Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Anyone knows what they are playing at?

There has been a certain amount of discussion about the number of Conservatives in Britain (the American bunch is a separate issue) who are supporting Obama in the American presidential election, apparently not bothering to find out much about his record (such as it is) or the statements he has made like the infamous one to Joe the Plumber that showed him to be a socialist who believes not just in big government but a redistributive tax system.

As David Pryce-Jones points out the list now includes such luminaries as Charles Moore and Lord Rees-Mogg. Interestingly enough, both of them are devout Catholics yet seem uninterested in Obama's record on abortion and his repeated votes against giving medical help to babies that survive a botched operation. (No, I am not discussing abortion per se, merely the Catholic view of it.)

Their argument: the election of a black (well, mixed race) President will solve the race issue in the United States and, for all I know, everywhere in the world. It does not seem to occur to these sages that voting for a man because he is black (well, mixed race) is perpetuating the race problem. What if, as David Pryce-Jones asks and as most of us consider almost certain, Obama makes some really disastrous decisions as soon as he gets into the White House? After all, his running mate, Joe Biden, thinks there is a strong possibility of that. How is that going to help race relations in the United States?

I presume none of these race-obsessed Conservatives to whom nothing else matters have noticed that the present and previous Secretaries of State were black. Did that make any difference to race relations anywhere?

Then we have Boris Johnson, Hizonner the Mayor of London, pontificating on that subject, even having the gall to refer to Martin Luther King's famous speech, in which he had hoped that one day people will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by what was inside them. Incidentally, King was a Republican, considering that the Democrat Party was historically the party of slavery and Jim Crow laws.

The thing is, our Boris is not just a commentator, who is entitled to his views, however foolish they are. He is a Conservative politician, the Mayor of London, elected by the people of London to undo the damage inflicted on the great city by his predecessor. What business does he have interfering in the American presidential election? Is he now going to follow in Livingstone's footsteps and establish a foreign policy for London?

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Basically his main concern is have the next topic to full up his highly lucrative weekly column in the Telegraph.

Rebecca said...

Obamamania is very disturbing. My only hope is that, if he wins, he will prove to be as much of a disaster as Carter apparently did, and then the US won't vote for such an extreme left wing president for another 20 or 30 odd years. As to what people are playing at, I suspect (or hope) that "conservatives" endorsing Obama are doing so just to seem "hip" in the eyes of manic Obama fans. Cynical, but it somehow seems better than possible alternatives.


As for race, I literally see people advertising that they are voting for or want "a black President," and I think that's revealing. It's not even voting for Obama, or voting for getting out of Iraq asap, or voting in the hopes of getting socialized health care, or what have you. People I have seen seem to want simply to put someone with darker skin in the Oval Office, as if that's a relevant qualification. It's absolutely perpetuating the race problem, yet Obama supporters just would not be able to see that.

Anonymous said...

About Boris's foreign policy:

I thought that it was essential that he had one. Surely it is a national government (Brussels) requirement that each of their Regions (of which London is but one) should have a foreign policy.

Please correct me if I have misunderstood, and no I do not have any of the references that my memory thinks it should.

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Helen said...

Sally,
I see no relevance to the topic in your comments.

Fred,
No it is not the requirement of the EU that the regions should have their own foreign policy. Quite the opposite. The EU aims to have a common foreign policy for us all. So far the success rate has been variable.