Joe Klein: Obama's Victory Ushers in a New America

[babylonsister]

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1856649,00.html


Joe Klein: Obama's Victory Ushers in a New America
By Joe Klein Wednesday, Nov. 05, 2008


A vendor sells a copy of the Times featuring Barack Obama on the cover outside the U.S. embassy in London
Oli Scarff / Getty


Eleven months ago, I attended a John Edwards speech in the little town of Algona, Iowa. It was a Sunday afternoon, and Edwards had drawn a large crowd of mostly uncommitted voters to a local factory that made wind-turbine components. Two things soon became apparent as I interviewed a dozen or so Algonans before the speech. The first was that there were a fair number of Republicans present, a phenomenon I was beginning to notice all over Iowa. They were not yet committed to voting Democratic, but they mentioned their disappointment in George W. Bush, their frustration with the war in Iraq and their dismay with the right-wing religious drift of the state Republican Party. The last time I'd seen so many crossovers was in 1980, when Democrats — angry at Jimmy Carter and their party's leftward drift — made their presence felt at Republican meetings, heralding the onset of the Reagan era.

The other phenomenon was a person. I was talking to a local businessman named Bill Farnham, who wasn't yet sure whom he was voting for, "but I'm really impressed with the organizer Obama sent out here. His name is Nate Hundt, and he's really become part of the community." As he spoke, several other Algonans gathered around and began recounting tales of the young organizer who had come straight to Algona after graduating from Yale six months earlier. Hundt had opened a campaign headquarters in the H&R Block office downtown, joined a local environmental group, shown up for the high school football games. He was a constant presence at civic events. Eventually, Hundt became so much a part of the community that the town leaders asked him to stay on after the caucuses and run for city council. But Hundt had other work to do. The Obama campaign sent him to Colorado, Ohio and North Carolina during the long primary season, then back to Colorado Springs for the general election. "I'm still in touch with my friends from Algona," Hundt said. "In fact, a few of them have come out here to help canvass. But I'm not unique. There are a lot of us who had similar experiences."

Indeed, there are — an army of them, untold thousands of young organizers operating out of more than 700 offices nationwide. And they have delivered a message to Rudy Giuliani, who sneered during the Republican National Convention that he didn't even know "what a community organizer is." This is who they are: they are the people who won this election. They were the heart and soul and backbone of Barack Obama's victory. They are destined to emerge as the next significant generation of American political operatives — similar to the antiwar and antisegregation baby boomers who dominated the Democratic Party after cutting their teeth on the Bobby Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy campaigns of 1968, similar to the pro-life, antitax Reaganauts who dominated the Republican Party and American politics from the election of 1980 ... until now. They are a preview of the style and substance of the Obama Administration.

snip//


But this election was about much more than issues. It was the ratification of an essential change in the nature of the country. I've seen two others in my lifetime. The election of John Kennedy ratified the new America that had emerged from war and depression — a place where more people owned homes and went to college, a place where young people had the affluence to be idealistic or to rebel, a place that was safe enough to get a little crazy, a sexier country. Ronald Reagan's election was a rebellion against that — an announcement that toughness had replaced idealism overseas, that individual economic freedom had replaced common economic purpose at home. It was an act of nostalgia, harking back to the "real" America — white, homogeneous, small-town — that the McCain campaign unsuccessfully tried to appeal to.

Obama's victory creates the prospect of a new "real" America. We can't possibly know its contours yet, although I suspect the headline is that it is no longer homogeneous. It is no longer a "white" country, even though whites remain the majority. It is a place where the primacy of racial identity — and this includes the old, Jesse Jackson version of black racial identity — has been replaced by the celebration of pluralism, of cross-racial synergy. After eight years of misgovernance, it has lost some of its global swagger ... but also some of its arrogance. It may no longer be as dominant, economically or diplomatically, as it once was. But it is younger, more optimistic, less cynical. It is a country that retains its ability to startle the world — and in a good way, with our freedom. It is a place, finally, where the content of our President's character is more important than the color of his skin.

