Barack Obama's Next Challenge, If He Dares To Be Really Honest

[Demeter]

THE FIFTH COLUMNIST by P.M. Carpenter

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/carpenter/022

Once, during the commodity-rationing days of the Second World War, Eleanor Roosevelt publicly mentioned that the White House might substitute salads for desserts to help conserve unrationed sugar and hence keep it that way, which promptly caused a run on sugar, which thereby forced its unscheduled rationing. Later, the puzzled, Congressionally chastised and somewhat shaken first lady commented, "It never crossed my mind that you couldn't tell the American people the truth and count on them to behave themselves accordingly."

Eleanor, of course, knew better than that. She spent an adult lifetime diplomatically and necessarily hedging on what she knew to be much harsher truths about American society, especially those that conflicted with hidebound attitudes about race. Her husband was not unsympathetic; just presidentially wary of offending white voters and all those powerful Southern pols who held the legislative future of his New Deal and the war's prosecution in their grubby, racist little hands.
Better to step gingerly, very gingerly and with very, very small steps at that. That was the smart political move, because both Eleanor and Franklin knew they could not, in fact, tell the American people the whole truth and count on them to behave themselves accordingly. And so it has been with minor exceptions since the mid-20th century, and well before that, of course.

Not only race, but issues of gender, the fair distribution of wealth, America's proper role in the world, fiscal intelligence ... One could go on and on, listing all the things that smart politicians avoid telling the truth about. The "why" has already been answered. They got where they are by not telling the truth, by not trusting the American people, by not counting on them to behave themselves and to do the right thing.

And now comes Barack Obama, who surely felt as shaken as Eleanor Roosevelt in the wake of the nation's outcry over a few mostly truthful words about America's role in the world. It was as though he had spoken the words himself; and he could have, but in far more diplomatic terms. It was merely the harshness of the original words that shocked -- their theme, rephrased and softly spoken as a Press Club lecture, on the need for soft American power over hard would have gone down with little notice and absolutely no uproar. That's what those original words were fundamentally about: not black liberation, but national liberation -- the blownback consequences of our international arrogance and one region's monstrously executed suggestion that we start thinking about changing course. For our own good, as well as others. But they were spoken by a black preacher, whose church was attended by this black politician, hence the latter's response was culturally defined and necessarily confined to the meaning of blackness in America, and not the meaning of America, period.
Sen. Obama went, it would seem, as far as he could go. As he composed his responding speech he scratched his head more than once, I'm sure, asking himself why he was writing only about racial miseries -- which we can do nothing about overnight and which the good reverend was not, in reality, addressing -- rather than tackling the enormously pregnant question of imperial miseries -- which we can at least begin reversing on January 20, 2009....

[FrenchieCat]

1. I think that he's actually multi tasking.....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=347801&mesg_id=347801

something hard to do in this environmnent of politics of personal destruction!

[MADem]

2. It wasn't "as though he had spoken the words himself" though. That isn't the real issue.

If he regularly attended a lecture series by this Reverend Wright on "race issues," fine. But this is the kind of stuff the Reverend tossed from the pulpit of a house of worship on a Sunday...with kids in the pews.

The problem is that this sort of "sermonizing" doesn't square with the flyover states' image of "Jesus loves me" pastoral guidance from the pulpit. THAT's what the problem is. That Obama has been going to CHURCH for twenty years, and listening to this stuff.

If he attended a lecture series at the U of Chicago every week and heard the same stuff, it wouldn't be the same issue.

The third rail here isn't just RACE...it's the intersection of RACE and FAITH.

I also think the toss-away remark about his grandmother was ill-advised. It came across as though he was willing to sacrifice the reputation of the woman who, for all intents and purposes, raised him, for his own political ambition. Reverend Wright may be "like" a crazy old uncle, but Reverend Wright didn't give him his fucking lunch money in high school and pay for his food and school clothes. That bit about Granny in his little speech was a total clunker--it smacked of "anything to win." I wonder how that poor old lady feels, to be called a racist by the kid she raised?

