King, Obama, and the Politics of Hope

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.hnn.us/articles/56895.html

11-17-08
King, Obama, and the Politics of Hope
By Michael Honey

Mr. Honey is Haley Professor of the Humanities at the University of Washington, Tacoma, and author of Going Down Jericho Road: The Memphis Strike, Martin Luther King’s Last Campaign (W.W. Norton). This is his keynote address of November 7, 2008, to the Ibero-American Virtual Conference on Human Rights, Catholic University of Campo Grande, Brazil, with participation of the University of Salamanca and the University of Madrid (Spain), and the University of Washington, Tacoma. It was followed by an exchange with Brazilian, Spanish, and other international scholars.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51OEcdGVb5L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg http://www.amazon.com/Going-Down-Jericho-Road-Campaign/dp/0393330532/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1226516684&sr=1-1

At this summer’s Republican Convention, Sarah Palin and Rudy Guliana mocked Barack Obama: “community organizer -- What!!?” They didn’t get it then, but maybe they get it now. We have seen a beautiful model of organizing by the Obama campaign.

As an organizer in the downtrodden, gang-infested streets of the Black and Latino communities of South Side Chicago in the 1980s, Obama saw plant closings and disinvestment destroy lives and communities.

He couldn’t explain exactly what organizing meant. Instead, “I’d pronounce on the need for change…. Change won’t come from the top, I would say. Change will come from a mobilized grass roots.” (Dreams From My Father, p. 133)

After experiencing the limitations of local organizing, he went on to law and politics to find greater leverage. He also tapped into Martin Luther King’s politics of hope. That combination has opened up the country to the possibility of new politics, and new goals.

Millions of people around the world, desperate to turn the page on the disastrous Bush era, had a huge stake in this Obama’s election. We all need to press for an end to government corruption, corporate profiteering, parasitical behavior by Wall Street, foreign policy run by bombs, wiretapping and torture. It’s time to reverse the course of the American Empire, along with its neglect of the world’s people and exploitation of its resources.

FULL story at link.