April 15, 2008--Bittergate: Comrade Barack
Barack Obama is in trouble for clumsily telling the truth.
About 10 days ago, at a fundraiser in San Francisco he made his now infamous “bitter” comments. Attempting to explain why he is having difficulty appealing to white, working class voters he said it’s because they are culturally out of step with what they perceive to be some of his views. Because they have slipped behind economically and been lied to by their government for decades they have become frustrated and thus:
“It’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustration.”
Not only have his political rivals pounced on this, accusing him of being “out of touch” with working people but also “elitist,” “patronizing,” and “condescending.” A mouthful of epithets.
But on the further right, he’s being called a Marxist. Literally. If you doubt this, read linked below NY Times op-ed columnist and Fox News “contributor” William Kristol’s piece in which he side-by-side quotes Marx and Comrade Obama.
Kristol reminds us that Marx wrote:
“Religious suffering is at the same time an expression of real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heartless world, and the soul of a soulless condition.”
And then he adds that most famous of Marxist pull-quotes:
Religion “is the opium of the people.”
So there you finally have it—proof that Barack Hussein Obama is not only an Islamo-Fascist and, of course, a Black Guy but also a Commie.
Putting aside which of out three candidates is more in touch with “average” people—McCain who comes from a long line of admirals, went to the Naval Academy as a legacy, and is married to a mega-millionairess; or Hillary Clinton who grew up decidedly middle class, went to Wellesley and Yale, and is now with her husband also a mega-millionaire; or Barack Obama who was raised by a single mother and grandmother, began his working life as a community organizer, and with his wife has assets that total “only” slightly more than $1.0 million—forget this for a moment and think about the content of what Obama said in California.
For a smart and articulate fellow he for certain chose politically careless words. Referring to the working poor as “they” is not much better than referring to black folks or any group that way. And the “clinging to” language is in fact demeaning to the depth of many people’s faith.
But, but for the media to focus so exclusively on this—as if it is a window into Obama’s true self (though he brought this on himself)--blunts another opportunity that his unique candidacy provides: to not only talk about race in America but now to have a national debate about class. Which in this country is perhaps an even hotter topic.
It would have been politically smarter for him to have kept quiet about the links between economic inequality and the frustrations and behaviors it engenders, but it is a conversation the American people need to have if we are ever going to get free of the demagoguery that manipulates people who struggle to blame their problems on “the other” and not on either government policies or, worse, the structural flaws in our economic system.
This is incendiary stuff and craven political and corporate players, in tandem, have devised various wedge issues to keep us fighting among ourselves rather than demanding fundamental change. What's more important--gay marriage or the widening gap between rich and poor?
Thus we have Kristol and McCain and Clinton and the media not only taking understandable political advantage of Obama’s misspeaking but also they are playing with the idea that he may be something much worse than just a political opponent.
Here's to-the-manor-born Kristol again: If quoting Marx once in English translation is good, than how much better is it to quote him a second time in the original, “foreign” German?
Which he shamelessly does:
“Die Religion . . . ist das Opium des Volkes.”
Hoping, perhaps, that we little Volkes will not know that die in German is the required article which essentially means “the” and not what it might appear to be to the unenlightened—“Religion should die.”
If only Obama had only said that, then we’d really have him.
About 10 days ago, at a fundraiser in San Francisco he made his now infamous “bitter” comments. Attempting to explain why he is having difficulty appealing to white, working class voters he said it’s because they are culturally out of step with what they perceive to be some of his views. Because they have slipped behind economically and been lied to by their government for decades they have become frustrated and thus:
“It’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustration.”
Not only have his political rivals pounced on this, accusing him of being “out of touch” with working people but also “elitist,” “patronizing,” and “condescending.” A mouthful of epithets.
But on the further right, he’s being called a Marxist. Literally. If you doubt this, read linked below NY Times op-ed columnist and Fox News “contributor” William Kristol’s piece in which he side-by-side quotes Marx and Comrade Obama.
Kristol reminds us that Marx wrote:
“Religious suffering is at the same time an expression of real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heartless world, and the soul of a soulless condition.”
And then he adds that most famous of Marxist pull-quotes:
Religion “is the opium of the people.”
So there you finally have it—proof that Barack Hussein Obama is not only an Islamo-Fascist and, of course, a Black Guy but also a Commie.
Putting aside which of out three candidates is more in touch with “average” people—McCain who comes from a long line of admirals, went to the Naval Academy as a legacy, and is married to a mega-millionairess; or Hillary Clinton who grew up decidedly middle class, went to Wellesley and Yale, and is now with her husband also a mega-millionaire; or Barack Obama who was raised by a single mother and grandmother, began his working life as a community organizer, and with his wife has assets that total “only” slightly more than $1.0 million—forget this for a moment and think about the content of what Obama said in California.
For a smart and articulate fellow he for certain chose politically careless words. Referring to the working poor as “they” is not much better than referring to black folks or any group that way. And the “clinging to” language is in fact demeaning to the depth of many people’s faith.
But, but for the media to focus so exclusively on this—as if it is a window into Obama’s true self (though he brought this on himself)--blunts another opportunity that his unique candidacy provides: to not only talk about race in America but now to have a national debate about class. Which in this country is perhaps an even hotter topic.
It would have been politically smarter for him to have kept quiet about the links between economic inequality and the frustrations and behaviors it engenders, but it is a conversation the American people need to have if we are ever going to get free of the demagoguery that manipulates people who struggle to blame their problems on “the other” and not on either government policies or, worse, the structural flaws in our economic system.
This is incendiary stuff and craven political and corporate players, in tandem, have devised various wedge issues to keep us fighting among ourselves rather than demanding fundamental change. What's more important--gay marriage or the widening gap between rich and poor?
Thus we have Kristol and McCain and Clinton and the media not only taking understandable political advantage of Obama’s misspeaking but also they are playing with the idea that he may be something much worse than just a political opponent.
Here's to-the-manor-born Kristol again: If quoting Marx once in English translation is good, than how much better is it to quote him a second time in the original, “foreign” German?
Which he shamelessly does:
“Die Religion . . . ist das Opium des Volkes.”
Hoping, perhaps, that we little Volkes will not know that die in German is the required article which essentially means “the” and not what it might appear to be to the unenlightened—“Religion should die.”
If only Obama had only said that, then we’d really have him.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
7:22 AM
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