to DC, suddenly reality seems to lose to spin, and morality seems to lose to wingnuttery, and everyone drifts rightward in the prevailing wind.
I’m rambling now so I’ll stop.
The accusation: Shanikka calls regularly calls whites racist that don’t agree with her.
The facts shown by you: Shanikka said that the where white liberals are concerned, Black [politicians] can’t win for losing.
MMIM, you have proven my point – this is about what you are projecting onto what I said, and not what I’m actually saying. Thanks for playing.
You could have at least quoted the entirety of what you snippeted from and shown intellectual honesty:
This all took place in response to a diary which had as one of its assertions that Barack Obama had failed to be “angry enough” or “outraged enough” about Katrina (which I said clearly I found extremely offensive, including because it was false.)
Saying that this was written in response to Cream City is false. This quote was taken from an original response to the original diarist, NightOwl. After this statement, he and I managed to find a place where each of us had our say despite our varying positions; understood, if not agreed with. I’m satisfied with that.
The discussion between Cream City and I two levels in, and again further down, occurred both times when she responded to something I wrote – and it wasn’t this. (But I’m the attacker, right? Even though she essentially called me ignorant for believing something different than she did about the scope of Barack Obama’s duty to respond to specific citizen statements? (“you don’t understand the role of the citizen in our democracy”, as if I haven’t been both a citizen and in this democracy all my life and therefore understand a Senator’s primary constituency – the citizens of his/her state). Then, when she got called out on what she dished out and it was pointed out to her that this type of “you’re ignorant” charge is same old same old, to wit, “it is quite predictable that a white liberal will accuse a Black person of ignorance when they write something they don’t agree with”, she cried victim and ultimately fled (but not before taking what appeared to have been two deliberately veiled cheap shots at my emotional state right now, which I have made clear in several places publicly other contexts is related to finding out this week some pretty bad news about my mother, and claiming that she “didn’t want to make things worse for me” – while never of course saying what she would allegedly be “making worse”; you don’t ever want to get me started on what I would say to this individual if I had the opportunity face to face in light of that.)
Why, in light of what actually happened, you even bring up Cream City’s name as connected to the quote you chose, which was neither directed at her nor in response to anything she said, I have no idea.
Finally, you’re jumping to conclusions about what I assumed. But then again, I made clear that I was writing not based just on that thread, but on having read all the diaries. Now you take from that what you will. And believe what you’re going to believe. Whether or not it’s actually true.
you asked for an example, and that was one that lept to mind, since I’d read it not long before. Frankly, I’ve got better things to do that comb though every abortion thread you’ve gone on the attack in over at DKos, especially since the search function over there sucks so bad.
Look at what you highlighted above. You presume that someone who is arguing with you is thinking in terms of “darkies”. Frankly, I think in terms of “idiots” or “smart” or “interesting” or “boring”. You are never the first or the last, but you frequently ascribe motives to people who are arguing with you. It’s too bad, because you often write some really great stuff, but you pick fights where you don’t have to, like in this diary. However, again, I know that I push people’s buttons the wrong way frequently, and there are many people at a couple of blogs who would say the same thing about me. I plead guilty.
I never said you attacked Cream City, I said that you ascribed motives and beliefs to her that were projections of what you expect. That’s not an attack, that’s merely a failure to communicate. A sin that again, I too am guilty of.
My disappointment w/ Senator Obama’s recent actions is based on some knowledge of his voting record in Illinois and the speeches and materials he put out for his campaign. I know he has a long history of helping to forge coalition, but he has in the past championed more progressive goals. I may have been projecting onto his campaign my wish for a better party, and the words in his beautiful speeches made that easy for me to do. Mea Culpa.
We could go into what is “true”, but I’m too tired to have that argument tonight.
you asked for an example
No, what I asked for was for you to prove a rather broad (and false) assertion about what I always do when someone disagrees with me. You didn’t.
You presume that someone who is arguing with you is thinking in terms of “darkies
Go back and read the sentence again, please.
As for the remainder, I agree with you that I do ascribe motives about certain things to people I’m speaking to, sometimes. But I do it based on what they say, and what they do, in the aggregate. Moreover, that is rational human behavior, which everyone — including liberals and progressives — engages in, every day all day. We could never even have the political dialogue about party affiliation and personality traits regularly engaged in by “others” if we didn’t ascribe feelings that folks contend are correlated with everything from everything from religiousity to gender to one’s residence north or south of the Mason-Dixon line. The only time it seems folks get completely torqued out about this process, however, seems to be when it is folks “presuming” things relating to racist behavior (particularly unconscious racist behavior) or racism at large. Particularly when it is addressing people on the left, instead of just on the rabid right.
That’s not an accident, IMO. Even if it is also not conscious decisionmaking, IMO.
