On Mon, 17 Mar 2008, Dwayne Monroe wrote:
> My own position, expressed here -
>
> <http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/pipermail/lbo-talk/Week-of-Mon-20080107/000587.html>
>
> follows the lead of Black Agenda Report's Glen Ford who, in an
> interview with Doug (see url above) and, at BAR
> (blackagendareport.com), details his reasons.
I have to say, I have a lot of respect for Glen Ford, but I didn't understand this position of his when he propounded it on Doug's show. I have two problems with it. Perhaps you can explain.
First, the black community has given overwhelming knee jerk support to the Democratic party for decades. It always gives the Dems over 90% support no matter who they run. If that hasn't interfered with black activists being progressive for the last 40 years, why should it interfere now?
On the face of it, it seems the black political activist community has always been perfectly able to think along two parallel tracks, voting for the Dem candidate as slightly less bad for black people and slightly more responsive to demands, and then going back to their practice of organizing the people and demanding far more than any Dem is willing to give.
So why would Obama stop this practice? Any more than Clinton would? Or any more than Bill Clinton did before? I don't get it. If voting for the DLC candidate 15 years ago didn't paralyze the black activist community, why should voting for one now?
This brings us to point 2: the anecdote Ford gives doesn't seem on its face to support his points about enthusiasm and delusion. In his story, Charles Barron comes on to say he's endorsing Obama. Glen Ford tells him all his objections, about O being a corporate clone of Clinton. Barron can't defend O as being any better than Clinton, but finally says "I just want to give the brother a chance." I.e., there's no difference between Clinton and Obama, and given no difference he'll take the black man.
That's mind-numbing enthusiasm? That sounds as mild an endorsement as you can get.
Furthermore, later in the Doug interview, Ford returns to this anecdote to say that Barron "admitted every point" -- which I take to mean he was under no delusions as to what Obama's positions were, he understood them as well as Ford.
So I don't see (a) any difference from past practice (b) any evidence that there is any delusion among black activists about who O is, or (c) any mechanism by which electing O will somehow "paralyze" the black activist community -- will somehow make them give up their radicalness in some way that voting for Bill Clinton didn't. Or Dukakis, or Mondale, or Jimmy Carter. Or Hillary Clinton.
What am I missing?
Michael