I disagree with this in certain respects. I mostly agree with Adolph Reed Jr., except I do not agree that Hillary is the lesser of two evils or even more electable than Obama. While it is important to burst the Obama bubble among self-deluded progressives, it's also important to keep in mind the limited context in which American mainstream politics operates. One must constantly navigate between the deep waters of a leftist perspective and shallow treacherous shoals of mainstream politics.
The Rainbow Coalition was a similarly deluded movement, though not a similarly constituted movement. Jesse made it all about Jesse, not a movement. The Obama coalition is much less progressive than the Rainbow Delusion, because it reflects the further rightward drift in the past two or more decades. Remember that Walter Mondale ran in 1984 as the old liberalism's last gasp. Jackson fought the yuppification of the party as represented by Gary Hart. Now we are in deeper shit. The Obama coalition includes "independents" (euphemism for idiots?) and moderate Republicans and kids who don't know anything as well as progressives. Given the deteriorating conditions of the US economy, democracy, the war and foreign policy in general, it is possible that the Obama coalition could as a whole move leftward, leftward of Obama himself. Obama's election would not be a victory for Black America's material circumstances per se, but it would mark an important symbolic victory, widening perhaps the reactive assumptions of white Americans, who after all are not too bright. The anti-Obama thrust of less affluent and older white Americans is not about racism only; it is also about their lack of adaptability to changed social conditions, their social isolation and their alienation from popular culture. They are completely numbed and bewildered by what has happened to American society since Watergate, and their loyalty to Clinton is objectively at odds with their New Deal/Great Society heritage. Their irrationality is not about race alone but about their psychological incapacity to confront the true nature of their political system. Obama walks a fine line, but note that his campaign, if it is going to reach the white working class, will have to become more class-conscious and less about trying to be everybody's friend. Drinking beer and bowling will not be enough. But Edwards tried the class line, the media marginalized him, and the voters responded like Pavlovian dogs. Hence Obama walks a tightrope. But how Hillary could get away with pushing a pro-working-class line when neither she nor slick Willie is any such thing--it's beyond disgusting. Evidently it's the Reagan Democrat strategy. She deserves to be publicly humiliated, but she must already feel awkward with that squishy feeling you get when you attempt to walk around in public with a load of shit in your pants. At 11:34 AM 5/9/2008, Charles Brown wrote: >[ >Dwayne Monroe > >Glen Ford, Adolph Reed and others insist that there is no "movement" >in the way lefties usually mean, only people voting for, and affixing >their hopes to a "good man" who promises "change". I'm sure there are >people who'd argue that Sen. Clinton's supporters are part of a >movement too. But none of us are buying that. Why do we think the >word applies to the corona circling the Obama campaign? > >^^^^ >CB: The continuum might be something like >movement...coalition...front...campaign. > ( though I don't use this >scheme entirely consistently below) > > Jesse Jackson >coined a Rainbow Coalition in the context of a >Presidential campaign. Other campaigns are for example > an Equal Rights Amendment for equality of women. >The Communist Party , for example, has over the >last few decades called for the formation of an > "All Peoples Front" and an " Anti-monopoly coalition >" toward a working class and then socialist movement. >It has a Party program > >http://www.cpusa.org/article/static/758/ fleshing out >goals and aims of this movement, and this theoretical >Anti-monopoly coalition and All-Peoples Front is toward >the large (largely theoretical in the US) socialist, working > class conscious movement. Historically , there's been a > labor movement, a women's movement, a Civil Rights >movement. There was a world wide anti-Apartheid >Movement with respect to South Africa. There is now >an anti-war movement, as against past wars. There is >a more general peace movement, an environmental >movement. > >Because O's Presidential campaign has masses >of whites voting > for a Black person for President, it has the >quality of a stage or moment in the larger > historical movement >for African-American liberation and equality and against racism. >In the past, this movement included an Abolitionist >moment, and an anti-lynching movement, et al.. >O's campaign is not a movement. >It's most significant aspect is that it could help take another step >in this larger historical movement for African American > liberation and equality. > >What is the movement or movements that Ford >and Reed want to >bring about ? Do they have an assessment that the O > electoral campaign, and perhaps beginning new coalition >has nothing to do with the movement or movements that they >are in favor of or are promoting ? > >In a larger sense, the current right wing swing in >Europe might > be anti-Arab immigrant racist based. So, >W.E.B. Dubois' >observation that the issue of color is the question > in the twentieth >Century, the darker and lighter races' relations,the >national and race liberation movements may now be >more upfront and at home in Old Europe , joining America >to be the question of the 21st Century , no ? > >The mocking term "corona" is as inaccurate in the >cynical direction as "movement" is in the "mania" direction. > It doesn't make sense to try to compensate for >overstatements like "movement" in the positive direction > by making overstatements in a mocking direction like "corona". > > >Charlie the Moor _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
