So it is assumed that Americans cannot have a serious civilized discussion on race relations and on systemic racism. Nor can one talk about how certain groups target segments of the population on single issues in order to distract Americans from the wide range of issues that should be discussed in a political campaign whether it is gun control or prayer in the schools or or abortion or immigration and national security or even the environment or global warming . Such tactics are at times used by both the right and left. And many of these issues are very complex and come with a lot of historical precedents or tradition or prejudices which one needs to take into account. But I think and hope that McCain and the Clintons are wrong and that the electorate is beginning to catch onto these old once tried and true political tactics . And maybe Americans are getting tired of this Dumbing -Down process and reducing everything to a " Talking Point " or a one-liner Some of the participants seem to think they are applying for the job of a " Comic Headliner "or " Top Banana " rather than President of the one and only Super-Power.
It seems to me that there's something gone wrong with Hillary's campaign when even CNN attacks her and McCain over their criticism of Obama. Hillary Clinton die-hard supporters should realize how similar she and John McCain are . Its like the choice between Twiddly Dumb and Twiddly Dee. As a Canadian, American politics almost always looks like this . But this time even to many outsiders Obama sounds like he might just be able to change the traditional way things are done in America. Maybe for instance he might try diplomacy rather than bombs or doing things not just for the rich but also for the poor or even ensure that American soldiers and American veterans are treated properly and not just patted on the back or given medals and then sent on their way to struggle on their own or maybe he'll insist that all of America's children are entitled to a high quality education no matter their color , their religion, their family's economic situation or where they just happen to live etc. Hillary is not going to insist on getting rid of the built in inequalities in America's institutions or its society. She like McCain and the Neocons believes in a natural hierarchy in which they believe that some have wealth and therefore certain entitlements and that those who are poor are not deserving of these entitlement . Why should a two year old or five year old or seventeen year old be given fewer opportunities just because he or she is born into a particular set of circumstances which are beyond the child's control.
CNN:Obama's Bitter Comment Misrepresented By Hillary & McCain
Hillary who made fun of Obama's campaign of Change & optimism now claims he is elitist and defeatist.First he was too positive now he's too negative.
But it appears she either did not understand or is deliberately misrepresenting Obama's remark about people feeling " bitter ".The point Obama was making was that t people who feel they have been neglected for decades often begin to feel bitter. But once again Hillary use the remark to attack Obama in her now typical fashion of old style gutter politics in which anything goes. Or if you throw enough mud at someone some of it is bound to stick , at least, in the minds of Fox News and some members of the electorate.
She earlier claimed that few changes can be made in American society or government so get used to it so she told the American electorate. She characterized Obama and his easily led followers as being idealistic and therefore naive .
She claimed that because in her view Obama does not have enough experience that he doesn't understand how governments and the world works which in her view is that very little can ever be accomplished and so to dream of a better society or a better world is just down right stupid. If it had been up to people like Hillary there would never have been any improvements in American society . For instance the Civil Rights Movement and the Feminist Movement would have made no progress if she had been in charge in the 1960s or 1970s.
Obama " bitter " comment, Hillary Clinton Attacks
Heir's a video which gets at the main issue here and why Hillary's attack is not quite accurate to say the least.
Obama talks about the legacy of some 25 years of indifference on the part of the leaders and politicians in Washington. Including the Bush family and the Clintons etc.
About this video from sjl45:
" Hillary Clinton uses equivocation, an illogical informal fallacy, to unjustly attack Barack Obama's character."
And here's Obama further explaining what he meant in his " Bitter Comment "
Obama : " What we need is a government that is paying attention."
This would also suggest that the American people should be paying attention to what their government , what their president and what their politicians are actually doing.
Of course Hillary prefers to tell people she like George W. Bush will be the decider so the American people need not pay attention or actually think seriously about what their government is up to.
Anyway before continuing let's take a reality check as they say whoever they are . Bill Clinton seems to have made similar remarks about some Americans who were bitter back in 1991. As Nico Pitney reminds us in an article Bill Clinton Flashback: "All These Economically Insecure White People...Are Scared To Death" at the Huffington Post April 13, 2008
As the rumination continues over Barack Obama's comments about economically-depressed small town voters, statements made by Bill Clinton on the same topic -- uttered while he was running for president in 1991 -- have now surfaced.
"The reason (George H. W. Bush's tactic) works so well now is that you have all these economically insecure white people who are scared to death," Clinton was quoted saying by the Los Angeles Times in September 1991.
A couple months later, Joe Klein, writing for the Sunday Times, reported that Clinton made the following remarks:
"You know, he [Bush] wants to divide us over race. I'm from the South. I understand this. This quota deal they're gonna pull in the next election is the same old scam they've been pulling on us for decade after decade after decade. When their economic policies fail, when the country's coming apart rather than coming together, what do they do? They find the most economically insecure white men and scare the living daylights out of them. They know if they can keep us looking at each other across a racial divide, if I can look at Bobby Rush and think, Bobby wants my job, my promotion, then neither of us can look at George Bush and say, 'What happened to everybody's job? What happened to everybody's income? What ... have ... you ... done ... to ... our ... country?'"
