Jacksons Obama remarks

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sauronsfinger
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Jacksons Obama remarks

Post by sauronsfinger »

Excellent opinion piece today in the NY Post by Charles Hurst regarding the supposed slip up by Jesse Jackson regarding the anatomy of Barack Obama.

I could not agree more.
======================================
HOW much player-hate can fester in one man's heart?
Apparently, quite a lot if you're the Windy City's World-Class Windbag.
Jesse Jackson has spent his entire life in love with the microphone. He knows them intimately.

He's such an aficionado of the mike that Detroit's beloved late mayor, Coleman Young, dismissed one of Jackson's failed vanity bids for the presidency by noting that "all he's ever run is his mouth."
Jackson's claim to have been caught unbeknownst by a "hot mike" slurring and threatening Barack Obama is complete hogwash.

Somewhere, deep down, he wanted the world - and Obama - to know how much he wants to "cut his nuts out." Veterinarians and doctors talk about cutting nuts "off." Only a thug or a gangster cuts a man's nuts "out." And Jackson knows better than most the vicious symbolism of castration and its blood-soaked link to lynchings in the Old South.

Nor is this the first time Jackson bared his anger. Last year, when Obama wasn't sufficiently politicizing the beating prosecution of six black teens in Louisiana known as the "Jena Six," Jackson said Obama was "acting white."

What accounts for Jackson's latest animosity toward the Democratic nominee? He said it's because Obama was "talking down to black folks."

In a Father's Day speech, Obama told black churchgoers that a father's responsibility "doesn't just end at conception."

"What makes you a man is not the ability to have a child - any fool can have a child," Obama said. "It's the courage to raise a child that makes you a father."

Maybe this struck a little too close to home for the Rev. Jackson, who just a few years ago finally owned up to fathering a child outside of his marriage even as he was busy counseling President Bill Clinton on his dalliances with a White House intern.

Perhaps the real reason for Jackson's hatred is that Obama has shown that unifying and uplifting campaigns succeed in American politics where the divisive failed campaigns waged by Jackson become history's footnotes.

And this is where Obama comes out ahead once all the dust settles.

By publicly accepting Jackson's apology, Obama floated above the whole sordid mess. For everyone watching - especially those blue-collar white voters who were so elusive for him in the primary - this is a powerful reminder that Obama is not cut from the same cloth as the militant race-baiter Jesse Jackson and his ilk.

Charles Hurt is The Post's Washington Bureau chief.
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.... John Rogers
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Post by Impenitent »

Does the community really take him seriously these days? He's shot himself in the foot so many times, travelled on so many coat tails, spouted stale, one-eyed rhetoric so often, that surely he has already been relegated to history?

I don't understand how Jackson remains on the national stage; from this distance, his support seems so limited and hackneyed.
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Post by Inanna »

hes entertaining.
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Post by solicitr »

Impenitent, such is the state of American politics that even Al Sharpton can remain on the national stage. Or Ralph Nader, for that matter.
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Post by Voronwë the Faithful »

How about Pat Robertson?
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Post by sauronsfinger »

I guess every family tree has a few nuts on it. Same for political parties.
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.... John Rogers
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Post by River »

All you need to do to get on the national stage in the US is make a lot of noise in the right place at the right time. Seriously. We've got a lot of people who're in the spotlight for no good reason. Most of them aren't in politics, but some are.
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Post by solicitr »

Um, yeah- except both Jackson and Sharpton were invited to speak at the 2004 Democratic convention. The GOP did not give any such platform to Robertson, Falwell, Wildmon or any of that crew.
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Post by Voronwë the Faithful »

My question was actually a question, not a comment. I was asking whether you considered Pat Robertson to still be on the national stage.

Needless to say, Ralph Nader was not invited to speak at the 2004 Democratic convention. :P
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Post by Voronwë the Faithful »

A very interesting (and in my opinion accurate) take on Jackson's comments:
(Liberal) Fear of a Black President
Jesse Jackson's ridiculous comments about Barack Obama "talking down" to black people -- as opposed to Jackson's totally reprehensible comments insinuating violence being committed against Obama (click here to see the video) -- are only the latest in a litany of derisive remarks directed at Obama from stalwarts of the left. Ralph Nader and Geraldine Ferraro and Al Sharpton and Bob Johnson and South Carolina State Senator Robert Ford have all maligned Obama as being everything from a "lucky" black man to not being black enough.

While it's never a shock when operatives of the far, far right have trouble with a person of color achieving stature (though I do believe they play ball better with those in the fold), what a long strange trip this campaign season has been watching so-called liberals fumble the hot potato that is Barack Obama.

Why? Why is Obama of such consternation to the Old Schoolers?

