At this moment the Republicans and the fascist right wing in this country seem to be so discredited that the thought of their comeback would be so unlikely. Robert Freeman raises a note a word of caution, given the economic catastrophe that we face. There is every reason to be hopeful that Barack Obama’s progressive pragmatism will be successful in turning around the dire straits in which we find ourselves. Rush Limbaugh’s “I hope he fails” has not been condemned by the Republicans. In fact, they consider him to be the leader to provide the ideological clarity of what their movement should be about. While many argued that the administration should ignore Limbaugh’s rants, the tactic of wrapping him around their necks was the right thing to do. It sharpens the debate. It exposes them as the party of obstruction. The policies of fascist right have proven themselves to be bankrupt but, as Freeman points out, such a failure did not die in Germany and as the economic crisis deepened following World War I. In fact, the fascists were able to gain momentum and power when the liberal Weimar Republic could not easily resolve the crisis. So, rather than being sanguine about the death of the “Reagan Revolution,” it is going to be imperative that the fascist right continue to be marginalized as Obama’s progressive pragmatism attempts to restore our economy. It is imperative that the policies of an Obama transformation win out for a new America that seeks economic justice and not be a victim of the fascist backlash that Freeman warns us of. RGN
Does America Face the Risk of a Fascist Backlash?
By Robert Freeman, AlterNet
Posted on March 19, 2009, Printed on March 21, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/132155/
In early 1919, Germany put in place a new government to begin rebuilding the country after its crushing defeat in World War I. But the right-wing forces that had led the country into the War and lost the War conspired even before it was over to destroy the new government, the "Weimar Republic." They succeeded.
The U.S. faces a similar "Weimar Moment." The devastating collapse of the economy after eight years of Republican rule has left the leadership, policies, and ideology of the right utterly discredited. But, as was the case with Germany in 1919, Republicans do not intend to allow the new government to succeed. They will do everything they can to undermine it. If they are successful, the U.S. may yet go the way of Weimar Germany.
World War I left Germany utterly devastated. The landed aristocrats, industrial magnates, wealthy financiers, weapons makers, and the officer corps of the military that formed the locus of right wing power were completely discredited. Their failure in provoking and prosecuting the War was catastrophic, undeniable, and complete.
The economy was destroyed. Prices were at 800% of pre-war levels and rising quickly. Agriculture, pillaged for the War, lay in ruins. Social insurance payments for the War's injured, to widows and orphans, and newly unemployed soldiers were astronomical. And all this was before the cost of rebuilding was even begun.
At the same time, Germany faced massive reparations payments to the Allied victors, France and England. But Germany's foreign properties had been confiscated and its colonies turned over to the victors. The combination of these conditions, both domestic and international, made it extraordinarily difficult for the German economy to recover.
As a result of the failure of the right, the German people elected a moderately leftist government to lead the nation's rebuilding. It was named the Weimar Republic for the city in which the new post-imperial constitution was written. The new government was led by Friedrich Ebert, head of the German Socialist Party.
But the country's new parliamentary system had allowed dozens of parties to run, making it impossible for any one party to win an outright majority. Ebert's party had achieved the highest portion of votes, 38%, in the first post-War elections, held in January 1919. Ebert would have to govern by coalition.
It was at this time that the right wing made its crucial decision. Despite its shocking, naked failure over the prior decade, despite the horrific devastation it had wrought on the German people, despite the discrediting of everything they had purported to stand for, they would fight Ebert, his new government, and its plans for recovery. They would do everything they could to make sure that the new government failed.
Their strategy was two-fold: first, stoke the resentment of the population about the calamitous state of its living conditions-no matter that those conditions had been created by the very right-wing oligarchs who now pretended to befriend the little guy. Rage is rage. It is glandular and unseeing. Once catalyzed it is easy to turn on any subject.
And stoking resentment was easy to do. Just before the War ended, the military concocted its most sensational lie: the German army hadn't actually been defeated. It had been "stabbed in the back" by communists, traitors, and Jews. It was an easy lie to sell. It entwined an attack on an alien political ideology -- liberalism -- with the latent, pervasive myth of German racial superiority.
The second strategy of the right was to prevent the new government from succeeding. To begin with, success of the left would conspicuously advertise the failure of the right. Moreover, success by the left would legitimize republican government, so hated by the oligarchs of the right. Much better for the people to be ruled by the self-aggrandizing right-wing autocracy that had governed Germany for centuries.
So the rightists set out to do everything they could to make it impossible for the leftists to govern. They would use parliamentary maneuver, shifting coalitions, domination of the new mass media, legislative obstruction, staged public relations spectacles, relentless pressure by narrow but powerful interests, judicial intimidation and, eventually, outright murder of their political opponents.
