Ishmael Reed on Obama and anger

During the presidential campaign, when right-wingers accused Obama of wanting to take away their guns (I don't think he ever mentioned gun control) someone pointed out that a white candidate would have done what John Kerry did---get a rifle and a camera crew and go hunting. But Obama couldn't do that. A black man with a gun would frighten white voters.

I hope Democrats in Congress can stop the lousy tax deal Obama made with the Republicans, but, on a similar note, here's from an essay by Ishmael Reed that appeared in the New York Times. There's a link to it below:

...I’ve been thinking recently of all those D’s for deportment on my report cards. I thought of them, for instance, when I read a response to an essay I had written about Mark Twain that appeared in “A New Literary History of America.” One of the country’s leading critics, who writes for a prominent progressive blog, called the essay “rowdy,” which I interpreted to mean “lack of deportment.” Perhaps this was because I cited “Huckleberry Finn” to show that some white women managed household slaves, a departure from the revisionist theory that sees Scarlett O’Hara as some kind of feminist martyr.

I thought of them when I pointed out to a leading progressive that the Tea Party included neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers — and he called me a “bully.” He believes that the Tea Party is a grass-roots uprising against Wall Street, a curious reading since the movement gained its impetus from a rant against the president delivered by a television personality on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

And I’ve thought about them as I’ve listened in the last week to progressives criticize President Obama for keeping his cool.

Progressives have been urging the president to “man up” in the face of the Republicans. Some want him to be like John Wayne. On horseback. Slapping people left and right.

One progressive commentator played an excerpt from a Harry Truman speech during which Truman screamed about the Republican Party to great applause. He recommended this style to Mr. Obama. If President Obama behaved that way, he’d be dismissed as an angry black militant with a deep hatred of white people. His grade would go from a B- to a D.

What the progressives forget is that black intellectuals have been called “paranoid,” “bitter,” “rowdy,” “angry,” “bullies,” and accused of tirades and diatribes for more than 100 years. Very few of them would have been given a grade above D from most of my teachers....

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/opinion/12reed.html

Reed's got a point there. But...

I didn't think Obama was a progressive or a liberal to begin with. I'm still disappointed by him.

They're mad at him for the continuing ban against gays in the military. I'm not sure I'm against "don't ask, don't tell". As long as it's in effect, they'll never be able to bring back the draft.

There are two are three wars going on, depending on how you count them, and the U.S. and Israel are intent on starting at least one more. They don't have enough troops. They're calling back people who left the military years ago and they're sending National Guard to war. So far, the only ones calling for a draft are "liberals" who think it would only be fair to force young people who oppose the war to fight in it and imagine this would energize the anti-war movement.

As it is now, if they try bringing back the draft, every eighteen-year-old boy and his best friend will register as domestic partners the day they graduate high school.

During World War Two, all you had to do to avoid the draft was say you were a homosexual. Back then, it was unimaginable that anyone would falsely claim to be gay. By the time the Vietnam War rolled around, draft boards started demanding proof, or at least evidence. And, today, it's unimaginable that any young man would allow himself to be sent off to war when all he had to do was say he was gay. And with same-sex marriage and civil unions, becoming officially gay has never been easier.

Hopefully Democrats will stop the tax deal in Congress. And maybe it won't be such a bad thing if Republicans block the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell."