Friday, May 30, 2008

Hillary Is White



Hillary Is White

by Zillah Eisenstein

http://www.ithaca.edu/zillah/

It seems clear that Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee for president this fall. Nevertheless, it is crucial to clarify how wrong-headed Hillary Clinton’s campaign has been so that the legacy she leaves does no more damage to a multi-racial, multi-class based feminism/womanism both here and abroad.
None of the pundits and journalists appears to be wondering and worrying about black women in this post-Indiana-North-Carolina-West-Virginia moment. Instead, all eyes, and especially Hillary and Bill’s are on the so-called “white-hard-working working class”. Hillary’s preoccupation with white voters is a dead give-a-way of how she thinks about gender, and being a woman. Gender is white to her, like race is black. Bill and Hillary Clinton have thrown African-Americans to the wind because they thought they could play the gender card with its history of whiteness and win.
And here lies the rub. Hillary Clinton presents herself to the electorate as a woman. She argues that she wants to break the glass ceiling of/for gender. But the truth is that she is not simply a woman but both a woman and also white. The very fact that she ignores her own race, in a way that Obama cannot, is proof of the normalized privileging of whiteness. In this instance white is not a color, but the color, the standard, by which others are judged. So she silently, inadvertently but knowingly, uses her color to write her meanings of gender and mobilize older white women and angry white men by doing so. She presents herself as a woman but her real power here is as white. Misogyny �€" the fear, hatred, punishment, and discrimination towards women �€" ensures that Hillary’s privilege is her whiteness.
Most often the term white is not spoken alongside the term woman; there is no need. One only specifies color when it is not white. Women are assumed to be white if not specified otherwise, especially if you are speaking about gender or women’s rights, or feminism. Forget the fact that it was a group of black women that initially challenged the Supreme Court in the first sex discrimination case in this country years ago.
Hillary speaks of herself as a woman, and then speaks separately about race, as though she does not embody both at the same time. She has as much ‘race’ as Barack, but her race is not a problem for her. It is for him, even though it may not be as much as a problem as she is trying to make it. As such, Hillary, as a (white) woman pits herself against Barack (as black) with a race so to speak. So Hillary (as a woman) is falsely, wrongly, pitted against Barack (as black). Her whiteness privileges and pits gender against race. She encodes her whiteness as though it is central to her gender, and to her kind of feminism without saying a word. She re-awakens and rewrites the history of 19th century U.S. feminism that pitted black men getting the vote before white women had that right. More recently, women’s rights rhetoric was used to justify the bombing of the Taliban and brown people in Afghanistan and Iraq. Feminism has a history of being bankrupt on this issue so this is nothing new. What is forgotten here is that women’s rights come, or should come, in all colors.
Barack Obama has said he wants to embrace the new notions of race and the racial progress that has occurred. He is not post-racist, but recognizes the newly raced relations as they exist at present. Nevertheless, he must give a speech on race although he says he does not want to be a racial candidate. He recognizes that the country has new-old racial hierarchies with complex identities and that he himself represents white and African blackness, whatever this might mean for him. Meanwhile Hillary says she is running as a woman, and never gives a speech on gender because white angry men and women, would not be pleased by this. So patriarchy, or sexual discrimination, or the structural hierarchy of masculinity with its racialized and class aspects is never mentioned in her campaign. She uses whiteness as her weapon and pretends to be speaking about gender. But she never once mentions the unacceptable misogyny of this country, or the sexual hierarchy of the labor force, or any of the great racial and class inequities that define women’s lives today. This is a misuse and abuse of her gender.
Feminisms of all sorts have moved beyond the idea that feminism is a white woman’s thing; or that feminisms should be particularly beholden to the white mainstreamed part of the U.S. women’s movement. Large numbers of women, especially women of color, but many white women as well, know that race and gender are inseparable and that is why most of these women, whatever their color, are voting for Barack Obama. Hillary should not be allowed to push feminism backwards for her own political ambition. It is not surprising that it is older white women who disproportionately support her. They identify with old notions of womanhood-a homogenized notion that all females share an identity, and race and class are not connected issues to be named and spoken. This is why younger women and progressive women from the civil rights and women’s movements, some of whom are older, disproportionately support Obama.
