Obama and the black community must be heard

[illinoisprogressive]

An Oped I happened upon and found it interesting in that shades of bush is being charged here. I would hope this is not the case. But, if it is, then there may be a problem....




The more you look at it, the more you see an absence of dialogue in New York’s black community about the choice in the Democratic presidential primary between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. The majority of the black political establishment has closed ranks behind Hillary and used that to tamp down public debate on which candidacy – Obama’s or Hillary’s – makes the most sense for black voters to support.

Let me be very clear here. I have not endorsed Obama’s presidential campaign. Moreover, I am an independent and therefore not a voter in the New York Democratic presidential primary on February 5, 2008. But I am a political leader and I am concerned that the Clinton steamroller has shut down public discussion of critical issues affecting the black community.

Two weeks ago, I was a guest on Reverend Al Sharpton’s show “The Hour of Power” on KISS-FM. State Senator Bill Perkins, one of the few New York black electeds supporting Obama, Reverend Sharpton and I talked about the importance of Obama more directly confronting Hillary about the real record of Clintonism in the 1990s. The DLC/Clintonian philosophy means feeding the corporate sector through liberalized free trade, while failing to address the needs of the American people, whose wages and living standards have stagnated or declined, while Wall Street is making record profits. A recent front page article in The New York Times linked Bill Clinton’s policies to these problems.

Globalization is a fact of 21st century life. But the political question is how the interests of the American people will fare in that environment. Clintonism is famous for “putting people first” in rhetoric, but putting “supercapitalism” first in reality. This issue – among others – must be pursued, particularly in terms of how the interests of black America are affected.

When Jesse Jackson ran for the presidency there were constant conversations in the black community about the Jackson option. In 1984, the choices included Walter Mondale, representing the old-New Deal wing of the party; Gary Hart, introducing a form of neo-liberalism; and Jackson, whose candidacy was premised on creating a black empowerment wing of the Democratic Party. In 1988, the dialogues centered on Jackson’s Rainbow philosophy; Al Gore, who ran as an anti-Jackson DLC-centrist; and Michael Dukakis, another old-New Dealer. At every church, on every campus, in every black media outlet, black people talked about which candidate best represented our interests.


http://www.blackelectorate.com/articles.asp?ID=1949

[msongs]

1. another right wing meme propagated: Hillary is responsible for the sins of her husband nt

[amandabeech]

3. A lot of people here don't like NAFTA and MFN for China.

Those were Clinton's bills, and that's not going away.

The Clintons ran as a two-fer in '92. There is TV footage out there where she says basically just that. She can't now walk away from what the two-fer did or did not do in the White House.

In fact, her closeness to Bill's decision-making is part of her resume, and it distinguishes her from Edwards and Obama, who also have limited experience as elected officials in at the federal level.

She can't have it both ways, and it doesn't take some right-winger to figure it out.

[Lucinda]

2. So the assumption is that black voters in New York cant be for Clinton

without some sort of supression being enforced?
Does Dr. Lenora Fulani not think they have heard of Obama? Turned on their tvs? Or watched the news?