Contrition for their abject failure, humility for their destructive hubris, compassion for their crippled country-those had nothing to do with it. All they possessed was a blinding, visceral hatred of the left and a masturbatory lust for the return to power.
Eventually, they succeeded. Every setback in recovery -- and there would inevitably be many -- was met with hysterical demonizing of the left wing government. The lie was repeated relentlessly that the government was run by communists, traitors, and Jews-the same furtive cabal that had purportedly stabbed the country in the back at the end of the War. They steadily chipped away at the efficacy and, thereby, the legitimacy of successive republican governments.
By the time of the Great Depression, Adolph Hitler's ironically named National Socialist Party had become the biggest vote getter in the nation. The Nazis had once been derided as the lunatic fringe of the far right. But the "respectable" right-wing power brokers who had started and lost the Great War anointed Hitler Chancellor in January, 1933.
He immediately suspended the constitution, abolishing most civil liberties. He outlawed opposition parties, began a massive military build-up and a relentless propaganda campaign, and set Germany and the world onto the path of the greatest destruction it would ever know.
America now faces its own "Weimar moment."
The failure of right wing policy and leadership over the past eight years, especially in matters economic, is comparable to Germany's right-wing failure in World War I. It is catastrophic, undeniable, and complete.
Consider:
According to the World Economic Forum, forty percent of the entire world's wealth has been destroyed in the recent financial collapse. In the U.S. alone, between housing and the stock market, more than $18 trillion in wealth has already been destroyed.
The private mega-banks that anchor the financial systems of the western world are bankrupt. This makes it all but impossible to jump-start the western world's economies which are heavily dependent on bank-system credit to operate.
More than 10,000 homes go into foreclosure every day. More than 20,000 people lose their job every day. And the collapse is accelerating, developing its own self-reinforcing dynamic. Job losses breed foreclosures, reducing demand, leading to more job losses and further degradation of the financial system. None of the stopgaps designed to stanch the bleeding have yet worked. There is no bottom in sight.
Meanwhile, debt has risen to astronomical levels. Reagan and Bush I quadrupled the national debt in only twelve years. Bush II doubled it again in only eight. It is now ten times higher than it was in 1980 when Reagan was elected. Total public and private debt exceeds 300% of GDP, half again higher than it was in 1929.
The government's unfunded liabilities, promises it has made to the American people but for which no payment source can be identified, now exceed $60 trillion, a literally inconceivable sum that can never, will never, be paid. Federal Reserve economist Lawrence Kotlikoff has suggested that the U.S. government is "actuarially bankrupt."
The full measure of the nation's plight is revealed in Hillary Clinton's first trip as Secretary of State. It was to China, to beg them to fund Obama's new fiscal deficits. Without loans from China, the U.S. economy cannot be revived. The significance of this cannot be overstated: the U.S. no longer exercises sovereignty over its own economic affairs. That sovereignty now resides in the hands of China, the U.S.'s greatest long-term rival.
Thanks to Republican policies of massive debt and shipping jobs abroad, the U.S. has technically become a colony of China. It exports raw materials and imports finished goods, together with the capital to make up the difference. Should the Chinese decide not to lend the trillions of dollars the U.S. is begging for, the U.S. economy will implode, plummeting onto itself in a World Trade Center-like collapse that will leave dust clouds circling the planet for decades.
Notwithstanding the destruction inflicted on the economy by Republican policies, the most devastating breakdown is in the intellectual foundation on which right wing economic ideology itself is premised. Free market doctrine, the secular religion of right-wing America, is in utter, irretrievable shambles.
One of the most lofty tenets on which free markets are premised is their claim for themselves that they are "efficient," that is, that market prices always reflect "fundamental values" of assets. But if that's true, how could the world's largest insurance company, AIG, have lost 99.5% of its market value in only 18 months? How could the world's largest bank, Citibank, have lost 98% of its value over the same period?
How could the world's largest brokerage company, Merrill Lynch, have gone bankrupt and need to be bought by Bank of America? How could the world's largest car company, General Motors, have lost 95% of its value and stand on the threshold of extinction? How could the world's largest industrial conglomerate, General Electric, have lost 85% of its value in only 18 months?
If the largest companies in the world, those at the very heart of the capitalist system itself, can lose virtually all of their value in only 18 months, what is the possible meaning of the phrases "efficient markets" and "fundamental value"?
The other core tenets of free market ideology are equally compromised. Major actors are clearly not rational -- a breakdown of theological proportions admitted by no less an avatar of the cult than its pope himself, Alan Greenspan. Free markets clearly cannot, will not, regulate themselves. It is precisely their innate, irrepressible propensity for sociopathic greed and predatory fraud that has brought the whole of the world's economy to the precipice of collapse.