My thoughts about Hillary Clinton have their own history, which also coincide with her history. I have not been a fan of hers. I have written critically of her for more than a decade now. She has never spoken on behalf of women or as a candidate with a woman’s agenda, let alone as a feminist when she was in the White House. Many of us who are her contemporaries were active in the Civil Rights Movement and Women’s Movements and Anti-Vietnam War movement �€" while she chose not to be. Her one speech addressing the exploitation of women was delivered in Beijing, China, as though it is women outside, but not inside the U.S. who face untold discrimination. Now she runs for president and has become a gun-toting, war mongering white woman who asks for your vote if you are an angry white Reagan Democrat. Maybe she thinks manly gender is the answer for breaking glass ceilings for women.
I would argue that she is not breaking gender boundaries but rather has embraced and extended masculine/misogyny for females. And misogyny always comes in racialized form. She remains female in body and hence parades as a decoy for feminist claims. And her white self is central to this decoy status. Susan Faludi wrote in the New York Times that Hillary is having a success with white male support because she is willing to battle, and engage in rough play like one of the boys. She is supposedly willing to “join the brawl” and as such has won their confidence. She has “broke through the glass floor and got down with the boys” opening the way for women to finally make it “through the glass ceiling and into the White house”. Barbara Ehrenreich in The Nation hesitantly embraces this assessment and then more forcefully criticizes Clinton for her ruthlessness. Ehrenreich writes that Clinton has “smashed the myth of innate female moral superiority in the worst possible way...demonstrating female moral inferiority.”
Hillary has proven that sometimes the best man for the job may be a female posing to be a man. In other words, Hillary has simply clothed herself in men’s tactics and strategies. She can nuke with the best of them. Hillary not only authorized the war in Iraq but she repeatedly continued to do so for several more years �€" up until the time she began running for president. She allowed, along with Bill Clinton, the egregious trade blockade against Iraq as hundreds of thousands of children starved to death after the ‘91 war. She more recently has supported Israel’s terror bombing of Lebanon and has newly endorsed “the total obliteration” of Iran.
But this is just part of the sad story. Hillary’s embrace of a masculinist machismo embraces the very misogyny that most feminists want to dismantle. Instead of challenging the gender divide Hillary simply slides over to the other side of it. Instead of offering a new vision of what it might mean to have a female president she offers us old versions of white privilege and war mongering. But the structural privilege of patriarchy is ignored and obfuscated with Hillary’s race card.
Nevertheless many (white) women write, like Marie Cocco in the Washington Post (May 15, ‘08), that she won’t miss the misogyny of the campaign when it’s over �€" she lists the sexist T-shirts, and array of commercial goods circulating at present. While I abhor any form of degradation of girls and women, or any human being for that matter, I am also hesitant to see this as a sufficient critique of the problem.
Hillary Clinton should never be demeaned for being a woman. But being a woman comes in all colors and classes. Hillary has done the unforgivable. She has used race �€" the whiteness card �€" on behalf of gender. We, the big “we” �€" the huge diversely defined feminisms in this country and across the globe �€" are better than this. Black feminists in this country, during the 1970’s and 80’s women’s movement made sure to break open the race/gender divide and clarify that gender is always racialized and race is always gendered. No person ever experiences one with out the other. Only when whiteness parades as an invisible standard can you think that gender and race can be separate. As such Hillary is white and a female and Barack is black and male. They are each both. Everyone is.
Hillary’s manipulation and misrepresentation of her gender reveals her sexual decoy status. Being female is not enough to allow one to claim their gender as a political tactic. Such claims must be rooted in a commitment to end gender discrimination and their racial and class formulations; not pit races and classes against each other in the hopes of being the first woman president. Clinton does not share a political identity with women of all classes and colors and nations simply because she has a female body. She first needs to claim that body and demand rights for it �€" reproductive, day care, health, education, etc. She has no multi-racial woman’s agenda because she has no anti-racist agenda. Meanwhile she is thrilled that she won big in West Virginia. West Virginia is “almost heaven” to Hillary. She says it shows the country that she can win the “hardworking white Americans” in November. But West Virginia is not heaven, nor is it like much of the rest of the country. It may look like what the U.S. used to be, but that is exactly the point. It does not have the diversity of color, age, culture that defines the U.S. today. Neither does Hillary’s vision.
Hillary is a sexual decoy. She looks like a woman but is not a feminist nor does she speak for or on behalf of most women. She speaks for white people while identifying with her gender, as a woman. But she has trumped herself here. If a female prepares to bully the rest of the world with war and white privilege hopefully we �€" the big “we” �€" the “we” that spans across our differences will defeat the political forces she represents. And this means building a coalition for the November elections that makes sure that a non-misogynist agenda is part of the anti-racist politics of the Obama campaign.


