Obama and Me (and Palin, too)

this entry is part of an ongoing discussion that i'm having on a message board.  the original question was about people voting for candidates for what appear to be superficial reasons...particularly race and gender.

if that's the case, i suppose that we have to ask the question...is that such a bad thing?  i mean, when you get right down to brass tacks, Obama and mccain are two sides of the _same_ coin.  all of their ideas, thoughts, beliefs and whatnot can be understood within the framework of free market capitalism.  neither of them are shaking the foundations of western civilization.  as such, the differences between the two are often inflated.  take health care for instance...i know that i'm paraphrasing both positions here, but it's for a good cause...

obama wants to reduce the overall cost of and entrance barriers to (pre-existing conditions) health care.  he wants to do that through legislative efforts and changing the regulatory environment of the insurance system.  for those that still cannot afford to do so, he wants to offer them the opportunity to purchase the insurance--probably on some sort of sliding scale--that federal employees and elected officials use.  failing that he'll probably want to extend medicare/medicaid to cover those who fall through the cracks but since very few providers will accept medicare/medicaid they'll end up going to emergency rooms with non-emergency conditions.

mccain wants to reduce the overall cost of and entrance barriers (pre-existing conditions) to health care.  he'll do so through legislative efforts and changing the regulatory environment of the insurance system.  for those that still cannot afford to do so, he wants to offer them a tax credit--probably on some sort of sliding scale--that will allow them to purchase insurance on the market.  failing that he'll probably want to extend medicare/medicaid to cover minors and everyone else can continue to do what they have been doing--going to emergency rooms with non-emergency conditions.

what's the net difference?  i mean really the plans come down to this...obama will use government revenue to purchase or offset the cost of insurance.  mccain will give government revenue back to you to help you purchase or offset the cost of insurance.

(though i suppose at a primordial level one distinction is whether or not they trust corporations)

so long as we have a two party system which springs from mainstream western political philosophy, we'll generally have two candidates that are saying pretty much the same thing with various degrees of nuance and a couple of defining issues.  so, we're left with our original question.  how do we determine who is best for the country when they are both making a mad dash for the center?  i know that i've personally railed against this notion, but is it such a bad thing that people vote for the candidate with whom they identify?

i think that in the wake of bush II, we have an inflated notion of the power of the president to create domestic policy.  bush II was lucky.  he hit the office at a moment in time when his party enjoyed a virtually unassailable majority in BOTH the house AND the senate.  that. has. never. happened.  a much more realistic view of the power of the presidency with respect to domestic affairs would probably be bill Clinton.  there was more compromise and give and take there.  at least, i'd like to think so.  i don' think that bill clinton came into office thinking, "hey, i'm going to institute Defense of Marriage or don't ask/don't tell."  so, really, the ability of either of these candidates to do what they say they are going to do will be quite limited.  ultimately, i don't think that it's so bad that people vote for the person with whom they identify.  i think perhaps the true crime is why we still can't 'see' one another irrespective of race and gender.

treachery

i know that this may sound like treachery, but i’ve been pondering a question for quite some time now. ever since the reverend wright fracas broke out, i’ve wondered if there is any downside to barack obama being president? for a moment, let’s try and be intellectually honest about the question and set aside bush-rage. i’m not really talking politics here, i am much more interested in race relations with this question that anything else.

i don’t know much about wright, and i don’t think that i really need to. after all, i’m not talking specifics—i’m speaking much more generally than what he may or may not have said in the course of 30 years of sermonizing. i am using wright as a particular kind of embodiment of black thought and black rage. fundamentally, the reaction of america to wright was not merely predicated upon the incendiary or offensive or uncomfortable things he said. i think it was a complete rejection of his entire epistemology. of course, part of the media circus was that he was so intimately connected with a presidential front runner. of course, of course. but, i think that america was asking him, “what do you have to be angry about? your guy is running for president and might actually win. doesn’t that make us even?”

is that a fair assessment of the reaction to wright? *shrug* i think so. i believe that most of america was very, very happy that wright said things that were easy to decry. it was easy to marginalize him—reminiscent of dave chappelle’s defense of people like martin lawrence. chappelle said that calling lawrence crazy (after his exploits in NC during the shooting of the black knight movie) was a successful attempt to marginalize lawrence without trying to understand the pressures under which he lived. the same thing with chappelle’s africa trip. the same thing with wright. and, by extension, the same with black america. i believe that most intellectual black leaders in america knew what he was getting at—i believe that’s why it took so long for b. obama to finally distance himself from wright. the process of distancing himself was so convoluted and tortured b/c b. obama understood the underlying philosophical principles—it’s just that the expression of those principles made it really hard for him to stand up for them.

(i’m loving dashes right now—makes people think that i am taking a dramatic pause—and i am)

so, if you accept that premise, then let us go back to my original question. is there a downside to b. obama being president? i mean, ok, as it pertains specifically to race relations irrespective of your individual political concerns. and, in particular, i’m thinking of this question in two different lights. sub-question one: would there be a sense (overt or otherwise) of “ok, your guy is president now. you can shut up about all inequality crap. i’m tired of dealing with it.” sub-question two: what does an obama presidency mean for the mingling of black culture (no, not hip hop—i mean our cultural identity as slave-descended africans) with mainstream culture?

thoughts?