Free markets clearly do not align risk and reward, allocating capital to its most productive uses, as its promoters advertise. They clearly do not automatically return to equilibrium, but must be bailed out with trillions of dollars of injections from the shrinking coffers of the public to the ever-bulging coffers of a private priesthood of pillage and plunder.
And in perhaps the greatest indictment of all, one going back to its primeval roots in Adam Smith's eighteenth century opus, The Wealth of Nations, the unrestrained behavior of self-interested individuals clearly, manifestly, does not "coalesce as if by an Invisible Hand to the greatest good for the greatest number."
These are not peripheral premises that have failed. They are not tangential tenets. Efficient markets. Rational actors. Market equilibrium. Risk and reward. Self interest. These are the essential sacraments on which the entire free market system is founded. They are in tatters. And it isn't that any one of them has been discredited by the glaring, merciless force of events. All of them have been. All of them together. And all of them at the same time.
Free markets have long been the basis for a legitimate -- though rightly debated -- economic policy framework. But they have become little more than a robotically-recited cultural catechism, a mindless mantra mumbled to mask the looting of the nation's resources that is the true purpose of Republican economic policy as demonstrated by the staggering upward transfers of wealth that inevitably occur under Republican regimes. A more complete, conspicuous, catastrophic, and irrefutable repudiation of right wing leaders, right wing policies, and right wing ideology could not possibly be contrived.
So what is the right wing response?
They have adopted the strategy and tactics of the failed right wing plotters in Weimar Germany. First, stoke the resentment of the population about the increasingly dire state of its living conditions-no matter that those conditions were created by the very right-wing oligarchs who now pretend to befriend the little guy. Rage is rage. It is glandular and unseeing. Once catalyzed it is easy to turn on any subject.
Second, prevent the new government from succeeding in any meaningful endeavor. The Republicans have set all their efforts to doing everything they can to make sure the Obama administration fails. Rush Limbaugh's infamous, "I hope he fails" pronouncement is only the beginning of the fomenting of hatred from the right. As Limbaugh said, "Let's be honest. Every Republican in America is hoping for Obama's failure."
The same malignant hope oozes unadulterated from all the other Dogpatch Demagogues that rent themselves out to the Republican party to foment resentment against anything liberal: Joe the "Plumber," Rick Santelli, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, Ann Coulter, and virtually every other wing-nut operative whose intellectual stock in trade has been vaporized by the collision of right-wing policies with objective reality.
Equally so for the "respectable" members of the party, the all-but-three Republican members of Congress who refused to sign on to Obama's first stimulus package and continue to grandstand against every effort toward any form of progress. Contrition for their own abject failure, humility for their destructive hubris, compassion for their crippled country-those have nothing to do with it. All they possess is a blinding, visceral hatred of the left and a masturbatory lust for the return to power.
And what else can they do? Bereft of ideas, bankrupt in ideology, architects of collapse, obstruction is all they have. If Obama is successful, it will not only advertise the full extent of their failure, it will provide a model of liberal governance that would render Republicans irrelevant for decades, much as FDR's success left them out in the political cold for an entire generation. Liberal failure is a matter of life and death for Republicans.
And it's not at all clear that the liberals won't fail. No one should underestimate the task at hand. Never before -- not even during the Great Depression -- has the country inherited such a daunting, intractable set of economic problems: a debt burden so crushing; inequality so vast; a loss of financial sovereignty so constricting; an intellectual edifice so bankrupt; a private economy so uncompetitive; or an opposition so callously self interested in its own recovery and so cavalierly disinterested in the nation's.
The economy has been so damaged, successful rescue requires threading a series of policy needles, each of them so complex in their own right that none could be solved by any administration of the past 50 years. This includes rehabilitating and re-regulating the nation's banking system, restructuring health care, reducing national dependence on oil, reviving manufacturing so as to reduce the trade deficit, rebuilding the nation's crumbling infrastructure, dealing with a soaring national debt, trying to resuscitate a collapsing housing market, and all the while maintaining the safety net under 77 million baby boomers entering retirement with a net worth 60% what it was only 18 months ago.
Success will require much more than luck, hard work, brilliant policy, or soaring rhetoric. It will require cooperation and contribution from every American. It is those two offerings, cooperation and contribution, that Republicans are intent on withholding, the better to ensure Obama's failure. Simply put, the Republicans hate Democrats more than they love America.
If they succeed in derailing Obama's efforts, the cost will be incalculable.