For one, Obama and his candidacy challenge the liberal establishment; by not miring himself in the politics of hand outs Obama elevates blacks above and beyond a herd that was fed the grain of entitlements in exchange for votes. In addition to extolling blacks to take more personal responsibility (a position a Pew research study finds the majority of black Americans hold), Obama has also questioned race-based affirmative action and understands -- again, as the majority of black Americans do -- that what's good for the country is good for all of us. To Jackson that's "talking down" to blacks. To Nader that's "talking white." But to the tens of millions of Americans who helped Obama win the primary (as opposed to Jackson and Nader who have yet to win an election) Obama is simply talking to America.

Moreover, what scares the Old Schoolers is that Obama's potential election removes from them the victim stick with which they flog their diminishing relevance. Obama as president would be empirical evidence that, while there are and probably always will be racists in America, America is no longer a racist nation. There are a lot of liberals who've made good bank stretching out the "you done me wrong, now gimme something" politics of the sixties well into the new millennium.

Obama wants change.

And change for the Old Schoolers ain't a good thing.
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Post by Túrin Turambar »

Excellent article.

I was only dropping in to observe that poor Obama hasn't had that much luck with preachers of late...
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Post by halplm »

Obama has an interesting "problem" in the fact that he's actually stating the reality of the black community's acceptance of victimhood, and failure to actually step up and accept personal responsability. Jackson and Sharpton, and all of the black leadership since MLK Jr, have made their careers on convincing the black community that society and the government "owe" them something for nothing, because of past history.

Obama is actually taking the stance that the black community has to motivate itself, and take responsability, and work to raise itself up.

Of course, he also says the government should provide everything anyone needs, particularly underpriviledged people such as those in the black community who have suffered through centuries of racism and predjudice...

so it's hard to really understand what his point of view is. On the one hand, he seems to recognize the truth, that the government isn't the ultimate answer for black americans... a refreshing and new view for a black leader in this country... on the other hand, he's the same as all liberal democrats before him...

I wonder which is his real opinion...
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Post by sauronsfinger »

Hal, having worked at an inner city school in Detroit for 34 years, I rubbed shoulders everday with what you would call the black community. In short, there is no one monolithic Black Community. There are several different groups, some at odds with each other over basic issues.

Much has been written about the difference between The Street and The Church in this community. The Streeet refers to stereotypical gang banger culture and all that goes with it. The Church are mostly church raised folk with Middle classvalues and sensibilities. These two groups are very different.

Bill Cosby went on his own crusade regarding some of the same things Obama is discussing. Cosby comes from the Church tradition and is preaching to change the behaviors of the Street community. Obama finds himself much in the same situation.

White people who look at African-Americans as all being one big monolithic community who think alike and act alike do so wrongly. Its really not that simple.

In fact, for me and others to divide an entire 35 million people into two neat divisions is also an oversimplification. There are many sublte and not so subtle divisions even among those two major groups.

Because the situation is many layered and complex, do not expect the message to be simplistic and without nuance.
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.... John Rogers
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Post by solicitr »

In fact, for me and others to divide an entire 35 million people into two neat divisions is also an oversimplification. There are many sublte and not so subtle divisions even among those two major groups.

Because the situation is many layered and complex, do not expect the message to be simplistic and without nuance.

As opposed to, say, dividing an entire political party into two neat divisions? ;)

---------------------------

Voronwë- I'm stunned- that the Huffington Post would put up such a column, or (to a lesser extent) that you would cite it- it could have come from National Review or American Spectator. It is, verbatim, what conservatives have been saying about Jackson and his ilk for years. "[F]ed the grain of entitlements in exchange for votes" is a phrase that Will or Buckley could have penned.
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Post by sauronsfinger »

I quote from my original post on the subject

The Republican Party has two main wings - the Wall Street wing and the Main Street wing.

Please note that it does not divide up the Republican Party into only these two wings. It clearly says that these are the two main wings. Obviously we also have groups like the Log Cabin Republicans, the Libertarian group and a few others. But the division of the party into the two main wings has existed for some time now.

As you in one of your response posts so wisely noted.

from Solicitr
The Main Street-Wall Street divide (only one of many such fissures) goes back decades, and represents the tension between big business and small business. Even the "Wall Street" faction is not monolithic, being itself pulled between those who favor the financial markets and those whoi favore industry and othe big business interests.
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.... John Rogers
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Post by sauronsfinger »

Shelby Steele has an excellent column on the subject in todays Wall Street Journal.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1216685 ... mmentaries
There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.... John Rogers
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Post by TheEllipticalDisillusion »

Jackson is still stuck in Hymietown. Barack's lack of appeal to hate mongers like Jackson and Sharpton make me consider him more and more as a potentially good presidential candidate.

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Post by Erunáme »

I just found there is a political/news version of icanhascheezburger. It had this on it which made me laugh quite a bit:

http://punditkitchen.files.wordpress.co ... idates.jpg

Dunno, if the mods will find linking to this inappropriate or not. If so, feel free to delete.
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Post by Voronwë the Faithful »

I don't see any issues with it, Eru.
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