At 07:26 PM 11/12/2008, ken hanly wrote:
>Butler says:
>First, let us remember that Obama has not explicitly supported gay
>marriage rights
>
> I understand he explicitly supports civil unions but not gay marriage.
>
>Barack Obama and Gay Marriage/ Civil Unions:
>Although Barack Obama has said that he supports civil unions, he is
>against gay marriage. In an interview with the Chicago Daily Tribune,
>Obama said, "I'm a Christian. And so, although I try not to have my
>religious beliefs dominate or determine my political views on this issue,
>I do believe that tradition, and my religious beliefs say that marriage is
>something sanctified between a man and a woman."
>
>http://lesbianlife.about.com/od/lesbianactivism/p/BarackObama.htm
>
>
>Blog: http://kenthink7.blogspot.com/index.html
>Blog: http://kencan7.blogspot.com/index.html
>
>
>--- On Wed, 11/12/08, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> > From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
> > Subject: [lbo-talk] Judith Butler on Obama
> > To: "lbo-talk" <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
> > Date: Wednesday, November 12, 2008, 3:21 PM
> > [Thanks to Lou Proyect for pointing this out.]
> >
> > <http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/11/05/18549195.php>
> >
> > Uncritical Exuberance?
> > by Judith Butler
> > Wednesday Nov 5th, 2008 7:19 PM
> >
> > This became most salient in the emergence of the counter
> > Bradley-effect, when voters could and did explicitly own up
> > to their own racism, but said they would vote for Obama
> > anyway. Anecdotes from the field include claims like the
> > following: "I know that Obama is a Muslim and a
> > Terrorist, but I will vote for him anyway; he is probably
> > better for the economy." Such voters got to keep their
> > racism and vote for Obama, sheltering their split beliefs
> > without having to resolve them.
> > Very few of us are immune to the exhilaration of this time.
> > My friends on the left write to me that they feel something
> > akin to "redemption" or that "the country has
> > been returned to us" or that "we finally have one
> > of us in the White House." Of course, like them, I
> > discover myself feeling overwhelmed with disbelief and
> > excitement throughout the day, since the thought of having
> > the regime of George W. Bush over and gone is an enormous
> > relief. And the thought of Obama, a thoughtful and
> > progressive black candidate, shifts the historical ground,
> > and we feel that cataclysm as it produces a new terrain. But
> > let us try to think carefully about the shifted terrain,
> > although we cannot fully know its contours at this time. The
> > election of Barack Obama is historically significant in ways
> > that are yet to be gauged, but it is not, and cannot be, a
> > redemption, and if we subscribe to the heightened modes of
> > identification that he proposes ("we are all
> > united") or that we propose ("he is one of
> > us"), we risk believing that this political moment can
> > overcome the antagonisms that are constitutive of political
> > life, especially political life in these times. There have
> > always been good reasons not to embrace "national
> > unity" as an ideal, and to nurse suspicions toward
> > absolute and seamless identification with any political
> > leader. After all, fascism relied in part on that seamless
> > identification with the leader, and Republicans engage this
> > same effort to organize political affect when, for instance,
> > Elizabeth Dole looks out on her audience and says, "I
> > love each and every one of you."
> >
> > It becomes all the more important to think about the
> > politics of exuberant identification with the election of
> > Obama when we consider that support for Obama has coincided
> > with support for conservative causes. In a way, this
> > accounts for his "cross-over" success. In
> > California, he won by 60% of the vote, and yet some
> > significant portion of those who voted for him also voted
> > against the legalization of gay marriage (52%). How do we
> > understand this apparent disjunction? First, let us remember
> > that Obama has not explicitly supported gay marriage rights.
> > Further, as Wendy Brown has argued, the Republicans have
> > found that the electorate is not as galvanized by
> > "moral" issues as they were in recent elections;
> > the reasons given for why people voted for Obama seem to be
> > predominantly economic, and their reasoning seems more fully
> > structured by neo-liberal rationality than by religious
> > concerns. This is clearly one reason why Palin's
> > assigned public function to galvanize the majority of the
> > electorate on moral issues finally failed. But if
> > "moral" issues such as gun control, abortion
> > rights and gay rights were not as determinative as they once
> > were, perhaps that is because they are thriving in a
> > separate compartment of the political mind. In other words,
> > we are faced with new configurations of political belief
> > that make it possible to hold apparently discrepant views at
> > the same time: someone can, for instance, disagree with
> > Obama on certain issues, but still have voted for him. This
> > became most salient in the emergence of the counter
> > Bradley-effect, when voters could and did explicitly own up
> > to their own racism, but said they would vote for Obama
> > anyway. Anecdotes from the field include claims like the
> > following: "I know that Obama is a Muslim and a
> > Terrorist, but I will vote for him anyway; he is probably
> > better for the economy." Such voters got to keep their
> > racism and vote for Obama, sheltering their split beliefs
> > without having to resolve them.
> >
> > Along with strong economic motivations, less empirically
> > discernible factors have come into play in these election
> > results. We cannot underestimate the force of
> > dis-identification in this election, a sense of revulsion
> > that George W. has "represented" the United States
> > to the rest of the world, a sense of shame about our
> > practices of torture and illegal detention, a sense of
> > disgust that we have waged war on false grounds and
> > propagated racist views of Islam, a sense of alarm and
> > horror that the extremes of economic deregulation have led
> > to a global economic crisis. Is it despite his race, or
> >
>___________________________________
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