After World War I, one of the consequences of the liberal government's failure was Adolph Hitler. Hitler had a genius for exploiting the resentment of the German people for their condition. More than 80% of the Nazi party's members were unemployed. It was these legions of idle thugs who made up the ranks of Hitler's brownshirt militia, the SA. The right wing oligarchy that had set out from the beginning to destroy the Weimar Republic recognized the potency of resentment and Hitler's genius at exploiting it. It was they who sponsored Hitler's ascension to Chancellor in 1933.
Resentment and obstruction are all the right wing in America have to peddle. Their policies are utterly discredited. Their ideology -- even by its own standards -- is a sham. They are so bereft of leaders, their de facto leader is a former drug addicted, thrice-divorced radio talk show host. That is literally the best they can muster. But they have built a national franchise inciting the downwardly mobile to blame the government, not the right, for their problems, exactly as Hitler did in the 1920s.
The Republican propensity for fascism must not be underestimated. Witness their phony justifications for the war in Iraq, fanning the flames of nationalistic aggression, just as Hitler did with Austria, the Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia, and Poland in the 1930s. Consider their symbiotic embrace of corporate interests in the oil, weapons, telecommunications, pharmaceutical, finance, and other industries-the same type of corporate interests that sponsored Hitler's ascent to power. Look at their efforts to dismantle civil liberties with the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act. Or their relentless, pervasive propaganda laundered through their corporate-owned right-wing media machine.
These are the classic hallmarks of fascism. The strategy is to obstruct recovery, facilitate collapse, and then incite the faux-populism of public resentment to re-install a corporatist oligarchy which has failed, but which will not abide a reduction of its privileges or a diminution of its control. It is a fetid, seditious agenda, awaiting only its own latter day mustachioed messiah for its final fulfillment.
World War I was a once-in-a-millennium upset in the architecture of global power. In four years, it shifted the center of that power from Europe to the United States. But failure now by the U.S. will shift that center once again, from the United States to China, out of the western world where it has resided for the past 500 years. The psychic shock to the billion-odd people living in western civilization, with its liberal democracies, capitalist economies, and Enlightenment ideals, will be incalculable, irretrievable.
This shift may be inevitable and only a matter of time. It is quite possible that the damage inflicted on the western world's economy by rapacious Republicans is already beyond repair. But it will be tragedy beyond measure if such a shift is consummated by the very wrecking crew that took us down the road to ruin, all the while so unctuously proclaiming "patriotism" as its crowning ideal. They are not patriots and their goal is not the revival of American power. It is the revival of their own power, even at the expense of America's. They represent a very dangerous threat to the nation's future.
Robert Freeman writes on history, economics and education.
© 2009 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/132155/
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Friday, March 20, 2009
Recognizing Integrity, Intelligence, and Vision is Repulsive to Right Wing Republicans
Conservative and right wing Republicans are dumbfounded about what to do with Barack Obama as President. President Obama is unique in terms of what he brings to the Presidency and politics. This is very frustrating for the right wing because their aims, goals, and behavior are limited to ideology, an ideology that has been exposed for the failure that it is. For 30 years, white Americans have been seduced by lies -- the biggest of which is that the government is the enemy as a opposed to it being "by, of, and for, the people." Their leading spokespersons are Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and William Bennett -- to name a few. These people are liars and distorters all. It is this right wing hegemony that finds its foundation in lies. Consequently, the presidency of a man who was at the top of his Harvard Law School but who eschews Wall Street to organize the working class and the poor brings an integrity and intelligence to the office discredits all that they stand for. So, when there is an attempt to acknowledge and honor these characteristics in the President's public service by the black legislators of Georgia, it became imperative for the right wing ideologues to blunt any notion that there are now, in this presidency, a new set of standards that are not the politics as usual. RGN
— ATLANTA (AP) — Frustrated black lawmakers staged a walkout Friday after the Georgia House decided to delay another vote on a resolution that would have honored President Barack Obama as a politician with an “unimpeachable reputation for integrity, vision and passion.”
House Speaker Glenn Richardson vowed the decision to send the resolution to a committee did not “bury” the bill, but the move outraged black lawmakers, who stalked out of the chamber seconds later. They saw it as an effort to snub the nation’s first black president by a group of white Republican legislators.
“It drips with racism,” said state Rep. Al Williams, a Midway Democrat who joined about two dozen black legislators outside the chamber. “I call it just like it is.”
The furor began Thursday when the Republican-controlled House voted 70-68 to reject the resolution, which would have made Obama an honorary member of the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus. The members said it would have been the first such proposal in the country.
The measure was blocked by a group of House Republicans who said they were forced to vote it down because House Democrats refused to hash out a compromise over the resolution’s wording.
