Freedom Rider: Why We Write About Obama

by Margaret Kimberley

"Obama
used racist, conservative code
words from the GOP play book."

Black Agenda Report is "a journal of African American
political thought and action." Those words mean nothing unless we are willing
to think and act in ways that the corporate media are not. Even black Americans
are susceptible to the influences of a system whose existence depends on
telling lies and having them accepted as truth. If that were not the case, BAR
wouldn't need to exist.

When anyone is praised on these pages it is because their
actions warrant praise. If members of the Congressional Black Caucus stand up
for the Constitution and demand impeachment hearings they are praised. If they
sell out to corporate interests and allow Fox News to control the CBC
Institute, they are condemned.

This site is not called Be Nice to Prominent Black People
Report. Obama supporters in particular should keep this fact in mind. Recently
many of them have taken BAR to task for critical coverage of his campaign.

"The dangers presented by an Obama presidency are
becoming clearer every day."

In the week before the Nevada caucuses Barack Obama
responded to our critics for us. If the stakes were not so high, we
might exult in saying, "We told you so." The dangers presented by an Obama
presidency are becoming clearer every day, and that is no reason for
celebration.

In an editorial board meeting with the Reno Gazette-Journal,
Obama said the
following about Ronald Reagan:

"I do think that for example the 1980 election was
different. I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a
way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not. He
put us on a fundamentally different path because the country was ready for
it. I think they felt like with all the excesses of the 1960s and 1970s
and government had grown and grown but there wasn't much sense of
accountability in terms of how it was operating. I think people, he just
tapped into what people were already feeling, which was we want clarity we want
optimism, we want a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that
had been missing."

Not only did Obama praise Reagan, but he used racist,
conservative code words from the GOP play book to do it. Obama's supporters
should be the first to ask him what he believes to be the "excesses
of the 60s and 70s." Does he think the Voting Rights Act was an
excess? What about the Civil Rights Act? Were the protests against the
Vietnam War excessive? What about Fair Housing legislation, was it all too much
for the Republic to handle? Was abortion legalization an excess?

"What does Obama believe to be the 'excesses of the 60s and 70s?'"

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