Doug wrote: > Coates and Gary Younge gave me a hard time for not understanding > how Obama had mobilized the youth of color. I argued that that > didn't amount to a hill of beans - the "mobilization" was little more than a > fan club, and Obama was just another DLC type, not much different in substance > from Hillary Clinton. But to them, I was just a cranky old white intellectual > elitist and such. I wish we could reconvene so I could say "I told you so."
It seems to me that *they told you so*. It seems to me that they told you -- or suggested or implied to you -- that at the time the left had to bet, not on pseudo-radicals waging the finger and sitting on the margins of the electoral process, but precisely on those who got involved and vested in support of Obama (including the author of this op-ed in the NY Times), those masses of young people, some doing very creative forms of political work. Because, regardless of outcome, their involvement was going to turn them into something new, people edified by their political experience, and ready for more. The more so, they more involved they got. And, to judge by Coates' article, *that* is precisely what happened. So, it seems to me that they were right. And they were, because I am willing to bet 100 to 1 that these people are now more ready and capable of maintaining and ratcheting up their political involvement than the radicals who decided to support McCain *objectively*, because they wanted nothing to do with a Democrat. I don't believe that you are a cranky old white intellectual, elitist and such. But, with due respect, I do think that you have been wrong on this. I don't think our job was or is to apologize for Obama, and here comrade Charles Brown may be crossing the line at times. But there is a profound misconception involved in regarding Obama as the main target of our opposition. And I think Charles has been making very good points that some mental blinders may be keeping people from noting. I am telling you so. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