State Rep. Austin Scott, the Tifton Republican who led the charge, said he took issue with language that said “no one could be more worthy of special honor and recognition by the members of this body and the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus than this extraordinary leader.”
Scott, who is running for governor, said if Democrats had taken out the wording “by the members of this body” he would have accepted the proposal. But he said its sponsors refused to budge.
But state Rep. Keith Heard, the resolution’s sponsor, said the wording was stock language that has appeared in countless other resolutions and was approved by the Legislature’s attorneys.
He said he and his colleagues have often voted for such “privileged” resolutions they don’t support, such as a 2005 resolution commending then-President George W. Bush’s response to Hurricane Katrina and another one honoring Ronald Reagan — out of respect for the lawmaker supporting the measure.
“We’ve passed thousands of these resolutions with the same language,” said Heard, D-Athens. “The language is very minor, but if it is so minor, why are we changing it?”
Others saw the decision in a more troubling light.
“This seems to add credibility that there’s an undertone of racism here, an undertone of mean-spiritedness, an undertone of the efforts to repress the minority legislators,” said state Sen. Emanuel Jones, the chairman of the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus.
But GOP leaders denied the allegations. House Majority Leader Jerry Keen said sending the resolution back to committee would help “get this language recrafted” so lawmakers can find something they can all agree upon.
Richardson, meanwhile, suggested it would be an easy fix.
“Two or three words can be changed and this matter can be voted on,” said Richardson, R-Hiram. “It’s a matter of less than five words that are objectionable.”
———
— ATLANTA (AP) — Frustrated black lawmakers staged a walkout Friday after the Georgia House decided to delay another vote on a resolution that would have honored President Barack Obama as a politician with an “unimpeachable reputation for integrity, vision and passion.”
House Speaker Glenn Richardson vowed the decision to send the resolution to a committee did not “bury” the bill, but the move outraged black lawmakers, who stalked out of the chamber seconds later. They saw it as an effort to snub the nation’s first black president by a group of white Republican legislators.
“It drips with racism,” said state Rep. Al Williams, a Midway Democrat who joined about two dozen black legislators outside the chamber. “I call it just like it is.”
The furor began Thursday when the Republican-controlled House voted 70-68 to reject the resolution, which would have made Obama an honorary member of the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus. The members said it would have been the first such proposal in the country.
The measure was blocked by a group of House Republicans who said they were forced to vote it down because House Democrats refused to hash out a compromise over the resolution’s wording.
State Rep. Austin Scott, the Tifton Republican who led the charge, said he took issue with language that said “no one could be more worthy of special honor and recognition by the members of this body and the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus than this extraordinary leader.”
Scott, who is running for governor, said if Democrats had taken out the wording “by the members of this body” he would have accepted the proposal. But he said its sponsors refused to budge.
But state Rep. Keith Heard, the resolution’s sponsor, said the wording was stock language that has appeared in countless other resolutions and was approved by the Legislature’s attorneys.
He said he and his colleagues have often voted for such “privileged” resolutions they don’t support, such as a 2005 resolution commending then-President George W. Bush’s response to Hurricane Katrina and another one honoring Ronald Reagan — out of respect for the lawmaker supporting the measure.
“We’ve passed thousands of these resolutions with the same language,” said Heard, D-Athens. “The language is very minor, but if it is so minor, why are we changing it?”
Others saw the decision in a more troubling light.
“This seems to add credibility that there’s an undertone of racism here, an undertone of mean-spiritedness, an undertone of the efforts to repress the minority legislators,” said state Sen. Emanuel Jones, the chairman of the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus.
But GOP leaders denied the allegations. House Majority Leader Jerry Keen said sending the resolution back to committee would help “get this language recrafted” so lawmakers can find something they can all agree upon.
Richardson, meanwhile, suggested it would be an easy fix.
“Two or three words can be changed and this matter can be voted on,” said Richardson, R-Hiram. “It’s a matter of less than five words that are objectionable.”
———
Monday, March 16, 2009
Ron Walters on the "Politics of Anxiety"
The Politics of Anxiety
By Ron Walters
I guess that it is inevitable in a context which has so many large issues that are unresolved and punishing so many people that anxiety is the culture of the ruling class as much as everyone else. You see it and hear it in the remarks of even well-meaning media commentators and analysts, to such an extent that someone defends the Administration of Barack Obama in the welter of criticism it is a rare occurrence. Otherwise, the finger-pointing and second-guessing is rife, questioning every move made or rumored and even some that have not been discussed seriously by the White House (such as the prospect of a second Stimulus Package). To purposefully bump it up, this culture of anxiety and criticism is richly mixed by the views of Republicans who wish the Obama administration ill and don’t have any good ideas, but who are a convenient source of negative opinion nonetheless.
