The Ladner Report On Lowery and the Inaugural Benediction

Can you imagine the Negro National Anthem as a key tone in a Presidential inauguration? Heavy!!! RGN

Rev. Joseph Lowery, the iconic civil rights era Baptist preacher and a friend of Dr. Martin Luther King, gave a sobering benediction fitting for the inauguration of President Barack Obama. He started by quoting the lyrics of James Weldon Johnson, who wrote "Lift Every Voice and Sing," in 1901 and often called the Negro National Anthem.

"God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, thou who has brought us thus far along the way, thou who has by thy might led us into the light, keep us forever in the path, we pray, lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee, lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee. Shadowed beneath thy hand may we forever stand -- true to thee, O God, and true to our native land."

For the full post see The Ladner Report

Victor Navasky on Obama and "The Center"

Victor Navasky has been Lion on the left for many years. His enthusiasm for an Obama presidency seems to be boundless. He trusts the President. Here he provides a perspective on the claim that President Obama is a centrist. What Obama seems to be doing is carrying out a progressive agenda by casting a wide net of inclusion. As a "centrist" in his inaugural ceremony he acknowledged not only the evangelicals but non-believers, as well. Navasky makes the point that Obama is redefining politics in America when he asserts that the President is a "liberal wolf in a centrist's sheeps clothing." RGN

Seeking Obama's Center
Comment
By Victor Navasky
January 21, 2009

Whatever one's feelings about our new president, there was something thrilling about being at the the Huffington Post/Atlantic Philanthropies pre-inauguration bash at the Newseum in Washington with 1,500 journalists and pols, all of whom seemed to be celebrating and exulting in Obama's coming to power.

One had the same feeling earlier in the evening at the home of Myra MacPherson, Izzy Stone's biographer, where left-liberal journalists predominated.

And the next day, as I listened to his inaugural address, although I think I harbored no illusions about the difficult task ahead, I still felt that I was swimming in the same sea of happiness, as I heard him gently but firmly declare the country's liberation from the past (and reject "as false" the Bush administration's notion that national security was incompatible with constitutional liberty, that it is not a question of choosing "between our safety and our ideals"); and then simultaneously rejecting the Clinton administration's notion that the era of big government was over ("The question we ask today is not whether government is too big or too small but whether it works").

Therefore, there was something off-putting the next morning when I turned on my TV only to see pundit after pundit--be it Pat Buchanan on the right, "Morning Joe" Scarborough on the center-right or Mike Barnicle in the center--all praising him as a "centrist."

I had three problems with that:

First, as our friend and backer Paul Newman used to remind us, The Nation was valuable because it helps define where the center is. The center can shift. When Obama added to his ritualistic description of America as "a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus" a new category--"nonbelievers"--it was almost unbelievable, as he quickly helped redefine where the center was.

Second, based on what we know about Obama--his books, his initial intuitive stand against the war in Iraq, his Senate voting record, his campaign, his inaugural speech--I don't believe it. At most, he seems to me a liberal wolf in centrist sheep's clothing.

And finally, faced with the ever-more-dire economic crisis, his commitment to a Keynes-based economic stimulus and renewed regulatory rigor (see his inaugural reference to not letting the market "spin out of control") suggests that, at a minimum, he flunked Centrism 101.

Rather, I prefer to believe that his reach across the aisle, his cabinet appointments and his opening to the renegade Joe Lieberman and his erstwhile opponent John McCain himself are part of his pragmatic plan to advance an agenda that goes beyond anything the so-called center might contain. Whether or not it will work, that is the question.

About Victor Navasky
Victor Navasky, publisher emeritus of The Nation, was the magazine's editor from 1978to 1995 and publisher and editorial director from 1995 to 2005. He is currently the director of the George Delacorte Center for Magazine Journalism at Columbia University. His books include Kennedy Justice, the American Book Award winner Naming Names and, most recently, A Matter of Opinion.

Remaking America: Halt Tribunals

Obama Acts "In the Interest of Justice" To Halt Tribunals
posted by John Nichols on 01/21/2009 @ 08:45am

Apparently Barack Obama took his oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States" a tad more seriously than did his predecessor.

Lawyers for the United States government -- the one now led by Obama -- acted even as the inaugural celebrations were going on to halt the Guantánamo Bay military commission trials.

Obama, in one of his first official acts, ordered a suspension of the trials, which had been adjourned in anticipation of the transition of authority from former President George Bush to his successor.

The motion filed by Obama's lawyers called for a 120-day moratorium on legal proceedings so that "the newly inaugurated president and his administration [can] review the military commissions process, generally, and the cases currently pending before military commissions, specifically."

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, a holdover from the Bush administration that initiated the controversial trials, joined in the motion.

The order to halt to the tribunals was issed "in the interests of justice," according to the official request to the military judges.

"The suspension of military commissions so soon after President Obama took office is an indication of the sense of urgency he feels about reversing the destructive course that the previous administration was taking in fighting terrorism," declared Gabor Rona, the international director of Human Rights First.

Obama must, of course, do much more in the interest of justice. "It's a great first step but it is only a first step," notes Rona. "It will permit the newly inaugurated president and his administration to undertake a thorough review of both the pending cases and the military commissions process generally."

But Human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, who has represented Guantánamo suspects told BBC Radio 4: "It's going to take some work but what he [Obama] is looking at I think here is a very clear-cut distinction between this administration and the last."

That would seem to be a fair assessment of the moment, and the beginning of definition of change we can believe in.

Obama Sworn In: History Made

_____________________________________________________________________________________
January 21, 2009
Obama Takes Oath, and Nation in Crisis Embraces the Moment
By PETER BAKER

WASHINGTON — Barack Hussein Obama was sworn in as the 44th president of the United States on Tuesday and promised to “begin again the work of remaking America” on a day of celebration that climaxed a once-inconceivable journey for the man and his country.

Mr. Obama, the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas, inherited a White House built partly by slaves and a nation in crisis at home and abroad. The moment captured the imagination of much of the world as more than a million flag-waving people bore witness while Mr. Obama recited the oath with his hand on the same Bible that Abraham Lincoln used at his inauguration 148 years ago.

Beyond the politics of the occasion, the sight of a black man climbing the highest peak electrified people across racial, generational and partisan lines. Mr. Obama largely left it to others to mark the history explicitly, making only passing reference to his own barrier-breaking role in his 18-minute Inaugural Address, noting how improbable it might seem that “a man whose father less than 60 years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.”

But confronted by the worst economic situation in decades, two overseas wars and the continuing threat of Islamic terrorism, Mr. Obama sobered the celebration with a grim assessment of the state of a nation rocked by home foreclosures, shuttered businesses, lost jobs, costly health care, failing schools, energy dependence and the threat of climate change. Signaling a sharp and immediate break with the presidency of George W. Bush, he vowed to usher in a “new era of responsibility” and restore tarnished American ideals.

“Today, I say to you that the challenges we face are real,” Mr. Obama said in the address, delivered from the west front of the Capitol. “They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America, they will be met.”

The vast crowd that thronged the Mall on a frigid but bright winter day was the largest to attend an inauguration in decades, if not ever. Many then lined Pennsylvania Avenue for a parade that continued well past nightfall on a day that was not expected to end for Mr. Obama until late in the night with the last of 10 inaugural balls.

Mr. Bush left the national stage quietly, doing nothing to upstage his successor. After hosting the Obamas for coffee at the White House and attending the ceremony at the Capitol, Mr. Bush hugged Mr. Obama, then left through the Rotunda to head back to Texas. “Come on, Laura, we’re going home,” he was overheard telling Mrs. Bush.
The inauguration coincided with more bad news from Wall Street, with the Dow Jones industrial average down more than 300 points on indications of further trouble for banks.

The spirit of the day was also marred by the hospitalization of Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, whose endorsement helped propel Mr. Obama to the Democratic nomination last year. Mr. Kennedy, who has been fighting a malignant brain tumor, suffered a seizure at a Capitol luncheon after the ceremony and was wheeled out on a stretcher.

The pageantry included some serious business. Shortly after he and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. were sworn in, Mr. Obama ordered all pending Bush regulations frozen for a legal and policy review. He also signed formal nomination papers for his cabinet, and the Senate quickly confirmed seven nominees: the secretaries of homeland security, energy, agriculture, interior, education and veterans’ affairs and the director of the Office of Management and Budget.

When he arrives in the Oval Office on Wednesday, aides said, Mr. Obama will get to work on some of his priorities. He plans to convene his national security team and senior military commanders to discuss his plans to pull combat troops out of Iraq and bolster those in Afghanistan. He also plans to sign executive orders to start closing the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and could reverse Mr. Bush’s restrictions on financing for groups that promote or provide information about abortion.

Delays in the confirmation process have left both the State Department and the Treasury Department in the hands of caretakers. But Hillary Rodham Clinton was expected to win Senate confirmation as secretary of state on Wednesday, and the Pentagon remains under the control of Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who was kept on from the Bush administration and did not attend the inauguration so someone in the line of succession would survive in case of terrorist attack.

In his address, Mr. Obama praised Mr. Bush “for his service to our nation as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.” But he also offered implicit criticism, condemning what he called “our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age.”

He went on to assure the rest of the world that change had come. “To all other peoples and governments who are watching today,” Mr. Obama said, “from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born, know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.”

Some of Mr. Obama’s supporters booed and taunted Mr. Bush when he emerged from the Capitol to take his place on stage, at one point singing, “Nah, nah, nah, nah, hey, hey, hey, goodbye.” By day’s end, Mr. Bush had landed in Texas, where he defended his presidency and declared that he was “coming home with my head held high.”
The departing vice president, Dick Cheney, appeared at the ceremony in a wheelchair after suffering a back injury moving the day before and was also booed.

The nation’s 56th inauguration drew waves of people from all corners and filled the expanse between the Capitol and the Washington Monument. For the first transition in power since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, much of the capital was under exceptionally tight security, with a two-square-mile swath under the strictest control. Bridges from Virginia were closed to regular traffic and more than 35,000 civilian and military personnel were on duty.

Mr. Obama secured at least part of his legacy the moment he walked into the White House on Tuesday, 146 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, 108 years after the first black man dined in the mansion with a president and 46 years after the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. declared his dream of equality.

Mr. Obama, just 47 years old and four years out of the Illinois State Senate, arrived at this moment on the unlikeliest of paths, vaulted to the forefront of national politics on the strength of stirring speeches, early opposition to the Iraq war and public disenchantment with the Bush era. His scant record of achievement at the national level proved less important to voters than his embodiment of change.

