Still More "Bitter" Fallout

Once again, I truly apologize for dwelling on the faux issue of the moment, but there is such an avalanche of media and political spin out there that some of it must be addressed; the fact that Kristol Mess AND BoBo are both chimed in, for example (the latter today) tells you something.

What it tells you, actually, is that our media-political-industrial complex has worked itself into the greatest froth I’ve ever since I started this blog; the only thing comparable was the Terri Schiavo circus, which I fortunately missed (for posting purposes, anyway). And their goal is nothing less that to take remarks uttered by Obama that are absolutely true and use them to make the voters of this country recoil out of umbrage (and of course, since these clowns hold sway over our discourse for the most part, they seem to be doing that).

George Will treats us to a hilarious column where he pretends to care about the middle class (sorry, but find your own link if you want). Bob Herbert criticized Obama for saying voters were “bitter” instead of “angry,” as if semantics are going to matter to someone who has lost his or her job, home, or health insurance.

And not to be outdone by any means, J.D. Mullane of the Bucks County Courier Times tells us the following here…

You may have heard what Sen. Barack Obama thinks of small town Pennsylvanians: They are “bitter” and “cling” to guns, religion and bigotry because they don't have good jobs.

For the record, here is what Obama said, which Mullane actually repeats later in his column…

“You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

As you can see, Obama clearly said nothing about bigotry; which is actually confirmed by one of the subjects Mullane talks to for this column my bad - of course, we find that out near the end of the hit piece after Mullane disingenuously sticks “bigotry” in the lead…a typically sleazy journalistic trick.

It is nothing short of sickening that we have a ruling executive cabal that has sought to abolish, at the very least, the first and fourth amendments to the U.S. Constitution (totally supportive of torture, abuse of executive privilege, legally labeling NGOs and human rights groups as terrorism supporters, an on and on), that sits idly by while employers in this country shed payrolls while still clamoring to lift restrictions on H1B visas for foreign workers (if anything, Bushco has done all it could do to encourage it), that wages war without end in Iraq, engages in acts of typical deception on the climate crisis, that staffs the governmental agencies under its purview with utterly incompetent party hacks…and yet, it takes some wording about rural PA voters that some consider inappropriate to rankle the sensibilities of a foundering presidential candidate and the media stooges doing her bidding to keep the blood sport going for as long as possible.

Well, just for the hell of it, here is what I did in response.

I did a little digging and found a link to an article written by the director of the Developing Communities Project, described as “an institutionally based community organization on Chicago's far south side,” which was published in 1990. The article, “Why Organize? Problems and Promise in the Inner City,” was written by a man who had just recently enrolled at Harvard to study law.

You’ve probably heard of the author, by the way, because the director of the Developing Communities Project was a guy named Barack Obama.

This is what he wrote…

The debate as to how black and other dispossessed people can forward their lot in America is not new. From W.E.B. DuBois to Booker T. Washington to Marcus Garvey to Malcolm X to Martin Luther King, this internal debate has raged between integration and nationalism, between accommodation and militancy, between sit-down strikes and boardroom negotiations. The lines between these strategies have never been simply drawn, and the most successful black leadership has recognized the need to bridge these seemingly divergent approaches. During the early years of the Civil Rights movement, many of these issues became submerged in the face of the clear oppression of segregation. The debate was no longer whether to protest, but how militant must that protest be to win full citizenship for blacks.

Twenty years later, the tensions between strategies have reemerged, in part due to the recognition that for all the accomplishments of the 1960s, the majority of blacks continue to suffer from second-class citizenship. Related to this are the failures — real, perceived and fabricated — of the Great Society programs initiated by Lyndon Johnson. Facing these realities, at least three major strands of earlier movements are apparent.

First, and most publicized, has been the surge of political empowerment around the country. Harold Washington and Jesse Jackson are but two striking examples of how the energy and passion of the Civil Rights movement have been channeled into bids for more traditional political power. Second, there has been a resurgence in attempts to foster economic development in the black community, whether through local entrepre¬neurial efforts, increased hiring of black contractors and corporate managers, or Buy Black campaigns. Third, and perhaps least publicized, has been grass-roots community organizing, which builds on indigenous leadership and direct action.

…

Neither electoral politics nor a strategy of economic self-help and internal development can by themselves respond to these new challenges (facing the inner city and African Americans in particular – my paraphrasing). The election of Harold Washington in Chicago or of Richard Hatcher in Gary were not enough to bring jobs to inner-city neighborhoods or cut a 50 percent drop-out rate in the schools, although they did achieve an important symbolic effect. In fact, much-needed black achievement in prominent city positions has put us in the awkward position of administer¬ing underfunded systems neither equipped nor eager to address the needs of the urban poor and being forced to compromise their interests to more powerful demands from other sectors.

