Greg Palast is one of my favorite investigative journalists, especially when it comes to theft-of-vote issues. But as a political thinker, he can be muddy. Yesterday, he released a column essentially saying he was voting for Obama despite his political reservations in order to make up for years of racial injustice. He called the article “Vote for him – because he’s Black,” and talked movingly about a favorite teacher who was hounded out of the system because he was black.
So, I’m going to do something that Dr. Bruce would think little of. I’m going to vote for the Black man.
Because he’s Black.
The truth is, I’m wary of Barack Obama. His cozy relations with the sub-prime loan sharks who funded his early campaign; his vote, at the behest of his big donor ADM corporation, for the horrific Bush energy bill.
But there’s one thing that overshadows policy positions, one thing he cannot change once in office: the color of his skin. The same as Mr. Bruce’s.
By Palast’s logic, the black dictator Robert Mugabe is a better choice than a visionary like Mikhael Gorbachev or Lech Walesa (both white males). should we vote for Sarah Palin because she’s a woman? While if all other things were equal, I might vote for the candidate who came from the more disenfranchised background, that’s not even a factor for me in this race. Because the candidates are far from equal. I vote for the candidate who I feel will do the most good–and sometimes, like today, that is not the one I most agree with.
True, I share Palast’s reservations about Barack Obama, and could add a few of my own. I wish he were as liberal as McCain and Palin paint him out to be. And if all I wanted to do with my vote was overcome historic injustice, I could vote for the Green Party. Not only Cynthia McKinney but also her running mate are both black and female, and her politics–or Ralph Nader’s, for that matter–are a lot closer to mine than Obama’s are.
I spent a lot of time thinking about whether to vote for McKinney, Nader, or Obama. I’ve often voted 3rd party and I still regret voting for Kerry instead of the Green Party’s David Cobb in 2004 (a decision I didn’t make until I was actually in the voting booth, by the way). And though I don’t have any illusions about how much change an Obama presidency will mean, this year, I’m not only voting Dem but I’m actually went up to my neighboring swing state (New Hampshire) and volunteered.
And I feel good about it.
If the candidate had been Hillary or some of the others, I would have voted 3rd party this year. So…why am I voting for Obama anyhow?
I really do see the country needing a unifying force right now, and a complete and total repudiation in the largest possible numbers of the last eight years And to me that means Obama this time, even with my significant reservations. And I do think that Obama is seriously motivated by a desire for social change, and is far more ethical and smart than the typical candidate. I want to support the Democrats moving for once in a good direction, after a series of centrist, bland, uninspiring and cowardly candidates who gave me no reason to vote for them, starting in 1988 with Michael Dukakis. The only exception was Bill Clinton, who was centrist but far from bland, at times inspiring, and willing to be controversial. Not surprisingly, he’s been the only Democrat to win in the past 20 years.
I think we are presented with a rare window, and if there’s an overwhelming majority plus veto-proof Congress, Obama may move left in the crisis, much as FDR did. After all, even LBJ and (on certain issues) Nixon moved way to the left once they were in office. I also think that while his vision is limited and his thinking somewhat too conventional, he is sincere about social justice. He’s also amazingly smart, charismatic, ethical, compassionate, and quick on his feet. He understands the need to do something about energy policy and climate change. He understands, form personal experience, the peculiar cultural and philosophical stew that is the United States electorate. He understands the power of good marketing and will be an effective salesman for his policies on Capitol Hill and in the public squares of American opinion. And he is by disposition well to the left of the Clintons, though nowhere near as far as I’d like.
And Obama is the only figure on the national scene who could actually be, as George W. Bush so famously claimed to be and then did the opposite, “a uniter, not a divider.”
He may actually be in a position to accomplish more change than we expect. He may actually be that transformative leader. Dare I call this the audacity of my hope?