Zillah Eisenstein is professor of politics at Ithaca College, a feminist anti-racist activist, and author of ten books in feminisms and feminist theories across the globe. Her most recent book is Sexual Decoys: Gender, Race and War in Imperial Democracy (London: Zed Books, 2007).

Labels: Gender, Hillary Clinton, Race Man, White Privilege, Zillah Eisenstein

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Arianna Huffington

Stop Yelling at Hillary to Stand Down and Start Yelling at the Superdelegates to Stand Up
Posted May 22, 2008 | 04:13 PM (EST)


UPDATE: Since I wrote this post, 9 previously uncommitted superdelegates have endorsed -- 8 for Obama, 1 for Clinton -- so now it's 9 down off the fence, 206 to go. Barack Obama is now 49 delegates away from securing the nomination.

The dust refuses to settle on the Democratic race. Hillary Clinton wants to cloud the issue with talk of Zimbabwe, Gore 2000, slavery, the civil rights movement, and fuzzy-math-derived popular vote totals. The media steadfastly refuse to clear things up by sticking to the facts, preferring to keep the horse race going.
So let's see if we can put the focus on those with the power to bring to an end this political equivalent of a 50s horror movie (The Campaign That Just Won't Die!): the superdelegates.
There are currently 212 uncommitted superdelegates (not counting Michigan and Florida). What are they waiting for?
I understand there are still three more primaries to go. But there is nothing that is going to happen in Puerto Rico or South Dakota or Montana that is going to convince Hillary Clinton to leave the race. Her argument isn't about pledged delegates, which is what is at stake in these remaining primaries. Her argument is about Florida and Michigan and convincing the superdelegates to overturn the pledged delegate majority Obama has won.
And there is also no reason for the superdelegates to wait until the Rules and Bylaws Committee meeting on May 31st. Not even the Clinton camp is delusional enough to think it is going to walk away from the meeting with enough additional pledged delegates from Michigan and Florida to overtake Obama.
So it's time for the uncommitted superdelegates to stop their dithering, come out of hiding, hop off the fence, endorse Obama and officially bring this nominating process to an end.
The Democratic leadership -- starting with Pelosi, Reid, and Dean -- should begin working behind the scenes to get all uncommitted supers to immediately commit. Let Puerto Rico, South Dakota, and Montana have their say, but start bringing the curtain down now.
And let's not just wait for the party leaders to put pressure on the superdelegates. Let's start putting pressure ourselves. Below you will find a list of all the uncommitted superdelegates. And this link will lead you to profiles of them. Please call or email the elected officials and track down the DNC members who live in your state and let them know that you want them to stand up and be counted. Now.
Hillary Clinton has more than earned the right to stay in the race until the bitter end. So it's up to the superdelegates to accelerate the bitter end.
Uncommitted Superdelegates:
Representatives
Bud Cramer (AL)
Gabrielle Giffords (AZ)
Nancy Pelosi (CA)
Jerry McNerney (CA)
Mike Honda (CA)
Sam Farr (CA)
Jim Costa (CA)
Bob Filner (CA)
Susan Davis (CA)
Mark Udall (CO)
John Salazar (CO)
Jim Marshall (GA)
Rahm Emanuel (IL)
Nancy Boyda (KS)
Dennis Moore (KS)
William Jefferson (LA)
Charlie Melancon (LA)
Don Cazayoux (LA)
Rep. Michael Michaud (ME)
John Sarbanes (MD)
Steny Hoyer (MD)
Chris Van Hollen (MD)
John Olver (MA)
Niki Tsongas (MA)
John Tierney (MA)
Edward Markey (MA)
Collin Peterson (MN)
Gene Taylor (MS)
Rep. Travis Childers (MS)
Rep. Rush Holt (NJ)
Rep. Bob Etheridge (NC)
Rep. Mike McIntyre (NC)
Rep. Tom Udall (NM)
Charlie Wilson (OH)
Marcia Kaptur (OH)
Rep. Zack Space (OH)
Rep. Dennis Kucinich (OH)
Rep. Dan Boren (OK)
Bob Brady (PA)
Jason Altmire (PA)
Tim Holden (PA)
Rep. Mike Doyle (PA)
John Spratt (SC)
Rep. Jim Clyburn (SC)
Lincoln Davis (TN)
Bart Gordon (TN)
Nick Lampson (TX)
Jim Matheson (UT)
Alan Mollohan (WV)

