Living for Change: Obama and MLK
The new energies being unleashed by Barack Obama hold great promise. In his person and prose Obama embodies the achievements of the movements of the 20th century and the hope that we can become the change we want to see in the 21st century.
To build the movement for change will not be easy. The challenges we face demand profound changes not only in our institutions but in ourselves. To become part of the solution, we must recognize that we are a large part of the problem.
That means we can’t leave it all to Obama. Instead of being followers of a charismatic leader, we must be the leaders we’ve been looking for. This is the best way to make Obama less vulnerable to corporate funders and lobbyists. It is also the best way to protect him from the assassins who gunned down so many charismatic leaders in the 1960s.
We don’t have to start from scratch. As we commemorate the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination this year, we can look to the vision that he was creating at the height of his awareness before he was taken from us. In the last three years of his life Dr. King recognized that “the war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit. We are on the wrong side of a world revolution because we refuse to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investment.”
“We have come to value things more than people. Our technological development has outrun our spiritual development. We have lost our sense of community, of interconnection and participation.”
In order to get on the right side of that revolution, he said, we must undergo a radical revolution of values against the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism.
“A true revolution of values will look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth…It will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: ‘This is not just.’ The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach and nothing to learn is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: “This way of settling differences is not just.’ A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”
The urban rebellions had also made King acutely aware of the needs of young people. “This generation,” he said, “is engaged in a cold war with the earlier generation. It is not the normal hostility of the young groping for independence. It has a new quality of bitter antagonism and confused anger which suggests basic values are being contested.” “The source of this alienation is that our society has made material growth and technological advance an end in itself, robbing people of participation.”
To overcome this alienation we need to change our priorities. Instead of pursuing economic productivity, we need to expand our uniquely human powers, especially our capacity for the Love that is ready to go to any length to restore community.
This Love, King insisted, is not some sentimental weakness. “We can learn its practical meaning from the young people who joined the civil rights movement,… putting on overalls to work in the isolated rural South because they felt the need for more direct ways of learning that would strengthen both society and themselves.”
What we need now “in our dying cities,” King said, are ways to provide young people with similar opportunities to engage in self-transforming and structure-transforming direct action. King was assassinated before he could discover and implement ways to nurture this two-sided transformation. Forty years later, that is the mission of a new generation.
We have to create the momentum for these changes at the grassroots level. Instead of being seduced by Walmart’s low prices, refusing to acknowledge that these bargains exist because multinational corporations outsource U.S. jobs to Chinese sweatshops, we need to create local sustainable economies that not only reduce carbon emissions but provide more opportunities for our young people to be of use. Instead of viewing success in terms of more consumer goods, we need to devise ways to live more simply and cooperatively, thereby not only making it possible for others to simply live but also discovering positive and even joyful ways to grapple with our own increasing economic hardships.
Because Detroit has been so devastated by deindustrialization, we have embarked on a five year Detroit City of Hope campaign. Out of necessity we are becoming the kind of leadership by example which is now needed.
Obama can become a great President only if we become a great people. We must grow together.
Grace Boggs has been an activist for more than 60 years and is the author of the autobiography Living for Change. She will celebrate her 93rd birthday in June. This article first appeared in the Michigan Citizen, Jan. 20-26, 2008, and was reproduced by YES! Magazine with the kind permission of the author. Also see her commentary piece, The Fierce Urgency of Now, part of Stop Global Warming Cold, the Spring 2008 issue of YES!
Grace Boggs says: “Obama can become a great president only if we become a great people. We must grow together.”
For those at CD who believe I always brag too much on Obama and the Democrats, this author has said something with this statement that is far beyond anything I could have thought of to say. It is what I hope for.
Obama is not “perfect.” I believe he is “good” and “good enough” to inspire us for years to become a better people. I believe he could “lead” us to a better class of topics and goals to be on our national agenda every day.
The article is a timely reminder that it is not enough to simply vote and wait for the “change-from-on-high” to happen.
Mr. Obama has the opportunity to lead, follow, or get out of the way. WE
will be the real source of change.
What Martin Luther King Jr. stands for is a challenge for us today to choose compassion and decide to join together and work together for the betterment of the condition of humankind. It’s time to let go of all of the trivialities and ego-trips and raise our collective consciousness past what’s best for us and realize that the first priority is to stop the killing, stealing and oppression of third world countries. America must stop it or it will pay. There is a sowing and reaping process for our personal souls as well as the American soul.
It is so true that Barack Obama, if elected our president, can’t change things alone. He will need everyone possible to work together to make America stable for all of us and the world again. No, Barack is not perfect. He makes mistakes, made wrong choices at times, but his heart and mind are open to accepting new truths and finding ways to make things right. He cares about people, whether poor, oppressed or wealthy, he understands that all human beings need to be respected and honored for who they are and what they need in life. No other candidate has these qualities. The Clintons are blinded with their wealth and power needs and John McCain will continue the Bush policies.
We all need to heed the call and rally to Barack Obama’s cause because it is our cause too. It is time. We have to quit throwing around unimportant opinions and degrading statements and make a stand. If we can’t make a choice for the only candidate who truly does want to bring change in the sorry state of afffairs in our country at this time, how are we going to stand with anyone when the Republican party does everything in their power to destroy and defame them during the general election?
