Obama's Campaign Trail Not Paved With Gold

The Washington Post came out with a story yesterday describing several incidents of racism encountered by Obama campaign staff and volunteers. It's a story that's not being told by the national TV news media. The Washington Post story describes the sickness that I referred to in the post "Obama's Fading Hope". Parts of the WAPO article made me feel like I was reading an old microfilm report from the 1950's or 60's. I have increasing doubts about Obama's safety.

Is this kind of behavior as isolated as the Obama camp wants observers to believe? I really doubt it. It has just been under-reported. White Americans all across the country share similar feelings as the bigots in the report, but they may not be as brutally honest as those folks. Although I will say that the Reverend Wright fiasco has played differently in different parts of the Country. Certain regions are reacting more strongly than others to the media hype.

I believe that Obama was in trouble even before the well orchestrated Rev. Wright propaganda campaign against him, led by Clinton's people, her allies in the corporate media, and by the Conservative news pundits who Clinton has aligned herself with. But it is clear that the Rev. Wright matter has had an impact, despite all the hopeful Obama supporters who say it was no big deal. But then again, I believe that the Rev. Wright propaganda was a convenient excuse for Whites who really didn't want to vote for Obama anyway, because of their bigoted reservations about voting for a Black person. I knew from the outset that there was a certain segment of White Americans who would not vote for Barack Obama no matter what....due to his race. It is this same kind of racist sentiment that is largely behind the reason for so many Clinton supporters saying that they won't vote for Obama if he's the Democratic nominee...they will vote for McCain instead, or they'll stay home. Interesting how Hillary Clinton hasn't come out against this. On the contrary, she attempted to take advantage of it. She understands the racial dynamics that are in her favor.

But the propaganda has been damaging. Obama had been doing quite well with White voters up until a few days before Ohio when the Clinton camp decided to use racist gutter politics. Actually e-mails about Obama's religion had been circulating for some time before that, and there was clearly an attempt by the Clintons to inject race into the campaign long before Ohio. But the really nasty gutter politics began in the week leading up to Ohio, particularly with the ambush at the debate and the release of the photo of Obama in traditional African tribal dress....suggesting he was Muslim, a terrorist, would sympathize with terrorists, etc. From that point on, the racist politics have been relentless...and it is therefore no surprise that his support among certain segments of White voters has suffered ever since.

I have been amused by the corporate media talking points over the last few weeks. Hillary Clinton...along with the same White pundits who participated in the campaign to destroy Obama's character, weaken his electability, and swiftboat his campaign are the same jackasses who have most recently asked... "why can't he close the deal?", "Oh....looks like he's struggling with White voters", etc... NO S__T!!!! Of course he's going to lose some of his support from White voters.

After the swiftboat job that the media has done on Obama, it is an absolute miracle that he is still standing at all. In my opinion the media (and Hillary) have been relatively successful with accomplishing 2 out of 3 of the items I mentioned above... destroying Obama's character, and weakening his electability in the General Election. But they have not been able to completely swiftboat him just yet.... perhaps they are leaving that job for John McCain.

******************************

See the Washington Post Article Below- What impact will this social/political climate have in the General Election....or looking even further ahead (probably too far ahead) what impact will it have on a possible Obama Presidency? Will he be scrutinized more than other Presidents? Will the media and voters look for the slightest mistake as an opportunity to pounce? I say that the double standard will certainly be in order... it always is for us.....no matter what the job is. Life experience has taught me that. And it will be no different for Obama if he reaches the Presidency. It's ironic to think that the media will probably scrutinize Obama more if he makes it...analyzing every little move he makes...yet the reporters & the networks were absent when we needed the media most to be more skeptical, inquisitive, and aggressive over the past 20 years or so....especially over the last 8 years. From Iran-Contra, to Yugoslavia, the war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Oil Prices, etc etc...the list goes on. Where were they then?

********************************

Racist Incidents Give Some Obama Campaigners Pause

By Kevin Merida
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 13, 2008

(for photos see the Washington Post Report via the link at the bottom)

Danielle Ross was alone in an empty room at the Obama campaign headquarters in Kokomo, Ind., a cellphone in one hand, a voter call list in the other. She was stretched out on the carpeted floor wearing laceless sky-blue Converses, stories from the trail on her mind. It was the day before Indiana's primary, and she had just been chased by dogs while canvassing in a Kokomo suburb. But that was not the worst thing to occur since she postponed her sophomore year at Middle Tennessee State University, in part to hopscotch America stumping for Barack Obama.

Here's the worst: In Muncie, a factory town in the east-central part of Indiana, Ross and her cohorts were soliciting support for Obama at malls, on street corners and in a Wal-Mart parking lot, and they ran into "a horrible response," as Ross put it, a level of anti-black sentiment that none of them had anticipated.

"The first person I encountered was like, 'I'll never vote for a black person,' " recalled Ross, who is white and just turned 20. "People just weren't receptive."
For all the hope and excitement Obama's candidacy is generating, some of his field workers, phone-bank volunteers and campaign surrogates are encountering a raw racism and hostility that have gone largely unnoticed -- and unreported -- this election season. Doors have been slammed in their faces. They've been called racially derogatory names (including the white volunteers). And they've endured malicious rants and ugly stereotyping from people who can't fathom that the senator from Illinois could become the first African American president.

The contrast between the large, adoring crowds Obama draws at public events and the gritty street-level work to win votes is stark. The candidate is largely insulated from the mean-spiritedness that some of his foot soldiers deal with away from the media spotlight.

Victoria Switzer, a retired social studies teacher, was on phone-bank duty one night during the Pennsylvania primary campaign. One night was all she could take: "It wasn't pretty." She made 60 calls to prospective voters in Susquehanna County, her home county, which is 98 percent white. The responses were dispiriting. One caller, Switzer remembers, said he couldn't possibly vote for Obama and concluded: "Hang that darky from a tree!"

Documentary filmmaker Rory Kennedy, the daughter of the late Robert F. Kennedy, said she, too, came across "a lot of racism" when campaigning for Obama in Pennsylvania. One Pittsburgh union organizer told her he would not vote for Obama because he is black, and a white voter, she said, offered this frank reason for not backing Obama: "White people look out for white people, and black people look out for black people."

Obama campaign officials say such incidents are isolated, that the experience of most volunteers and staffers has been overwhelmingly positive.
The campaign released this statement in response to questions about encounters with racism: "After campaigning for 15 months in nearly all 50 states, Barack Obama and our entire campaign have been nothing but impressed and encouraged by the core decency, kindness, and generosity of Americans from all walks of life. The last year has only reinforced Senator Obama's view that this country is not as divided as our politics suggest."

Campaign field work can be an exercise in confronting the fears, anxieties and prejudices of voters. Veterans of the civil rights movement know what this feels like, as do those who have been involved in battles over busing, immigration or abortion. But through the Obama campaign, some young people are having their first experience joining a cause and meeting cruel reaction.

On Election Day in Kokomo, a group of black high school students were holding up Obama signs along U.S. 31, a major thoroughfare. As drivers cruised by, a number of them rolled down their windows and yelled out a common racial slur for African Americans, according to Obama campaign staffers.

Frederick Murrell, a black Kokomo High School senior, was not there but heard what happened. He was more disappointed than surprised. During his own canvassing for Obama, Murrell said, he had "a lot of doors slammed" in his face. But taunting teenagers on a busy commercial strip in broad daylight? "I was very shocked at first," Murrell said. "Then again, I wasn't, because we have a lot of racism here."