Distinguished Party
Leaders
Jimmy Carter (GA)
Al Gore (TN)
Fmr. Senator and Majority Leader
George Mitchell (NY)
Fmr. DNC Chair Bob Strauss (TX)

Senators
Ken Salazar (CO)
Joe Biden (DE)
Tom Carper (DE)
Tom Harkin (IA)
Mary Landrieu (LA)
Ben Cardin (MD)
Carl Levin (MI)
Max Baucus (MT)
Jon Tester (MT)
Harry Reid (NV)
Frank Lautenberg (NJ)
Sherrod Brown (OH)
Ron Wyden (OR)
Jack Reed (RI)
Jim Webb (VA)
Herb Kohl (WI)

Governors
Bill Ritter (CO)
Steve Beshear (KY)
Brian Schweitzer (MT)
John Lynch (NH)
Phil Bredeson (TN)
Joe Manchin (WV)
Add-Ons
Tony Knowles (AK)
Terry Goddard (AZ)
Verna Cleveland (GA)
Stephen Leeds (GA)
James Burns (HI)
Jay Nixon (MO)
Rusty McAllister (NV)
Jerry Lee (TN)
W. Patrick Goggles(WY)
35 Unnamed Add-Ons,
including 2 from Michigan
DNC Members
Joe Turnham (AL)
Nancy Worley (AL)
Don Bivens (AZ)
Lottie Shackleford (AR)
Art Torres (CA)
Hon. Carole Migden (CA)
Bob Mulholland (CA)
Christine Pelosi (CA)
Robert Rankin (CA)
Steve Ybarra (CA)
John Perez (CA)
Pat Waak (CO)
Nancy DiNardo (CT)
Donna Brazile (DC)
Christine Warnke (DC)
John Daniello (DE)
Harriet Smith-Windsor (DE)
Richard Ray (GA)
Ben Pangelinan (GU)
Brian Schatz (HI)
Kari Luna (HI)
Edward Smith (IL)
Vacant (IL)
Helen Knetzer (KS)
Jennifer Moore (KY)
Nathan Smith (KY)
Chris Whittington (LA)
Claude "Buddy" Leach (LA)
Elsie Burkhalter (LA)
Sam Spencer (ME)
Jennifer DeChant (ME)
Hon. Heather Mizeur (MD)
Susan Turnbull (MD)
John Sweeney (MD)
Belkis Leong-Hong (MD)
Debra Kozikowski (MA)
James Roosevelt Jr (MA)
Carnelia Pettis Fondren (MS)
John Temporiti (MO)
Yolanda Wheat (MO)
Leila Medley (MO)
Hon. Robin Carnahan (MO)
Hon. Maria Chappelle-Nadal (MO)
Dennis McDonald (MT)
Margarett Campbell (MT)
Sam Lieberman (NV)
Hon. Yvonne Gates (NV)
Hon. Catherine Cortez Masto (NV)
Philip D. Murphy (NJ)
Raymond Buckley (NH)
Irene Stein (NY)
Ralph Dawson (NY)
David Parker (NC)
Muriel Offerman (NC)
Carol Peterson (NC)
David Strauss (ND)
Hon. Chris Redfern (OH)
Ronald Malone (OH)
Patricia Moss (OH)
Hon. Joyce Beatty (OH)
Ivan Holmes (OK)
Jim Frasier (OK)
Jay Parmley (OK)
Meredith Woods-Smith (OR)
Frank Dixon (OR)
Jenny Greenleaf (OR)
Wayne Kinney (OR)
Gail Rasmussen (OR)
Hon. Bill Bradbury (OR)
Eliseo Roques-Arroyo (PR)
Hon. Gilda Cobb-Hunter (SC)
Cheryl Chapman (SD)
Gray Sasser (TN)
Dr. Inez Crutchfield (TN)
Boyd Richie (TX)