It’s really simple enough, if as president, Barack is doing something you don’t agree with, or you want to influence him in his policies, get involved in the political process with others and let him know. I’ve been reading a lot of Democratic and progressive literature such as Common Dreams on the Internet and am impressed with how much they accomplish working together. Moveon.org is great and there are many others with good results.
There is power in the people when the people put aside their petty disagreements and pull together for the higher cause. Let’s unite and elect a president who will listen to us and who has already said he needs us and invites us into the government process with him to make change.
elmeztisogordo,
Obama isn’t even a follower, let alone a leader: 2/3 of the public wants single payer and in a new poll about 60% of doctors. That’s not enough for Obama. He won’t even follow that movement. Problem is his presence on the scene puts him in the way, his mere star power enough to distract the voter from realizing if they vote for Obama they’re not gonna get the policies they say they want.
(Obama used to be for single payer before he came out against it—thereby guaranteeing tens of millions of dollars in corporate contributions and showing himself “safe” from any threat to reorder our priorities toward social justice)
Whoever is president, it is up to the people of good will to make themselves heard and to influence him or her. This has always been so. Pretending it is some new revelation made possible only by Obama is ridiculous, but typical of the zealotry which has now taken over the campaign and drowns out the voice of reason. What’s more, comparing an adroit opportunist like Obama with a genuine and heroic voice for real social change like Dr. King is an insult to Martin Luther King.
MLK:
‘Our technological development has outrun our spiritual development. We have lost our sense of community, of interconnection and participation.’
“In order to get on the right side of that revolution, he said, we must undergo a radical revolution of values against the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism.”
Amen.
Grace Lee Boggs appeared on Bill Moyers Journal a couple years ago. The woman is a national treasure.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/06152007/profile2.html
formernadervoter:
I reiterate: lead, follow or get out of the way. Obama’s healthcare proposals are weak. All the more reason for us to be more “assertive” regarding single-payer, and, for that matter, any number of other issues.
My point was that WE are the agents of change, not Obama, not Clinton, and
certainly not McCain. Relying on change-from-above has become an American
pastime and delusion.
WE will be the agents of change or there will be none.
I am a “former Nader voter” as well. His campaigns have taught me that change will not come from above.
Direct action gets the goods.
DELUSIONAL DEMOCRATS or just plain old shills!
Obama words are usless he has proven that they are empty, he sounds like Bill Clinton in the days before he became president and we all know where that has led us.
Obama has been in the halls of power in the senate and has done nothing to change the direction of the Bush administration,never tried to lead the the criminal Democratic leadership not even in the tool of impeachment that would have stopped the continuing crimanal and unlawful actions of the executive branch of what we call our government.
Impeachment is the only way to repudiate the crimes of this union without that there are only empty words and that’s all that Obama is about !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I think Obama has the makings of a statesman and could be the best President we’ve seen in a long time. That, unfortunately is not saying much. Obama is not King and certainly no revolutionary. It is wise to support his candidacy at this point and even wiser to maintain low expectations about what he will bring to the office and what we will achieve.
I am always refreshed when a public voice speaks my own heart’s beliefs. Thank you Grace Lee Boggs for being such a voice. I am heartened to know that one who has seen so much of life and the world, has found that wisdom and community are inherently interwoven. To join others to create, grow, cultivate, build… therein lies a power that is so much more than the “power” we ascribe to the anointed ones!
“we need to expand our uniquely human powers, especially our capacity for the Love that is ready to go to any length to restore community.”
Such a simple concept, so available to anyone with the will to be and do it!
“Out of necessity we are becoming the kind of leadership by example which is now needed.”
Attraction overcomes so many obstacles in life!
“Obama can become a great President only if we become a great people. We must grow together.”
Humanity seems to be realizing that the present political “power” structures don’t work, that cohersion, competition, and acquisition are not concepts that abide with - let alone embrace - the diversity in our world. We can use that insight to learn co-operative co-responsibility for peace and prosperity.
Barack Obama seems well-inclined to lead in our efforts to build on that awareness.
Obama and the Obamamaniacs constantly rip off Martin Luther King Jr. Its a fraud. Look closely at this piece and you can see the techniques.
The piece starts with the usual vague garbage one finds around the Obama campaign. A completely farcical statement about how Obama represents the all the achievements of all of the movements of the 20th century. Not a specific in sight, so you don’t know what the heck she’s talking about. Just a broad feel-good statement that is DESIGNED to make the reader quickly associate the name Obama with any achievement of any movement in the twentieth century.
So, if you like the labor movement, you can quickly associate the name Obama with the rise of the labor unions in the earlier twentieth century. Of course, the statement is so broad that if you are a fan of the fascist movements you could read that same sentence and smile and like Obama as well. Very slippery and broad writing that’s designed to manipulate the reader.
Now the author has a problem though. You can carry this vague slippery nonsense writing for a little while, but eventually one has to back it up. If Obama was really the great hero that he’s presented as, one could easily fill up a short piece like this with inspiring Obama quotes. Ooops. Hard to do with a man who’s never really done anything.
So, the propaganda technique is to quickly shift the view. Suddenly start quoting MLK Jr. But someone else’s words on the page as the inspiring words.
Of course, they don’t fit. Obama is the candidate of Wall St. in this election, with millions and millions of wall st dollars flowing into his campaign. Its a pretty fair guess that Wall st is not funding “A true revolution of values” that “will look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth.
