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Transcipt: Chicago Public Radio Interview WBEZ.FM

Good morning and welcome to Odyssey on WBEZ Chicago 91.5 FM

And we’re joined by Barack Obama, who is Illinois State Senator from the 13th District and a senior lecturer in the law school at the University of Chicago

Obama: “…you know if you look at, um, the victories and the failures of the civil rights movement, um, and, its litigation strategy in the court. I think where it succeeded was to vest formal rights, uh, in, previously dispossessed peoples, so that uh I would now have the right to vote, I would now be able to sit at lunch counter and order and as long as I could pay for it I would be okay, uh, but the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth. Uh, and, served more basic issues of political and, and, uh, economic justice in this society. And, uh, to that extent as radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren court, uh, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed, uh, uh, by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as it’s been interpreted and Warren Court interpreted it in the same way that, 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 it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf. Uh, and that hasn’t shifted, and one of the, uh, I think, uh the tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court-focused, uh I think that there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and, and activities on the ground, that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power through which you bring about redistributive, uh, change, uh, and, uh in some ways we still suffer from that.”

[He just said it’s a tragedy the constitution wasn’t radically reinterpreted to force redistribution of wealth for African Americans. And it‘s still an issue today.]

HOST: Let’s talk with Karen, good morning Karen, you’re on Chicago Public Radio.

CALLER: Hi, um, the gentleman made the point that the Warren court wasn’t, uh, terribly radical. My question is — um, with economic changes. My question is, is it to late for that kind of reparative work, economically, and, is that the appropriate place for reparative — economic work to take place…

HOST: you mean the court?

CALLER: the courts, or would it be legislation at this point?

OBAMA: Uh, you know, maybe I’m showing my bias here as a legislator as well as a law professor, but uh, I’m not optimistic about bringing about, uh, major, uh, redistribute, uh, uh, change, uh through the courts, um — you know the institution just isn’t structured that way.

[He doesn’t think the courts can do it but he does think the court can do it legislatively. It isn’t too late]

Uh, um, you know you just should look at very rare examples where during the desegregation era the court was willing to, for example, order uh, uh, you know changes that cost money, to uh, local school district. And the court was very uncomfortable with it, it was hard to manage, it was hard to figure out. Uh, you start getting into all sorts of uh separation of powers issues, uh, you know in terms of, uh, the court monitoring or engaging in a process uh that, essentially, is administrative and takes a lot of time.

[He just said redistribution of wealth is an administrative task!!!]

Um, you know and, the court just isn’t very good at it and politically it’s just it’s very hard to legitimize opinions, from the, uh, from the court in that regard. So I mean I think that, uh, although you can craft theoretical justifications for it legally, um, you know I think you can — any three of us sitting here could, could come up with, uh, a rationale for bringing about economic change through the courts.

[This is not a discussion about whether redistribution of wealth is right or wrong. This is a discussion about how best to do it!!!]

FAST FORWARD TO 2008:

Joe the Plumber: ….plan is going to tax me more. Doesn’t it?

Obama: It’s not that I want to punish your success, I just want to make sure that everybody who is behind you, that they’ve got a chance at success too. I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody.