Obama discussing the best way for "redistributive change"

Drudge links to this public radio interview that Obama did in 2001 where he muses about the best way to achieve redistributive change. He argues that the Warren Court wasn't truly radical because it didn't achieve economic justice and then goes on to say that the courts aren't the venue to doing this and speaks up for community organizing, legislative, and administrative action to achieve what he calls.

He says that one of the tragedies of the civil rights movement was that it became too focused on winning victories in the courts and lost sight of the political and community organizing activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalitions of power "through which you bring about redistributive change and in some ways we still suffer from that."

Wow. Well, I guess that will all change when we welcome in our new Democratic overlords.

Listen to the whole four-minute clip and you'll understand that it wasn't some rhetorical flourish that he was talking about when he told Joe the Plumber that he wanted to "spread the wealth around." This guy has been about redistribution of wealth since the beginning.

UPDATE: Stop the ACLU has the transcript of Obama's words.

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. (empahasis added)

Listen to the rest of the clip and how he answers a caller's question about the best ways to achieve the sort of "redistributive change" that he wants.

Perhaps we live in a country where the majority want the minority's wealth spread around and so they'll see nothing wrong with what he's saying here. After all, it's the majority of people who would get that wealth redistributed to them. I can just hope that there are still enough Americans who know history and economics to know that killing the golden goose doesn't get golden eggs for everyone.

UPDATE II: As Tom TB points out in the comments section, Obama knows full well that the purpose of our Founding Fathers was to limit the power of the federal government. However, he just wants to bring about that sort of "redistributive change" despite the intent of the Framers of the Constitution. No wonder that his ideal justice is someone who will have empathy for the little guy, not someone who will simply interpret the Constitution based on what is actually in the document.

And part of the role of the Court is that it is going to protect people who may be vulnerable in the political process, the outsider, the minority, those who are vulnerable, those who don't have a lot of clout.

. . . [S]ometimes we're only looking at academics or people who've been in the [lower] court. If we can find people who have life experience and they understand what it means to be on the outside, what it means to have the system not work for them, that's the kind of person I want on the Supreme Court.

UPDATE III: Jennifer Rubin says that this is no surprise at all.

Remember, this isn’t ancient history. Obama was sharing Socialism 101 with radio listeners just seven years ago. At the same time, he was sitting on the board of the Woods Fund, going to Trinity United Church, and a enjoying a robust professional relationship with Bill Ayers. Has he given all that up? We don’t know, because no one in the media has taken seriously Obama’s intellectual and professional development. No one has asked him basic questions about the past (e.g. Did he share the ideological vision of the Woods Fund grant recipients? Did he agree with Ayers’ radical educational theory?) or even his current economic philosophy. Doesn’t he still believe in spreading the wealth? He certainly did seven years ago.

Jim Geraghty comments,
Of course, the media is too busy explaining how McCain lost the election to pay attention to any of these questions so this will probably just be a blip in the blogosphere and talk radio.

Would Obama have come as far as he has in this campaign if his slogan were not merely "CHANGE" but "REDISTRIBUTIVE CHANGE"?