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  Posted By:
  Quiller at 04/25/2008 11:07:28 AM
  Comment:
  I am interested how in liberal arts studies in general, the 1960s looms larger than ever as a set of limit-experiences (for example, with what R is talking about, a limit for the American Left and its possibilities of truly participating in political discourse and policy), while the rest of the country seems to be yielding to a frightful amnesia.
  
  How can we explain this amnesia that allows for absurd distortions and forgettings of the radical projects of the 60s? My guess is that it is Vietnam, the one symbol of American defeat that, at least when I was growing up, as at least allowed to be uttered and understood as a low point. Today, I don't believe that is the case. Vietnam is now merely an analogue of Iraq, and as that conflict is still no longer officially registered as a defeat, the country cannot even bear to look hard at its predecessor.
  
  One irony of the primary race is that Hillary figured out how to out-center Obama. Obama's message of "hope" was in fact the ultimate rebuttal to the Left in this country, who have spent the past seven years in slack-jawed horror at what has taken place. The last thing the Left has right now is hope. Hillary figured out how to out-populist this already populist position by yes, adapting the hideous distortions of language and history that the Bush administration laid out with each passing year. So amazingly we have Hillary, a child of the 60s, appealing to the "silent majority" a la Nixon in 68.
  
  But anyone familiar with Latin American politics will not be all that shocked to see how left and right are now freely merging in the name of opportunism. In the land of Hugo Chavez, among many other would-be caudillos, it is standard practice for any political position, any rhetoric, and any history to be fair game for embracing or rejecting when it suits one's individual gain.
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  Posted By:
  ladybee21 at 04/25/2008 10:31:12 AM
  Comment:
  Great insight, thanks.
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  Posted By:
  carol_4516@msn.com at 04/25/2008 7:45:43 AM
  Comment:
  The Clintons are Rag Dolls posing as real people. Acid is flowing from their lips. They're desperate to Win the White House. Lying, distrustful couple. Bill is suffering from a Monica withdrawl. Wake Up Black people.
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  Posted By:
  carol_4516@msn.com at 04/25/2008 7:41:50 AM
  Comment:
  I hope that the Old Black Folk who love the Clintons can now see them as they are. Bill is not the sweetheart of Black Folk. Certianly not mine. What Bill did during his Presidency was for VOTES; nothing else. Wake-Up Black People!
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  Posted By:
  POLpursun at 04/25/2008 7:20:13 AM
  Comment:
  Playing the "Southern strategy" post-Iowa and moving back toward that Goldwater girl (that father of hers she played the nostalgic game with in Scranton did not much care for black people) do, it must be admitted, produce a synergy.
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  Posted By:
  amardeepmsingh at 04/24/2008 9:36:23 AM
  Comment:
  Hi Raphael --
  
  The Obama movement has been interesting to watch, because to a great extent it has always embodied the tension you describe. Millions of people are looking to participate in a movement that is momentous in the way the sixties civil rights and anti-war movements were momentous. But everyone know that directly espousing actual radicalism makes you instantly unelectable (you are stuck in Dennis Kucinich territory). So Obama represents the symbolism of a popular social movement without specifically advocating anything that might make him seem "fringey."
  
  There's more to it (we could talk about the sixties idealism that led to Obama's biracial identity, for instance), but let's leave it at that for now.