His foreign-sounding name, his childhood in Hawaii and Indonesia and his skin color made him a unique figure in the annals of presidential campaigns, yet he toppled two of the best brand names in American politics — Mrs. Clinton in the primaries and Senator John McCain in the general election.

Mr. Obama himself is descended on his mother’s side from ancestors who owned slaves and he can trace his family tree to Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy. The power of the moment was lost on no one as the Rev. Joseph E. Lowery, one of the towering figures of the civil rights movement, gave the benediction and called for “inclusion, not exclusion; tolerance, not intolerance.”

The Rev. Rick Warren, a conservative minister selected by Mr. Obama to give the invocation despite protests from liberals, told the crowd, “We know today that Dr. King and a great cloud of witnesses are shouting in heaven.”

For all that, Mr. Obama used the occasion to address “this winter of our hardship” and promote his plan for vast federal spending accompanied by tax cuts to stimulate the economy and begin addressing energy, environmental and infrastructure needs.
“Now there are some who question the scale of our ambitions, who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans,” he said. “Their memories are short, for they have forgotten what this country has already done, what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose and necessity to courage.”

He also essentially renounced the curtailment of liberties in the name of security, saying he would “reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.” He struck a stiff note on terrorism, saying Americans “will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense.”

“For those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken,” he said. “You cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.”

But Mr. Obama also added a message to Islamic nations, a first from the inaugural lectern. “To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect,” Mr. Obama said. “To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history — but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.”

Mr. Obama’s public day started at 8:45 a.m. when he and his wife, Michelle, left Blair House for a service at St. John’s Church, then joined the Bushes, Cheneys and Bidens for coffee at the White House.

The Obamas’ daughters, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 7, joined them at the Capitol, as did Mrs. Clinton and Mr. McCain, as well as former Presidents Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter and the elder George Bush.

While emotional for many, the ceremony did not go entirely according to plan. Mr. Biden was sworn in by Justice John Paul Stevens behind schedule at 11:57 a.m., and Mr. Obama did not take the oath until 12:05 p.m., five minutes past the constitutionally prescribed transfer of power.

Moreover, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. stumbled over the 35-word oath, causing Mr. Obama to repeat it out of the constitutional order. Instead of swearing that he “will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States,” Mr. Obama swore that he “will execute the office of president of the United States faithfully.”

Following time-honored rituals, the Obamas attended lunch with lawmakers in Statuary Hall at the Capitol, then rode and walked to the White House, where they watched the parade from a bulletproof reviewing stand. They planned to attend all 10 official inaugural balls before spending their first night in the White House.

In his Inaugural Address, Mr. Obama seemed at times to be having a virtual dialogue with his predecessors. “What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility,” he said, “a recognition on the part of every American that we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly.” Mr. Bush and Mr. Clinton likewise called for responsibility at their inaugurations, but Mr. Obama offered little sense of what exactly he wanted Americans to do.

Mr. Obama also seemed to take issue with Ronald Reagan, who declared when he took office in 1981 that “government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.” Mr. Clinton rebutted that in 1997, saying, “government is not the problem and government is not the solution.”

Mr. Obama offered a new formulation: “The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small but whether it works, whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified.

Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end.”

Mr. Clinton, at least, applauded the message. In a brief interview afterward, he said Mr. Obama’s installation could change the way America was viewed.

“It’s obviously historic because President Obama is the first African-American president, but it’s more than that,” Mr. Clinton said. “This is a time when we’re clearly making a new beginning. It’s a country of repeated second-chances and new beginnings.”

Rabbis Call on Obama for Mid-East Cease Fire

Last update - 16:00 14/01/2009


U.S. rabbis urge Obama to push for immediate Gaza truce

By Natasha Mozgavaya, Haaretz Correspondent and Haaretz Staff




A group of rabbis and other religious leaders bought advertising space in the New York Times this week to call for U.S. president-elect Barack Obama to push for an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip.

The ad, placed by the Network of Spiritual Progressives and claiming to represent more than 2,800 other religious, cultural and community leaders, urges Obama to convene an international Middle East peace conference to "facilitate a lasting and just settlement for all parties."

Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun magazine, who convened the group, said the group had to buy the advertising space because the national newspapers would not make room for their perspective.

"They feel that AIPAC's choice is overwhelming, and there's no space left for empathy or objective coverage - the media, according to the group, simply ignored the voice of the Jewish opposition to war in Gaza," Rabbi Lerner said.

Eleven prominent British Jews, including Baroness Julia Neuberger, published a letter in The Observer newspaper last weekend expressing their "horror" at the Gaza conflict and calling on Israel to stop its military campaign.

Israel has been waging an offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip since December 27. The operation, launched in order to halt cross-border rocket fire, has come under heavy criticism for the high number of civilian casualties.

http://haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1055463.html

Obama and discussions of Race....

On the first Sunday of January 2008, just days before the Iowa primary, Nell Painter was the guest in C-Span's 3-hour long "In Depth." During the call-in, a white female caller asked Dr. Painter what she would think of race relations in America should Barack Obama get elected president? After a very startled expression, a look of disbelief, Dr. Painter said that should the American people elect Obama president, we would talk of race in America in terms of "before Obama, and after Obama."

The article by Sarah Kershew bespeaks of which Nell Painter spoke. Obama being who he is, a black man raised in both and white and very ethnically diverse world, as president of the United States, does by definition change the discourse on race in America. As such, the definitions are and will be changing. The first change is that many whites see Obama as being BOTH black and white. Bi-racialism is a relatively new phenomenon. Historically, race operated on what Mualana "Ron" Karenga often referenced as the Jesus theory, one drop will make you whole. Until recently any amount of "black blood" made you black, by law. That Barack is to be president of the U.S. and given America's white nationalist history, discussions of race will be, for the foreseeable future, examinations of race and racism will be a part of our oxygen.

The Obama phenomenon has sparked discussions of America transcending race, or being post racial. Barack has never made such a claim, even though he did not run his campaign with race as the primary issue with which he was concerned. His campaign was universalistic. Even so, that he was black was a central issue to the campaign. The election was a referendum on white nationalism and white nationalism lost. With Obama as president race, will be ever present as he changes the face of America. RGN

January 15, 2009
Talk About Race? Relax, It’s O.K.
By SARAH KERSHAW

THE awkward conversations usually start with something like, “You look like Tiger Woods.”

Or, “Your last name is Rice — are you related to Jerry? Condoleezza?”
In bolder moments, maybe after a few drinks at a cocktail party, a white acquaintance might say to George Rice, 45, who is biracial: “You don’t seem that black. I have no worries with you.”

In what Mr. Rice calls the “everydayness” of race relations, his interactions with whites can be stilted and strained, even when there is no overt racism.

Even Mr. Rice’s wife, Becca Knox, 43, who is white, said that despite being married to a black man for six years, finding a comfortable way to talk about race with people of other races, particularly African-Americans, that is sensitive but not self-conscious, candid but not offensive, is still “a constant, constant struggle and process.”

But over the last few months, both Mr. Rice and Ms. Knox, who live in Washington, have been struck by the slight easing of these examples of what psychologists describe as “interracial anxiety” between blacks and whites. That is because there is a now an omnipresent icebreaker: Barack Obama.

“There’s a more readily accessible conduit into the conversation about race if it begins with Barack Obama,” said Mr. Rice, the executive director of the Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials — International, a professional law enforcement group. “In my experience over the last few months, it’s easier because it’ll begin with who he is, the differences between his parents, what he had to deal with.”

In his one major speech on race relations during the campaign, during a furor over remarks by his former pastor, Mr. Obama chided anyone so naïve as to think that “we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy.” He warned that race is something in American history and life “that we’ve never really worked through.”

But in the person of a president-elect who is the son of an African father and a white mother, Mr. Obama does seem to have inspired many to take a step on the road to improved relations — namely, conversation.

Cross-racial discussion about the topic of race seems to have become more common, and somewhat less fraught, with the rise of Mr. Obama, according to historians, psychologists, sociologists and other experts on race relations, as well as a number of blacks and whites interviewed around the country.

“All this exposure to this very counterstereotypical African-American has actually changed — at least temporarily — what is on the tip of the tongue,” said E. Ashby Plant, a psychologist at Florida State University and an author of a new study examining the impact of Mr. Obama on the attitudes of whites. “It may have very important implications.”

In Dr. Plant’s study, 400 white college students in Wisconsin and Florida were asked, between Mr. Obama’s nomination and his election, questions like, “What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of African-Americans?”

The unpublished study found that the answers revealed little evidence of antiblack bias, in sharp contrast to many earlier studies (including one by Dr. Plant) showing that roughly 80 percent of whites have some degree of bias.

Polls have captured increasing optimism among Americans about the future of race relations. The day after Mr. Obama was elected, a Gallup poll found that 67 percent of Americans believed a solution to black-white racial problems would eventually be worked out. Gallup said that it had been asking the same question for four decades, and that a poll last summer also reflected substantially more optimism than previously. The polls did not account for the race of respondents. A New York Times/CBS News poll in July showed sharp differences between blacks and whites on a similar topic: Nearly 60 percent of black respondents said race relations were generally bad, while only 34 percent of whites agreed.

Psychologists and sociologists have long drawn a link between the amount of anxiety that occurs in interracial interactions and one’s previous exposure to the other race; a guiding principle of desegregation was that it could help detoxify race relations by making whites more comfortable with blacks in daily life.

Christophe E. Jackson, 28, a black Ph.D. candidate in biology at the University of Alabama, Birmingham, who is also pursuing a medical degree, recalled that in the past he had uneasy conversations with white students and colleagues about affirmative action. He believed that many whites thought he had an edge, and were sometimes blunt about saying so. But Mr. Obama’s campaign and election seem to have changed those perceptions.

“Before Obama, there was always this thing — ‘He’s a black doctor,’ ” Mr. Jackson said. “But now I’m going to be a physician who also happens to be black. That’s become the perception now, which is really nice.”

At the same time, some African-Americans said they were skeptical that Mr. Obama’s presidency would meaningfully whittle away at the discomfort between races, or decrease the frequency of their own sometimes painful interactions with whites. Some said the president-elect’s sheer star power, their growing sense that he is viewed by whites as an individual who transcends race — a Michael Jordan or an Oprah Winfrey — would do little to improve race relations.

“I think they will see Obama as the star,” said Gilda Squire, 39, who owns a public relations firm in Manhattan. “That’s already begun, if you ask me. Yes, we’re celebrating the historical event and it’s a major feat, I get it. But in terms of the day-to-day, I don’t know.”

