In his remarkable March 18th speech, A More Perfect Union, Democratic Presidential candidate, Barack Obama, directly addressed the racial aspect of his campaign that, up until the preceding week, had largely been in the background. While the overt reason for the speech was the inflammatory remarks of Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, it also responded to right wing hate messages – recently picked up by the Clinton campaign, suggesting America isn't ready for a black President.
Polls indicate that 62 percent of Americans believe the U.S. will accept a black President. Nonetheless, since it became clear that Senator Obama was a serious contender for the Democratic nomination, many have suggested the poll results were a reflection of political correctness, as respondents didn't want to tell pollsters about their latent racism. And, as her desperate presidential campaign careens through Pennsylvania, Hillary Clinton seems increasingly willing to suggest she is more electable than Obama because, while she may be a woman, she's the "right" color.
Residing in Berkeley, I know no one who admits to being a racist and none of my friends has said they won't vote for Obama because he's black. Nonetheless, I've had acquaintances volunteer that someone in their family, a close friend, or "the guys back home" would never vote for a black candidate for President. I'm curious to know who these people are. Perhaps they're the 13 percent of Americans identified in the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll who believe Senator Obama is a Muslim. Or, they may be the 14 percent who responded they would have some reservations about making Obama the first African-American President. But, there could be a simpler explanation; these bigots may constitute a significant element in the 32 percent of Americans who approve of the job George W. Bush is doing as President: died-in-the-wool conservatives who are stuck in a dysfunctional way of viewing race, the Bush Administration, and our democracy.
These polls make clear there are two competing views of Barack Obama. Some see him exclusively as a black candidate and believe he has received preferential treatment to get where he is. Others see him as the embodiment of the American myth of the triumphant individual. Obama's life has many of the elements of the Horatio Alger rags-to-riches fables: he was raised by his mother and grandmother, worked his way through college, became a community organizer, attended Harvard Law School and became the first black president of the Law Review, and returned to Chicago where he was a successful civil rights attorney and author before entering politics. His first book, "Dreams from My Father," is considered an American masterpiece.
Many observers note the parallels between Barack Obama's life and that of America's sixteenth President, Abraham Lincoln. Both came from humble surroundings; Lincoln lost his mother when he was nine; Obama's father left when he was two. Both are tall, lawyers, and began their political careers in the Illinois legislature. Lincoln also wrote his own speeches.
Senator Obama knew his presidential campaign would hinge on his response to the videos of Reverend Wright's sermons, so he personally wrote the March 18th speech. Thus, the values and themes expressed in "A More Perfect Union" represent Obama's true beliefs.
His core message was contained in these lines: "Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have... white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many." "A More Perfect Union" was not restricted to the issue of race. It was Obama's prescription for a better America based upon a transformative politics of unity, a politics where, "all Americans... realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper." His speech was a call for a new populism, an appeal for Americans to unite against conservative policies that have divided us by race, gender, religion, and sexual preference in order to wage class warfare – to "favor the few over the many."
Abraham Lincoln's first inaugural address concluded with an appeal to "the better angels of our nature" and Barack Obama has repeated this call. Indeed, many of the themes Lincoln sounded 148 years ago echo in Obama's speech: the need for Americans to remember the values of our Nation's founders – all men are created equal – and stand together against injustice. And like many of Lincoln's speeches, "A More Perfect Union" was an appeal for unity and reconciliation.
Bob Burnett is a Berkeley writer and Quaker actvist. He is particularly interested in progressive morality and writes frequently on the ethical aspects of political and social issues.
After reading in TIME magazine, a graph that the author worked most likely long and hard to display, Obama and Lincoln have the SAME "experience", yet the media has never spoke of this. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. Why is not important but the FACTS are there.
Obama served 7yrs in Illinois legislation and 3yrs in Senate(so far) verses Lincoln served 8yrs in Illinois legislation and 2 yrs in the House of Reps. Add it up, and we have equal experience. Yet MSM never once has brought that to the attention of the country's gullible viewers.
Another note, is that the World around our country is ecstatic that we would elect a Black for President. They love the idea. Here in Amerikkka, the MSM still puts the race card as the pending issue.
I will just sit back and pray Apophus arrives early. I guess, Hopelessness has the best of me lately. Could it be hunger that has left me w/o fight? Could it be the looming wars and more wars leaving me feeling helpless? Could it be that the dollar is about as good as the TP I wipe with on the world market? Could it be that my mail takes forever to get to me, UNLESS it comes from the IRS or some other government entity? What could it be? Oh me, oh my, whatever.
The Earth will win. Not the rich, not George Bush, not satanist Dick Cheney, The earth, simply put, the earth will cleanse itself of all debris!
Feeling a bit without hope or audacity today! Tomorrow is the day(Iran)? Or Monday?
A President won't help us. A congress won't take back the country. We are the only ones that can do it. However, we wait to elect someone to do it. Will they? My bets aren't on any candidate. My bets are on Apophus!
