Politics is 10 percent policy and 90 percent appearance, and Mr. Sharpton's appearance is no match for that of Mr. Obama. But even of restrict ourselves for policy only, what is wrong with Mr. Obama? Actually, I pretty much appreciate the fact that he is fairly liberal yet avoids pandering to the lumpen- and criminal loving fringe that Mr. Sharpton tends to do.
I think I made myself quite clear on this list that I am against fraternizing with the lumpen and criminal elements, and I am pretty much against any policy that panders to such fraternization. The only policies toward these elements that I do support are those aiming at eliminating that social stratum altogether and integrating it to the mainstream society. So why is my attitude toward Mr. Sharpton's populism any surprise?
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Wojtek, I've been around the block with you, so to speak, on several issues so I don't expect anything I write now to have a significant impact (or really, any impact at all). Indeed, you might become insulted, as happens from time to time, and simply not reply at all.
Still, there are others -- both active listmembers and lurkers -- who might be interested in this back and forth so let's go through it.
....
Your response fascinates me because it mirrors the usual reasons I hear for supporting Senator Obama: he's 'clean', he's 'presentable', he's 'well spoken' and so on.
Of course, I don't object to a smooth appearance - Indeed, I'd be a hypocrite if I did since I try to look, sound, smell and even write my best as often as possible.
Still, these characteristics take on a strangely magical power when applied to Senator Obama. The unspoken part of the formula -- the part you were honest enough to bring to the fore -- is that these qualities are super plus good in a Black candidate because other such men are, presumably, "lumpen" supporting messes a'la Sharpton.
Or at least Sharpton as you see him.
And speaking of lumpen...
This is a word you toss around quite freely. Yes, I know the precise definition so I don't need a refresher course. I'm more interested, actually, in understanding your own interpretation of lumpen in the contemporary American context.
You say that Sharpton appeals to, and fraternizes with "the lumpen and criminal elements." I suppose we can easily define "criminal elements" as people who've made a career out of preying on others. I'll set that aside as uncontroversial, for the sake of argument.
But your use of lumpen is perplexing. Who's included?
Does merely being poor and lightly educated place one within your lumpen camp? Or is it more behaviorally based? If so, what are the defining behaviors?
Are upper middle class suburbanites who reject evolution and home school their kids to believe that dinosaur bones were placed here by Satan to fool humanity (or, alternatively, that dinosaurs and humans coexisted on a 6000 year old Earth) included? Or, owing to their neat houses and high income, are they in some different category of unfortunates?
Finally, regarding policy-based objections to Obama....
This Black Agenda Report published essay (and just for the record, BAR is not a "populist" or "lumpen" outfit -- at least it isn't as near as I can tell using your definitions) offers what I think is a solidly constructed argument against Obama fever.
Black America's Real Issue with Barack Obama
by Bruce Dixon
Both Barack Obama's Republican opponents and the centrist Democrats who support his presidential candidacy agree on one thing. They all agree that black opinion on the senator is both uninformed and irrelevant.
To hear the mainstream media, black dissatisfaction with Senator Obama is all about his black African father, his white American mother, his light complexion and his Columbia and Harvard Law degrees. The day after Rush Limbaugh called the senator a "half-frican" on the air, the term was in the mouths of ignorant black talk show hosts in multiple cities. Black America was then admonished and chided by white Republicans and Democrats of all colors for not embracing Senator Obama based on some foolish standard of black authenticity.
This is a racist calumny and slur of the first magnitude against all of black America. Our people have never rejected leading figures because of light complexions, immigrant parents or advanced degrees. Black America emphatically did not reject Thurgood Marshall or W.E.B. DuBois, or Julian Bond or Adam Clayton Powell. Nor did the movement turn away immigrants like Stokley Carmichael or Roger Toussaint. Black opposition to Barack Obama on account of his parentage and Harvard Law degree is every bit as much a fabricated political issue as the wall to wall coverage of Anna Nicole Smith's death and family issues are fabricated news. Both are served up to us by the same mainstream media, and for similar reasons.
In many quarters of black America there are sane, solid and sensible reasons for black voters to question whether Barack Obama will represent them at all. Many remember that his first act as a US Senator was to refuse to stand with the Congressional Black Caucus and California Senator Barbara Boxer in opposition to Ohio's nullification of hundreds of thousands of black votes. Obama's second, third and fourth significant acts were when he declined to ask any difficult, pointed or revealing questions of Condoleezza Rice and two of the president's disastrous Supreme Court nominees, and he actually voted for two out of three of these. Obama's sixth and seventh important acts as a senator were to vote for a bill that made it nearly impossible for ordinary people to sue giant corporations who rob, defraud, maim or kill, and another vote to renew the hated Patriot Act which he vigorously campaigned against. And though Senator Obama now claims to oppose the war in Iraq, he remains advocate of bombing Iran to start yet another.
[...]
Link -
<http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=81>