I missed Bill Clinton’s speech last night so I went to CNN and played it this morning. I loved it. The speech strengthened my commitment to vote for a Democrat rather than a Republican, to welcome Hillary’s 18 million and to leverage their work breaking down the ceiling of glass that separates white women of privilege from leadership positions reserved for their male counterparts. We can leverage that barrier-busting energy to tear down the wall of American apartheid, because while there is obviously a glass ceiling that keeps women out of board rooms and executive offices, there is also a wall that has — up until now — separated white Americans from “colored” Americans.
Over the last fifty years or so, that wall has been breached many times. Exceptional “people of color” have found places at the top of their professions, shared power with whites and helped to erode that bitter legacy of centuries of racism, of chattel slavery, of genocide as a policy for subduing the continent. Barack Obama will be one more of these, an exemplar of the meritocracy that governs success within our democracy. We must help him to succeed because he is among the best of us. We don’t owe him the shot because he is non-white any more than we owed Hillary the shot because she is female. No, we require his service now because he is prepared to initiate the policy changes necessary for a broad improvement of our shared circumstances.
Yesterday I listened to Ishmael Reed, Alice Walker, and Maya Angelou discussing Obama and the promise of his presidency. All agreed that the historical moment is significant for African-Americans, but Reed was the least up-beat. Walker has been on-board with Barack from the beginning. Angelou had a short distance to travel, shifting her support from Hillary to Barack. But like me, Reed remembers the Clintons, the 1.4 million Iraqi dead by the end of Bill’s first term, the Democrats’ support for the Unocal pipeline in Burma in 1996… the list goes on.
What’s good for the ruling elite may seem palatable in the short term, but in the long term it’s not often what’s best for the country or for the people of the world. Barack Obama is a progressive Democrat. I want to see him elected, but let’s not forget: he’s a Democrat… not a Green, not a Socialist… a Democrat. I sent him fifty bucks today. The more small contributions he receives, the less beholden he will be to the corporate power structure and the global oligarchy. The more progressive Democrats we elect, the better our chances to build a real democracy some day.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Charles Follymacher 08.29.08 at 5:33
hear, here! now, now!
Doug Alder 08.29.08 at 8:31
I was more than a little disappointed when I heard Obama say that part of his route to energy independence was “clean” coal and nuclear. As far as I’m concerned when you add that to his FISA flip flop and his wishy washy stance on choice, I don’t think you folks are in for as much change as you are hoping for. For sure he’s better than Bush and McSame, and were I an American I’d be out stumping for him, but he’s not the progressive everyone seems to think he is. There’s no such thing as “clean” coal, maybe he’s afraid of losing the working class votes in the Appalachian coal mining states.
As I wrote over at my place today I fear what will happen, disillusionment, apathy, to all those newly energized volunteers and newly committed Democrats that came into the fold because of his sweet rhetoric when he turns out to only be marginally better than what came before. His pick of Biden illustrated his commitment to the old Washington. Yes I know it gave him creds for foreign policy etc but Biden was the main proponent of that foul bankruptcy bill that got passed, thanks to the influence of the credit card companies who have contributed considerably to his campaigns. It’s stretching the term to call a hawk like Biden a progressive.
Frank Paynter 08.29.08 at 10:06
It will be interesting to see how the Obama administration shakes out. By NOT vetoing progressive legislation, and by proposing progressive domestic policies he will have the potential to be a great president. Perhaps in eight or ten years the corporate power elite will be tamed. Perhaps education will be improved. Perhaps health insurance will become a universal entitlement.
A pacifist like me may be frustrated by the use of military power that Obama promises, but perhaps these brush-fire wars will be less egregious than Bush’s adventure in Iraq, and perhaps the arms manufacturers will have less say in foreign policy. Perhaps their revenues will decline while the public investment in infrastructure projects increases.
That’s a lot of maybes. The critical challenge is to get Obama/Biden to the executive branch and elect solid majorities in the House and Senate. If we can do this, then certainly our Supreme Court can be wrested from the hands of the radical Chicago school/natural law advocates who are perilously close to dominating it today.
Doug Alder 08.30.08 at 8:08
I don’t disagree with you Frank, it’s the only course of action open with which to ameliorate the damage done these last 8 years.