proxy wars
by Jabulani Leffall
Published: March 21, 2008
I have a gripe to make. I’m disillusioned because I’ve been disenfranchised, hoodwinked, had, took, bamboozled!
I lost out on my dream job because my former pastor has a Jheri Curl in 2008. They said the fact that I have two first cousins who are convicted felons was also of concern. They also cited my paternal-side uncle, whose last name is “X” and is a member of the Nation of Islam as a key sticking point. Moreover, the potential employer said that regardless of his exoneration, the fact that my Godfather was a high-profile black radical, once jailed for murder, is a point of contention in the HR department. My best friend Ricky Media’s tendency to blurt out, “I’m winnin’ baby,” at random in a crowded lobby was the kicker, though. Because of my associations, I missed out on the opportunity of the lifetime, prejudged before I had a chance to be judged.
Okay, so, everything in the above paragraph is true except for the part about me being denied employment of any kind because of my connections. Fact is, I’m living my dream now, but I ran down this list to illustrate how incredibly asinine it is to use the “birds-of-a-feather-flock-together” argument to denigrate a political opponent, or, for that matter, to give credence to the virtues of any political candidate. But this is exactly what happened to both candidates: Barack Obama because of his pastor Jeremiah Wright’s radical comments and Hillary Clinton due to the time-tested philosophies of U.S. Rep Geraldine Ferraro (whose only crime is that for the last 24 years she hasn’t been able to get over being associated with Walter Mondale). A note to Congresswoman Ferraro: In my humble opinion, the election, to say nothing of the primaries, would have long been over had the Democrats found an Obama-like candidate, one with equal credentials, mass appeal, an idealist’s platform - and white skin.
That said, it’s discouraging to think that the political process is careening down the slippery slope of the high school quad class system, due to a media afraid to do any heavy lifting and candidates scared to speak their actual minds. You know, over there are the stoners, the athletes and preppies are over here, and the skateboarders and surfers are over there. (I concede that maybe this particular demographic example is exclusive to suburban high schools in California but you get where I’m going). If one day a skater is seen with the preppies or if a popular jock speaks up for the gay campus artists, all of the sudden there’s an uproar and, like the news-pundit gossip hounds who spread opinion and set agendas with the click of a mouse, the dissenters are condemned quicker than a kid can run to his buddy’s locker after homeroom.
In contrast to high school politics, Mrs. Clinton and Sen. Obama should be judged, not only on their own merits, but on actual policy. The judgement should not be based off who said who was a Muslim or whose husband cheated, lied on television about it and then got impeached, all due to the fallout from an investigation over a real estate deal (see The Whitewater Affair). See what I’m saying? Should Mrs. Clinton be judged on that or what she’s done since? Should Obama be judged on the fact that he bought property from someone who now appears to be going to jail? And how about not voting for him based on the fact that one of his campaign members went to Canada and was probably so amazed that the Canadian “Loonie” is now worth more than the dollar that he kissed up to some officials about the senator’s hidden affinity to NAFTA? Should he be penalized for the fact that his pastor mixes in a little off-branded social justice message with his sermons, comparing what’s in the Bible to a government conspiracy where AIDS was developed in a lab? The answer to these long-winded questions is unequivocally, “No!” Those people aren’t running for office, thank heavens! But lately you’d think they were.
The inescapable truth here is that if the public discourse about these candidates is based on a proxy war of words and whose people stepped out of line, one of two things will happen to either candidate; white American males will once again prove that minorities and women are indeed “crabs in a barrel,” or the Democratic candidate will become so weakened and tarnished by in-fighting that the battle-tested and older-than-time Republican war hero will win - or both.
That’s right, Senator John McCain scoots right on in, despite the fact that he also has a preacher, John Hagee, who shot his mouth off about the false “religion of Islam,” and the possible ulterior motives of a Mr. Obama (whose middle name is the surname of Saddam Hussein and whose last name is one letter removed from the first name of a someone named Bin Laden).
Dirty tricks have always been around. The practice of leaking facts and documents for political gain is as old as the elections on the steps of the Parthenon in Ancient Greece. Just ask John McCain. I think he was in Greece the year smear campaigns were born. But seriously, the “he said, she said,” five-day news cycle clouds the issues and creates uncertainty amid an already fickle voting populace, most of whom can’t give you a convincing reason why they’re voting for who they’re screaming about in the first place. By policies, not proxy, is how these campaigns should be waged and the way they should be judged via our “free” press. Otherwise we’re back on the quad, divided again, and worse off for it.
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