2001 Obama: "Tragedy" of Civil Rights Movement Failing to "Redistribution of Wealth"

[5711-Marine]

2001 Interview Records Obama Pondering "Tragedy" of Civil Rights Movement Failing to Pursue "Redistribution of Wealth" and "Economic Justice"






Entire Interview (requires RealPlayer)

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 invest formal rights in previously dispossessed people, so that now I would have the right to vote. I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order as long as I could pay for it I’d be o.k. But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try 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 its been interpreted and Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf, and that hasn’t shifted and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendancy to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways we still suffer from that.

Translation [ace]: As lefties are suggesting idiotic interpretations, and even some on the right are getting it wrong, here's what he's saying:

1. The Supreme Court never considered "redistribution of wealth" or "economic justice" among the guarantees provided to citizens.

2. Even the Warren Court was not "radical" enough to do so -- to impose real change on the nation.

3. The courts have generally provided negative constraints on the government rather than positive obligations the government owes to its citizens (specifically, here, such as economic justice and redistribution of wealth).

4. Therefore, it is a "tragedy" that the civil rights movement became so courts-focused, because it limited what redress they could actually obtain -- and it took attention away from the "community organizing" efforts which could assemble "coalitions of power" (political power, that is) to actually achieve "redistributive change." Such change simply could not be had in the courts, still laboring under the "constraints" imposed by the Founding Fathers.

5. "And in some ways we still suffer from that."

Give it up, lefties -- that's what the quote means.

A mistake the right is making is claiming he wanted the courts to assume a more radical, wealth-redistribitionist posture -- which I have no doubt at all he does believe, but he doesn't quite say that in the quote.

He is saying that the courts were the wrong venue to seek such change, not being "radical" enough, and that "community organizing" and assembling "coalitions of power" were the right ways to do so.

And so he's done so himself, of course. The courts were not the right vehicle for "redistributive change," but getting himself elected president, with a socialist-friendly supermajority of Democrats in Congress to rubber stamp his agenda, is the right vehicle.

The "coalitions of power" are being assembled as we speak.

[bigborehnd]

There it is- In HIS own words.

[Robert Kayland]

"Thank God my granddaddy got on that boat!"
- Muhammad Ali, after his fight in Zaire.

/'nuff said