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Books by
Barack
Obama
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
/
The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the
American Dream
Obama's Greatest Speeches (CD set) /
Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters
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Overview
Barack Obama was born in Hawaii on
August 4th, 1961. His father, Barack Obama Sr., was born
and raised in a small village in Kenya, where he grew up
herding goats with his own father, who was a domestic
servant to the British.
Barack's mother, Ann Dunham, grew
up in small-town Kansas. Her father worked on oil rigs
during the Depression, and then signed up for World War
II after Pearl Harbor, where he marched across Europe in
Patton's army. Her mother went to work on a bomber
assembly line, and after the war, they studied on the
G.I. Bill, bought a house through the Federal Housing
Program, and moved west to Hawaii.
It was there, at the University of
Hawaii, where Barack's parents met. His mother was a
student there, and his father had won a scholarship that
allowed him to leave Kenya and pursue his dreams in
America.
Barack's father eventually returned
to Kenya, and Barack grew up with his mother in Hawaii,
and for a few years in Indonesia. Later, he moved to New
York, where he graduated from Columbia University in
1983.
More
5January 2009
The Action Americans Need—This
plan is more than a prescription for short-term
spending—it's a strategy for America's long-term growth
and opportunity in areas such as renewable energy,
health care and education. And it's a strategy that will
be implemented with unprecedented transparency and
accountability, so Americans know where their tax
dollars are going and how they are being spent.
In recent days, there have been
misguided criticisms of this plan that echo the failed
theories that helped lead us into this crisis—the notion
that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems; that we
can meet our enormous tests with half-steps and
piecemeal measures; that we can ignore fundamental
challenges such as energy independence and the high cost
of health care and still expect our economy and our
country to thrive.
I reject these theories, and so did
the American people when they went to the polls in
November and voted resoundingly for change. They know
that we have tried it those ways for too long. And
because we have, our health-care costs still rise faster
than inflation. Our dependence on foreign oil still
threatens our economy and our security. Our children
still study in schools that put them at a disadvantage.
We've seen the tragic consequences when our bridges
crumble and our levees fail.—Barack Obama
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Racism: A
History, the 2007 BBC 3-part documentary explores
the impact of racism on a global scale. It was part of
the season of programs on the BBC marking the 200th
anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the British
Empire. It's divided into 3 parts.
The first, The
Colour of Money . . .
Racism: A History [2007]—1/3
Begins the series
by assessing the implications of the relationship
between Europe, Africa and the Americas in the 15th
century. It considers how racist ideas and practices
developed in key religious and secular institutions, and
how they showed up in writings by European philosophers
Aristotle and Immanuel Kant.
The second,
Fatal Impact . . .
Racism: A History [2007] - 2/3
Examines the idea
of scientific racism, an ideology invented during the
19th century that drew on now discredited practices such
as phrenology and provided an ideological justification
for racism and slavery. The episode shows how these
theories ultimately led to eugenics and Nazi racial
policies of the master race.
And the 3rd, A
Savage Legacy . . .
Racism: A History [2007] - 3/3
Examines the impact
of racism in the 20th century. By 1900 European colonial
expansion had reached deep into the heart of Africa.
Under the rule of King Leopold II, the Belgian Congo was
turned into a vast rubber plantation. Men, women and
children who failed to gather their latex quotas would
have their limbs dismembered. The country became the
scene of one of the century's greatest racial genocides,
as an estimated 10 million Africans perished under
colonial rule.
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Latest
Update
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Obama Prepares to Authorize Indefinite Detention of U.S. Citizens for First Time Since McCarthy Era
The $662 billion National Defense Authorization Act passed by Congress last week includes controversial provisions that could usher in a radical expansion of indefinite detention under the U.S. government by authorizing the military to jail anyone it considers a terrorism suspect anywhere in the world without charge or trial. "Congress, with the Democrats in control of the Senate and a Democratic president, is about to enact into law the first bill that will say that the military and the United States government do have this power," says Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com blogger and constitutional law attorney.
"It’s muddled whether it applies to U.S. citizens on U.S. soil, but it’s clearly indefinite detention, and there’s a very strong case to make that it includes U.S. citizens, as well, which, as we know, the Obama administration already claims anyway, and that’s what makes it so dangerous."—SeeingBlack
Murder as
Instrument of Foreign Policy—Liaquat Ali Khan—3 November
2011—President Obama has openly deployed murder as
an instrument of foreign policy. Soon after assuming
office, Obama authorized the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) to plan and execute the murder of terrorists and
other enemies, regardless of whether they are U.S.
citizens. Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki, and Muammar
Gaddafi are the prominent murder victims while numerous
others in Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Iran, and
Pakistan have been purposely targeted and killed. The
legitimization of extra-judicial killing is a disturbing
development in international law as other nations are
certain to follow suit. In pursuit of pre-meditated
murders, the collateral damage (the killing of the
obviously innocent) has been extensive. The claim that
such murders can be executed with electronic precision,
though false, serves as an incentive for other nations
to develop drones to perpetrate their own surgical
assassinations. For now, however, the CIA enjoys the
monopoly over drone kills.—InformationClearinghouse
Obama could take
history lesson from FDR’s 1936 re-election—H.W.
Brands—Getting elected to the presidency is
difficult; getting re-elected is harder; getting
re-elected when the economy is dragging is nearly
impossible. In American history, only one president has
won a second term when the economy was in dire shape:
Franklin D. Roosevelt, in 1936. This bleak record would
seem to bode ill for President Barack Obama as he looks
toward 2012 across a clouded economic horizon.
But Roosevelt’s
exception to the historical rule leaves some hope for
Obama and his supporters. Despite an unemployment rate
above 15 percent -- compared with less than 10 percent
today -- Roosevelt won 61 percent of the popular vote
and swamped Republican Alf Landon, of Kansas, by the
widest Electoral College margin in American history: 523
to 8.
Of course,
Roosevelt held some key cards, not all of which Obama
enjoys. First, his party commanded large majorities in
both houses of Congress throughout his first term:
Democrats outnumbered Republicans more than two to one
in the House after the 1932 elections, and in the Senate
by only a bit less. They increased their majorities in
both houses in the 1934 midterm contests. Not every
Democrat endorsed everything Roosevelt did; Southern
conservatives, in particular, disliked aspects of the
New Deal. But when Roosevelt asked something of
Congress, he usually got it.—HostMadison
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Table
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How to Turn Up
the Heat on Democrats—Occupy Obama—John Stauber—21-23
October 2011—The “Occupy
Obama” event is being organized in part by veteran
rabble rouser Hugh Espey and his highly effective Iowa
Citizens for Community Improvement, a grassroots force
that has been fighting for economic and social justice
since the 1970s. CCI members are already participating
in Occupy Wall Street actions in nine Iowa towns.
Occupy Obama seems a logical next step to escalate the
movement further into national view and create the
potential for debate and organizing within the Iowa
presidential caucuses in January.
Espey criticized
Obama by name in a Des Moines Register guest
editorial of October 6, 2011 announcing CCI’s support
for Occupy Wall Street actions in Iowa. “Our political
leaders are too busy asking big banks and Wall Street
corporations for campaign contributions to push the ‘put
people first’ policies that this nation needs,” he
wrote. CCI will march on Obama’s campaign headquarters
in Des Moines on Saturday. This Occupy Obama action
could catch fire nationally, especially given the
frustration widely voiced that not one prominent
Democrat is willing to oppose Obama in the Democratic
Party’s primary races. Occupy Obama could partly fill
that void. “We’ll deliver a simple, powerful message to
Obama staffers, and do a speak-out as well. We want
regular folks telling the Obama staffers what they
think. We want Obama to understand that the 99% demand
action from him to put communities before corporations
and people before profits,” says CCI.—TheGlobalRealm
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Last Days of Kenya Colony
This
autobiographical documentary revisits the Mau
Mau Rebellion of the 1950s. More than 50 years
after the conflict, in which the director
participated as a young British soldier
stationed in Kenya for his national service, he
confronts his past with audacity and unflinching
self-inquiry. Combining McWilliams' own
photographic record of the times with original
animation and archival imagery, A Time There Was
crafts a thoughtful account of the Mau Mau
Rebellion – one of the most contentious episodes
in Britain’s imperial endgame.
Maya Soetoro-Ng on Family and Brother Barack (Interview with
Kam Williams)
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Power in Words: The Stories behind Barack
Obama's Speeches from the State House to the White House
By Mary Frances Berry and Josh Gottheimer
Whatever his policies and actions, President Obama is widely regarded as a powerful speaker. Berry and Gottheimer offer a collection of 18 of Obama’s most important speeches, illustrating his ascent as a politician and subtle changes in style and consistency of message—one of unity, responsibility, and change. The editors include historical context for changes in style, delivery, use of speechwriters, and media for presidential speeches since George Washington and how Obama fits into the tradition. The collection begins with Obama’s speech against the war in Iraq in 2002 when he was still a state senator; it also includes his keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention that launched him into the national spotlight; his presidential campaign announcement in Springfield, Illinois, in 2007; his speech on race in Philadelphia; and concludes with his election night speech in Grant Park in Chicago.
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The editors precede each speech with commentary from speechwriters,
journalists, and political analysts on the behind-the-scenes context for the
speech and how it illustrates Obama’s development as a candidate. A
revealing look at the power of words.—Booklist
Obama's Greatest Speeches
(CD set)
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Obama Humiliates the Black Caucus—“Take off your bedroom slippers. Put on your marching shoes,” Obama hectored. “Shake it off. Stop complainin’. Stop grumblin’. Stop cryin’. We are going to press on. We have work to do.”
Black Caucus chairman Rep. Emanuel Cleaver had earlier told reporters, “If Bill Clinton had been in the White House and had failed to address this [Black unemployment] problem, we probably would be marching on the White House."
But Obama came to lay down the law: any marching that you might do will be for my re-election. The well-oiled crowd cheered. Los Angeles congresswoman Maxine Waters seemed to be the only Black lawmaker capable of an adult response:
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“I’m not sure who the president was addressing. I found that language a bit curious. The president spoke to the Hispanic Caucus… he certainly didn’t tell them to stop complaining and he never would say that to the gay and lesbian community who really pushed him on don’t ask don’t tell or even in a speech to APEC, he would never say to the Jewish community stop complaining about Israel.”—BlackAgendaReport / Obama Loses Cool At Black Caucus Dinner
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Murder as
Instrument of Foreign Policy—Liaquat Ali Khan—3 November
2011—President Obama has openly deployed murder as
an instrument of foreign policy. Soon after assuming
office, Obama authorized the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) to plan and execute the murder of terrorists and
other enemies, regardless of whether they are U.S.
citizens. Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki, and Muammar
Gaddafi are the prominent murder victims while numerous
others in Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, Iran, and
Pakistan have been purposely targeted and killed. The
legitimization of extra-judicial killing is a disturbing
development in international law as other nations are
certain to follow suit. In pursuit of pre-meditated
murders, the collateral damage (the killing of the
obviously innocent) has been extensive. The claim that
such murders can be executed with electronic precision,
though false, serves as an incentive for other nations
to develop drones to perpetrate their own surgical
assassinations. For now, however, the CIA enjoys the
monopoly over drone kills.—InformationClearinghouse
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A Singular Woman
The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mother
By Janny Scott
Award-winning reporter Janny Scott
interviewed nearly two hundred of Dunham's
friends, colleagues, and relatives
(including both her children), and combed
through boxes of personal and professional
papers, letters to friends, and photo
albums, to uncover the full breadth of this
woman's inspiring and untraditional life,
and to show the remarkable extent to which
she shaped the man Obama is today.
Dunham's story moves from Kansas and
Washington state to Hawaii and Indonesia. It
begins in a time when interracial marriage
was still a felony in much of the United
States, and culminates in the present, with
her son as our president- something she
never got to see. |
It is a poignant look at how character is passed from
parent to child, and offers insight into how Obama's
destiny was created early, by his mother's extraordinary
faith in his gifts, and by her unconventional mothering.
Finally, it is a heartbreaking story of a woman who died
at age fifty-two, before her son would go on to his
greatest accomplishments and reflections of what she
taught him.
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Dear Mr. Netanyahu, Please Don't Speak to My President That Way—By Jeffrey Goldberg—Israel depends on the U.S. for its survival, while America, I imagine, would continue to exist even if Israel ceased to exist—I would find myself feeling resentful about the way Netanyahu speaks about our President. Netanyahu had an alternative, of course: He could have said, as he got on the plane to Washington, where today— awkward!—he will be meeting with President Obama: "The President today delivered a very fine speech. His condemnation of Hamas and Iran, his question about whether the Palestinians actually seek peace; his strong language against Syria; his recognition of Israel as a Jewish state; his re-assertion of the unshakeable bond between our two nations—all of this and more brought joy to my heart.
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There are a couple of points in the speech, having to do with borders and refugees, that I would like to clarify with the President when I see him, and I'm looking forward to a constructive dialogue on these few issues."
[Palestinian Activist Omar Barghouti Says Obama Speech "Irrelevant"]
Of course, he didn't say this. Instead he threw something of a hissy fit. It was not appropriate, and more to the point, it was not tactically wise: If I'm waking up this morning feeling that the Israeli prime minister is disrespecting the President of my country, imagine how other Americans might be feeling. And, then, of course, there's this: Prime Minister Netanyahu needs the support of President Obama in order to confront the greatest danger Israel has ever faced: the potential of a nuclear-armed Iran.— TheAtlantic
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Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters
By Barack Obama / Illustrated by Loren Long
In this
tender, beautiful letter to his daughters,
President Barack Obama has written a moving
tribute to thirteen groundbreaking Americans
and the ideals that have shaped our nation.
From the artistry of
Georgia O’Keefe to the courage of
Jackie Robinson, from the strength of
Helen Keller to the patriotism of George
Washington, President Obama sees the traits
of these heroes within his own children, and
within all of America’s children. . . .This
beautiful book is about the potential within
each of us to pursue our dreams and forge
our own paths. It celebrates the
characteristics that unite all Americans,
from our nation’s founders to the
generations to come.—Excerpted
from the inside cover |
Of Thee I Sing is
basically a baker’s dozen, brief biographies of
important figures in American history, from Father of
the Country
George Washington up to
Maya Lin,
the artist/architect who, while still an undergraduate
at Yale, designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial located
on the National Mall.
Each subject’s entry is
accompanied by an evocative airbrush portrait by
Loren Long, an
award-winning illustrator who has previously
collaborated with the likes of Madonna and Walt Whitman.
For example, the drawing of
Jackie Robinson’s
captures the late baseball great at bat in his
Brooklyn Dodgers uniform, while that of artist
Georgia O’Keefe
shows her in the midst of painting one of her trademark
flowers in full bloom.
My only quibble with
President Obama’s picks here is with his predecessor
Washington, a
wealthy plantation owner who never emancipated his 300+
slaves at
Mount Vernon, not even upon his death. This opus
conveniently makes no mention of that glaring moral
failing, opting to focus instead on the first
President’s “principles” and on his patently
hypocritical belief “in liberty and justice for all.”
Although I’m willing to
give the author
a Mulligan since he presently has many more pressing
issues on his plate, I was nonetheless pleased by the
inclusion of the likes of
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
Sitting Bull, and
Albert Einstein. There was a method to Obama’s
madness, here, as each choice is hailed for a prevailing
trait, ranging from creativity to intelligence to
bravery and beyond. The literary equivalent of a “Yes We
Can!” rally led by our charismatic Commander-in-Chief
for the benefit of the Sesame Street set.—Kam Williams
Obama calls India creator of US jobs
Obama Will
Triumph—So Will America—By Frank Schaeffer—Before
he’d served even one year President Obama lost the
support of the easily distracted left and engendered the
white hot rage of the hate-filled right. But some of us,
from all walks of life and ideological
backgrounds—including this white, straight, 57-year-old,
former religious right wing agitator, now progressive
writer and (given my background as the son of a famous
evangelical leader) this unlikely Obama supporter—are
sticking with our President. Why?—because he is
succeeding.We faithful Obama supporters still trust our
initial impression of him as a great, good and uniquely
qualified man to lead us.Obama’s steady supporters will
be proved right. Obama’s critics will be remembered as
easily panicked and prematurely discouraged at best and
shriveled hate mongers at worst.—Frank
Schaeffer Blogspot
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Act Like We Know
(Baraka)
The Parade of Anti Obama Rascals (Baraka)
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Elena Kagan Tapped for Supreme Court
WASHINGTON—President
Barack Obama on Monday nominated Solicitor
General Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court,
declaring she would demonstrate the same
independence, integrity and passion for the
law exhibited by retiring Justice John Paul
Stevens.
If confirmed by the
Senate, Kagan would become the third woman
on the high court. At 50, she is relatively
young for the lifetime post and could help
shape the high court's decisions for
decades.
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The former Harvard Law
School dean "is widely regarded as one of the nation's
foremost legal minds," Obama said. He introduced her in
the White House East Room as "my friend." —HuffingtonPost
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President Obama Announces Vote 2010
If Only Arizona Were the Real
Problem—To the “Take Back America” right, the
illegitimate Obama is Illegal Alien No. 1. It’s no
surprise that of the
35 members of the Arizona House who voted for the
immigration law (the
entire Republican caucus), 31 voted soon after for
another new law that would require all presidential
candidates to produce birth certificates to qualify for
inclusion on the state’s 2012 ballot. With the whole
country now watching Arizona, that “birther” bill was
abruptly yanked Thursday.
The legislators who voted for both
it and the immigration law were exclusively Republicans,
but what happened in the Arizona G.O.P. is not staying
in Arizona. Officials in
at least 10 other states are now teeing up their own
new immigration legislation. They are doing so even in
un-Arizonan places like Ohio, Missouri, Maryland and
Nebraska, none of them on
the Department of Homeland Security’s 2009 list of
the 10 states that contain three-quarters of America’s
illegal immigrant population.
Outbreaks of nativist apoplexy are
nothing new in American history. The last derailed
George W. Bush’s apparently earnest effort to get a
bipartisan immigration compromise through the Senate in
2007. At the time, the more egregious expressions of
anti-immigrant rage — including Arizona’s self-appointed
border-patrol militia,
the Minutemen — were stigmatized as a fringe
by the White House and much of the G.O.P.
establishment. John McCain, though facing a tough fight
for the Republican presidential nomination, signed on to
the Bush reform effort despite being slimed by those in
his party’s base who accused him of supporting
“amnesty.”
What a difference the Tea Party
makes.
NYTimes
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Ritual terrorism: Hating Obama as a new form
of religion—The irrational, some might
say, rapturous hatred of Obama is not new,
of course. Nor are the sulphur and the
poison which inform Obama's revilers in the
pro-Israel hard right.
Until now, though, many in the Obama-hate
movement have confined their religious
revivals to the relative privacy and safety
of the Mother Church of All Satans, the
internet.
The Kahanists, the dedicated Luddites of
Zionism, have little use for discretion.
They take their obscenity public at every
opportunity. This one, however, is, even for
them, a whole new level of low.
Part of it is the imagery. Fire is to the
Jewish imagination what rope is to the
African-American.
But that is only part of it. Because,
wherever it is—whether the issue is health
care, student loans, immigration policy or
settling East Jerusalem—when taken to the
extreme, the religion of reviling Obama is,
at its core, the sacrament of hatred. |
For that reason, it matters little that
extremists can practice co-existence in
hating Obama's guts, whether they may see
themselves as God-fearing Jews or
God-fearing anti-Semites.
