Revolution#129, May 18, 2008
Readers Respond on Obama
Editors’ note: The following letters are selected from reader comments and correspondence to Revolution. We’re printing them (and will continue to print more correspondence) to give readers a sense of the letters sent to Revolution, and to spark more interactivity between this paper and readers, and among readers. Selecting and printing letters does not imply that we agree, or disagree, with them.
You Have No Sense of Strategy
One of the problems I had and have with revolutionaries of past days and today is that sometimes in fact most times, your vision is myopic and stubbornly rigid (as much as any conservative I’ve ever observed) and your own passion and zeal becomes your own worst enemy.
If Barack Obama had used your tactics of, in your face, I’m gonna nail you white man, rhetoric, he would be further from the presidency than Dennis Kucinich. Oh yeah, you so called progressives would be in love with him if he did what you wanted him to but he and no one else like him would be within 20 light years of the presidency. I know this, he may not be what you want him to be but his positions as stated in The Audacity of Hope, may not be as to the left, or inflammatory, or race baiting as you would like, but it is infinitely more progressive than anyone we’ve had in office EVER.
Now with the Republicans attacking him, the faux democrats attacking him, the so called progressive and conservative media pundits attacking him, white racists from around the country attacking him (many of which are faux progressives), you feel they need your assistance.
Thanks for nothing.
Have you ever read The Spook Who Sat by The Door, or seen the movie. You need to.
It was because of so called progressives like you that the civil rights movement is now an afterthought. You are the reason that your progressive movement has not been able to gain any traction for the last 40 years. It’s because you have no sense of strategy.
You should be spending your time on Hillary Clinton, who’s determined to deliver the campaign (with your help) into the hands of McCain. I’m sure you would be happy with that result or getting Hillary in office with her husband who were responsible for putting more black men and more people behind bars in his two terms than any president in American history, sending more jobs overseas than any president except perhaps Ronald Reagan, contributing to greater unemployment, underemployment than I can remember and you are saying that Obama should be screaming that this country is racist at the top of his lungs. I will not comment on what I believe are your motives or on your intelligence, or your true feelings about race, but I will leave you with this, no even remotely progressive candidate has come within a million miles of even winning more than two or three primaries. We have an opportunity to get a man in office who has true progressive credentials, who walked the streets of the southside of Chicago organizing people of color when he could have been a high priced corporate lawyer.
When I was a young revolutionary in the 60s I was accused of being an oreo, a sellout, an uncle tom because my rhetoric was not inflammatory enough, because I did not concur entirely with the inflammatory rhetoric of Malcolm X, and because I wore a tie. Well guess what, it was Malcolm who recognized the error of his earlier rhetoric and began to sound more like me than he did early in his Islamic life. …
I was first identified by the government’s intelligence organizations when I was 15 because of that inflammatory rhetoric at conference at Stony Brook, NY, where young progressives, revolutionaries, moderates, and conservatives. I was able to expose a mysterious participant who was asking many of us about our contact info but unfortunately not until after I had given him my info.
That’s when I first began to learn about how the game was played.
… Your obliviousness to this concept and others like you caused the progressive movement to become so marginalized that today the progressive movement politically is less than an afterthought, even in the bastion of so-called liberal politics, San Francisco.
Get a clue. If you really want to be a factor in changing the way this country is run, wake up and grow up. This is not a baseball game, it’s politics as a matter of life and death. I’d rather see a borderline progressive get in office than anything else on the political horizon. You should too and act accordingly like a true progressive. They say politics makes strange bedfellows, well I can assure you Obama is not nearly as strange as the ones you are tacitly supporting through your hit pieces on Obama.
If you can find me a candidate that’s perfect, I won’t vote for them, I’ll build a church and worship them.
Who Are You To Say Obama Can’t Bring About Change?
Who are you to say Obama can’t bring about change. To not have any faith in some form of democracy is ignorant. There have been leaders that personify the goodness of people such as JFK, Franklin Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. What is so much better in the world. Even Canada has its flaws, it relies on the U.S. for defense. So they can never speak out against U.S. military involvement. I do agree America is an imperialistic nation and must be changed. But this change must be gradual, maybe it will start with the election of Barack Obama. Don’t put a damper on the hopes of the American people through your anti-Obama rant. Who are you to say he can’t energize social change. It will certainly be a start.
This Time Blacks Will Be Included
no matter who gets in the white house it will take years to clean this mess up (bush and bush), this is of course politics at its best , u know any 100% honest ones, (sugar coat) its call doing what u need to do to get where u need to be, obama will do what he can for all the people but this time blacks will be included, my fear is because of all this hillary drama we will end up with another bush, because i know black people will give up, not go vote and be somewhere having a pity party.
Looking for Hope
As a 67 yr. old white woman, retired school teacher, I think that people are just looking for HOPE. This period in our country reminds me of late ’50s, early ’60s when the economy was so terrible. Right out of the Army, my husband had lost his job, with none in sight. The industry jobs were all down. With everything we owned, packed in our car, me pregnant, we headed west. With an older brother there, he said. “you may find a little something.” It was Grapes of Wrath all over again. Along comes John F. and like Obama offers hope. People were in such despair they latched on to that hope and him.
We arrived in New Mexico, Kennedy won, put money in parks, roads, etc. My husband got a job at $1.26 hr. We found a nice little apt. two bedroom, fully furnished, utilities furnished for $35.00 a mo. We did ok. We had the baby in 1960, no insurance, but we paid $5.00 a month on our total $97.00 hospital bill and $5.00 on our $75.00 dr. bill. We did not have all these petty wal-mart and other jobs, but we could live on what we made.
Presently, having just left the school system, there are working people suffering. There is no money in this country to put into anything for people to work. But we have been putting 6 billion in to Iraq. I hear on the news this a.m. that has gone up to 12 billion. This mostly going to contractors, congress has estimated 70% of it is pure corrupt gain. The Iraqi people aren’t being helped, the American soldier, isn’t getting it. The soldiers are really suffering, and I know because 2 of them are mine. After talking to many soldiers and I don’t mean young soldiers, these 15 to 22 year vets, will tell you “ITS ALL ABOUT MONEY, THE SOLDIERS AREN’T GETTING RICH, THE IRAQIS AREN’T, THE AMERICAN TAX PAYERS AREN’T, BUT THE CONTRACTORS ARE.” Americans feel HOPE and soldiers feel Obama will do something. Our soldiers are exhausted, they need help. Where are these christians in this country that went along with this crap and still supporting it. Why AREN’T THEY HELPING!
Why hasn’t this president froze gas prices, others did. Still gain and greed. It’s about Total DESIRE, looking for HOPE. Thanks.
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