The bigotry has gone beyond words. In Vincennes, the Obama campaign office was vandalized at 2 a.m. on the eve of the primary, according to police. A large plate-glass window was smashed, an American flag stolen. Other windows were spray-painted with references to Obama's controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and other political messages: "Hamas votes BHO" and "We don't cling to guns or religion. Goddamn Wright."

Ray McCormick was notified of the incident at about 2:45 a.m. A farmer and conservationist, McCormick had erected a giant billboard on a major highway on behalf of Farmers for Obama. He also was housing the Obama campaign worker manning the office. When McCormick arrived at the office, about two hours before he was due out of bed to plant corn, he grabbed his camera and wanted to alert the media. "I thought, this is a big deal." But he was told Obama campaign officials didn't want to make a big deal of the incident. McCormick took photos anyway and distributed some.

"The pictures represent what we are breaking through and overcoming," he said. As McCormick, who is white, sees it, Obama is succeeding despite these incidents. Later, there would be bomb threats to three Obama campaign offices in Indiana, including the one in Vincennes, according to campaign sources.
Obama has not spoken much about racism during this campaign. He has sought to emphasize connections among Americans rather than divisions. He shrugged off safety concerns that led to early Secret Service protection and has told black senior citizens who worry that racists will do him harm: Don't fret. Earlier in the campaign, a 68-year-old woman in Carson City, Nev., voiced concern that the country was not ready to elect an African American president.
"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.

In a letter to the editor published in a local paper, Tunkhannock Borough Mayor Norm Ball explained his support of Hillary Clinton this way: "Barack Hussein Obama and all of his talk will do nothing for our country. There is so much that people don't know about his upbringing in the Muslim world. His stepfather was a radical Muslim and the ranting of his minister against the white America, you can't convince me that some of that didn't rub off on him.
"No, I want a president that will salute our flag, and put their hand on the Bible when they take the oath of office."

Obama's campaign workers have grown wearily accustomed to the lies about the candidate's supposed radical Muslim ties and lack of patriotism. But they are sometimes astonished when public officials such as Ball or others representing the campaign of their opponent traffic in these falsehoods.
Karen Seifert, a volunteer from New York, was outside of the largest polling location in Lackawanna County, Pa., on primary day when she was pressed by a Clinton volunteer to explain her backing of Obama. "I trust him," Seifert replied. According to Seifert, the woman pointed to Obama's face on Seifert's T-shirt and said: "He's a half-breed and he's a Muslim. How can you trust that?"

Pollsters have found it difficult to accurately measure racial attitudes, as some voters are unwilling to acknowledge the role that race plays in their thinking. But some are not. Susan Dzimian, a Clinton supporter who owns residential properties, said outside a polling location in Kokomo that race was a factor in how she viewed Obama. "I think if it was somebody other than him, I'd accept it," she said of a black candidate. "If Colin Powell had run, I would be willing to accept him."

The previous evening, Dondra Ewing was driving the neighborhoods of Kokomo, looking to turn around voters like Dzimian. Ewing, 47, is a chain-smoking middle school guidance counselor, a black single mother of two and one of the most fiercely vigilant Obama volunteers in Kokomo, which was once a Ku Klux Klan stronghold. On July 4, 1923, Kokomo hosted the largest Klan gathering in history -- an estimated 200,000 followers flocked to a local park. But these are not the 1920s, and Ewing believes she can persuade anybody to back Obama. Her mother, after all, was the first African American elected at-large to the school board in a community that is 10percent black.

Kokomo, population 46,000, is another hard-hit Midwestern industrial town stung by layoffs. Longtimers wistfully remember the glory years of Continental Steel and speak mournfully about the jobs shipped overseas. Kokomo Sanitary Pottery, which made bathroom sinks and toilets, shut down a couple of months ago and took with it 150 jobs.

Aaron Roe, 23, was mowing lawns at a local cemetery recently, lamenting his $8-an-hour job with no benefits. He had earned a community college degree as an industrial electrician, but learned there was no electrical work to be found for someone with his experience, which is to say none. Politics wasn't on his mind; frustration was. If he were to vote, it would not be for Obama, he said. "I just got a funny feeling about him," Roe said, a feeling he couldn't specify, except to say race wasn't a part of it. "Race ain't nothing," said Roe, who is white. "It's how they're going to help the country."

The Aaron Roes are exactly who Dondra Ewing was after: people with funny feelings.
At the Bradford Run Apartments, she found Robert Cox, a retiree who spent 30 years working for an electronics manufacturer making computer chips. He was in his suspenders, grilling shish kebab, which he had never eaten. "Something new," Cox said, recommended by his son who was visiting from Colorado.

Ewing was selling him hard on Obama. "There are more than two families that can run the United States of America," she said, "and their names aren't Bush and Clinton."
"Yeah, I know, I know," Cox said, remaining noncommittal.

He opened the grill and peeked at the kebabs. "It's not his race, because I got real good friends and all that," Cox continued. "If anything would keep him from getting elected, it would be his name. It might turn off some older people."
Like him?
"No, older than me," said Cox, 66.
Ewing kept talking, until finally Cox said, "Probably Obama," when asked directly how he would vote.
As she walked away, Ewing said: "I think we got him."
But truthfully, she wasn't feeling so sure.

Link to Washington Post report

Report also mentioned on Salon.com

Obama Breaks With Dr. Jeremiah Wright

Barack Obama broke with his former pastor, Dr. Jeremiah Wright, in a press conference yesterday.

Here's a link to the story at Politico.com

For me, I believe it was a hard thing for Obama to do, but Wright's abysmal performance at The National Press Club pretty much gave him no other choice.

The thing for me is...the THREE EVENTS

I believe that the Moyers interview was real, true and authentic Wright.

I believe that the NAACP Speech was real, true and authentic Wright.

He clowned during that Q&A. He showed his ass. Why are folks not willing to admit that? I don't even want to get into any of the ' is it the truth?' mess. You and I both know it's HOW you present your point that matters as much as what you say. If he couldn't do any better, that would be one thing. But, we had two examples of him 'doing better' and 'being authentic' for me not to believe that the NPC event was a purposeful attack on Obama.

Every question he got, he could have answered a different way that wasn't inauthentic. Take the patriotism question..instead of his smartass ' How long did Dick Cheney serve?' answer, what he could have said was:

I sat in front of the tv, with my family, watching John Kennedy's inaugural speech. The President spoke to me and I took his call to service to heart. So much so that I LEFT COLLEGE, with one semester to go, and ENLISTED IN THE MARINES. I served X tours of duty, between 2 Different Branches of the Armed Services. Dick Cheney, on the other hand, gets FIVE deferrments, and I'M the one whose patriotism is questioned? Please explain that to me.

Now, you tell me, which one is better? Both 'flipped it back' to the audience, but one is like, ' up yours' and the other one challenges you to think.

The entire Q&A was like that.

Now, if I was seriously wearing the tinfoil hat, one would have to wonder about him being invited by a known and avowed Hillary Clinton supporter. But, only if I were seriously wearing the tinfoil hat.

***************************************************

UPDATE:

As first reported in Erroll Louis' column in the NYDaily News yesterday, Clinton backer Barbara Reynolds 'organized' Wright's appearance at The National Press Club.