I don't think the "chewing over" process with regard to the Rev. Wright and the Obama speech is done. I think it's going to bubble up, over and over again, in the months ahead. The congregants of Trinity UCC certainly seem interested in keeping the issue alive, for whatever reason...

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[acmavm]

4. Of course he's a fraud. HE didn't live the 'black experience' his preacher

rants and raves about. HE didn't live in the housing projects, skip meals because there was no food, worry about getting to school (or anywhere else for that matter) safely because of gang activity, he wasn't deprived of life's simple necessitities because of poverty. (Which, by the way is a way of life for the poor of ANY color). But for people to keep acting like this man is the poster boy for 'life in the ghetto' is ludicrous.

His claim to fame is that he's a great talker. That's it.

And I don't like Hillary either. This country has lost its mind. The media wanted drama and the public fell in line with their need to live out the soap opera scenario provided by said media, and this election got turned into one big affirmative action penny dreadful. Most people are sick and tired of this shit, it has been going on forever, and the democrats look like a bunch of fools. People here think this place is representative of the rest of the country and that their shrieks of 'I am right and you are stupid and blah blah blah' matter to the rest of the country. Well, they don't. You look at that 113,000 or whatever the number is registered member crap and you think that's how many people post here all the time. Shitloads are gone, never returning. A large number have been tombstoned. Some just come here and lurk. This is NOT the do or die place for politics in America. Some people just need to get over themselves. They have no right to tell others that their candidate should drop out. They are fooling themselves if they think their candidate has it in the bag. Because both these asses with their feelings of entitlement and their proven record of lying and doing whatever they think is necessary to win is going to give us four more years of the criminals in the republican party.

[JTFrog]

7. Because you only experience racism in the Ghetto.

But hey, that's not racist right?

[acmavm]

8. Listen slick, I grew up in the Pleasantview (what a joke) housing projects

at 30th & Parker Streets. I saw first hand what I am talking about. And you know what, us poor 'crackers' didn't have it any fucking better than the blacks in the row of apartments behind us. Or around us. We all watched the Ginn Gas Station get robbed at least once a week out our windows. We all shopped at the Market Basket where they ran a special on hamburber (3 pounds for a dollar) but couldn't afford chicken. I worked in the lunch room when I was in grade school because otherwise I'd do without. I didn't own a fucking pair of socks with a heel in it and milk in my family went to the youngest. No new clothes, the Salvation Army provided Thanksgiving Dinner and Christmas presents. Don't fucking try to tell me that Barrie lived that life. Don't try to tell me he even understands it. He doesn't. And neither do you I'll bet.

And I lived no different a lifestyle than a lot of my neighbors. And let me tell you, there's a shitload of racism coming from the other end of the color spectrum just like there is from the white side. So this continual bullshit scheme of recrimination and accusation does NO ONE any fucking good. And this bullshit line that only a BLACK MAN understands that way of life is just a line of bullshit people like you like to feed themselves because you don't know any better and are too fucking lazy, or too wrapped up in you own idea that you know it all, to discover that that's not the truth at all. Ignorance of what makes people have to live that way is what feeds the situation, keeps it going. Poverty walks no color line. The class system in America is the problem. Little white suburban housefraus who go shopping in their tennis dresses don't give a fuck how the kid in the projects live. And I suspect that wasn't a high priority in the Obama household either. Because he does't have a clue when it comes to what the real problems are that drive this issue. He just makes great speeches about it.

[JTFrog]

9. I grew up in the fucking ghetto. Ghetto ain't the only fucking place

that racism exists. I don't live in the ghetto anymore. I've lived on both sides. I saw more traumatic racist shit in the heart of Salt Lake City "white fucking suburbian" Utah than I did living in the heart of Long Beach.

POOR DOES NOT FUCKING EQUAL RACISM.