David Hardt (TX
Denise Johnson (TX)
Betty Richie (TX)
Linda Chavez -Thompson (TX)
Helen Langan (UT)
Jim Leaman (VA)
C Richard Cranwell (VA)
Hon. Alexis Herman (VA)
Jerome Wiley Segovia (VA)
Howard Dean (VT)
Eileen Macoll (WA)
Ed Cote (WA)
Sharon Mast (WA)
David McDonald (WA)
Nick Casey Jr. (WV)
Alice Germond (WV)
Paula Zellner (WI)
Nancy Drummond (WY)
Cynthia Nunley (WY)
Marylyn Stapleton (VI)
Vacant - 1 (At-large)
Vacant - 2 (At-larg

Sunday, May 25, 2008

Moment Of Silence

.....Initiated by DICK GERGORY, REV. MICHAEL BECKWITH and others...)

A concerted effort has been made for the past several weeks to be of one mind and one spirit. Obama supporters are a movement ...a loving movement of like minded Americans who stand for Unity and Justice. And now that Senator Clinton has made her truest, deepest desires known with her unfortunate slip of the tongue...It is time for us to ACT.

Every day at 12:00 Noon, Eastern Standard Time and 9:00 a.m. pacific we are taking a moment of silence to send the light of love and protection to Senator Obama and his family. So say a prayer, chant, meditate, envision, affirm...whatever you feel, do it, at that time everyday. OUR FAITH CAN MOVE MOUNTAINS AND LOVE IS ALWAYS SUPREME. Send your love to our candidate and his family...Let us together heal this wonderful Country of it's ancient wounds. We can do this...YES WE CAN!

Barack Obama wants Bill to heal Hillary Clinton wounds

From The Sunday Times
May 25, 2008
Barack Obama wants Bill to heal Hillary Clinton wounds


An assassination remark is the latest twist to sour relations between the two rivals
Barack Obama, the probable Democratic presidential nominee, wants Bill Clinton to help him heal the deep party rifts created by his wife Hillary’s divisive campaign – culminating in her dramatic claim this weekend that the 1968 assassination of Robert F Kennedy was a reason not to be pushed out of the race.
The tension between Hillary Clinton and Obama intensified after she told the Sioux Falls Argus Leader in South Dakota, which holds the last primary contest in 10 days’ time: “We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June.”

She quickly apologised, ashen-faced, for a comment which appeared dangerously close to wishful thinking about Obama, but the damage was done.

