Here’s the link indicating I was on to something this morning.
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Now the question is, how long until we hear about how this was somebody’s way of intentionally torpedoing the first black candidate?
It is someone’s way of torpedoing the first black candidate. It’s right there in the article: that person is Jeremiah Wright.
His refusal to be accomodating to Barack Obama’s candidacy and the fact that Sen. Obama is running for the Presidency of the United States and not the Presidency of Black America is pretty obvious at this point. It is beyond me why someone who is seeing the first African-American candidate, who happens to be a parishoner of his own church, would actively work to dismantle the very campaign that seems poised to advance the African-American cause simultaneously with the cause of all other Americans. It doesn’t make sense to me. After the Moyers interview I respected, in some senses, that he was trying to defend his Church in front of a national audience after seeing it being torn apart in the media. But afterwards he clearly went out of his way to make politically damaging statements.
I am not fond of this man any more than the rest of you guys at this point. I think Sen. Obama did his very best, in his original speech on race, to try to frame the church in the fairest light while maintaining his own political viability and the viability of the movement he was so strenuously working to build. He was walking the narrowest of political tightropes just so he wouldn’t have to betray Rev. Wright as fully as political realities demanded him to do so. And Rev. Wright, not seeing the forest for the trees, saw his distancing as some sort of betrayal, and in turn sought it fit to exact a betrayal of his own. This could be a kind of modern Shakespearean tragedy in the making.
As for Soda’s comment on the other thread, I understand that no one is hoping that Jeremiah Wright kills Obama’s campaign. That is destructive not just to this election cycle, but to all the progress we have made in the past 40 years on race relations. It pits not just African-American community against the White community, but elements of the older generation of African-Americans,still embittered and damaged by their historic victimization, against the younger generation, most of whom aspire to move on and move up.
I haven’t read the previous thread yet, but I certainly hope that Jeremiah Wright (or somebody/something else) kills Obama’s campaign.
Wright seems like the best hope right now.
Yeah, I may have over-generalized. Certainly there are people such as yourself who think that Wright is a gift.
I personally don’t understand what’s so threatening about Obama’s candidacy to everyone, especially after what we’ve seen Republicans do in our government when given the chance to govern(virtually nothing of substance). A huge grassroots movement of unity with our democratic process re-invigorated is good for the country no matter what side of the aisle it falls on. Good, concensus-building change comes from the bottom up, not the top down.
I’m with Soda. If I were a Republican conservative I think the greatest defense of my ideology would be if it could withstand 8 years of the soul-withering destruction of the Bush administration by clearly continuing to win the support of voters on the merits, without a confounding variable like Jeremiah Wright doing the job that the ideas are supposed to do.
What’s threatening about Obama’s candidacy? Simple: the prospect of at least for years of a die-hard liberal holding the most powerful office in the world.
A grassroots movement isn’t inherently good for our country. If it leads to bad policy, a grassroots movement bad. That’s why I don’t find myself saying “Well, Obama is a huge liberal, but he’s got a grassroots movement, so it’s OK.”
Listen, I am not at all trying to be obnoxious when I say that I view Wright as a gift. I’m simply being honest. I do not want Obama to win this election, and as such, I view the Wright situation as a positive development.
“If it leads to bad policy, a grassroots movement bad. That’s why I don’t find myself saying “Well, Obama is a huge liberal, but he’s got a grassroots movement, so it’s OK.”
I can’t imagine a worse policy than a continuation of the policies that we’ve had for the past 8 years, which McCain is intent, in many regards, on continuing. Yes, he parts ways with Bush on some issues, but on the issues that matter to the average American he is woefully in alignment with the status quo.
Let’s get beyond the labels of “liberal” and “conservative.” They simplify our problems way, way, way too much and they really don’t serve anyone very well. Obama has centrist appeal and a scorn of the ‘victimology’ of marginalized groups in favor of getting people to mobilize themselves and come together behind a common set of ideals in order to get things done, something I think conservatives can agree with. He sees that the government is failing at performing some of its most basic tasks, and wants it to be more intelligent in a *practical way*, something I think conservatives can also agree with . 8 years have gone by and our biggest problems have only worsened. So, again, I can’t see why a grassroots movement behind someone who wants government to work(by work, I mean actually work) on behalf of the people it represents is threatening.
The conservative/liberal debate over “small government” and “big government” is over. If it isn’t it should be. Our government is big, no thanks to Bush, his corporatism, and ballooning government spending on the military-industrial complex. It’s going to continue to be big. The question is not: how are we going to make it smaller, but how are we going to make it smarter and better? Reasonable people can disagree on how, but not until we start having the debate. We know that we have huge problems that are threatening us as a country that ALL of us can see. How are we going to be honing and perfecting government in a way that helps solve those problems, while at the same time preserving everyone’s freedom?
You’ve used a lot of words to essentially say that you can’t understand why someone would disagree with you/Obama.
That betrays a certain lack of comprehension, to put it mildly, of other points of view. Since you can’t imagine why someone would disagree with you, there isn’t much value in continuing to debate this.
“So, again, I can’t see why a grassroots movement behind someone who wants government to work (by work, I mean actually work) on behalf of the people it represents is threatening.”
At this risk of sounding rude I would suggest picking up a history book. The 20th century is riddled with examples of grassroots movements simply wanting to get “government to work.” That philosophy has given us such men as Mussolini and Hitler. Of course I am not equating Obama or his campaign to those monsters at all. I am merely attempting to drive home the point that grassroots movements behind people who just want to make government work can be quite detrimental to humanity. As Mooseburger pointed out one shouldn’t assume unity equals good.
“The conservative/liberal debate over “small government” and “big government” is over.”
Perhaps it is for you and other liberal Democrats, but that debate is on going. The day it stops is the day we resign ourselves to fascism/socialism.
Mooseburger’s last comment and Connscript’s comment leave me with nothing to add. Right on.
“That betrays a certain lack of comprehension, to put it mildly, of other points of view. Since you can’t imagine why someone would disagree with you, there isn’t much value in continuing to debate this.”
Obviously I understand that other people disagree with me. I put it right there in my post: “Reasonable people can disagree on how, but not until we start having the debate.” The “how” question is obviously something you and I disagree on. What I was trying to say, and I’m sorry if this got lost in there somewhere, was that the political debate our country is entangled in isn’t the debate that needs to be had in order to actually solve our problems. And I think that in order to have our debate we first have to agree on what our problems actually are. So let me again say: We can disagree on how to solve problems, but in terms of identifying what our problems actually are, we have to come to some concensus. And I, personally, support the Obama campaign because it is trying to do just that.
And I’m sorry, I don’t understand why concensus building, at the very least on what our *common knowledge of factual reality* is, is something that is so threatening to the forces that be. Sorry if I didn’t articulate that as well as I should have.
‘The 20th century is riddled with examples of grassroots movements simply wanting to get “government to work.” That philosophy has given us such men as Mussolini and Hitler.’
I think you just complied with Godwin’s law pretty effectively.
” Of course I am not equating Obama or his campaign to those monsters at all.”
Then why bring it up? You could have made your point just as effectively without dropping the H-bomb.
” I am merely attempting to drive home the point that grassroots movements behind people who just want to make government work can be quite detrimental to humanity.”
If you keep it in these vague terms, “making government work” can be any number of things. And reasonable people are free to disagree on how to make the government work. But one thing I think is clear: the current government does not work nearly as well as it should.
“As Mooseburger pointed out one shouldn’t assume unity equals good.”
I never assume that. As I said, “reasonable people are free to disagree on how.” What we need to unify about is *what our actual problems are*. If we can’t do that, then we’re really screwed. And no productive debate about the “how” is possible.
“If you keep it in these vague terms, “making government work” can be any number of things. And reasonable people are free to disagree on how to make the government work. But one thing I think is clear: the current government does not work nearly as well as it should.”
I’m sorry, I don’ mean to sound as if ‘you’ were keeping it in those vague terms. I meant ‘we.’
I was unaware of Godwin’s law. That is pretty funny.
“I never assume that.”
The third paragraph of your 3:58PM post is predicated on the idea that coming together to get things done is a positive development. That is a bold assumption. I’m not of the opinion that grassroots unity can or does translate into “practical” (I’m not sure what you mean by that) or beneficial policies.
“The third paragraph of your 3:58PM post is predicated on the idea that coming together to get things done is a positive development. “
Really? You don’t think people getting involved in the Democratic process at a grassroots level is a positive development? You don’t think that people coming together to solve their collective problems is a good thing?
That sounds positively undemocratic to me.
It CAN be a good thing, but it is not NECESSARILY a good thing.