i swear. you guys live in isolated little bubbles amongst people who think just like you -- or well within a range of leftish-thought. because it never occurs to any of you that it might be a good idea to keep leftist criticism under my hat.
but worse, none of you can fathom that criticism -- harsh -- of obama doesn't entail support for clinton. or even that harsh criticism of obama might entail pushing people along whatever progressive -- or smidge of progressive -- path they might be wobbling on.
i'm not going to vote for the guy, because i don't typically vote for a major party candidate. i have been voting for some commie since 1988. i strayed from that once, when i vote traded.
but what also gets me is that none of you have the sense that it is really is possible to not care one way or another, to truly seem them both as despicable and, therefore, to have no compunctions about encouraging along people who are already going to vote for obama anyway. because, see, i didn't encourage him to vote for obama. he didn't need me for that. i encouraged him to get off his lazy ass.
when i'm at work or at a user group meeting or whatever, i'm going to do what i can to advance the conversation in a critical way. so when my workmates get all gah gah about obama, i tend to be non-commital, jaded (as I am) but am not judgmental, because I rrilly rilly want to know what they think, what makes them tick, why they are for obama or clinton or who ever. Sometimes I report it here.
like with my friend, anthony, the guy i mentioned. he was a clinton fan early on. he's the one who told me that clinton was a good president b/c he was for black people. he was the one who repeated toni morrison's line about clinton being our first black president. when he was for clinton, and gave me those reasons, i asked him what he meant. he explained. i asked him to school me as to why clinton had been good for black folks. etc. i figured, he being one of those black folk, he ought to know. and it was hardly white chick's place to educate him otherwise, except maybe in the most baby steps kinds of ways.
when obama became a viable candidate, anthony changed his mind -- like nearly everyone i work with found themselves switching. duh. now, i ask him to school me as to why obama. he happens to be the only person at work to whom i've let on that i'm a member of http://www.apscuhuru.org/. i haven't dropped the whole idea on him yet, i think socialism would freak him out right now.
do you guys live in such bubbles that you can't fathom having to keep that to yourself, lest you get branded in the workplace -- unpromotable, not suited for management, bad fit, unemployable?
when a black woman tells me she's voting clinton or wishes nancy pelosi was running, i respond the same way -- asking about why, isn't clinton the same as obama? why nancy pelosi? would she be different than the other two?
i'm not interested in being some tool for the democratic party as max, charles, and julio are. i'll leave that to you professionals. i'm more interested in letting people know that there are others out there with whom they can think critically about the world we live in. what i hope to do with folks I encounter is get them involved and thinking more. a lot of people are starved for interesting discussions of topical issues (and a lot aren't and could not care less about politics, preferring to talk the latest episode of am. idol). my agitation comes in that form: baby steps, baby steps. i sure as shit am not interested in shoving radical socialist politics down their throat.
but, hey, enjoy your bubble.
At 06:11 PM 5/6/2008, shag wrote:
>asshole. i've been advocating for obama with my coworkers since day one. i
>come here to gripe about him. both of you can FOAD
>
>At 05:31 PM 5/6/2008, Julio Huato wrote:
> >Charles Brown wrote:
> >
> > > It's not fine to keep on using terms like "Obamania" [...]
> >
> >There is not an Obamaniac list nor an Obamaphobe list -- there's the
> >LBO-Talk list!
> >
> > > Sometimes you gotta fight fire with fire, brother, call a spade a
> > > spade. What we do around here is political criticism.
> >
> >The profound mistake of Charles' postings is not that he speaks about
> >Obamaphobia in our list. It's that he speaks of it as if our list was
> >static; as if no progress could be made -- as if shag, in spite of
> >all, hadn't started to advocate for Obama with her co-workers.
> >
> >However, I can no more disown Charles than I can disown the rest of
> >the list. For years, here and in PEN-L, Charles -- as imperfect as he
> >may be -- has been like family to me. With his continuous challenges
> >to my intellect, he's made me better. He has strengthened my belief
> >in the socialist future of the human race. Not once in the notes he's
> >posted have I read him impute motives to anybody in derogatory terms,
> >or treat list members with whom he interacted with anything but
> >courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions -- the
> >good and the bad -- of this list.
> >
> >(c) Julio Huato, 2008
> >___________________________________
> >http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
>http://cleandraws.com
>Wear Clean Draws
>('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)
>
>___________________________________
>http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
http://cleandraws.com Wear Clean Draws ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)