Senior officials on Obama’s campaign believe Bill Clinton has the unique status and political gifts to reunite the party after such gaffes. They expressed confidence that the former president would rise above the perceived slights and grudges of a hard-fought campaign and work flat out for an Obama victory in November’s presidential election.
“If anybody can put their arms around the party and say we need to be together, it is Bill Clinton,” a senior Obama aide said.
“He’s brilliant, he has got heart and he cares deeply about the country. It’s tricky because of his position as Hillary’s spouse, but his involvement is very important to us.

“Bill Clinton will give permission to Hillary supporters to come into our camp and become one party. He is critical to this effort.”
Hillary, 60, claimed that her remark about the assassination had arisen because the “Kennedys have been much on my mind” after Senator Edward Kennedy, Robert’s younger brother, was diagnosed with a brain tumour last week.

She insisted she was referring to the timing of his assassination in June, when he was still a presidential candidate, rather than his killing, to make the point that there was nothing unusual about her determination to take this year’s race for the nomination into the summer.
However, while she expressed regret for “referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation”, she did not apologise to Obama, who has been receiving secret security protection for the past year after death threats.

“We have seen an x-ray of a very dark soul,” wrote Michael Goodwin, a New York Daily News columnist. “One consumed by raw ambition to where the possible assassination of an opponent is something to ponder in a strategic way. Otherwise, why is murder on her mind?”
The outburst joins “Sniper-gate” – Hillary’s imaginary landing under fire in war-torn Bosnia – as one of the most memorable mistakes of a historic fight to the finish between two remarkably evenly matched candidates.

With just three contests to go – in Puerto Rico, Montana and South Dakota in early June – Obama, 46, is ahead of Clinton by 158 pledged delegates after winning the most states.
His lead is insurmountable unless superdelegates – the party leaders who will determine the outcome of the vote at the Democratic National Convention in August – break in her favour.
After the Kennedy gaffe, however, the implausible has become the unthinkable.

It is a delicate matter to bring Bill Clinton on board. The former president believes that Obama should offer his wife the vice-presidential slot as a mark of respect after she proved her electoral strength in the big must-win states for Democrats, but her latest error is widely perceived to have squandered what little chance she had.
“It would be hard to take the country in a new direction with the Clintons in the White House,” a source in the Obama campaign said. “They bring controversy.”
Discreet merger talks between key campaign staff and leading fundraisers in both camps are already under way. But the process of healing is fraught with friction after accusations of sexism, racism and other insults.

Bill Clinton has been stung by accusations that he played the “race card” by referring to Obama’s story as a “fairy-tale” and comparing his early success in South Carolina with that of the Rev Jesse Jackson, the failed black presidential candidate, in the 1980s.
Nevertheless, friends said they expected the former president to campaign hard for Obama once the nomination is settled.
“In my experience, he is someone who doesn’t really carry political grudges to the end of the line,” said Leon Panetta, who served as Clinton’s White House chief of staff. “He will get mad and angry but ultimately he comes around.”

He added that Clinton was “hurt” by the defeats of Al Gore in 2000 and John Kerry in 2004: “He knows that in the end his legacy within the Democratic party rests not just on his victories but the victories that follow.”

In an interview in People magazine, Clinton, 61, extended a small olive branch to Obama. “There have been some rumbles about leaving this party divided but not one of them has come out of our camp. Not one. Ever,” he said. He went on to speak warmly about his wife’s opponent, although he said Obama lacked experience.
Betsy Myers, a former White House official under Bill Clinton who is now with the Obama campaign, said: “They have very similar stories. They both came from lower-income families with a strong mother and went on to become very well educated and devoted their lives to public service. Had Hillary not been in the race, Barack is exactly the sort of candidate Bill Clinton would have embraced and supported.”

Obama has an important bargaining chip which could tempt Bill Clinton into the fold. Friends say the former president is distressed by the rift in his relationship with the African-American community after he was affectionately described in the 1990s as the “first black president”.
His wife’s reference to Robert Kennedy’s shooting touched a raw nerve among a community which has long feared that the first black candidate to have a serious chance of entering the White House will be assassinated, just as earlier champions such as Martin Luther King and Malcolm X were.
William Galston, a former White House official and Hillary Clinton supporter, said: “One part of him [Bill Clinton] deeply regrets the schism that has opened up with the black community and he would welcome the opportunity to redeem himself.” Campaigning for Obama would go a long way to restoring good relations.

