Re: Let.s Go Hillary

[ravi <ravi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Feb 8, 2008, at 7:07 AM, Matthijs Krul wrote:
> > 43% of Obama's donations come from donors who give more than $2300.
> > Only 26% comes from those who donate less than $200. So his support
> > comes mainly from large contributors (Hillary does fare worse, with
> > 12% coming from < $200 donors, and 63% from > $2300 donors).
>
> Note they're not yet including January, in which Obama raised 2 1/2
> times
> as much as Clinton did, all from individual donations. That difference
> between them is likely to be larger now, not smaller.

True, 46% of Obama's latest funds come from contributors of $200 or
less, but that also means that the majority of his funds still come
from larger donors. In terms of fund-raising he is a tad cleaner than
Hillary, but of what value is that? In totals, a large part of his
funding is not from "the people".


> > In fact, it is this vigourousness of rhetoric that should raise our
> > suspicion. Especially if the rhetoric is: a) vapid (arguable, I
> > admit), b) couched in right-wing talking points, c) triumphalist. If
> > you take the rhetoric at face value then it is dangerous because it
> > suggests Obama actually believes that partisanship, division, etc,
> > are
> > the problems.
>
> I don't know about vapid. It's political rhetoric, of course, not a
> scientific journal article. But I certainly don't see that Obama is
> "couched in right-wing talking points" particularly.


I refer you to Krugman's columns on his use of language and imagery
that is a replica of the insurance industry attack on the Clintons'
health insurance proposals of 1993. Also see his Reagan analysis where
he talks about unaccountable large government excess during the 70s.
Then compare his rhetoric to George Bush: "uniter not divider" etc.

Re: vapid: I was listening to the Brian Lehrer Show podcast yesterday
(I think the show was from last week) where he had on a linguist from
UC Berkeley to analyse the use (and discussion) of words in the
Democratic debates. Both Lehrer and the guest seemed to agree that
Obama attracts "more educated, upper class" voters because he is a
great orator who speaks intelligently and in a novel way. They
contrasted this to Bill Clinton's style which they considered to be of
more pedestrian and low-brow appeal. That confused the hell out of
me... I would have said the exact opposite (without necessary
ascribing these qualities, as they did, to the lower or upper
classes). Bill Clinton, untrustworthy devil that he is, gains my
reluctant respect because he seems to be speaking intelligently about
issues -- he is analytical, employs a large store of facts to back up
his claims and ideas, etc.

Then a caller made my point beautifully: he pointed out that the
discussion of "words" was indeed appropriate, but noted: (a) Obama's
slogans ("Change", "Unity", "Yes we can") were retreads from previous
campaigns such as Dewey and Nixon, (b) words are important not so much
because of their effect (as Obama claimed in response to Hillary's
criticism) but because of their content: there are words that mean
something, the caller said, such as: I will pull the troops out of
Iraq, I will raise the taxes of the wealthy, etc; and there are words
that mean nothing, e.g: "The Audacity of Hope", "Yes we can" (better
suited for my 3 year old, who knows that chant from a show called "Bob
the Builder"! ;-)).

It's strange to me that Western leftists post 1990 are always in a
hurry to distance themselves from pomo and criticise its
practitioners. Some go as far as to subscribe to the absurd idea that
pomo's criticisms of claims of fact, truth etc or the
deconstructionist's language games are the greatest danger facing
humankind! But, it seems to me, the greatest danger facing us, w.r.t
use of language, is this Obama'ish use and propagation of language:
both as content-poor non-poetic fluff but also as an indirect appeal
to instinct/psyche mechanisms (an art perfected by the GOP/
conservatives with their targeted code speak). Unlike leftists who
attack relativists or postmodernists, however, I do not think Obama
knowingly participates in this Orwellian abuse of language. In his
mind, I think he sincerely believes he is a Mahatma Gandhi or MLK
figure!


> I agree that Obama shouldn't pretend that division is really the
> problem,
> but it depends on what kind of division we're talking about. Division
> between workers and common people among themselves, pitting black
> against
> white, gay against straight, etc., is obviously something we need to
> overcome - I don't need to explain to anyone on this mailing list how
> capital has historically gained by such divisions. Obama is of
> course not
> mentioning the class struggle, and I have no illusions he believes
> in it -
> he even said he liked "free enterprise".


