{"id":1730,"date":"2008-05-02T03:44:57","date_gmt":"2008-05-02T03:44:57","guid":{"rendered":"0"},"modified":"2008-05-02T03:53:21","modified_gmt":"2008-05-02T03:53:21","slug":"the_wright_to_s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=1730","title":{"rendered":"The Wright To Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"

I want to respond a bit to Joe’s post on Obama<\/a>, because I think he nails the strongest critiques of Obama from the right.<\/p>\n

Joe asked how we could believe that someone who:<\/p>\n

(1) was utterly supine and silent for 20 years in his own church as racial hate was propagated by the pastor; (2) who refuses to condemn a prominent supporter and fundraiser for whom bombing American sites is still seen as a good thing, and (3) who has said not a single word on the campaign trail as his party heavyweights removed post-Abramoff earmark reforms…<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

could be trusted to be a real change agent in power.<\/p>\n

And that Michelle Obama’s comments that:<\/p>\n

“Because Barack Obama is the only person in this race who understands that. That before we can work on the problems we have to fix our souls. Our souls are broken in this nation…. Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zone. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.”<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

bring Joe to fear that she’s bringing a kind of all-encompassing politics that really is totalitarian at root.<\/p>\n

Here’s what I think about this.<\/p>\n

First, I think that Obama is – above everything else – a deeply ambitious politician. Look, no one gets to play at that level without being clinically insane is some fashion; Fred Thompson’s root problem as a candidate was that he wasn’t crazy enough about the job. That means that, along the way, Obama’s made deals with shady financiers, local ethnic powerbrokers, a string of corrupt local politicians that involved the giving and taking of favors that helped him accrete the power that positioned him to stand where he is today. To think that someone not like that is going to successfully run for office – a Mike Bloomberg who didn’t have to trade away scruples – is just a fantasy. And you know what, part of me thinks that we’re better off for it; I’ve developed a whole new respect for machine politics as opposed to the politics of wild idealism.<\/p>\n

Second, what I want is a politician like Tom L Johnson<\/a> – who is idealistic at core, but willing to get his hands dirty in the back and forth of the reality of politics.<\/p>\n

I do think that the – spiritual – aspects of American politics have been neglected, and that they are absolutely necessary to the success of the American project. That project involved both a politics of ‘a right not to give a damn,’ as Joe describes it and a politics of being deeply passionate and attached to the American Project and the freedoms and covenant that come with it.<\/p>\n

And so what matters is what it is that Obama’s call to politics is about. It’s not an explicit call to transform America in a specific way; it’s a call for us to all talk to each other<\/b>. And I’ll suggest that that call can be a powerful one for all of us, even if it’s made by an ideologically jejune, passionately ambitious politician.<\/p>\n

Let me talk for a second about Obama’s ideology. It’s clear that he’s the product of the ’68 crowd his mother was a part of, and that he’s attached to and most comfortable in a crowd of people who sit around and reminisce about the Revolution That Almost Was (in their dreams). But it’s important to recognize that he never lived it; he’s an acolyte<\/b>. The Revolution for him is kind of like Woodstock; a matter of values, to be sure, but something that’s as much a matter of history as a living presence.<\/p>\n

And I know I’d ducking the fact of his core political values here – but I think you have to remember that he has two values that trump those core values: he wants to be elected, and once he is, he wants us all to talk.<\/p>\n

And I think that’s a damn good thing. How is it that a church like Wright’s – a pastor like Wright – can be so successful, so powerful? How is it that members of the black community can stand and cheer when Wright spouts obvious nonsense? How? Well, because we don’t all talk<\/b>. Because members of the church talk to each other, people on Daily Kos only talk to each other, we on Winds only talk to each other. The kind of insane beliefs that Wright espouses wouldn’t stand up to an honest discussion in the light of day, but because none of us feel the need to stop him and say – with respect, and care – that he’s saying things that make no sense at all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Armed Liberal defends Obama – yet again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1730"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1730\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}