Thus far, there is not an expert consensus that the Administration is going south, but that appears to be the atmosphere that much of the media is working hard to arrive at, as they are pained by the continuing good favorable rating numbers put up by President Obama’s leadership among the American people.
This is strange because when Obama put together his Administration there were ooohs and aaahs about the expertise he had surrounded himself with, especially on the economic front, but now the journalists are the experts and the views of the Administration are suspect because they haven’s solved the economic crisis in 50 days. Only TV comedian Jon Stewart tapped into a deadly serious moment when he cussed out folks like CNBC’s Jim Cramer who has pilloried the Obama economic team and its moves unmercifully. Lost in the criticism is the almost miraculous passage of the $787 billion Stimulus package in 30 days and the unleashing of another $75 billion addressed to the Housing Foreclosure crisis and the third leg of the stool is the work they are doing to address the financial system, getting the banks back into the credit business more robustly.
Critics seem to want an immediate formula to fix the financial crisis in fifty days. But if the administration is to get the fix right, they have to gather data (an operation that alone should take at least a month) that tells them what has happened and something of the scope of it. So, Treasury Secretary Geithner and his colleagues need time. The Administration has also been hampered because it has had to clean up the mess made by the Bush Administration’s bad decisions that gave $350 billion to the banks without any accountability and create a valid solution going forward. Symptomatic of this is the amount of attention being given to developing regulations promoting transparency in the use of these funds for AIG and other financial institutions that are spending the peoples’ money like it was their own, having lavish parties, giving themselves big bonuses. This has given Republicans the opportunity to appear to be populist on the side of average people who are angry at the fat cats who are being bailed out while they suffer.
There seems to be a big push to make the criticism of the Obama Administration the rationale for shoving the whole financial mess on to his shoulders, by trying to shorten the honeymoon (as Washington Post columnist David Broder said) he should have with the political establishment in the post-election period.
But folks are just plain wrong when they suggest that the President has too much on his plate. For anyone who knows government, they should know that he hasn’t had much of a choice but to use this extraordinary moment that cries out for change on many fronts to crack the Champaign on the bow of many boats and get them moving toward his goals. He has thirteen cabinet agencies and a host of independent agencies to get going. What should he have done, wait to give them their mission until the economic crisis is solved? I think not and people who think that way are either ignorant or suspiciously playing games.
So, lets be clear that much of the criticism is coded opposition against valid objectives such as fixing health care, education, employment, energy, the environment, because those opposed to action on these fronts want a clear shot at stopping them anyway. But the Obama people wisely slipped them into the Stimulus Package.
I was really surprised at billionaire Warren Buffet, a supporter of Barack Obama, recommend to him that he should zero in on the economic crisis “like a laser.” Well, where has he been? Even when Obama was only President-Elect during the Transition period he was working on the economic crisis, that leadership created the Stimulus Package and the Home Foreclosure strategy. So, I guess that Buffet, who has also lost billions, feels that Obama should spend his time helping him get his money back rather than forming his entire government.
Finally, the culture of anxiety has gotten so out of hand that even the downward slide in the market was tied to Obama’s leadership, but when it went up 600 points the week of March 8 all was quiet. So where is the fairness? Lost in the current psychosis.
Dr. Ronald 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 (U. of Michigan Press)
By Ron Walters
I guess that it is inevitable in a context which has so many large issues that are unresolved and punishing so many people that anxiety is the culture of the ruling class as much as everyone else. You see it and hear it in the remarks of even well-meaning media commentators and analysts, to such an extent that someone defends the Administration of Barack Obama in the welter of criticism it is a rare occurrence. Otherwise, the finger-pointing and second-guessing is rife, questioning every move made or rumored and even some that have not been discussed seriously by the White House (such as the prospect of a second Stimulus Package). To purposefully bump it up, this culture of anxiety and criticism is richly mixed by the views of Republicans who wish the Obama administration ill and don’t have any good ideas, but who are a convenient source of negative opinion nonetheless.
Thus far, there is not an expert consensus that the Administration is going south, but that appears to be the atmosphere that much of the media is working hard to arrive at, as they are pained by the continuing good favorable rating numbers put up by President Obama’s leadership among the American people.
This is strange because when Obama put together his Administration there were ooohs and aaahs about the expertise he had surrounded himself with, especially on the economic front, but now the journalists are the experts and the views of the Administration are suspect because they haven’s solved the economic crisis in 50 days. Only TV comedian Jon Stewart tapped into a deadly serious moment when he cussed out folks like CNBC’s Jim Cramer who has pilloried the Obama economic team and its moves unmercifully. Lost in the criticism is the almost miraculous passage of the $787 billion Stimulus package in 30 days and the unleashing of another $75 billion addressed to the Housing Foreclosure crisis and the third leg of the stool is the work they are doing to address the financial system, getting the banks back into the credit business more robustly.