“I remember people saying Michael Jordan’s ‘not really black,’ ” Ms. Squire added. “It’s like Obama supersedes race. And this doesn’t mean that Gilda Squire who lives in New York City isn’t going to have to deal with the issues of racism every day.”

Denene Millner, 40, who is black and moved to a small town outside Atlanta from northern New Jersey three years ago, has been debating her husband, who is also black, about whether an Obama presidency will smooth interracial communication. He thinks so, she does not. She often experiences what psychologists call “strategic colorblindness” on the part of whites, even among her friends, who can be so uncomfortable talking about race that they think the most sensitive approach is to avoid the subject entirely — such as not describing African-Americans as black in conversation.

“I can’t stand it when folks feel like they have to watch what they say around me,” said Ms. Millner, a columnist for Parenting Magazine and a book author. Recently a white friend from New Jersey was visiting; Ms. Millner wanted to have a movie night where she screened her favorite black films. She started a discussion about the difference between bad black movies (“Soul Plane” tops her list) and good ones (“Love & Basketball” is her favorite), but her white friend became flustered and embarrassed.

“She turned 40 shades of red,” said Ms. Millner, who said she later worried that she had been too blunt. “This is a learning experience for both of us.”

Two studies on strategic colorblindness conducted by researchers at Tufts University and the Harvard Business School (the former appeared in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in October, and the latter in Developmental Psychology in September) concluded that whites, including children as young as 10, may attempt to avoid talking about race with blacks, or even acknowledging racial differences, so as not to appear prejudiced.

The studies also found that blacks viewed that tactic as evidence of prejudice.
“There really are still some issues that have to do with the historical legacy of race and racism in this country, and we can’t deal with those in a serious fashion if we have this hypersensitivity whenever race comes up,” said Elisabeth Lasch-Quinn, a history professor at the Maxwell School at Syracuse University and the author of “Race Experts: How Racial Etiquette, Sensitivity Training, and New Age Therapy Hijacked the Civil Rights Revolution.”

Mr. Obama “was so careful not to let his candidacy use those usual messages about race, so he really stands for something different,” Ms. Lasch-Quinn added. “This shakes up the status quo because here we have someone who is willing to talk about race, but doesn’t talk about it in the usual ways. Once we have one person doing that, we now have a model for how other people can do that.”

During his campaign, Mr. Obama almost entirely avoided the topic of race, as did the other candidates, continuing a tacit understanding among national leaders dating from the close of the civil rights era that race is just too explosive an issue for public discussion. The one exception was the speech last March in which Mr. Obama was forced to defend inflammatory statements by the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. Mr. Obama described the nation as still deeply beset by black anger and white resentment, especially older generations, who might not express themselves freely among co-workers or friends of the opposite race, but give vent when safely among members of their own race.

In the end, Mr. Obama was elected with 43 percent of the white vote and 95 percent of black voters.

The actress and playwright Anna Deavere Smith, whose work has often focused on race relations, said she was heartened that the historic victory didn’t somehow make it seem like the race problem in America has been solved, and that people of different races are still soul-searching about how to talk to each another. She was encouraged, she said, by the notion that Mr. Obama’s election had appeared to ease some interracial tension, adding: “But I don’t think that’s just the white man’s work. Plenty of people of color still have great anxieties about white people.”
On the morning after the election, Kristin Rothballer, 36, who lives in San Francisco, kissed her female partner goodbye on the train while commuting to work. A black woman who sat down next to her turned and said she was sorry that
Proposition 8, the amendment to ban gay marriage in the state, looked like it was going to pass.

“We grabbed hands,” Ms. Rothballer recalled. “And I said, ‘Well, I really want to congratulate you because we have a black president and that’s amazing.’ ”

“Our conversation then almost became about the fact that we were having the conversation,” she said.

Something moved her to apologize to the black woman for slavery.

“For two strangers riding a train to Oakland to have that conversation about race, it wouldn’t have been possible if Obama hadn’t been elected,” she said. “I always felt open with my colleagues, but to say to a stranger on the train, ‘Hey, I’m sorry about slavery,’ that just doesn’t happen.”

Barack and the BlackBerry

Barack is a man for the time. Not only has he made history with the white "cross over" vote, he is "in" with the technology. While not a serious matter in the realm of his major responsibilities as president, Barack is in time with times, including his devotion to the BlackBerry. A part of his charisma, his cool, is that he is so "in". Not to be snide, that is not the intent, but McCain was said to not know how to turn on a computer. And now we have a president who has grown with the evolution of the technology. BlackBerry has found a great pitch man with Obama trying to stay connected with his own BlackBerry, of which the Secret Service is trying to deprive him. While the Cabinet appointments has been the major reason for his 70%+ favorable ratings, no doubt being a man "in" with the time helps. RGN

January 9, 2009
For BlackBerry, Obama’s Devotion Is Priceless
By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD

This week, Michael Phelps signed a deal worth more than $1 million to advertise Mazda in China. Jerry Seinfeld earned a reported $10 million to appear in Microsoft’s recent television campaign.

But the person who may be the biggest celebrity pitchman in the world is not earning a penny for his work.

President-elect Barack Obama has repeatedly said how much his BlackBerry means to him and how he is dreading the prospect of being forced to give it up, because of legal and security concerns, once he takes office.

“I’m still clinging to my BlackBerry,” Mr. Obama said Wednesday in an interview with CNBC and The New York Times. “They’re going to pry it out of my hands.”

What could the “BlackBerry president” charge for his plugs of the device if he were not a public servant? More than $25 million, marketing experts say, and maybe as much as $50 million.

“This would be almost the biggest endorsement deal in the history of endorsements,” said Doug Shabelman, the president of Burns Entertainment, which arranges deals between celebrities and companies. “He’s consistently seen using it and consistently in the news arguing — and arguing with issues of national security and global welfare — how he absolutely needs this to function on a daily basis.”

Mr. Obama is an ideal marketing representative, other agents say — popular, constantly in the news and explicit about his attachment to the product.

“You always want the celebrity to be a good fit with your brand, and is anybody considered a better communicator right now than Barack Obama, or a better networker?” said Fran Kelly, the chief executive of the advertising agency Arnold Worldwide, who estimated that an endorsement by Mr. Obama would be worth $25 million. “It couldn’t have a better spokesperson.”

Mr. Shabelman put the value even higher, at $50 million or more, because the endorsement is worldwide.

“The worth to a company to have the president always talking about a BlackBerry and how it absolutely is a necessity to keep in touch with reality?” he said. “Think about how far the company has come if they’re able to say, ‘The president has to have this to keep in touch.’ ”

The maker of the BlackBerry, Research in Motion, recently introduced advertising campaigns and products like the touch-screen Storm that are meant to position BlackBerry as not just a business device but a consumer product like the iPhone. The company, which declined to comment on Mr. Obama’s enthusiasm for its product, also struck a sponsorship deal with John Mayer, a popular guitarist but hardly the leader of the free world.

“The most powerful man in the country is saying, at this moment, basically, I can’t live without mine,” Lori Sale, the head of artist marketing at the agency Paradigm, which pairs actors like Adrien Brody and Katherine Heigl with advertisers. “It represents their now complete and final crossover to a device that people adore.”

Ms. Sale said that Mr. Obama had essentially participated in what is called a satellite media tour for BlackBerry by discussing the product with reporters. Just a single day of a media tour, “with the most A-list of A-list of A-list, would probably be 10 to 15 million dollars,” she said.

That he is not paid to promote BlackBerry is even better for R.I.M. “What makes it even more valuable than that is how authentic it is,” she said.

Mr. Kelly said the endorsement went both ways: while Mr. Obama was doing a lot for BlackBerry, BlackBerry had helped Mr. Obama’s image by making his message seem more relevant.

“The BlackBerry anecdotes are a huge part of Obama’s brand reputation,” he said. “It positions him as one of us: he’s got friends and family and people to communicate with us, just like all of us. And it positions him as a next-generation politician.”

Inevitably, perhaps, marketing executives dream about creating an ad featuring the president-elect, something Gene Liebel, a partner in the Brooklyn agency Huge, said would be a “fantasy assignment.”

Asked what tagline he might use for the campaign, Mr. Liebel repeated one his employees had thought up: “If Blagojevich can pick my replacement, I can pick my device.”

R. Vann Graves, the chief creative officer of the UniWorld Group, suggested a campaign showing Mr. Obama in the Oval Office. “In the foreground, you have the desk, but instead of having the proverbial red phone, you have a red BlackBerry,” Mr. Graves said, with the tagline “Shot Caller.”

Matt Reinhard, the executive creative director of DDB Los Angeles, suggested Apple try to steal Mr. Obama away from BlackBerry as a spokesman for the iPhone.

The message could be, “It’s time for change,” Mr. Reinhard said.

Barack to Malia and Sasha: What I Want for You

Here is a letter the President-elect wrote to his daughters. He lets them know that his mission is about them and every child in America. It is about making the world better for them. It is a letter about hope, justice and service to the society. RGN

'What I Want for You — and Every Child in America'
By President-elect Barack Obama
Publication Date: 01/14/2009

Next Tuesday, Barack Obama will be sworn in as our 44th President. On this historic occasion, PARADE asked the President-elect, who is also a devoted family man, to get personal and tell us what he wants for his children. Here, he shares his letter to them.

Dear Malia and Sasha,

I know that you've both had a lot of fun these last two years on the campaign trail, going to picnics and parades and state fairs, eating all sorts of junk food your mother and I probably shouldn't have let you have. But I also know that it hasn't always been easy for you and Mom, and that as excited as you both are about that new puppy, it doesn't make up for all the time we've been apart. I know how much I've missed these past two years, and today I want to tell you a little more about why I decided to take our family on this journey.

When I was a young man, I thought life was all about me—about how I'd make my way in the world, become successful, and get the things I want. But then the two of you came into my world with all your curiosity and mischief and those smiles that never fail to fill my heart and light up my day. And suddenly, all my big plans for myself didn't seem so important anymore. I soon found that the greatest joy in my life was the joy I saw in yours. And I realized that my own life wouldn't count for much unless I was able to ensure that you had every opportunity for happiness and fulfillment in yours. In the end, girls, that's why I ran for President: because of what I want for you and for every child in this nation.

I want all our children to go to schools worthy of their potential—schools that challenge them, inspire them, and instill in them a sense of wonder about the world around them. I want them to have the chance to go to college—even if their parents aren't rich. And I want them to get good jobs: jobs that pay well and give them benefits like health care, jobs that let them spend time wit h their own kids and retire with dignity.

I want us to push the boundaries of discovery so that you'll live to see new technologies and inventions that improve our lives and make our planet cleaner and safer. And I want us to push our own human boundaries to reach beyond the divides of race and region, gender and religion that keep us from seeing the best in each other.

Sometimes we have to send our young men and women into war and other dangerous situations to protect our country—but when we do, I want to make sure that it is only for a very good reason, that we try our best to settle our differences with others peacefully, and that we do everything possible to keep our servicemen and women safe. And I want every child to understand that the blessings these brave Americans fight for are not free—that with the great privilege of being a citizen of this nation comes great responsibility.

That was the lesson your grandmother tried to teach me when I was your age, the opening lines of the Declaration of Independence and telling me about the men and women who marched for equality because they believed those words put to paper two centuries ago should mean something.

She helped me understand that America is great not because it is perfect but because it can always be made better—and that the unfinished work of perfecting our union falls to each of us. It's a charge we pass on to our children, coming closer with each new generation to what we know America should be.

I hope both of you will take up that work, righting the wrongs that you see and working to give others the chances you've had. Not just because you have an obligation to give something back to this country that has given our family so muchâr”although you do have that obligation. But because you have an obligation to yourself. Because it is only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you will realize your true potential.

These are the things I want for you—to grow up in a world with no limits on your dreams and no achievements beyond your reach, and to grow into compassionate, committed women who will help build that world. And I want every child to have the same chances to learn and dream and grow and thrive that you girls have. That's why I've taken our family on this great adventure.

I am so proud of both of you. I love you more than you can ever know. And I am grateful every da y for your patience, poise, grace, and humor as we prepare to start our new life together in the White House.

Love,
Dad

Hagopian: History Matters--Gaza/Israel in Context

There is so much to be said to be said about the outrage that Israel is perpetrating upon the Palestinians in Gaza. Unfortunately, I have been pretty much unaware of Israel's murderous aggression. A very serious family illness took precedence over the news. Having said that, Israel's reaction to Hamas' shelling is disproportional and violates International law. Regardless of how the so-called "Israeli Lobby" tries to justify Israel's behavior, there can be no justification for such wanton disregard for human life. Israel places places the blame for this assault on Hamas. While there can be no justifications for the taking of innocent life on either side, the non-combatant casualties in Gaza from the bombs of Israel are crimes against humanity and must cease. Below is a piece that places this aspect of the conflict in its proper historical context. RGN


Weekend Edition
January 9-11, 2009
Why Hamas is Not the Issue
Gaza: History Matters

By ELAINE C. HAGOPIAN

Mohammed, age six, marched with determination to his bedroom, put on a record of the Fatah marching song, picked up a wooden toy rifle and marched out to the balcony. He pointed the rifle to the sky where minutes ago, Israeli planes flew over dropping bombs on Palestinian refugee sites. Mohammed told me he wanted to be a pilot so he could fight Israeli warplanes. “But Mohammed, the Palestinians do not have planes.” “I don’t care, I will fight them whatever way I can.” Was a resistance fighter born this minute or was he a “future terrorist”? (Beirut 1973)

How does one explain the horrific fate that has befallen caged Gaza – a land saturated with rubble and body parts – carpet-bombed by air, invaded by ground, attacked by sea? Put to the test of history, Israeli “explanations” fail the credibility test.

History matters. Israel conquered and occupied Gaza (along with the West Bank and East Jerusalem) in 1967. Hamas was an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brothers. In Gaza, it provided a network of social welfare institutions supporting the poor. During the first Palestinian Intifada (literally “shaking off” the occupation), a Hamas resistance military wing was formed. Israel and the US favored and met with Islamic Hamas leadership as a counterforce to the secular Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Fatah faction then dominant in the Intifada. As Hamas later strengthened, Israel reversed the process.

History matters. Palestinians have consistently resisted Israeli dominance over their lives. Gazan resistance has been especially problematic for Israel. In the 1970s, before Hamas, Ariel Sharon was charged with “pacifying” Gaza. Sharon imposed a brutal policy of repression, blowing up houses, bulldozing large tracts of refugee camps, imposing severe collective punishment and imprisoning hundreds of young Palestinians.

Domination and colonialism are contrary to the United Nations Charter. The legitimacy of struggle for self-determination by peoples under colonial and foreign domination was reaffirmed in U.N. General Assembly resolution 2787 (December 6, 1971). As others before them, Palestinians have and do exercise the legal and moral right to resist.

History matters. In 2005, Israel withdrew its illegal colonial settlers from Gaza. Israeli scholars Uri Davis, Ilan Pappe and Tamar Yaron noted in a Counterpunch article at the time that the primary motive of the evacuation of the settlers was to remove them from harm’s way in anticipation of an intensified future mass attack on Gaza.

History matters. After Hamas won elections in 2006, its leadership accepted a two-state solution based on the pre-war June 4, 1967 borders, but this was unacceptable to Israel. Earlier, Israel destroyed secular Fatah leader and Palestinian Authority President Arafat for failing at Camp David in July 2000 to comply with its demands to accept permanent Israeli control over Palestinian life and land confined in enclaves. Hamas became the new challenge to Israel’s vision.

The facts of history affirm that Israel will not accept a sovereign Palestinian state on any part of historic Palestine. Hamas is not the issue. All Palestinian leaders sooner or later, secular or Islamic, are declared unacceptable partners for peace no matter how much they concede to Israel. That Israel hides behind the “Hamas Islamic threat” today to destroy it as a potential partner is becoming transparent.

Today, Palestinian Authority President Abbas’s Fatah “security force” is used against Hamas supporters on the pretense that Abbas could be accepted by Israel as a satisfactory “partner” but for Hamas. Both before and after Hamas won the 2006 elections, Abbas fared no better than Arafat though he conceded more. In fact Jonathan Cook’s new book, Disappearing Palestine,” describes the persistent Israeli strategy to achieve the diminution of Palestine. Nonetheless Abbas continues to comply with Israeli/US demands, faulted by his people and humiliated by his keepers.

The picture changes when history matters. Treating Israeli war crimes as historically detached events, unrelated to its Zionist ideology and militaristic strategy to control all of Palestine, becomes more transparent each day.

Israel has a choice: by accepting Palestinian rights under international law now and jettisoning its exclusivist ideology and militarism, Israel secures the future of its people in a shared Israel/Palestine; or by continuing its present policy of ruthless repression of indigenous Palestinians and denying them self determination, it cultivates an intensified and unyielding native resistance. Israel has always chosen the latter. Will President-Elect Obama have the courage to help Israel embrace the first?

Elaine C. Hagopian is Professor Emerita of Sociology, Simmons College, Boston

Quagmire: Pakistan and Al-Qaeda

Given the last 30 years of conservative rule, the thought of having a "progressive pragmatist" in the White House tends to center on domestic issues (e.g. poverty, racism, sexism, the environment, etc.). The major unknown to confront Obama is terrorism being waged against America, primarily by Islamic fundamentalists. Wallerstein lays out the complexities of dealing with Al-Qaeda in the context of the politics of Afghanistan and Pakistan. He warns Obama of the dangers of getting engaged in a war in the region. The tribal territories including much of Afghanistan appears to be ungovernable. Yet, this where Al-Qaeda is headquartered and protected. Apart from military options and to combat anti-Americanism on the part of the Arab and Islamic world, Barack is considering making a major foreign policy speech at some Islamic capital. It has been suggested that he do that in the nation with the largest Muslim population, Indonesia. It is land that Barack knows but this speech needs to be delivered in the Middle East. That being the case, it would seem that Saudi Arabia would only anger Bin-Laden more. There's Cairo but Egypt is not very democratic. Maybe Amman Jordan? Addressing the Palestinians? Whatever, Barack faces a major challenge when to combatting terrorism. At least we will soon be out of that illegal war in Iraq. RGN


Commentary No. 247, December 15, 2008
"Pakistan: Obama's Nightmare"

On the evening of Nov. 26, 2008, a small group of 10 persons attacked two luxury hotels and other sites in central Mumbai (India) and, over several days, managed both to kill and hurt a very large number of persons and to create massive material destruction in the city. It took several days before the slaughter was brought to an end. It is widely believed that the attacks were the work of a Pakistani group called Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET), a group thought to be similar in motivation to al-Qaeda, perhaps directly linked to it. The world press immediately called the Mumbai massacres the 9/11 of India, a repetition of the attacks al-Qaeda launched against the United States in 2001.

The motivations and strategy of al-Qaeda in 2001 were largely misunderstood in 2001, both by the U.S. government and by analysts. The same thing risks happening now. Al-Qaeda in 2001 was of course seeking to humiliate the United States. But this was, from a strategic point of view, only a secondary motivation. Al-Qaeda has always made clear that its primary objective is the re-creation of the Islamic caliphate.

And, as a matter of political strategy, it has considered that the necessary first step is the collapse of the governments of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Al-Qaeda considers that these two governments have been the essential political supports of Western (primarily U.S.) political dominance in the greater Middle East, and therefore the biggest obstacles to the re-creation of the caliphate, whose initial geographic base would of course be in this region.

The attack of September 11 can be seen as an attempt to get the U.S. government to engage in political activities that would put pressures on the Saudi and Pakistani governments of a kind that would undermine their political viability. The primary actions of the U.S. government in the region since 2001 - the invasion first of Afghanistan and then of Iraq - certainly met the expectations of al-Qaeda. What has been the result?

The Saudi government has reacted with great political astuteness, fending off U.S. pressures that would have weakened it internally, and has been able thus far to minimize al-Qaeda political success in Saudi Arabia. The Pakistani government has been far less successful. The regime in Islamabad is far weaker in 2008 than its predecessor regime was in 2001, while the political strength of al-Qaeda-type elements has been on a steady rise. The Mumbai attacks seem to have been an effort to weaken the Pakistani state still further. Of course, LET wished to hurt India and those seen as its allies - the United States, Great Britain, and Israel - but this was a secondary objective. The primary objective was to bring down the Pakistani government.

In Pakistan, as in every country of the world, the political elites are nationalist and seek to further the geopolitical interests of their country. This objective is fundamentally different from that of al-Qaeda-like groups, for whom the only legitimate function of a state is to further the re-creation of the caliphate. The persistent refusal of the Western world to understand this distinction has been a major source of al-Qaeda's continuing strength. It is what will turn Pakistan into Obama's nightmare.