So, the propgandist now has the candidate associated with radical words of change. Its complete BS of course. But you have to stop and look closely. If you just read this quickly one time, you might come away with that smiling , brainwashed look one encounters these days in the Obamamaniac. But pay very close attention to how this article manipulates emotions and associates Obama with words his wall st funders would never allow him to say.
Oh yeah, and the Obama campaign is already setting up the next con.
Its a sure bet that the Obama presidency will not satisfy the Obamamaniacs. President Obama will quickly move to pay back the big money that’s flowed into his campaign.
One thing this means is don’t look for any big federal criminal probes into the subprime lending scams. Nope, instead what you’ll see is an uninterrupted flow of bailout money into the pockets of the scammers.
Such a craven payoff to corporate interests isn’t exacly the ‘change’ the typical Obamamaniac ‘hopes’ for. Nope, more like business as usual. Anyone who realizes that millions of dollars don’t move around for no reason won’t be surprised. But the typical Obamamaniac has quite a shock coming to them.
So, here we start to see the introduction of the next con. Its all going to be your fault. President Obama is going to disappoint because the people didn’t organize on their own and force him to be a good president. Of course, the modern political reality that a million people marching in the street doesn’t come close to matching the power of Wall St money will be ignored.
Obama will fulfill Wall St, and its all your fault.
CoMarc - what do you think/believe/know will help our nation in the next decade?
Leadership is a great deal about conveying ideology through words - the more eloquent the better.
That Wall Street supports Obama is not an insult to his integrity - it is suggestive that movers and shakers like the way he speaks too.
There is also nothing innately evil about Wall Street, nor in the people who work there. In the value system of the majority - accumulating wealth is a basic goal. There are more ethical brokers than unethical. The old adage about “one bad apple in a barrel” … comes to mind - but people are not apples - each has individual will and ethics that must be figured into the equation.
I do not see that great a similarity between early W.Clinton and Obama unless by that you mean the “Hope” that each references in their speeches. I am sorry that you seem to feel Hope has been proven to be an empty promise for you. Bill Clinton did lift some ships in his tenure. He didn’t do the job perfectly, and he made some terrible mistakes… but he didn’t destroy Hope as a guiding principle!
To call Grace Lee Boggs a propagandist, or to suggest that people who find inspiration in Obama as having the “smiling , brainwashed look one encounters these days in the Obamamaniac” is insulting. You might like to rethink your own agenda in writing such things.
IMHO You miss the point of the article - that effective free-nation leadership is totally reliant on equally committed citizens to make it work for all.
To me it seems like deja vu 2004 all over again. Then, millions of idealistic Americans, including many young ones, were “inspired” by Howard Dean’s sincere manner into believing that he would be more progressive as President than he was as a candidate. Though he wouldn’t campaign for single payer health insurance he would, my Dean-supporting friends told me, become such a supporter once he were President. Then, as now, a candidate of “hope” and “change” was a candidate that many of his followers hoped would change. The new element, articulated by, among others, the author of this article, is that the progressivism of a candidate’s followers can actually “lead” the candidate’s actions once he/she is in power. I think, to the contrary, that an officeholder’s actions are a combination of his/her own ideals and those of his/her advisors; as well as the calculations of how those actions affect the officeholder’s ability to exert influence on the decision-making process and on the prospects of his/her re-election (what is “politically feasible.”) Once a candidate’s followers demonstrate they will vote for him/her even when the candidate does not proclaim identity with their own political views, that support can literally be “taken for granted” and the other sources of “guidance” (like appeals from campaign contributors who expect a “return” for their money) will tend to take over. The only way a group of would-be supporters can “lead” a candidate is if they make their vote dependent on the candidate’s declarations in favor of their views. I too “hope” that Barack Obama will “change” his position of unconditional support for our “staunch ally, Israel” or that he will support single payer health insurance, but the time to lead is during the campaign season. Does it really make sense to say in effect to a candidate: “we really don’t agree with your views on this but we will vote for you anyway and will even keep pressure on you once you are in office?” To which any rational candidate will SAY “fine, give me your vote, my door will always be open” and THINK “maybe not quite as wide as for the guy from Goldman Sachs that gave me a half million dollars for my last campaign and will no doubt come through again if I “resist” your pressure. Actually Naomi Klein and Jeremy Scahill said this better than I in a recent article urging progressives not to be pre-mature in backing a presidential candidate: “As soon as we pick sides, we relegate ourselves to mere cheerleaders.” ” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-klein-and-jeremy-scahill/players-not-cheerleaders_b_93515.html So all I’m saying, with them, is: let’s be players in the election not cheerleaders, at least until candidates give us enough of substance to “cheer about.”
Ah “Change”- Shouldn’t that word be capitalized? I recall when the Conservatives in Canada kicked out the sort-a-Socialists (NDP) in Canada their slogan was “Time for a Change”.
Come to think of it, didn’t Lukas have something to say about how identical everything is (”it’s boring”) in a Capitalist society as a social totality? Have Obama’s think-tank cabal of manipulators read Lukas?
Now, if Obama truly did have any policies that truly went against American vested interests, he would end up dead like MLK. That’s the only fair comparisson between these 2 leaders.
Gravel said it best. He could not promise change because the congress is bought. All he could promise, he said, was to try to oppose the entrenched powers. That is all anybody can do. Indeed, it is up to the people to set the tone and they have. Their wish is to win wars and dominate the world. The next president will be the one that convinces the people he/she can win wars. The next president would therefore be McCain, as is likely.