Obama is a BLACK AND WHITE MAN. He's been through it on both fucking sides. He wasn't born in the ghetto but he sure wasn't born with a silver spoon in his mouth. And he has lived in the poorest countries in the world.

You just go ahead and fool yourself that only you could understand what racism is and means because of your life experiences in the ghetto.

[acmavm]

12. Wow! I can just hear Elvis Presley singing background to your

whine.

"IN THE GHETTTTTTTTO"

I don't live their anymore either. I learned a long time ago that you have to find solutions, not keep up the eternal self-pitying bitching, griping, and hurling recriminations and accusations or else you are doomed never to get the fuck out. And that's all Wright and people like him have. A self-serving determination to keep digging that hole deeper, to bitch and gripe and accuse and claim the experience as their own, that no one else has ever had it as bad as they do/did. And nothing gets done because the resentment grows and grows and grows. And this election is gone because we got the race candidate on one side who thinks he's entitled to the office of the president of the US, and on the other side we have a woman who's nothing more than another DLC shill who's married to the guy who shoved NAFTA/CAFTA down our throats and who thinks that being female and Bill's wife makes her presidential material.

All I can say is hello pResident McCain.

[JTFrog]

14. Your holier than thou choir is drowning out Elvis..... who left the building a long time ago.

If you want to bitch about class divide go for it.

But your stereotyping is disgusting.

[acmavm]

15. Pffffft! The same old same old from an Obamite who just wants

people to think you know everything. And why? Because you say so.

If you think reality is stereotyping, then there's nothing that can be said to wise your ass up.

[JTFrog]

16. Project much? I wasn't the one claiming to know it all.

You were the one preaching about how your life experiences taught you more than all of us delusional people out there.

And the last time someone told me they were gonna try to wise my ass up didn't end well. So it's a good thing you feel there is nothing you can say to that end.

[acmavm]

18. Go away Froggie. It's painfully obvious that you have no comprehension

skills whatsoever. I didn't say I know more than everybody, I did say I actually lived a life that makes me understand that this constant hurling of bullshit accusations and recrimination won't solve a damn thing. And I can talk about my experience, my life. I don't care whether you like it or not. You and your opinion mean nothing to me. You've wrapped yourself up and tied your identity to a guy who's a complete and total fraud. A great speechmaker, but a total fraud none the less.

Obama goes from saying he never heard Wright give any inflammatory sermons to having to admit that, since he has been a member of the old racist's congregation for 20 years, yeah maybe he did. But not that PARTICULAR sermon. And that's the entire story of Obama. He has very dodgy relationship with the truth. He did't know Rezko either. Until it came out he's gotten a quarter of a million dollars from the guy in campaign contributions. Then he threw him under the bus. Like he did his Grandmother. The guy's only loyalty is to himself.

I pointed out that Mr. Obama never experienced the life that those of us who grew up in poverty and the projects did. But his followers, people like you, would like people to believe that he did. And that it's an experience that only black people can understand, which is absolute and utter bullshit. Of course interjecting that fact into the discussion will never go well with people like you because you want everyone to believe that he's the only person in this country worthy and ready, the only one with the 'magic' to cure our nations ills. The keeper of all the knowledge of what ails us as a country. The guy with the cure.

What a crock of bullshit.

[JTFrog]

19. You have no right to tell me to go away.

I don't believe in perfect politicians. I've been faced with voting for the lesser of two evils since I was old enough to vote.

From the ages of 6 to 10 he lived in Indonesia. Do you have some delusion that this was some luxury vacation? This was one of the poorest areas in the entire world.

He probably had some good years living with his grandparents in Hawaii. Did he then rush off to the ivy league and insert a silver spoon in his mouth? No he went to Los Angeles and attended Occidental College and worked his ass off to make it to Columbia. He was working as a community organizer before he made it to Harvard. He's has visited and lived in places that make the ghetto seem like paradise.

I think his story is pretty damn impressive myself.

You took a lot of time to tell me how my opinion means nothing to you. I'm not sure what that says about your credibility, but I just see you as a holier than thou poster who can't even recognize her own stereotyping.