Critics seem to want an immediate formula to fix the financial crisis in fifty days. But if the administration is to get the fix right, they have to gather data (an operation that alone should take at least a month) that tells them what has happened and something of the scope of it. So, Treasury Secretary Geithner and his colleagues need time. The Administration has also been hampered because it has had to clean up the mess made by the Bush Administration’s bad decisions that gave $350 billion to the banks without any accountability and create a valid solution going forward. Symptomatic of this is the amount of attention being given to developing regulations promoting transparency in the use of these funds for AIG and other financial institutions that are spending the peoples’ money like it was their own, having lavish parties, giving themselves big bonuses. This has given Republicans the opportunity to appear to be populist on the side of average people who are angry at the fat cats who are being bailed out while they suffer.
There seems to be a big push to make the criticism of the Obama Administration the rationale for shoving the whole financial mess on to his shoulders, by trying to shorten the honeymoon (as Washington Post columnist David Broder said) he should have with the political establishment in the post-election period.
But folks are just plain wrong when they suggest that the President has too much on his plate. For anyone who knows government, they should know that he hasn’t had much of a choice but to use this extraordinary moment that cries out for change on many fronts to crack the Champaign on the bow of many boats and get them moving toward his goals. He has thirteen cabinet agencies and a host of independent agencies to get going. What should he have done, wait to give them their mission until the economic crisis is solved? I think not and people who think that way are either ignorant or suspiciously playing games.
So, lets be clear that much of the criticism is coded opposition against valid objectives such as fixing health care, education, employment, energy, the environment, because those opposed to action on these fronts want a clear shot at stopping them anyway. But the Obama people wisely slipped them into the Stimulus Package.
I was really surprised at billionaire Warren Buffet, a supporter of Barack Obama, recommend to him that he should zero in on the economic crisis “like a laser.” Well, where has he been? Even when Obama was only President-Elect during the Transition period he was working on the economic crisis, that leadership created the Stimulus Package and the Home Foreclosure strategy. So, I guess that Buffet, who has also lost billions, feels that Obama should spend his time helping him get his money back rather than forming his entire government.
Finally, the culture of anxiety has gotten so out of hand that even the downward slide in the market was tied to Obama’s leadership, but when it went up 600 points the week of March 8 all was quiet. So where is the fairness? Lost in the current psychosis.
Dr. Ronald 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 (U. of Michigan Press)
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Humanitarians Unite, You Have Nothing to Lose But Your Chains!!!
This post was shared via the MichigandersforObama distribution list. RGN
Good morning, my caring and wonderfully active peeps.
I have some really great news. I have something, that if it is of interest to you, is a truly fabulous project to get behind.
www.manyone.net/obamasangels/
This last week, I was approached by Gigi from Obama's Angels. They are a nonprofit arm of the DNC created to support Obama's humanitarian initiatives. They reached out to us CAN groups (so cool) to ask us to help them spread the word of their goals and plans. And they are really wonderful goals and plans.
First, let me tell you that they started as we did....with a worry that this incredible movement might die after Election Day. So three months before the election, they were formed to exist whether or not Obama won. Again, very cool.
BACKSTORY:
The "National Council for Obama's Angels - Headquarters, SLC", "Obama's Angels" for short, is a national and international grassroots organization created, and approved as an international and national community service group by the Barack Obama 2008 campaign, before the Presidential Elections.
(see "National Council for Obama's Angels" in the old barackobama.com site -- hey that's us!!!!).
THEIR MISSION:
"Our purpose is to preserve, promote and support President Barack Obama's humanitarian and activist agenda of community outreach and service, inclusive and beyond Party lines, after the the 2008 Presidential Elections. We work to unite people in the United States and in the world, through effective community and humanitarian service."
" Our mission is to do "Good Works" through volunteer service, while inspiring, training and supporting others who are doing the same."
WHAT THEY DO:
Obama's Angels provides logistic support, volunteer labor, community organizing training and "think-tank" support to existing humanitarian and activist organizations that are developing projects which advance President Obama's agenda. We back projects and activities which help to improve our quality of life and help the world to become a more peaceful place.
Don't you just love these guys? I knew you would.
They are having a leadership conference in May. No details have been released yet. The goal is that they want to open Obama's Angels offices all over the U.S. and they want our help.
As they are just putting their speakers together now, please do not bombard their offices with questions about details of the conference because it is being developed as we speak and there is no link to it yet or public announcement. We are the first to know.