Is Jeremiah Wright a colossal disaster for Barack Obama or a press trick?
Tuesday, April 29th 2008, 4:00 AM

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright couldn't have done more damage to Barack Obama's campaign if he had tried. And you have to wonder if that's just what one friend of Wright wanted.

Shortly before he rose to deliver his rambling, angry, sarcastic remarks at the National Press Club Monday, Wright sat next to, and chatted with, Barbara Reynolds.

A former editorial board member at USA Today, she runs something called Reynolds News Services and teaches ministry at the Howard University School of Divinity. (She is an ordained minister).

It also turns out that Reynolds - introduced Monday as a member of the National Press Club "who organized" the event - is an enthusiastic Hillary Clinton supporter.

On a blog linked to her Web site- www.reynoldsnews.com- Reynolds said in a February post: "My vote for Hillary in the Maryland primary was my way of saying thank you" to Clinton and her husband for the successes of Bill Clinton's presidency.

The same post criticized Obama's "Audacity of Hope" theme: "Hope by definition is not based on facts," wrote Reynolds. It is an emotional expectation. Things hoped for may or may not come. But help based on experience trumps hope every time."

In another blog entry, Reynolds gives an ever-sharper critique of Obama: "It is a sad testimony that to protect his credentials as a unifier above the fray, the senator is fueling the media characterization that Rev. Dr. Wright is some retiring old uncle in the church basement."

I don't know if Reynolds' eagerness to help Wright stage a disastrous news conference with the national media was a way of trying to help Clinton - my queries to Reynolds by phone and e-mail weren't returned yesterday - but it's safe to say she didn't see any conflict between promoting Wright and supporting Clinton.

It's hard to exaggerate how bad the actual news conference was. Wright, steeped in an honorable, fiery tradition of Bible-based social criticism, cheapened his arguments and his movement by mugging for the cameras, rolling his eyes, heaping scorn on his critics and acting as if nobody in the room was learned enough to ask him a question.

Wright has, unquestionably, been caricatured and vilified unfairly. The feeding programs, prison outreach and other social services he has built over more than 30 years are commendable, and his reading of the Judeo-Christian tradition as an epic story of people trying to escape slavery is far more right than wrong - and not something to be caricatured or compressed into a 10-second sound bite.

But Wright should have known - and his friend and ally Reynolds, a media professional, surely knew - that bickering with the press can only harm Wright and, by extension, Obama.

I hope that wasn't their goal.

Call me a tinfoil hat wearer is you must, I do not care. Spread the word. Maybe it's 'coincidence'....ok.

Uh huh.

While you look sideways at me, just remember this....all the stuff Louis talks about with regards to Obama in his column...has ' disappeared' from Reynolds' site.

Double uh huh.

ONN Report Offers Most Honest Analysis of Election Season Yet :)

Poll: Bullshit Is Most Important Issue For 2008 Voters

See, i'm not all gloom and doom. Only when it involves Hillary Clinton, when I think about the direction of the Country, or when it comes to the Republicans & their smear machine. They can suck the life and the hope out of just about anything.

P.S.

May 6th, could be the end of the hostage standoff (Hillary Clinton holding the nation hostage that is), as I had predicted several weeks ago. Whether she gives up then or not may not matter. If she loses both N. Carolina and Indiana on the same night it could be a crushing blow in terms of momentum and could send a message to Superdelegates to make a decisive move to avoid a disaster at the Convention. It would take a very strange miracle for her to win after that. For Clinton to stay in the race after that point can only be seen as malicious....an attempt to do harm to Obama in the General Election. Of course, she has already done this...but after May 6th, it will be as clear as day. But Obama has to somehow win Indiana... a daunting task after the massive Swiftboat attacks.

Hillary The Beast Clinton will easily win West Virginia and Kentucky after her racist campaign efforts and her fearmongering aimed at White blue collar voters. Obama may come back & do well in Oregon (still an unknown...Oregon seemed like a lock for Obama a couple of months ago...but that was before the Swiftboating & race baiting kicked into high gear). The Caucus States of South Dakota and Montana are numerically insignificant either way (Sorry Montana & S. Dakota, lol). Clinton may actually win those Caucuses due to the changing dynamics of the past 6 weeks. But Obama's delegate lead should be big enough to blunt a Clinton win in Puerto Rico.

If I were Obama... I would publicly offer Clinton a 45%-55% split on Michigan and Florida. That would be hard for her to refuse. That would probably earn Obama the nomination outright. It would put Clinton in an awkward & almost impossible position. If she says no... she looks like an ass to the World and all of her arguments would be shot to Hell. If she accepts, she allows Obama to have a clear victory, and all of her arguments would be shot to Hell.

Obama’s Fading “Hope“: America May Be Too Sick To Elect a Black Man For President

Obama appears to be damaged goods, and may be done. You could probably stick a fork in him at this point. Or does he have enough miracles left to overcome the nations attempt to swiftboat his campaign? And yes…this has now become more of a national effort. Everyone seems to be getting in on the act.

That's one of the many reasons why I lost interest in this circus filled election season.

Hillary's race baiting campaign has done serious damage to Obama and his hopes for the nomination, especially in the context of the General Election. Even if Obama somehow stops the bleeding enough to win the nomination, the General (s)election will be a different story. Obama will have to garner a broader range of support in the General Election as compared to the Democratic nomination contest...and it's going to be a steeper hill for him to climb in the General to accomplish that mission.

Clinton has taken race, Rev. Wright, etc...& has tied it around Obama's neck with a ball & chain. It is going to weigh on him not only for the remainder of his campaign...but for the rest of his political career. Obama was naive to think that his attempts to run a race neutral campaign would somehow stop Whites from attacking him using race, ethnicity, and religion as weapons. They simply couldn’t resist. Obama was essentially put in a situation where he had to apologize for being Black. And people wonder why I hate being a Black man? I don’t know of any other ethnic group in this Country that has to apologize to the wider society for their race…..or has to apologize for comments made by other members of their ethnic group, the way that Obama had to. These developments have been breathtaking, although not surprising to me considering we live in one of the most racist Countries in the World. But this is why I had to step back from politics…the madness was becoming too absurd to tolerate.

I never thought that either Clinton or Obama were very electable from the beginning.... and now they are even more unelectable... That is especially the case for Obama.
Everything that I had predicted earlier on seems to be materializing. The media has duped Democrats (by steering voters like sheep) into nominating two marginal candidates....and by playing up issues of race, etc. And it has been all about ratings for the networks the whole time (from the time that the Obama/Clinton matchup was first introduced and played up as a possibility 2 & 1/2 to 3 years ago until today).

An example of the damage done to Obama can be seen in polling data...and it is showing in a big way. Whether it holds or not remains to be seen...but the negative results seem to be holding a month after the Rev. Wright nonsense. Obama had been leading by wide margins in Indiana on a consistent basis over several weeks. But after the negative racist gutter politics of Clinton.... the poll in Indiana has flipped the opposite way...with Clinton now enjoying a nice lead; although Obama has been able to improve his standing in Indiana in the last few days. There was an initial swing of about 15-20 points from Obama to Clinton within the span of two weeks. As if that’s not bad enough, new polling from Puerto Rico shows that Clinton enjoys a healthy double digit lead there as well. I was a little surprised by the Puerto Rico poll considering the rocky relationship between the Clinton administration and the island in the late 1990’s.

