Obama Signs the 80/20 Questionnaire
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Saw this on the Reappropriate website (and fellow 44 skrips also mentioned it as well.).
So if the 80/20 site is correct, Obama signed the 80/20 questionnaire with some minor modifications. From the 80/20 website:
“OLD Q4 If elected, will you within your first term of office increase the nomination of qualified Asian Americans to serve as Article III life-tenured federal judges, whenever such vacancies are available until the current dismal situation is significantly remedied? [To put things in perspective, not meaning to imply quota, presently there are 0.6% Asian Am. Federal judges, while the Asian Am. population is 4.5% and the % of Asian Am legal professionals in laws firms of 100 or larger is at least 5.3%.]
NEW Q4: If elected, will you make it a top priority of your Administration to nominate qualified Asian Americans to serve as Article III life-tenured District Court federal judges, whenever such vacancies are available?
OLD Q5: If elected, will you nominate within your first term of office qualified Asian Americans to serve as Article III Circuit Judges, whenever there are vacancies in those positions, until the current dismal situation is significantly remedied? [To put things in perspective, none of the 179 Article III Circuit judges is an Asian American.]?
NEW Q5: If elected, will you make it a top priority of your Administration to nominate qualified Asian Americans to serve as Article III Circuit Judges, whenever there are vacancies in those positions?”
Yes, it’s what Obama has said from Day One, with the added requirements (from two of the other four questions) that Obama will meet with 80/20 in the future if he wins. But that’s not the point. The point is that it’s a really sad day in politics when a politician caves in to special interest groups–especially a special interest group whose tactics have been unethical, whose demands have been unreasonable, and whose e-mail propagandists don’t even know how to use spell check. I totally understand that it’s a tight battle and that the stakes are high since we’re less than a week away from Super Tuesday. I understand fully that politics involves some compromise at certain levels. I understand that 80/20, regardless of the organization’s ethical conduct, is the most powerful Asian American political organization out there, and that Obama may have felt compelled to answer them based on his considerations of repercussions from the slanderous lies and threats that S.B. Woo was throwing out. But nevertheless I’m disappointed.
I remember watching one of the Republican debates a few months ago. It was a CNN Youtube debate, and one of the Youtubers was a member of some special interest group. He asked the Republican field whether they would make a promise to his group. I don’t remember exactly what the promise was, but one by one the Republicans gave their versions of the same statement. Each one basically said, “I may agree with your position, but I won’t pledge anything to any organization. I don’t work for you. I only make pledges to the American people.”
This is why Reagan is still so popular. This is why W beat Kerry. These Repubs have hard principles and stick to them. They cultivate their values to the point where they have no trouble pushing them on others, and they have no trouble voicing them (even if those values are wrong–but that’s a whole different conversation). In “The Anatomy of Power,” Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith points out that there is “a greater conservative instinct for discipline” and that it therefore leads to conservatives being disproportionately powerful relative to their absolute numbers. I’m a Democrat, but the charge is true: these Republicans stick to their guns. We can accuse W of being arrogant, dangerous, divisive, ignorant, and wrong, but he definitely sticks with what he believes is right.
I’ve read some of the other blogs, and it looks like I’m not the only Asian American disturbed by this change of events with 80/20 and Obama. Hope is great, but the most ideal kind of hope is one which always does what is right, one which always strives for perfection, one which always tries to be fair and fights back against low-hitting bullies like Mr. Woo. I’m not going to put all the blame on Obama either; if we Asian Americans had had a stronger political organization based in proper ethics and funded by good money, we could’ve taken out S.B. “Swift-Boat” Woo and his attack hounds. But we didn’t have such organization. Perhaps through the 44s and other organizations, we can now start to set the foundations so that we can have a greater influence on our own culture in the future. So we take our blows right now in hopes that we’ll be stronger and more powerful in the future.
As I mention above, eventually we have to put this behind us. Those of us who have supported Obama so far have an election to win. I may be disappointed, but, as I also mention above, we all have to compromise sometimes.
And I’ll still take Obama over Hillary any day.
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Dialectic
3:23 am | Feb 01, 2008So, hold on, did 80/20’s tactics work? Was what they did all that bad?
jaehwan
1:31 pm | Feb 01, 2008Well, yes, it did work. They got the attention and the submission that they were craving, and they got the spotlight that S.B. Woo was after.
I actually agree with them on my political points. They are pro-equality in employment, and so am I. They are against affirmative action in higher education (they don’t say it straight out, but it’s clear), and so am I. I agree with the idea that block votes can help minority populations, and I agree with their effort to deliver a block vote.
But I don’t agree with their structure. Essentially, they kill debate. Look at the NRA website, and you’ll find tons of articles, discussions, and information about guns. Look at the American Enterprise Institute, and you’ll find a similar level of education. 80/20 represses debate. They just fan the flames of ethnic pride in order to deliver the block vote. In Ken Wilber terms, they rely on a “blue” mentality, one of ethnocentrism. (Yes, I finally read that book.)