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And as Jayne Lyn Stahl in an article entitled Pouncer -in-Chief at Huffington Post points out what are these new found values which Hillary Clinton supports. She is now it appears against any sort of " Gun Control " and is open to debate on the Separation of Church and State. How far to the Right is she willing to go to win the next election. She has already convinced many of her followers that Obama is not sincere and is only good at making speeches and besides she sort of hints that as a black man his chances of winning against McCain are not as good as her chances. But as time goes by one sees less and less difference between her and McCain and the Republicans. Maybe the Republicans should have drafted her to run for their party. At least then her and many of her rather conservative followers would be forced to show their true colors . She also questions his patriotism and his Christian Faith. This also raises the ghost of Joseph McCarthy . But this I think has been around since the beginning of this campaign since a year ago when Fox News and others were discussing Barack Obama's middle and last name and whether or not he was raised a Muslim or went to a Madrassa and then later the Reverend Wright scandal imagine a minister who also has political views this shocked the Media if not the American people. Of course then they bring on various right wing evangelicals and right wing Catholics to denounce reverend wright.
They all seem to forget the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was an activist for Civil Rights but also was critical of American society for its racism and in justices and inequalities. Rev. King went further and spoke out against the Vietnam War for which at the time he was attacked relentlessly by the White House and the American Media and by a large portion of the American people. Many White Americans and the White Media were willing to permit Black people to sit wherever they wished on a bus but they weren't going to have to go to school with them or have to fight in Vietnam beside them or have to attend colleges with them if they could help it. That's why there was an increase in the number of private schools and colleges in America where Black students could by law be excluded. This also helped the Home School movement to flourish as White parents took their kids out of desegregated schools.
Here's the crux of Jayne Stahl' argument:
But, what was it exactly that Barack Obama said that has Hillary agitated, and showing off her newly cleaned fangs? Clinton assailed Obama for having said that working class voters, out of bitterness, "cling to guns or religion." Obama later elaborated that his focus was on how guns and religion are often security blankets for those who have no other way to deal with their frustration, a frustration that is virtually guaranteed to continue if either Clinton or McCain occupy the Oval Office come January, 2009.And so it goes,
What fascinates most is how conveniently, and readily, both Clinton and McCain channel another senator, Joe McCarthy, when challenging whether or not Obama is "American" enough. It's not so much her insistence that the Illinois senator is "demeaning," but that he is arrogant and, more importantly, that his remarks "are not reflective of the values and beliefs of Americans." But, the question is, which American's values does Hillary reflect?
How convenient now for her to invoke what she calls her "Midwestern values and an unshakable faith in America and its policies." Are we to infer from this attack, as was the case with Reverend Wright, that she thinks Obama's faith in America is shakable? And, if so, how can we sit idly by and allow yet another politician to challenge the "patriotism" af another in order to accrue political advantage? It's terrifying to think that anyone running for office, in 2008, can be allowed to swoop down, and play the Joe McCarthy card against their opponent, without being called on it.
Again, specifically, which American values are the former First Lady endorsing, those, as she says, of "Americans who believe in the Second Amendment because it's a matter of constitutional right. Americans who believe in God because it's a matter of personal faith" and, if so, what about the First and Fifth Amendment separation of church and state? Does Mrs. Clinton support those, too, or just the amendment most likely to push her lead, in both Pennsylvania and Indiana, back to the double-digit range?
Her newfound love affair with the Second Amendment, and big thumbs-up to those folks who think they have a divine right to bear arms, is her way to reassure the gun guys that, if elected, she won't take their toys away at a time when the Supreme Court is, for the first time in 70 years, deciding whether or not to let the Washington, D.C. ban on handguns stand. Her support of the gun lobby puts her squarely in McCain's lap, and in his camp.
This latest Second Amendment posturing of hers is egregiously ironic in light of the fact that her husband, while president, attempted to get serious gun legislation through Congress a decade ago in response to the school shooting in Flint, Michigan of Kayla Rolland, by her six year old classmate.
Yes, indeed, it was Hillary's husband, Bill Clinton, who appeared on primetime TV, nine years ago, to say that "every single day there are 13 children who die from guns." Imagine how many more children die today from guns. Notably, Clinton 's gun control legislation stalled because he faced a Republican Congress. Now, nearly a decade later, were she to be elected president, gun control legislation would stall not because of a Republican Congress, but because of a Democratic president. What next? A campaign ad showing Hillary Clinton lighting up a Virginia Slim, and pledging her support of the tobacco lobby?
GORD.
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