But it is not just his lack of understanding of class struggle (hell,
I will admit, my understanding of it is more instinctive than
thorough!). But even his formulation, which is somewhat echoed by
yours, ignores a second (more immediate) problem: racism is not an
issue of pitting blacks against whites, homophobia is not an issue of
pitting the "joyous" against gay... intra-class divisiveness of this
sort is indeed (it seems to me) a consequence of class ignorance. But
also, in terms of the systemic framework of these phenomena, each is a
form of oppression. Black people do not stand divided from white
people, they are oppressed by a system that disfavours them and
favours entrenched white privilege. Similarly for gay people. I would
like white straight people to realise that they share a common class
with black or gay people, but that would need class consciousness and
like you I do not expect that from Obama (though, interestingly, one
candidate, Edwards, did base a large part of his campaign on it). What
makes me unhappy about his campaign is his unearned paternalism when
it comes to solving these real problems (of oppression), not division
etc, that people live under.

Let me take this to the place where the Obama vs Hillary thing seems
to be headed: recently, there was an uproar over Hillary claim that it
took LBJ to bring to fruition MLK's dream. In a limited sense that
certain minimal civil rights legislation and practices needed to be
pushed through, she seems to be quite right. In the larger sense of
MLK's dream, the sad truth may be that they have not been realised at
all. A few months ago, I read a very well written (if biased) book
called: "Gandhi -- A sublime failure". The book documented the
inspiration vs achievement gap of the Gandhian project(s). Even his
formulation of the freedom struggle as larger than merely one against
imperialism was shattered by the nationalistic turn and the horror of
the Partition that cost a million lives. His close lieutenants Nehru
and Patel (the latter a particularly hard-nosed realist) can probably
be credited for most of the positive elements of Indian [political]
development post-independence, including the policies that seem to
have laid the ground (unintentionally) for the parasitic exploitation
and growth of certain segments of Indian industry today.

Gandhi was wise enough not to enter the political fray, post-
independence. I suspect King would have stayed away also, had he lived
to entertain such options. And perhaps needless to say, these men were
inspirational leaders whose verbal success was an outcome of their
real world struggle and an understanding gained from that struggle.


> > http://tinyurl.com/26ffym
>
> This seems very weak to me. The author (who really needs to design a
> better website) cites no sources and gives no foundation, except
> that he
> seems angry that Obama isn't a more left-wing black candidate. But
> left-wing black candidates, like Jesse Jackson, do not stand a chance,
> even now. That is no argument to vote for Clinton in the primaries.
> Moreover, in the case of Clinton we KNOW she and her husband have made
> right turns before and will do so when it suits them. In the case of
> Obama, the question is still open. That seems an Obama advantage to
> me.


Yes, the website truly sucks. I had to copy paste the text to a text
editor in order to be able to read it. But I think Ford's value (in
this and other pieces) is that he describes what Obama is and also why
that is a danger:

> A Black presidential candidate who spends much of his time denying
> the significance of race in U.S. society, cozying up to Big
> Business, and assuring imperial interests that he will expand U.S.
> military capabilities, captured the often diametrically opposed
> imaginations of millions of Blacks and whites. African American
> "media leaders" reached full-throated supremacy over real,
> grassroots leaders.

And when his promoters like Oprah talk about having overcome
constraints that blacks or women face, that is what Ford is pointing to:

> Believing they have broken "free" of the Historical Black Political
> Consensus on social justice, societal transformation, and peace,
> opportunistic Black sub-classes - never representing mass Black
> opinion, but only their own petty aspirations - have in the past
> decade been "empowered" by corporate America to exert profoundly
> destructive centrifugal forces on the larger Black polity.

And that this is a ripe moment for anyone concerned about minority,
women's, gay, worker, etc rights to be pushing their agenda:

> The great historical irony for Black America is that this deluded
> descent into the depths of dependency on corporate mechanisms -
> marked most dramatically and horrifically by acquiescence to the
> racists' claim that race is little or no factor in American life -
> occurs at precisely the epoch when U.S.-led corporate structures are
> in terminal crisis at home and around the globe. This is the
> "burning house" that both Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King
> foretold.

And that Obama is a greater danger because his success is self-
defeating to the larger goals:

> Barack Obama's corporate-made and -financed presidential campaign is
> the product of three distinct factors, all mitigating against Black
> self-determination and political cohesion: 1) corporate decisions,
> made a decade ago, to provide media and financial support to pliant
> Black Democrats that can be trusted to carry Wall Street's water; 2)
> a widespread desire among whites to prove through the safe and
> simple act of voting that they are not personally racist, and/or to
> dismiss Black claims of pervasive racism in society, once and for
> all; 3) a huge reservoir of Jim Crow era, atavistic Black thinking
> that refuses to evaluate Black candidates' actual political stances,
> but instead revels in the prospect of Black faces in high places. A
> President Obama would, of course, be the zenith of such narrow, non-
> substantive, objectively self-defeating visions.

