Laura Flanders: If Obama's SC win was a "black" thing, it's strange how it's going down in Butte. [View All]

[marmar]

from The Nation:



BLOG | Posted 01/29/2008 @ 03:42am
Obama from Butte
Laura Flanders


If Barack Obama's South Carolina win was a "black" thing, it's awfully strange how it's going down in Butte. US towns don't come much whiter or more hope-resistant than this battered old Montana mining town. And yet organizers here resonate with his call, not because they think he'll change things here, but because they believe the movement he's inspiring will help them do that work.

It was mid-morning Sunday when I finally flipped open my laptop to watch Obama's South Carolina victory speech. The only other soul in the faded foyer of the once-grand Finlen Hotel was Debbie, the receptionist. Obama's words drew blue-eyed Debbie over. What do you think? I asked. Looking at the crowd, her smile revealed more than a few missing teeth. "That looks like everybody," she said. "That's good."

The Finlen is a lonely place; a 1920s relic perched on a snow-swept slope between stone-cold, closed Victorian banks and bars and the country's biggest toxic Super Fund site. Butte was once the copper capital of the world (and the most unionized town in the US) but the swag and smut of the 1880s is long gone and Butte's as broken now as the bones of its best-known 20th century export - Evel Knievel. And even he is dead.

The exuberant crowd behind the stylish Senator Saturday was Southern, sunny, multi-racial and all revved up. The backdrop to his words in Butte was very different. Obama's pledges of "change" and "purpose" and "belief" echoed, airy, into this wintry, white, whupped, western town. This place aches for solid stuff like union jobs and productive work and there was precious little promise of either in Obama's speech.

So can Obama's magic move Butte? Before the morning was over, I was able to ask the question to a group of local activists. The Montana Human Rights Network was holding its annual"Progressive Leadership Institute" in the Finlen this weekend and two dozen local organizers gathered around to hear the speech in between workshops on running effective campaigns and running for local office.

"It's not that he would change anything in Butte," said Alan Peura, a City Commissioner in Helena. "But he's building momentum that we can use to make that change ourselves." .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?bid=15&pid=276820