A 2001 radio interview from Chicago has been unearthed. In it, Barack Obama, Mr. Middle Class Tax Cut, calls the lack of “redistributive change” a “tragedy”.
This may be the best example yet of the real Barack Obama, because you can listen for yourself. This is a guy who is not running for the presidency. A guy not trying to convince anyone he is a moderate. This is simply Barack being Barack.
A partial transcript,
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.
Those pesky courts, bitterly clinging to “the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution.”
I’m not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through the courts. You know, the institution just isn’t structured that way.
Here’s Jeff Goldstein on two America’s,
In Obama’s America, we’ll finally be able to break free of the “constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution†— and in so doing, achieve “social justice†through “redistributive change.†Well, then. Fine. But this is not the America I knew…
Ed Morrisey notes,
Barack Obama complains that the Constitution is a “charter of negative libertiesâ€. That’s because the Constitution was intended as a limiting document, to curtail the power of the federal government vis-a-vis the states and the individual. The founders intended at the time to limit the reach of the federal government, and built the Constitution accordingly.
Barack Obama wants to reverse that entirely. And that’s radical change you’d better believe in, or else.
As I said last night on the radio show, Barack Obama is a complete phony. His talks like a moderate but acts like a radical in his actions and associations. He talks about cutting taxes but votes to raise them. He talks about bringing people together but hangs with the likes of Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers. He talks of bipartisanship but has no record of it. He talks about uniting people but threatens lawsuits to those who criticize him. Words versus deeds, that is the fundamental problem I have with Barack Obama.
We can’t say we weren’t warned about who the real Barack Obama is. We, apparently, are just choosing to ignore it. Change is coming all right. Good luck with that.
Major Hat Tip to Stop the ACLU