As for the remainder, I didn’t see it as arguing. Each of us has our different views about the Obama Diary (for want of a better phrase), what came out of it, what didn’t come out of it. Each has expressed why we felt what we felt. It’s all good.
The problem as I see it about Obama’s post is that he confuses — or deliberately conflates — comity with collaboration. They are two different things. An advocate can argue with courtesy and respect, and a party-first person can argue with stridency and vitriol.
He seems to be saying that everyone should converse in ways that invite dialogue. But because of this conflation, what comes through is that people need to let go of their principles in the name of the Party.
It’s a perfect political document, because it says several conflicting things at once. Everyone can take away their piece. To me, he seemed to be talking out of both sides of his mouth. The only remarkable thing about it was that it was posted on Kos and he didn’t have to wait a week after sign-up to do it. What that says of his expectations by posting there, I leave that to you. Obviously there’s a misconception that somehow dKos represents the “netroots.”
What I find most objectionable about his post, however, is how he’s not appealing to the voters, but scolding the citizens to dare speak about their concerns. And it fits into the FP orthodoxy that has alienated so many of the real netroots.
He’s the freshman senator. He’s a smart guy, but perhaps a bit naive about the net and perhaps about DC maneuverings. And maybe, like most politicians, he starts to believe his own publicity, and really does believe that comity requires compromise and collaboration with the opposition. It’s a disappointing and dispiriting message coming from a politician who shot onto the political scene with such strong appeals to progressive values.
We’ll see what comes of it. Probably not much.
I agree with everything you wrote, particularly about the fact that a person, depending on where they were coming from reading it, could find a message to support their own view of the piece right within it. I do take exception with only one thing, which may be just a matter of nuance:
I did not read his “scolding” as saying “how dare you speak” to anyone at all. What I read was that how people speak about their concerns matters, when you’re trying to build coalition to take back power. I also read words that said that a person could both heed his advice and still be able hold their politicians feet to the fire about things they disagree with.
i.e., on a site led by someone who considers grassroots as obstacles to be pushed aside, it’s easy to miss that aspect of the message. I still thinks he conflates message and rhetoric, which is confusing.
I think underlying all of this is the accusation perpetuated by the right that advocates of progressive values are playing a zero sum game, that women’s rights, for example, would mean someone else would lose rights.
One of the most dispiriting experiences I had on dKos was in response to a post I made about the ERA, and how it’s been dropped by the Democrats, and by progressives in general — at least the elected ones. I was taken to task for being a racist, and that women’s rights should not be supported until racism has been successfull addressed.
The thing is, I don’t see any advantage in advantaging one group — or even one subset of the progressive agenda — over the rest. When it comes to civil rights, everyone is entitled. And if anyone’s rights are abridged, everyone’s freedom is diminished. Kos and company like to perpetuate the right-wing mythology that all of us who care about liberal and progressive values are “single issue voters” with “pet causes” and that we’re all just out to break up the party, by intention or as a byproduct to our selfishness.
But I don’t see any single issue voters. Nobody is a single issue voter. Yes, people have their own priorities. But with a progressive platform that backs civil liberties, civil rights and equal opportunity, I don’t see gender equality and racial equality as mutually exclusive.
The problem is that not many people — and virtually nobody in DC — are articulating these values. And so we’re all balkanized by separate funding bases, and encouraged to remain so by right-wing rhetoric that continues to paint progressive values as roadblocks, special interests and petty concerns.
Into the breach comes Barak, who comes off as blaming the constituencies for being divided — and he posts it on a site whose proprietor continuously perpetuates that image.
Well, that’s one of the most disturbing things I’ve read in a while. The Democratic Party has been broken and trained by the bullies of the GOP. They’ve accepted their new role as the “beta” party to the “alpha” Republicans.
I found Obama’s lecture — this was the term that came to me as well — cautious, reasonable, smooth, seductive, and completely fallacious. I couldn’t finish it because it made me feel enervated and agitated, at the same time. It’s a dangerous piece of writing, for that reason. It’s a winningly political, sugarcoated spoonful of medicine to intended to sedate uppity radicals.
What made me angriest was the part about how the people in Illinois, he’s met in his travels, don’t think Bush is a criminal, or a liar, etc, etc. So, why are these ill-informed, middle-of-the-road, people in utter denial, more important than me, or any of the people venting their spleens in the blogosphere. Why are politicians bending over backwards to cater to a mushy middle, with a total lack of civic awareness. That amounts to the ill-informed dictating policy. Frightening! No wonder we’re in such a mess.
It’s a dangerous piece of writing, for that reason.
Yes, I considered it politcally subversive. And it is very much a ‘wake up call’ to call it as such.
Very troubling, whoever wrote it.