But Hillary’s support among blue collar White voters in Indiana, Kentucky and Pennsylvania says a lot about the impact of playing on the fears of White Americans, xenophobic Whites in particular. Hillary always had race as a built-in advantage.

At the end of the day... I don't believe that Obama is electable in a General Election....and he probably won't win. He may not even win the Democratic nomination now that Florida and Michigan are probably out of the picture (at least for now). This will leave the decision to the so-called Superdelegates. Losing the nomination may be an act of mercy for Obama and his followers. Some polling is beginning to show that voters would support McCain over Obama...and Clinton over McCain in key matchups (again...Hillary Clinton’s dirty racist campaign has started to pay off). Clinton is likely to finish strong in the remaining contests on the back of her race baiting & scorched earth campaign...and this may make the Supercrooks... or the "Superdelegates" doubt Obama's chances.

To put it plainly....America is too sick to elect a Black candidate to the Presidency of the United States. Sick meaning- too racist, xenophobic, ignorant about politics & basic civics, ignorant about Democracy, nationalistic, controlled by fear, manipulated by the media, uninformed about other cultures & the experiences of others within the borders of this Country...let alone in Countries thousands of miles away, blind about religion.... Etc. And this is essentially why I am noticing that the vultures are starting to gather for Barack Obama…waiting for a nice meal from the political remains of a man who started out with grand hopes but was soon consumed by the disease that is American Politics….a disease fed by a twisted social culture. In some ways, America is as sick today as it was 40 and 50 years ago. And Hope was never going to change that in my opinion. This is why I always said that Obama needed more than Hope to win the nomination and a General Election… I knew that he would face this racist onslaught. He needed a kick ass, cut throat campaign staff that wouldn’t take any bull……but this is something that Obama doesn’t seem to have unfortunately. To say that David Axelrod has been a wimp may be an understatement.

In the end, race & how comfortable voters personally would feel having a beer or having dinner with a particular candidate may prove more important than the candidates positions on actual issues. In American elections... this personal "feel good" test tends to carry the day over all else. This is what American elections have come down to....and it has been this way for quite some time. Whites will always be more comfortable with candidates who look like them, despite the fact that they may actually have more in common as Americans with the minority candidate (the guy who is barely a millionaire…and a fairly new member of that group). This phenomenon is part of the reason why George W. Bush still won re-election despite losing 3 straight debates to the cosmopolitan guy from the Northeast. Rural White Americans preferred George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan because of how well these men wore their boots and their cowboy hats...more than any plan they offered or policy that they supported. We are seeing a similar situation with Obama, and his ethnicity highlights this phenomenon that much more.

Americans consistently vote against their own best interests, even in election years when they claim to want change. If you recall….2004 was a “change” election year…but when it came down to voting, Americans chose the same cast of characters….largely out of fear and because of the impulse to choose the familiar. The same thing is happening in this election cycle. Americans will likely choose what is familiar and “safe”. Choosing something different requires voters to put in more work….requires them to think more…requires them to have a grasp of the issues. But for many voters, this is too hard, and they look for any excuse to pull back and retreat to their old patterns of choosing the most familiar. This is how issues like Gay marriage, guns (I am pro-gun by the way), religion, immigration, war, race and class, often trump more pressing everyday issues that all voters should be concerned with. This is partly what Obama was getting at when he made the comments about small town America. But he wasn’t blunt enough with his comments. If he could have gotten away with it, what he should have mentioned was the fact that race and racial prejudice are working against him in many parts of rural America, and rural Pennsylvania and Indiana especially. That’s what he wanted to say but couldn’t. Xenophobia and racism are huge issues in this campaign. And the fear mongering from Clinton and McCain are a testament to that fact. If these were not big issues, then Clinton & the Conservatives would not be working so hard to highlight and exploit racial & social differences for political advantage.

It is amazing how the media has been able to twist Obama’s comments around to have a completely different meaning or connotation than what was intended. Hillary Clinton is allowed to tell one bold faced lie after another with very few lasting consequences, yet Obama is vilified repeatedly for telling the truth. Obama is attacked relentlessly for comments that he didn’t even make regarding his former Pastor, or for comments made by the obscure Louis Farrakhan (support that Obama never sought & comments that he probably didn’t know about ahead of time) yet the media does nothing to hold John McCain accountable for actually seeking and accepting the endorsement of a known bigot and religious hate monger John Hagee. This is why I get the urge to strangle those who say there is no media bias in favor of these rich white candidates. Clinton in particular has had the media advantage from the beginning, long before she even declared her candidacy.

The media tries to create its own reality in order to boost ratings. They desperately want the Obama comments to be overblown into a huge new controversy. Even though a CNN Poll out today showed that 76% of viewers did not find Obama’s comments offensive at all. A majority were actually in agreement with Sen. Obama. Yet the corporate media continues to twist his words and then overplay those twisted words, hoping to influence voters in Pennsylvania, Indiana and elsewhere who may not keep up with the daily news and who would therefore be ripe candidates for this kind of manipulation. Meanwhile, while this manufactured news is being promoted, the media seems to ignore actual confirmed news surrounding Clinton’s chief strategist Mark Penn, and his support of a Columbian Trade deal, while she is in Pennsylvania slamming such deals. It’s the same kind of disingenuous behavior that we saw from Clinton in Ohio and that we have seen throughout her campaign.

What really bothers me is the assertion by Clinton and McCain that Obama is some sort of elitist and is out of touch. This is coming from a woman who reported making over $100 million dollars, and has been the biggest recipient of corporate lobbying money out of all of the candidates. This is also the same woman who has been in the White House, in Governors mansions and in corporate board rooms for upwards of 35 years straight. This is the same woman who defended corporations against consumers and even defended a wife beater in a brutal domestic violence case when she was a hotshot attorney, as a way to promote her career. And now she claims to be a feminist. Give us a break Hillary! And John McCain is not far behind. His entire campaign is virtually run by lobbyists. But Obama is the elitist? A man who started out in a job that paid about $15,000 a year and wasn’t born into wealth. A man raised by a single mother. A man who lived on Food Stamps as a kid and doesn’t know what it feels like to have $100 million.

If that’s not bad enough, Hillary is now claiming to be Annie Oakley…a pro-gun politician. Unfortunately Americans have a very short memory and will fall for that unmitigated foolishness. Those of us who have been paying attention know about the war on guns that the Clintons waged in the 1990’s. Now she wants gullible voters to believe that she is actually pro-gun. It’s another chameleon act by Clinton…. changing her colors to fit the current environment. We saw the same nonsense with NAFTA. And there have been similar embellishments in terms of her foreign policy (3am crisis) experience….which all turned out to be a very large bucket of Bull.

The media circus of the past 2 months has taken both Democratic Party candidates off of more meaningful topics, such as what they plan to do to save social security, what they plan to do about healthcare, what they plan to do about climate change and the environment, what they plan to do about energy independence & getting gas prices under control, what they plan to do to create jobs and to make the U.S. more competitive in the new global economy, what they plan to do about the cost of living and stagnant wages, what they plan to do about corruption in Washington D.C., what they plan to do to repair U.S. relations with the rest of the World, what they plan to do about the growing racial and social class rift (the new emerging caste system in this Country), what they plan to do about the cost of higher education and out of control student loan burdens, and the list goes on & on. I have not heard anything over the past several weeks about substantive policies and plans of the respective candidates. I have only been bombarded with replay after replay of the latest trivial comments from one of the 3 Senators.

