Despite recent endorsements by the Nation and Z-Net, many on the left still question Barack Obama's progressive bona fides. His soaring rhetoric aside, a close look at Obama's stand on the issues and his Senate voting record, legitimize the concern of left-leaning Democrats that Obama is at heart a centrist, beholden to the same entrenched special interests his campaign of "hope and change" has challenged.
That said, Obama's speech on race was a splendid exception to his typical caution when called to take a stand on a contentious or politically dangerous issue. His refusal to disown Pastor Jeremiah Wright for a handful of "angry" remarks condemning this country for its racism, taken out of context and quickly labeled unpatriotic by the media, was an uncharacteristically bold step for the man who has a realistic chance of becoming America's first black President.
Here's the part of Obama's speech I found most impressive:
"But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn’t make it – those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations – those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. ...
"And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning."
Obama's speech reminds us that the legacy of slavery --America's original sin-- has yet to to be confronted openly and honestly. And that remnants of racism are still at work in this country. For those "patriotic" critics of Jeremiah Wright, Tavis Smiley reminds us (on Bill Maher's show Friday) that, in the words of Frederick Douglass, a true patriot is one willing to "rebuke and point out the sins" of the country he loves. Jeremiah Wright in that sense is a true patriot.
Other parts of the speech were less impressive, especially Obama's felt need, in his condemnation of Pastor Wright's most incendiary remarks, to pander to the Israel lobby:
"Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country... a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam."
There I disagree. So does Obama supporter General Merrill "Tony" McPeak, who like Wright, has been roundly disparaged for daring to criticize America's continued support of Israel despite its reprehensible treatment of the Palestinians. McPeak claims that the Middle East peace process has been stymied by the unwillingness of politicians, because of the "large vote . . . here in favor of Israel", to "to push Israel for the territorial concessions" necessary for peace.
One of those politicians is Barack Obama. Another is Hillary Clinton, who has predictably seized on the opportunity to condemn Obama's connection to both Jeremiah Wright and Tony McPeak.
An Obama stand against the Israel lobby would do much to burnish his progressive credentials.
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