This is a large part of why I had the reaction that I did to the maelstrom to that diary: why is this a “wake up call”? Hasn’t anyone actually been following Barack Obama and what he actually says, all these years?
The part that has left me incredulous is that, indeed, it seems as if folks considered the statements expressed in that diary as a surprise to them – as if he was saying something new about his approach to politics. Something that was fundamentally different than what he said in the past. Some People’s reaction was almost as if they felt he’d previously conned them.
But that’s simply not true. Here is a link to quotes from back in the day, before he became a Senator, including things he wrote in “Dreams of My Father” nearly 10 years ago now about making peace with the strong until such time as you can be strong yourself as a sign of cleverness, that clarify that he said nothing new nothing new (begging the question of why folks feel betrayed only now, when he “lectured” them in accordance with things he has always said):
Barack Obama’s Statements
Here is where you and I are at utter variance. I often look at political speech, of the sort that diary was (I am unsure who wrote it, he is the most junior of senators, I doubt he does much unscripted) as a direct political act, but possibly not specific to the one chosen to deliver the text. Again no effort was made to have a staffer there, even as a pro forma courtesy.
You appear to ascribe every period in that curious document to Obama, and thus every commentary on the document to being a criticism of Obama.
I do not. I very much see the diary as a political tactic from leadership… there is no dimishment of obama in that assessment. There is political reality, however.
As for his political speech…. there is a post of mine above that draws from text linked at BC, to a speech of his about the war in 2003. Oh what a differnce.
Look, I am the defender of no politician NONE of them… as I have stated, to me they are on review and up for review every single day… but please get this straight, too: I am very suspicious of Salazar, a senator whose office will tell people (Coloradans) who call to complain about a vote or a stand of his, “the senator is an Independent” then when challenged that he ran as a Democrat, the staffer will laugh and say “oh we mean he is an independent Democrat”.
No I am not saying that about Obama, I am saying it about Salazar. Who has come under heavy criticism for his votes and stances.
They are all under scrutiny, if the electorate wants to get some return and be aware.
I actually don’t expect much from junior new senators… but I also consider that the Democratic party, a big shard of it, is being subsumed into the Republican party (this is covered as well in the BC article in refernces to the votes of the 7 of the CBC, no surprise if you know the historical funding of the DLC, to which those CBC members mostly, 6 of 7 iirc, belong …) and that the Democratic party is fast divesting itself of the “messy social issues”, that would be divesting themselves of PEOPLE and their issues and needs.
So the signals the new senators send (and representatives like Melissa Bean, again read Sirota on CAFTA, it links to a column of his all about accountability), the people they will side with and seek (further) patronage from (in Obama’s case, the clintons figure heavily) interest me.
I don’t waste a lot of time defending the elected. I do spend time figuring out, to my satisfaction, what may be going on.
Here, Peter Daou, whose politica stances and writings I mostly don’t agree with (nor do I agree here, either) clearly considers the doc fully Obama’s… and is critical on a different level.
I consider the text of the diary to be politically subversive, I very much agree with the comment from RecordKeeper….
Be interesting to see how soon OBama does this again, thru diaries at Dkos. He now has an account…
to be in the middle? Does it mean being soft on human rights for homosexuals, soft on reproduction rights for women, soft on support for public schools, soft on the separation of religion and politics, soft on pre-emptive attacks on small counries?
I’m confused by this call to move Decmocrats to the center when, I think Democrats need are courageous radicals with some good ideas and leadership qualities. Maybe not presidential qualifications but it is the radicals who pave the way for the moderates, like Malcolm X paved the way for Martin Luther King.
<sigh> You know what, in today’s “let’s be moderate” climate, Martin Luther King looks like a radical.
in the blogs about centrism vs the left. Clinton wanted to be the great inclusive leader and he felt his centrist message would be powerful and pull the dems up. Instead the dems lost to Gingrich in the next two years and the repubs held sway for most of Clinton’s term. Clinton himself was popular, but I think that is because of the charisma of the man not his politics. I just don’t think that being “middling” will recoup the dems hemorrhaging loses. One individual dem might have a chance – re Obama who can be charismatic himself. But I just can not see the party itself surfacing because it feels too weak, too insensitive, too fumbling, too inept in its national posturing. Why let the repubs define them that way and get away with it? Why can not the dems at least agree on a public face? (Not lieberman or biden face please – they are suffering from overexposure as it is!)
…if we see the Dems continuing to pursue DLC- or NDN-branded “centrist” strategies to lose to Gingrich again in 2008. (Because he is running, and right now he’s the only one who’s actually speaking about what’s really going on. [Not that I agree with him, but he’s sounding more progressive than most Democrats these days. And that scares me, since AFAIK he’s anti-choice and anti-civil rights.])
He voted for the bankruptcy bill and the repeal of the estate tax. Jefferson did too, as well. Should we primary these two people out?