Re: [Marxism] Harlem Conference on Obama (FYI -- past)

["Fred Feldman" <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Earless Critic of All that Exists submitted from the NYT Magazine article on
Levittown. For some reason Earless leaves out the irrelevant information of
the Levittown background, the racist riots and disturbances of the 1960s, or
that this remains a town where very few Blacks have gotten in:

Steve Woods sat drinking a Coors Light and talking with his buddies. A
Philadelphia Phillies spring-training game was on TV, and he glanced
up at it every time the audio picked up the crack of the bat. I asked
him if the presidential campaign interested him. "Absolutely," he
said. Rapid fire, he told me the issues he cared about: "No. 1, gas
prices. It's killing everybody. No. 2, immigrants. They should go back
to Mexico. Three, guns. Everybody should have the right to bear arms.
In fact, everyone should have a gun in this day and age."

I wondered if he was a Republican. "Are you kidding?" he said. "I'm a
Democrat all the way. I hate Republicans."

Woods, who is 32, said that he had been trained at the local technical
high school as a land surveyor but had been working only sporadically.
He had been picking up "side jobs," a term I heard over and over again
in Levittown. It refers to temporary labor: carpentry, landscaping,
junk hauling.

Woods was for Hillary Clinton, and if Obama was the Democratic
nominee, he said he would vote for the Republican, John McCain, in
November. "Hillary all the way," he said. "We need Hillary. She knows
the game. Obama has no experience. He talks about change, change,
change. Everybody says he's new; he's refreshing; he's charismatic. I
don't think he's got a clue."

Earless Critic seems to find the claims of the interviewed Levittowners that
race has nothing to do with their views to be obviously true.

Yet, I have been around in political struggle for about 50 years, but if I
have met one Steve Woods, I have met a thousand.  He says he is a "Democrat
all the way" but if Obama is nominated, he will vote for McCain. (The
reporter unfortunately did not ask the others for whom this character was
apparently assigned the role of spokesman, perhaps because of his eagerness
to talk, whether they would vote for McCain if Obama was nominated, so his
stance goes as the view of all, and, indeed, of all right-thinking white
working class citizens.

But this character, whether he knows it or not, is a racist. All his
priorities are implicitly racist, even oil prices (the Arabs); guns (against
the Black criminals and the Latin and Caribbean drug gangs)  and immigration
(they should go back to Mexico). One immediately wonders where Obama should
go back to, being a product of the recent immigration. And note, he does not
refer only to "illegal" immigrants.

He says he will vote for McCain is Hilary loses. But he claims to "hate"
Republicans. So he hates something that Obama represents even more. Whatever
could it be? Oh yes, rhetoric. Or "change" in the abstract. Allow me to
suggest, race-consciousness is this guy's heart, brain, and gut.

I am willing to assume, for purposes of argument, that he is not a KKK
organizer trying to use the Pennsylvania primary as an organizing tool,
But if he isn't, he is cheating them of dues.

Interestingly, the reporter did not ask the others if they agreed about
supporting McCain if Clinton loses. I have no idea what they would have
said, and neither does Earless Critic, because this voluble fellow rather
easily captured the reporter's attention, and became the spokesperson for
the group. I suspect that this is a white milieu where, if you did vote for
Obama in the primary or the general election, you would be well advised to
keep it to yourself.
Fred




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