Mainstay (2:31 pm) writes, “…Leadership is a great deal about conveying ideology through words - the more eloquent the better. That Wall Street supports Obama is not an insult to his integrity - it is suggestive that movers and shakers like the way he speaks too.
There is also nothing innately evil about Wall Street, nor in the people who work there….”
- This is a fantastically naive remark (just what I’d expect from someone naive enough to believe in the thin gruel of Obama). The “movers and shakers” you speak of have just succeeded in pulling off what is probably the most massive looting scheme in all of Western history. (I’m referring to the mortgage/credit scam, which is very much like Enron, but thousands of times larger, & entirely capable of causing a global depression). As we speak, these nice “non-evil” people are arranging with their purchased whores in Washington (who enabled the scam in the first place, via deregulation of the financial industry) to shift the burden of paying for the damage to the backs of the American taxpaying public. Not a single person among them is going to be so much as charged with a crime; yet they concocted & executed this scheme for personal enrichment, in the same sense as a common hoodlum might rob a convenience store.
I guess you also think that “There is also nothing innately evil about the military-industrial complex, nor in the people who work in it,” right?
The reason the Wall St gangsters “like the way Obama speaks” is because he never says anything the least bit threatening to them. He doesn’t intend to step on their toes.
Comarc–I have read you long enough to know better, but lately you have come off sounding like a neocon Rovian troll. Your bitterness against Obama reminds me of the classic defination of a cynic–”a cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing”.
As I mentioned I have eread you enough to know better than what your recent posts have seemed to be saying, but dude–cool it long enough to let Barack Obama have a reasonable shot (no ironic pun intended!) at the White House.
Just to clarify what you already probably know:
In 1961 JFK started out as a cold warrior who was gung-ho to fight commies in Vietnam and was a very reluctant freind of the Civil Rights movement in general and Dr. King in particular.
By 1961, Bobby Kennedy’s record was as counsel on the witch-hunting staff of Sernator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950’s eagerly seeking fame trying to humiliate the targets of such hearings. It was Bobby who also gave the detestable J. Edgar Hoover authorization to tap King’s phones and plant listening devices in his various dwelling places while on the road on the strength of him having close ties with Communists. (A bunch of BS it turned out.)
In 1955 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. started out trying to reform the local bus company in Montgomery AL by coordinating a boycott until they let anybody sit anywhere on a bus going to town. besides being a church pastor his greatest desire at that point in his life was to become a dean of students at some HBC and live out his life as an academic.
Where these men started out is obviously not where they ended up and while their end is obvious to us all, their evolution (or the process by which they became who they were at their deaths)is too easily forgotten.
What I am trying to say is: events and circumstances have a way of changing people as they go through life in a way that can not be anticipated by either their supportwers or opponents and usually least of all by the people themselves.
This might even apply to the likes of Bush and Cheney–because even these detestable cretins wrote and/or spoke things very different than what they have done in the past 8 long years (will it ever end?!!)
Grace Lee Boggs as both a scholar and octagenarian who has been intimately involved as a progressive activist all her adult life is in a better position to appreciate this than most people living today. Barack Obama has his warts as did JFK, Bobby, and MLK Jr.–but given time, events and the opportunity, he could evolve into something totally different than what he now appears to be. Face it, he is a better hope than either Hillary or McCain.
I have a great deal of respect and admiration for Grace Lee Bogs and her many contributions to good causes and her long list of accomplishments. She is an inspiration in and of herself.
Having said that, I greatly disagree with her view of Sen. Omama. I knew CD would publish at least one article drawing parallels between the great MLK and the much lesser Sen. Obama. Lets just take one of her comments:
“In order to get on the right side of that revolution, he said, we must undergo a radical revolution of values against the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism.”
Okay, where does Obama come in? He is proposing increasing the military budget, wants to increase the troops by as many as 100,000 and laments we have so many troops in Iraq because he would rather see them in Afghanistan.
Please do not talk about the great Dr. Martin Luther King and Obama on the same page seeing as this is a great insult to Martin. His memory and ultimate sacrifice deserves more. Please leave Obama out when talking about one of the greatest leaders ever. What has Obama sacrificed that would qualify him to be on the same page as my hero? He is just an ambitious, typical, run of the mill, smooth talking politician that was mentored by the McCain hobnobbing, Bush-kissed sellout Joe Lieberman. I mean enough said in that last sentence alone.
RichM and Comarc are on the mark as usual. Thanks!
Change, if it were to come, would have to come from the bottom up. Change from the top is impossible, because it is easy for the PTB to knock them off, as they did with JFK, MLK, etc. Everyone in Congress and the Executive Branch, and the heads of it’s agencies need to be removed and replaced by those who are elected without the corruptive influence of corporate donations. This is impossible. Obama may be a good guy, but if MLK were around today, he would be a political liability and Obama would not have anything to do with him.
No the only change will be for the worse.
“From a [document reporting on a] UN-affiliated public hearing held at Iowa State Capitol in Des Moines on September 22, 1991. The last paragraph of this document reads:
“Therefore the following policy must be implemented… all nations [should] have quotas for reduction on a yearly basis… by military force, when required… Security Council has complete legal, military, and economic jurisdiction in any region in the world… take possession of all natural resources, including the watersheds and great forests, to be used and preserved for the good of the Major nations of the Security Council… the UN will explain that not all races and peoples are equal, nor should they be. Those races proven superior by superior achievements ought to rule the lesser races, caring for them on sufferance that they cooperate with the Security Council.”