What are Pakistan's geopolitical interests? Before anything else, it worries about its principal neighbors, India and Afghanistan. These concerns have fashioned its geopolitical strategy for the last sixty years. Pakistan sought powerful allies against India. It found two historically, the United States and China. Both the United States and China supported Pakistan for one simple reason, to keep India in check. India was seen by both as too close geopolitically to the Soviet Union, with whom both the United States and China were in conflict.

In the 1990s, with the end of the Cold War and the momentary geopolitical weakness of Russia, both the United States and China sought tentatively to obtain closer relations with India. India was geopolitically a more important prize than Pakistan, and Pakistan knew this. One of the ways Pakistan reacted was to expand its role in (and control over) Afghanistan, by supporting the eventually successful Taliban takeover of the country.

What happened after 2001? The United States invaded Afghanistan, ousted the Taliban, and installed a government which had elements friendly to the United States, to Russia, even to Iran, but not at all to Pakistan. At the same time, the United States and India got still cozier, with the new arrangements on nuclear energy. So, the Pakistani government turned a blind eye to the renewal of Taliban strength in the northwest tribal regions bordering Afghanistan. The Taliban elements there, supported by al-Qaeda elements, renewed military operations in Afghanistan - and with considerable success, it should be noted.

The United States became quite upset, pressed the Pakistani army to act militarily against these Taliban/al-Qaeda elements, and itself engaged in direct (albeit covert) military action in this region. The Pakistani government found itself between a rock and a hard place. It had never had much capacity to control matters in the tribal regions. And the attempts it made as a result of U.S. government pressure weakened it still further. But its inefficacy pushed the U.S. military to act even more directly, which led to severe anti-American sentiment even among the most historically pro-American elites.

What can Obama do? Send in troops? Against whom? The Pakistani government itself? It is said that the U.S. government is particularly concerned with the nuclear stockpile that Pakistan has. Would the United States try to seize this stockpile? Any action along these lines - and Obama recklessly hinted at such actions during the electoral campaign - would make the Iraqi fiasco seem like a minor event. It would certainly doom Obama's domestic objectives.

There will be no shortage of people who will counsel him that doing nothing is unacceptable weakness. Is that Obama's only alternative? It seems clear that pursuing his agenda, as he himself has defined it, requires getting out from under the unending and geopolitically fruitless U.S. activities in the Middle East. Iraq will be easy, since the Iraqis will insist on U.S. withdrawal. Afghanistan will be harder, but a political deal is not impossible. Iran can be negotiated. The Israel/Palestine conflict is for the moment unresolvable, and Obama may be able to do little else than let the situation fester still longer.

But Pakistan requires a decision. If a Pakistani government is to survive, it will have to be one that can show it holds its own geopolitically. This will not be at all easy, given the internal situation, and an angry Indian public opinion. If there is anywhere where Obama can act intelligently, this is the place.

by Immanuel Wallerstein

[Copyright by Immanuel Wallerstein, distributed by Agence Global. For rights and permissions, including translations and posting to non-commercial sites, and contact: rights@agenceglobal.com, 1.336.686.9002 or 1.336.286.6606. Permission is granted to download, forward electronically, or e-mail to others, provided the essay remains intact and the copyright note is displayed. To contact author, write: immanuel.wallerstein@yale.edu.

These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]

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Pat Buchanan: Right Wing Senators and Their War Against the UAW

As much as I have disdain for much of what Pat Buchanan has to offer, on occasion his more populist version of (white) nationalism leads him away from the Republican line. Appropriately, Buchanan's concern is that a failed Big Three has enormous implications for America's economy. Even so, the "Toyota Republicans," as he calls these Southern Senators, say America be damned, "we want immediate concessions from those 'overpaid' autoworkers." Secondarily, he notes that the war against the Big Three autoworkers means that the Republicans will have lost the so-called Reagan Democrats forever. The blocking of the loan to the U.S. automakers, a position given that the national interest is at stake, defies logic and is evident of the bankruptcy of conservatism when it comes to addressing real world problems. RGN

The Toyota Republicans
by Patrick J. Buchanan (more by this author)
Posted 12/16/2008 ET

"GOP to Detroit: Drop Dead!"

So may have read the headline Friday, had not President Bush stepped in to save GM, Ford and Chrysler, which Senate Republicans had just voted to send to the knacker's yard.

What are Republicans thinking of, pulling the plug, at Christmas, on GM, risking swift death for the greatest manufacturing company in American history, a strategic asset and pillar of the U.S. economy.

The $14 billion loan to the Big Three that Republican senators filibustered to death is just 2 percent of the $700 billion the Senate voted to bail out Wall Street. Having gone along with bailouts of Bear Stearns, AIG, Fannie, Freddie and CitiGroup, why refuse a reprieve to an industry upon which millions of the best blue-collar jobs in America depend?

In a good year, Americans buy 17 million cars. A more populous EU probably buys as many. Three billion people in India, Southeast Asia and China, four times as many people as there are in the EU and United States, are moving toward the middle class. They, too, will be wanting cars. And millions of them love American cars.

Is the Republican Party so fanatic in its ideology that, rather than sin against a commandment of Milton Friedman, it is willing to see America written forever out of this fantastic market, let millions of jobs vanish and write off the industrial Midwest?

So it would seem. "Companies fail every day, and others take their place," said Sen. Richard Shelby on "Face the Nation."

Presumably, the companies that will "take their place," when GM, Ford and Chrysler die, are German, Japanese or Korean, like the ones lured into Shelby's state of Alabama, with the bait of subsidies free-market Republicans are supposed to abhor.

In 1993, Alabama put together a $258 million package to bring a Mercedes plant in.

In 1999, Honda was offered $158 million to build a plant there. In 2002, Alabama won a Hyundai plant by offering a $252 million subsidy.

"We have a number of profitable automakers in America, and they should not be disadvantaged for making wise business decisions while failure is rewarded," says Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina.

DeMint is referring to "profitable automakers" like BMW, which sited a plant in Spartanburg, after South Carolina offered the Germans a $150 million subsidy and $80 million to expand.

Be it BMW, Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Mazda, Mitsubishi or Hyundai, the South has become a sanctuary for foreign assembly plants, for which Southern states have been paying subsidies.

Fine. But why this "Let-them-eat-cake!" coldness toward U.S. auto companies? General Motors employs more workers than all these foreign plants combined. And, unlike Mitsubishi, General Motors didn't bomb Pearl Harbor.

Do these Southern senators understand why the foreign automakers suddenly up and decided to build plants in the United States?

It was the economic nationalism of Ronald Reagan.

When an icon of American industry, Harley-Davidson, was being run out of business by cutthroat Japanese dumping of big bikes to kill the "Harley Hog," Reagan slapped 50 percent tariffs on their motorcycles and imposed quotas on imported Japanese cars. Message to Tokyo. If you folks want to keep selling cars here, start building them here.

Fear of Reaganism brought those foreign automakers, lickety-split, to America's shores, not any love of Southern cooking.

Do the Republicans not yet understand how they lost the New Majority coalition that gave them three landslides and five victories in six presidential races from 1968 to 1988? Do they not know why the Reagan Democrats in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan are going home?

The Republican Party gave their jobs away!

How? By telling U.S. manufacturers they could shut plants here, get rid of their U.S. workers, build factories in Mexico, Asia or China, and ship their products back, free of charge.

Republican globalists gave U.S. manufacturers every incentive to go abroad and take their jobs with them, the jobs of Middle America.

And, for 30 years, that is what U.S. manufacturers have done, have been forced to do, as their competitors closed down and moved their plants abroad in search of low-wage Third World labor.

It's Herbert Hoover time in here, Vice President Cheney is said to have told the Senate Republicans -- as they prepared to march out onto the floor and turn thumbs down on any reprieve for General Motors.

In today's world, America faces nationalistic trade rivals who manipulate currencies, employ nontariff barriers, subsidize their manufacturers, rebate value-added taxes on exports to us and impose value-added taxes on imports from us, all to capture our markets and kill our great companies. And we have a Republican Party blissfully ignorant that we live in a world of us or them. It doesn't even know who "us" is.

We need a new team on the field and a new coach who believes with Vince Lombardi that "winning isn't everything. It's the only thing."

Mr. Buchanan is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World, "The Death of the West,", "The Great Betrayal," "A Republic, Not an Empire" and "Where the Right Went Wrong."


Copyright © 2008 HUMAN EVENTS. All Rights Reserved.

Ron Walters: The Big Three and White Nationalism's Last (?) Stand

Ron Walters does an analysis of the continuation of the Civil War as it was played out by the right wing Southern Republican Senators in their obstruction of the loan to the America’s Big Three automakers. Their defeat of a congressional solution to this immediate crisis was nothing more than a union busting tactic that placed the nation’s economy in further peril. That the UAW supported Obama was not lost as a part of their planning. Also, as Walters points out, neither was the fact that it was “their blacks” who left debt peonage for the industrial sector. For these Senators their opposition was nothing less than the revenge of a white nationalism lost. RGN

The Radical Right Rides Again
By Ron Walters

Think about it. A group of Southern, right wing, Republican Senators have stopped the Senate from approving a package of financial assistance to the big three auto companies who employ directly over 150,000 workers, but affects 3 million including the suppliers, dealers and etc. This kind of cold blooded action on their part strikes me as just the kind of narrowly conservative, mean-spirited and reckless decision making that the nation voted against in electing Barack Obama.

The issue was that in the Senate negotiations over the $14 billion package for Chrysler, Ford and General Motors, Republicans, led by Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, developed a four point plan wherein three of the four major concessions were to be made by auto workers. It directed the United Auto Workers to agree that their wages would be brought in line with those of Nissan and Volkswagen; take half of their $23 billion Voluntary Benefit Association fund in stock options; and to eliminate payments to workers receiving nearly full salaries up to four years after retirement. Some of these proposals had previously been made by the corporate auto heads, so Corker was doing their bidding as well. The UAW that had already given up billions of dollars to the auto industries to keep them solvent, said no.
Nevertheless, Corker and his party had lots of political interests here. Ron Gettlefinger, head of the UAW, charged Corker with trying to break the union and bring it into line with non-union auto makers in his own state. Second, the UAW was also a target because of its role as a strong constituency of the Democratic party. Then, in Tennessee, Nissan and Volkswagen have plants and the latter’s headquarters is in Nashville and another Republican leader, Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, has argued that the companies should face bankruptcy. He has foreign auto makers in his state such as Toyota, Honda, Mercedes-Benz and Hyundai that he may be defending.

