The Tragedy of the Politics of Race in America

[Michael Bailey]

yeah, I think Obama spoke well and appropriately in this case.

He's been consistently good on race, and many other things, imho.
Summers not head of World Bank - big huzzah!  Pipeline not
rubberstamped - nice!  2 things that would have been the least of
trifles to expect from McCain Palin and Romney Santorum (or whoever)

If some people choose to go further in their analysis than our First
Dude, that doesn't make them braying idiots, imho.  In fact, as a
(mostly) supporter of Obama, I can't see why that noise from the left
can't be counted as partial support.  Acoustically, it may help to
neutralize the waveforms of the umm (braying idiots) er.. the vocal
partisans of extremist right-wing ideals...

...speaking as somebody who also makes noise from the left and has no
plans to stop...


On Mon, Mar 26, 2012 at 8:03 AM, Henry M <scuffling at gmail.com> wrote:
> Gotta love the politics of impracticality.  The very people who criticize
> Obama from the left for bein "all talk," e.g. Moore, Bernie Sanders, Amy
> Goodman, OWS, Wikileaks, Anonymous, et al, have done nothing but talk.  Big
> talk to be sure, but at the end of the day, what have these braying lefties
> actually accomplished?  The reaction from the right to Obama's centrist,
> i.e. practical, left statements and policies has been virulent.  Imagine how
> organized the right would get if Obama ever said anything that the leftist
> theorists would have him say!  The USA would be pushed into a long, deep,
> dark age.  The hot-air and camp in the city park left, and celebrity groups
> like the New "Black Panther" Party already say enough that is unreasoned,
> nonsensical, obviating any need for red herring that the right would have
> required.
>
> AsB4,
> ٩(●̮̮̃•̃)۶
> Henry Mu
> http://astore.amazon.com/tdcoccamsaxe-20
>
>
> On Mon, Mar 26, 2012 at 7:18 AM, alice wellintown
> <alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> “Sophocles implies that incest and exile, too much unity and
>> too much diversity, are not opposites but are, literally,
>> two sides of the same coin. He also suggests, what the
>> audience believed, that incest and parricide are acts that
>> obliterate the distinction between man and beast, inside and
>> outside, the wild and civilization. What Oedipus lacks (and
>> Thebes as well) is some middle term, an Aristotelian Polis
>> that mediates between our divinity and animality, making us
>> whole in a community constituted by diversity” 287.
>>
>> J. Peter Euben in  The Road Home: Pynchon’s The
>> Crying of Lot 49, the concluding chapter of his The Tragedy
>> of Political Theory (1990).
>>
>> The shooter thought he was working on the side of Divinity, that the
>> younger man was on the side of Animality. He was wrong. But his
>> actions are not tragic and what happens to him, whatever it may be,
>> will not be tragic. Nor is the tale of the young man in the hoodie
>> tragic. He is dead, the other is in the hands of a polis. Let the
>> politicians and papers have their day. But let us not be fooled again.
>> The tragedy here is not one man's death, but the failure of a Nation
>> to make a community constituted by diversity.
>>
>> There was great hope that this President, this Attorney General, both
>> black men, would do something to improve the lives of poor young black
>> males. They have done little. If a tragedy is in the making, it is a
>> tragedy of these men, the President, his Attorney General, not of the
>> shooter or his victim. The First Lady has no fear of her obligation to
>> the black community. The President, to use the Attorney General's
>> words, "is a coward."
>>
>> Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting
>> pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too
>> many ways, essentially a nation of cowards. Though race related issues
>> continue to occupy a significant portion of our political discussion,
>> and though there remain many unresolved racial issues in this nation,
>> we, average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about
>> race. It is an issue we have never been at ease with and given our
>> nation’s history this is in some ways understandable. And yet, if we
>> are to make progress in this area we must feel comfortable enough with
>> one another, and tolerant enough of each other, to have frank
>> conversations about the racial matters that continue to divide us. But
>> we must do more- and we in this room bear a special responsibility.
>> Through its work and through its example this Department of Justice,
>> as long as I am here, must - and will - lead the nation to the "new
>> birth of freedom" so long ago promised by our greatest President. This
>> is our duty and our solemn obligation.
>>
>> http://www.justice.gov/ag/speeches/2009/ag-speech-090218.html
>
>



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