Don Fowler, a former chairman of the Democratic national committee during Bill Clinton’s presidency and a leading Hillary supporter in South Carolina, said: “I don’t know of any two white people who have been more inclined to support causes of interest to the African-American community than Hillary and Bill Clinton. I’m certain they will want to soothe the ruffled feelings that have occurred during this campaign.”
Fowler is a member of the party’s 30-member rules and bylaws committee, which meets on May 31 to decide whether to seat disputed delegations from Michigan and Florida at the Democratic National Convention, as Hillary Clinton is insisting.
The two states were disqualified after holding their primaries early in defiance of party rules but are likely to have their status partially restored.

Fowler’s wife Carol, who chairs the South Carolina Democratic party, also sits on the rules committee but supports Obama. The couple – a microcosm of the split in the party – believe that a “peaceful resolution” to the conflict is possible.
Don Fowler said Hillary Clinton did not have to be Obama’s running mate to unite the Democrats: “She has lots of options and is a very talented woman. I don’t know if that would be a good choice for her or for the party.” A senior member of Obama’s campaign team suggested the former president could deploy his skills on the stump to help Obama woo white working-class voters in key swing states.

“When this primary is over, we’re going to unite as one and Bill Clinton will play a huge role,” said Patrick Murphy, a congressman who chaired the Obama campaign in Pennsylvania, a battleground state.
In a sign that the two camps are drawing together, Al Gore, the former vice-president and winner of the Nobel peace prize, is hosting a fundraiser for the Democratic party on May 31, co-chaired by Orin Kramer, a prominent Obama fundraiser, and Maureen White, one of Clinton’s top financial backers.
The Clinton dynasty may yet play its part. Bill Clinton predicted last week that Chelsea, his 28-year-old daughter, could one day enter politics.
“If you had asked me this before Iowa [which held its caucus in January], I would have said: no way – she is too allergic to anything we do. But she is really good at it.”

If the entire Clinton family can be persuaded to campaign for Obama, their supporters will surely follow.

Thursday, May 22, 2008


Monday, April 21st, 2008

My Vote's for Obama (if I could vote) ...by Michael Moore

http://www.michaelmoore.com
Friends,


I don't get to vote for President this primary season. I live in Michigan. The party leaders (both here and in D.C.) couldn't get their act together, and thus our votes will not be counted.

So, if you live in Pennsylvania, can you do me a favor? Will you please cast my vote -- and yours -- on Tuesday for Senator Barack Obama?

I haven't spoken publicly 'til now as to who I would vote for, primarily for two reasons: 1) Who cares?; and 2) I (and most people I know) don't give a rat's ass whose name is on the ballot in November, as long as there's a picture of JFK and FDR riding a donkey at the top of the ballot, and the word "Democratic" next to the candidate's name.

Seriously, I know so many people who don't care if the name under the Big "D" is Dancer, Prancer, Clinton or Blitzen. It can be Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Barry Obama or the Dalai Lama.

Well, that sounded good last year, but over the past two months, the actions and words of Hillary Clinton have gone from being merely disappointing to downright disgusting. I guess the debate last week was the final straw. I've watched Senator Clinton and her husband play this game of appealing to the worst side of white people, but last Wednesday, when she hurled the name "Farrakhan" out of nowhere, well that's when the silly season came to an early end for me. She said the "F" word to scare white people, pure and simple. Of course, Obama has no connection to Farrakhan. But, according to Senator Clinton, Obama's pastor does -- AND the "church bulletin" once included a Los Angeles Times op-ed from some guy with Hamas! No, not the church bulletin!