To come clean, I drive a Toyota because of its reputation for dependability, but I am also aware of the strides American manufacturers have made with respect to quality. In fact, what constitutes an “American car” today is questionable because of the substantial integration of auto parts from foreign countries into American cars. American cars cost about $2,000 more to make, largely because of factors such as health care, retirement, and dealership structure, but the governments of foreign auto makers absorb most of these costs. However, American elected officials who follow the pure capitalist model while other countries support their industries in a globalized world, contribute to the reason why we are losing out in a number of industries. The big exception is agriculture where government subsidizes corporate farmers. But no one demanded that corporations which received some of the $700 billion in funds to cut the salaries of their workers, or return benefits.

What these Southern Senators seem to be saying is that they don’t care whether there is a viable American auto industry. The auto industry helped African Americans to escape the oppression of the Southern oligarchy and by unionization, to earn a decent living that could support their families for the first time. And because of the historical resentment by the oligarchy for this fact, they have waged an unrelenting and brutal war against the unionization of agricultural labor in the South that would help liberate labor in that region. Under the peonage system, for a good part of the 20th century, whites paid black laborers little, very often nothing and were resistant to government social services or corporate wages that competed with wages in their region. A low wages economy has unified Republican corporate leaders and Southern barons.

I still have this image in my mind of House Republican leaders marching lock-step to Impeach Bill Clinton for a minor offense, while his favorable ratings in surveys of the American people was at 85%, clearly suggesting they did not want Impeachment to occur. But the radical Right didn’t care because their narrow ideology was more important. No doubt, when Barack Obama recalled many of these kind of events, it created the rationale for his statement that America should “turn the page.”

Dr. Ron Walters is the Distinguished Leadership Scholar, Director of the African American Leadership Center and Professor of Government and Politics at the University of Maryland College Park. His latest book is: The Price of Racial Reconciliation (University of Michigan Press)

Barack and Hillary: A View from the Fascist Right

This piece from white nationalist numero uno, Pat Buchanan, is interesting on what the future holds for Barack, Hillary and foreign policy. Pat may be more willing to recognize Barack's "Left" leaning than the Left itself. Even so, he poses some interesting questions, questions that he argures out to make the left nervous. RGN

Can This Marriage Last?
by Patrick J. Buchanan (more by this author)
Posted 12/05/2008 ET
Updated 12/05/2008 ET

Having savaged each other for a year, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have now formed a rare partnership in power. Not since James Garfield chose James G. Blaine has a new president chosen his principal rival to be secretary of state.
What does this tell us?

First, don't take campaign oratory all that seriously.

Second, unlike Dennis Kucinich, Ted Kennedy, Ron Paul or Jesse Helms, Hillary and Barack are pragmatists. They do not let ideology or past insults get in the way of a mutually beneficial deal.

But this is not some Hitler-Stalin pact of American politics.

Dick Morris has it right. As in a parliamentary system, where Cabinet members come straight off the majority party front bench, Barack, as prime minister, is knitting together a coalition government that allocates its highest honors to its greatest stars.

As Tony Blair named rival Gordon Brown as chancellor of the exchequer, Barack made Joe Biden his vice president, Hillary his secretary of state and Bill Richardson his secretary of commerce. Had John Edwards not fouled his nest, he, too, would be in the Cabinet. Perhaps attorney general.

And while Barack has taken a risk naming Hillary, with her national following and ruthless courtiers, Hillary's investment is even greater. Should a clash erupt, as it did between Ronald Reagan and Al Haig, Barack, though at great cost, can terminate her and her career. The idea that a cashiered secretary of state could challenge President Obama in 2012, capture the nomination and win, after humiliating and dumping our first African-American president, is absurd.

And the Clintons know it. Absent divine intervention, Obama is the nominee in 2012. Hillary has to know this is likely her last chance to make history. Thus she seized the offer of State, and Bill agreed to go the Full Monty on his financial relationships.

What does this marriage of convenience, with Biden, Bob Gates and Gen. Jim Jones as ushers, mean for U.S. foreign policy?

Methinks the antiwar left has the crying towel out too early.

Our new decider's heart is still on the left. Moreover, his political interests argue for relegating to the trash bin of history a Bush-neocon policy of endless war until the Middle East resembles the Middle West. America cannot sustain the wars that Bush's policy produced, nor those it promises.

Look, then, for Obama to make a large, early down payment on his pledge to withdraw all U.S. combat brigades from Iraq within 16 months. Though the Status of Forces Agreement accepted by Iraq doubles the time Obama has to pull out, to December 2011, the nation, not just the left, wants out, with but a single caveat: America does not want a Saigon ending.

What happens after -- whether Shia attack Shia, or join to crush Sunnis, or Arabs engage Kurds -- is not a war Americans are willing to intervene in with any new surge of U.S. troops.

About Afghanistan there is a gathering consensus that victory over a resurgent Taliban with a sanctuary in Pakistan's border region cannot be achieved without an infusion of U.S. troops this country is unwilling to support.
Escalating the war means more air strikes that have alienated the Afghan people as well as President Kharzi. More Predator strikes in a Pakistan where anti-Americanism is rife and the government is besieged hardly seems a promising policy.

What is the U.S. bottom line in Kabul? Not the impossible dream of a democracy modeled on our own but a government committed to keeping al-Qaida out. Given the bloody beating the Taliban have taken for seven years, they may be amenable to such an arrangement.

But the first test of the Obama-Clinton team may be Iran.

Tehran claims its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, and the International Atomic Energy Agency has never declared it in violation of the non-proliferation treaty. Yet, the suspicion is broad and deep in Washington and Tel Aviv that Iran is hell-bent on building an atom bomb. Obama and Hillary have both said that will not happen, no matter what it takes.

If war with Iran is to be averted, the new team must move swiftly to talk to Tehran and put its cards on the table. It is here that the potential for a split between Barack and Hillary is greatest.

If Likud's "Bibi" Netanyahu wins the Israeli election, he will push hard for U.S. air strikes on Iran's nuclear sites, and push back against any Obama deal with Tehran. With the Israeli lobby and a Jewish community that gave Barack 80 percent of its votes, plus the neocons and Evangelical right calling for strikes against Iran's nuclear sites, would the Obama-Clinton team stand united -- against war?

Would Hillary, a former senator from New York who relied even more heavily than Barack on Jewish contributions and votes, stand by Barack if the two disagree on whether the survival of Israel is at stake?

On second thought, the antiwar left is right to be nervous.


Mr. Buchanan is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World, "The Death of the West,", "The Great Betrayal," "A Republic, Not an Empire" and "Where the Right Went Wrong."

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Eduardo Bonilla-Silva: The Problem with Obama!!!

Wow!!! What is there to say? My dear friend and respected colleague, Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, has just dismissed the election of Barack Obama as the forty-fourth president of the United States of America to be of little or no significance.

The importance of this position is even more important when you consider that it comes from one of our brightest progressive intellectuals, a sociologist whose speciality is one of the most insidious forms of racism -- color-blind racism. This diminishing of the achievement of a black man being elected president of a nation whose 300-400 years of existence has as its foundation white supremacist principles is to miss an important turning point in American history. Such an achievement up until this moment would have been unthinkable.

Is that not important? A nation that historically been a white nation elects a black man as president. It is particularly important that this black man be from the left, a black man with a progressive agenda as the leader of the so-called "free world." Is that achievement not indicative of a changed world?

Professor Bonilla-Silva is correct in example after example in his critique about what an Obama presidency will not do. Barack's being president will not eliminate racism in America. Andrew Hacker has observed that the cure for racism will not be found in a laboratory. There are no magic cures. And it is important to note that even "black folks on the street" know that Barack being president is not THE cure for what faces them.

We must assume that they know that being elected president of the United States is a mainstream endeavor. They know Barack is not a one-man "Poor People's Campaign." They know that one cannot run on an NAACP platform and expect to be elected president of the United States. Obama was not and should not have been running to be president of the OBU (Organization of Black Unity) or RAM (Revolutionary Action Movement). He was appealing to everyday Americans who wanted an alternative to the warmongering, meanness, and racism embedded in right wing ideology. To have expected anything different as a campaign strategy was likely to be a failed strategy. As Bill Clinton pointed out: "Jesse Jackson won South Carolina!"

To accuse those who see promise in an Obama presidency as being "drunk with Obama's hope liquor" is in itself a bit mystical. The election of Obama has changed the world. For the last eight years, the world held contempt for America. Today the world is enthralled with the notion that a Barack Obama is President-Elect of the United States of America.

Relative to Barack's election, Bonilla-Silva says: "I suspect Obama's very election as President may become a formidable obstacle to advance a progressive race and class agenda here and an internationalist agenda abroad." With Barack not being a member of America's white elite, and whose roots are working class, instead of being "drunk with Obama," the American people see in Obama "change we need." Obama's candidacy was a referendum on white nationalism in America and white nationalism lost.

Does that mean that racism and economic injustice were defeated in the process? No. But it does mean that the right-wings' white nationalism cloaked as "color-blind racism" will no longer be hegemonic. One can wonder if the loss of this defeated "tactic" is not the problem?

It is not uncommon for intellectuals to be out of step with the general populace. It is the role of intellectuals to reach a deeper understanding than what "is in front of our noses." On the other hand paraphrasing Marx, "the problem [for intellectuals] is to not only understand the world but to change it!" In doing so intellectuals should not contribute to cynicism but take forward "hope" and "change" for what they are, and promote within that populace a progressive agenda, one that populace has a stake for their own betterment.

Micheal Novick, Immanuel Wallerstein, Algernon Austin and other progressive intellectuals whose postings appear on this blog suggest a very different understanding of this election in this period. We moved from protest to politics. Now is the time to move from politics to governance! RGN


The 2008 Elections and the future of antI-racism in 21st century amerika or how we got drunk with obama's hope liquor and failed to see reality

EDUARDO BONILLA-SILVA
DUKE UNIVERSITY

Lecture delivered at the Association of Humanist Sociologists' Meeting in Boston, Nov 7th, 2008.

Today I will engage in political sacrilege. Just three days after the event most pundits heralded as a watershed moment in American history; three days after we elected the first African American President in our history, I will criticize President Elect Obama's angelical image and politics, his campaign, and his policies. Today I will argue that Obama's election does NOT mean the end of racism, is unlikely to bring meaningful social and economic change, may continue and even expand American imperialist foreign policy, and, more significantly for me, BLUR the space to talk about race in the public square. I know I will anger some--perhaps many here -who may still be drunk with the Obama-hope-liquor, but the job of the intellectual is to always be vigilant; to always avoid being swept by public opinion. The day we abdicate our critical role, as so many of us DID in this campaign, is the day we die as intellectuals! So with this caveat out of the way, here I go!

