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Race and opportunity

Posted by David Roberts at 10:59 AM on 18 Mar 2008

Read more about: politics | presidential race 08

Obama:

Jones:

"saving the soul of this country"

OK, Van Jones is undeniably good about giving Pooky a job.

But the biodiversity crisis is not a trivial afternoon cause of fancy-schmancy elitists who have no interest in social justice.

So I strongly wish he would knock off picking on polar bears, and friends of polar bears, which he has been doing for a long time now.

As for Barack Obama: This was the best address that I have heard him give.  It is surprising that he did not talk about all these matters earlier.  I still have to digest what it was all about, because it was very complex.  But my first reaction is: The idiots who are hung up about Jeremiah Wright, and about Obama's closeness to him, are bad for this country, and the parts of Obama's speech that were about Wright are really the least interesting; much more interesting was all that he had to say about the historic experiences of African-Americans, and of white ethnic groups.

As a trivial matter, Harris Wofford's introduction was not played by CNN.  But Wofford, former president I think of Haverford College on the Philadelphia Main Line, was a successful Democratic candidate for the Senate in 1990; and his campaign was managed by none other than the at that time obscure James Carville.  It was the Wofford victory that gave Carville the credentials that Bill Clinton appreciated.  So, although Wofford has these historic Clintonian connexions, it is interesting that he has apparently sided with Obama at this point.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

It's about Class

The problem has not been so much a race problem for several years now. Politicians will keep stirring the pot to polarize the issue and keep us distracted from our real problems. It is as old as civiliztion itself. It is more about class than race at this point, all the hard work was done in the 60's to get us to this point.

If Obama can uplift the lower and middle classes all races will ride the tide. Forces are already gathering to defeat him in this struggle. The power elite are scared to death of him. He is the only one to come along in generations who can inspire and unite the lower and working class. Make them see beyond race and give them hope for a change in the way the lower and middle class are allowed to participate in this society.

There is no such thing as an Afro-American, after over 300 years one would think they would be vested by now. There is no such thing as a Mexican American and the old white men of English decent have about as much to do with England  as an African has to do with Africa. We are all Americans, drop the prefix's and start acting like it.

Unite and change or crawl around in a lower class fog and be satisfied with what crumbs the upper class drops from the table.

Powerful corporate elite stand ready to tear him down now and a powerful corporate lobby will try to make his mission impossibe to achieve if and when he gets elected.

The only way he will succeed is through a grass roots movement of all the races of the working and middle class. It is sad and ironic that when so many people who were traditionally repressed just got to the middle class the goldend ring is about to pulled out of their grasp.

Life in a corpocracy, it has not been a representitve government for the working or middle class in years.

The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.

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