What has Barack
Obama done to the Kahanists, or, for that matter, to
Israel and the Jews as a whole? He has endorsed a
two-state solution—something which George Bush also did.
Obama has pushed for a settlement freeze [Bush's road
map, Phase One, includes the clause: "Israel also
freezes all settlement activity"]. And, in a precedent
which somehow also managed to draw the ire of
Obama-haters, he has held Passover seders at the White
House, which neither Bush nor any other president ever
had.
What the Kahanists are saying, in effect, is that there
is no longer any difference between the Occupation on
one hand, and Judaism on the other. In that sense, one
may reasonably view the pro-Kahane camp as among the
worst anti-Semites of all. . . . Curious, isn't it, that
they never mention what he actually is. Which is, for
many of them, enough reason to revile him, all by
itself: Black.
Haaretz
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Presidential
Violence!—Obama
is clearly continuing the Clinton
and Bush policies of militarizing
Africa. This is obvious in the
expansion of US military
“interventions.” For example, US
support to the Nigerian ruling
elites efforts to eliminate the
resistance movements in the Niger
Delta. Consider also the expansion
of the US International Military
Education and Training (IMET)
program as well as the increased US
arms sales to African countries. . .
. A “Black” US president is a deadly
thing because dead and dying African
(black) bodies are the grounds on
which white power stands. White
power in black-face also stands on
those same dead African and other
racialized peoples bodies. . . . But of what value is hope predicated
on African death and dying? To the
extent that his achievements
requires that we valorize capitalist
imperialism, male supremacy,
militarism, and white supremacy . .
. we must question the value of a
“Black” US president.
BlackAgendaReport |
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House passes historic healthcare
overhaul—The vote, which comes amid unanimous GOP
opposition, alters the landscape for consumers and
insurance firms—Noam N. Levey and Janet Hook—March
22, 2010—Ending the Democrats' decades-long quest to
create a healthcare safety net to match Social Security,
the House of Representatives on Sunday night approved
sweeping legislation to guarantee Americans access to
medical care for the first time, delivering President
Obama the biggest victory of his young presidency.
The bill, which passed 219 to 212 without a single
Republican vote, would make a nearly $1-trillion
commitment in taxpayer money over the next decade to
help an estimated 32 million uninsured Americans get
health coverage.And it would establish a broad new
framework of government regulation to prevent insurance
companies from denying coverage and, advocates hope, to
begin making healthcare more affordable to most
Americans.
LATimes
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And the conservative freakout
begins—Salon
/
Obama's Greatest Speeches (CD set)
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"Mongrel”: Historically, and from Obama’s Mouth—By Glen Ford—The crime unfolded casually. Asked about his racial background, the president replied, "We,” meaning African Americans, “are sort of a mongrel people." Could it be that the First Black President does not know the country over which he presides, its history and peculiar vocabulary? Even as the Tea Party’s white nationalists strive to resurrect a White Man’s Country, this president bandies about a term that not long ago packed as much concentrated bile and murderous intent as any in the English language—a racial epithet with a more powerfully shaped political charge than the ubiquitous “nigger!” “Mongrelization” was the bane of American Manifest Destiny, an ever-present threat to white notions of “civilization.” The extermination of Native Americans and the fire and whips of daily white terror during slavery and Jim Crow kept “mongrelizing” influences at bay, but protecting the gene pools of “Anglo-Saxons” and other Europeans later allowed into the “white” fold required constant vigilance. . . . |
Sen. James Vardaman, of Mississippi, was implacable in his resistance to granting self-rule to Filipinos, much less treating them as equal to white Americans. “Preparing the Filipino or any other Mongrel race for the duties of citizenship or self-government can not be done,” he railed.—Black Agenda Report
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Table
posted 15 February 2008
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Video: "South Side Story"
—Ta-Nehisi
Coates author of
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to
Manhood
discusses Michelle Obama with Paul Coates an
outspoken publisher and former Black
Panther—his father.
“American Girl"
By Ta
Nehesi Coates
When
Michelle Obama told a Milwaukee campaign
rally last February, "For the first time in
my adult life, I am proud of my country,"
critics derided her as another Angry Black
Woman. But the only truly radical
proposition put forth by Obama, born and
raised in Chicago's storied South Side, is
the idea of a black community fully vested
in the country at large, and proud of the
American dream. |
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Democrats
Discover Their Base—In the last month, the political
movement that stirred during the campaign suddenly
revived.
Liberal, left-wing, and labor groups ran ads—Moveon.org
spent $300,000 on an ad plugging health care reform, and
Health Care for America Now, which is largely
labor-backed, spent $1.4 million—primarily in the
districts of wavering Democratic House members. They
threatened to withhold contributions and run primary
candidates against Democrats who opposed the bill.
In New York,
the Working Families Party, which has attracted
labor voters for Democrats, threatened to withhold
endorsement from Representative Mike Arcuri. The Service
Employees International Union (SEIU) told Rep. Mike
McMahon that if he voted no, they would fund a
challenger. The
Steelworkers staged a sit-in at the Western
Pennsylvania office of Representative Jason Altmire. The
American Association of Retired Peoples (AARP), not your
stereotypical protest organization,
held a demonstration at the offices of New York
Representative Scott Murphy.
The
administration’s somnolent
Organizing for America suddenly woke up during the
health care battle. Members demonstrated in Salt Lake
City and Royal Oak, Michigan. They annoyed Texas
Representative Chet Edwards with repeated demands that
he back the bill. Most interesting, groups that had
opposed or been wary of the existing legislation from
the left fell into line once the real choices became
apparent. When Moveon.org, which had campaigned for the
public option, held a referendum on whether to back the
current bill, 83 percent of their members favored doing
so.
AFL-CIO unions unhappy with the excise tax pressured
Massachusetts Representative Stephen Lynch to back the
bill.
TNR
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A frustrated
caucus keeps complaints quiet—CBC
members say key people in the Obama administration have
taken them for granted, in the belief that black members
of Congress have no stomach for a fight with the
country's first black president. . . .On Thursday, CBC
members participated in a rare one-hour policy meeting
with Obama at the White House to discuss their concerns,
most notably their disappointment over a
jobs bill that they regard as largely a package of
tax breaks for employers, noticeably bereft of
job-training programs, new infrastructure projects and
summer employment opportunities for youth. Such issues
are vital to the CBC, many of whose members represent
districts with high levels of unemployment. . . .
Despite the
caucus's entreaties, the administration has not
provided targeted help to black communities and other
struggling areas suffering from disproportionately high
unemployment, members complain. Many caucus members say
they feel largely ignored by key White House advisers.
Their communication with Obama himself is minimal to
nonexistent. . . .Maxine
Waters (Calif.). "We must not shy away from targeted
public policy that seeks to address the specific and
unique issues facing minority communities."
Obama has a 91 percent approval rating among African
Americans, according to the latest Gallup poll. But
Clyburn cautions the administration against becoming
complacent about that support. "Depressed [African
American] voter turnout would be something no White
House politico could do anything about in the next
election."
WashingtonPost
* *
* * *
Obama's Nobel Prize money going to 10 charities—Three
months after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, President
Obama announced Thursday the charities that will benefit
from his $1.4 million cash award.In a statement issued
by the White House, Obama said, "These organizations do
extraordinary work in the United States and abroad
helping students, veterans and countless others in need.
I'm proud to support their work."
* *
* * *
|
Is Your Hair Like Mine?
I had to fwd this one.
I left the comments of
friends:
I had nothing better to
add . . .
Here is an image of
humility:
a scene of empowerment.
There is only ONE
picture.
Many of us still can't
believe our eyes,
understand how unreal to
every
little black boy and how
each sees
every day for the rest
of their lives.
That what change means .
. .
Little boy visiting the
White House. He wants
to feel Obama's hair. He
wants to know if the
President's hair feels
just like his. Obama
obliges.
Priceless.
Found poem, 10 June 2009 |
|
 |
* *
* * *
 |
It Still Felt Good the
Morning After—The actual real America is everywhere. It is
the America that has been in shell shock since the aftermath of
9/11, when our government wielded a brutal attack by terrorists
as a club to ratchet up our fears, betray our deepest
constitutional values and turn Americans against one another in
the name of “patriotism.”
What we started to remember the
morning after Election Day was what we had forgotten over the
past eight years, as our abusive relationship with the Bush
administration and its press enablers dragged on: That’s not who
we are.
So even as we celebrated our first black president, we looked
around and rediscovered the nation that had elected him. |
“We are the ones we’ve been waiting
for,” Obama
said in February, and indeed millions of such Americans were
here all along, waiting for a leader. This was the week that
they reclaimed their country—NYTimes
Obama and the War on Brains
* *
* * *
Roland
Martin: Election Night Coverage (Kam
Williams Interview) / Election
Night Speech (Obama)
America,
We Cannot Turn Back (Text of Barack Obama Acceptance
Speech) /
Obama Roasts John McCain
BaracK Obama: The Time Interview/
Obama 2008 Table
Yes We
Can (video)
Speeches & Sermons Table
Why
White America Perhaps Fears Michelle More Than Barack
/
Obligation to Fight for the World as It Should Be (Michele
Obama) /
* *
* * *
Fear Strikes Out—Paul
Krugman—The day before Sunday’s health care
vote, President Obama gave an unscripted talk to House
Democrats. Near the end, he spoke about why his party
should pass reform: “Every once in a while a moment
comes where you have a chance to vindicate all those
best hopes that you had about yourself, about this
country, where you have a chance to make good on those
promises that you made ... And this is the time to make
true on that promise. We are not bound to win, but we
are bound to be true. We are not bound to succeed, but
we are bound to let whatever light we have shine.” . . .
Without question, the campaign of fear was effective:
health reform went from being highly popular to wide
disapproval, although the numbers have been improving
lately. But the question was, would it actually be
enough to block reform?
And the answer is no. The Democrats
have done it. The House has passed the Senate version of
health reform, and an improved version will be achieved
through reconciliation.
This is, of course, a political
victory for President Obama, and a triumph for Nancy
Pelosi, the House speaker. But it is also a victory for
America’s soul. In the end, a vicious, unprincipled fear
offensive failed to block reform. This time, fear struck
out.
NYTimes
* *
* * *
A More Perfect Union
Barack Obama Speech on Race /
Barack Obama: On My Faith and My Church
* *
* * *
Notes on an Orientation to
the Obama Presidency—Linda Burnham—In these
circumstances, among our biggest challenges is how to
attend to building the capacity of the left without
succumbing to the siren songs of dogma, the old
addictions of premature platform erection, or the
self-limiting pleasures of building parties in
miniature. For the anti-capitalist left, this is a
period of experimentation. There is no roadmap; there
are no recipes. Those organizational forms and
initiatives that enable us to synthesize experience,
share lessons and develop broad orientations and
approaches to seriously undertaking our first two tasks
should be encouraged. Those that would entrap us in the
hermetic enclosures of doctrinal belief should be
avoided at all cost.
The Obama presidency is a rare confluence of individuals
and events. There is no way to predict how things will
unfold over the next 4-8 years. But this much we
can foresee: if the
opportunity at hand is mangled or missed, the takeaway
for the left will be deepened isolation and
fragmentation. If, on the other hand, the left engages
with this political opening skillfully and creatively,
it will emerge as a broader, more vibrant force on the
U.S. political spectrum, better able to confront
whatever the post-Obama world will bring. Alainet
Left Obamites Prefer Kool
Aid to Struggle—Glen Ford—Burnham’s
gushings are remarkable for their abject surrender, not
just to Obama’s persona and mystique, but to the
institutional trappings and annexes of
corporate-tethered rule. She wants us all to take
lessons from the corporate-bought structures – to better
serve the people? No. Burnham is telling us that now
that she’s seen the Big Party, she doesn’t want to
leave. She’s tasted that vintage wine, drank the good
stuff, and is determined not to go back to movement
rations.
I do agree that Burnham can use some political
education. “For the anti-capitalist left,” she writes,
“this is a period of experimentation. There is no
roadmap; there are no recipes.” Maybe, but there are
abiding truths that she has willfully forgotten: “Power
concedes nothing without a demand.”
Those elements that refuse to make demands of Power
ought to stop calling themselves part of the Left.
Unless the Left is in power, it is a contradiction in
terms.
BlackAgendaReport
* *
* * *
 |
ChickenBones Best Book of 2009
|
 |
* *
* * *
Table
Sometimes a President Is Just a President
The other day a
friend of mine confided that in the weeks leading up
to the election, the Obamas’ apparent joy as a
couple had made her just miserable. Their marriage
looked so much happier than hers. Their life seemed
so perfect. “I was at a place where I was tempted
daily to throttle my husband,” she said. “This
coincided with Michelle saying the most beautiful
things about Barack. Each time I heard her speak
about him I got tears in my eyes — because I felt so
far away from that kind of bliss in my own life and
perhaps even more, because I was so moved by her
expressions of devotion to him. And unlike previous
presidential couples, they are our age, have
children the same age and (just imagine the stress
of daily life on the campaign) by all accounts
should have been fighting even more than we were.”
NYTimes
* *
* * *
* *
* * *
* *
* * *
|
17
Newspapers Endorse Obama, 2 for McCain—Barack
Obama picked up at least 17 newspaper endorsements
this weekend, including six in swing states
Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, North Carolina and
Missouri. John McCain, as far as we know, gained
just two.
The Wisconsin State Journal and The Sun of San
Bernardino had backed Bush in 2004. The St. Louis
Post-Dispatch called Obama's opponent, John McCain,
"the incredible shrinking man" who had made a
horrific pick for his running mate.
Backing Obama: In Ohio, The Blade
in Toledo and the Dayton Daily News; the
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, St. Louis
Post-Dispatch, |
 |
The Tennessean
of Nashville, the Wisconsin State Journal. the
Asheville (N.C.) Citizen-Times, and in California the Fresno Bee,
Sacramento Bee, Contra Costa Times, The Herald of
Monterey, The Satna Cruz Journal and The Sun of San
Bernardino (which had picked Bush over Kerry), plus
the New Bedford Standrd-Times in Massachusetts.
Joining the Obama team in battleground states were
the Muskegon (Mich.) Chronicle, the Lehigh Valley
(Pa.) Express-Times and Springfield (Ohio)
News.McCain registered two pick ups: The Wheeling
News-Register in West Virginia and the Napa Valley
Register in California.—EditorandPublisher
* *
* * *
 |
Baraka
Message: Taking Up Obama's Mantle—My
line at Black Left meeting & Black Radical Congress is solidify
a political line, with that admitted united front as broad
leadership and then mobilize masses of Black and Progressive
people to descend on Denver for Dem convention with
demonstrations, signs, petitions, literature and strategy and
tactics for influencing what is sure to be the attempt at the
crookedest of all conventions. The people are already excited
by the primaries and the crude tricks of the bourgeoisie.
We shd take up Obama's mantle, both serving as his defense
(the defense of democracy) and using this presence to make
impact on the campaign. The Rev Wright "flap" was actually
positive, now the race question is squarely in the campaigns
and the bourgeoisie will push and push it, but it should serve
to further inflame the masses, who have real ties with the Black
church and know what Wright said is historically true.
Amiri Baraka. I will raise this at a meeting in Harlem
next week. |
* *
* * *
I'm pretty sure that his White
grandmother is still living, and is eagerly following his election
from her home in Hawaii (I heard it on CNN), although both of his
parents are dead. His American-Indonesian sister, who's 8 years
younger, is in Hawaii campaigning for him; apparently they are very
close, and he took her under his wing when they were growing up. I
think what first impressed me about him is that he really cares
about his family and writes so lovingly of them in his
autobiography. He brought his Kenyan half sister, Auna, to the U.S.
on numerous occasions and has reached out to many of his Kenyan
relatives. His mother and grandparents really have to be credited
with bringing him up with such wholesome values. He strikes me as a
man who is so comfortable in his own skin. In spite of the campaign,
he flew home to take his kids trick or treating, went to buy the
family Xmas tree, took his wife out on their anniversary in Jan. and
took her out to dinner on Valentine's day. He really has his (human)
priorities in place.—Miriam
* *
* * *
|
Obama Newspaper Endorsements—The
Obama-Biden ticket maintains its strong lead in the race
for daily newspaper endorsements, by 112 to 39, more than
a
3-1 margin, picking up 70 or more papers in the past
three days, including (see separate stories), the
Detroit Free Press, Buffalo News, Cleveland's Plain
Dealer, Palm Beach (Fla.) Post, New York's Daily News,
Miami Herald, Philadelphia Inquirer, Portland's The
Oregonian, Denver Post, Atlanta Journal-Constitution,
The Salt Lake Tribune, Kansas City Star, and Chicago
Sun-Times.
EditorandPublisher
|
Mighty Sparrow: Barack the Magnificent
(video) /
Maya Soetoro-Ng, Barack's Half Sister
* *
* * *
|
A
national mood swing—˜We can end a
war.—We can save the planet.—We can change the world.'—All
of a sudden, Democrats are on the offensive. 'Change' isn't just
this year's most ubiquitous campaign slogan, it seems to be
something that's already happening out there in the real world,
in small towns, on college campuses and yes, even at Super Bowl
parties.
Who knows just what caused the shift in mood? Iraq?
Katrina? Global warming? Rising income inequality? Disgust with
Bush and Cheney? Whatever the causes, Americans seem eager to
reclaim a spirit of idealism that many thought ended with the
1960s, to embrace a heritage that acknowledges conflict and
struggle but also hope and progress.
Obama's Super Bowl ad
represented a gamble: a bet that the symbolism of past social
movements is now more likely to give Americans a thrill than a
chill. And the matter-of-factness with which his ad was greeted
- and Obama's electoral success so far - suggest that his
campaign correctly read the national mood.
LATimes
|
 |
* *
* * *
Who Is Michelle
Obama?—Princeton undergrad, Harvard Law School alum,
corporate vice president and mother of two young
girls—Michelle Obama's professional and personal résumé
already is impressive. And since she could be the next
First Lady, let's take a look at her. To her friends,
Michelle Obama seems to manage public and private
pressures with effortless poise. She is
intimately involved with her husband's work, reading
drafts of his major speeches and tweaking his big ideas
and little punctuation choices alike, reports Newsweek.
She has been his link to African America, its
civil-rights movement and its power elite.
Diversity Inc.
* *
* * *
Victory
Speech in South Carolina
(video) /
Shelby Steele on Obama (video) /
Obama's
Grandmother (video)
/
Obama in New Orleans
(video)
Debate '08:
Obama Girl vs Giuliani Girl (video)
/
"I Got a
Crush...On Obama" By Obama Girl (video)
/
Chris
Rock's 2008 Election Analysis (video)
* *
* * *
|
Blackness and Obama—Well, I think everybody should be aware of their heritage. See,
blackness is a powerful,
powerful symbol in America.
Because we were taught to be
ashamed of being black. And
in a society in which you
are taught to be ashamed of
it, then to overcome that,
you have to affirm it. So,
you shouldn't be bashful
about talking about it.
Because to be bashful about
talking about it is to, in
some sense, to be ashamed of
it, at least from the
perspective of those who are
black and who don't have the
kind of position that
Condoleezza Rice or Barack
Obama would have. So, all
they want is to say, you
know, express some identity
with our history and our
culture. It's okay to
identify with the larger
culture. Because we are one
community. But that should
not entitle one to just
forget about one's own
particular culture of
blackness. . . . Because the
more you express identity
with the community from
which you come from if
you're black, the more fear
white people have. Now,
that's not true for
Italians. That's not true
for Germans. That's not true
for any other group, hardly,
except us. Because there--
it's because we haven't been
talking about that lynching
tree. We haven't been
talking about slavery, the
ugly side of that.
|
 |
So, if
Barack Obama comes out and says, "I'm
black and I'm proud of it," well,
whites would get nervous. And they would
be careful about whether they would vote
for him. So, he has a narrow, a narrow—road in which to walk. Because he won't
be elected if he doesn't get the white
vote. It's hard to get the white vote if
you express a kind of affirmative
identity with black people. So, you get
caught between a rock and a hard place.
And that's where he's caught. . . .
That's why it's hard for Barack Obama or
Condoleezza Rice to talk about
blackness; 'cause it's—if they talked
about blackness in the real, true sense,
it would be uncomfortable. But America
can't be what America ought to be
until—America can look at itself, the
good, the bad, so that we can work on
making ourselves what we oughta be.
—James Cone
Bill Moyers Interviews James Cone
* *
* * *
|
Obama Wins Iowa --A
record outpouring of Democratic voters gave Obama a victory last
night with 38 percent support, while John Edwards, with 29.8
percent, barely edged out Clinton, who finished third at 29.5
percent. Obama's
Iowa Win Bolsters Bid for New Hampshire |
* *
* * *
Obama: What's in It for Us?—A
poll this fall by the Joint Center for Political and Economic
Studies, a black think tank, shows the wide disparity of support for
Mr. Obama among blacks. While 75% of blacks who went to college had
a favorable or very favorable view of the candidate—rising to 88%
among blacks who went to graduate or professional school—support
dipped to 62% among those with just a high-school degree and to 42%
among blacks who haven't finished high school. A similar pattern
shows up as income levels fall among blacks. And while 83% of blacks
employed full time had a favorable view of Mr. Obama, just 55% of
unemployed blacks did. . . . . A CNN poll released last week showed
Mr. Obama with almost 60% support among black voters across the
U.S., compared with 31% for Mrs. Clinton. Here in South Carolina,
several polls have shown Mr. Obama leading Mrs. Clinton by about 8%
overall with wide leads among black voters.—Obama's
Bid Turns Focus On Class Split Among Blacks
* *
* * *
Obama Supporter, Derrick, Responds to the Video and
Explains Emotional View
Rudy,
I had seen
this interview that the young man did and I just had
a chance to listen to his (Derrick's) follow up. If you
haven't heard this young man, check out
his interview
and
monologue. He's terrific--an immigrant from Ghana
who's just been able to vote since coming to the U.
S.—and he makes a passionate explanation of his reason
for supporting Obama. There is hope for the country with
young people like that.—Miriam
* *
* * *
Report on primary Wins and Losts
|
Obama
Close Second
in New Hampshire—With
91 percent of the electoral precincts reporting, Mrs.
Clinton had 39 percent of the vote, Mr. Obama 36 percent,
and John Edwards 17 percent. On the Republican side, Mr.
McCain had 37 percent, Mr. Romney 32 percent and Mike
Huckabee 11 percent.
NYTimes |
* *
* * *
|
Barack Obama claims big win in South Carolina—With
95 percent of precincts reporting, Obama had 55 percent of
the vote. Clinton was second with 27 percent, followed by
Edwards, with 18 percent. Obama's likely victory capped a
heated contest in South Carolina, the first Democratic
primary in the South and the first with a largely
African-American electorate.
CNN // “Tonight, the cynics that
said what began in the snows of Iowa was just an illusion
were told a different story by the good people of South
Carolina,” Mr. Obama said . . .“After four great contests in
every corner of this country, we have the most votes, the
most delegates and the most diverse coalition of Americans
we’ve seen in a long, long time.”
NYTimes |
* *
* * *
|
Obama Wins Super
Tuesday: Wins Most States, Wins Most Delegates—Obama
won majority of delegates (908 to 884,
Time
Delegate Count) and majority of states (Alabama,
Alaska, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, North
Dakota, and Utah), and tied in New Mexico.—
"It's a choice between going into this election with
Republicans and independents already united against us, or
going against their nominee with a campaign that has united
Americans of all parties, from all backgrounds, from all
races, from all religions, around a common purpose," he
said. "It's a choice between having a debate with the other
party about who has the most experience in Washington, or
having one about who is most likely to change Washington,
because that's a debate that we can win."
WashingtonPost
|
* *
* * *
|
Obama Defeats Clinton
in 3-State Sweep—Senator
Barack Obama won the primary in Louisiana (53 % to 39 %) and the
caucuses in Nebraska (68% to
32%) and Washington (68% to
31%) on Saturday, defeating his
rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton, as
the two scrambled for delegates in
their fiercely contested battle for
the Democratic nomination.—
"We won in Louisiana, we won in
Nebraska, we won in Washington
State," he said. "We won north, we
won south, we won in between, and I
believe we can win Virginia on
Tuesday if you're ready to stand for
change." Before today, Clinton held
a slight edge over Obama in the
delegate count—1,055 to 998—with
2,025 delegates needed to claim the
Democratic nomination. . . . Obama
stood to pick up as many as 170
delegates tonight.
Washington Post |
* *
* * *
|
Three More
Primaries in the Bag—Senator
Barack Obama rolled to victory by
big margins in Virginia (64
to 35%), Maryland (60
to36%) and the District of
Columbia (75
to
24%)
on Tuesday, extending
his winning streak over Senator
Hillary Rodham Clinton to eight
Democratic nominating contests since
Saturday. Mr.
Obama’s victories gave him a lead
over Mrs. Clinton among pledged
delegates . . .Obama aides calculate
that he also leads in delegate
counts that include so-called
superdelegates, the party officers
and elected officials who control 20
percent of the total delegates to
the Democratic convention. . . . An
exultant Mr. Obama told a rally in
Madison, Wis.: “This movement wont
stop until there’s change in
Washington. Tonight, we’re on our
way.” . . . . Mrs. Clinton . . .
signaled that she would not
vigorously contest two Democratic
races next week, a primary in Wisconsin and a caucus in
Hawaii . . . If she loses in
those two states, she will be 0 for
10 in nominating contests from Feb.
5 to March 4, when Texas, Ohio,
Rhode Island and Vermont hold
primaries.—NYTimes |
* *
* * *
|
Facing Zero Degrees Wisconsin
Gives Obama Win Over Clinton—
Senator Barack Obama (56%) won the Wisconsin
primary on Tuesday by a comfortable margin,
extending his victory streak to nine
contests and forcing Senator Hillary Rodham
Clinton (43%) into a must-win scenario on
March 4 as the nominating fight heads to the
crucial states of Ohio and Texas. The
victory reinforces Mr. Obama’s position as
the front-runner in the Democratic race,
even as the Clinton campaign hopes [for] a
comeback next month when a large haul of
delegates are up for grabs in Ohio and
Texas. . . . “The change we seek is still
months and miles away and we need the good
people of Texas to help us get there,” Mr.
Obama said in a speech in Houston. “We’re
here because we believe that change is
possible and that we have never needed it
more than we do right now!” Almost
two-thirds said Mr. Obama would be more
likely to unite the country and about 55
percent considered him more likely to
improve foreign relations. Democratic voters
were evenly divided on whether Mrs. Clinton
or Mr. Obama was most qualified to be
commander-in-chief . . .
NYTimes
|
* *
* * *
|
Vermont gives Obama 12th
straight win—Barack
Obama drew strong support across the
board in Vermont on Tuesday from white
women, working-class voters and other
groups that have backed Hillary Clinton
in earlier presidential contests,
according to preliminary data from exit
polls of voters. The Illinois senator
had the backing of about six in 10 white
women, a group that has been a crucial
source of strength for his rival this
year. In 22 previous competitive
Democratic primaries, Obama has
prevailed among that group only in New
Mexico and his home state of Illinois.
Clinton has had a cumulative
21-percentage-point margin among white
women in the prior contests. Obama was
easily ahead among both men and women
overall in the largely white, liberal
state, the early data showed. He was
getting about six in 10 votes of people
over age 65, self-described Democrats
and voters without college degrees. He
also was winning the votes of two-thirds
of those earning less than $50,000
annually.
Guardian
|
* *
* * *
|
Obama win Wyoming—Barack
Obama’s campaign reclaimed lost momentum
Saturday [9 March], beating Hillary
Clinton by double digits in the Wyoming
caucuses . . . With all precincts
reporting, Obama had 61 percent to
Clinton’s 38 percent. . . . The caucuses
only offered 12 total delegates [Obama 7
delegates Clinton 5], . . . . drew
rare attention to the state as well as
historic turnout. . . .
The candidates were already shifting
their attention toward the Mississippi
primary Tuesday, which offers 33
delegates. . . the
next big contest for them is
Pennsylvania, which votes April 22 and
offers 158 delegates. It is the biggest
prize remaining on the election
calendar, and polls show Clinton ahead
in the state. . .
Obama still holds a comfortable lead in
delegates. After Saturday’s caucuses,
the count stood at 1,578 for Obama and
1,468 for Clinton. It takes 2,025 to
win.
FoxNews |
* *
* * *
|
Obama coasts
to victory in Mississippi Primary—Returns
from 92 percent of Mississippi's
precincts showed Obama gaining 59
percent, to 39 percent for Clinton.
Obama picked up at least 17 of
Mississippi's 33 delegates to the
Democratic National Convention, with
five more to be awarded. He hoped
for a win sizable enough to erase
most if not all of Clinton's
11-delegate gain from last week,
when she won three primaries. The
Illinois senator had 1,596 delegates
to 1,484 for Clinton. It takes 2,025
to win the nomination. Neither of
the two rivals appears able to win
enough delegates through primaries
and caucuses to prevail in their
historic race for the nomination, a
development that has elevated the
importance of nearly 800 elected
officials and party leaders who will
attend next summer's national
convention as unelected
superdelegates. . . . After losing
12 straight primaries and caucuses,
Clinton rebounded smartly last week
with primary victories in Ohio,
Texas and Rhode Island. Obama won
the Vermont primary, led in the
Texas caucuses, and suffered a loss
of only 11 delegates. . . .
Pennsylvania, Indiana, North
Carolina, West Virginia, Kentucky,
Oregon, Puerto Rico, Montana and
South Dakota have primaries
remaining.
Yahoo |
* *
* * *
|
Obama increases lead in delegate
count—The Illinois Democrat won
handily in the Mississippi
Democratic primary Tuesday. Obama
beat Clinton 61 percent to 37
percent with 99 percent of the
precincts reporting. With the
victory, Obama added 17 delegates to
his total while Clinton picked up
11, CNN estimates. The Mississippi
win was Obama's second win in a row,
having won the Wyoming caucuses
Saturday. . . . Clinton beat Obama
51 percent to 47 percent in the
Texas primary that was also held on
March 4, but Obama was expected to
win a majority of the 228 Texas
delegates due to his caucus win.
Two-thirds of the state's 193
delegates were at stake at the
primary, while the remaining third
were decided by the caucuses. With
the wins in Mississippi and Texas,
Obama now leads Clinton 1,611 to
1,480 in the total delegate count,
CNN estimates. Neither candidate is
expected to obtain the 2,025
delegates needed to win the
nomination outright before the
national convention in August.
CNN
Barack Obama inspired Bronx high
school students
(video) |
* *
* * *
|
Senator Barack Obama won a commanding victory in the
North Carolina primary on Tuesday [6 May 2008] and
lost narrowly to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton in
Indiana, an outcome that injected a boost of
momentum to Mr. Obama’s candidacy as the Democratic
nominating contest entered its final month. |
* *
* * *
|
Which
Womanhood?—"For
too long the history of women has been a history of silence,"
Clinton told the World Conference then. But almost exactly a year
later, she supported her husband's signing of the so-called Personal
Responsibility Act, which successfully shifted responsibility for
poverty in an affluent society off that society and onto the backs
of poor mothers. Those moms barely got to say a word, while DC pols
slandered and steamrollered them. Clinton writes in her
autobiography
Living History that she would have opposed
her husband over welfare reform if she thought it would hurt young
children. (One wonders what she thinks happens to kids in poor
working and over-working families.) On the campaign trail, she
recalls her dedication to Marian Wright Edelman's Children's Defense
Fund. But I can't forget Peter Edelman's resignation from the
Department of Health and Human Services in protest. In 1996, welfare
"reform" cut almost 800,000 legal immigrants off aid entirely and
even denied them food stamps, but no one denies that it helped get
Bill Clinton re-elected. "Welfare reform became a success for Bill"
writes Hillary in Living History. It was all about politics, not poor people,
said Edelman.
The Nation
Hear Bill 'Blacken' Obama |
 |
* *
* * *
 |
Clinton’s Hispanic edge—The
ethnic gap jumped out at pollsters who surveyed Nevada
caucus-goers. Clinton won the backing of white voters by 18
points and Hispanics by a more than 2-1 ratio over Obama, while
Obama won 83 percent of the African-American voters. Clinton
also was preferred by 55 percent of Hispanic Democratic voters,
compared with 6 percent for Obama and less than 5 percent for
Edwards and Richardson in a recent survey of Latino voters in
the top five Hispanic states — California, Texas, Florida, New
York and Illinois. . . .
The notion of an undercurrent of
political tension between African-Americans and Hispanics flows
from the fact that blacks led the civil rights struggles that
also benefit the faster-growing Latino population. Opponents of
expanded immigration rights also have openly played to the rift
by arguing that Latino immigrants are driving down wages or
taking jobs that blacks could hold. While black voters express
those concerns in polls, the immigration issue is not a deciding
factor in their votes. Nor do those issues have anything to do
with whether Latinos will vote for African-American candidates,
according to political analysts.
Politico |
* *
* * *
Hillary: The Wrong Experience—Obama
has advocated easing the
Bush-imposed ban on Cuban-Americans
visiting the island and sending
money to their relatives. He makes a
broader case for a new Cuba policy,
arguing that capitalism, trade and
travel will help break the regime's
stranglehold on the country and help
open things up. Clinton immediately
disagreed, firmly supporting the
current policy. This places her in
the strange position of arguing, in
effect, that her husband's Cuba
policy was not hard-line enough. But
this is really not the best way to
understand Clinton's position. In
all probability, she actually agrees
with Obama's stand. She is just
calculating that it would anger
Cuban-Americans in Florida and New
Jersey. This is the problem with
Hillary Clinton. . . . The Clintons'
careers have been shaped by the
belief that for a Democrat to
succeed, he or she had to work
within this conservative ideological
framework. Otherwise one would be
pilloried for being weak on national
security, partial to taxes and big
government and out of touch with
Middle America's social values.
CubaWatch
* *
* * *
|
Hillary Wins Michigan and Florida—Hillary
celebrated a "victory" (No delegates
won) in Florida that is not a victory.
She campaigned after a promise not to
campaign. . Many see it as a sign of
desperation after the 2 to 1 defeat in
South Carolina. . . . We are less than a
week away from the 20-state-primary of
February 5. . . .
Since Iowa we have put considerable
emotional energy into the primary
process. Super Tuesday will probably be
the decider of who will be the DNC
nominee. Many progressives feel it is
all for nought as far as the state of
America affairs. But I for one won't
ignore or denigrate Obama's charisma and
oratory. Nor will I deny his growing
national influence, and its symbolical
representation of the need of Americans
to feel better about their lives in a
world filled with so much murder and
mayhem? The innocence, the enthusiasm,
and idealism of the young are a
balm for the soul. One cannot but admire
the growing ranks of Obama girls and
boys. Such full commitments always lead
to a lost of innocence. Politics indeed
makes us all a bit sordid and makes all
a bit mad like hearing the songs of
Sirens.
—Rudy |
 |
* *
* * *
Unstoppable Obama—Clinton can put forth all the
policy proposals she likes – and many of them are
admirable ones – but anyone can see that she’s of the
same generation and even one of the same families that
got us into this checkmate situation in the first place.
True, some people miss Bill, although the nostalgia was
severely undercut by his anti-Obama rhetoric in South
Carolina, or maybe they just miss the internet bubble he
happened to preside over. But even more people find
dynastic successions distasteful, especially when it’s a
dynasty that produced so little by way of concrete
improvements in our lives. Whatever she does, the
semiotics of her campaign boils down to two words –
“same old.”
Obama is different,
really different, and that in itself represents
“change.” A Kenyan-Kansan with roots in Indonesia and
multiracial Hawaii, he seems to be the perfect answer to
the bumper sticker that says, “I love you America, but
isn’t it time to start seeing other people?” As
conservative commentator Andrew Sullivan has written,
Obama’s election could mean the re-branding of America.
An anti-war black president with an Arab-sounding name:
See, we’re not so bad after all, world!
So yes, there’s a
powerful emotional component to Obama-mania, and not
just because he’s a far more inspiring speaker than his
rival. We, perhaps white people especially, look to him
for atonement and redemption. All of us, of whatever
race, want a fresh start. That’s what “change” means
right now: Get us out of here!—Ehrenreich Blog
* *
* * *
Jill Nelson's NYTimes "Identity Politics" review of Randall
Kennedy.
Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal. 228
pp. and Shelby Steele.
A Bound Man: Why We Are Excited About Obama and Why He
Can't Win is worthy of a read. She seems
to nail them to their underlying self exposure. A few
excerpts:
Perhaps most
troubling about both Steele and Kennedy is the virtual
absence of any acknowledgment of the ways in which white
racism, and the more subtle and prevalent white
privilege, influence black identity and necessitate, for
some, a strong collective identity as a defense against
white power. “Obviously, black responsibility is the
greatest — if not the only — transformative power
available to blacks,” Steele says. But this is simply
not true. Ditto for Kennedy’s assertion that “open
expression of racial prejudice is politically and
socially suicidal.” Tell that to Trent Lott, Jesse
Helms, Strom Thurmond and Don Imus, to name but a few.
Lott and Imus were finally taken to task for their
racist comments, but after what has become an American
ritual of denial, apology and a brief stay in the
woodshed, they were back.
Steele and Kennedy
say they have been attacked as a result of ideas that go
against a black orthodoxy. It’s difficult to be
sympathetic. Both men have been mightily rewarded. The
irony is that the criticism these authors evoke
increases their visibility. Kennedy knows this.
“Supporters have praised me for being ‘brave.’ The fact
is, however, that I have not felt threatened by any
ideological enemies. At no point have I felt that I was
putting myself into serious jeopardy.”
In truth, black orthodoxy, as embodied both by the
traditional entrenched black (male) political leadership
and by the more recently emerged black (male) academics
and public intellectuals, is passing into oblivion.
These books have a Rip Van Winkle feel to them, as if
the writers fell asleep at a crucial moment and missed a
seismic shift. Both books, especially Steele’s, tell us
more about what has been than what lies ahead.—NYTimes
[Jill Nelson is the author of
Volunteer Slavery: My Authentic Negro Experience
and, most recently,
Finding Martha'sVineyard ]
* *
* * *
Obama Notes
Glen
Ford and Rudy Lewis
Dear Rudy,
It aggravates me to
no end that folks do not understand that Obama is
playing the same game as Randall Kennedy - addressing
the racial anxieties of white men by as thoroughly de-racializing
the discourse (itself a blatant race game) as Kennedy
did in giving the OK for whites to use the word
"nigger." Obama is a hustler of Kennedy's own kind, only
on a much larger scale: world power. Everything he says
is at Black people's expense, but Blacks are euphoric
that "one of us" has a podium to say it.
Why can't we take
Obama's statements on war, Katrina, Jena, etc. at face
value? White folks do. That's why they are voting for
him: because of his implicit and often explicit promises
to take race off the table. That means "us" off the
table!
I'm tired of all
this phony academic and fake literary exploration of our
collective navels that serves as diversion from what is
right in front of our faces. Obama wins because he has
courted white folks, especially males - the most
backward demographic in the nation. He makes promises to
them, to betray us. And we love it.
I don't anticipate,
at this point, changing you or anybody else's minds
about joining the Obama-bration, and calling it a
"movement." In fact, it is a capitulation, and history
will prove it so, much sooner than you might think.
I say this with all
love and respect. Sincerely, Glen
* * * * *
Glen, I have no
problem whatsoever with your criticism of Obama. Yours
is fairly gentle and fully rational compared to that of Pinkney's at
Black Commentator. We need persons
to keep the heat under Obama's feet and wherever one
might apply it.
I am not into an
"Obama-bration." Nor am I part of an Obama movement.
Someone has to be the Democratic nominee. I prefer it to
be Obama than Clinton, for reasons other than Obama's
world power politics. That is the long and short of it.
And I think that is where most black people are at this
point.
My only concern
with some of the black radical Obama critics is that
they as it often occurs are too far out in front of the
people that they end up castigating the majority of
black voters, that is to say, they have no respect for
what these voters see and where they are. I think there
is a political danger in those kinds of "I know better
than you" attitudes.
Of course, few if
any of the masses read either Kennedy or Steele. Their
audience is primarily liberal and conservative whites
and some educated blacks. I do not align myself with
them. I am interested in a rhetoric that counters or
shoots holes in their oiled up arguments. Thus I admire
what Jill Nelson has accomplished in her reviews of
their books. Hers is in great contrast to that of many
black reviewers who soft pedal in order to get their
reviews published.—Rudy
* * * * *
More News
Excerpts
Transforming our politics + the “Asian vote” in CA—Name
recognition played a huge role in what had happened. But
there is a clear difference between Obama and Clinton.
The New York Magazine recently described Obama’s
campaign as a “white
boy campaign“. Despite the usual spin on race and
ethnicity from mainstream media, I find that this
article’s analysis is incredibly off. Obama’s campaign
is a break from the old way of politics. His campaign is
about movement building, not name recognition. What
electrifies me about Obama is that he is talking about
transforming our politics and ourselves, not giving out
quick, token favors to our leaders and figureheads. . .
. Remember, it was the media that asked if Obama can
“transcend race” — Obama never spoke these words himself
because his message is not about colorblindness at all.
I’m confident the
numbers will change and that more Asian Americans will
change support for Obama’s campaign. In some weays, our
“loss” in California is very positive because it is
continuing the contest between Obama and Clinton, giving
us an important moment to talk to our community, peers,
friends and family members. We can really highlight what
sets Obama apart from Clinton. I don’t think we are last
minute at all — Transformation is very different from
identity and coalition politics, which is what Clinton
is solely relying upon. We’ve seen the upsurge in the
last two weeks, where folks went to the poll en masse to
change their vote for Obama. Let’s keep building and
reaching our communities.—Softheart
WordPress
* * * * *
On the California Primary: The Future is Now—The
Obama campaign is about transcending the “minority
politics” mentality that carves us all up into “interest
groups” and pushes the hot buttons that reinforce our
sense of victimization and vilify the other side.
Mainstream observers focus on Obama’s invocation of
“hope” as a rhetorical device, which appeals to the
common decency in all of us to both transcend
partisanship and support an agenda driven by the
discourse of change. No doubt this is part of the appeal
he is making, especially as he seeks to fashion himself
as someone who can unite voters in both “blue” and “red”
states and also “change the way Washington does
business.”
But I sense there
is something much deeper to both Obama as an individual
and his campaign, which has the potential to develop
into a movement. Obama has a deep respect for what
historian Charles Payne (in I’ve Got the Light of
Freedom) has called the “organizing tradition” that
sustained the Black freedom struggle in the South. He
recognizes the debt we owe the likes of Martin Luther
King, Ella Baker, and Rosa Parks, but more importantly
the lessons we must learn from their struggles. If you
are just a “minority leader,” then you’re not really a
leader at all. If you are only fighting for your “fair
share” of the riches controlled by those in power,
you’ll never address the root causes of oppression.
Above all is the sense that none of us can be free in
America until we change the whole country. Obama speaks
in poetry and he is writing a song of redemption.—Scott
Kurashige WordPress
* * * * *
SEIU MEMBERS
ENDORSE SEN. BARACK OBAMA (February 15,
2008)—Washington, DC—Nurses, childcare workers,
janitors and other service workers endorsed Sen.
Barack Obama for president today, calling him the
candidate with the best vision, best plan and best
strategy to lead the country to a new American
Dream. . . . Members of the Service Employees
International Union endorsed Obama to achieve
economic justice, quality, affordable healthcare for
every American, the freedom for workers to unite in
unions, and an end to the Iraq war. . . . “This is
about more than one election. It’s about building
for the next generation of America," said SEIU
President Andy Stern. “Barack Obama is creating the
broadest and deepest coalition of voters we’ve ever
seen.” . . . . With 1.9 million members, SEIU is
the fastest-growing union in North America. Focused
on uniting workers in three sectors to improve their
lives and the services they provide, SEIU is the
largest health care union, including hospitals,
nursing homes, and home care; the largest property
services union, including building cleaning and
security; and the second largest public employee
union.—SEIU
* * * * *
BARACK &
BARAKA—In a Harlem Church, locals debate the Obama
message with famed poet Amiri Baraka.—The
quiet thickened. Whatever Obama meant; whatever energy
he represented, seemed far away. Amiri Baraka got in. He
eased behind the microphone and spoke with beat poet
rhythms, sending ripples of laughter through the
audience. “We got to move beyond this is-he-black-enough
question. He’s blacker than Hillary. Hell, he’s at least
hooked up to the Motherland. Most African-Americans are
African indirectly.” His foot bounced on beat as he
gripped the microphone. “We can’t stay on the sidelines
calling names; we got to use the energy of this campaign
to mobilize the black community. We are not going to
have a revolution. The most we can do is create a
people’s democracy.” Baraka pulled the audience out of
its sullenness, but Dr. Tony Monteiro from Temple
University in Philadelphia stepped into the echo of
Baraka, and flashed history. “I’d like to use a
historical analogy,” Monteiro began. “W.E.B. Du Bois
said of Booker T. Washington that he filled a particular
psychological need that whites had. They wanted to take
race off the table. They wanted to build empire and move
past the guilt of slavery. Booker fit that role. Does
Obama fit that role today?”—NYPress
* * * * *
The Grand Old
White Party Confronts Obama—Whatever the potency of
his political skills and message, Mr. Obama is also
riding a demographic wave. The authors of the new book
“Millennial Makeover,” Morley Winograd and Michael D.
Hais,
point out that the so-called millennial generation
(dating from 1982) is the largest in American history,
boomers included, and that roughly 40 percent of it is
African-American, Latino, Asian or racially mixed. One
in five millennials has an immigrant parent. It’s this
generation that is fueling the excitement and some of
the record turnout of the Democratic primary campaign,
and not just for Mr. Obama.
Even by the low
standards of his party, Mr. McCain has underperformed at
reaching millennials in the thriving culture where they
live. His campaign’s effort to create a MySpace-like Web
site
flopped. His most-viewed appearances on YouTube are
not viral videos extolling him or replaying his best
speeches but are instead sendups of his most reckless
foreign-policy improvisations — his
threat to stay in Iraq for 100 years and his
jokey warning (sung to the tune of the Beach Boys’
version of “Barbara Ann”) that he will bomb Iran. In the
vast arena of the Internet he has been shrunk to Grumpy
Old White Guy, the G.O.P. brand incarnate.
The theory of the
McCain candidacy is that his “maverick” image will bring
independents (approaching a
third of all voters) to the rescue. But a New York
Times-CBS News poll
last month found that independents have even a lower
opinion of Mr. Bush, the war, the surge and the economy
than the total electorate and skew slightly younger.
Though the independents in this survey went 44 percent
to 32 percent for Mr. Bush over John Kerry in 2004, they
now prefer a Democratic presidential candidate over a
Republican by 44 percent to 27 percent.
Mr. McCain could get lucky, especially if Mrs. Clinton
gets the Democratic nomination and unites the G.O.P.,
and definitely if she tosses her party into civil war by
grabbing ghost delegates from Michigan and Florida. But
those odds are dwindling. More likely, the Republican
Party will face Mr. Obama with a candidate who reeks
even more of the past and less of change than Mrs.
Clinton does.—NYTimes
* * * * *
Transformation
time—Texas voters have two remarkable candidates
from which to choose in the March 4 Democratic
presidential primary. Regardless of the outcome of this
state's vote and those across the nation, history will
be made. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama represent
change, but in decidedly different ways. . . . On an
international stage, his face representing the United
States of America would speak volumes to a world
community that has turned away from assisting this great
nation.
The expectation and
pressure on him to deliver change on a worldwide scale
will be tremendous. If he continues to deliver the kind
of turnout at the polls that he has shown so far, he
would move onto that stage with a commanding mandate
from the American people. The historic turnouts in the
Democratic primaries and caucuses thus far can't all be
credited to Obama. Clinton is a worthy and experienced
opponent who has drawn her share of new voters. But
Obama is smart and experienced in working directly with
low- and middle-class Americans to better their lives,
and he brings a message of hope that the country needs
in this moment. Yes, we know, hope is not a strategy.
But it can get people working together to find one.
The Star-Telegram
recommends Barack Obama in the Democratic primary for
president.
Star-Telegram
* * * * *
For Obama: The
Chronicle endorses the senator from Illinois for the
Democratic presidential nomination.—The presidency
of the United States is a powerful bully pulpit. The
occupant of the White House must not only issue orders,
but also inspire and advocate for all Americans. Of the
two finalists for the Democratic presidential
nomination, the Chronicle believes Sen. Barack Obama of
Illinois is best-qualified by life experience, skill and
temperament to be the standard bearer for his party. In
a conference call, Obama told the Chronicle editorial
board that "more than any other candidate, I can bridge
some of the partisan as well as racial and religious
divides that have developed in this country that prevent
us from getting things done." . . . The 46-year-old
Obama has expanded his base of support, winning new
legions of supporters. The more people see and hear him,
the more they like him. As the Hawaiian-born son of a
Muslim Kenyan father and an Anglo Midwesterner, the
devoutly Christian Obama transcends race and religion.
His life has been one of involvement with disadvantaged
Chicago residents, excellence at Harvard Law School and
eight years as an Illinois state senator. He was elected
to the U.S. Senate in 2004, only the third
African-American to serve there since Reconstruction.
Obama is both the epitome of the American Dream and
well-positioned to reach out to an international
community alienated by recent U.S. go-it-alone policies.
The passion and
excitement that Obama has brought to the race can only
stimulate more citizens to participate in the electoral
process. The Chronicle urges Texas Democrats to cast
what could be decisive ballots for his presidential
nomination.—Houston
Chronicle
* * * * *
Mr. McCain says
. . . “Americans are not deceived by an eloquent but
empty call for change,” . . . “promises no more than a
holiday from history.”. . . Mr. McCain says:
“I’m not the youngest candidate, but I am the most
experienced.” . . . Mr. McCain ends with, “I
don’t seek the office out of a sense of entitlement. I
owe America more than she has ever owed me. I have been
an imperfect servant of my country for many years. I
have never lived a day, in good times or bad, that I
haven’t been proud of the privilege.”
Transcript
* * * * *
 |
Clinton's
campaign outflanked by Obama's ground troops—Obama
is inspirational, of course, but in a
particular way: His message has been
constant since his boffo Nov. 10 speech at
an Iowa Democratic dinner. He is less
specific about policies than he is in
describing the frustrations voters feel—with
Bush, with Washington, with divisiveness,
with partisanship. His consistent promise is
not to pass a detailed program, but to
change the mood and style of politics.
Clinton has offered experience and some
well-thought-out policies. That might be
enough in a different year. But when it
comes to a larger theme, her campaign has
been all over the lot. You can tell a
campaign has difficulty establishing a
message when its slogans keep changing.
In
recent weeks, the Clinton campaign has
featured one banner after another: "Big
Challenges, Real Solutions," "Working for
Change, Working for You," "Ready for Change,
Ready to Lead" and "Solutions for America."
Obama has stuck confidently with the slogan
"Change You Can Believe In." Clinton must
either get voters to stop believing in the
change Obama promises, or make them an
alternative Big Offer that they can believe
in more.
Seattle Times |
* * * * *
Clinton Sharpens
Attack Against Obama—“It is time
to get real,” Mrs. Clinton, of New York, said.
“To get real about how we actually win this
election and get real about the challenges
facing America. It’s time we moved from good
words to good works, from sound bites to sound
solutions.” It is a familiar theme, but Mrs.
Clinton delivered it with fresh intensity after
the crushing defeats in Wisconsin and Hawaii on
Tuesday. . . “Today, Senator Clinton told us
that there was a choice in this race and you
know, I couldn’t agree with her more,” Mr. Obama
said. “But contrary to what she’s been saying,
it’s not a choice between speeches and
solutions, it’s a choice between a politics that
offers more of the same divisions and
distractions that didn’t work in South Carolina
and didn’t work in Wisconsin and will not work
in Texas.” . .
One day
after victories in Wisconsin and Hawaii, Mr.
Obama drew about 17,000 people to a rally at the
Reunion Arena in downtown Dallas. While the
primary is on March 4, early voting began on
Tuesday and Mr. Obama encouraged his supporters
to cast their ballots soon. “As this movement
continues, as this campaign builds strength,
there are those who will tell you not to
believe,” Mr. Obama said. “There are those who
will tell you it can’t be done.” Saying he
offered voters a chance to break from the
policies of the past years, including the war in
Iraq and the current economic situation, Mr.
Obama said the race was a choice “that is not
just about turning a page on the politics of the
past but of turning the page on the policies of
the past.”
David
Plouffe, the campaign manager for Mr. Obama,
said that Mr. Obama had amassed a 159-delegate
lead over Mrs. Clinton, based on his campaign
tally. Following a win in Wisconsin by 17
percentage points, Mr. Plouffe said Mrs. Clinton
would need to win in Texas and Ohio by
double-digits to gain an edge in the fight for
delegates. “We have opened up a big and
meaningful delegate lead,” Mr. Plouffe said,
speaking in a conference call with reporters.
“They are going to have to win landslides to
reverse it.”
NYTimes
* * * * *
Dear
Friend,
Voters in places like Atlanta, Brooklyn, St.
Louis, and Inglewood have made clear their
choice for president: Barack Obama. So why are
some members of the Congressional Black Caucus
threatening to use their power as "superdelegates"
to undermine those votes and nominate Hillary
Clinton? Voters should decide elections--not
politicians. And members of the Congressional
Black Caucus should amplify the political voice
of their constituents, not silence it. I've
joined ColorOfChange.org in demanding that the
CBC to listen to the voters; let's tell them to
vote with the people, not against us:
http://www.colorofchange.org/superd/?id=2325-521384.
Thanks. Cassandra Wells,
Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Marketing,
Morehouse College, 404-681-2800 x2565
* * * * *
Obama
wins Democrats Abroad primary—Barack
Obama won the Democrats Abroad global primary in
results announced Thursday, giving him 11
straight victories in the race for the
Democratic presidential nomination. The Illinois
senator won the primary in which Democrats
living in other countries voted by Internet,
mail and in person, according to results
released by the Democrats Abroad, an
organization sanctioned by the national party.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has not won a
nominating contest since Super Tuesday, more
than two weeks ago. More than 20,000 U.S.
citizens living abroad voted in the primary,
which ran from Feb. 5 to Feb. 12. Obama won
about 65 percent of the vote, according to the
results released Thursday. Voters living in 164
countries cast votes online, while expatriates
voted in person in more than 30 countries, at
hotels in Australia and Costa Rica, at a pub in
Ireland and at a Starbucks in Thailand. The
results took about a week to tabulate as local
committees around the globe gathered ballots. .
. . Obama's delegate total, which includes new
superdelegate endorsements, increased to 1,358.5
Thursday. Clinton was at 1,264. It will take
2,025 delegates to claim the nomination at this
summer's convention.—Yahoo
* * * * *
Texas—Viva
Obama Mexican!— In
this great nation Viva Obama! Viva Obama!
Families united and safe and even with a health
care plan Viva Obama! Viva Obama! Also beautiful
video Marachi Band style Viva Obama Mexican.
Full of passion and makes all the points through
music.
Amigos de Obama
Toronto Obama talk is every where.
Yesterday on the bus as I was reading Ebony's
article on Obama an older Sikh man started
talking to me about him. He supports Obama and
sees him as an agent of change and made
reference to his own religion drawing lines
between what Obama is saying and what the last
Guru of the Sikh faith said. A man in Toronto
in the deep freeze claiming that he saw Obama
at a rally . . . same bus, man shouts out "yes
just got back from an Obama rally." Jamaican
restaurant trying to eat my dinner, three men
started talking about Obama shouting across the
restaurant then they stopped eating stood up
and with full of Caribbean style passion
discussed Obama at a table not too far from me.
I may have started it as I walked by with my Yes
We Can button on my suit lapel and the next
thing I heard is chanting by two men YES WE CAN.
As I was leaving I told them to pray for him and
one shouted at me "ARE YOU PRAYING FOR HIM"? I
said yes everyday and lighting a a candle for
him once a week. He then more subdued said,
"Thank you very much." Well there you have it in
Toronto and of course the whole world wants
peace. Now I just have to pay a visit to a
barber shop or a hair salon on a Saturday
morning with my YES WE CAN button and get in on
the mix. My students are now tuned in without me
having to assign it as homework and are watching
the debates.—Claire
Nader
Runs, Obama Responds Wisely—Ralph Nader is
running again for president. After four previous
bids, mounted in varying forums and with varying
goals, Nader is used to the slings and arrows
that will be tossed his way. He is conscious and
committed. He will not back off. . . . "I think
the job of the Democratic Party is to be so
compelling that a few percentage [points] of the
vote going to another candidate is not going to
make any difference," says Obama. That is the
bottom line with regard to Nader's latest bid.
If Obama runs as a progressive, Nader will have
little room to manoeuvre. If Obama runs to the
center, Nader's space will open up—a bit.—The
Nation
* * * * *
Obama's
Call for Change Speaks Loudly to Women—Hillary
Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, voters have a
choice between two smart, capable and energetic
candidates, either of whom would be far
preferable to the current president. Both will
champion many of the changes we want to see,
including fair pay, living wages, workers' right
to organize and new workplace standards so
family values don't end at the workplace door.
What tipped the balance for me are two key
factors: the damage caused by the war in Iraq
and my belief in grassroots organizing, rather
than great leaders, as the primary instrument of
social change. How is the war a women's issue,
reporters ask me. How is it not? Women are among
the troops; so are women's loved ones. The war
has squandered sums with more zeros that I can
imagine--funds that could have gone instead to
combat poverty, provide health care, rebuild
schools and pay teachers an adequate wage,
finance quality child care, repair
infrastructure--all of this creating jobs and
training opportunities. And let's not forget the
war's disastrous consequences on women in Iraq
and on our country's reputation in the world.
Clinton didn't just make one bad vote. She was a
persistent, vigorous and highly visible
supporter of the war, a lack of judgment
reinforced recently when she voted to classify
the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist
organization. Obama, on the other hand, opposed
the war from the start, even though that
position was unpopular in his state and he was
already a candidate for the U.S. Senate.—Ellen
Bravo
* * * * *
|
Hillary's Scarlett O'Hara Act—Black
women voters are rejecting Hillary
Clinton because her ascendance is
not a liberating symbol. Her tears
are not moving. Her voice does not
resonate. Throughout history,
privileged white women, attached at
the hip to their husband's power and
influence, have been complicit in
black women's oppression. Many
African American women are simply
refusing to play Mammy to Hillary.
The loyal Mammy figure, who toiled
in the homes of white people,
nursing their babies and cleaning
and cooking their food, is the most
enduring and dishonest
representation of black women. She
is a uniquely American icon who
first emerged as our young country
was trying to put itself back
together after the Civil War. The
romanticism about this period is a
bizarre historical anomaly that
underscores America's deep racism:
|
 |
| The defeated traitors of the
Confederacy have been allowed to
reinterpret the war's battles, fly
the flag of secession over state
houses, and raise monuments to those
who fought to tear down the
country. Southern white
secessionists were given the power
to rewrite history even as America's
newest citizens were relegated to
forced agricultural peonage,
grinding urban poverty and new forms
segregation and racial terror. Mammy
was a central figure in this
mythmaking and she was perfect for
the role. The Mammy myth allowed
Americans in the North and South to
ignore the brutality of slavery by
claiming that black women were tied
to white families through genuine
bonds of affection.
Melissa
harris-Lacewell
|
* * * * *
Why I support Barack Obama—I am not
so naive to believe that every single policy
that a President Obama might support would be
great, from my perspective. But I do believe
that unlike any other candidate, he can inspire
all of us to rise above our differences. I have
now spoken with individuals who have known
Barack growing up, in high school, in college,
in law school, and on the streets of Chicago. To
a person, they all attest to his honesty,
integrity, openness, and most importantly, his
ability to lead. He is special. So special, that
while he may be a once-in-a-lifetime President
for my children, this could be the second time
in my life that I truly can be inspired by the
President of the United States—a President who
has the ability to inspire Americans to come
together, to engage in community service, to be
better persons, to strive to do great things in
the interest of humankind. A President who is
not afraid to share his inspirational idealism.
Bill Ong Hing
* * * * *
* * * * *
 |
Black delegates under pressure to
switch to Obama—In Cleveland,
Ohio, a predominantly
African-American city, black voters
are hoping Obama becomes the next
president of the United States. But
that's making it very difficult for
the people who represent them.
Cleveland City Councilman Kevin
Conwell, a onetime supporter of Sen.
Hillary Clinton, is switching sides
to the Obama camp. It had little to
do with Clinton and everything to do
with pressure from people who voted
him into office. "I thought that I
would never see an African-American
going for president of the United
States of America.. |
| This is a dream and you need to get on the right
side of history, and my residents
want me to be a part of this dream,"
Conwell said. . .
Other nationally prominent
politicians have experienced similar
pressure. Three African-American
superdelegates have also defected,
including Georgia Rep. John Lewis, a
longtime Clinton ally. . . . With
all due respect to my colleagues,
whoever you are, I firmly believe if
you don't have loyalty and
integrity, what do you have? ... I
am a woman of my word. I will not
leave her," said Ohio
Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones.
Neither will California
Rep. Diane Watson, though she
said she's received not only
pressure, but also threatening
e-mails.
CNN |
 |
* * * * *
Obama Notes
2
Peggy, Rudy, and Kola
Peggy:
Rudy, all I know is that I like what is going on
very much. What I do feel a bit amazed about are those
black women politicians who are super delegates and who
are staunch Hillary supporters who have been on CNN
protesting the pressure put on them to change their
vote. Their comments strongly indicate that they are
being pressured by blacks to ditch Hillary. They in
turn swear that they will not abandon Hillary "just
because Obama is black." And, that they will take any
political heat that they have to because of their
stance.
That means to me that they do not see any redeeming
qualities in Obama whether he is black or white. I
guess I am reading that correctly. Further, I was
struck by a black woman that I barely know who
approached me at an affair last night where I received a
black radio station award for contributions to my
community. She was talking to me and my colleague. She
walked up to us and placed her arms around us together
and whispered. "Who are you voting for"? We both
loudly chimed Obama, of course.
She responded, still clinging to us. You are voting for
him because he is black. I responded, "You must be out
of your mind to say such a thing to me. I am voting for
him because he is just as qualified and more
than Hillary and he is a black man." She responded
saying, "Well you know he cannot win because he has fear
in him and that is not good." I responded, you must be
crazy, he has been fearless in the face of all kinds of
attacks and continues to be so."
She responded, "Well we just cannot let him get the
White House because he would be fearful." My response
was, "You must be crazy." I have a special feeling
about that conversation. It made me think that there
might be a kind of "underground network" in the Hillary
campaign that sees black women as a secret weapon again
Obama and hoping that this sort of "whispering
campaign," could have some legs with unsteady voters. I
do not wish to give any more 'legs" to this absurdity
but there has always been a white strategy to divide
black women and black men. Any comments?
Rudy:
Yes, I think the Hillary campaign is playing
the race game against Obama, ever since she lost in
Iowa. Maybe her black female campaign manager has put
the black female politicians and their organizers up to
this kind of bullying and scare tactics. In that Hillary
is more desperate, losing 11 primaries in a row, the
more insidious the game becomes. These kind of tactics
are more available than the ability to inspire. Let's
pray it'll be all over by March 4 so that a more vital
stage of this political contest can advance. Let's
hope too ill feelings are not left so that Obama cannot
mount an effective campaign against McCain.
Kola Boof:
Rudy, after this
coming Tuesday, I believe there will be Mass Defections
from Hillary, as it finally becomes clear that she has
no chance of winning the nomination. There isn't much left after Ohio
and Texas, and I'm predicting that Obama will take both. I think we'll be seeing a lot
of pressure on Hillary to drop out this week from the
DNP, because even Hillary's husband has made it clear
that she must win these two states.
* * * * *
Obama power broker new face of black
politics—West is one of the California
finance co-chairs of Obama's campaign, helping
him raise a record $65 million in the state, and
he also advises the candidate's national finance
committee. And he is more than Obama's
confidant. West is part of a new generation of
African American politicians who grew up outside
the black churches or the civil rights community
and now are finding their voice - and political
power - in the tone of Obama's campaign. West's
bulging Rolodex, like Obama's, is full of
contacts made while studying at an Ivy League
university (Harvard) and editing his law school
review (at Stanford). That network, in West's
case, was augmented by working on six
presidential campaigns (including both of Bill
Clinton's) and at an A-list San Francisco
corporate law firm (Morrison & Foerster).—SFGate—Another
example of a major shift—a generational
shift—that we are witnessing in Black leadership
in this country, a new leadership that isn't
dependent on the civil rights oligarchy or
historically-Black institutions like the church.
I was particularly interested in [Tony] West's
experience in defending terrorist Lindh and his
resulting recommitment to democratic principles.—Miriam
* * * * *
* * * * *
More News Excerpts
She’s
the Strife of the Party—Hillary Rodham
Clinton can not win the Democratic nomination
without destroying her party. Going into last
night's voting, she trailed Barack Obama by more
than 150 delegates. In order to catch up,
Clinton must rack up unprecedented victories in
all the upcoming contests—a tall order. The only
way she wins without such mystical intervention
is if superdelegates - the party insiders loyal
to her and her husband for whatever political
reasons - step in and throw the election to her.
The other
trick she's trying is to change the rules long
after the game was finished in Florida, which
she lists as one of her precious victories. A
big reason she won there is that it was an
uncontested race. Now that she's losing she
wants it counted. He is the movement candidate.
She is the retro candidate. If she wins the
Democratic nomination in spite of the
overwhelming demand for Barack Obama, many of
his supporters - including the party's crucial
bloc of black voters - will desert the party.
Whenever Clinton finally does surrender - or
she's booted out of the convention - she can
rest assured she will have left her mark.
Republicans have already begun crafting all the
nasty ads against Barack Obama based on the
attacks invented by her campaign.
NYPost
* * * * *
Obama
momentum slowed by 'Archie Bunker' voters—The
white, blue-collar voters personified by the
1970s fictional television character cost Obama
this week. His Democratic presidential rival,
Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, beat him 54
percent to 44 percent in industrial Ohio, and 58
percent to 40 percent in predominantly white
Rhode Island. In Ohio's 10th district of
Cuyahoga County, a suburban enclave on
Cleveland's west side that includes a large
population of Polish-Americans, Clinton trounced
Obama 61 percent to 37 percent, according to
exit polls. In the state's Belmont County, an
economically depressed Appalachian border area
that is predominantly white, she had a 50-point
lead over Obama, the first black candidate to
have a shot at the White House. ``Race played a
significant factor in Ohio,'' said Cuyahoga
County Commissioner Timothy Hagan, who supported
Obama. The state's white voters aren't ``bigots,
but the image they see every day of black
America is drugs, crime, guns and violence.''
Clinton's March 4 victories in contests in
Texas, Rhode Island and Ohio -- and just one
defeat, in Vermont -- pumped new life into her
candidacy after 11 consecutive losses to Obama.
She now has renewed momentum heading into the
next big test on April 22 in Pennsylvania, where
the electorate looks much like Ohio's. Yahoo
News
* * * * *
And then
there were three—Hillary Rodham Clinton—After
posting convincing — and crucial — wins in Rhode
Island, Ohio and Texas, the New York senator
plans to march toward a strong showing in
Pennsylvania on April 22 by continuing to ask
pointed questions about Illinois Sen. Barack
Obama’s qualifications to lead the nation.
Clinton is preparing to press her attacks on
Obama’s commitment to economic populism and his
readiness to serve as commander in chief. Those
arguments also will be used to make a case that
is crucial to Clinton’s ultimate ability to win
the nomination — the idea that she can win in
tough, large-scale elections in key states,
notably Ohio, and that Obama is wilting in the
face of her attacks. . . . Clinton plans to
visit Mississippi on Thursday, and Bill Clinton
is also being dispatched Friday for stops in
Hattiesburg, Meridian and Tupelo — but even her
most devout supporters have no illusions that
she can win the state. Her campaign there is far
less visible than Obama’s, and the sheer
demographics of the race — 56 percent of
Democratic primary voters in 2004 were
African-American, according to exit polls — mean
that her aides can at best hope to narrow her
margin of defeat.T he seven week lead-up to
Pennsylvania will also offer the press time to
return to some troublesome topics for Clinton
that got lost in the tightly packed weeks before
March 4. Recent reports on everything from Bill
Clinton’s business and charitable dealings in
Kazakhstan to Hillary Clinton’s representation
of an alleged rapist as a lawyer in Arkansas
have brought new information to the table, much
of which hasn’t been fully digested.
Politico Stories
* * * * *
And then
there were three—Barack Obama—After two days
of rest in Chicago, Obama will go first to
Wyoming, which holds caucuses Saturday, and then
to Mississippi, where voters head to the polls
March 11. But it was clear from the earliest
exchanges following Tuesday’s primary election
that both campaigns were looking beyond the next
two states to the April 22 contest in
Pennsylvania, where the candidates have six
weeks to woo voters in a state that has never
seen such attention in the midst of a primary
fight. David Plouffe, Obama’s campaign manager,
said the senator would campaign hard in
Pennsylvania but it wouldn’t be his sole focus
in the coming weeks. Obama will also spend time
in Indiana and North Carolina, which do not vote
until May 6. Obama and his aides appear to be
rolling out a two-pronged attack on Clinton: one
on her foreign policy credentials and the other
on ethics. He told reporters on his plane before
leaving San Antonio that Clinton must back up
her experience argument with evidence. . . .
Just as his chief strategist, David Axelrod,
hinted Tuesday, Obama also sought to draw a
brighter line with Clinton on ethics issues.
After taking hits in the past week over his
relationship with a Chicago businessman
currently on trial on federal corruption
charges, Obama said she would lose a fight over
ethics. “She has made the argument that she is
thoroughly vetted. I think it is important to
examine that argument,” Obama said. “If the
suggestion [is] that on issues of ethics or
disclosure or transparency, that she is somehow
going to have a better record than I have or
could better withstand Republican attack, then
that is an issue that should be tested.”
Politico Stories
* * * * *
Go Back
to Black—Everywhere I travel, from North
Africa to Europe to Asia, dark-skinned people
approach me and, usually gently but sometimes
aggressively, establish a bond. When, early on
in the race for the Democratic nomination,
people wondered if black Americans would vote
for Mr. Obama, I never doubted. During the last
two years I’ve learned to decipher his name in
almost any pronunciation, because on finding out
that I’m an American, all other black people I
meet, whether they are Arabic-speaking Moroccans
in Casablanca, French-speaking African
mobile-phone-store clerks in the outer boroughs
of Paris, or thickly accented Jamaican black
Brits, ask me eagerly about him. Black people
all over the world feel a sense of pride in his
accomplishment.
It’s hard
to understand why black Americans ever tried to
use the term African-American to exclude people.
The black American community’s social and
political power derives from its inclusiveness.
. . . On Mr. Obama’s behalf, American blacks
have set aside their exclusive label. Polls show
that about 80 percent of blacks who have voted
in the Democratic primaries have chosen him. And
all of the black people in the mountains of
Morocco, the poor suburbs of Paris, the little
villages in Kenya and the streets of London are
cheering Mr. Obama’s victories because they see
him as one of their own. Black Americans should
honor that. It’s time to retire the term
African-American and go back to black.
NYTimes
* * * * *
Sen.
Barack Obama delivered an animated rebuke to
suggestions from the Clintons he could run as
her vice president—“Now first of all with
all due respect, with all due respect," he said
here during a town hall meeting. "I won twice as
many states as Sen. Clinton. I won more of the
popular vote than Sen. Clinton. I have more
delegates than Sen. Clinton. So I don’t’ know
how someone in second place can offer the vice
presidency to someone in first place. If I was
in second place I could understand but I am in
first place right now. He referenced comments
from Bill Clinton in 1992 that his “most
important criteria” for vice president was that
person must be ready to be commander in chief.
“They have been spending the last two or three
weeks” arguing that he is not ready to be
commander in chief, Obama said. “I don’t
understand. If I am not ready, how is it that
you think I should be such a great vice
president?” Obama asked the crowd, which gave
him a standing ovation during his defense. “I
don’t understand.” “You can’t say he is not
ready on day one, then you want him to be your
vice president,” Obama continued. “I just want
everybody to be absolutely clear: I am not
running for vice president. I am running to be
president of the United States of America.”
Obama was responding to comments from Clinton
spokesman Howard Wolfson on a conference call
earlier today, in which he suggested that Obama
could pass the "threshold" and become commander
in chief material this summer."Senator Clinton
will not choose any candidate who has not at the
time of choosing passed the national security
threshold. But we have a long way to go until
Denver, and it's not something she's prepared to
rule out at this point," he said.
Politico
* * * * *
Dick Morris To Clinton: It’s Over--The
race is over.The results are already clear.
Obama will go to the Democratic Convention with
a lead of between 100 and 200 elected delegates.
The remaining question is: What will the
superdelegates do then? But is that really a
question? Will the leaders of the Democratic
Party be complicit in its destruction? Will they
really kindle a civil war by denying the
nomination to the man who won the most elected
delegates? No way. They well understand that to
do so would be to throw away the party's chances
of victory and to stigmatize it among
African-Americans and young people for the rest
of their lives. The Democratic Party took 20
years to recover from the traumas of 1968 and it
is not about to trigger a similar bloodletting
this year.
HuffingtonPost
* * * * *
Gary Hart—Breaking the Final Rule—It will
come as a surprise to many people that there are
rules in politics. Most of those rules are
unwritten and are based on common
understandings, acceptable practices, and the
best interest of the political party a candidate
seeks to lead.
One of those rules is this: Do not
provide ammunition to the opposition party that
can be used to destroy your party's nominee.
This is a hyper-truth where the presidential
contest is concerned. By saying that only she
and John McCain are qualified to lead the
country, particularly in times of crisis,
Hillary Clinton has broken that rule, severely
damaged the Democratic candidate who may well be
the party's nominee, and, perhaps most
ominously, revealed the unlimited lengths to
which she will go to achieve power. She has
essentially said that the Democratic party
deserves to lose unless it nominates her. . . .
Senator Obama is right to say the issue
is judgment not years in Washington. If Mrs.
Clinton loses the nomination, her failure will
be traced to the date she voted to empower
George W. Bush to invade Iraq. That is not the
kind of judgment, or wisdom, required by the
leader answering the phone in the night. For her
now to claim that Senator Obama is not qualified
to answer the crisis phone is the height of
irony if not chutzpah, and calls into question
whether her primary loyalty is to the Democratic
party and the nation or to her own ambition.
HuffingtonPost * * * * *
Robert B. Reich—Will Clinton spoil the
party?—In the days leading up to the Ohio
and Texas primaries, we had HRC's
statement that both she and McCain have the
experience to be commander-in-chief but Obama
doesn't. This is the first time in my memory
that a major candidate in a primary has said
that the other party's nominee would be a better
president than his or her own primary opponent.
We also had the outpouring of negative
advertising from her campaign that both
candidates had largely managed to avoid up to
this point. And while I can understand her
decision, bolstered by last week's results, to
fight on in this primary election, the reality
is that she can only win by convincing large
numbers of
superdelegates to join her and
re-engineering the Michigan and Florida
primaries to her advantage, and then taking the
fight all the way to the convention in August -
which if she gets that far, will be one of the
most divisive in 40 years. . . . . The Clintons
would prefer to write off Obamania as a passing
fad, but the reality is that idealism and
inspiration are necessary preconditions for
positive social change. Nothing happens in
Washington unless Americans are energised and
mobilised to make it happen. HRC's tactics are
the old politics the nation is recoiling from -
internal division and national fear. This only
serves to deepen Americans' cynicism about
politics, and makes social change all the harder
to achieve.
Guardian
* * * * *
Clinton's foreign experience is more limited
than she says—To bolster the claim, she's
trumpeted her role as first lady in bringing
peace to Northern Ireland, helping to open
Macedonia's borders to Kosovo refugees and
challenging China on women's rights, all as
proof that she has what it takes to manage a
foreign crisis. Yet while it's impossible to
know how much she conferred privately about such
matters with her husband, former President Bill
Clinton, when he was in power, public records
and interviews with former Clinton
administration officials and others strongly
suggest that Clinton overstates her role. Leon
Panetta, Bill Clinton's White House chief of
staff, and Sandy Berger, Bill Clinton's national
security adviser, both said that Hillary Clinton
wasn't privy to the president's daily
intelligence brief, nor did she sit in on
National Security Council meetings. It's unclear
whether Clinton had a national security
clearance when she was first lady. Several
former top-level Clinton White House officials
couldn't recall, and a Clinton campaign
spokesman didn't respond when asked on Tuesday.
On the stump, Clinton takes credit for helping
to bring peace between warring Catholics and
Protestants in Northern Ireland. George
Mitchell, the former Maine senator who helped
negotiate the peace agreements, has said that
Clinton's visits to the region and meetings with
female activists there were "very helpful" in
the peace efforts. But one of the key Irish
negotiators last week called Clinton's
description of her role in the process a "wee
bit silly."
McClatchy
* * * * *
Orlando Patterson—The Red Phone in Black and
White—To be sure, it [this Clinton ad]
states that something is “happening in the
world” — although it never says what this is —
and that Mrs. Clinton is better able to handle
such danger because of her experience with
foreign leaders. But every ad-maker, like every
social linguist, knows that words are often the
least important aspect of a message and are
easily muted by powerful images. I have spent my
life studying the pictures and symbols of racism
and slavery, and when I saw the Clinton ad’s
central image — innocent sleeping children and a
mother in the middle of the night at risk of
mortal danger — it brought to my mind scenes
from the past. I couldn’t help but think of D.
W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation,” the racist
movie epic that helped revive the Ku Klux Klan,
with its portrayal of black men lurking in the
bushes around white society. The danger implicit
in the phone ad — as I see it — is that the
person answering the phone might be a black man,
someone who could not be trusted to protect us
from this threat. The ad could easily have
removed its racist sub-message by including
images of a black child, mother or father — or
by stating that the danger was external
terrorism. Instead, the child on whom the camera
first focuses is blond. Two other sleeping
children, presumably in another bed, are not
blond, but they are dimly lighted, leaving them
ambiguous. Still it is obvious that they are not
black — both, in fact, seem vaguely Latino.
Finally, Hillary Clinton appears, wearing a
business suit at 3 a.m., answering the phone.
The message: our loved ones are in grave danger
and only Mrs. Clinton can save them. An Obama
presidency would be dangerous — and not just
because of his lack of experience. In my
reading, the ad, in the insidious language of
symbolism, says that Mr. Obama is himself the
danger, the outsider within.
NYTimes
* * * * *
Something to help you stay focused: Obama now
leads Hillbillary by 700,000 popular votes.
Will Bubba now try to finesse this golden boy
under his wing? Will Obama be seduced and not
fight for superdelegates? What will ultimately
become the abiding argument for keeping unity
within the Party?—Mackie
* * * * *
Obama Denounces Pastor—Democratic
presidential candidate Barack Obama on Friday
denounced inflammatory remarks from his pastor,
who has railed against the United States and
accused the country of bringing on the Sept. 11,
2001 attacks by spreading terrorism. . . .
In a sermon on the Sunday after the terrorist
attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Wright suggested the
United States brought on the attacks. "We bombed
Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far
more than the thousands in New York and the
Pentagon, and we never batted an eye," Wright
said. "We have supported state terrorism against
the Palestinians and black South Africans, and
now we are indignant because the stuff we have
done overseas is now brought right back to our
own front yards. America's chickens are coming
home to roost."
|
In a 2003
sermon, he said blacks should condemn the United
States. "The government gives them the drugs,
builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law
and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.'
No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the
Bible for killing innocent people. God damn
America for treating our citizens as less than
human. God damn America for as long as she acts
like she is God and she is supreme." He also
gave a sermon in December comparing Obama to
Jesus, promoting his candidacy and criticizing
his rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton. "Barack knows
what it means to be a black man to be living in
a country and a culture that is controlled by
rich white people," Wright told a cheering
congregation. "Hillary can never know that.
Hillary ain't never been called a nigger."
Obama told
MSNBC that he would not repudiate Wright as a
man, describing him as "like an uncle" who says
something that he disagrees with and must speak
out against. He also said he expects his
political opponents will use video of the
sermons to attack him as the campaign goes on. .
. .
|
 |
Obama wrote
on the Huffington Post that he never heard
Wright say any of the statements, but he
acknowledged that they have raised legitimate
questions about the nature of his relationship
with the pastor and the church. He wrote that he
joined Wright's church nearly 20 years ago,
familiar with the pastor's background as a
former Marine and respected biblical scholar who
lectured at seminaries across the country. AOL
* * * * *
Obama Notes 3
Rudy, Ralph, Crystal,
Kiwana, Mackie
Can
White Folks Stand the Pain—They dug up some
real zingers from the good Reverend Wright.
David Gergen (white guy) was pretty good:
he mentioned Frederick Douglass's 4th of July
speech. But of course the "pained white folks"
are just aghast that Black PREACHERS could be
saying such things.—Joyce
Thanks for
bringing to my attention this latest campaign
development. I wonder do black Obama opponents
think he is now "black" enough, and that the
Obama campaign is all a corporate conspiracy. We
know that some ethnic whites already think he is
too black and too male. For the rabbit seems to
have been quite tarred by his former pastor. Can
Obama in the white imagination sufficiently
distance himself from such black militant
outpourings? Or will there be more rain to come
to sully our black prince?
Well, white folks need a real dose of the
urgency of black reality. It is not just Cornel
West's criminal black nihilists that have to be
dealt with but there are also those who educate
the black middle class that are too of
concern. Will Obama-loving whites go forward
subjugating the words of his former pastor for
his YES WE CAN, or will they go back
to Hillary's 3 AM fears. I suppose this is where
the rubber meets the road. Oh, what lessons we
will learn about white America during this
campaign year. Will I salute the flag to honor an
American conversion, or turn my back again with
its denial of the PROMISE?
What a schzoid rollercoaster ride we are on. Can
white folks stand the pain? Or will we be forced
to eat more Jim Crow? Well, let's pray that
grandma keeps humming. For, according to Baraka,
when she stops humming all hell will break
loose. Let it be written, come hell or high
water, I won't be voting for a Clinton or a
McCain.
|
Obama Denounces Pastor-Democratic
presidential candidate Barack Obama
on Friday denounced inflammatory
remarks from his pastor, who has
railed against the United States and
accused the country of bringing on
the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks by
spreading terrorism. . . .
In a sermon on the Sunday after the
terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001,
Wright suggested the United States
brought on the attacks. "We bombed
Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and
we nuked far more than the thousands
in New York and the Pentagon, and we
never batted an eye," Wright said.
"We have supported state terrorism
against the Palestinians and black
South Africans, and now we are
indignant because the stuff we have
done overseas is now brought right
back to our own front yards.
America's chickens are coming home
to roost."
In a 2003 sermon, he said blacks
should condemn the United States.
"The government gives them the
drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes
a three-strike law and then wants us
to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no,
no, God damn America, that's in the
Bible for killing innocent people.
God damn America for treating our
citizens as less than human. God
damn America for as long as she acts
like she is God and she is supreme."
He also gave a sermon in December
comparing Obama to Jesus, promoting
his candidacy and criticizing his
rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton. "Barack
knows what it means to be a black
man to be living in a country and a
culture that is controlled by rich
white people," Wright told a
cheering congregation. "Hillary can
never know that. Hillary ain't never
been called a nigger." Obama told
MSNBC that he would not repudiate
Wright as a man, describing him as
"like an uncle" who says something
that he disagrees with and must
speak out against. He also said he
expects his political opponents will
use video of the sermons to attack
him as the campaign goes on. . . .
Obama wrote on the Huffington Post
that he never heard Wright say any
of the statements, but he
acknowledged that they have raised
legitimate questions about the
nature of his relationship with the
pastor and the church. He wrote that
he joined Wright's church nearly 20
years ago, familiar with the
pastor's background as a former
Marine and respected biblical
scholar who lectured at seminaries
across the country.
News AOL |
—Rudy
* * * * *
I got so
tired of watching all the indignation on CNN and
MSNBC. The week started with Spitzer, and ended
with Jeremiah Wright. I couldn't stand it so
switched to Larry Kudlow on CNBC. Anyone who
knows anything about black religion knows that
Wright was simply issuing one of those periodic
"Jeremiads" that have been well known among
black Christians since the days of David
Walker. No news here.—Wilson
* * * * *
Pain!
The clash
of the orthodoxies! What is street orthodoxy in
the African community intends hurt for hurt,
lashing out instead of taking it
quietly. Because Rev. Jeremiah
Wright theologically reflected on the experience
of South Side Chicagoans effectively and on
similar experiences across the nation he enjoyed
a reputation as a Revival preacher, an effective
voice in a predominantly Anglo denomination.
Theology
always frustrates religionists who seek a
steady, conformist message. Even in the Bible,
conflicting voices contradict each other,
arising as they did, from very different
experiences, teaching us that theology always
reflects on the sacred dimension of lived
experience, usually at points of suffering and
crisis.
Ultimately,
political scientists and their students, the
politicians, must accept and identify with
the real, lived experience of the people. How
the various segments of the USA electorate have
expressed their experiences so far has baffled
pundits and commentators who have not been among
real people who suffer and experience crises of
all kinds lately. Our sanitized news broadcasts
seldom, if ever, report on the social, cultural,
and religious aspects of suffering and the
crises people confront. They confine their
reports on these matters to their personal,
familial dimensions and the band aid approaches
of charities, churches, and celebrities.
God's
radical Hope is a dangerous thing.—Ralph—www.actionpreaching.com
* * * * *
Inflammatory & Appalling? Get Real!—I am so
disappointed in Senator Obama for letting white
folks punk him out to the point that he
denounced his own pastor for telling the simple
TRUTH. I’d have more respect for him if he’d
stood his ground and faced the truth head on. I
am an Obama Mama but today I am very
disappointed. While I realize that he has to
play the politically correct game to a point I
think that flaking out about the very real
issues faced by Black folks in order to court
the votes of racists is pointless. They were
never gonna vote for him anyway. But by denying
the racial differences that divide & corrupt
this nation makes him appear less credible &
weak... which in the long term is going to lose
votes of those that have supported him so
staunchly. Everyone knows that what the
minister said was true. Everyone globally knows
that this nation is run by wealthy white men.
So what it was actually articulated. Martin
Luther King said pretty much the same thing, he
just said it in a poetic manner but he never
tried to deny the differences between the
socio-economic status of Black & Whites. Why is
Obama trying to deny his blackness? Even letting
them attack his wife for speaking the truth
about her/our feelings about the racial
disparity between anyone with white
skin/straight hair & Blacks in this nation. Get
real brother. Remember the One Drop Law. To
racists you are just another nigger. Never
forget it. There is nothing anyone else can say
to change my mind about voting for you... but
YOU.—Crystal
Cartier, Denver, CO
* * * * *
Hey Rudy, I
agree with you both. However, Obama has to play
the American game as you both stated. I felt
what Crystal was saying, but I wouldn't go as
far to say that he's denying his blackness.
Crystal is right when she stated that Dr.
King addressed the same issues, but Dr.
King said it in a much more tactful way. When
you're in those type of positions, you may
want to embrace a more "poetic" style as Crystal
stated. Obama is a black man. He knows that! I
think he happens to be a very smart black man
and knows how to play this game. I am however,
getting tired of the public making it Obama's
business to try to explain his supporters'
opinions. If we keep this up, we will be
repudiating someone's comment every week.—Kiwana
* * * * *
Crystal, of
course, is correct to be angry. So am I
certainly, but I also know it's easy to be
faster thinkers when we are not wrapped up in
the campaign in any direct way. Though I also
wish Barack had people working for him who are
as smart as we are. I am not being facetious.
Don't get me wrong. Let me explain.
Barack has missed three perfect opportunities to
counter-finesse the Limbaugh but berries out
there setting the Nation up against him and he
has let all three instances pass him by.
"MONSTER"
When Samantha Power called Hillary a monster,
Barack could have explained that Samantha was
referring to the "monstrous" behavior of
Hillary's aides and to some of the exaggerations
of Hillary herself. He could have gone on to
point out that he had promised from the
beginning not to act "monstrously" against any
opponent. Do you see what I mean? Barack let
the noun "monster" stand out there in broad
daylight, when he could have finessed it back
into the adjective "monstrous" and the adverb
"monstrously." Those are weaker forms and don't
impugn direct agency on Hillary but do imply a
shared agency on the behavior of her entire
crew, including, of course, Hillary herself. And
Barack could have uttered all of this while
laughing at how ridiculously funny the whole
thing was. It would have disappeared. And his
letting Samantha Power go reminded me too much
of Bill Clinton dismissing Lani Guanier.
FERRARO
Poor Geraldine. She does not realize the extent
to which she was diminishing her own womanhood.
She implied that she was chosen only because she
was a woman and Mondale wanted a woman. She
implied that she was chosen because of her
gender and not her contributions. Well, Barack
should have stepped up and made that
observation. And then he should have gone on to
point out that no one in the party said, "Hmmm.
We also need us a black candidate this go-round.
Let us go pick us a black fellow." No one picked
Barack! He chose himself because he felt
prepared and ready. He should have made that
point also.
REV WRIGHT
This is the most heinous context Obama haters
are riffing on. Obama needed to have taken a
deep breath on camera and taken his time to
point out the obvious—namely, that Rev. Wright
throughout that sermon reminded everyone in the
congregation, including white parishioners, that
he was always in the Good Text, that he never
was about to veer away from the Word, that he
was speaking from Love and the lack of Love, and
that he was pointing out that the shadows of
evil fall where there is not an expression of
Divine Love in the behavior of people and a
nation. The Pastor said all of this as refrains
as he preached! How come Barack is not pointing
this out?
The reaction to the pastor reminded me of
something I learned in the early 1980s when I
returned back to the South. I learned from my
white students that Blacks and Jews were racists
because all they ever did mostly was to complain
about slavery or the Holocaust. In other words,
a racist is one who always talks about racial
pain because a racist is one who always raises
the race issue. My God! I am still shocked over
that one, especially when I am reminded of it
even still today. Ferraro pulled that one in
claiming that "they" are the ones bringing up
the issue of race, so "they" are racists,
meaning Obama and his camp.
Why isn't Law professor, Critical Thinker Obama
parsing this crap? Why isn't he introducing
observations like these into the discourse? I am
sure that he could do this without sounding
professorial!
One more point about Black preachers like the
Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Christians, white and
black, of the liturgical churches (Orthodox
Christian, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican)
are very uncomfortable with the cadence of Black
preachers like Rev. Wright. That style and voice
are not found in the liturgical churches and it
sounds "too black" for comfort. There are, of
course, white folks who love that style of
preaching because it does grab a person in the
viscera. So I am sure that people who use Rev.
Wright against Obama by replaying parts of his
sermon over and over again, especially on
daytime radio, know that that style of preaching
shivers the timbers of the red necks and the
almost recovering racists among us.
This Rev. Wright trope created by the Rush
Limbaugh butt berries can cost Barack the
nomination, as can the Ferraro trope of calling
us racists when we point out the "unconscious"
racism in their so-called benign objective
observations.—Mackie
* * * * *
Why isn't
Law professor, Critical Thinker Obama parsing
this crap? Why isn't he introducing
observations like these into the discourse? I am
sure that he could do this without sounding
professorial!—Mackie
* * * * *
Is this a rhetorical question? Of course, you
have done some excellent parsing of three
situations. In theory Obama would agree with you
as any reasonable person would. But let me try
to respond to the question. One issue is that
Obama has set standards of political behavior
that locks him into a corner, and, second, he does not
know seemingly how to sidestep when his
self-positioning becomes too dangerous, like a
Muhammad Ali, and be on the toes creative.
It's all right to rope a dope, but sometimes you
have to step out the corner and sting the
opponent with a jab or shake him up with an
uppercup to slow him down. So maybe he does not know how to fight
this kind of fight. He's not an American Negro.
Nor his key advisors, as you suggested.
One item in this cornering is the speed of the
response. His camp accused the Clintons of the
slowness of their response, with the Ferraro
situation and others. And so he quickly responds
without making use of criticisms from his camp
as a means of teaching a broader understanding,
which makes one wonder will he take this kind of behavior into his administration.
Connected to this cornering is the nature of the
media itself, which does short clips and repeats
and exaggerates. It's not easy to get settings
in which to explain the complexities of say the
Wright-kind-of sermonizing on race and racial
oppression. Or even Ferraro's sermonizing on the
gender/race divide. In both instances his
parsing might be mistaken for a defense of
racial ideologies in the
first instance and an attack on white women in
the second instance. Plus he says he's not
familiar with Wright's liberation theology,
which seems rather incredulous. And maybe going
into second-wave feminism, like liberation
theology, is really not his forte. He chose to
denounce it quickly rather than validate it, in
order to get back to the "issues."
But it would be nice to hear how others respond
to your central questions of Obama's
response.—Rudy
* * * * *
Political expediency—nothing more, nothing less.
If he dumps Michelle I'm through with him.—Jean
* * * * *
More News Excerpts
A More Perfect Union
Barack Obama Speech on Race
Yesterday,
Barack Obama delivered one of the most powerful,
honest, and insightful speeches on race in
American politics by an elected official in
decades. He spoke with refreshing clarity about
the real issues that divide us and the choices
we face. One choice is to ignore the history of
racism and its present-day legacy--which will
keep us divided. The other choice is for Black
people and our allies to understand that history
in order to move beyond it, building an America
that we can be proud of, one that truly stands
for justice and equality.
It was a
speech that all of us can appreciate, no matter
which candidate we support. And it speaks to
what we are trying to build with
ColorOfChange.org—a
nation where, despite our difficult racial
history, Black people are able to broaden our
coalition and raise a strong voice for justice.
Color of Change
* * * * *
Mr. Obama’s Profile in Courage—He did not
hide from the often-unspoken reality that people
on both sides of the color line are angry. “For
the men and women of Reverend Wright’s
generation,” he said, “the memories of
humiliation and fear have not gone away, nor the
anger and the bitterness of those years.” At the
same time, many white Americans, Mr. Obama
noted, do not feel privileged by their race. “In
an era of stagnant wages and global competition,
opportunity comes to be seen as a zero-sum
game,” he said, adding that both sides must
acknowledge that the other’s grievances are not
imaginary. He made the powerful point that while
these feelings are not always voiced publicly,
they are used in politics. “Anger over welfare
and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan
coalition,” he said. Against this backdrop, he
said, he could not repudiate his pastor. “I can
no more disown him than I can disown the black
community,” he said. “I can no more disown him
than I can my white grandmother.” That woman
whom he loves deeply, he said, “once confessed
her fear of black men who passed by her on the
street” and more than once “uttered racial or
ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.” There
have been times when we wondered what Mr. Obama
meant when he talked about rising above
traditional divides. This was not such a moment.
We can’t know how effective Mr. Obama’s words
will be with those who will not draw the
distinctions between faith and politics that he
drew, or who will reject his frank talk about
race. What is evident, though, is that he not
only cleared the air over a particular
controversy—he raised the discussion to a higher
plane.NYTtimes
* * * * *
A
Candidate Chooses Reconciliation Over Rancor—In
a setting that bespoke the presidential, he
began with the personal: He invoked his own
biography as the son of a black Kenyan man and a
white American woman, grandson of a World War II
veteran and a bomber assembly line worker,
husband of a black American who carries “the
blood of slaves and slave owners.” Seared into
his genetic makeup, he said, is “the idea that
this nation is more than the sum of its
parts—that out of many, we are truly one.” He
condemned Mr. Wright’s remarks as divisive but
at the same time embraced him as family, “as
imperfect as he may be.” He traced the roots of
black church preaching deep into “the bitterness
and bias” of the black experience. He offered a
primer on the link between today’s racial
disparities and the system of legalized
discrimination that prevented blacks from owning
property, joining unions, becoming police
officers and firefighters, and accumulating
wealth to pass on to future generations. “For
the men and women of Reverend Wright’s
generation, the memories of humiliation and
doubt and fear have not gone away,” Mr. Obama
said. “Nor has the anger and the bitterness of
those years. That anger may not get expressed in
public, in front of white co-workers or white
friends. But it does find voice in the
barbershop or around the kitchen table.” And
occasionally, he said, “in the church on Sunday
morning, in the pulpit and in the pews.”
He
acknowledged white anger, too — over things like
affirmative action and forced school busing —
but urged both sides to address the subject to
find a way forward.
“Race is an
issue that I believe this nation cannot afford
to ignore right now,” Mr. Obama said. He said
the controversies over the past couple of weeks
“reflect the complexities of race in this
country that we’ve never really worked through —
a part of our union that we have yet to perfect.
And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat
into our respective corners, we will never be
able to come together and solve challenges like
health care, or education, or the need to find
good jobs for every American.” Historians and
others described the speech’s candidness on race
as almost without precedent.
John Hope Franklin, a
Duke University historian who led an
advisory commission on race relations set up by
President
Bill Clinton, said Mr. Obama pointed out how
easily the question of race can be distorted in
this country, “which has three centuries of
experience with it and yet we act like this is
something new.”
Julian Bond, the longtime civil rights
activist, said the speech moved him to tears.
Orlando Patterson, a professor of sociology
at Harvard, said he believed the speech would
“go down as one of the great, magnificent and
moving speeches in the American political
tradition.” “I hear so many people saying we
want a national conversation on race but it’s
never quite worked,” he said. “He was able to do
this in one speech. But he was able to do it in
a nonpartisan way in that he saw both sides.”
NYTimes
* * * * *
Racists
for Obama?—“Not
all whites associate the generic African-American with Obama,” said Ron
Walters, a longtime student of race and politics and aide to the senior
Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaigns. “They give him credit for having
half a Caucasian ancestry, and give him credit for his education, and
give him credit for his obvious ability to take complex subjects and
parse them.”
Politico
* * * * *
Black,
White & Gray—The black and white plaguing
the Obama camp was not only about skin color.
Facing up to his dubious behavior toward his
explosive friends, he had his first rude
introduction in his political career to
ambivalence, ambiguity and complexity. Obama did
not surrender his pedestal willingly. But he was
finally confronted by a problem that neither his
charm nor his grandiosity would solve.He now
admits that he had heard the Rev. Wright make
“controversial” remarks in church, and that he
had a “lapse of judgment” when he let the
much-investigated Rezko curry favor by buying
the plot of land next to his and selling a slice
back so Obama could have a bigger yard. Newly
alert to the perils of not seeming patriotic
enough, he ended a speech in Pennsylvania the
other morning with “God bless America!” A little
disenchantment with Obama could turn out to be a
good thing. Too much idealism can blind a leader
to reality as surely as too much ideology can.
Up until now, Obama and his worshipers have set
it up so that he must be so admirable and ideal
and perfect and everything we’ve ever wanted
that any kind of blemish — even a parking ticket
— was regarded as a major failing. With the
Clintons, we expect them to be cheesy on ethics,
so no one is ever surprised when they are. But
Saint Obama played the politics of character to
an absurd extent. For 14 months, his argument
for leading the world has been himself—his
exquisitely globalized self. He should be
congratulated on the disappearance of the
pedestal. Leaders don’t need to be messiahs.
Gray is a welcome relief from black and white.
NYTimes
* *
* * *
The
Origin of Obama’s Pastor Problem—The speech
he delivered at the National Constitution Center
in Philadelphia was an artfully reasoned
treatise on race and rancor in America, the most
memorable speech delivered by any candidate in
this campaign and one that has earned Obama
comparisons to Lincoln, Kennedy and King. But
that doesn't mean it will succeed in its more
prosaic mission of appealing to voters who have
their doubts about Obama and his preacher. It
left unanswered a crucial question: What
attracted Obama to Wright in the first place?
When Obama joined Chicago's Trinity United
Church of Christ in 1988, the Afrocentric church
and its pastor held particular appeal to a
27-year-old son of an African father he barely
knew and a white mother from Kansas. Obama was
searching for an identity and a community, and
he found both at Trinity. And he found a
spiritual guide in Wright. Much of white America
is unfamiliar with the milieu of the black
church. When clips from Wright's sermons began
circulating, many whites heard divisive, angry,
unpatriotic pronouncements on race, class and
country. Many blacks, on the other hand, heard
something more familiar: righteous anger about
oppression and deliberate hyperbole in laying
blame, which are common in sermons delivered in
black churches every Sunday. The Rev. Terri
Owens, dean of students at the University of
Chicago Divinity School, says the black church
tradition has its roots in the era of slavery,
when African Americans held services under
trees, far from their white masters. "Churches
have always been the place where black people
could speak freely," she says. "They were the
only institutions they could own and run by
themselves." Time
* *
* * *
|
 |
Now the Other Bill Cripples
Hill’s Wobbly Campaign—Bill
Richardson's escape from the Clinton
orbit yesterday was one more
crushing blow to the hollowed-out
establishment campaign that once
traded on its own inevitability. The
Hispanic governor's enthusiastic
endorsement of Barack Obama is a
stinging professional, political and
personal rebuke of Hillary Rodham
Clinton. One of the most experienced
diplomats in the Clinton circle,
Richardson blew a crater in the
Clinton argument that Obama's
inexperience with foreign affairs
means he cannot be trusted to be
commander in chief and leaves as
phony the suggestion that Obama is
less qualified than Hillary to
answer that 3 a.m. call on the red
phone.
In some ways, Richardson's
endorsement comes at a crucial time,
suggesting just how much the former
Bill Clinton appointee wants to see
the end of the Clintons' grip on the
Democratic Party. |
By offering
his support at the end of a bad week for Obama,
Richardson helped the campaign change the
subject from Obama's anti-American preacher. It
also comes at a time when Obama's nomination
appears a little less certain, meaning that
Richardson chose a moment where he risks backing
the wrong candidate and enraging a vindictive
former ally. And as if that weren't insulting
enough, Richardson even added the extra dig by
calling Obama a "once-in-a-lifetime leader."
NYPost
* *
* * *
The Tightrope and the Needle—It appears
that all the mainstream, high-profile feminists
got the same talking-points memo from the
Clinton campaign. Ferraro, pit bull that she is,
was just a little more raw in her delivery. If
you didn’t get the memo, here are the talking
points.
|
Ø Though the Democrats are blessed
with an embarrassment of riches,
with a black man and a woman
contending for the nomination,
Clinton is unequivocally the only
one prepared for the rigors of the
presidency.
Ø Obama is all fluff, no substance,
glib and attractive, but also a
cocksure, ageist upstart.
Ø Given the depths of Obama’s
inexperience, his present popularity
can only be explained by the reverse
discrimination effect: he’s unfairly
benefiting from his status as a
black man.
Ø Older white women are supporting
Clinton because they recognize
bottom-line competence, know how to
vote in their own best interests,
grow more radical with age, and are
ready to make history.
Ø White men are supporting Obama
because of their latent or blatant
sexism. They’re confused by the
unfamiliar choices presented them,
and more freaked out by the prospect
of a woman in the White House than
they are by the prospect of the
first African American president.
Ø Maybe Obama will be a candidate to
consider once he’s more politically
seasoned, i.e., after eight years of
Clinton.
Ø Sexism is the most pervasive and
persistent form of discrimination.
Ø Racism is on the run, nearly
vanquished save a few remnants. |
From
Gloria
Steinem to
Robin Morgan to
Geraldine Ferraro to
Erica Jong, they’re all playing the same
tune. Now we can’t blame the women for fighting
hard for their candidate, but it is
disappointing, to say the very least, that in
heralding Clinton as the proper choice for every
feminist and all women they have also managed to
dredge up some of the least attractive features
of liberal feminism.
|
For nearly forty years feminists
have wrangled over how to integrate
issues of race, class, sexual
orientation and other markers of
inequality into a coherent, powerful
gender analysis. Women of color
insist on the complex relationship
between racism and sexism and the
central significance of racism in
the lives of people of color. White
feminists nod their heads, “Yes, of
course, we understand, we’re with
you on that.” Then comes the crunch,
when the content of your feminism
actually matters – as it does in
this campaign – and they revert to
the primacy of sexism over all other
forms of discrimination and
oppression.
All the tendencies that got feminism
tagged as a white, middle-class
women’s thing are, brutally, back in
play. There’s a lot of twisting and
turning going on in the effort to explain Obama’s
viability. If he’s so completely inexperienced, why are
people coming out to vote for him in record numbers? |
 |
Must be
that racism is dead but sexism isn’t. Must be
that he’s an affirmative action baby. Must be
that people are mesmerized, charmed and
bewitched by his silver tongue. Must be that
people are voting with their hearts for hope
instead of with their heads for hard-headed
competence.
IndyBay News
Story
behind the story: The Clinton myth—There are
566 pledged delegates up for grabs in upcoming
contests. Those delegates come from Pennsylvania
(158), Guam (4) North Carolina (115), Indiana
(72), West Virginia (28), Kentucky (51), Oregon
(52), Puerto Rico (55), Montana (16) and South
Dakota (15). If Clinton won 60 percent of those
delegates, she would get 340 delegates to
Obama's 226. Under that scenario — and without
revotes in Michigan and Florida — Obama would
still lead in delegates by 1,632 to 1,589. The
only remote possibility of a win in delegates
would come if revotes were held in Florida and
Michigan — which, again, would take a political
miracle. If Clinton won 60 percent of the
delegates in both states, she would win 188
delegates and Obama would win 125. Clinton would
then lead among pledged delegates, 1,777 to
1,757.
The other
elephant in the room for Clinton is that Obama
is almost certain to win North Carolina, with
its high percentage of African-American voters,
and also is seen as extremely strong in Oregon.
. . . To foster doubt about Obama, Clinton
supporters are using a whisper and pressure
campaign to make an 11th-hour argument to party
insiders that he would be a weak candidate in
November despite his superior standing at the
moment. “All she has left is the electability
argument,” a Democratic official said. "It’s all
wrapped around: Is there something that makes
him ultimately unelectable?”
But the
audience for that argument, the superdelegates,
will not easily overturn the will of the party’s
voters. And in fact, a number of heavyweight
Democrats are looking at the landscape and
laying the groundwork to dissuade Clinton from
trying to overturn the will of the party rank
and file. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.),
who has not endorsed either candidate, appears
to be among them. She told Bloomberg Television
that superdelegates should "respect for what has
been said by the people.” And she told ABC’s
“This Week” that it would be “harmful to the
Democratic Party” if superdelegates overturn the
outcome of elections.
Yahoo News
* * * *
* Obama
at the crossroads of a revolution?—Obama is
not a revolutionary but he has been caught up in
a revolutionary moment in world history. The
electoral campaign of Obama is riding on a wave
of peace and change desired by ordinary
Americans. There are limitations to the
electoral project insofar as the task of
restructuring US society is a gigantic one that
cannot be done overnight. Obama may not be the
solution, but is a small step in the direction
of making the break with the old binary
conceptions that dominated enlightenment
thinking. It is the laws of unintended
consequences that will emanate from this break
that can lead to a new direction with the new
positive bottom up organizing for transformation
to a democratic society where all can live in
peace. A clear understanding of the nature of US
politics and limitation of the structures of the
in-built conservatism of the system means that
Barrack Obama would only be trapped by this
social system if those who are being drawn into
the audacity of hope do not build their own
political movement and political organization.
It is only a bottom up movement that can prevent
Barack Obama from becoming a racial decoy for
the Wall Street forces. Self mobilization, self
organization, and emancipatory ideas will create
new spaces so that the political space will be
expanded beyond the media, the lobbyists and the
ritual spaces of the White House, Congress and
the Senate Chambers. Safe and clean
neighborhoods, children who are reared to
respect all human beings and a society that
support repair of the planet earth awaits these
new self organizing forces.T he campaign of
Barack Obama is the story of hundreds of
thousands of ordinary people. These are the
people who are participating because they
believe that politics can mean something again.
Pambazuka
* *
* * *
The Long Defeat—Hillary
Clinton may not realize it yet, but she’s just
endured one of the worst weeks of her campaign.
First, Barack Obama weathered the Rev. Jeremiah
Wright affair without serious damage to his
nomination prospects. Obama still holds a tiny
lead among Democrats nationally in the Gallup
tracking poll, just as he did before this whole
affair blew up. Second, Obama’s lawyers
successfully prevented re-votes in Florida and
Michigan. That means it would be virtually
impossible for Clinton to take a lead in either
elected delegates or total primary votes. Third,
as Noam Scheiber of The New Republic has
reported, most superdelegates have accepted
Nancy Pelosi’s judgment that the winner of the
elected delegates should get the nomination.
Instead of lining up behind Clinton, they’re
drifting away. Her lead among them has shrunk by
about 60 in the past month, according to Avi
Zenilman of
Politico.com.
In short, Hillary Clinton’s presidential
prospects continue to dim. The door is closing.
Night is coming. The end, however, is not near.
Last week, an important Clinton adviser told Jim
VandeHei and Mike Allen (also of Politico) that
Clinton had no more than a 10 percent chance of
getting the nomination. Now, she’s probably down
to a 5 percent chance. Five percent.
Let’s take a look at what she’s going to put her
party through for the sake of that 5 percent
chance: The Democratic Party is probably going
to have to endure another three months of daily
sniping. For another three months, we’ll have
the Carvilles likening the Obamaites to Judas
and former generals accusing Clintonites of
McCarthyism. For three months, we’ll have the
daily round of résumé padding and sulfurous
conference calls. We’ll have campaign aides
blurting “blue dress” and
only-because-he’s-black references as they let
slip their private contempt.
NYTimes
* * * *
*
With a
Powerful Speech, Obama Offers a Challenge—The
speech, which has gotten wonderful reviews,
should be required reading in classrooms across
the country — and in as many other venues as
possible. With a worldview that embraces both
justice and healing, Senator Obama is better on
these issues than any American leader since
King. Unfortunately, what is more likely to
happen is that the essence of the speech will be
lost in the din that inevitably erupts whenever
there is a racial controversy in the United
States. The fundamental message that Senator
Obama is trying to get across is that the racial
madness that has perverted so many elections
needs to stop — and stop now. Time and again,
that madness has been employed to undermine
efforts to create what the senator characterizes
as “a more just, more equal, more free, more
caring and more prosperous America.” Racial
prejudice, ignorance, hostility — whatever — has
caused millions of Americans to vote against
their own economic interests, and for policies
that have damaged the country. “It’s hard to
address big issues,” Mr. Obama told me, “if
we’re easily diverted or distracted by racial
antagonism.”
NYTimes
* * * *
*
Progressives for Obama—Clinton’s most bizarre
claim is that Obama is unqualified to be
commander-in-chief. Clinton herself never served
in the military, and has no experience in the
armed services apart from the Senate armed
services committee. Her husband had no military
experience before becoming president. In fact he
was a draft opponent during Vietnam, a stance we
respected. She was the first lady, and he the
governor, of one of our smallest states. They
brought no more experience, and arguably less,
to the White House than Obama would in 2009. We
take very seriously the argument that Americans
should elect a first woman president, and we
abhor the surfacing of sexism in this supposedly
post-feminist era. But none of us would vote for
Condoleeza Rice as either the first woman or
first African-American president. We regret that
the choice divides so many progressive friends
and allies, but believe that a Clinton
presidency would be a Clinton presidency all
over again, not a triumph of feminism but a
restoration of the aging, power-driven Wall
Street Democratic Hawks at a moment when so much
more fresh imagination is possible and needed. A
Clinton victory could only be achieved by the
dashing of hope among millions of young people
on whom a better future depends. The style of
the Clintons’ attacks on Obama, which are likely
to escalate as her chances of winning decline,
already risks losing too many Democratic and
independent voters in November. We believe that
the Hillary Clinton of 1968 would be an Obama
volunteer today, just as she once marched in the
snows of New Hampshire for Eugene McCarthy
against the Democratic establishment.
Tom
Hayden is author of Ending the War in Iraq,
a five-time Democratic convention delegate,
former state senator, and board member of the
Progressive Democrats of America. Bill Fletcher,
Jr., who originated the call for founding
“Progressives for Obama,” is the executive
editor of Black Commentator, and founder
of the Center for Labor Renewal; Barbara
Ehrenreich is the author of Dancing in the
Streets[2007] and other popular works and,
with Hayden, a member of The Nation’s
editorial board. Danny Glover is the respected
actor, activist, and chairman of the board of
TransAfrica.
PDAmerica
* * * *
*
* * * *
* Obama
to Get Endorsement of Lee Hamilton—Former
Indiana Rep. Lee Hamilton is backing Sen. Barack
Obama in an endorsement that could boost the
presidential hopeful's national security
standing, The Associated Press has learned. . .
. Hamilton, who during a three-decade House
career rose to be chairman of the Foreign
Affairs and Intelligence committees, also was
vice chairman of the Sept. 11 commission. He
planned to announce his endorsement of Obama on
Wednesday. In an interview Hamilton said he
viewed the Illinois senator as a champion of
"the politics of consensus and not of partisan
division." "I think he is driven by the search
for the common good," Hamilton said. Hamilton is
best known as the top Democrat on the panel that
investigated the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He also
was co-chairman of the Iraq Study Group, a
bipartisan commission that assessed U.S. policy
in Iraq. Although Hamilton is not a Democratic
superdelegate, his backing comes on the heels of
several high-profile endorsements for Obama, who
leads Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in delegates
for the party's nomination. Sens. Bob Casey Jr.
of Pennsylvania and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota
endorsed Obama in recent days.Hamilton is the
highest-profile Indiana Democrat to back Obama
before the state's May 6 primary. Sen. Evan Bayh
and the bulk of Indiana's Democratic Party
leadership have campaigned actively for Clinton
in a state where neither candidate is regarded
as a natural front-runner.
AOL News
* * * *
*
 |
This is what the Pew Research Center
learned in a poll conducted in late
March.—The poll also found that
while large numbers of voters do not
ascribe negative qualities to Mr.
Obama, views of him are heavily
influenced by certain social beliefs
and attitudes held by his critics.
Specifically, white Democrats with
unfavorable views of him are much
more likely than those who have
favorable opinions of him to say
that equal rights for minorities
have been pushed too far; they also
are more likely to disapprove of
interracial dating, and are more
concerned about the threat that
immigrants may pose to American
values. . . .
Indeed, it is “all
about the voters” when it comes to
Mr. Obama. And in the race for the
Democratic nomination, the positive
emotions he evokes, at least from
the Democratic electorate, outweigh
the highly conservative social
attitudes that he stimulates. In a
general election, this may or may
not be the case.
Should he win the nomination and
then the general election, Mr.
Obama’s ability to inspire could
serve him well in convincing
citizens to go along with his
programs, even if his plans call for
sweeping changes and require
sacrifice. Or he could face the
challenge of having to live up to
high expectations among voters who
were hesitant about his lack of
experience.
NYTimes
|
* * * *
* Three More
Primaries in the Bag—Senator
Barack Obama rolled to victory by
big margins in Virginia (64
to 35%), Maryland (60
to36%) and the District of
Columbia (75
to
24%) on Tuesday, extending
his winning streak over Senator
Hillary Rodham Clinton to eight
Democratic nominating contests since
Saturday. Mr.
Obama’s victories gave him a lead
over Mrs. Clinton among pledged
delegates . . .Obama aides calculate
that he also leads in delegate
counts that include so-called
superdelegates, the party officers
and elected officials who control 20
percent of the total delegates to
the Democratic convention. . . . An
exultant Mr. Obama told a rally in
Madison, Wis.: “This movement wont
stop until there’s change in
Washington. Tonight, we’re on our
way.” . . . . Mrs. Clinton . . .
signaled that she would not
vigorously contest two Democratic
races next week, a primary in
Wisconsin and a caucus in
Hawaii . . . If she loses in
those two states, she will be 0 for
10 in nominating contests from Feb.
5 to March 4, when Texas, Ohio,
Rhode Island and Vermont hold
primaries.—NYTimes
* * * *
*
Racist Incidents Give Some Obama Campaigners
Pause—"Will there be some folks who probably
won't vote for me because I am black? Of
course," Obama said, "just like there may be
somebody who won't vote for Hillary because
she's a woman or wouldn't vote for John Edwards
because they don't like his accent. But the
question is, 'Can we get a majority of the
American people to give us a fair hearing?' "
Obama has won 30 of 50 Democratic contests so
far, the kind of nationwide electoral triumph no
black candidate has ever realized. That he is on
the brink of capturing the Democratic
nomination, some say, is a testament to how far
the country has progressed in overcoming racism
and evidence of Obama's skill at bridging
divides.
Obama has won five of 12 primaries in which
black voters made up less than 10 percent of the
electorate, and caucuses in states such as Idaho
and Wyoming that are overwhelmingly white. But
exit polls show he has struggled to attract
white voters who didn't attend college and earn
less than $50,000 a year. Today, he and Hillary
Clinton square off in West Virginia, a state
where she is favored and where the votes of
working-class whites will again be closely
watched.
For
the most part, Obama campaign workers say, the
2008 election cycle has been exhilarating. On
the ground, the Obama campaign is being driven
by youngsters, many of whom are imbued with an
optimism undeterred by racial intolerance.
"We've grown up in a different world," says
Danielle Ross. Field offices are staffed by
20-somethings who hold positions—state director,
regional field director, field organizer—that
are typically off limits to newcomers to
presidential politics.
Gillian Bergeron, 23, was in charge of a
five-county regional operation in northeastern
Pennsylvania. The oldest member of her team was
27. At Scranton's annual Saint Patrick's Day
parade, some of the green Obama signs
distributed by staffers were burned along the
parade route. That was the first signal that
this wasn't exactly Obama country. There would
be others.
WashingtonPost
* * * *
*
 |
Obama wins backing of Senate dean
Robert Byrd—Byrd,
90, was one of five Democratic "superdelegates" to
endorse the Illinois senator Monday and add new
momentum to his drive to capture the party's
presidential nomination from Hillary Clinton. The
distinguished dean of the Senate went public with
his endorsement despite his state of West Virginia
voting overwhelmingly for the former first lady last
week. Both Clinton and Obama were "extraordinary
individuals,"
[Robert} Byrd said in a statement. But he
stressed: "I believe that Barack Obama is a shining
young statesman, who possesses the personal
temperament and courage necessary to extricate our
country from this costly misadventure in Iraq, and
to lead our nation at this challenging time in
history. "Barack Obama is a noble-hearted patriot
and humble Christian, and he has my full faith and
support," said Byrd, who has served in the Senate
since 1959 and has long since renounced his youthful
dalliance with the Ku Klux Klan, the secret, white
supremacist group -- known for their distinctive
white robes and pointy hats -- which has terrorized
blacks and other minority groups since immediately
after the US Civil War.
Google
Image by Charles Siler |
* * * *
*
|
Obama used party rules to foil
Clinton—Careful planning is one
reason why Obama is emerging as the
nominee as the Democratic Party
prepares for its final three
primaries, Puerto Rico on Sunday and
Montana and South Dakota on Tuesday.
Attributing his success only to
soaring speeches and prodigious
fundraising ignores a critical part
of contest.
Obama used the Democrats' system of
awarding delegates to limit his
losses in states won by Clinton
while maximizing gains in states he
carried. Clinton, meanwhile,
conserved her resources by
essentially conceding states that
favored Obama, including many states
that held caucuses instead of
primaries.
In a stark example, Obama's victory
in Kansas wiped out the gains made
by Clinton for winning New Jersey,
even though New Jersey had three
times as many delegates at stake.
Obama did it by winning big in
Kansas while keeping the vote
relatively close in New Jersey. |
 |
The research effort was
headed by Jeffrey Berman, Obama's press-shy
national director of delegate operations. Berman, who
also tracked delegates in former
Rep. Dick Gephardt's presidential
bids, spent the better part of 2007
analyzing delegate opportunities for Obama. "The whole Clinton campaign
thought this would be like previous
campaigns, a battle of momentum,"
said Thomas Mann, a senior fellow at
the Brookings Institution, a
Washington think tank. "They thought
she would be the only one would who
could compete in such a momentous
event as Super Tuesday." Instead,
Obama won a majority of the 23 Super
Tuesday contests on Feb. 5 and then
spent the following two weeks
racking up 11 straight victories,
building an insurmountable lead
among delegates won in primaries and
caucuses.
Yahoo News
* * * *
*
Democratic Convention predictions
The
San Franisco Gate
polls
are
all so funny. But HRC's walls are tumbling --
Rudy
* * * *
*
Good
news about the California poll! Nonetheless,
my predictions: The Democratic convention (unless
Obama gets assassinated) turns into
a real zoo.Shrieking bands of maenads rove the
streets of Denver, and grim-faced
Erinyes hover over the convention.
Clinton takes the nomination when
she rips open her bodice and gives
her Sojourner Truth speech.
Stunned Negroes revolt across the
nation, and the state governments of
at least nine states are forced to
declare martial law as their
ghettoes erupt in flames.
John McCain wins the election by a
landslide—Wilson
That's funny, funny, funny . . . Your scenario
has possibilities. I will send it to Charles
Siler. Maybe
he can put your predictions into several
political cartoons for
ChickenBones: A Journal
—Rudy
* * * *
*
I laughed til
I goddamn cried when I read these—damn! Funny .
. .will forward....Peace—Mary Weems
* * * *
*
Or Hillary
could do a Scarlet O'Hara scene from Gone with
the Wind--probably more to her liking. Who would
play Butterfly McQueen? LOTS of Black women have
been out on the stump for her.
Given current "security laws" on the books, the
scene might be more like "Space invaders" with
black folks being rounded up and "renditioned"
to some other country for controlled processing,
given the currently over-stuffed prisons.—
Joyce
* * * *
*
Pflegergate:
Reverend Michael Louis Pfleger
Pat Buchanan, himself a Catholic calls Reverend
Louis Pfleger a radical socialist, and blames
Obama for being friendly with him.
YouTube
Wikipedia reports: "The Reverend Michael
Louis Pfleger (born May 22, 1949[1]) is a Roman
Catholic priest and social activist in Chicago,
Illinois. A German American[2] from the south
side of Chicago, Pfleger attended Archbishop
Quigley Preparatory Seminary South, Loyola
University and the University of Saint Mary of
the Lake. He was ordained a priest for the
Archdiocese of Chicago on May 14, 1975. Since
1981, Pfleger has been pastor of the mostly
African American Saint Sabina Catholic Church in
Chicago's Auburn Gresham neighborhood. When he
was appointed to his present position, at the
age of 31, he became the youngest pastor in the
Chicago archdiocese.[1] His parishioners have
affectionately referred to him as a "blue-eyed
black soul". Under Pfleger's leadership, Saint
Sabina has established an Employment Resource
Center, a Social Service Center, and also an
Elders home."
* * * *
*
Very funny,
funny, funny . . . I been grieving I needed that
laugh. Thank you—Rudy
* * * *
*
DNC’s Statement on the Florida and
Michigan Delegations
The revised total of delegate
votes needed to secure the
nomination is 2,118.
“This decision was not made easily
or lightly but after listening to
oral arguments made by the
complainants, State Parties, and
both presidential campaigns, we
believe this to be the most fair and
equitable solution allowed within
the rules. The Committee arrived at
its decision with three basic
principles in mind: One, that we
must be fair to the voters in both
states. Two, that we must be fair to
both campaigns who abided by the
rules in good faith and three, that
we must be fair to the 48 states
that followed the rules. We believe
today’s decision is a step forward
in unifying our Party as we work
together to put a Democrat back in
the White House so we can bring the
Iraq War to a responsible end and
get our economy back on track. . . "
Wall Street Journal
Blog
* * * *
*
Hillary obviously plans to take this
all the way to Denver. At least
200,000 women, snakes hanging from
their hair, will fill the streets,
where with bloody fingernails they
will rake their naked breasts! This
will be the mad scene from Medea.
Mark my words! They will not give
up until they have won the
nomination. And they will win it!—Wilson I am unsure
what impact these new rules will have on Obama
winning the Democratic nomination. It's only 80
more votes and HRC has an even higher hill to
climb. So the hill has been raised for both
candidates. And I am certain there will be a lot
of forces in Denver in August. Baraka said he
would be there. Maybe a shorter campaign for the
general election might indeed be better, though
others had hoped that Obama could start running
in June. In any case the Michigan and Florida
problem has been dealt with—Rudy
(1 June 2008) * * * *
*
Savor the
Moment—Kennedy
had been accused of dreaming when he
said in the early 1960s that a black
person could get elected president in
the next 40 years. The fact that even a
dreamer could imagine nothing shorter
than a 40-year timeline gives us a
glimpse of the nightmarish depths of
racial oppression that people of
goodwill have had to fight. The United
States in 1968 (the same year in which
the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was
assassinated) was a stunningly different
place from the country we know now, so
different that most of today’s young
people would have trouble imagining it.
The notion in ’68 that a black person —
or a woman — might have a serious shot
at the presidency would have been widely
viewed as lunacy. . . . Women in 1968
were mired in depths of misogyny that
were as soul-destroying as racism.
Discrimination on the basis of gender
was so pervasive as to barely attract
notice. Many retail stores refused to
issue credit cards to married women in
their own names. Employers could fire
women with virtual impunity if they got
married or pregnant or weren’t
attractive enough or turned 30.
According to the National Organization
for Women, in a statement of purpose
issued in 1966, fewer than 1 percent of
all federal judges were women, fewer
than 4 percent of all lawyers, and fewer
than 7 percent of doctors. Racism and
sexism have not taken their leave. But
the fact that Barack Obama is the
presumptive nominee of the Democratic
Party, and that the two finalists for
that prize were a black man and a white
woman, are historical events of the
highest importance. We should not allow
ourselves to overlook the wonder of this
moment.
NYTimes * * * *
*
Progressives and Netroots Feeling Abandoned as
Obama Tacks Rightward—But am I going to
"hold Obama accountable" for this action? Well,
no, frankly. I don't think there's a way to do
that without doing something
far worse. It's the nature of the American
political system: winner take all, no instant
runoffs, no fusion voting (except in a few
states).
In the months before a
Presidential general election, I can't think of
another alternative re the Presidential race
other than doing everything I can do to help
Obama win.
The harsh reality is,
Barack Obama can and will tack towards the
center on issues that are important to
progressives during the general election. We can
argue until we're blue in the face that this is
not a smart thing to do, and by extension, that
the country is ready for real progressive
leadership, but Obama will do what he wants to
do. Unless we are willing to actively work
against him, we have no leverage.
I am not willing to
actively work against him. I'm not willing to
call on people to pull their money and their
volunteer hours either. But two can play at
Obama's game.
To me, Obama's methods
are obvious. He is selling out a constituency
without leverage (progressives) to burnish his
centrist image, which he believes will bring him
more votes in November. Obama is practicing, as
BooMan puts it,
"raw political calculation." Well, guess
what; I can do that, too!
Guardian
* * * *
*
 |
Bill Clinton says Barack Obama must
Beg for his Support—Bill
Clinton is so bitter about Barack
Obama's victory over his wife
Hillary that he has told friends the
Democratic nominee will have to beg
for his wholehearted support. Mr.
Obama is expected to speak to Mr.
Clinton for the first time since he
won the nomination in the next few
days, but campaign insiders say that
the former president's future
campaign role is a "sticking point"
in peace talks with Mrs Clinton's
aides. |
The Telegraph has l earned that the former
president's rage is still so great that even
loyal allies are shocked by his patronising
attitude to Mr Obama, and believe that he risks
damaging his own reputation by his
intransigence. A senior Democrat who worked for
Mr Clinton has revealed that he recently told
friends Mr Obama could "kiss my ass" in return
for his support. A second source said that the
former president has kept his distance because
he still does not believe Mr Obama can win the
election.
Mr Clinton last week issued a tepid statement,
through a spokesman, in which he said he "is
obviously committed to doing whatever he can and
is asked to do to ensure Senator Obama is the
next president of the United States." Mr Obama
was more effusive at his unity event with Mrs
Clinton on Friday, speaking fondly of the absent
former president, who attended Nelson Mandela's
birthday celebrations in London instead. The
candidate told the crowd: "I know how much we
need both Bill and Hillary Clinton as a party.
They have done so much great work. We need them
badly."
But his aides said he has so far concentrated on
cementing relations with Mrs Clinton first. They
say they are content to let relations with Mr
Clinton thaw gradually. It has long been known
that Mr Clinton is angry at the way his own
reputation was tarnished during the primary
battle when several of his comments were
interpreted as racist.
But his lingering fury has shocked his friends.
The Democrat told the Telegraph: "He's been
angry for a while. But everyone thought he would
get over it. He hasn't. I've spoken to a couple
of people who he's been in contact with and he
is mad as hell."He's saying he's not going to
reach out, that Obama has to come to him. One
person told me that Bill said Obama would have
to quote
kiss my ass close quote, if he wants his
support.
Telegraph |
 |
* * * *
*
McCain
Accuses Obama of Race Card—Obama
long has talked about his physical
appearance in speeches, but McCain
advisers argue he crossed a significant
line by accusing the GOP of scare
tactics and alluding to his own race in
the same breath. The back-and-forth was
the latest spike in a contest that's
grown increasingly negative despite
pledges by both Obama and McCain to run
aboveboard campaigns. The daily rhetoric
has turned red-hot as both maneuver for
advantage and polls show the race
competitive three months before the
election. . . . Opening a new front
Wednesday, the GOP campaign rolled out a
hard-hitting commercial that uses
pictures of 20-something stars Britney
Spears and Paris Hilton to suggest that
Obama is little more than a media
darling who is unqualified to be
president.
AOL
* * * *
*
Has John McCain started
to aggressively court the white vote?—It
sounds like a question with an obvious
answer. But when facing the first black
nominee of a major party for president,
the manner in which John McCain
addresses white voters is bound to be a
careful one—and we may have just seen
the first toe-dip. As several reports
have pointed out, McCain's newly
announced support for Arizona's
anti-affirmative action ballot
initiative over the weekend represents a
reversal from ten years ago, when he
called a similar effort "divisive."
HuffingtonPost
* * *
* *
* *
* * *
|
Middle Passage
By
Charles Johnson
A
savage parable of the black experience in
America, Johnson's picaresque novel begins
in 1830 when Rutherford Calhoun, a newly
freed Illinois slave eking out a living as a
petty thief in New Orleans, hops aboard a
square-rigger to evade the prim Boston
schoolteacher who wants to marry him. But
the Republic , no riverboat, turns out to be
a slave clipper bound for Africa. Calhoun, a
witty narrator conversant with the works of
Chaucer and Beethoven and the Tibetan Book
of the Dead, hates himself for acting as
henchman to the ship's captain, a dwarfish,
philosophizing tyrant. Before the rowdy,
drunken crew can spring a mutiny, African
slaves recently taken on board stage a
successful revolt. Blending confessional,
ship's log and adventure, the narrative
interweaves a disquisition on slavery,
poverty, race relations and an African
worldview at odds with Western materialism.
In luxuriant, intoxicating prose Johnson (The
Sorcerer's Apprentice) makes the
agonized past a prism looking onto a tense
present.—Publishers
Weekly |
 |
* *
* * *
 |
Sex at the Margins
Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry
By Laura María Agustín
This book explodes several myths: that selling sex is completely different from any other kind of work, that migrants who sell sex are passive victims and that the multitude of people out to save them are without self-interest. Laura Agustín makes a passionate case against these stereotypes, arguing that the label 'trafficked' does not accurately describe migrants' lives and that the 'rescue industry' serves to disempower them. Based on extensive research amongst both migrants who sell sex and social helpers, Sex at the Margins provides a radically different analysis. Frequently, says Agustin, migrants make rational choices to travel and work in the sex industry, and although they are treated like a marginalised group they form part of the dynamic global economy. Both powerful and controversial, this book is essential reading for all those who want to understand the increasingly important relationship between sex markets, migration and the desire for social justice.—Lisa Adkins, University of London |
* * * * *
|
The New Jim Crow
Mass Incarceration in the Age of
Colorblindness
By Michele Alexander
Contrary to the
rosy picture of race embodied in Barack
Obama's political success and Oprah
Winfrey's financial success, legal
scholar Alexander argues vigorously and
persuasively that [w]e have not ended
racial caste in America; we have merely
redesigned it. Jim Crow and legal racial
segregation has been replaced by mass
incarceration as a system of social
control (More African Americans are
under correctional control today... than
were enslaved in 1850). Alexander
reviews American racial history from the
colonies to the Clinton administration,
delineating its transformation into the
war on drugs. She offers an acute
analysis of the effect of this mass
incarceration upon former inmates who
will be discriminated against, legally,
for the rest of their lives, denied
employment, housing, education, and
public benefits. Most provocatively, she
reveals how both the move toward
colorblindness and affirmative action
may blur our vision of injustice: most
Americans know and don't know the truth
about mass incarceration—Publishers
Weekly |
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Faces At The Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism
By Derrick Bell
In nine grim metaphorical sketches, Bell, the black former Harvard law professor who made headlines recently for his one-man protest against the school's hiring policies, hammers home his controversial theme that white racism is a permanent, indestructible component of our society. Bell's fantasies are often dire and apocalyptic: a new Atlantis rises from the ocean depths, sparking a mass emigration of blacks; white resistance to affirmative action softens following an explosion that kills Harvard's president and all of the school's black professors; intergalactic space invaders promise the U.S. President that they will clean up the environment and deliver tons of gold, but in exchange, the bartering aliens take all African Americans back to their planet. Other pieces deal with black-white romance, a taxi ride through Harlem and job discrimination. Civil rights lawyer Geneva Crenshaw, the heroine of Bell's And We Are Not Saved (1987), is back in some of these ominous allegories, which speak from the depths of anger and despair. Bell now teaches at New York University Law School.—Publishers Weekly /
Derrick Bell Law Rights Advocate Dies at 80 |
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The Looting of America: How Wall Street's Game of Fantasy Finance
Destroyed Our Jobs, Pensions, and Prosperity—and What We Can Do About It
By Les Leopold
How could the best and brightest (and most highly paid) in finance crash the global economy and then get us to bail them out as well? What caused this mess in the first place? Housing? Greed? Dumb politicians? What can Main Street do about it? In The Looting of America, Leopold debunks the prevailing media myths that blame low-income home buyers who got in over their heads, people who ran up too much credit-card debt, and government interference with free markets. Instead, readers will discover how Wall Street undermined itself and the rest of the economy by playing and losing at a highly lucrative and dangerous game of fantasy finance. He also asks some tough questions: Why did Americans let the gap between workers' wages and executive compensation grow so large? Why did we fail to realize that the excess money in those executives' pockets was fueling casino-style investment schemes? Why did we buy the notion that too-good-to-be-true financial products that no one could even understand would somehow form the backbone of America's new, postindustrial economy? |
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How do we make sure we never give our wages away to gamblers
again? And what can we do to get our money back? In this
page-turning narrative (no background in finance required)
Leopold tells the story of how we fell victim to Wall Street's
exotic financial products.
Readers learn how even school districts were taken
in by "innovative" products like collateralized debt
obligations, better known as CDOs, and how they sucked trillions of dollars from the global economy when they failed. They'll also learn what average Americans can do to ensure that fantasy finance never rules our economy again.
The Economy
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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* * *
Ancient African Nations
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
/
Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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