We have entered an era where we can now count on good people to be swift boated, no matter how good their message might be. The new tradition calls for election seasons that are turned into pure entertainment. Americans, fed by the corporate media machine, sit around to see who has made the latest gaffe, rather than seeking meaningful substantive information. This is why the American electorate tends to be less informed than voters in other Democracies. We are becoming a "gaffe" and 10 second soundbite culture. This, in part, is what will decide elections from here on out. Meanwhile, the same cast of characters will win elections over and over again, and nothing will change for ordinary Americans. The Well of American politics is now permanently contaminated. If JFK were to run for the office of President today, even he would be swift boated. So we as a nation are in this perpetual funk, and I don’t see how the cycle will be broken. As long as the nation has a corrupt Two- Party system that is controlled by big money, a largely disengaged uninformed public, and a corporate media that controls & shapes almost all public opinion, then nothing significant will change in the lives of ordinary Americans. Fear, ignorance, racism and xenophobia will continue to rule the day. Only a reformed, regulated political system with a real multi-party Democracy (more than 2 major Parties) will be able to change the status quo. Americans make up one of the most ill-informed and manipulated electorates of any modern nation on the planet, which is why we will be dealing with this kind of nonsense for the foreseeable future.

The Obama experiment, so far, is proving that despite all of the Senators attempts to run a race neutral campaign and to represent a new generation of minority politicians who want to transcend skin color, White America still could not resist using race as a weapon against him. Thus America is once again failing to move beyond its racist past. This will insure that America will remain one of the Neanderthals in the community of nations. Technologically and economically strong…sure. But socially, it is still too sick to move ahead…still stuck 2-3 generations behind.

I'm quickly moving towards a "shelter in place" bunker mentality.... more of a survivalist mode... gathering everything that I need for "SHTF Day" (whenever that day comes)...when the House burns down. That includes clinging to my guns, just like Whites in small town America. I am realizing that I can do nothing to stop the inevitable demise of this country.... that an Empire descending from grace is just a natural thing...and there is nothing that anyone can do about it. I can do nothing to impact (not in a meaningful or significant way) the politics of this Country... especially in a Country where there is no real Democracy to speak of. Yes, my cynicism has returned….in fact, it never went anywhere. I have always been cynical and skeptical. This Country has not given me any reason to be otherwise. And it’s not a blind cynicism….it is a justified cynicism.

One positive that could come out of a Democratic defeat in November….sort of a silver lining to the dark storm cloud of a McCain victory… is that such a Democratic defeat may be what the Country needs. It wouldn’t be a completely negative experience. Perhaps this would be the spark that the Democratic Party would need to finally implode, which would be a good thing, forcing the Party to clean house from top to bottom, starting with Howard Dean. Perhaps this would cause the Party to refocus its vision, mission, and strategy for the future. The current cast of characters give me nothing to be excited about.

But those changes would only be superficial. What we really need is a complete fundamental overhaul of the entire political system in this Country. I know… not likely, but that’s the only way to restore public confidence in politics. There has to be a change in the way that the nation chooses Presidents and other elected officials. Public financing of campaigns, where all candidates are on a level playing field, and enjoy a truly impartial media, is the only fair framework for future elections. Maybe a Democratic loss could convince enough people (fed up Democrats and independents) to form a separate political Party. And I would love to see Conservatives and Moderates do the same. Both Parties should split into 2 or 3 different groups in my opinion. A true multi-party Democracy (more than two or three major Parties) is the only way that all Americans can feel that their interests are being represented. You need more than two corrupt political Parties to represent the needs and interests of a diverse group of 300 million people. No other major industrialized Democracy has that kind of Party ratio in terms of political representation. You only see that kind of ratio in dictatorships and communist Countries. Voters need choice when they go to the polls… they have had to choose between the Demon and the Devil for too long. Until there are fundamental changes to this Countries political landscape…. nothing will fundamentally change in the lives of Americans.

Donna Brazile on the Wright Situation

Hat tip Jack and Jill Politics:

From the LA Times "Top of the Ticket" blog:

Donna Brazile -- an uncommitted superdelegate of the Democratic National Convention and one of television's few black, female political pundits -- interjected an intriguing observation this afternoon into a discussion on CNN about Hillary Clinton's stiff-arming of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

In short, Brazile provided a pointed reminder that some voters (African Americans, in particular, we would think) might recall that Wright did not turn on Clinton's husband during an hour of need for him.

Her comments assured another burst of attention on the Obama-Wright connection -- something her campaign didn't have to do during the white-hot heat of the controversy. And it took part of the media spotlight away from her faulty memory (or, less kindly, utter fabrication) about her visit to Bosnia when she was first lady.

Clinton could have contented herself with decrying Wright's messages without saying, in essence, that no way would she tolerate an association with the likes of him.

That's what Brazile picked up on, making a reference to Wright's willingness to join dozens of other religious figures in attending an annual White House prayer breakfast just as the Starr report on Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky -- in all its lurid detail -- was about to come out. No doubt ...

... those at the event -- at least the vast majority of them -- highly disapproved of Clinton's behavior. But they were not willing to shun him.

Brazile's none-too-subtle point: There's a potential downside to turning away, with nary a forgiving nod, from those who once stood by you.

Wright, by the way, remains out of the public eye. He had been invited to preach tonight, Wednesday and Thursday at a church in Tampa, but his appearance was canceled because of security concerns.

-- Don Frederick

I would like to thank Donna Brazile for speaking up once again.

Hillary " Tonya Harding" Clinton on Wright - ' He would not have been my pastor.'

About Jeremiah Wright, Hillary " Tonya Harding" Clinton had this to say:

"He would not have been my pastor," Clinton said. "You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend."

************************************************************

Ahem.

This is what our fellow blogger, Field Negro had to say:

Today again the "Ice Queen" took a shot at the "O" man and suggested that he should have left his church. "We don't have a choice when it comes to our relatives, we have a choice when it comes to our Pastor." Maybe you can "Ice Queen", but black folks just don't go switching their church. Maybe that's how you white folks do shit, but religion is personal to black people. As a black man I take that shit personally when you attack the black church to make a political point. And when you do it for political expediency to deflect the news from your own little problems. "Oh stop it field, you don't even go to church". Yes but I understand that importance of the church in our community, and, unlike moi, most black folks do go to church and believe in the institution it represents. So the longer this shit goes on with the "O" man's pastor, the more upset I get. If Hillary had a clue she would have left that shit alone. Her husband is supposed to be the "first black president", they should know that there are certain things that we hold sacred and just should not be fucked with.

--------------------------------------------------------

And here is my reply. A reply that goes to heart of why the attacks on Jeremiah Wright are offensive and personal to Black people.
--------------------------------------------------------

Thank you, FN.

I have been making the rounds of ' MSM' Blogs to make this point.

There was a Rasmussen Poll done on Wright.

Poll on Wright


Here's the money section for me:

Overall, voters are evenly divided as to whether Obama should resign his membership in the Church—42% say that he should while 40% disagree. White voters, by a 46% to 33% margin, say that Obama should leave the Church. African-American voters, by a 68% to 16% margin, say he should not. Wright retired last month as Pastor of the Church.

While there was a 13 point difference FOR among Whites, look at the gap among Blacks - 52%.

52% AGAINST.

Why?

Church isn't some simple place where you go on Sunday to listen to the pastor for 30 minutes.

Church, in the Black Community, is all about COMMUNITY.

It's why, it's literally an all-day affair.

Black people do not change churches like they do purses. I am in my 30's, and outside of school, I've had exactly 2 church homes in my life. It took nearly 2 years to find the second one, but I found it. Commitment to a church isn't something that's done fly-by-night. It's not some fleeting commitment. It is a given that you will find something that you don't like about any church you attend; which is why it is the general COMMUNITY that will ultimately make that decision.

The Black Church is the ONLY institution, in the history of The United States of America, which, from its conception,

Validated, Supported, Incubated, and Treasured.

BLACK HUMANITY.

Period.

Don't think I'm correct, then name me another institution which has done so.

The attack on Trinity is seen as an attack on the Black Church, and thus, by extension, an attack on the Black Community as a whole.

During times of slavery and Jim Crow, the Black Church was what reinforced Community.

Post Civil Rights and Integration, the Black Church is now what brings Community together, considering that the Black Community, like the rest of America, is becoming more stratified along the lines of class. The Black Church is really the only place in Black America where you will consistently find the doctor and welfare mother in the same building, with the same purpose. It's the place to break down those walls of class that are building up.

To disown Wright and Trinity would be to disown the Black Community itself, which is why Obama said in his speech he couldn't. He understood that fundamentally about the Black Community, and he understood that political expediency would mean the doubting of the existence of his soul by the Black community. Obama would never be trusted again by Black folk if he had disowned Wright & Trinity. Even Black folk that don't go to church understand that you don't mess with the Black Church - it's just not done.


And the Handkerchief Head Mammy that Clinton has running her campaign KNOWS THIS.

Hillary "Tonya Harding" Clinton's Former Pastor Backs Jeremiah Wright

From The HuffingtonPost.com

Pastor Of Clinton's Former Church: Don't Use Wright To Polarize

A STATEMENT CONCERNING THE REV. JEREMIAH WRIGHT


The Reverend Jeremiah Wright is an outstanding church leader
whom I have heard speak a number of times. He has served for
decades as a profound voice for justice and inclusion in our society.
He has been a vocal critic of the racism, sexism and homophobia
which still tarnish the American dream. To evaluate his dynamic
ministry on the basis of two or three sound bites does a grave
injustice to Dr. Wright, the members of his congregation, and the
African-American church which has been the spiritual refuge of a
people that has suffered from discrimination, disadvantage, and
violence. Dr. Wright, a member of an integrated denomination, has
been an agent of racial reconciliation while proclaiming perceptions
and truths uncomfortable for some white people to hear. Those of us
who are white Americans would do well to listen carefully to Dr.
Wright rather than to use a few of his quotes to polarize. This is a
critical time in America's history as we seek to repent of our racism.
No matter which candidates prevail, let us use this time to listen again
to one another and not to distort one another's truth.


Dean J. Snyder, Senior Minister
Foundry United Methodist Church
March 19, 2008

Well, at least he has principle.


*******
The Tonya Harding Reference is to this ABCNEWS.com report from a Democratic Superdelegate:

The question is -- what will Clinton have to do in order to achieve it?

What will she have to do to Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, in order to eke out her improbable victory?

She will have to "break his back," the official said. She will have to destroy Obama, make Obama completely unacceptable.

"Her securing the nomination is certainly possible - but it will require exercising the 'Tonya Harding option.'" the official said. "Is that really what we Democrats want?"

Obama and Race: Echoes of W.E.B. Dubois

One of the things that struck me about Obama's speech last week was how much it echoed or reflected the struggle that W.E.B. Dubois described more than a Century ago. Obama provided a modern touch to an age old discussion. Dubois offers a prophetic view of the enduring issue of race in America.


*********************
Between me and the other world there is ever an unasked question: unasked by some through feelings of delicacy; by others through the difficulty of rightly framing it. All, nevertheless, flutter round it. They approach me in a half-hesitant sort of way, eye me curiously or compassionately, and then, instead of saying directly, How does it feel to be a problem? they say, I know an excellent colored man in my town; or, I fought at Mechanicsville; or, Do not these Southern outrages make your blood boil? At these I smile, or am interested, or reduce the boiling to a simmer, as the occasion may require. To the real question, How does it feel to be a problem? I answer seldom a word.

And yet, being a problem is a strange experience,—peculiar even for one who has never been anything else, save perhaps in babyhood and in Europe. It is in the early days of rollicking boyhood that the revelation first bursts upon one, all in a day, as it were. I remember well when the shadow swept across me. I was a little thing, away up in the hills of New England, where the dark Housatonic winds between Hoosac and Taghkanic to the sea. In a wee wooden schoolhouse, something put it into the boys’ and girls’ heads to buy gorgeous visiting-cards—ten cents a package—and exchange. The exchange was merry, till one girl, a tall newcomer, refused my card,—refused it peremptorily, with a glance. Then it dawned upon me with a certain suddenness that I was different from the others; or like, mayhap, in heart and life and longing, but shut out from their world by a vast veil. I had thereafter no desire to tear down that veil, to creep through; I held all beyond it in common contempt, and lived above it in a region of blue sky and great wandering shadows. That sky was bluest when I could beat my mates at examination-time, or beat them at a foot-race, or even beat their stringy heads. Alas, with the years all this fine contempt began to fade; for the worlds I longed for, and all their dazzling opportunities, were theirs, not mine. But they should not keep these prizes, I said; some, all, I would wrest from them. Just how I would do it I could never decide: by reading law, by healing the sick, by telling the wonderful tales that swam in my head,—some way. With other black boys the strife was not so fiercely sunny: their youth shrunk into tasteless sycophancy, or into silent hatred of the pale world about them and mocking distrust of everything white; or wasted itself in a bitter cry, Why did God make me an outcast and a stranger in mine own house? The shades of the prison-house closed round about us all: walls strait and stubborn to the whitest, but relentlessly narrow, tall, and unscalable to sons of night who must plod darkly on in resignation, or beat unavailing palms against the stone, or steadily, half hopelessly, watch the streak of blue above.

After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world,—a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness,—an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.

The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife,—this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the older selves to be lost. He would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face.


--W.E.B. Dubois from "The Souls of Black Folk"

The Jeremiah Wright/LBJ Connection

Hat tip - Prometheus6:

Did you know that there was a Jeremiah Wright/LBJ connection?

Jeremiah Wright was part of a medical team that took care of LBJ when he had some medical problems.

Just trying to help spread the word.

Picture of Wright on Medical team (he's on the right):

Picture

Scan of Letter from LBJ to Wright:

Letter


'Unpatriotic'?

I.don't.think.so.


UPDATE-

A Blog for You:

The TRUTH About Trinity

Another Black Preacher Confronts America About War

"God didn't call America to engage in a senseless, unjust war. . . . And we are criminals in that war. We've committed more war crimes almost than any nation in the world, and I'm going to continue to say it. And we won't stop it because of our pride and our arrogance as a nation. But God has a way of even putting nations in their place. .............And if you don't stop your reckless course, I'll rise up and break the backbone of your power."

Who is this 'unpatriotic' person that DARES to invoke God this way against the United States?

Martin Luther King, Jr. - Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta on Feb. 4, 1968.

CONTEXT, people.

Not only CONTEXT within a sermon, but CONTEXT culturally.

Important, isn't it?

The EJ Dionne column from which this quote was taken can be found HERE.