[acmavm]

20. You're funny!

I'm sure Barrie really had to worry about where HIS next meal was going to come from. Or how long he'd have a roof over HIS head. He's black so that must be so.

And yeah, I'm stereotyping.

You're funny!

[MADem]

11. That's the John Edwards message--that message of poverty crossing all lines.

And you lived it.

Good posts--very descriptive and vivid. I can feel your experience through your words. :thumbsup:

[jbnow]

5. Wow, I hear this from

Buchanan and Scarborough but I guess I expected people here to suspect the media enough to figure the snips we heard over and over did not tell the whole story of the man, the sermons or the church.

I certainly hope the ""chewing over" process with regard to the Rev. Wright" is not done. The congregation of Trinity UCC should want to keep the issue alive and hope the media will look for the truth. Good Lord.

The clips the media repeated did sound racist and anti-American. Kudos to them for a gotcha on Obama. They demeaned the life work of a Pastor. The HistoryMakers describe some of Rev. Dr. Wright's history here including his 3 Presidential Commendations.

They demeaned a church that was one of the only ones that refused to move to the suburbs, that has an amazing number of outreach programs and trashed a congregation that worship and serve there. They get threats and hate mail, the divinity school set to honor Rev Wright had to move the location for security reasons due to threats and they handily trashed a candidate as someone who listens to hate speech- all on the basis of a few minutes of words they found in hours of sermons. Hate? Racist?

The problem has never been Wright nor Obama listening to Wright nor the church...
It is the media intentionally distorting and misrepresenting knowing they will fuel hate and widen divisions.

"America's Chickens are coming home to roost" We all saw that rant that we kept hearing "that was just days after 9/11" and "oh my God he was saying they deserved to die" and horrors.
The clip is from this sermon
Wright talks about how he was caught far from home with no flights and wondering about what our response should be after reading a horrible verse in a psalm about bashing the heads of children of your enemies and he heard Ambassador Edward Peck,Former Chief of Mission in Iraq (on Fox news ironically) and Ambassador Peck said it was "America's Chickens are coming home to roost"
Then after his rant we all heard he points out "The ambassador said that the people we have wounded don't have the military capability we have, but they do have individuals who are willing to die and take thousands with them, and we need to come to grips with that."

He talks about the horror of what happened...the issue of violence begetting violence and how each of us need to look at our own relationship with God. It's still got those words in it that offend but it sure isn't what was presented.
His sermons are not offensive unless you work to excerpt a few lines from a few sermons and play them constantly.

The full text of Jeremiah Wright's "Audacity To Hope" sermon in 1990 is here:
That's the speech Obama got book title from and you understand why TV pundits mention that in hushed tones. Yes, how horrid for Obama to pretend to be a person of unity when he can be inspired bt a sermon that says things as bad as:

"The real lesson Hannah gives us from this chapter—the most important word God would have us hear—is how to hope when the love of God is not plainly evident. It's easy to hope when there are evidences all around of how good God is. But to have the audacity to hope when that love is not evident—you don't know where that somewhere is that my grandmother sang about, or if there will ever be that brighter day—that is a true test of a Hannah-type faith. To take the one string you have left and to have the audacity to hope—make music and praise God on and with whatever it is you've got left, even though you can't see what God is going to do"

and end with words as hateful as

"And that's why I say to you, hope is what saves us. Keep on hoping; keep on praying. God does hear and answer prayer"

A reporter on a Sunday show said that most reporters he knew had been poring through every speech and haven't been able to find more similar comments though certainly there will be a few in the great number to go through. It made me wonder why they don't feel a responsibility to report on what they have heard after destroying the reputation of the man and his whole church, let alone a presidential candidate. They are looking for things to attack with only and not simply the truth, any balance?
On almost every show thus week someone on the panel had even been to the church or knew someone close to them that did that said the clips did not represent him, the hosts seemed surprised. One said her brother reports that they are more conservative than most churches, focusing on self responsibility and family. Some said a lot more should come out about the church because the impression given was so far off.