This sleazy attempt to smear Obama was brilliantly explained the following night by Stephen Colbert. He pointed out that if Obama is supported by Ted Kennedy, who is Catholic, and the Catholic Church is led by a Pope who was in the Hitler Youth, that can mean only one thing: OBAMA LOVES HITLER!

Yes, Senator Clinton, that's how you sounded. Like you were nuts. Like you were a bigot stoking the fires of stupidity. How sad that I would ever have to write those words about you. You have devoted your life to good causes and good deeds. And now to throw it all away for an office you can't win unless you smear the black man so much that the superdelegates cry "Uncle (Tom)" and give it all to you.

But that can't happen. You cast your die when you voted to start this bloody war. When you did that you were like Moses who lost it for a moment and, because of that, was prohibited from entering the Promised Land.

How sad for a country that wanted to see the first woman elected to the White House. That day will come -- but it won't be you. We'll have to wait for the current Democratic governor of Kansas to run in 2016 (you read it here first!).

There are those who say Obama isn't ready, or he's voted wrong on this or that. But that's looking at the trees and not the forest. What we are witnessing is not just a candidate but a profound, massive public movement for change. My endorsement is more for Obama The Movement than it is for Obama the candidate.

That is not to take anything away from this exceptional man. But what's going on is bigger than him at this point, and that's a good thing for the country. Because, when he wins in November, that Obama Movement is going to have to stay alert and active. Corporate America is not going to give up their hold on our government just because we say so. President Obama is going to need a nation of millions to stand behind him.

I know some of you will say, 'Mike, what have the Democrats done to deserve our vote?' That's a damn good question. In November of '06, the country loudly sent a message that we wanted the war to end. Yet the Democrats have done nothing. So why should we be so eager to line up happily behind them?

I'll tell you why. Because I can't stand one more friggin' minute of this administration and the permanent, irreversible damage it has done to our people and to this world. I'm almost at the point where I don't care if the Democrats don't have a backbone or a kneebone or a thought in their dizzy little heads. Just as long as their name ain't "Bush" and the word "Republican" is not beside theirs on the ballot, then that's good enough for me.

I, like the majority of Americans, have been pummeled senseless for 8 long years. That's why I will join millions of citizens and stagger into the voting booth come November, like a boxer in the 12th round, all bloodied and bruised with one eye swollen shut, looking for the only thing that matters -- that big "D" on the ballot.

Don't get me wrong. I lost my rose-colored glasses a long time ago.

It's foolish to see the Democrats as anything but a nicer version of a party that exists to do the bidding of the corporate elite in this country. Any endorsement of a Democrat must be done with this acknowledgement and a hope that one day we will have a party that'll represent the people first, and laws that allow that party an equal voice.

Finally, I want to say a word about the basic decency I have seen in Mr. Obama. Mrs. Clinton continues to throw the Rev. Wright up in his face as part of her mission to keep stoking the fears of White America. Every time she does this I shout at the TV, "Say it, Obama! Say that when she and her husband were having marital difficulties regarding Monica Lewinsky, who did she and Bill bring to the White House for 'spiritual counseling?' THE REVEREND JEREMIAH WRIGHT!"

But no, Obama won't throw that at her. It wouldn't be right. It wouldn't be decent. She's been through enough hurt. And so he remains silent and takes the mud she throws in his face.

That's why the crowds who come to see him are so large. That's why he'll take us down a more decent path. That's why I would vote for him if Michigan were allowed to have an election.

But the question I keep hearing is... 'can he win? Can he win in November?' In the distance we hear the siren of the death train called the Straight Talk Express. We know it's possible to hear the words "President McCain" on January 20th. We know there are still many Americans who will never vote for a black man. Hillary knows it, too. She's counting on it.

Pennsylvania, the state that gave birth to this great country, has a chance to set things right. It has not had a moment to shine like this since 1787 when our Constitution was written there. In that Constitution, they wrote that a black man or woman was only "three fifths" human. On Tuesday, the good people of Pennsylvania have a chance for redemption.


Yours,
Michael Moore
MichaelMoore.com
MMFlint@aol.com