-Paul Krugman (whom I usually like)
Guess there's something wrong with me...
Over the last few days I've heard ad nauseam tributes of self-congratulations that America has elected a "black man" President. "Look at us, we put a Darkie in office!" It's all supposed to be "historic", a "sea change", etc. What a load of crap. Hearing drivel such as this conjures up the mental image of a man stroking himself with one hand and patting himself on the back with the other as he climaxes. Yeah, you might cum, dude, but you're sort of missing the bigger picture.
Electing a black man in 1968 or even 1972, now THAT would have been historic. That would have been progress and a huge leap forward. But doing it forty years after the civil rights movement, by now it should be expected. Yes, we acted like adults for once. About fucking time! How silly would it be now to laud a baseball team for drafting and playing a black player? We've been led down (and out) the garden path by the snake we let defile our country the past eight years, so I guess we're grasping on to anything to prove ourselves still holy. Good plan that.
Don't get me wrong, Obama's opponent was nuts in his outlook, showing no understanding of politics and no understanding of war and - most damning of all - no understanding of how to create life. He relied on the lost souls of the descendents of the men who shot Kennedy. Men, who like Lenin, appeal to the worst in people in order to gain political sway. Men spoken of in the Bible as ones who call evil good and good evil. Cain and Abel's eternal struggle. But as we lurch towards life here in our death throes, the tactics of torment failed (this time!).
But I don't see us as a country rebuking sin, we're merely rebuking paying for it. Our current President once described himself as a "teenager with a credit card" and declared the war is "sapping our souls" and yet even these open daylight admissions failed to bother anyone until the bills came due. You'll get no sympathy from me, motherfuckers. You ASKED for this distress! And I seriously doubt Obama has the savviness to let capitalism fail so that we may survive.
"There were no generously peaceful impulses in Atlanta, Georgia, that same week, when, on October 19 [1960], police arrested Martin Luther King for refusing to leave the all-white restaurant of a department store. Taken immediately to court, King was sentenced to four months hard labor.
"The morning after King's imprisonment, resting in his motel room, beginning to prepare for his fourth and last debate with [Tricky Dick] Nixon, Kennedy was interrupted by a telephoned suggestion from his brother in Washington, that he "might want to intervene" directly on behalf of King. Kennedy turned to the handful of staff members who had already assembled to begin the day's work. "What do you think?" he asked. The political advisers, led by Kenny O'Donnell, expressed opposition. "You have no legitimate right to interfere with the judicial system of Alabama";"It's a local concern";"Our position on the South is already precarious, and this can only antagonize the white political leaders whose organizations are essential to electoral success.""
So what did Kennedy do? He acted as a leader and made the call to free King. Good luck on finding that now and I don't see such qualities in our President elect. Maybe he can prove me wrong. Maybe I'm just jaded after watching the so-called anti-war members of Congress give our current Resident Evil his way on the war knowing it would turn people off - and cost lives. I'm sure they are smirking now thinking how politically smart they were. But as one who knows, the convictionless are always found out to be useless and destructive in the end. And what happened to Kennedy, a man who followed his convictions in a nip and tuck race?
"As the King story spread through northern ghettos, black support for Kennedy - hitherto ambivalent or disinterested - began to solidify, acquired the added enthusiasm necessary to persuade black Americans that their choice at the polls might make a difference, that Whitey was still Whitey, but some more so than others. In an election decided by a handful of votes in a few key states, that political reward was of enormous consequence. Joseph P Kennedy's most insightful political aphorism had again proved its wisdom: "When in doubt," the old man said, "do right.""
- from "Remembering America" by the great Richard Goodwin
Obama was by miles the better man for the job but I fear he could learn a lesson from the stalwart leadership of John Kennedy.
No comments:
Post a Comment