Norman Solomon: Obama, Clinton and Anger to Burn

[babylonsister]

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/15008

Obama, Clinton and Anger to Burn
by Norman Solomon | June 3, 2008

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The Bill of Rights is burning. Children are dying in Baghdad and Chicago and Los Angeles and countless other cities and towns because of Republican "leadership." Negative trends of governance are scorching a social contract that had been slowly weaving the threads of human decency.

This year offers an electoral opportunity to get out the fire hoses and douse the pyromaniacs of the GOP. But the long Obama-Clinton battle has depleted precious time with little good to show for it.

A lot of negativity has aired, and some of it has combusted. Despite the real progress of the past several decades, remaining prejudices and injustices of gender and race -- and, though less talked about in news media, of sexual orientation and economic class -- are still haunting us and shadowing the future.

Furious supporters of Hillary Clinton are now talking about Michigan and Florida. Understandably, they're apt to see recent developments in the context of despicable male chauvinism and unfair caricatures in the press.

There's more than enough anger to burn.

And John McCain is eager to benefit from every bit of such anger, the more displaced the better. Right-wing corporatists quietly cheer his calls to give them even more extreme tax cuts. Outright militarists are hoping for four more years, and the odds seem to be shifting in their favor. Men on the Supreme Court named Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Alito are waiting to welcome kindred spirits in black robes.

Unfortunately, the angry often end up burning themselves.
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