Someone, please explain this to me ...Submariner said...
The other night I noticed Maxine Waters sitting beside Chelsea Clinton at the Hollywod debate and thought the same thing.Win or lose, one great thing about the Obama campaign is, to use a spades analogy, that he pulled everyone's trumps. Black folks have been called out and I think the majority of the CBC and old guard have lost much of what little political capital they had. So Maxine can still talk tough and Magic can celebrate opening another franchise here in Baltimore. But the jig is up. What they seek is patronage, not power.
It reminds me of Hannah Arendt and other observers with integrity who were honest enough to state the complicity of Jews in Nazi atrocities and before that their role in passively acquiescing to laws which circumscribed the rights of Jewish citizens. The belief was that such democratic maneuvers would undermine their own position as elites in their respective communities with special privileges and access to the halls of gentile power. In the end, of course, we know that they helped plant the seeds of their own destruction.We almost got away without using the race card. I thought it would be raised by Republicans if Obama were on the ticket but it was the Clintonistas who drew first blood. Like the communist radicals that Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison held in contempt, todays white liberals are more than willing to use blacks as pawns in their game. If this doesn't wake us up then nothing will.
7 comments:
The other night I noticed Maxine Waters sitting beside Chelsea Clinton at the Hollywod debate and thought the same thing.
Win or lose, one great thing about the Obama campaign is, to use a spades analogy, that he pulled everyone's trumps. Black folks have been called out and I think the majority of the CBC and old guard have lost much of what little political capital they had. So Maxine can still talk tough and Magic can celebrate opening another franchise here in Baltimore. But the jig is up. What they seek is patronage, not power.
It reminds me of Hannah Arendt and other observers with integrity who were honest enough to state the complicity of Jews in Nazi atrocities and before that their role in passively acquiescing to laws which circumscribed the rights of Jewish citizens. The belief was that such democratic maneuvers would undermine their own position as elites in their respective communities with special privileges and access to the halls of gentile power. In the end, of course, we know that they helped plant the seeds of their own destruction.
We almost got away without using the race card. I thought it would be raised by Republicans if Obama were on the ticket but it was the Clintonistas who drew first blood. Like the communist radicals that Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison held in contempt, todays white liberals are more than willing to use blacks as pawns in their game. If this doesn't wake us up then nothing will.
I told you the primary value of Obama's candidacy resided in the rorschacian effect it would demonstrate vis-a-vis the collective psyche. Beyond that, in substantive terms, it doesn't mean very much.
Don't hold your breath for the collective awakening. Didn't happen in the earlier era, won't happen now. The second and third-line inheritors of the civil rights movement are dug in deeper than Alabama ticks.
Only one thing will exorcise them from the parasitic lock they have on their positions within public political theater and the public governance scheme.
No "we" can't.
and the keep hope alive faction is a dangerous distraction from unpleasant underlying variances between what Obama says and what Obama does.
Craig, I feel you, but, pardon my French, fuck The Nation. They are just the type of liberals that I was talking about. Unlike every other candidate Obama actually worked with the types affected. The Nation can applaud Clinton and Edwards but those two became rich by working for special interests. Now that Obama is in the game he's playing by the rules. I can accept that. Every single one of us who attends this blog have done just the same. But the divergence between what politicians say and do is the standard. What the Nation could have and should have included is the pitfalls unique to an Obama candidacy. To make it appear that he capitulates more than Clinton or Edwards to corporate interests is just more white liberal bullshit of holding blacks to higher moral standars just to get the same purchase as whites.
Any black who would gain a national forum won't be free to make bold proposals against business intersts without being dismissed as unelectable. Any and every black candidate is judged by different standards. This is what I alluded to in another thread. Any political agent for change, especially a black person, will have to take a 'spook who sat by the door' approach. As long as the dominant narrative is subprime mortgage borrowers should've known better and the economy is really doing well then any move by an Obama to push more aggressively will be a negative. Same thing goes for reform of drug enforcement.
I also wanted to add that I accept that the majority of whites are intractably racist. But for one brief shining moment they really tried but Clinton reached for the reliable old narrative and resumed course. Once the genie was released it couldn't be contained.
DV...
"Someone, please explain this to me ..."
Simple, DV:
Mommy will take care of everything.
Magic and Los Angeles billionaire Ron Burkle have a deal going right now and Burkle is very close to the Clintons.
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