I understand the truth would spoil the fun of being able to make cutting, false comments-but when did we all quit looking for what was true?

[JTFrog]

6. You aren't a donor so you obviously haven't visisted the HRC forum here lately.

They have given up looking for the truth and have resorted to a "boycott and disrupt" plan. Basically adopting the nastier tactics of the HRC campaign.

They do the reasoned and well meaning Clinton supporters no favors.

[MADem]

10. I don't think you read what I wrote. It isn't the subject matter, it's the LOCATION.

You can spout until you are blue in the face that the context of the black church is different, blah, blah, blah, but churchgoing middle America will not get behind the idea of little kids sitting in the pews listening to that shit. They just won't.

You can also go on and on about how people are being mean to him, toss in the HATE and the RACIST word, put in a pinch of Buchanan and Scarborough (I don't listen to those bastards, I listen to IMUS, who actually has been speaking to issues of race every day since he came back on the air) but that doesn't matter either--and it is not responsive to my point.

As I said, and which apparently woooshed past, if Obama had been going to a lecture series for twenty years at the University of Chicago and heard those same discussions, well, so what? It's all free speech and exchange of ideas.

But 'God Damn KKK America' does not "marry well" to Jesus, and the Bible, in the church, from the pulpit, in the minds of Mr. and Mrs. America. Especially 'Mr. and Mrs. Reliable Older Voter America.'

Don't shoot the messenger. This has nothing to do with "spoiling the fun." I am talking plain, political reality.

This is an impossible hurdle, IMO. Wright isn't on the Democratic ticket, yet he IS, if Obama gets the nomination--and not in a good way. There's no rehabilitating the guy. It's not a question of convincing a bunch of liberals on DU, it's a question of convincing those moderate to right wing Dems, and those centrist independents and those pocketbook voters--they just aren't going to buy ANY sales job about God Damn Reverend Wright, no matter how much spinning accompanies the effort. No matter how much "Awww, Reverend Wright was a corpsman who served with the USMC, and he was at Bethesda and got an LOA from LBJ when he was hospitalized there!" is tossed out, an old black and white photo and a letter signed by an autopen don't wipe out those DVD sermons. And they can't respond to the inevitable oppo ads we'll see in September and October if Obama is our designated hitter.

I repeat: Don't shoot the messenger. And don't waste your time trying to sell me with video I've already seen. Perception IS reality, like it, or not. That's how I see it, and I will wager that many others will see it that way, too. If your mileage varies, fine. I'm betting I'm right, though. This will be problematic.

[acmavm]

13. Don't you find it odd that people here think that they KNOW what

you should be able to understand, that just because you aren't head over heels in love with their candidate, you just can't possibly understand what it's like to be ______, or ______, or _____? Apparently all knowledge comes only with complete surrender to the Obama mystique, to his 'message'. If you're not one of the cult, then you're an idiot who couldn't possibly have any knowledge or experience that qualifies you to have an opinion, you're just a racist dumbass who's trying to destroy America because you don't understand that it's HIS TIME.

[MADem]

17. Between that, and the "characterizations" it is almost not worth bothering to participate.

If we aren't being told that we're wrong to have a differing opinion, or we're being characterized with negative discriptors of our personal attributes. It's tiresome.

I've tried to have honest discussions about real differences and issues that those "typical" voters will consider, but it is pretty much impossible. There's just no discussing political realities--it's either bow down toute suite or be bullied with personal invective.

[jpertello]

21. Obama doesn't play the victim

While I sympathize with the struggles you've had in your life I feel you are being unfair to Obama. He is not the whining victim that you paint him to be. He doesn't have that attitude at all. If you read his books you'll see that he's just the opposite. He believes all people, no matter their color, need to do whatever they can to help themselves and stop blaming the whites, the rich or whomever seems convenient for their problems. To quote Obama from his speech, "A More Perfect Union":

"That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races."