It's pile on Obama time, I guess. Krauthammer talks about his fade. Ross observes that the more we know about Obama, the more he's bound to disappoint once people understand that he can't be a transformative politician -- the change we've all been waiting for, rah! -- running on by-the-book liberalism. And the New Yorker's George Packer has some pretty blunt words for Obama. Flash back to Packer's April 15 remarks after Obama's "bitter" comment came to light:
The real problem with what Obama said is that it’s basically untrue. In southwestern Pennsylvania, religion, hunting, and insularity predate the post-industrial era. They’ve have become politically manipulable points in part because of economic decline, but to confuse wedge issues with traditional values is the mark of the high-minded reformer or the political junkie, or both. It’s the kind of mistake one could make only from a great distance, once those voters had become almost entirely abstract—and, again, no one wants to be an abstraction.[snip]
But Obama’s devotees, who have an unattractively worshipful tendency to blame his mistakes on everyone but him, would do their candidate and the Democratic Party a favor by acknowledging the damage he’s done to both. It wasn’t accidental. Obama betrayed his own and his Party’s essential weakness, and in the process handed the opposition a great gift. He won’t be able to turn this weakness into the kind of strength that ends eras and wins elections until he understands what happened over the past few days.
We've heard that a lot since then. Now, Packer returns with a pretty stark and sobering assessment of what Obama's up against -- and it's not just culture. Read that post for his recollection of what a retired white man from Kentucky, a Hillary supporter named J.K. Patrick, says about not voting for a black man. Depressing, but real. Here's Packer:
Everyone knows that race is a factor in Obama’s low vote among older whites, though reporters say that no one will admit it personally. In Eastern Kentucky, people (and not just J. K. Patrick) admit it personally, without hesitation or apology. It’s impossible to say how much this has affected the primary or will affect the fall election. For voters like those I met in Inez, the objection to Obama has nothing to do with Reverend Jeremiah Wright or, God knows, Bill Ayers. There’s nothing Obama can do about it. He can’t even mention it.What he can do is let voters less unalterably opposed to his candidacy know that he will be their President. It’s clear that he has a problem with less educated, lower-income whites—so clear by now that there are good reasons to wonder if he could carry the big swing states that he’ll need to win in November—and he hasn’t helped himself recently. It’s no use for Democrats to deny that this has been a problem for them since at least George McGovern, or to claim that it’s entirely manufactured by Karl Rove. The question is what to do about it. Pretending to be culturally attuned to the working class (John Kerry in hunting camouflage, Hillary Clinton downing a boilermaker) is condescending and bound to fail. Political anthropology of the sort that got Obama into trouble in San Francisco is even worse.
Packer says, and I think this is absolutely correct, that Obama should confront this head-on, and explain to people still open to him but suspicious why he will be good for them and their interests, even though he doesn't, and can't, share their background. FDR did it. So did JFK. Packer again:
It’s a tall order. But Obama has a serious political problem. Until now, he and his supporters have either denied it or blamed it on his opponents. It’s not his fault, but it is his burden, and the way to begin lightening the load is to admit that it exists.
Add to Del.icio.us
Add to Technorati
Add to Digg
Add to Newsvine
Add to Facebook
Add to StumbleUpon
Subscribe
"Why is it that blacks can get away with creating and indulging in the most pernicious subculture in the history of this country (i.e. the "hip hop" ghetto culture)"
Horsesh*t. Have you ever watched the films taken during the Segregationist rallies? Ever seen a postcard of a lynching? Aside from the language being slightly more intelligible, they are 100% indistinguishable from your typical Nazi party production.
Unbelievable. We had genuine, unabashed fascists marching in the streets and killing as they pleased, when your parents (or grandparents, depending) were still alive. I don't care how angry Da Lench Mobb got about the "white devils", they're a world apart from the racist MOVEMENT.
Actually, I may owe the Nazis an apology; even they didn't photograph themselves standing next to their victims the way white American racists did.
Are there whites voting because they won't consider a Black man, of course. Racist whites? Of course. But I firmly believe that most of the whites not voting for Obama are doing it because they see no substance in him. A refusal to explain things, to address problems head on....to "man up" as the popular expressions says.There is far more black racism today than white racism.