I also disagree with their ethics. They rely on fear tactics. You would think that Obama was Jim Crowe if you saw their earlier posts. They lost Bush-Gore, then they lost Bush-Kerry, and they still claimed victory. Without pushing any real issues, they attacked Obama personally, saying he didn’t have “courage.” It’s now clear that they never believed he lacked courage; they only wanted him to submit to their questionnaire. They were willing to lie in order to promote their curious brand of power politics. Check it out; this was on the website just a few days ago:
“Clinton and Edwards’ losses will mean a genuine loss for AsAm. If they lose, YEARS will pass before we will have another shot at seeing our hard earned political commitments turn into reality. And we’ll all have to suffer in the interim.
There is too much at stake. Obama left us with no choice but to take action to defeat him.”
“Too much at stake?” “Suffer in the interim?” Is that not a ridiculous claim? Some good can come of this, but overall, their tactics don’t help us.
Dialectic
11:42 am | Feb 05, 2008I agree that their rhetoric is bullshit, but then, a lot of politics is bullshit and games-playing, and I don’t know, I can’t really hold this stuff against 80/20 or Woo. They accomplished their goal and they’re building a solid “phase 4″ nationalistic/ethnocentric base, something the AA community requires, and something that Democrats are notoriously bad at. Some misspelled emails with some hyperbole don’t really look all that immoral to me, especially since, like you, I agree generally with their political points.
I think Jenn said somewhere on Reappropriate that their actions look politically amateur, and I think that’s incorrect. They’ve been doing this for a while, they got what they wanted, and they helped AAs out.
Finally, on a separate note, I really don’t think there’s much of a difference between quota-based Affirmative Action and point-based systems. They might be more politically palatable, but I don’t see how they’re different in substance. The point-based system is still designed to increase the number of minorities, and if it doesn’t, then it’ll be a failure and it’ll be scrapped for something which does. Either way, it looks to me you’re still looking at some formal or informal quota, and you’re still trying to pick the best-qualified minorities.
jaehwan
2:57 pm | Feb 05, 2008D,
Last thing first–I completely agree with you on affirmative action. It just has to be worded the right way in order to be legal. And a politician can’t be expected to agree to break the law. They’re just words, I know, but words are important. Small detail, but I agree with you that they’re more or less the same thing.
You’re also definitely right about some of politics being bullshit. Whether it’s “a lot” though depends on how you measure bullshit. For example, that whole thing with Bush beating on Kerry for supposedly saying that military people were uneducated was total bullshit, but it wasn’t a lie–Kerry said it, even if it was blatantly obvious that that wasn’t what he meant. I would submit though that outright lies in politics are relatively rare, especially outright lies perpetuated by full organizations. And lying is wrong. As many people rightfully called out the Swiftboat Veterans when they lied, I think people should do the same for all organizations that purposely distort the truth or lie.
Here’s another gem from 80/20: “Obama’s steadfast refusal to commit to equal rights for AsAm speaks louder than any inspiring slogan or promise this great orator can shout out from the podium. ”
Refusal? Check out Obama’s website. He’s the only one who actually links to a Asian American website off his main page. No one, including ANY of the other candidates, have said that he has refused to commit to equal rights. There’s no basis for that kind of mischaracterization. It’s a complete lie. Jenn from reappropriate has also heard credible reports that they’ve spread these lies through the Asian language media as well. People in Chinatown think Obama is a racist.
Does 80/20 help Asian Americans? Well, we’re definitely discussing politics more as a result of their actions, unethical or not. We’ve seen what PACs can do. So in that way, we’re learning something. So I’d agree that there is some good coming out as a result of 80/20, but not because of
So I think you and I agree more or less on what is going on.
The only area where we might disagree is whether 80/20 should be criticized and whether ethnocentrism is necessary. Perhaps the underlying question is how one defines “ethnocentric.” I personally think that “ethnocentric,” in terms of recognizing identity, is important, but I don’t think we need to have the kind of blind allegiance to ethnicity or religion that lacks critical thinking.
A good parallel is the difference between you and, say, a poster like Ric or Fatfish. Those two are highly ethnocentric to the point that ethnicity and race trump critical thinking or logic. They’ll sit there trashing Asian American women and non-Asian people, and they’ll get a power high from doing so. Like the situation with S.B. Woo, I do think they help the dialogue because they’re getting us to think about their issues, but overall, their blind ethnocentrism really isn’t something that I would celebrate. I’d rather talk to people who are able to talk back rationally.
So I wouldn’t say that 80/20’s existence is a complete loss, but on the other hand, I wouldn’t stand behind them. And I think it’s reasonable to judge any organization on ethics.