[lbo-talk] black man? Are you kidding me?

[wrobert at uci.edu]

I happily accept the title of rural idiot.  Could you work in an anlogy to
potatoes in your next posting?  However, I should note that you missed the
point of my posting.  I didn't make an argument about the importance of
the election.  Instead, I made an argument about the attempt to present
Obama as a representative of some sort of social movement.  I still hold
that he is a fairly conventional candidate.  I don't see anything in your
post that would contradict this assertion.  If there is some evidence
beyond abuse that would challenge my view, I am certainly willing to
listen to it, but if you are going to focus on the empty abuse contained
in this piece, I request that you work in the potatoes.

robert wood, an infantile disorder

PS  I should also note that I made no statement about the tactical value
of voting for Obama, but that is another question.


> Only  racist rural idiocy--self-imposed for the most part, it would seem--
> would let people think that all that could be new and important about
> Obama's candidacy is his blackness, he otherwise being--so Robert Wood
> cluelessly says-- a run of the mill politician running an efficient
> campaign.  This is an election about the US position in the world, and
> most of the world's citizens cannot vote. Start from there. There has
> probably been a 1000 times more comments on this list about Obama's
> relationship to American blacks and poor than his foreign policy
> differences with Hilary Clinton. This probably has something to do with
> the hold of race over the imagination of the left. Or more accurately the
> racism and the popuist nationalism of the left. Obama is not only a black
> man. But that's what people see first here. As for Obama's identity... he
> is the only statesperson running for office.
> Looking over some of the posts on Obama's candidacy, I see that neither
> supporters nor critics understand what is most important about this
> election; why this election is world-historically important; and why there
> is now as there was between Gore and Bush much more than a dime's worth of
> difference.
>