Letters to the Editor
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Are boomers in the way?
"I wonder whether some of the young people know the history well enough to appreciate it..."
and I wonder whether some of the babyboomers -- the ones so arrogant as to think "young people" don't know what they're doing -- know when a movement is stirring, a moment is ripe, and new leadership emerges.
I'm glad to know, though, that all boomers don't feel the way as that commenter. My mom and her friends are eager Obama supporters. She gets it.
An interesting comparison: Obama's Iowa victory speech has been viewed on YouTube over a million times! Hillary's New Hampshire victory speech, less than 70,000. But her "welling up" moment a few days before the NH primary? Over 200,000 hits. Obama draws people by inspiring them, Hillary by spectacle and drama.
A Billary nomination -- won by snuffing out a movement of genuine hope and broad appeal with bitter, petty tactics against one of their own -- will be a sad blow to the democratic party. It will be a squandered chance for major realignment. And it will be a gift for the Republican party, which has nothing to rally around other than the chance to run against Billary.
Yeah, boomers, you really know what you're doing (not all boomers, I hope! I really hope that commenter isn't representative!). If you vote Billary into the general election, you'll get the government you deserve. And the rest of us will keep working to bring up change around you and inspite of you.
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by by salon
I go to bed and I get up - and there are still all these letters from the machinists of politics.
Obama has "won" - the MSM is counting "black" and "white votes" and a Salonista called thrasher get's all excited -
Calm down "man" I'm "white" and my man has won too!!
Half of the year I live in Europe and when Obama decided to run a European friend (also "black and white") asked me, if the "one drop rule" in America was finally a thing of the past - And he wanted to know, if Obama could teach the world, by being "black" and "white" at the same time a better understanding of "the other side" in race and in politics.
Because "Whites" and "Blacks" are truly equal -
Right?!!
I tried it with irony - I tried it with reason - ("there is nothing more racist than the believe, that the son of a "white" mother and a "black" father is automatically
"black") - and all I got from Salon was one speculative and manipulative theory after the other. You guys helped to put Obama in a corner where he doesn't belong. So it's time to finish writing letters on this blog and move on.
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@ xeroid47
Something you said struck me. It was about the confluence of the past and the present that bring about the future and that to get there we learn from the past. (I've summarized this from memory, so forgive me if it's not 100 percent accurate...).
Obama supporters say they're tired of the 60s, of the past, that they want something "new." They blame our problems on the Baby Boomers and the Clintons (of all people) and spread virulent Clinton-hating propaganda: misstatements, smears, half-truths, and downright lies about the Clintons and their accomplishments, parroting the status quo media lines that float around airwaves and cyberspace like germs.
I am not sure that these folks really know what the Clintons accomplished, especially Hillary. They certainly don't know about the divisive political climate Bill Clinton inherited from Ronald Reagan. I'm not sure Barack Obama really knows or appreciates this, either.
As smart as Obama's followers want us to believe they are, it's pretty disspiriting to watch and listen to them buy into popular media-bashing of the Clintons without any critical analysis of it. If they did, they would know how much Hillary Clinton has accomplished. More important, they would understand how that experience translates so seamlessly into the challenges we face now and the possibilities of the future. Instead, what I hear is more like, "tear it down."
I'm for change, too; I'm a dyed-in-the-wool idealist who believes that anything is possible. I want to live my life in a world where equality is real, where our planet is healthy, where women, men and children all over the world can live as god's true children, without war and famine and poverty, where we don't have to fear our neighbors, and I have worked for many years toward these ideals.
But I am also a realist. I know what it takes to achieve all of these things and how long many of us old fogies have fought to get the "floor" of rights we have today. We didn't get these rights overnight, or in a year, or even four years! We have fought long and hard, not only to get these rights but to keep them from being dismantled by the real status quo, not by Hillary Clinton or Bill Clinton, or the Baby Boomers. Now, in one swoop, Senator Obama and his followers want us to "get over" those battles -- clearly not yet won by anybody's definition -- and move on. To what? To Senator Obama's version/vision of the future? Which is...?
And I wonder: if Barack Obama didn't have Hillary and Bill Clinton and the Boomers to demonize and turn into "faux enemies" so that he could be the dragon-slayer, if he would even know where to begin to fight the real enemies.
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Brer Obama, Brer Clinton and the Tar-Baby
By Sonny Goldreich
"Uncle," the little boy asked one day as the old man cleaned manure from the donkey hutch, "did the fox ever catch and eat that rabbit ?"
"Some folks say he did; some say ole Brer Fox he done catched hisself," Remus said.
"I never heard of a fox catching itself."
"Well, then I spect you never heard of the Tar-Baby.
See, dat ole silver Fox got some tar, den he mix it all up wit some some code words an some a dat inyerendo. Den he stuck dat ole Tar-Baby in da road an he and Miz Fox lay waiting for dat black Brer Rabbit to come along.
An Brer Fox come hippity-hoppity like he do and his feets dey barely touch da ground. But he stop to say hello to dat Tar-Baby.
"How are you dis mawnin!" sez Brer Rabbit. "Nice wedder isn't it?"
Dat Tar-Baby don't say nuthin, and da Foxes jess lay low.
"Why can't you say?" sez Brer Rabbit. "Is you deaf?"
The Tar-Baby don't even turn his head to look at dat young black Brer Rabbit.
"You're stuck-up, you are," Brer Rabbit sez. "An I'm gwine tech you some repseck."
By this time, a bunch of folks gather to laff at Brer Rabbit. An da Foxes jess lay low.
An Brer Rabbit jump up an down on dat Tar-Baby wiff both feet til he got stuck and couldn't move at all.
Jess then, Miz Fox and Brer Fox walk outta da bush like dey wuz a pair of innocent mockin birds.
"Mawnin Brer Rabbit," sez Brer Fox. "You look sorta stuck up dis mawnin."
Then Brer Fox rose up and said wit a smile, "Brer Rabbit, you've been hoppin around like you wuz da King of everything or like you be on drugs. But now you can't shuck and jive off dat Tar-Baby.
"Now you stay put while I build a fire for da barbq."
Den Brer Rabbit he try to make amends and he act all humble like he know Brer Fox got him.
"I don't care what you do wid me, Brer Fox," he says, "so long as you don't fling me in dat brier-patch. "Skin me, set me afire. Jess don't fling me in dat brier-patch."
Da folks dey surround Brer Fox in a little triangle and dey say, "Throw dat uppity Rabbit in dat brier-patch like he deserve."
So Brer Fox step into dat triangle to grab Brer Rabbit and he fling him right into dat brier-patch.
But when Brer Rabbit land, 100 other black rabbits jump up. Den Brer Fox look up da hill and he see Brer Rabbit layin on his back in da sun and pickin all the tar out his feet.
"Bred an born in a brier-patch, Brer Fox, bred en bawn!" Brer Rabbit yell.
An he go hippity hoppin away an his his feets dey barely touch da ground."
"So the fox never did catch the rabbit, Uncle?" the Boy asked.
"Well, he never caught him down South," Remus said. "But you'd have to ask Brer Jew up North, cuz they got Tar-Babies all dere own."