[lbo-talk] Barack Obama

Michael Dawson mdawson at pdx.edu
Sun Nov 7 09:30:10 PST 2004


One other thing, Kelley: Do you notice how super-individualist Yoshie and Carrol are? The most obvious reason to court rather than castigate Obama is that he's black and urban and not too hostile to liberalism. To somebody with a sociological/materialist mind, that would tend to make you hope that his ascent could serve to mobilize the black community to become more involved and participatory and demanding. Personally, when I read polls and interviews of African-Americans' political desires and beliefs, I feel like my own voice is largely right there, too, despite my pigmentation deficiency.

But neither Leninism nor its modern step-child, the "organizing" fetish, were ever very comfortable with admitting that history happens and collective conditions exert as much influence as 1,000 Lenins or "MWM" charades.

-----Original Message----- From: lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org [mailto:lbo-talk-bounces at lbo-talk.org] On Behalf Of snit snat Sent: Sunday, November 07, 2004 9:06 AM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org; lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Barack Obama

At 11:48 AM 11/7/2004, Jeffrey Fisher wrote:
>um . . . was my response unjustified?
>
>you're right. it IS boring. and more than being boring, it's
>counterproductive. which is why i'm tired of hearing the old "his
>religion makes me uncomfortable" lines. we need to stay focused.
>
>and unlike kelley, i'm not yet prepared to cut obama loose and say
>he's nothing but another reactionary. the first rule of organizing i
>learned is to "meet people where they're at [sic]". maybe we'd like
>obama to be further left, but he's running for statewide office in
>illinois.


:)

damn it! i'm not saying that either! I'm saying that his view are the most progressive views--on the domestic front--we have and he articulates them in a way people need to hear--that resonates with u.s. moral tranditions. what robert bellah et al. called civic individualism. my response to carrol's claims about his Iran policy was simply, "so?, that wasn't my question." Yoshie's response was equally inane because I'd already indicated that, of course, we weren't going to find perfection. we ahve to work with the "struggles and wishes of the age" and that means finding the most progressive struggles and advancing them, instead of despising them every lovin' minute because the people who side with those struggles aren't pure leftists.

OK. i need to shut this thing down and not look at this list any more.

"We live under the Confederacy. We're a podunk bunch of swaggering pious hicks."

--Bruce Sterling

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