“We are the living sponsors of the great Cecil Rhodes will of 1877, in which Rhodes devoted his fortune to: ’the extension of British rule throughout the world… the colonization by British subjects of the entire Continent of Africa, the Holy Land, the Valley of the Euphrates, the islands of Cyprus and Candia, the whole of South America, the islands of the pacific not heretofore possessed by Great Britain the whole of the Malay archipelago, the seaboard of China and Japan, the ultimate recovery of the United States of America as an integral part of the British Empire…’
We stand with Lord Milner’s Credo. We too are ’British Race patriots’ and our patriotism is ’the speech, the tradition, the principles, the aspirations of the British Race.’ Do you fear to take this stand at the very last moment when this purpose can be realized? Do you not see that failure now is to be pulled down by the billions of Lilliputians of lesser race who care little or nothing for the Anglo-Saxon system?”
“This is the time to save the Anglo-Saxon race and it most glorious production: the Anglo-Saxon system of banking, insurance and trade.”"
So, as you can see, if this 1991 document is real, change has already come, we are a British controlled nation, our leaders believing themselves to be descended from one of the lost tribes of Israel (Dan), and so have united with the remnants of the Judah tribe in a common cause which is Zionism
( jewish and non-jewish, not all Israelites were Jewish, the northern tribes were not) and global rule.
MiMiCcS—Right you are. It is easy to bitch about the failings of our would-be leaders. It allows us to be lazy citizens, and so damned self-righteous! Anyone who posts here regularly knows how rigged the system is at every turn. To even have a shot at getting into a position of power, one cannot take the totally principled stands of Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gavel, or MLK.
None of us know for certain what Obama might do if elected.But that isn’t where real change will come from in any case. Progess always comes from the bottom up. The populist movements never held the White House but they made their mark anyway. It is always an uphill battle against vested interests, Ralph Nader’s voice needs to be heard because he is already moving the top Dem candidates to more progressive stances. But the Corpstream media will never give him any real platform from which to speak, and thus he will not be elected. Things have to change a helluva lot more before leaders like Nader or Kucinich can ever be at the helm. The momentum of change comes by shifting the ground under the mediocre leaders at the top. We really are the ones we have been waiting for—Get busy!!!! And stop cryin in your beer about old betrayals. That won’t get us change! Working together at least has a chance!
JUNNA: I love your idealism, and you made some valid points.
POWER OF LOVE: You chose the same quotes that move my soul. King was a truly enlightened human being. Those born without privilege are often gifted with seeing the most profound truths about life if their hearts are also open to Grace and compassion.
RICH M: Aply and eloquently put points about the sham economics. I believe the S & L scam 15- 20 years ago set the stage for this big one.
POET: Much wisdom in your posting, good to see you have faith in the better angels of some human natures.
It’s good to see that most of us agree that Obama, although not perfect (whatever that means, which is different for each of us), is far better than either of his two viable opponents. McCain offers another 4 years of the Bush fiasco, and Clinton another 4 years of her husband’s. Sure, Bill was better than W, but can’t we do better? All the hype about Bill Clinton’s economic record ignores the fact that almost all of the growth was in the incomes of the top quintile; disparity became worse. Furthermore, the seeds of the subprime crisis were sown in the Clinton years, but nobody is talking about that. And now Hillary wants Greenspan and Rubin, two of the architects of the collapsing financial sector, to solve the problems.
Obama makes the perpetual cynics mad doesn’t he?
They can’t stand it that the majority of people are beginning to see that in our winner take all 2 party system he is the best chance for some sane leadership we may never see again!
Sure we the people need to take the lead in helping each other and keeping informed and keep learning ourselves.
But I remember JFK did not lead or campaign on one thing that got him killed after he learned what was goin on after he got elected.
This stuff about how a candidate must lead everyone is make believe… the candidate must get elected first or they won’t have any more power than Comarc or me.
Obama is an honest good man who will learn much once he has access to the reins of power and classified information.
.
I would put down the war machine and say Israel has lost its right to exist as it exists now.
Comarc might be more radical…. but neither of us would get one vote that is counted.
If anyone can Obama is the Man and he sure makes the cynics mad!
Good points Alex!
One was a prophet. The other one? A snake oil salesman. As with all snake oil salesman, he makes his living off of the highly suggestible.
Junna said, “He cares about people, whether poor, oppressed or wealthy, he understands that all human beings need to be respected and honored for who they are and what they need in life….”
Why then does Obama refuse to talk to the gay press?
I know MLK may have had some issues with gay people, but I don’t this is an enviable position. I thought MLK was about dialogue between people of different orientations, cultural backgrounds, and race.
I don’t see how Obama represents MLK other than in race, which should be something that should make “no more significance than the color of his eyes,” to quote Bob Marley. Supporting Obama simply on the grounds he is black is no different from supporting a white candidate because they are white, an inherently racist posture.
I agree with COMarc when he says:
“Obama is the candidate of Wall St. in this election, with millions and millions of wall st dollars flowing into his campaign. Its a pretty fair guess that Wall st is not funding “A true revolution of values” that “will look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth.”
The economy was better managed under Clinton, although we did have the roots of some of our current problems begin then. Last time I checked Bill isn’t running, nor did his wife–the current candidate–run things at the time.
I said it here and I’ll say it again: Obama is unelectable. The Red states determine the Presidency–Hillary can match up without the stigma of race (only sexism). Let’s work towards putting a Democrat in the White House. Look at what the Republicans have done, can we afford more????