Clintons Using Wright to Hurt Obama

While nobody should be surprised, just trying to keep folks informed.

Hat tips: poster at JJP and DailyKos

Here are three articles of note:

Yes, Clinton Campaign Is Pushing The Wright Story

Clinton Doesn’t Deny Campaign is Pushing Wright Story to Superdelegates

Clinton Facing Narrower Path to Nomination


I'm only going to point this out....how do I put this.....not that the Clintons care, but the Democratic Party should....Black folk aren't going to take too kindly to using a Minister that is revered against Obama. Silly me....what am I thinking.....they can win those Blue Midwestern and Eastern states without Blue cities, right, and the Black voters that live there? I forgot. Hillary's found a new group of Democrats to vote in those Blue states...

Obama & Wright: Another Perspective

Sometimes, you see stuff on other blogs that's deep and you want to share.

Hat tip: Prometheus6

I yield the floor to ptcruiser:

A Talking Point For Obama Supporters
Posted March 19th, 2008 by ptcruiser


Many of the alleged pundits and so-called analysts who appeared on television and radio yesterday to offer their interpretation of Obama's speech were quick, in fact, too quick, to decry the analogy that Obama drew between his relationship with his maternal grandmother and his relationship with Rev. Wright. Many of the talking heads and far, far too many of the black males and females who appeared on these programs dismissed this connection because, as they stated, one can easily choose to find another minister as opposed to finding a replacement grandmother.

This line of argument has a certain logical appeal because the church one chooses to join is a matter of choice. That is, one can choose to belong to this church or that church or no church at all. Whereas one has no choice over selecting one's grandmother. People are continually born into a world that is always older than they are and they have no choice as to who is their grandmother. Natality and chance rule over this process.

The problem here is that this way of looking at Obama's decision tree ignores the very specific circumstances of his life and biography. When Obama likens Rev. Wright to an uncle and describes him as being a member of his family he is quite sincere and, more importantly, he is, psychologically speaking, correct. Obama's biological father was entirely absent during his formative years and he was dead by the time Obama became an adult. In addition, Obama had no contact with his father's male siblings and adult male cousins. In other words, he had no older adult black males in his life with whom he could form close and enduring bonds until he met Rev. Wright.

Consequently, when Obama says that Rev. Wright is like an uncle to him and that he could no more disown him than he could disown his maternal grandmother he is expressing a deeply felt and psychological true statement. Rev. Wright may or may not be crazy (I don't believe that he is crazy or intemperate although I disagree with him about the origins of the AIDS epidemic.) but he is someone who Obama has chosen to be his uncle.

What Obama did is no different from what tens of thousands of gays and lesbians have had to do when they were rejected by their families because of their sexual preferences. They went out and over time created their own families. I met a young sister, for example, in graduate school who later came out to me. She and I became very close friends and when she unexpectedly died several years ago I felt as if I had lost one of my own biological sisters. I miss her a great deal. She considered me to be a member of her family because her own family looked askance at her sexual preferences. The human need for familial association and acceptance is an evolutionary fact.

Obama's relationship with Rev. Wright should and must be seen in this context instead of through the superficial and grossly over simplified choice of simply switching ministers. His bond was with Rev. Wright and the community he found at Trinity United Church. Expecting or demanding him to sever those bonds would be tantamount to asking him to exile himself. Cutting off all of his ties to Rev. Wright would be exactly like asking him to kill his maternal grandmother. Blood may be thicker than mud but the ties that are created when you choose to call someone family are no less thick and lasting.

Blogging Light

I may be missing in action for the next week or so. I have some issues to deal with.

I'm a little tired of blogging at the moment anyway. It is beginning to drain me.... with all the negative news. There is George Bush with his usual stupidity, and the (s)election campaign and the Swiftboating of Barack Obama (I knew it was coming... But I wish they would have gotten it over with earlier before our "hopes" got too high). Then there is the beast Hillary Clinton with her race baiting tactics.... where she has now turned everything around to make it Obama's fault. This adds a whole new meaning to "blaming the victim".

It's amazing that Obama's "Blackness" will end up being his downfall afterall.... even though he tried his damndest to run a smooth, clean, race neutral campaign that tried to put a focus on the issues. He was smeared anyway. Clinton's aim was to brand him with the "Black candidate" label, and with the help of her allies in the White Corporate media, she has now been successful. Gravity will take over & do the rest now. That says a lot about the United States of Amerikkka....when you are a Black or minority political figure and you try to deal with the merits of issues... they still find a way to use race against you. But it should be no surprise in one of the most racist nations in the World. It just confirms all many of the reasons why I hate being a Black man in this Country.

How do you have all of this scrutiny aimed at Obama regarding his former Pastor Reverend Wright.... and there is no one asking John McCain to denounce, reject, etc... a known bigot and hate monger who's endorsement McCain happily and publicly accepted? This is so ass backwards that I can't even begin to rationalize it... It raises my blood pressure too high.

And what about Hillary Clinton? This woman virtually has a goddamn Cemetery in her closet. David Axelrod is either too stupid or too weak & spineless to find any of the bodies buried inside. It wouldn't be hard to find any.... that scene from Hotel Rwanda comes to mind when Paul Rusesabagina steps out of the car on one of the main roads...and ends up tripping over bodies stacked two deep.

When will someone ask Clinton about her relationship with sweatshop tycoon Willie Tan...ask her to explain everything and ask her if she returned his money...& if not, why not? Mrs. Pro-Labor Rights my ass!!!

When will someone in the White corporate media corner Hillary and ask her about her true involvement in all of the fraud surrounding her Senate Campaign? When will they ask her to talk about her involvement with her finance director David Rosen, who was indicted by a Federal Grand Jury?

When will someone in the White corporate media ask Hillary "The Feminist" Clinton why she violated her feminist principles and defended a brutal wifebeater when she was at the Rose Law Firm?

When will the White corporate media go back and talk with the folks at the Rose Law Firm about Hillary? (The Rose Law Firm = The Rose Cemetary for Clinton).

When will the White corporate media look into Clinton's background at Wal-Mart and her work fighting AGAINST labor rights?

When will the White corporate media investigate Clinton's relationship with Healthcare Industry lobbyists leading up to...and after the absolute failure of her Universal Healthcare campaign?

And there are still a lot of questions left unanswered regarding Travelgate....and a whole host of other issues.

There are enough Skeletons in Hillary's closet to keep a team of good investigative Journalists and Campaign chiefs busy for months.... IF THEY WOULD ONLY LOOK.
And the above is barely the tip of the iceberg.

On top of all of this... The Country seems to be going broke... although it has been broke for a long time. But now it may trickle down to the entire Country. I posted a couple of times...back in 2006 and 2007 on the fact that the American system, as it is today, is unsustainable. Just last year people thought that $90 per barrel oil was a problem, but now it is at $110.00 per barrel.

There has been some more recent analysis on the U.S. economy, but I have not gotten around to posting that information. I am hoping that this is a normal financial correction....and not a global recession...or worse. But the dollar could tank any day now.... it has been on shaky ground for some time. The nation's leaders had a long time to do something about it....but due to a lack of leadership... no action was taken to fix fundamental problems in the nation's economy and with the currency in particular.

On top of all of that, I have issues at home to take care of.... including my own lack of funds. It's one problem after another.

Blogging, usually cathartic, has recently become a drag on the psyche.

