>I'm not sure what you mean when you say that "for these purposes,
>the 'black community' largely excludes that portion of the black
>population that votes Democratic and goes to church." Who is doing
>the excluding? WBAI?
Yes, and people who talk like that generally. Including our very own Carrol Cox, who talks about the necessity of following black leadership, but never so far as voting Democratic. I've asked him many times to explain this contradiction, but so far he's refused.
>As for "people who know what they're talking about - who have a body
>of expertise, skill at analysis, and some sense of style to make it
>all appealing," I'm not sure what sort of people you have in your
>mind either. You find Reagan, Clinton, O'Reilly, and the like worth
>watching for us to learn from their styles, but I don't find their
>styles all that appealing.
Wow, is that ever tendentiously selective. I said Reagan managed to appropriate a lot of left language and feeling - justice, hope, possibility, liberation - for the right. Other than that, he was, in Christopher Hitchens' memorable phrase, a vicious ignoramus. O'Reilly is a very talented TV talk show host that anyone who does left media can learn from. And Clinton, whatever you think of his politics, was quite well-informed, intelligent, and rhetorically skilled. He talked rings around Amy Goodman in their famous interview, for example.
>You repeatedly mentioned "Stanley's stained shirt" -- it must have
>annoyed the hell out of you, if it was so memorable.
It's stupid to campaign for public office while looking like a slob. Anyone with a rudimentary sense of audience would know that.
Doug