George Orwell stated a long time ago that “To see what is in front of one's nose needs constant struggle.” I am convinced that we, people of color AND progressives in the USA, did not see what was in front of our nose in this election cycle. We instead saw what we wanted and longed to see. I am one-hundred percent sure that until about a year ago MOST members of this organization would have agreed with the following proposition: THE RACIAL PROGRESS that followed the social protests of the 1960s stagnated or, worse yet, regressed. Most would have agreed that 40 years after the Kerner Commission Report's stated that “Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white--separate and unequal," race matters in this country were still profoundly problematic.

And we had plenty of objective and subjective indicators to make our case. We could have cited statistics on income, wealth, housing, and educational and occupational inequality. We could have cited studies about the persistence of discrimination in the labor and housing markets. We could have explained that racial profiling happens not only when people of color drive a car, but also when they (we) do almost anything in America. In fact, we could have documented that Living While Black or Brown is very taxing to the physical and mental health of people of color as we always need to be watching out; always need to be ready to “fight or flight.” We could have cited data on how whites changed from been mostly Jim Crow racists to becoming color-blind ones and explain that despite the apparent suave character of this new RACIAL ideology, it is still all about the business of defending the racial order.

We were also all keenly aware that the DISCURSIVE SPACE for talking about race had dwindled in post-9/11 Amerika; we recognized the so-called war on terrorism, the anti-immigration mood, and the anti-affirmative action mentality and the reverse racism nonsense that slowly became part of whites' post-civil rights racial imaginary were part of the new, very complicated racial landscape of America. “And then out of nowhere,” as Father Pfleger said in his memorable statement, came this black man and said, “Hey I am Barack Obama” and almost the entire nation said like Hillary, ”Oh damn, where did that black man come from?” For a little over a year, we were all mesmerized by Obama's speeches, by his “YES WE CAN,” by his appeal to our “better angels,” and by his effort to talk about national unity (“I don't see a ...”). And many of us, after 8 years of Bush's imperial policies and his patent stupidity, felt inspired, proud, and a few, like MSNBC' Chris Mathews, even felt a “thrill going up (their) leg.”ᾉ

But the question we must ponder now that Obama has been elected President of the DIS-United States of Amerika is (with one k) were we all wrong? Were liberal and conservative analysts RIGHT when they claimed America had seen the D'Souza's “the end of racism” or, at least, Wilson's “declining significance of race”? Were the white masses RIGHT when they argued that America had become a color- blind nation and that it was us, minority folks who kept PLAYING THE RACE CARD, seeing racism in everything, and finding racists behind every Bush (pun intended) ?

Analytically and politically, too many of us dug a deep hole for ourselves in this election as we either went with the flow and assumed Obama was truly about SOCIAL and RACIAL CHANGE or took the stand that white racism would prevent Obama from getting elected (Bradley effect, etc.). But there is a more fitting, historically accurate, and more politically relevant explanation of what happened. In my estimation, the seeming contradiction between the FACT that race matters in America in every aspect of our lives yet we elected a Black man as our President is but an APPARENT one. Obama, his campaign, and his “success” are the outcome of 40 years of racial transition in America; of 40 years of transition from the JIM CROW racial regime to what I have referred in my work as the “NEW RACISM”-the post-civil rights racial system or the new face of “white supremacy” ( Charles Mills ). In Obamerica-by which I mean, the fact that Obama was elected president without a social movement behind-racism will remain firmly in place and, even worse, I suspect Obama's very election as President may become a formidable obstacle to advance a progressive race and class agenda here and an internationalist agenda abroad.

In order to make my case, I will do four things: first, describe the context that made possible for someone like Obama to become the President of the USA, second, discuss what Obama did in order to become our President, third, predict a few things that may arguably happen in Obamerica, and, finally, suggest a political way out for progressives.

So what context allowed Obama to become the President of the USA? The Obama phenomenon is the product of the fundamental racial shift that happened in America in the 1960s and 70s. The racial order in place today is the result of various social forces and events that converged in the post-WWII era( overdetermination ): 1) the various social and civil rights struggles of the 1950s and 60s, both the “We shall overcome” MLK kind as well the more militant Malcolm X-inspired kind ( between 1960 and 1970, 250 race rebellions transpired in cities across America ); 2) the contradiction between an America selling democracy abroad and giving hell to minorities at home-a matter exploited by socialist countries in international forums and a situation that black and Latino organizations had begun challenging forcefully since WWII-which became untenable during the Vietnam War; 3) the black migration from the South where most blacks lived and worked as sharecroppers and agricultural workers since the end of slavery, made Jim Crow practices and politics less relevant and, obviously, less effective as strategies of social control; and 4) the so-called enlightened representatives of capital, which had gone along happy, happy, happy with Jim Crow for a long time realized in the 1960s that in order to maintain production and social peace, they had to retool the racial aspects of the social order, that is, they realized Jim Crow was no longer compatible with the capitalist component of the socio-economic order( elites did in South Africa in the late 1980s-early 1990s ).

We all know the most visible consequences of this change: the slow and incomplete school desegregation that followed the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court Decision; the enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Housing Rights Act of 1968; and the hap- hazard policy process that led to the idea and practices that brought affirmative action to life. Most significantly, we all know that most whites believe that the elimination of the most brutal forms of racial domination, the enactment of Civil Rights legislation, and the practice of affirmative action represent the elimination racism in America and, for a substantial segment of the white population, the beginning of a period of “reverse discrimination.”

But most people of color, and many race analysts, know that albeit the legislation and policies of the 1960s were important (the struggle of the sixties transformed the racial order for good), they did not eliminate racism from America. Accordingly today, forty years after the Civil Right struggles of yesteryears, people of color lag well behind whites in almost every important social, economic, and political indicator. Conceptually, assuming we all agree with the proposition that racism forms a structure ( Bonilla-Silva ) or is systemic ( FEAGIN ), our analysis must show the mechanisms and practices that reproduce the racial order and its accompanying racial inequality. On this front, analysts such as Robert C. Smith, Patricia Williams, Roy Brooks, Kimberly Crenshaw, and yours truly among many others, have argued that a new system of racial practices emerged in post-civil rights America. This system, which I have called THE NEW RACISM ( I would call it differently today ), is characterized by discriminatory (differential TREATMENT) practices that are subtle or covert, often institutionalized, defended with coded language (those urban people or people on welfare), and is co-structured by a new racial ideology I label color-blind racism ( other terms out there ).

In my White Supremacy and Racism in the Post-Civil Rights Era, I describe how these new racial practices operate ideologically, socially, economically, and politically. At the political level, I point out the many structural barriers for the election of black and minority politicians, their under-representation among elected and appointed officials, and the limited impact minority politicians can have to enact policies to benefit the minority masses. And one point I make, which has become a reality, is that the REPUBLICRAT corporate rulers have developed a process of selection and vetting minority politicians. After the Democratic Party co-opted many old civil right leaders (John Lewis, Andrew Young, and the like) and made them shadows of themselves, the two parties began manufacturing a new kind of minority politicians. Thus today's minority Party politicians tend not to be the product of social movements, join the party from his/her College days, and move up quickly through the party ranks. The new breed of minority politicians, unlike their predecessors, is not radical but is rather center-to-right on both racial and economic matters. Accordingly, post-civil rights minority politicians are welcomed by “the man” because they do not challenge the WHITE Power structure. More problematic, this new type of minority politician teaches the wretched of the earth the WRONG lesson-that ELECTORAL-rather than SOCIAL MOVEMENT politics-is the vehicle for achieving racial justice. A post-civil rights minority politician, if Republican, is an anti-minority minority conservative such as Michael Steele, Bobby Jindal, Alan Keyes, and J.C. Watts, and if Democrat, is a post-racial leader such as Harold Ford, Cory Booker (Newark's mayor), Deval Patrick (Mass. Governor), D.C mayor Adrian Fenty, and Barack Obama.

Now I move on and discuss what Obama did in order to get elected. Since early last February I expressed my concerns about the Obama phenomenon. As the campaign progressed, my initial PESOPTIMISM about the implications of Obama's potential election as President increased exponentially. The FIRST concern I had was that Obama did not represent a true social movement, but an undercurrent of various ACTORS and CONTRADICTORY forces that did not necessarily agree on fundamental issues. Lacking a social movement with a common agenda, his rise to the top will become problematic as we have no way of predicting what he will do as President.

SECOND, none of the policies Obama offered during the campaign on the crucial issues of our time (health care, jobs, immigration, racism, the War, the Palestinian question, etc.) was truly radical and likely to accomplish the slogan he adopted as the core of his campaign: change.

THIRD, Obama reached the level of success he did in large part because he made a strategic move towards racelessness and adopted a post- racial persona and political stance. He distanced himself from most leaders of the CRM, from his own reverend, from his church, and from anything or anyone who made him look “too black” or “too political.” Heck, Obama and his campaign had to even retool Michelle Obama to make her seem less black, less strong, and more white-lady-like to the white electorate!

As part of his post-racial approach and appeal, Obama avoided the term racism in his campaign until he was FORCED to talk about race. And in that silly speech on race that some of you heralded and likened ( ly-KENN-ed ) to speeches by Malcolm and Martin, he said Revered Wright's statements “expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country-a view that sees white racism as endemic...” and classified them as “divisive” (realistic).

FOURTH, as Glen Ford, executive editor of THE BLACK AGENDA REPORT, Adolph Reed, Angela Davis, and a few others suggested, Obamania was-and may still be-a CRAZE where his supporters refuse to even listen to FACTS and acknowledge some of the very problematic positions Obama actually has (“No, Obama cannot be for the death penalty!).

LASTLY perhaps the most important factor behind Obama's success, and my biggest concern, was that he and his campaign meant and evoked different things and feelings for his white and non-white supporters. For the 45% of whites who supported Obama, he was the first “black” leader they felt comfortable supporting because he did not talk about racism; because he reminded them every time he had a chance he is half-white ( signification and history ); because he was so “articulate” or, in Senator Biden's words, echoed later by Karl Rove, Obama was "the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy"; because Obama kept talking about national unity, and because he, unlike black leaders hated by whites such as Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Maxine Waters, and, of course, Minister Farrakhan, did not make them feel guilty about the state of racial affairs in the country. Even for many of the 55% of whites who did not vote for him (Pat Buchanan, etc.), Obama's success has become the final proof they needed to confirm THEIR BELIEF that America is beyond race.

