“I’ve said to you on many occasions that each of us is something of a schizophrenic personality. We’re split up and divided against ourselves. And there is something of a civil war going on within all of our lives. There is a recalcitrant South of our soul revolting against the North of our soul.”
—Martin Luther King, “Loving Your Enemies,” November 17, 1957
I ran into Congressman Jim Clyburn at Brookland Baptist Church, here in Columbia, during the 2010 midterm election season while campaigning with South Carolina Green Party senate candidate Tom Clements. As we all exchanged pleasantries, I jokingly mentioned to Jim that I had gotten his campaign mail with the picture of him and President Barack Obama on it. He seemed genuinely pleased, so much so that he walked me over to check out the special poster he had at his campaign material table. The poster was also of Clyburn with the commander-in-chief. Clyburn appears to be making a point in the President’s ear. Obama looks and leans as though he’s listening. The U.S. flag is in the background. At the bottom of the poster read the caption: “JIM HAS THE PRESIDENT’S EAR, AND WE MUST HAVE THEIR BACKS!!!”
Clyburn didn’t really need Obama’s help in getting reelected in his safe district, which is 57 percent African American. And he’s never had any serious opposition to his seat. But it would have taken some help from Obama for him to keep his spot as the second-ranking Democrat in the House after the drubbing their party took in the midterm elections. That help was not forthcoming. When the dust settled, Clyburn wasn’t even offered the minority whip job, which went to Steny Hoyer of Maryland. Clyburn was given the new title of assistant Democratic leader. Clyburn has fewer staff than before, he is no longer involved in vote-counting, nor is he a key party messenger. Clyburn’s demotion has not sat well with the Congressional Black Caucus, which he used to chair. But it typifies Obama’s indifference to African Americans across the board.
Last December, when he was polling in the mid-nineties among blacks, during a White House press conference a black reporter asked Obama about grumblings among the black leadership. He replied: “I think if you look at the polling, in terms of the attitudes of the African-American community, there’s overwhelming support for what we’ve tried to do.”
Yet even as he boasted, that same month the black unemployment rose from 15.7 percent to 16 percent, almost double the Dec. 9% national rate (Aug 2011- 9.1%). Black male unemployment rose from 16.3 percent to 16.7 percent as 1.3 million black men were out of work. For black women it jumped from 12.7 percent to 13.1, or roughly 1.2 million unemployed black women. And the unemployment rate for black teens stood at a staggering 46.5 percent (by contrast, the rate for white teenagers was 23.6 percent).
When Obama entered office, the black unemployment rate was 12.6 percent. But rising unemployment still didn’t dampen black optimism going into his second year. According to a Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation/Harvard University poll conducted Jan. 27-Feb. 9 of this year, 85 percent of blacks said they were optimistic about the future course of the economy while 72 percent of white held that view. Eighty-four percent of blacks felt hopeful about their personal financial situation, compared with 73 percent of whites.
Obama is right that the African American community gives him overwhelming support, but it’s not as overwhelming as it used to be. In the most recent polls blacks see “the economy” or unemployment as the nation’s top problem with one in seven or 2.9 million African Americans out of work — the highest number in nearly a quarter century. And some economists argue that 16%+ rate isn’t the “real” or accurate rate. They say that if one takes into account those people who want work and cannot get it and have stopped looking, those not counted such as the 900,000 incarcerated black men and women, and those recently released from the military– the “real” underemployment rate may be 25% or higher.
Back in 2008, nearly all (95 percent) black voters cast their ballot for Obama. Presently, they give him approval ratings just above 80 percent although there are polls with higher numbers.
Blacks still seem to have Obama’s back, but does he have theirs? Continue reading
Filed under American Politics, American Progressive Politics, Black Culture | United States, Black Politics, Civil Rights, Economics, Federal Budget, Foreclosure/Housing, Obama Administration, Pan Africanism | Afrocentrism | Africana Studies, The Bush Administration, The Obama Administration, white supremacy
(February 27, 1951 – March 29, 1991)
Atwater was born in Atlanta, Georgia, but grew up in Aiken, South Carolina, and graduated from Newberry College, a small private Lutheran institution in Newberry. He married and was father of three daughters.
Atwater was an advisor of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. He was also a political mentor and close friend of Republican strategist Karl Rove. Atwater invented or improved upon many of the techniques of modern electoral politics; including promulgating unflattering rumors and attempting to drive up opponents’ “negative” poll numbers as techniques. His foes have characterized him as the “happy hatchet man” and “the Darth Vader of the Republican party.”
Atwater rose during the 1970’s and the 1980 election in the South Carolina Republican party, working on the campaigns of Governor Carroll Campbell and Senator Strom Thurmond. During his years in South Carolina, Atwater became well known for running hard edged campaigns based on emotional “wedge issues.”
Atwater’s aggressive tactics were first demonstrated during the 1980 congressional campaigns. He was a campaign consultant to Republican incumbent Floyd Spence in his campaign for Congress against Democratic nominee Tom Turnipseed. Atwater’s tactics in that campaign included push polling in the form of fake surveys by “independent pollsters” to “inform” white suburbanites that Turnipseed was allegedly a member of the NAACP. Atwater also highlighted that Turnipseed had been “hooked up to jumper cables” as a teen undergoing electroshock therapy for depression.
After the 1980 election Atwater went to Washington and became an aide in the Ronald Reagan administration, working under political director Ed Rollins. During his years in Washington Atwater became aligned with Vice President Bush, who chose Atwater to run his 1988 presidential campaign.
In September 2006,
the President of Venezuela ,
Hugo Chavez,
addressed the United Nations
with a speech titled Rise Up Against the Empire:
“The hegemonic pretensions
of the American empire,” he said,
“are placing at risk
the very survival
of the human species. T he devil
is right at home. T he devil,
the devil himself,
is right in the house. And the devil
came here yesterday. Yesterday
the devil came here.
Right here. [crosses himself]
And it smells
of sulfur
still today. Yesterday,
ladies & gentlemen,
from this rostrum,
the president of the United States ,
the gentleman
to whom I refer
as the devil,
came here,
talking as if he owned the world.
Truly. As the owner
of the world. Full
of this imperial hypocrisy
from the need they have
to control everything.
What type of democracy
do you impose
with marines & bombs? T he imperialists
see extremists everywhere. It’s not
that we are extremists. It’s that the world
is waking up. It’s waking
up all over. And people
are standing up.
You can call us extremists,
but we are rising up
against the empire, against the model
of domination. T hey kidnapped me
& they were going to kill me,
but I think God reached down
& our people came out
into the streets
& the army was too,
& so I’m here today.
Over & above all of this,
I think there are reasons
to be optimistic, because
over & above the wars
& the bombs
& the aggression
& the “preventive war”
& the destruction
of entire peoples, one can see
that a new era
is dawning.
As Silvio Rodriguez says,
the era
is giving birth
to a heart.
There are alternative ways of thinking.
There are young people
who think differently. It was shown
that the end of history
was a totally false assumption.
What we now have to do
is define the future
of the world. Dawn
is breaking out all over. You can see it
in Africa
& Europe
& Latin America
& Oceana. I want
to emphasize
that optimistic vision.
We have to strengthen ourselves,
our will
to do battle,
our awareness. We have to build
a new & better world.
We want ideas
to save our planet,
to save the planet
from the imperialist threat. And hopefully
in this very century,
in not too long a time,
we will see this,
we will see this new era,
& for our children
& our grandchildren
a world of peace. It smells
of sulfur here,
but God is with us
& I embrace you all. May God
bless us all. Good day to you.”
Edited & arranged by John Sinclair
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