[Peace Patriot]

1. I god I wish they would stop this drivel about Reagan!

(Obama campaign/change in the nature of the country) "similar to the pro-life, antitax Reaganauts who dominated the Republican Party and American politics from the election of 1980...."

"Ronald Reagan's election was a rebellion against that (the 60s--"a little crazy, a little sexier country") — an announcement that toughness had replaced idealism overseas, that individual economic freedom had replaced common economic purpose at home. It was an act of nostalgia, harking back to the 'real' America — white, homogeneous, small-town — that the McCain campaign unsuccessfully tried to appeal to." --Joe Klein, Crime Magazine

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Let's get straight who Reagan was. Reagan was the genocidal co-conspirator in the slaughter of TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND MAYAN VILLAGERS in Guatemala, on suspicion of being "leftists." Reagan was the destroyer of the Constitution, who conducted an illegal war on Nicaragua--a war explicitly forbidden by Congress--funded by selling arms to Iran and drug trafficking. Reagan was the traitor to our country who first got into office by means of an arms for hostages deal with Iran. Walter Cronkite ran a clock on his nightly news broadcast, ticking off the days that Jimmy Carter had not rescued the hostages in Iran. Reagan made a deal with Iran that they would hang onto the hostages until Reagan had ousted Carter in the 1980 election, in exchange for missiles!

In addition, it was under Reagan that the deregulation of the banking and finance business began, which resulted, then, in the meltdown of S&L's and vast loss of poor and middle class peoples' savings, and led to today's Financial 9/11. He was the union-busting president who broke the Air Traffic Controllers' union. And he was the shit governor of California who let all the patients out of state mental hospitals, to fend for themselves on the streets--creating the first homeless I ever saw in California--after promising to fund half-way houses for these poor, miserable people, and failing to do so.

And that doesn't even begin to list Reagan's "high crimes and misdemeanors." The Iran-Contra scandal (war on Nicaragua) was also the occasion for the beginning of the destruction of the modern Democratic Party (pre-Dean). The Democrats in Congress held hearings exposing the scandal, wrist-slapped a few people (who returned under Bush II as "NeoCons"), and let Reagan entirely off the hook. I certainly blame those Democratic leaders for allowing this prelim to Bush Jr.'s "pre-emptive war doctrine" (after the awful "lessons of Vietnam"). But it was Reagan who did it, and Reaganites who lied to, threatened, strongarmed and bribed the members of the Congressional committee. It was Reagan's crimes, and that of his people. Like Bush, they never even apologized for it--after slaughtering thousands of innocent teachers and mayors and community organizers all over Nicaragua.

Finally, under Reagan, the tax code was re-written to favor the rich, and the progressive tax was abandoned.

As to violations of the Constitution, he was, in fact, worse than Bush. Bush at least took his war to Congress before he did it, and gave them an opportunity to say "No!" (if they dared). Reagan sneakily orchestrated a war that Congress had forbidden!

Now go back and read this tripe by Joe Klein about Reagan nostalgia, and, for that matter about the 60's ("a little crazy, a little sexier country"). The U.S. slaughtered TWO MILLION people in Southeast Asia before that war was over. And this total fuckwad is saying that the 60's were about young people having the "affluence to rebel"?! MORE THAN 55,000 of those young people were dying in Vietnam, Camdodia and Laos. Furthermore, in that same "sexier" era, black Americans were being lynched, beaten, water-hosed and oppressed merely for trying to vote! "A little crazy, a little sexier"?! Yeah, getting lynched or getting blown to bits is real crazy, man, and "a little sexy."

He makes me want to VOMIT!

So, please take EVERYTHING he says--about then and now--with a grain of salt, and spit on his shitrag of a magazine. And then rub the salt and the spit together and....

But enough.

:puke: