The First Annual Reverend Jesse Jackson Lecture: Gary Younge
Posted by CLPS - 29/01/10 at 06:01 amOne Year After Obama
Video stream of the Lecture – following this link.
The international journalist Gary Younge delivered the first Annual Jesse Jackson lecture. He started by putting the political success of President Obama into context by quoting the New York Times journalist EJ Dionne: “Let it be recorded that for at least one week in American history, in a middle-sized, Midwestern state, a broad range of white voters took the presidential candidacy of a black man with the utmost seriousness”. Except it was not an outpouring of affection for Obama in Iowa in 2008 that Dionne was referring to but Jesse Jackson in Wisconsin in 1988. Although Jesse Jackson did not win, he gained enough delegates to enable him to wring concessions from the Democratic Party establishment, including ones that would eventually help Barack Obama win the Presidency.
He went on to discuss the polarisation caused by President Obama’s election. ”Whether they love him or hate him many people sometimes struggle to find the words with which to discuss him rationally. So they cry, curse, smile inanely and sometimes scream”. He told us that a recent poll of Conservatives in New Jersey show that over a third consider him the Anti-Christ or are not sure whether he is or not. Others questioned his birth certificate and Gary amusingly reconstructed what would have been the most elaborate 48 year old affirmative-action sting in US history.
The Left also have their own problems with Obama. Some were keen to point out the ways in which he would fail and betray before he had even won the election. Others wanted to anoint him ‘The One’ rather like Neo in the Matrix.
When Obama was elected he had the highest popularity levels of any President and these remained high after his first 100 days in power. However, as Gary reminded us that even though President Obama ushered in a new era of change that was very different to the brash Presidency of George Bush, the financial and political implosions that have happened in the past couple of years have brought about a very difficult set of circumstances that must be addressed.
Gary then discussed in detail the four elements that he believes are crucial in understanding the performance of President Obama in his first year: his centrist agenda; demobilised support base; racial symbolism; and the narrow margins of the result. He also suggested that the global outpouring of support for Obama was because there is a constituency for a world free of racism and war and desperate to shift the direction global events and in dire need of leadership and an agenda. No small matters!
He went on to analyse the performance of President Obama in his first year in power in reconciling the message of uplift he delivered with the realities of collapse in global capitalism and the geopolitical challenges that the USA now faces and the results are mixed. A country that is wedded to the notion that every year will be better than the last, and every generation more prosperous, has seen social mobility stall and the past look more promising than the future. Some of this comes from unrealistic expectations, holding him wholly responsible for disappointments rather than them being a result of complex interactions of people, time, place and power. Charismatic as Obama is, the world does not move to his wishes and it is still early days.
The very informative and at times very entertaining lecture finished with a lively question and answer session that covered a wide range of topics including comparisons with New Labour, the impacts of torture photographs on US politics, American foreign policy, and the impact that Michelle Obama has had on voters.
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