RattlerGator has seen the future unraveling of Democrats and it begins with their disputes over the meaning of the fight between Hillary and Obama. I believe he's onto something. He observes the fire and brimstone in comments from a Frank Rich article critical of Hillary Clinton. Really, read his whole thing.
I had an extended discussion with a friend this morning about the Barack v. Hillary situation. Your comment [The 50+ crowd that created him [RattlerGator: meaning, Barack Obama] now feels a kind of obligation to kill him, as he has been obliged to try and kill them.] highlights a problem likely unseen by much of America but very much bubbling in the black community -- people don't know what to think of how they feel about this Barack Obama guy, and they don't know what to think of their feelings vis-a-vis the manner in which white folks view him and respond to him.
We don't often think of Barack Obama as a creation of the Democrat Machine, and it's really stunning to know that we haven't. But he is indeed the petard upon which Democrats have tried to hoist Republicans since his arrival on the scene. But where did he come from, really? The Democrats have given Obama an inch and he has taken a mile. With his recent four state sweep, the Clintons are really stumbling to keep up. Plus, Obama is pulling in more money. Who let the dogs out? This is the deep trouble in the Left that is forcing them to grapple with two attributes they have invested so much meaning and value in, race and gender. It's going to make their heads explode.
RattlerGator has brought to my attention something about the Boomers' inability to get over their own roots, where the most significant moral chit was 'marching with Dr King'. I mean really, how scary is that? It is probably one of the last best significant things your garden variety white person could do of moral significance by virtue of the color of their skin. We, on the other hand, merely had to succeed against the odds - which is a lifetime endeavor. A march some Sunday weekend? Ha! It's like me saying 'I shook Barney Frank's hand!'. That may have been hugely significant in breaking the cultural barriers of the 50s, but then again, the 50s weren't all that retarded and lots and lots of Boomers were doing the same thing. The rewards of doing the adolescent rebellious yet moral thing against a regressive background of racist parenting should only count so much, and yet the Clintons of the world have been banking on it for decades.
This is the origin of multiculturalism. It is rooted in the basic countercultural idea that Boomer parents (and America by extension) were so incredibly wrong about race and war that they couldn't be morally right about anything. And the exploration (some Sunday march) that a generation of white youth had during the Summer of Love to find that blacks and hispanics and all the other 'others' were actually human destroyed their faith in their parents' American culture. The very humanity of 'others' came as a shock to these poor naifs and they haven't been right since. The problem is that such Boomers have been on stage too long, and their basic reversion to their signature memes, without any appreciation for what the Conservative revolution has long stood for, has left them derailed from the real track of liberty.
The Baby Boom is a market phenomenon. I'm one of that minority of Americans who never thought much of Dustin Hoffman or the Rolling Stones. Quite frankly I've never seen The Graduate and I only know three or four songs by the Stones. When Bill Clinton came rolling around in 1992, I didn't trust him, but I was glad to see the torch of the Presidency finally get to someone within 20 years of my age. Bill Clinton spoke my language and recognized the same parts of America I did, like the Arsenio Hall Show. But this was just a market phenomenon. He never got down to Constitutional purity. He never got down to core principles of America and he did nothing to bring me, or anyone, to a truer conscious patriotism as a citizenship. He never demanded sacrifice, instead he just gave us the flavor we desired. He was all about movement, and in 1992 that's what I wanted to see and hear - movement to a new generation, a Pepsi Generation.
Now it's easy for me to see all that movement was just agitation. If it took triangulation strategies, if it took bombing Serbia, then that was the cost. The point was that he could market us a Cabinet 'that looks like America'. What anybody did in those seats was not our concern, we just knew to let multicultural ethics force us not to look past race and gender. As Clinton took a whack at military policy, we knew he was going for the trifecta of sexual preference as well. He consciously politicized and brought front and center something that wasn't broke and should have been left alone.
We tend to forget the fundamental problem with godless communism which is that it sees human beings as getting their meaning from systems. To to the commie, there is no human soul which endows people with their fundamental value, instead, people get all of their meaning from the social contract. Outside of the system, people don't exist. And therefore the shape of the system defines the shape of the human without which we are supposedly all barbarians. It's easy to see the Civil Rights Movement from that perspective. Before it, blacks were not fully human because the system didn't recognize them. And of course it's also easy to see white humanity as augmented and enhanced due to their conformance to a new system recognizing black humanity. The communist, the socialist, the Marxist all see the human experience as not only being enhanced and affirmed by the System but established by it, and that said system is its only defense. In such a scheme, individuals are just like wild free electrons, not the captured flow of electricity - the only use for electrons. Recognition of a god is just a checkbox, a reason to conflict without the order imposed by the system. Race is another checkbox, gender is another checkbox, and so on. All generating 'natural' conflicts, the conflicts of Boomer parents. Multiculturalism is the ethics through which one should contextualize these essential conflicts according to the Left.
The Democrat's investment in the ethics of multiculturalism enables them to put faces in places and exploit the existential insecurities of so-called 'minorities'. It works, not so much because it satisfies the actual needs of various groups but because it satisfies the ideological desire to suggest that race, gender and preference 'gaps' have been bridged. So much of the multicultural debate and the entire calculus hinges on the false ideal of proportional representation, that people often fail to consider basic questions of principle. Nobody knows nor much cares what Lani Guinier, Joycelyn Elders nor Sistah Souljah stand for, but it's obvious that they are black women (a twofer) and the the Clinton Administration dissed them at one point or another. And so what passes for the black interest is counting noses and rhetorical patronage. But even on this simplistic basis, the chickens are coming home to roost. The Democrats will now pay for allowing Obama's race be an enabler in their multicultural agenda which is their primary avenue to their definitions of minority groups - which have become, because of this game, defacto minority interest groups. Despite the fact that women have the same issues as citizens and the same interest in solving those issues as everyone, they have been reduced to a gender interest group. Hillary's gender is the 'answer'. Despit the fact that African Americans have the same issues as citizens and the same interest in solving those issues as everyone, they have been reduced to a racial interest group. Obama's race is the 'answer'. Multiculturalism multiplies agendas and interests falsely, but now the Democrats have to deliver.
In the case of Obama vs Clinton, the entire 'black' agenda of the Democratic party has been hijacked by an African American candidate. And the fact that the Democrats have not materially offered anything to African Americans above and beyond their special racial interest groups status and the occasional faces in high places, rapidly becomes evident as the candidates compete for the African American vote. It is tragic that black voters have come to expect little more that multicultural lip service, but the fact that they have gotten Obama so quickly and so dramatically highlights the emptiness of the multicultural promise.
Whether or not Obama is willing or able to effect a change of agenda that more accurately addresses the true needs and concerns of African American voters is beside the point here. The fact is that now that he exists, now that he has demonstrated his viability as a candidate, without question, people are going to start asking if and why he's the only one. But most importantly, Obama has proven that the multicultural rhetoric has been empty. Whether or not the Democrats hyped him there, he *is* black power, and he's going to have to be put down forcibly if the Democrat power structure that the Clinton machine represents is to survive this election.
There are only two options, none of which is appetizing for that machine.
They will either disabuse their multicultural agenda by tacking towards the premise that Obama's race should not be considered and that where it counts, his skills and experience are most important. Then they go after him on skills and experience - which is an odd tack considering the other Democrats who were originally in the running many possessing much more skill and experience than the front runners. Or they find a way to marginalize his multicultural value by suggesting some equation like women + hispanics > black. Either way, African American and other voters who pay significant attention to this racial traffic are going to be pissed. The mendacity will be transparent, and that will stick to the Clintons and their Party like glue. A possible third way is to split the difference by offering a joint ticket. In that case, Obama becomes party to the old multicultural ethic and the game continues. But that's really just the first option all over again.
The necessary conflict between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama is going to fracture the party along the multicultural lines that it drew on itself and on America. This is the beginning of the end of multiculturalism.
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