>>> "Dwayne Monroe"
CB:The word was "danger" ( see thread title)
...........
Actually, the "danger" in the title is in reference to the "mania" on the right side of the hypen, not to Obama himself - e.g., "Obama-mania: where is the true danger?" Obama is not the danger, unthinking faith in his Success through Neoliberalism gospel - and the effect SUPPORT for this program is having on Black American politics and, by extension, progressive politics as a whole - is the danger.
^^^^ CB: In the post you initially replied to I had said:
"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"
"the effect SUPPORT for this program is having on Black American politics"
and
" threat to lead the Black political community astray"
seem roughly the same ideas.
^^^^^^^
CB:I'm not sure what you are saying is clear ( nor that flares will clarify it). What are "null politics"?
.......
When someone (such as Wojtek, that beslubbering motley-minded clack-dish) says that the proper course for Black Americans is to 'stop complaining about racism, cops, prisons, etc' and move "beyond race" and "ghetto politics" to embrace the "opportunities of America" they are presenting a null - or de-fanged - political program as being a great leap forward. This is Potemkin village politics: decay is papered over, only happy talk of the success which lies ahead is permitted.
^^^^^ CB: ok . I pretty much agree with that. Did you think I was saying the same thing as Woj ? See here what I say :
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20080107/000614.html
^^^^^ Dwayne: Analysis, debate, dissection, activism - gone. Now, we're only to have "hope". If I receive a diagnosis of a terrible illness, should I try to understand it and take whatever counter-measures are available?
Or, should I "think positive" and talk as if the illness is the consequence of my inability to 'move past illness'?
^^^^^
CB':" Keep hope alive " is a traditional progressive slogan of the last twenty years. See what I said here:
CB: Ok, so the Black voters have not quite been a fully soc dem voting bloc all these years, and so there is not much danger that a Charles Barron's supporting Big-O represents a disintegration of a soc dem voting bloc ? It's a bit overstated to claim O is leading Black people astray. If Black people vote for O, I'm sure they'll still vote for a soc dem if she becomes a real contender for president or some other office in the future.
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20080107/000608.html
^^^^^
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Either the US faces an illness or it doesn't. This illness can either be confronted, head on, or swept under the rug to make discourse smooth and easy. By stating that the illness doesn't exist, the Obama Machine is performing an act of nullification - a rhetorical negation of unpleasant reality.
And yet, despite this nullity, this simulacrum,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra
it is in fact still a very political act. Which makes it what I'm calling 'null politics' (though perhaps, on second thought, the 'politics of nullification' might fit the situation better).
.d.
^^^^ CB: A big step in curing the illness of racism would be if white people just started voting for Black , Brown, Red and Yellow people , in a lot of races. If they do it based on the candidates of color "not playing the race card", it's ok.
By the way, nullification was a segregationist, states rights theory and cause. See below
nullification - The legal theory that a U.S. State has the right to nullify, or invalidate, any federal law which that state has deemed unconstitutional