Hit The Rode-ham, Hill

Good riddance. I agree with commenter Vern
from common dreams,

Obama, Clinton and Anger to Burn, by Norman Solomon
In politics, as in so many other aspects of life, anger is a combustible fuel. Affirmed and titrated, it helps us move forward. Suppressed or self-indulged, it’s likely to blow up in our faces.
With the race for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination coming to a close, there’s plenty of anger in the air. And the elements are distinctly flammable. As Bob Herbert just wrote in the New York Times, “the Clinton and Obama partisans spent months fighting bitterly on the toxic terrain of misogyny, racism and religion.”
Herbert doesn’t spread the blame evenly. And, as an elected Obama delegate to the national convention, I don’t either. But at this stage in the nomination process, the returns of blame aren’t merely diminishing — they’re about to go over a cliff.
The anger that’s churning among many Hillary Clinton supporters is deserving of respect. For a long time, she’s been hit by an inexhaustible arsenal of virulent sexism, whether from Tucker Carlson, Rush Limbaugh or Chris Matthews.
If Barack Obama were facing defeat now, his supporters might be more inclined to dwell on the thinly veiled, and sometimes unveiled, racial bigotry that caused some Americans to tell reporters that they could never vote for a black man for president.
There’s no lack of injustices, defamations and outright outrages to cite. They’re important to remember, assess, denounce. And: Now what?
In times of emergency, people have been known to put aside differences, at least for a while. Sometimes, feuding neighbors unravel hoses and pass buckets so the entire block doesn’t go up in flames. Or alienated relatives take care of a fading loved one. People who fear strangers learn to trust in a shared humanity.
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.
Norman Solomon’s book “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death” has been adapted into a documentary film, now available from Netflix and other home-video outlets. For information, go to: www.normansolomon.com
2. riddimboy June 3rd, 2008 12:07 pm
So what happened to the uncompromising, brilliant Norman Solomon … gotten soft ?! Does he actually believe the Democ-rats are gonna save the planet. Come on Normon .. we know better than that.
There really is no plan to bring ALL the murdering troops back. AIPAC rules as is evident right now in its despicable ‘conference’ of fellow bigots, and Israel, using us as the WMD continues to destroy the middle-east. There are vague disingenous proposals to combat climate change. There are no plans to resuscitate our finacial meltdown. There is no real energy policy. All this from the Democrats. Not even god can help us if she exists.
On another note its clear that a vast number of Hillary supporters will run into McCains waiting arms (if there is anything more disgusting i cant imagine it). So much for the pretext of feminism in their support of Hillary. Its been about race all along. Hillary exchanged the word ‘woman’ for ‘white’ in her campaign and i think thats what killed her campaign.
3. Vern June 3rd, 2008 12:10 pm
Oh please!
Enough coddling the Clintons so as not to rattle their CLUELESS supporters!
You think we are not angry at the depths the Clintons and their DLC hacks mined their sleazy operation! Enough with the nice-nice–haven’t we had enough of our media-journalists not holding these criminal politicians accountable and giving them a pass at every turn!
The Clintons should be tarred, feathered and run out of town on a rail! Instead of challenging and confronting the Bush modus operandi–they adopted it as their own, figuring if the Bush gang could get away with their lies and deceptions-so could the Clintons as opposed to re-establishing ethical standards and accountability.