Self-help strategies show similar limitations. Although both laudable and necessary, they too often ignore the fact that without a stable community, a well-educated population, an adequate infrastructure and an informed and employed market, neither new nor well-established compa¬nies will be willing to base themselves in the inner city and still compete in the international marketplace. Moreover, such approaches can and have become thinly veiled excuses for cutting back on social programs, which are anathema to a conservative agenda.

In theory, community organizing provides a way to merge various strategies for neighborhood empowerment. Organizing begins with the premise that (1) the problems facing inner-city communities do not result from a lack of effective solutions, but from a lack of power to implement these solutions; (2) that the only way for communities to build long-term power is by organizing people and money around a common vision; and (3) that a viable organization can only be achieved if a broadly based indigenous leadership — and not one or two charismatic leaders — can knit together the diverse interests of their local institutions.

As I read the excerpt above, it became crystal clear to me that Barack Obama has a thorough understanding of the root causes of the utter disintegration of our cities and the monumental challenge of restoring economic opportunity through a combination of government-business partnership, civic action, and individual self reliance (and after reading this excerpt, I’m tempted to try and locate the book “After Alinsky…” on Amazon.com and read more of what he has to say).

As far as I’m concerned, this excerpt was written by someone with both the keen mind and knowledge of what it takes to try and resolve complicated issues and the courage to face the daunting challenges that lie ahead of this nation (Obama wrote primarily about African Americans, of course, but his words could apply to those of other races, creeds, ethnicities and gender persuasions also).

It most certainly was not written by an “elitist,” who used the word “cling” inappropriately for some, as well as others who thought it strange that he ordered orange juice without coffee, or wishes to sit down and meet with Hamas (he doesn't, by the way).

(Actually, with this in mind, I wish our corporate media cousins would all get together and come up with a list of behaviors that they consider to be appropriate and give the list to Obama; that way, he would know how to act to please them and they would thus resist the temptation to concoct such utterly ridiculous “stories” about “scandals” with a “-gate” attached at the end.)

And with all of this in mind, I now have a message for Hillary Clinton.

It is apparent that the only way you believe that your campaign can succeed truly is to utterly trash Obama and hope that, by some scurrilous design, the “super delegates” you so desperately wish to possess will flock to you somehow as crows descend to pick at the carcass of a dead animal (God help me, but all in the corporate media punditocracy who said this was the case turned out, despite my ridicule at the time, to be absolutely right).

So, for that reason, go ahead and win your “victory” in Pennsylvania (which I’m sure will be delivered to you by PA Governor Ed Rendell, Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, and others– I’m sure you don’t have the qualms about handing out “walking-around money” to local Philly poobahs that Obama does; and I applaud Obama for that, by the way). Rack up your 10-15 percent margin of victory, or whatever it will be. Go ahead and jog a victory lap around the clothespin at 15th and Market if you want. Fire a gun, drink a shot and a beer…whatever.

And the next day, put an end to this utterly putrid, painful exercise of a campaign of yours for good (and take all your preferred “girl chums” with you if you want).

The lost delegates aren’t going to come back. And Florida and Michigan aren’t going to matter either. The only way you could win would be in response to Obama’s electoral destruction, and despite your positively juvenile manufacturing of this non-issue, that won’t happen (if anything, I can’t wait to see how this boomerangs on you in other primaries).

It’s over, and apparently, you are the last to know. You exist only as a candidate for the amusement of Fox “News,” The Weekly Standard and the Wall Street Journal editorial page so you can generate the negative force required to eviscerate your own party, which happens to be the only way that their favored candidate, John W. McBush, can actually win.

The stain on our memory left by your “Insult-40-States Express” will be with us for a long, long time. This latest episode of accusing Obama of “elitism” – Obama, someone who worked as a community organizer in Chicago on behalf of residents in desperate poverty – would be laughable if it weren’t so fitting, so emblematic of your utterly failed campaign for the Democratic Party nomination for president.

And after enduring this pitiable farce, I actually cannot imagine how you could ever hope to mount a candidacy of this type ever again.

Update 1: And by the way, Ed's right here; the comment will be forgotten because HRC will only be a memory in November.

Update 2: Funny how The Big Dog gets a pass for making very similar statements here but Obama doesn't.

Update 3 4/16/08: Just for the record, MoDo wasted newspaper ink on this today also (and reap what you sow, Hil).