Hillary's Real MLK Problem

At first I took it as another, yawn, white rip-off of black culture and creativity: the Rolling Stones appropriating the Bo Diddley beat, Bo Derek sporting corn rows, and now Hillary giving Lyndon Baines Johnson credit for the voting rights act of 1965. If you had to give this honor to a white guy, LBJ was an odd choice, since he'd spent the 1964 Democratic convention scheming to prevent the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party from taking any Dixiecrat seats. By Clinton's standards, maybe Richard Nixon should be credited with the legalization of abortion in 1972.

But Clinton's LBJ remark reveals something more worrisome than racial tone-deafness - a theory of social change that's as elitist as it is inaccurate. Black civil rights weren't won by suited men (or women) sitting at desks. They were won by a mass movement of millions who marched, sat in at lunch counters, endured jailings, and took bullets and beatings for the right to vote and move freely about. Some were students and pastors; many were dirt-poor farmers and urban workers. No one has ever attempted to list all their names.

There's a problem too, of course, with the conventional abbreviation of the Civil Rights Movement into two names - Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks. What about Fannie Lou Hamer, who led the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party's delegation to the 19464 convention? What about Ella Baker, Fred Hampton, Stokely Carmichael and hundreds of other leaders? The Great Person theory of history may simplify textbook-writing, but leaves us with no clue as to how change actually happens.

Women's rights, for example, weren't brokered by Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem over tea. As Steinem would be the first to acknowledge, the feminist movement of the 70s took root around kitchen tables and coffee tables, ignited by hundreds of thousands of now-anonymous women who were sick of being called "honey" at work and excluded from "men's" jobs. Media stars like Friedan and Steinem did a brilliant job of proselytizing, but it took an army of unsung heroines to stage the protests, organize the conferences, hand out the fliers, and spread the word to their neighbors and co-workers.

"Change" is this year's Democratic battle cry, but if you don't know how it happens, you're not likely to make it happen yourself. A case in point is Clinton's 1993 "health reform" plan. She didn't do any "listening tour" for that, no televised town meetings with heart-rending grassroots testimonies. Instead, she gathered up a cadre of wonks for months of closed-door meetings, some so secretive that the participants themselves were barred from bringing in pencils or pens. According to David Corn of The Nation, when Clinton was told that 70 percent of Americans polled favored a single-payer system at the time, she responded sarcastically with, "Now tell me something interesting."

She could have gone about things differently, in a way that wouldn't have left 47 million Americans uninsured today. She could have started by realizing that no real change would come about without a mobilization of the ordinary people who wanted it. Instead of sequestering herself with economists and business consultants, she might have met with representatives of nurses' organizations, doctors' groups, health workers' unions, and patient advocates. Then she could have gone to the public and said: I'm working for a major change in the way we do things and it's going to run into heavy resistance, so I'll need your support in every possible way.

But she did it her way, and ended up with a 1300 page plan that no one, on either side of the aisle, liked or could even comprehend - proving that historical change isn't made by the smartest girl in the room, even if she shares a bed with the president. Similarly, she ignored the anti-war movement of this decade and alienated untold numbers of Democratic voters, feminists included.

I'd like to think that Obama, with his community organizing experience and insistence on firing people up, gets it a little better. But whoever is elected president this year, there won't be any real change in a progressive direction without a mass social movement to bring it about - either by holding the president accountable or by holding his or her feet to the fire. And a mass social movement doesn't begin at the top. It begins right now, with you.

Comments

[WesfromGA]

I don't know why MLK has taken on such importance in this year's contests, but he has. He has tripped up Romney, who incorrectly claimed his father marched with King. His role in history has been remarked upon by Clinton and Obama. His church is the setting for appearances today by Obama and tomorrow by Bill Clinton. This is a time to commend King and learn from him, but he keeps getting pulled into the fracas of contemporary politics, to various ends.

How we think of him, how we honor him, how we appropriate him are more vital issues than I had realized before this election.

In this context, I don't know what to make of Senator Clinton's statement today that her meeting with King when she was a young person was 'transformational.' Given her continued support of Goldwater, this seems a patently untrue statement. However, should we yet again bring Dr. King into a contemporary debate? Can we do that without dishonoring his memory? I don't know. I hope Barbara and others can provide some perspective on this question.

[dawlishgal]

I'm sorry I didn't notice this piece sooner (just got out of the hospital). Everything said here is right on target. And it is even worse if you consider how the Clintons worked together to screw the working man and woman. She with her failed healthcare program that she permitted to be shot down by a bunch of corporate liars (who now contribute richly to her campaign coffers), and he with his support of NAFTA even though our workers are now forced to compete in the world labor market with workers from other countries, all of them, where workers have government­-sponsored health insurance. HE could have said, "No healthcare; no NAFTA." That would have been the decent thing to do, but he didn't.

[godlessclif]

If Obama can't win playing the race card on Hillary, he doesn't have a chance in the fall against a Republican.

[langstonhughesfan]

Great post.

[Keakealani]

I'm currently studying a lot of social history in my AP European History class, and I'm really glad people are attempting to stray away from the topheavy history/politics that seem to be so rampant in America, particularly with the current president. Although I don't necessarily agree that Clinton is unaware of the necessity of mass movement in political change, I thnk Obama does seem better suited for the job of convincing people to make those movements for change.

[JakeEasy]

Barbara,
I buy your books and appreciate your passion, but here you are indulging in rosy prose instead of practical change.

Why did you choose to dangle the red meat in front of the Obama-as-God supporters? Hillary didn't dis King. She simply said that LBJ did a good thing in getting this through the congress.