I was just about to write a sarcastic comment about this article when I suddenly remembered who Grace Lee Boggs is.
I can only wish that this great humanitarian activist were recommending someone more like herself than the slippery and insubstantial Barack Obama.
I see the trolls have found us! It’s bad enough to read them on HuffPo, but this site seemed classier and more inteligent. OOOPS!!
Obama is wonderful and the best thing to come down the pike since Dr. King ans he IS electable, don’t be so negative. If he can’t beat Grandpa Mac this country is ALOT dumber than I gave it credit for. How cold does it get in Canada?
Go Obama! And to those who slam Obama and in the same sentence note mccain will be the next president, and oh well…too fatalistic.
Hey I understand; democrats are slammed harder on CD than republicans. Quantifiably.
Obama is our best hope.
While not an Obamamaniac I am optimistic about this: he seems to be the one political leader of late who can speak to a nation and be heard. That he has ridden past the racial hatred and religious “accusations” (scary how it is OK in America to “accuse” someone of being Muslim!) and has maintained composure and focus — that alone gives me some hope. I can live with his imperfections (he has many, we all do) and agree to support someone whose voice can reach disparate segments. Of all the problems we face, the fact that we are a nation no longer united in any semblance of civil discourse or common ground is the most scary to me. I think Obama has some things to answer for, and still has a lot to prove, but at this point in the race I cautiously put my check in that column. Barring the Revolution or a really exciting Evolution(and I do not smell either in the air right now) I agree with those who say he is our best hope. I think he should hear from us loudly and clearly what we really want for our country. I don’t believe he’ll be able to deliver all that, but I do believe he will be able to move the nation a little closer to the center and a good bit further from tyranny.
elmeztisogordo,
“Obama isn’t even a follower, let alone a leader: 2/3 of the public wants single payer and in a new poll about 60% of doctors. That’s not enough for Obama. He won’t even follow that movement”
Read this carefully and the comparitive Obama/MLK stance on the occupation , on a possible pre-emptive strike,by land or air against Iran and increased military spending … then convince yourself irrationally that there is ANY similarity between Obama and MLK.
In a nutshell , unselfishly , MLK campaigned for universal justice ; Obama is campaigning for himself as the most powerful leader in the world .
As with FDR the American people must drag a lethargic president behind them to initiate social change not be led by one who happens to “sounds” good.
America desperately needs and deserves John McCain to sink America and its citizens so low economically , militarily that in anger they rebel as they did against the British ” occupiers ” and sart all over again.
Meanwhile, I seen CNN is pushing the notion that
“King’s message is rejected by much of the contemporary black church”–http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/04/06/mlk.role.church/index.html
“Prosperity pastors such as Bishop T.D. Jakes have become the most popular preachers in the black church. They’ve also become brands. They’ve built megachurches and business empires with the prosperity message.”
Well now, doesn’t that dovetail nicely with empire and corruption?
Even though I am supporting Obama, I have to agree with Ronald White in one respect: Barack Obama is no Martin Luther King, Jr. This should not reflect on Obama as I’m sure he has never compared himself to MLK. That others do should not reflect on him.
Obama and MLK operate(d) in different circles, although not entirely. While MLK was a preacher, he was by all definitions also a leader and a politician of sorts. He worked all angles to advance his agenda.
Barack Obama has chosen the political arena, but there is no doubt that his message of hope has inspired many to reach for higher ideals, much like a preacher would do.
Let’s not pick fly excrement from pepper. The point is that we are in desperate need of someone who can unite us - even if only a segment of our population. We have become so split, to atomized, that we have drawn increasingly tighter battle lines so that we are almost incapable of conceding any ground in order to form alliances. As long as we do this, we will keep losing ground.
Our backs are hard against the wall with fascism breathing down our necks. We have a very small window of opportunity to act. What will we do?
“without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today — my own government.” - MLK
From Obama’s website: He will keep some troops in Iraq to protect our embassy and diplomats; if al Qaeda attempts to build a base within Iraq, he will keep troops in Iraq or elsewhere in the region to carry out targeted strikes on al Qaeda.
In other words tens of thousands of troops will remain in Iraq fighting and dying to prop up a colonial style puppet “government” that will assist in the rape and plunder of their country. No guarantee troops will ever be completely out.
Obama is no King and offers no challenge to the establishment. If he were they wouldn’t pour money into his campaign. You Democrats had an excellent chance to vote for a real anti-war candidate in Dennis Kucinich but you rejected him as the crowds also rejected Jesus. You people deserve your fate.
Go vote for your Prince of Peace Obama, as for me I’m voting for a third party. When enough of you Democrats wake up and realize that Democrats are more the problem than the solution then 3rd parties will actually have a chance.
It’s better to jump out of the pot allowing the chips to fall where they may than remain like a frog and get cooked. Third parties need to be built up and that’s what we need to do. Just what have the DimWits done in the last 8 yrs or even since they took over congress? Make a list of their accomplishments, that will just take a second.
What have the Dimwits done? Supported the war, confirmed right wingers in high places and protected Bush by shielding him from impeachment. Those that do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it. A vote for a Democrat is a vote that is doomed.
Dump the Dims and join a third party. When enough of us do we can begin to take back our country. As long as we vote for Democrats we are doomed.
