10 February 2008
Barbeque'n With Bobby
Bobby Seale on the cover of his Cookbook
www.BobbyQueSeale.com
There is alarm abroad in the land, and hope. This morning the balance is tilting toward the latter one, at least in Nebraska, Washington and Kansas. The money is going that way, too
I have a sense that the country as a whole is ready for an African-American President, and that fact is scaring the beJesus out of the Clinton campaign. They have been moderating expectation all week, knowing that the polls were bad, and holding out hope for later in the season, when Ohio and some other stronghold states come it.
We have our chance this week, here in Virginia and the District and Maryland.
I can sense the frustration of the campaign even from here. The Candidate herself was at the national headquarters the other day, and I saw the floodlights and microphone stands as the roadies were taking the impromptu set down in front of the low office building on Fairfax Drive.
The building were the Senator's people have set up shop was once the Immigration and Naturalization Service HQ, and before that the Naval Investigative Service. They were a gnats-butt away from ripping it down until the real estate tumble happened, so this is the last brush with history, even if the issues have been remarkably different for all the occupants.
A friend said “It's the Democratic Party's own fault for awarding delegates on a proportional basis, instead of the more sensible 50 percent plus one, winner-take-all approach. Senator Clinton and Obama may spend all summer deadlocked, then have the party's candidate chosen by super delegates - party hacks, that is.”
McCain has the rest of the winter, the spring and summer to patch up the divisions in his party, sounding the trumpet for unity against Change or Experience, whichever winds up victorious. You can't have it both ways, apparently.
It is not going to be pretty on the Donkey side. The sniping is going to get serious. Senator Clinton has a track record of sorts, and Senator Obama's consists mostly of what he has not done, voting “present” so often in roll call votes, and against only on his big war issue. I'm sure we will hear more about the reaction of Bobby Rush, who summed it up pretty well on 2000. when Barack attempted to topple him, and was spanked soundly in the attempt.
Bobby Rush supports him now, and he has quite a track record.
He is a former Black Panther and sitting Chicago congressman who felt betrayed by Obama's ambition (aren't those alliterative words?). When Barack challenged him for his Chicago seat in the House, he was purplexed. He said they agreed on 90% of the issues, and could not for the life of him understand why he ran, except out of ambition.
You certainly cannot fault a man or woman for that. I think it is Interesting that both Democratic candidates should have connections to the Panthers.
Barack is too young to have been one, though tried to bring down an old cat. Senator Clinton has the thirty-five years of experience that he does not. She spent part of her 1971 freshman year at Yale law School involved with one of the founders of the party. In Thomas I. Emerson's civil liberties class, students were assigned to monitor the trial of Panther Bobby Seale, accused of the jail-house murder of Alex Rackley, a former comrade suspected to have become a police snitch.
The Senator was in charge of scheduling student participation to watch for violation of Seal's rights, but it turned out not to be necessary. The trial ended in a hung jury and all charges against Seale were dropped.
It is interesting. After being released from prison in 1972, Seale renounced political violence and entered regular politics. In 1973, he ran for mayor of Oakland and came in second, with 43,710 votes. He is also an author, recounting the days of rage. He has mellowed a bit. His last book (1987) was “Barbeque'n with Bobby.” Mr. Seale has not been idle since, and the book is an excellent introduction to the art of the grill, and has been revised.
Therein lies a tale of redemption as profound as any in America. I particularly recommend the spicy spare-ribs, and the innovative approach to what Mr. Seale calls Bobby-quin'. He has nothing but contempt for the botique sugar-based sauces that have flooded the market of late, and applies a firm knowledge of meat and basting techniques to yield the best savory result.
The times were strange, then, and I'm not sure if they are applicable to anything in particular. Bobby Rush is a loveable rogue, and Bobby Seale has been eloquent in his memoirs of the revolution. His most searing prose is about the barbeque.
I have nothing against the Panthers, or their alumni. I am not sure I would have followed any course but theirs, had I been in the same position at the same time. I certainly do not blame Senator Clinton for the hyperbole in the Yale Law Review of the time, in which the police were depicted by their most common nick-name of the time. It is only appropriate that Bobby Seale has evolved to the mastery of the pit barbeque.
In that, I bless America's system for allowing the aggregation of small powers to be so divisive as to prevent the agglomeration of a larger and more implacable one.
There is a tide running that is so strong that it cannot be denied. I think that is the key, and the distaste with which we view our collective history. Hillary, and her strength among her sisters of a certain age, taps into another strong current. But I think it will be overcome, just as the tough little Senator from Arizona with his peculiar form of integrity will be, and that his generation will leave the stage as the old hero Dole did not so long ago.
Rev. Huckabee seems unwilling to go gently into that good night, so there will be brushfires aplenty to stomp out before Big John stands alone against whomever the party of the Donkeys puts forth.
I don't know. If I can vote Democratic next week- and I think I am an independent, though I would have to check with the registrar.
I'm tempted to vote for Hillary, just to foil the demographers, and turn up the heat on the grill a little bit.
Copyright 2007 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
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