LBJ was a crafty, conniving embodiment of a political animal. He knew every crooked hallway in congress and how to use those crooked passages to get something done. Truth is that it was because he was such a career politician that we got the Civil Rights act when we did.

Years of marching and suffering were absolutely necessary first. Those who did should be honored. I feel honored to have been in two of those skirmishes myself. I don't feel discredited when Hillary gives a nod to Johnson for pushing it through. I remember at the time being so grateful that we didn't need more people to be bashed by fat southern cops or spit on in Philadelphia diners. The 1965 congress was not ready to listen to the people. The were vested in their own reelections and personal agendas. Only a man with blood on his hands from many past sins and deal could have gotten that bill past in 1965. I was glad he made it sooner than later. So was Martin Luther King.

The lesson was that you just might need a wily president. Given the congress we have now, Jesus couldn't get a health bill passed. Personally, I don't think Hillary can either, but Barack hasn't got a prayer of a chance. We need at least two dozen new progressives in congress as a start. But we are wasting our energy in a media inspired cat fight between two very worthy candidates. Give me any one of the three leading Democrats and 24 new progressives in congress and the people will have their change.

If we can't get it together to do that, we are just puppets for Murdoch and Rove to play with.

[lindax]

Think about a potential mass social movement that could begin at the top. Hillary as the President of United States declares at UN that "Women's rights are human rights!". It will be even more powerful than she declared "Women's rights are human rights!" in Beijing when she was first lady. How many countries that are US' enemies respect women's rights? US was so determined to fight communism and won. How about stand up for women and win the battle over extremists? Part of the reason I am voting for Hillary!

[PhDcommonsense]

I don't know why it should even be a contest between Obama vs. Clinton for African Americans. With the Clintons blatant attack on Sen Obama and along with their African American surrogates, while Obama has shown nothing but class in rebuttal to their attacks on him is beyond anything rational about the Clinton Campaign.
Bill is beginning to make the high respect, everyone had for him as an elder Statements leaving the office President look like he is loosing it on the trail in order to get his wife elected President.
Right now Senator Obama is campaigning against Hilliary and the ExPreisdent of the United States. No other candidate is doing that and yet Obama maintains his integrity. I hope the voters and the Main Stream Media, Talking Political Pundits begin to see this piling up.

I hope more establishment Democrats begin to speak out on this. The Clintons going after the African American votes by shamefully trying to do a character assassination on an African American running for President is apalling. When the Clinton Surrogates come out and attack Obama, the Clintons want to take cover and say they have no control. BS. I hope I can say voters are more intelligent than what the Clintons give them credit for. Is Bill running for President or is it Hillary

[AnninCA]

This blogger honestly wishes to win my interest by comparing Hllarye's long-ago defeat of health care to today?

Oh please.

This is such ancient history.

Her plan, btw, wasn't that bad.

However, she was way ahead of her time.

But had we actually adopted the plan?

I think it would have been a good move.

Right plan, wrong time.

Obama has the advantage.

He's never really put for any plan.

LOL*

[teahead]

Hillary: "lobbyists represent real people".

Hillary: "I had a great time" as being on Wal-Mart's board of directors for 6 years.

and now...Hillary: "it took a President to get it done".

What does it say about her?

[Crazyshirley2100]

I cry Bull! Check out Bill Moyer's take on all this for the truth. All else is media driven bs. Do not let the media tell you someone is or is not racist.

[OckhamsElectricRazor]

Stop getting distracted in the details. The overall tone is that of a smear campaign. The tactic of attacking via surrogate; then apologizing is NO LONGER acceptable. If swift-boating Obama is the only option for Hillary, then she does not deserve the nomination. Further, if she is either unable or unwilling to impose a degree of discipline on her husband during the campaign, just think of the negative consequences of having a loose-cannon, ex-president roaming free in a future White House. The country can ill-afford a continuation of the Rove/ Bush tactic of disgracing opponents. How can we expect her to forge a bi-partisan domestic consensus, plus mount a diplomatic surge among world leaders with this politics-as-usual approach?!

I, for one, stand for a better tone; and that better tone is a major factor in my decision concerning for whom I vote. It has become obvious from Hillary's acceptance of, or connivance in, Bill's attack-dog status that the aim of this campaign is to establish a dyanasty. We do NOT need archaic 90's solutions for today's problems and Bill's triumphant return to the White House will NOT advance the country's interests.

[nihilon x]

Obama: Hillary's Martin Luther King Remark Not "Racial" Comment

By Greg Sargent - January 14, 2008, 6:12PM

Barack Obama takes steps to defuse the racial and political tensions that have been uncorked by the battle between Hillary and himself over the meaning of recent remarks by the Clintons:

"I don't think it was in any way a racial comment," Obama told ABC News. "That's something that has played out in the press. That's not my view."

But, he said, the comment was revealing about her political character. "I do think it was indicative of the perspective that she brings, which is that what happens in Washington is more important than what happens outside of Washington," he said.

He said he believes the quote betrays a belief on her part, "that the intricacies of the legislative process were somehow more significant than when ordinary people rise up and march and go to jail and fight for justice."

He called that a "fundamental difference" between them.

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2008/01/obama_hillarys_martin_luther_king_remark_not_racial_comment.php

[itmaybetoolate]

Mass social movement?! By amuricans? Are you kidding? That would suggest recognition of a legitimate social contract and a belief that we are in this together - that is NOT amurica in the 21st century. It is "I will get mine at any cost" now, and the time, effort, and sacrifice of a social movement doesn't fit that world-view. Before we could have a social movement, we need to mend the social contract. Which dem leader even recognizes this, much else has the will to do so? Not hil or bar!

[vigonue]

thank you. clinton is clueless. send her this piece please.