______________________________________

On another note... I lost a co-blogger last week. Liberal Arts Dude (Redante) decided that he could no longer contribute. I would like to add another blogger... and my choice will be made with diversity in mind.

I am looking for ways to improve the blog. I am considering scrapping the site and starting over from scratch, because I am not satisfied with the readership situation, or participation (although that has grown by leaps and bounds from what it was a year ago). The bloggers here work hard....

It's annoying to see blogs of lesser quality with much higher readership.
I also find it hard to blog as a "Black" blogger. It's like having a weight attached to your leg when you are trying to sprint (Barack Obama knows a little something about that)....and it never goes away. Bolt cutters can't set you free. It's hard posting the right balance between so-called "Black" issues, and other broader issues that interest me...and issues that we should all be concerned with. Furthermore, there is just so much going on that it's hard to narrow things down...although I have it down to a science.

But I am calling out to anyone who has suggestions on improving the blog (in fact, I am always open to suggestions).

*What kinds of topics would you like to see discussed?
*How could we diversify and broaden the readership? (which is a long term goal of mine)
*More videos/multi-media....less...or just right?
*More original writing? (My time is limited....and so is Rikyrah's i'm sure).

Well... it's time for me to go....

If you have any complaints... contact Rikyrah. Whatever it is... it will probably be her fault anyway.

Good Night ...and Good Luck!

Trinity UCC's Palm Sunday Statement

Hat tip:Prometheus6:

From the NYTimes.com:

While Senator Obama has distanced himself from the incendiary remarks by his former pastor, including comments about how the United States brought on the Sept. 11 attacks by its own actions abroad, the Chicago church’s current pastor, the Rev. Otis Moss III, issued this statement on Palm Sunday.

Nearly three weeks before the 40th commemorative anniversary of the murder of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Reverend Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.’s character is being assassinated in the public sphere because he has preached a social gospel on behalf of oppressed women, children and men in America and around the globe.

Dr. Wright has preached 207,792 minutes on Sunday for the past 36 years at Trinity United Church of Christ. This does not include weekday worship services, revivals and preaching engagements across America and around the globe, to ecumenical and interfaith communities. It is an indictment on Dr. Wright’s ministerial legacy to present his global ministry within a 15- or 30-second sound bite,” said the Reverend Otis Moss III, pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ.

During the 36-year pastorate of Dr. Wright, Trinity United Church of Christ has grown from 87 to 8,000 members. It is the largest congregation in the United Church of Christ denomination.

“It saddens me to see news stories reporting such a caricature of a congregation that has been such a blessing to the UCC’s Wider Church mission,” said the Rev. John H. Thomas, UCC general minister and president, in a released statement. “ … It’s time for us to say ‘No’ to these attacks and declare that we will not allow anyone to undermine or destroy the ministries of any of our congregations in order to serve their own narrow political or ideological ends.”

Trinity United Church of Christ’s ministry is inclusive and global. The following ministries have been developed under Dr. Wright’s ministerial tutelage for social justice: assisted living facilities for senior citizens, day care for children, pastoral care and counseling, health care, ministries for persons living with HIV/AIDS, hospice training, prison ministry, scholarships for thousands of students to attend historically black colleges, youth ministries, tutorial and computer programs, a church library, domestic violence programs and scholarships and fellowships for women and men attending seminary.

Moss added, “The African American Church was born out of the crucible of slavery and the legacy of prophetic African American preachers since slavery has been and continues to heal broken marginalized victims of social and economic injustices. This is an attack on the legacy of the African American Church which led and continues to lead the fight for human rights in America and around the world.”

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preached the Christian tenet, “love thy neighbor as thyself.” Before Dr. King was murdered on April 4, 1968, he preached, “The 11 o’clock hour is the most segregated hour in America.” Forty years later, the African American Church community continues to face bomb threats, death threats, and their ministers’ characters are assassinated because they teach and preach prophetic social concerns for social justice. Sunday is still the most segregated hour in America.

We talked with Angela Faison, a spokeswoman for the church, just moments ago, who verified the statement from the Reverend Moss. We asked her if Senator Obama or his campaign cleared the statement, and she asked: “Why would we do that? We are two separate entities.”

Obama on his Pastor

On My Faith and My Church

Trying to Attack Obama Through His Church

Well, those of us who have been observing the Obama Campaign knew that this day would come.

Faux News has been obsessed with Trinity UCC from the beginning of his campaign.

I know that most of the Black readers on here understand that the attack on Trinity is basically an attack on the best traditions of the Black Christian Church. For our non-Black readers, here is my take on Trinity UCC.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Trinity UCC is about empowerment. It is not full of 'radicals'. It's full of 'Strivers' like Barack and Michelle Obama. It is full of what has to be called ' The Talented Tenth'. These folks are not radicals; they are the most connected to 'The System' within the Black community.

Dr. Wright is an old-fashioned Black preacher; not one of these Prosperity Gospel Sellout Hustlers. His Jesus is the one that helps the sick, the poor, the least amongst us. In fact, I believe, with conviction, if Wright WERE a Prosperity Gospel Hustler, then Faux News and Others wouldn't be saying JACK about him.

Wright demanded of his congregation that they have an active part in the world in which they live. Trinity is one of the most affluent congregations, regardless of race, in the entire state. That they show some self-respect; that Dr. Wright, and now Rev. Moss challenge them to give back - how is that a bad thing?

They are about self-reliance; doing for one's self. Not expecting anyone else do to for you what you won't do for yourself. Sounds like pretty conservative values to me.

When they were building their new multi-million sanctuary, they could have gone anywhere in the city or suburbs - they would have been welcome. THEY CHOSE to locate, literally across the railroad tracks, from a housing project. This was a display of their commitment to the community. Jews send their children to Hebrew School on a weekly basis; what is the purpose of that, if not to reinforce a sense of pride, values, history and tradition in their children.

That is what Trinity provides for its members - a sense of community, and pride. A source of religious inspiration that reinforces the conservative values that many of the parents are attempting to raise their children with, despite being surrounded by a BET/Hip Hop culture. A church that reinforces to their children that respect for family and community and education are not, nor have they ever been, the exclusive pervue of Whites. To surround their children with living and breathing examples of Black professionals who have 'achieved' doing something other than dribbling/carrying some sort of ball, or shuffling in front of a microphone degrading themselves. That success in America is quite attainable, through education and hard work. For Black children to SEE those examples up close, on a consistent basis, is invaluable. To have a sense of self-worth and pride be instilled in them will make them more productive citizens as they grow up in this society. Part of the development of that self-worth is to provide those children for a context about the world in which they live. Only by admitting and confronting White Supremacy and all the traps that it can set for their children, will their children be provided with the armor to go forth and succeed in this world. It's the time honored lesson of ' how to get over' that has been passed from generation to generation in the Black community. Jeremiah Wright just wrapped it up in a bow of Pan-Africanism.


When I see the 'reports' on Faux News and elsewhere, it's obvious that they are getting their information from people who have never been to Trinity, spoken to members from Trinity, and are getting their gross mischaracterizations from people who obviously have nothing but ill-intentions towards Senator Obama. The members of Trinity are not unlike the professional African-Americans in your office. The same middle-class, upper middle-class folks that you work with......do you really believe that THOSE folks leave the office and turn into the second coming of Angela Davis and Huey P. Newton on Sunday morning?

Puleeze.

No different with Barack & Michelle Obama and the nearly 10,000 members of Trinity UCC.