As much as we’d all like to have “hope” and see “change,” Obama isn’t really that different from the other candidates. I may vote for him for the little difference there seems to be and because he at least seems a deeply intelligent thinker but given that his foreign policy differs only slightly from even that of McCain, I’m not expecting much in the way of change.
I may still vote for Nader
“As much as we’d all like to have “hope” and see “change,” Obama isn’t really that different from the other candidates. I may vote for him for the little difference there seems to be and because he at least seems a deeply intelligent thinker but given that his foreign policy differs only slightly from even that of McCain, I’m not expecting much in the way of change.”
Jaded Prole,
I’m not expecting all that much either. What I am doing is allowing myself some room to hope that young Obama supporters will carry through with their energy to work for changes in the system.
The system is broken, but there is still a chance that it can be fixed - not in one fell swoop, but by daily work by many people with hope and energy.
Letting the whole thing fall is another approach. It’s also probably nasty and wildly unpredictable.
Jaded Prole,
I would argue that Nader is good, but voting for the Green Presidential candidate is better. Voting for Nader makes a statement, but voting for the Greens builds a movement. Support for the Greens helps them to maintain their ballot lines and makes it easier to run candidates in the future.
www.gp.org
It saddens me to see so much bitter cynicism in so many of these posts on just about every topic. It speaks to what these past 7½ years have done to us. They’ve sapped us of our hope and our energy and our enthusiasm and our dreams and all we can do now is to sit in front of our computer screens and whine about how corrupt every politician is and how no one seems to be worthy of running our country anymore, because they all answer to the same master, that being the moneyed interests.
So I ask you, whatever happened to We The People, for whom this country was originally built? What ever happened to government of the people, by the people, for the people? We have but ourselves to blame for electing the likes of Bush, DeLay, Santorum, Lott and others like them who for years have acted as if the federal treasury was their own personal wealth to do with as they pleased, ordinary people be damned. The rest of America was too busy sitting on its oversized behinds getting its jollies off of the latest episode of “American Idol” or “Survivor” to care what was happening to the rest of the world. So long as we have had Wal-Mart there to provide us with cheap goods, we’ve been big fat happy campers sitting in front of our 52″ flat screen TV’s that project our favorite 200+ channels brought to us by Dish or cable TV. (And FYI, I am morally opposed to the idea of having to actually pay money to watch TV or listen to the radio - that is one big rip-off of the airwaves.)
To quote Pogo, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”
I read a few of the comments and I’m glad to see that a few people shared my reaction. Obama is a neo-liberal chickenhawk. I can not believe that he is being compared to MLK Jr. Its both disheartening and sickening.
If you are wondering why I called him a chickenhawk please realize that his Iraq withdrawal plan does not include the green zone or other military bases. He wants to retain a force capable of responding to terrorist threats in the region. It also does not include mercenaries under American control.
Obama made one decent speech against the war while he had no power and since he has had power he hasn’t done a damn thing to stop it. It so sad to see MLK reduced to this.
Obama’s “eloquence” is to MLK as Muzak is to Beethoven (as Alex Cockburn rightly puts it in Saturday’s CounterPunch column ).
Against the outrageous crimes of the Bush administration, Obama has taken precisely zero courageous stands. Both he & Hillary have run their entire campaigns virtually ignoring the fact that we’ve lived the last 7 years under a deeply criminal regime. To hear them talk, the whole campaign is about the one minor difference in their nearly-identical health plans (both of which are regarded favorably by the insurance industry); & the fact that Obama once spoke against invading Iraq, in 2002, while still a state senator.
To such criticisms of Democrats, the party’s confused & frightened apologists often whimper in reply, “But if Obama called for impeachment, or assailed corporate power, or called for serious cuts in military spending, the media would destroy him overnight — so he’d never become president.”
This feeble apologia hardly excuses giving a pass to Obama-style Democrats. More accurately, it’s just a classic illustration of how Dem Party voters’ brains work — specifically, the part of their gray matter that helps them rationalize their support for candidates who don’t really represent them.
People who are seriously opposed to US militarism, but are still voting for Obama, are voting for a candidate who doesn’t really represent them. He’s not really against US militarism; he’s merely tried to discreetly cultivate the impression that he’s “secretly” against it. Besides that, he’s running for the nomination of a big-business party which has been fully complicit, both actively & passively, in all the crimes of the Bush-Cheney era. He doesn’t believe this subject (the 100% complicity of his party with Bush) warrants any attention; accordingly, he never speaks of it.
Believing that someone like this is going to suddenly transform himself into a fighter for social justice is an example of “magical thinking.” People who believe such fairy tales are simply unable to conceive of any approach to politics beyond voting for the least-objectionable Democrat.
Rev. MLK said:
“Any nation that year after year continues to raise the Defense budget while cutting social programs to the neediest is a nation approaching spiritual death.”
“We have come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. Now is the time for justice; now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to lift our nation from injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood.”
Just a few weeks before he was murdered, King said, “I see Israel as one of the great outposts of democracy in the world…..an oasis of brotherhood and democracy.”
On January 23, 2008, Senator Obama sent a letter to Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, about a proposed Security Council resolution on the situation in Gaza. Obama focused on condemning Palestinian rocket attacks against Israel, but made no mention of the ongoing Israeli bombardments and raids that have killed hundreds of innocent residents of Gaza, as well as the calculated Israeli policy of denying the necessities of life - food, clean drinking water, medicines, medical care, school supplies, and the energy needed to power sewage treatment plants and hospital operating rooms - to the 1.5 million open air prisoners, of whom more than half are children.
