Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Eloquent appeasement for
a constituency of victims

The breathless wait is over. Obama monopolized all news channels as a nation waited with anticipation for the candidate to overcome (or fall to...) the media flap and circus surrounding his association with Pastor Jeremiah and his church community. You can read the text to his much touted address to the nation on race - the title lifted from our own Preamble, in order to form "...A More Perfect Union".

Such media air time, at no charge, in a hotly contested race (of the political kind...) is priceless. And one has to wonder just how annoyed Hillary must have been as Obama grabs the spotlight and attention of the nation with nary a drop of funding from the coffers.

Campaign funds aside, just what was the result of the Obama speech? Certainly the audience was subdued, with restrained applause breaking out only a couple of times. Indeed, it was almost painful as Obama lingered at the podium at the finale with multiple rock star'ish "Thank *yous", hoping the crowd may burst out with the loud frenzy and pandemonium of sound, as has happened at many of his other rallies.

But it did not happen.

My own opinion is that it was, as expected, an eloquently delivered speech from an accomplished orator. It did little more than portray just who Obama is. So for me it revealed little that I already did not know about Obama.

Despite all the flap and pomp, Obama was, and remains, the candidate of victims. And while that can characterize much of the DNC in general, BHO's appeal differs from Hillary's as it falls along both racial and class lines. Per His Messiahship himself, resentment is rampid in America. Blacks are angry - victims of past segregation policies. Whites are disgruntled - victims of evil corporate America. To use Obama's own words, racism is valid, and "grounded in legitimate concerns".

Obama believes he (and government) stand as the solution to all this resentment.

For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances - for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives - by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.

snip

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds - by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper
.



For the black community, Obama promises universal health care, more federal money thrown at an abominable public school system, and federally created or subsidized job creation... with most emphasis on the black agenda. To BHO, only the government, and not the free market, can equalize these injustices.

For the white community, he again promises more attention to the black and minority agenda. To Obama, the way to form a "more perfect union" is for white America to admit that those who failed to achieve the American dream did so because of white America's past policies. He promises added investment in civil rights and ladders of opportunity (i.e. affirmative action'esque policies?) as the cure to "a more perfect Union". And he suggests that white American's dreams came at the expense of the dreams of others.

So much for being the uniter, and transcending racial lines. Nothing can be more divisive than this studious train of thought. He seeks to bind the electorate not only by race, but by financial class.

If you have been listening to Obama in this campaign before, this is not new news. He is pure socialist in all his proposals for domestic policies. The only thing he did today was expound on *why* he is so socialist in his politics. It is because, tho he is not one personally affected, he believes America's downtrodden (of all races) are victims of white America.

For those that believed in Obama's policies, this speech does nothing but put them in more awe of the young candidate and his Messiah-like aura. It certainly won't change any Hillary supporters' minds.

But for the DNC, a party that likes to portray itself as blind to race and gender, this speech and the heightened nomination battle is devastating in impact. As the party membership publicly sling vicious venom and mud, all filled with overtones of race and gender, at each others' camp, a nation of conservatives can only stand back and smile as they enjoy a brief reprieve. The finger pointing and charges of racism, usually reserved for the right, are now bubbling to the top... the usual accusers now aiming at each other.

If nothing else, this nomination process has exposed much about the Democratic party and it's selective - and unadmitted - bias.

For me, the well delivered speech does nothing. Obama is still another socialist striving for the Oval Office. Regardless of his association with his church or pastor, this has always been my aversion to an Obama or Hillary administration.

But it did one more thing. Something that truly separates him from Hillary. Obama confirmed a nagging suspicion I've had that he considers himself first a black man, and an American second. Or, as Brit Hume put it in his immediate post-speech analysis (paraphrased), that Obama is dedicated to pursuing the "black agenda".

And for me, that is unacceptable for my President.


____________ UPDATE 5:19PM, Pacific time ____________

Kenneth Blackwell at HumanEvents.com echos my sentiments
..."Eloquent Speech, Troubling Worldview"

2 comments:

Mike's America said...

It's sad that an otherwise talented candidate with cross-racial appeal felt the need to throw his own grandmother under the bus as he embraced and only mildly rebuked Rev. Wright.

He has now become the "black candidate."

Dinah Lord said...

Amen, Mata. You nailed it.

Great site and I am happy to make your acquaintance.

Cheers - Dinah