Most of the people voting against Obama have been around the block a few times in elections. Obama's apparent inability to confront Wrights bigoted racism, his relationship with him , cause all the continuing questions on that subject and others. He delivered a celebrated speech on race, one generally hailed as a masterwork, that was supposed to have explained it all. It was masterly above all, in its evasiveness. His associations in general and his explanations (or more correctly, lack) of them have cost him in the primary. It will kill him in the general election, not his associations, but his stonewalling. Its not what Wright said its a question of Obama's judgement.
His other real problem is Black Liberation Theology. Read that, read the text of Wrights sermons (especially the ones from the soundbites) I believe people were appalled that such racism and hate existed in our country. And in a church. And apparently approved by more than you'd think. For you Nazi haters, this stuff (BLT) could have been lifted wholesale from Mein Kampf and the Nazi propaganda archives.
(by the way there are plenty of pics and films showing Nazi's beside their victim's. Would you also like to use the same argument about racial history to justify restoring the practice of indentured servants? It would have the same validity)
My friends tell me its a lie that this kind of thing exists in all black churches as Obama's people claim. Having attended services at three of those, I prefer to believe my friends. But how do you explain his continued attendance at a church that espouses such racial hatred and anti-American garbage. Hitler loved dogs and children.....he restored the German economy....did his good deeds justify hate, bigotry and racism? Of course not, but thats the argument and justification Obama has presented for his friendship with Wright.
If there was nothing wrong he'd answer the questions. I'm always reminded of a line from my favorite movie "A Man For All Seasons"......"silence denotes consent."
So maybe its just that most people need more than a good speech to support someone. The racism argument won't wash.....unless you want to say that blacks are voting along racial lines. Thats certainly an empirical fact.
"(by the way there are plenty of pics and films showing Nazi's beside their victim's. Would you also like to use the same argument about racial history to justify restoring the practice of indentured servants? It would have the same validity)"
Uh, excuse me, I wasn't arguing for restoring the Holocaust or lynchings or anything else. I'm not sure how you got that.
I'm not defending the Nazis in any way shape or form. My point was that lynch mobs felt so little guilt for what they'd done that they'd typically commemorate the occasion with a postcard. See for yourself, if you've got a strong stomach; check google images for "holocaust" and then "lynching". There are indeed photos of Germans standing next to piles of dead Jews, but they're not smiling for the cameras. They're simply being photographed. The lynch mobs, on the other hand... the cameraman may well have participated.
If you don't understand the significance of this, you really ought to watch the Milgram Experiment video. Most people will submit to authority, as did the Germans running the gas chambers. But it doesn't mean they were proud of what they did. Milgram showed that good, ordinary people will do things - such as kill people - that they'd ordinarily be horrified by, if they're urged to by an authority figure and assured that they will face no consequences. And they will be wracked by guilt afterwards.
Those sons-of-b*tches in the lynch mobs, however, were not. I watched the Emmitt Till documentary and saw the stony faces on the all-white jury as they acquitted Emmitt's killers, and their broad grins after they all filed out of the courtroom. Nobody forced them to do anything. They were simply inhuman monsters. And that's why I do, in fact, consider their brand of fascism to be, at its core, more sinister than Hitler's.
It's not by-the-book liberalism for a Democratic politician to lump together Social Security and Medicare as a fiscal problem to be solved (even though Social Security on its own is solvent until 2041, according to the CBO). Obama's been heatedly criticized for this by many potential backers, such as Paul Krugman. Many by-the-book liberals have been calling for gas tax relief this year, as have both Hillary (phonily) and McCain (impractically). Not Obama. Nor has he endorsed a mandate to buy health care, even if it threatens the concept of universal coverage. Perhaps these details are too particular to be noticed by those eager to dismiss Obama, but they show that he's not a by-the-book liberal, or should, to anyone paying attention to the issues.
Post a Comment
By submitting these comments, I agree to the beliefnet.com terms of service, rules of conduct and privacy policy (the "agreements"). I understand and agree that any content I post is licensed to beliefnet.com and may be used by beliefnet.com in accordance with the agreements.