Obama also became, as black commentator David Ehrenstein has argued, the “Magic Negro”-a term from film studies that refers to black characters in movies whose main purpose is to help whites deal with their issues. In this case, voting for Obama allowed many whites to feel like they were cleansing their racial soul, repenting for their racial sins, and getting admission into racial heaven! Obama became whites' EXCEPTIONAL black man-the model to follow if blacks want to achieve in Amerika!

In sharp contrast, for many nonwhites, particularly for blacks, Obama became a symbol of their possibilities. He was indeed, as Obama said of himself, their Joshua-the leader they hoped would take them to the Promised Land of milk and honey. They read in between the lines (probably more than was/is there) and thought Obama had a strong stance on race matters. For the old generation desperate to see change before they die ( Jackson crying, john lewis, etc. ), and for many post-Reagan generation blacks ( will.i.am from THE BLACK EYED PEAS ) and minorities who have seen VERY LITTLE RACIAL progress During their life, Obama became the new Messiah following on the footsteps of leaders they did not see such as Martin and Malcolm. Poor blacks-and I talk to many almost every day-believe Obama will bring economic and social change to them-higher wages, health care, etc., and “the black elite”-and I work with many of them at Duke-savors Obama as a symbol and a confirmation of their own standing, politics, and even behavior and manners-the genteel, aristocratic character of the black elite.
Accordingly, when I debated the Obama phenomenon with people of color and white allies and mentioned that Obama received 46% of his money from corporate America and a LOT of it THROUGH THE MAGIC OF bundling (McCain raised 76 million and Obama 63 as of August but probably top 100M by November-561 elite bundlers) ; or that Obama said in a speech in Selma, Alabama, that we were 90% on the road to RACIAL equality ; or that Obama wanted to expand the military by 90,000 (imperial Amerika) and said he would redeploy troops from Iraq to Afghanistan (a country he knows NOTHING about); or that his opposition to the war after he was elected to the Senate was suspect documented in Matt Gonzales's piece “The Obama Craze”; or that Obama is for free market capitalism albeit with some regulation; or that Obama's Civil Rights program was nothing more than the liberal stance on race matters and not much different from Hillary's program; or that Obama was the darling of the DLC ; or that Obama's economic and health care programs were quite modest and reflected the fact that his chief advisers from Chicago and Harvard are regarded as “non-ideological”; or that Obama supported the death penalty (now we all know); or that Obama's position on Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, North Korea, and Palestine are not better than Hillary's; or that Obama has chided those who talk about race in a straight manner as engaging in “divisive politics”-... and FISA, AND RELIGION, AND HIS FOCUS ON “PERSONAL RESPOSIBILITY,” AND HIS STAND ON WORKFARE, AND on and on and on.
When I raised these issues, FOLKS either did not know them (“Obama DOES not get more money from Wall Street than McCain?”- actually, 58 to 54 million ) or, worse yet, knew them but argued these are TACTICAL positions Obama needed in order to get elected (“He must support the death penalty, be strong on the Middle East, support FISA, and not talk about race or be seen as black in order to get elected.”) They all believed, in AHISTORICAL fashion, that once Obama was elected, he would turn LEFF. For me, coming from the Caribbean where we have had a fair share of elected Black Governors, Premiers, and Presidents, I know that “leaders should not be judged by the color of their skin but by the CONTENT OF THEIR POLITICS.” I repeat “Leaders should not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their politics!” Black and progressive America, unfortunately, is destined to learn this lesson after this neo-mulatto rents the white house for a short while and does not do any renovation-I bet he will not even repaint the freaking house!

So what do I think will happen in Obamerica? I believe the voices of those who contend that race fractures America profoundly may be silenced. In a deep sense, Obamerica may bring us closer to an argument I have been articulating for a while-the idea that the racial structure of the United States is becoming Latin America-like. No with Obama as our President we will continue on the road toward symbolic unity without enacting the social policies needed to make sure we truly are “all Americans.” We may become like Brazil, Cuba, Mexico, Belize, or Puerto Rico- nation-states that claim to be comprised of "one people" but where various racial strata receive social goods in accordance to their proximity to “whiteness.” And like in Latin American countries, Obama's nationalist stance (“There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America”) will help close the space to even talk about race. Hence, in Orwellian fashion, we may proclaim "We are all Americans!", but in Obamerica, some will still be “more American than others.”

Now I offer a few plausible scenarios of things to come so that we begin pondering-and strategizing-what to do. FIRST, based on promises and remarks made by President Elect Obama during the campaign, he may increase the size of the military, wait longer than planned for withdrawing from Iraq, increase the scope of our military intervention in Afghanistan, and, more problematically, bomb Pakistan if he gets “actionable intelligence.” So will we NOT protest and object to AMERICAN imperialism because “we” want our first black President to be “successful” in foreign policy? Have we forgotten that American imperialism can be carried out by black and brown bodies, too?

SECOND, albeit many of you voted for Obama critically-as I did myself-you thought, “Well...at least he is likely to appoint progressives in various posts.” But this will not happen without pressure. If we want this to happen, we must begin making noise from NOW as he has surrounded himself with center-to-right people in economic matters such as Warren Buffet, Larry Summers, Bob Rubin, and his Chicago and Harvard economists. And in foreign policy, with Susan Rice (a Stanford graduate who may end up in the State Department. She worked for Clinton and many of the members of the Black Congressional Caucus did not trust her because they thought she was part of Washington's “black assimilationist elite”) and with other Clinton people (Madelaine Albright, etc.) as well as Colin Powell (since when do we trust these clowns)? Albright, as you recall, was not a very pluralistic Secretary of State and Powell JUSTIFIED the war effort. Lastly, Obama has said he wants to be Lincoln- like and create an administration that includes all the losers. So, what will we do if many of the same IDIOTS who got us into the mess we are in ECONOMICALLY and POLITICALLY are invited to serve in his cabinet or become policy advisers?

THIRD, Obama has already begun the slippery slope of stating he may defer taxing the rich until the economy improves. Are you kidding me? If Obama and his advisers believe this, then McClain was RIGHT! Wasn't McCain the one who said that taxing the rich is problematic because they are the ones who create jobs and wealth in America? (Come on, folks!)

FOURTH, in the debates Obama stated he may defer dealing with health care until the economic crisis subsides. Again, what are we going to do if he delays this policy matter? We all saw the Obamercial where he highlighted the plight of that poor black family in Ohio. They have the fierce urgency of NOW as they need health care reform TODAY! And, by the way, let me go a bit deeper on this matter-Obama's health care plan is far off from what we need: a truly universal health care plan. Paul Krugman, the 2008 Noble prize in economics, made this point clear in his NYT column where he wrote that Obama had the weakest health care plan among the Democratic Party contenders.

FIFTH, what will President Elect Obama do about race matters in America? What will he do about affirmative action, for example? During the campaign, he did not engage in a dialogue about the significance of race in America and discussed Affirmative Action only ONCE with George Stephanopoulos. As some of you recall, he took an accomodationist post-racial stance on the matter. And because he took such a post-racial posture during his campaign, I do not believe he can take a STRONG stance on race matters NOW. Neither Obama nor his mostly white advisers and post-civil right neo-mulatto associates will push hard on this fundamental issue. For that, he needs what he lacks: a real social movement behind!

SIXTH, we in the left were too comfortable and silly with the amount of money Obama raised (close to 700 million dollars!), with how he raised it (bundlers and small donors-48% who gave $200 or less--who seem like small investors buying shares in Obama Corporation), and with the implications of all this money for his administration and for politics in America. Soon we will see the impact of this money and of these bundlers in his administration and in the policies he “chooses”.

Now I conclude by answering a few questions some of you may have in mind. My answers, I hope, illustrate what we did wrong and point out a path for a “new” political strategy. FIRST, for those of you who agree with a lot of what I said yet find yourselves thinking, “Well, but what was our option, voting for M c Cain?” Progressives in America have been suffering from a political depression since Reagan's election as President in 1980. We all but abandoned social movement politics and replaced it with voting for whatever dud the Democratic Party “chooses” as their Presidential nominee. But our dilemma is a self-made one and, hence, we have the capacity to end it. We must take a dosage of political prozac and stop the madness of choosing every four years among the lesser of two evils. We must work to either radicalize the Democratic Party OR-the alternative I prefer-return to labor, civil rights, gender, environmental, and community-based movement politics and PRESSURE for systemic change. After all, as humanist sociologists know well, fundamental changes in societies ALWAYS follow from social movement- rather than from electoral-politics.

SECOND, those of us who criticized Obama from the left were labeled as “traitors,” “representatives of the old Civil Rights Movement guard,” or as “jealous of Obama's success.” All these accusations were absolute nonsense and a way of avoiding serious debate. Obama is for the death penalty, for offshore drilling, for faith-based initiatives, for expanding the size of the military, for FISA, for bombing Pakistan, for bailing out capitalists, and on and on. So who is then the one selling out at the altar of expediency? But we in the left failed the test of history and remained SILENT and now we will see, as I have already seen and experienced, the crushing hammer of nationalist SENTIMENT against dissenting voices!

LASTLY, if you ponder “Well, but aren't you ignoring the symbolic value of an Obama Presidency?” First, for those who are thinking about little black children..., know that research shows they do not lack self-esteem or have low aspirations, but lack an adequate opportunity structure to realize their dreams. Second, since Obama's candidacy means, as I argued, different things for whites and blacks, the symbolic value of his Presidency also means different things for these groups, too. Obama's weak ass stand on race made many whites happy, happy, happy, but it also reduced his capacity for enacting meaningful race-based policies. Hence, Obama's election will have symbolic value, but folks of color don't eat symbols and will soon ask, “Where is the change candidate Obama promised? President Obama, where's the beef ?”

So what is to be done now? We must organize social movements-the plural is important, resist class/race/gender domination wherever we are at (25% of the pop), radicalize the spaces we inhabit and the people we contact, engage in political discourse (we have become too passive and do not say much), criticize the new President no matter what (he is the representative of capital and of the racial order), and do all these things CREATIVELY - yes we can use humor, yes we can be postmodern in style, and yes we can once again dare talk about the revolution, about democratic socialism, and about the significance of Malcolm X for racial and social change in Our America. If we do this, we have a chance to recover from this moment-a moment I believe may become a huge setback for the American left. But if we remain quiet and, once again, wait until the next election cycle, history is likely to, as Marx wrote, “repeat itself, first as a tragedy (Obama), second as a farce (Jindal).” Thanks!

Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
Professor
Sociology Department
Duke University