Obama wrote that “Israel is forced to do this.” Obama denounced Hamas as a terrorist organization, but ignored its repeated offers of a long-term truce with Israel - offers the Israeli government has repeatedly immediately rejected, although polls show that more than 60 percent of Israel’s own population favors negotiations with Hamas.
Not Obama, not McCain, not Clinton have offered even a word of criticism of Israel, or of sympathy for the people of Gaza.
This is not “change we can believe in” and what we the people need is the chance to begin the world again. This time we do have it in our power to begin the world again, but we the people must rise up and demand the media ask the hard questions:
Where are the candidates on Gaza, Jerusalem, the rights of refugees, The Wall, the continuing settlements, the over 500 checkpoints that deny the indigenous people of that land the right to access their land, jobs and holy sites in light of this year; the 60th anniversary of Israel and the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights- upon which Israel’s statehood was contingent upon upholding.
We the people in the land of the free and home of the brave, actually have some power-for a VERY brief moment- before we elect another president who will maintain the status quo.
Yeah, we can. We can do that, we can elect a politician beholden to the Military Industrial Complex, AIPAC, the religious right, corporate interests and lobbyists, or we can say, no, not this time.
Might this time we the people see with eyes of the dissidents, rebels and revolutionaries who founded these United States. Might this time we see the world is our country and that all men and women are our sisters and brothers. Might this time our leaders seek to do good and be merciful and just. Might this time our media ask the questions too many of we the people, do not even know must be asked. Might this time our politicians be beholden to we the people and not to any foreign power.
Eileen Fleming, Reporter and Editor WAWA Blog
Author “Keep Hope Alive” and “Memoirs of a Nice Irish American ‘Girl’s’ Life in Occupied Territory”
Producer “30 Minutes With Vanunu” and “13 Minutes with Vanunu”
Bravo Grace Lee Boggs and Yes Magazine for quoting from “Beyond Vietnam”.
Howard Zinn backs efforts to get peace activists, progressive journalists and editors, morally engaged cleargy, and Black Caucus members on the floor of Congress to quote from King’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech at Riverside Chuch in New York condemning homicidal international predatory capitalism, imperialist war and covert CIA crimes.
If we could break through the Iron Curtain blackout of King’s blistering words in his last year of life and make the public aware of King’s condemnations of U.S. foreign policies, it make make pro-war mongering of Big Brother corporate mass media less easy.
With Zinn’s support Jay Janson was written 13 articles over the last 15 months on ‘67 MLK Jr., with not a single passage on civil rights, and is recruiting others to do so, again along with Prof. Zinn’s own efforts.
http://www.opednews.com/author/author1723.html
jay janson
RICH M: Sometimes I wish your logic wasn’t so right on! I would go 3rd party but I don’t think we can risk it right now… if Obama creates enough HOPE that begins to create a surge towards progressive ideals, then a tributary opens from the old river’s flow… and we have 2012 to see it gather force into a veritable current of powerful change. Everything you’ve said about the sell-outs of the democrats (but for a rare few) is all too true; but the nation just cannot afford McCain. Even small steps in a humane direction, even if “sold” to us by an eloquent congenial front man (Obama) would begin to defuse the horrific trends that Bush and his neocon madmen have set into motion. I am not Daniel David in this, and wish we could take leaps, but the manufacturing-consent-oriented msm has managed to dull, deceive, or deadlock so many minds that the left just doesn’t have the critical mass necessary to create the changes most of us in this forum believe in and wish to see happen. You are right, but the stakes don’t allow us to put another mad man into office right now.
Obama may very likely be the next president. Would it be due to the legacy of MLK. Certainly.
Does Obama carry that legacy? Certainly not.
Obama had my respect when he came to the defense of the weak (Terri Shiavo before she was executed by the state for the crime of being non-rehabalitive ill). Now he says he’s ’sorry’ he came to the defense of the voiceless and powerless.
Obama is in support of Corporate Welfare that funds Planned Parenthood with nearly a half billion dollars a year to kill black and brown babies. WIth over 80% of their so-called clinics in minority neighborhoods over 25% of the black population has been reduced due to abortion. Every three days, more African-Americans are killed by abortion than have been killed by the Ku Klux Klan in its entire history.
Obama also supports infanticide and has voted against the born-alive protection act. Pretty talk doesn’t hide the horror that he really preaches.
http://www.kingforamerica.com/adkfoundation_article2.htm
“Oh, God, what would Martin Luther King, Jr., who dreamed of having his children judged by the content of their characters do if he’d lived to see the contents of thousands of children’s skulls emptied into the bottomless caverns of the abortionists pits? ” - A.D. King
Grace Lee Boggs has done nothing here but bombard us with one nauseating platitude after another (much like the presidential candidate she so mindlessly worships). This is what passes for commentary among the “liberal” establishment. Sad.
I agree with Grace. WE have to take on responsibility for change after Obama is elected. One man or one woman cannot take on the onslaught of resistence that will come at the new President from every direction. I have begun thinking about what type of grass roots organizations can contribute to sharing the responsibility for change that is meaningful. I intend to be a responsible, contributing citizen for change.
“if Obama creates enough HOPE that begins to create a surge towards progressive ideals, then a tributary opens from the old river’s flow… and we have 2012 to see it gather force into a veritable current of powerful change”