In a 2001 interview on a a public radio station in Chicago, then state senator Barack Obama was being interviewed. snippets of his interview were leaked on the Drudge Report. Here's the transcript of this chopped up interview, minus the spooky music.
MODERATOR: Good morning and welcome to Odyssey on WBEZ Chicago 91.5 FM and we’re joined by Barack Obama who is Illinois State Senator from the 13th district and senior lecturer in the law school at the University of Chicago.
OBAMA: If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court, I think where it succeeded was to vest formal rights in previously dispossessed peoples. So that I would now have the right to vote, I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order and as long as I could pay for it I’d be okay. But the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society. And to that extent as radical as people tried to characterize the Warren court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as it’s been interpreted, and the Warren court interpreted it in the same way that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. It says what the states can’t do to you, it says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf. And that hasn’t shifted. One of the I think tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court focused, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributed change and in some ways we still suffer from that.
MODERATOR: Let’s talk with Karen. Good morning, Karen, you’re on Chicago Public Radio.
KAREN: Hi. The gentleman made the point that the Warren court wasn’t terribly radical with economic changes. My question is, is it too late for that kind of reparative work economically and is that that the appropriate place for reparative economic work to take place – the court – or would it be legislation at this point?
OBAMA: Maybe I’m showing my bias here as a legislator as well as a law professor, but I’m not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts. The institution just isn’t structured that way. You just look at very rare examples during the desegregation era the court was willing to for example order changes that cost money to a local school district. The court was very uncomfortable with it. It was very hard to manage, it was hard to figure out. You start getting into all sorts of separation of powers issues in terms of the court monitoring or engaging in a process that essentially is administrative and takes a lot of time. The court’s just not very good at it and politically it’s very hard to legitimize opinions from the court in that regard. So I think that although you can craft theoretical justifications for it legally. Any three of us sitting here could come up with a rational for bringing about economic change through the courts.
Here's what the blogosphere got out of it...
But the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth...
...the Warren court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution...
... the Constitution...doesn’t say what the federal government...must do
One of the... tragedies of the civil rights movement was...to lose track of the... community organizing...activities...through which you bring about redistributed change...
...I’m not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts...
The court’s just not very good at it...
You start getting into all sorts of separation of powers issues... in a process that essentially is administrative...
As soon as the word "redistribution" is uttered, people are already going crazy calling Obama a socialist, even mixing him up with Karl Marx (a Communist NOT a socialist, BTW. There is a difference). But let's dissect this speech little by little if we can.
But the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth...
...the Warren court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution...
Obama never said that the Supreme Court SHOULD get into redistribution of wealth. He was answering the criticism that the court was going that far, and it wasn't. KEEP READING IT AGAIN. NO WHERE IN THOSE FIRST THREE SENTENCES WAS THERE ANY ADVOCATION OF REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. He didn't say that THAT was the failure of the civil rights movement.
... the Constitution...doesn’t say what the federal government...must do
One of the... tragedies of the civil rights movement was...to lose track of the... community organizing...activities...through which you bring about redistributed change...
Let's read that again:
"It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as it’s been interpreted, and the Warren court interpreted it in the same way that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. It says what the states can’t do to you, it says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf. And that hasn’t shifted. One of the I think tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court focused, I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributed change and in some ways we still suffer from that."
Barack Obama was saying the same thing Michael Baisden was saying. It's not up to the courts to bring about change. It starts within the community. The tragedy he was speaking about was that the Civil Rights movement relied too much on the courts and not enough on their own community. If anything he was speaking AGAINST government interference in civil rights cases. Now back to the blogosphere...
...I’m not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts...
The court’s just not very good at it...
You start getting into all sorts of separation of powers issues... in a process that essentially is administrative...
Any advocation for socialism there...NO!!! All he's saying is that the courts can't force the change we need on every body. It would be undiplomatic. It starts in your own community, it can't be legislated and it shouldn't. If anything, Obama's kind of sounding like a LIBERTARIAN.
But no...the word "redistributive" came up and now everyone's calling him a SOCIALIST! This reminds me of that "lipstick on a pig" fake controversy last month when the other side was slamming him for dogging Sarah Palin. Then it was LIPSTICK, now it's REDISTRIBUTION.
One more interview taken out of context.
Again...nice try...
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1 comment:
There is no debate on whether or not Obama is a socialist. He is one; it doesn't matter if he calls himself one or runs as a socialist. The debate is whether or not socialism is good or bad. I think it is good, but that it doesn't work unless on a global level because the non participatory actors will cause it to come to an end by not following the same rules.
An example of this is that capitalism ended communism in the USSR because it was more successful . Another example would be China competing with the US. China doesn't follow labor laws - minimum wage, child labor laws - and therefore can under our system of capitalism until it is destroyed and then complies.
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