Commentary
Frankly, I tremble at the thought of having to make any more comments on the 2008 presidential nominating process. I am about as far removed politically from the whirlwind of this process as it is possible to be and yet still retain a rational political posture. I, moreover, am having a hard time even getting up a sporting interest in the results and those who have been reading my commentary over the last couple of years know I live for an occasional bet on the outcome of these things. Mercifully, I do not have to actually vote for any of the subjects of the bets. Propaganda politics does indeed have it compensating virtues.
Notwithstanding those virtues, my friends, today Friday January 11 2008 I confess that I have dug something of a hole for myself. Despite my disdain for parliamentary politics, or rather my distain for those politics as the sole vehicle for attempting social change, I do like to project trends based on what is happening in the main arena of politics these days. An invaluable aid in that quest is the media’s mind-boggling fetish for polling everything that is not tied down. With proper caution some of this information is very useful. As a case in point, last week, in the aftermath of the Iowa caucuses they provided much information on the youth vote. Apparently what drove Obama over the top was his ability to grab the youth and actually have them turn up at the caucus sites. I perked up immediately on that bit of information. I suggested that this was the first national manifestation of a fresh breeze coming on. (See the entry The Winds Of Change Do Shift, January 7 2008).
Obama and his strategists are not the only ones who see (if not this year then in the near future) the importance of the youth in driving any positive social change that might occur in this country. And it has been ever so. Not just in my generation, the generation of ’68, but in the 1930’s during the Great Depression and earlier in the first part of the 20th century with the progressive labor movement. Those Wobblies who followed Big Bill Haywood and the gang were mainly footloose kids, remember. Thus, I too am interested in which way the youth is headed. The only virtue of aging, seemingly, is that I have seen more than a few political generations past by. For the most part since the 1960’s, with some notable exception around Central America and South Africa, the various youthful generations have been characterized by political quietude, or worst.
That brings us to today. After digesting the New Hampshire results it is clear that Obama grabbed his fair share of the youth vote. However, that was not enough, not nearly enough. What happened? Apparently Obama can draw the crowds in rock star fashion but, in the parlance of traditional politics, he could not seal the deal. They didn’t show at the voting booths. Fair enough. Nobody said getting the iPod generation to either the booth or the streets was going to be easy. My reflections last week on the ‘surge’ of youth should thus be tempered a little by those results, or the problems reflected in them.
Nevertheless I believe that there is something on the wind going on among the youth that has been initially reflected in the energy of the Obama campaign. And if not now, soon. I do not believe that my comparison of the energy around Obama’s campaign with that of the fresh breezeof the Kennedys in my youth in the 1960’s as a catalyst for a break from the past is that far off. I stated at the end of The Winds of Change Do Shift commentary that it was not time to dust off the old Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) buttons yet. But keep a rag ready. I stand by that statement. Enough said for now.
Frankly, I tremble at the thought of having to make any more comments on the 2008 presidential nominating process. I am about as far removed politically from the whirlwind of this process as it is possible to be and yet still retain a rational political posture. I, moreover, am having a hard time even getting up a sporting interest in the results and those who have been reading my commentary over the last couple of years know I live for an occasional bet on the outcome of these things. Mercifully, I do not have to actually vote for any of the subjects of the bets. Propaganda politics does indeed have it compensating virtues.
Notwithstanding those virtues, my friends, today Friday January 11 2008 I confess that I have dug something of a hole for myself. Despite my disdain for parliamentary politics, or rather my distain for those politics as the sole vehicle for attempting social change, I do like to project trends based on what is happening in the main arena of politics these days. An invaluable aid in that quest is the media’s mind-boggling fetish for polling everything that is not tied down. With proper caution some of this information is very useful. As a case in point, last week, in the aftermath of the Iowa caucuses they provided much information on the youth vote. Apparently what drove Obama over the top was his ability to grab the youth and actually have them turn up at the caucus sites. I perked up immediately on that bit of information. I suggested that this was the first national manifestation of a fresh breeze coming on. (See the entry The Winds Of Change Do Shift, January 7 2008).
Obama and his strategists are not the only ones who see (if not this year then in the near future) the importance of the youth in driving any positive social change that might occur in this country. And it has been ever so. Not just in my generation, the generation of ’68, but in the 1930’s during the Great Depression and earlier in the first part of the 20th century with the progressive labor movement. Those Wobblies who followed Big Bill Haywood and the gang were mainly footloose kids, remember. Thus, I too am interested in which way the youth is headed. The only virtue of aging, seemingly, is that I have seen more than a few political generations past by. For the most part since the 1960’s, with some notable exception around Central America and South Africa, the various youthful generations have been characterized by political quietude, or worst.
That brings us to today. After digesting the New Hampshire results it is clear that Obama grabbed his fair share of the youth vote. However, that was not enough, not nearly enough. What happened? Apparently Obama can draw the crowds in rock star fashion but, in the parlance of traditional politics, he could not seal the deal. They didn’t show at the voting booths. Fair enough. Nobody said getting the iPod generation to either the booth or the streets was going to be easy. My reflections last week on the ‘surge’ of youth should thus be tempered a little by those results, or the problems reflected in them.
Nevertheless I believe that there is something on the wind going on among the youth that has been initially reflected in the energy of the Obama campaign. And if not now, soon. I do not believe that my comparison of the energy around Obama’s campaign with that of the fresh breezeof the Kennedys in my youth in the 1960’s as a catalyst for a break from the past is that far off. I stated at the end of The Winds of Change Do Shift commentary that it was not time to dust off the old Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) buttons yet. But keep a rag ready. I stand by that statement. Enough said for now.
Obama underneath the rhetoric, is one of the most reactionary politicians around. He wants to privatize social security and is against universal healthcare.
ReplyDeleteYou are correct about youth.
I think the rise of the Christian right opened young eyes.