The audacity of hopelessness! LOL!
by
shirley reese (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 278 comments)
on Thursday, April 3, 2008 at 12:02:34 PM
The political environment described by Barack Obama above in his core message (a speech regarding his clergyman's sermons) -
"Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have... white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many."
sounds very much like the "American System" that Abraham Lincoln succeeded in actually introducing into the US government.
Lincoln took on the goal of Henry Clay (the political heir of Alexander Hamilton, the first of the US promoters of centralized government) and began instituting this combination of policies known as the "American System", which was actually mercantilism, the practices of which so many early colonists had fled Europe for the promise of "the New World". The federal government began its drive into the "business" of "internal improvements" by way of subsidizing corporations, restricting potential competitors out of various markets, and succeeding finally at nationalized banking which allowed the government to simply print money in order to finance their special-interest subsidies. (Anyone who really thinks that the Federal Reserve is a private banking arrangement doesn't really understand the involvement of government in the scheme of nationalized banking starting from its very beginning in the US in 1862 with the Legal Tender Act.)
Although all such "internal improvement" endeavors which had been done previously by individuals states were a money loser for the taxpayers of all those states, including Illinois where Lincoln had been elected to the Illinois Legislature, he pushed for them during his presidential campaign. Lincoln's own law partner, William H. Herndon, described the Illinois internal improvement program as "reckless and unwise... every river and stream bed ... was to be widened, deepened, and made navigable... cities were to spring up everywhere" (Paul M Angle, ed., The Lincoln Reader; New York: Da Capo Press, 1947, p. 82, 83.). Herndon also wrote that, "the internal improvement program system, the adoption of which Lincoln had played such a prominent part, had collapsed, with the result that Illinois was left with an enormous debt and an empty treasury." (William H. Herndon and Jesse W Weik, Life of Lincoln, New York: Da Capo Press, 1983; pg 161.)
Lincoln was a master speaker, user of words and phrases to emotionally move audiences, manipulating facts or simply ignoring them. Few at the time ever saw his words in writing and, if so, even fewer reviewed them for consistency with actual facts or with the contents of the US Constitution. The changes put into place on the national level by Lincoln during his presidency, many done even without initial agreement of Congress and contrary to the Constitution, have for the most part stayed and been enlarged by subsequent presidents acting on that precedent.
The US Constitution was emasculated by Lincoln of its relatively strong control over the federal government, that document purposely created to grant only specified functions to the federal, leaving the real power with the individual states and individuals themselves ("the People"). Any improvement in the current situation of an economic mess, created in fact by a runaway federal government, requires that at the very least that it be returned to the status it was prior to the Lincoln presidency. (However, since it was relatively easy for the degeneration to the current mess, I and husband Paul Wakfer do not see the entire system of even prior to Lincoln's time as truly stable and, because of its inherent flaws, will eventually fall prey to another Lincoln, making possible another FDR, Bush and others of one political party or another but all with the same intention - power over the lives of others.)
Furthermore, Lincoln had no interest in freeing the slaves. His interest was only in maintaining a federal government of all the individual states to date, despite the fact that secession was never prohibited by the Constitution (the only way he saw way to institute the "American System" that was his primary goal.) In a famous public letter in 1862 to Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, Lincoln wrote:
"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it; and if I could save it by free some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery and the colored race,I do because I believe it hels to save the Union."
A very good book which utilizes the many sources of direct Lincoln period information - rather than the sanitized US history textbooks of the past 150 years which carry on the mythology of Lincoln, and makes clear how the federal government was started on its path of imperialism and to the increasing economic mess, is The Real Lincoln by Thomas J DiLorenzo (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2002.)
If Obama is saying in those quoted lines (and other speeches) that he is against the current economic environment in the US - which is NOT capitalism, NOT a free market, but rather fascism - and will work to eliminate all the government interference practices in the lives of individuals acting on their own or in voluntary interactions to mutual benefit, then that is better than his opponents for everyone in the wide view long range. However, I seriously doubt this to be the case, since Obama's website contains no plans to do anything of the kind, were he to be elected President. In actuality, separation of economy and government (as well as education and government) should be as inviolate as separation of church and government (State) but I see no indication that Obama has any such views himself.
And BTW, regarding the quotation from the Declaration of Independence, "that all men are created equal", this is an obviously false claim, one that far too few people acknowledge, and it has lead to enormous amounts of abuse.
"Great harm was caused by not making it very clear that what was meant was that all men have equal rights, not identical characteristics and equal abilities, nor even that all men ought to be treated as if they had identical characteristics and equal abilities, since in fact humans are highly unique both in genetic endowment and after lengthy separate development." (This last from "Critique of the Declaration of Independence".)
**Kitty Antonik Wakfer
MoreLife for the rational - http://morelife.org Reality based tools for more life in quantity and quality Self-Sovereign Individual Project - http://selfsip.org Self-sovereignty, rational pursuit of optimal lifetime happiness, individual responsibility, social preferencing & social contracting
by
Kitty Antonik Wakfer (14 articles, 3 quicklinks, 5 diaries, 101 comments)
on Thursday, April 3, 2008 at 11:52:13 PM