And his statement of my own point that Obama serves as a safety valve/
outlet and also as a stunted end not a means to our goals:

> In 2007, the Obama "package" amply satisfied all three
> "constituencies." Corporations found him a loyal ally on Capitol
> Hill and on the speaking circuit, rewarding him handsomely for his
> fealty; millions of whites came to believe Obama could solve the
> "race problem" by his mere presence, at no cost to their own notions
> of skin privilege;


And so on.


Back to Matthijs:
> It could, of course, be an argument not to vote Obama in the general
> election, which I said I wouldn't do either if I had a vote.


So you are saying that should a Democrat win, despite the lack of your
vote in the general election, then its better that that person be
Obama. As Ford (and I) argue, it is possibly worse!


> > The "really rightist" part is the reason he seemed to have a chance.
>
> There is no evidence he actually is rightist. Not in his voting
> record,
> nor in his campaigning. I get the feeling that some people think
> someone
> like Obama would have to be right-wing to get where he is, therefore
> he is
> right-wing.


I was speaking of Ford in Tennessee.


> > (I assume you are being sarcastic when you say "bastions of"?). Iowa
> > is an open caucus, so the Bradley effect is not applicable there.
> > Utah
> > and Idaho are conservative strongholds, and the small liberal
> > population has the luxury of voting for trophy candidates.
>
> Fine, but Connecticut was not an open caucus, and it is 86% white,
> and he
> did better than expected there. He also did far better than
> predicted in
> Missouri, also 86% white. As for trophy candidates, I don't see how
> that
> argument makes sense - we're talking about a primary here, not a
> general
> election. And why is Obama more a trophy candidate than Clinton?


Re: Clinton as "trophy": a) she doesn't play the trophy role well --
Nancy Pelosi may be. b) there is not that much collective guilt about
women: it is still quite acceptable in polite company to doubt the
capabilities of women in certain fields, say perhaps science. An
uppity black man would not have worked either!

Re: Bradley effect. Some of it may be mitigated by the fact that the
anti-black sentiment is masked by the anti-woman and particularly anti-
Clinton sentiment. Some of it (in conservative states such as
Missouri) is probably because of the issue I point out above: small
liberal population dominating the results. Note that at least one
recent poll in Missouri (the last one?), by Reuters/Zogby, shows Obama
up by 3 points (Feb 2-4). He won by 1.2 points. Similarly, for
Connecticut, SurveyUSA had Obama up by 2-4 points and he won by 3.1.
But the Bradley effect probably is most visible in the more
conservative states and during the final election.


> > That he has a platform and rhetoric that attracts "independents" is
> > to
> > me a warning sign, not a positive. Unless we believe that 4-8 years
> > of
> > a Democrat, any Democrat, is better than McCain for the same period.
> > There are some arguments to make that case, but then, both Obama and
> > Clinton are fine in the role of "any Democrat".
>
> Remember, I am arguing about the Democratic primary, not who to vote
> for
> in the generals. The question is, if we accept for the moment that no
> third party will play a significant role, whether we'd rather have
> McCain
> or a Democrat win that election, even if neither have our support;
> and I
> don't see how anyone can answer other than the Democrat. From which it
> follows that in the Democratic primary, it's best to choose someone
> who
> can beat McCain, which I expect Obama to be able to do more easily
> (and
> polls so far back me up).


Well that's a different argument, a strategic one, which in itself
seems to accept that there is no reason to prefer Obama over Clinton
other than "electability". That is possibly true, given the virulent
hatred of the Clintons that Limbaugh et al have stoked over 15 years,
the hope that Obama is a fluff candidate who will play by the rules
while at the same time permit us to pat ourselves on the back, and
that sexism sits easier in the stomach than racism does.


> > So, then the question becomes: will the election of Obama help rid
> > the
> > US of "plurality voting" any more than the election of Clinton? The
> > argument is that neither will have an impact, but if we have to
> > choose
> > one, it would have to be Clinton since she is less of a bromide or
> > placebo than Obama.
>
> Neither of them will have the slightest intent on reforming the voting
> system; disappointing but predictable. But I really don't see where
> the
> idea comes from that Clinton is somehow more "on the issues" than
> Obama
> is. There is zero evidence for it and it's merely a succesful
> electoral
> strategy by the Clinton campaign to make people believe that.


You will have a much harder time finding Clinton Kool-Aid drinkers
than Obama ones! If reforming the voting system is the real path, as
you suggested, then as I pose above, the question of import is who
will advance that cause. Neither will, is a safe enough assumption. If
we really want to settle it, since we agree that the beast will not
reform itself, then which presidency will instigate the people to push
for such reforms? I argue that Obama surely will not, given the
possibility that his presidency will echo his campaign, and that of
Bill Clinton: inspiring rhetoric that hides the carpet bombing from
public view. Hillary, gawky wonk that she is, can be counted on to
carry out all her missteps in full public view and scrutiny.

       --ravi