>On Fri, 25 Jan 2008, Max B. Sawicky wrote:
>
> > I see it as just the opposite. BHO is to the left of HRC on most
> > everything. And HRC has demonstrated less trustworthyness. I'm doing a
> > piece on this now.
>
>Please post it when you do! So far on this list that position has zero
>defenders. We'd be fascinated to see your case and to see a man of your
>caliber defend it. And if it's true, it'll certainly be a much simpler
>explanation of why so many people seem to think that, which has thus far
>been baffling us.
>
>Michael
well, very few people actually study someone's policy proposals or ask about who his advisors are. they listen to snippets of speeches and absorb things on t.v. In that case, a detailed analysis of policy isn't going to explain what's going on. Carl will love this, as I think a blogger, voyou, got it right when she unpacked the rhetoric in the MLK speech. Carl will love it because it is similar to Walter Benn Michael's argument, though she draws her inspiration from the pomos -- much as Ange, at archive.blogsome.com does.
First, a snip from the speech (there's more at the link below for fuller context):
But of course, true unity cannot be so easily won. It starts with a change in attitudes – a broadening of our minds, and a broadening of our hearts.
It's not easy to stand in somebody else's shoes. It's not easy to see past our differences. We've all encountered this in our own lives. But what makes it even more difficult is that we have a politics in this country that seeks to drive us apart – that puts up walls between us.
We are told that those who differ from us on a few things are different from us on all things; that our problems are the fault of those who don't think like us or look like us or come from where we do. The welfare queen is taking our tax money. The immigrant is taking our jobs. The believer condemns the non-believer as immoral, and the non-believer chides the believer as intolerant.
So let us say that on this day of all days, each of us carries with us the task of changing our hearts and minds. The division, the stereotypes, the scape-goating, the ease with which we blame our plight on others – all of this distracts us from the common challenges we face – war and poverty; injustice and inequality. We can no longer afford to build ourselves up by tearing someone else down. We can no longer afford to traffic in lies or fear or hate. It is the poison that we must purge from our politics; the wall that we must tear down before the hour grows too late.
Because if Dr. King could love his jailor; if he could call on the faithful who once sat where you do to forgive those who set dogs and fire hoses upon them, then surely we can look past what divides us in our time, and bind up our wounds, and erase the empathy deficit that exists in our hearts.
Voyou writes:
Look at the extraordinary care with which Obama guides us here, and the fundamental duplicity of his message. He moves from King's message of unity as solidarity in the face of oppression, to an idea of unity as empathy with the oppressors. He redescribes King's ideology of struggle, in which unity depends on knowing who your enemy is, as an ideology of empathy, in which there are no antagonisms to be overcome, just differences to be resolved through understanding. <http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=8200e5c2-a250-4532-b318-6182083b698e&p=3>A rather horrible article in the New Republic describes Obama as practicing "anti-identity politics," but this gets things the wrong way round: Obama is the fulfillment of identity politics, in that his idea of unity is only possible on the basis of an ideology that substitutes identity (distinguishing characteristics that must be respected) for politics (a difference that forms the basis for struggle).
http://blog.voyou.org/2008/01/21/i-hate-barak-obama-a-post-for-mlk-day/
http://cleandraws.com Wear Clean Draws ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)