Letters to the Editor

• Joan from kenkapkk

  [Read the article: How much can John Edwards help Barack Obama?]
  [Read more letters about this article: Here]

  Appreciate your response. Agree that "blogs" and deadlines can have an effect on what we write. Still would advise a look inward at the bias claim. As I mentioned, its OK to be partial, but as editor and presenting oneself as a professional observer and commentator, one must be careful that one's own private preferences don't taint the perspective. Beyond that, I don't have any "advice" for the moment.

  Many have commented on this but a prime example (and you referred to this already that you'd addressed) is something Chris Matthews said, which strangely was quite eloquant. He said that the single greatest pivotal moment in the election was Clinton's vote for authorization of the war (and the rejection of the amendment demanding patience and investigation). This effectively opened the door for an anti war candidate to usurp her authority and to proclaim themself a true candidate of change. Not only was Obama that candidate, but in skill, charisma, and ability he far outstripped any expectations of how he might perform. He literally caught the Clintons with their pants down. This augers a potential realignment completely of the party toward its progressive base, something Clinton had no real relationship to and developed antipathy toward. But he may be the open door through which progressive change and ideas can flow in a way an uncontested Hillary never would be. We are far along in a process that has pushed Clinton in directions she would have never gone by herself. I remember the pre primary Clinton as a politician who would never make a move or take a position without ten polls and a finger six ways to the wind. Obama pushed her completely out of her comfort zone.

  It is said that if the Clintons had done their research, they would have brought Wright out sooner and destroyed Obama before he developed credibility. Maybe so. Maybe they refrained out of a fear of racism, maybe out of a respect for the black community, maybe out of incompetence, maybe some combination of the three. We might never know. History is strange in its twists. The Union might have never been saved except Lee's battle plans fell into the hands of a Union soldier wrapped in a cigar before Antietam, and as MccLellan looked at it, a handwriting specialist who knew Lee's writing happened to be available.

  I also am concerned that Clinton's adherence to old style politics and the nakedness of her ambition might have caused deep problems in jettising the levers of power corrupted by Bush. Obama may yet be a failure in that regard, but to me he holds more promise.

  As for Wright and King, King explicitely said:

  "Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program (anti poverty) broken and eviscerated, as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some **demonic destructive suction tube. So, I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.**

  The only change came from America, as we increased our troop commitments in support of governments which were singularly _corrupt, inept, and without popular suppor_. All the while the people read our leaflets and received the regular promises of peace and democracy and land reform. Now they languish under our bombs and consider *us*, not their fellow Vietnamese, the real enemy. They move sadly and apathetically as we herd them off the land of their fathers into **concentration camps** where minimal social needs are rarely met. _They know they must move on or be destroyed by our bombs._

  So they go, primarily women and children and the aged. They watch as we **poison their water, as we kill a million acres of their crops.** They must weep as the bulldozers roar through their areas preparing to destroy the precious trees. They wander into the hospitals with at least twenty casualties from American firepower for one Vietcong-inflicted injury. So far **we may have killed a million of them, mostly children....**

  and finally

  "What do they think as we test out our latest weapons on them, **just as the Germans tested out new medicine and new tortures in the concentration camps of Europe?** Where are the roots of the independent Vietnam we claim to be building? Is it among these voiceless ones?"

  Come on Joan. What Wright said was tame compared to this. Comparing America to the experiments of Mengele? Imagine snippits of this speech being run on a loop on Fox?

  And from what I understand, this was nothing compared to the speech coming up prior to his assassination

  I grant HIV injected into the community is over the top. As some other things you mentioned. But the lineage is clear. If America tolerates the excesses of the right wing preachers, why is this such an uproar? Especially since much of the critique is not only taken out of context, but is true about America's shadow side? Do we all have to genuflect at the alter of America the great? Can we love this country while literally despising some of its behavior, and the behavior of its leaders?

  Clinton pandered to a population, a significamt amount of whom hated Obama because they thought he was a Muslim or because he is black. Where did she stand up against this instead of playing on it(and you got an earful of your column on that one).Did you comment on her 60 minutes interview? I'll go look. How is this different from the excesses of Wright, except the other way?

  Take care

  Permalink Saturday, May 17, 2008 01:57 PM