Sphewww ! Thank you Hillary Clinton for helping us take a step back from the danger of a big-O presidency.
LBO-talk held strong with a color-blind critique of Democrats in the face of the O threat to lead the Black political community astray,
..............
Sigh.
Why is it so very hard to stay focused? Chuck Grimes tried to answer that question here:
<http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20071231/000361.html>
A good effort, but I'm still frustrated by the stubborn refusal of some of my colleagues to get the point - not necessarily agree mind you, just deal with the thing being examined and not some shadow puppet of the thing.
And listen CB, I know (or hope) that you're joking but now that you've put this caricature out there for the world to see and mistake for the real I have a pressing need to reply.
...
No one - or at least, no one worth listening to - has written or said or thought or electronically transmitted any statements which could accurately be interpreted to mean that we fear an Obama presidency - which most consider unlikely anyway - on the face of it - i.e., because of Obama himself.
What's feared - and I'd argue what's being seen - is the transformation of actual political thought and action into what I'm going to call the Empty Narrative of Success. No sharp Black political thinker/activist has any trouble recognizing this when it's dressed in a televangelical suit.
When, for example, Creflo Dollar (wiki the name if you're unfamiliar) preaches a "Prosperity theology", alert Black thinkers specifically, and left leaning observers in general have zero tolerance for the phony rhetoric and keen insights into the de-politicizing aspects of this pie-in-the-skyism.
But when a similarly airy program, secularized and given corporate blessing, is trotted out by a highly visible Black politician it's declared to be a very good thing - the necessary next step, Wojtek (that bitter creature of bombast) asserts, of Black politics. The goodness ranges from the satisfaction of seeing White people vote for a Black candidate to a weepy belief in an onrushing era of dramatic "change".
As I stated yesterday (And Odin's eye! Could I have been any clearer!? Perhaps signal flares or strippers wearing placards are needed?) the threat of null politics posing as actual politics now exists regardless of the Obama campaign's chances. A template has been created.
Obama is now the face of this thing but it won't end with him and his presidential bid.
Again, it isn't necessary to agree but at least be sporting enough to address the actual argument on the table.
.d.