It would be really nice, however, to join their web site and get up to speed on their organization. If you are a Camp Obama TEACHER, please do contact them as they are putting together their different seminars for this leadership conference right now and could use your support and knowledge passed on.
Tell them Lisa sent you.
Needless to say, send this everywhere and anywhere. Get the word out. Let's show these naysayers how powerful we can be and how our truly, honorably this nation's 44th President Barack Obama rolls. Community Activism is going to be the #1 fasting growing sector of the United States. And we are going to kick it off. Opening Obama's Angels across the country. Very exciting.
Go people. This is not a drill!!
Lisa Lindo
National USA.CAN Group Administrator (Community Action Networks)
Associate Producer Vote For Change Campaign -- http://obeygiant.com/voteforchange/
You Tube: You Made Me Love You, Obama!
Economic URL: IfTheBuckStopsHereShootIt.com
Twitter: lisalindo
http://My.BarackObama.com/page/group/CaliforniaCAN
http://My.BarackObama.com/page/group/USACAN
http://my.barackobama.com/page/group/hawaiiCAN
Good morning, my caring and wonderfully active peeps.
I have some really great news. I have something, that if it is of interest to you, is a truly fabulous project to get behind.
www.manyone.net/obamasangels/
This last week, I was approached by Gigi from Obama's Angels. They are a nonprofit arm of the DNC created to support Obama's humanitarian initiatives. They reached out to us CAN groups (so cool) to ask us to help them spread the word of their goals and plans. And they are really wonderful goals and plans.
First, let me tell you that they started as we did....with a worry that this incredible movement might die after Election Day. So three months before the election, they were formed to exist whether or not Obama won. Again, very cool.
BACKSTORY:
The "National Council for Obama's Angels - Headquarters, SLC", "Obama's Angels" for short, is a national and international grassroots organization created, and approved as an international and national community service group by the Barack Obama 2008 campaign, before the Presidential Elections.
(see "National Council for Obama's Angels" in the old barackobama.com site -- hey that's us!!!!).
THEIR MISSION:
"Our purpose is to preserve, promote and support President Barack Obama's humanitarian and activist agenda of community outreach and service, inclusive and beyond Party lines, after the the 2008 Presidential Elections. We work to unite people in the United States and in the world, through effective community and humanitarian service."
" Our mission is to do "Good Works" through volunteer service, while inspiring, training and supporting others who are doing the same."
WHAT THEY DO:
Obama's Angels provides logistic support, volunteer labor, community organizing training and "think-tank" support to existing humanitarian and activist organizations that are developing projects which advance President Obama's agenda. We back projects and activities which help to improve our quality of life and help the world to become a more peaceful place.
Don't you just love these guys? I knew you would.
They are having a leadership conference in May. No details have been released yet. The goal is that they want to open Obama's Angels offices all over the U.S. and they want our help.
As they are just putting their speakers together now, please do not bombard their offices with questions about details of the conference because it is being developed as we speak and there is no link to it yet or public announcement. We are the first to know.
It would be really nice, however, to join their web site and get up to speed on their organization. If you are a Camp Obama TEACHER, please do contact them as they are putting together their different seminars for this leadership conference right now and could use your support and knowledge passed on.
Tell them Lisa sent you.
Needless to say, send this everywhere and anywhere. Get the word out. Let's show these naysayers how powerful we can be and how our truly, honorably this nation's 44th President Barack Obama rolls. Community Activism is going to be the #1 fasting growing sector of the United States. And we are going to kick it off. Opening Obama's Angels across the country. Very exciting.
Go people. This is not a drill!!
Lisa Lindo
National USA.CAN Group Administrator (Community Action Networks)
Associate Producer Vote For Change Campaign -- http://obeygiant.com/voteforchange/
You Tube: You Made Me Love You, Obama!
Economic URL: IfTheBuckStopsHereShootIt.com
Twitter: lisalindo
http://My.BarackObama.com/page/group/CaliforniaCAN
http://My.BarackObama.com/page/group/USACAN
http://my.barackobama.com/page/group/hawaiiCAN
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Tasteless, Racist Cartoon: Fight Back!!!
Dear Friend,
Yesterday, the day after President Obama signed his stimulus bill into law, the
NY Post ran a cartoon depicting the bill's "author" as a dead monkey, covered in
blood after being shot by police. You can see the image by clicking on the link below.
In the face of intense criticism, the Post's editor is standing by the cartoon,
claiming that it's not about Obama, has no racial undertones, and that it was
simply referencing a recent incident when police shot a pet chimpanzee. But it's
impossible to believe that any newspaper editor could be ignorant enough to not
understand how this cartoon evokes a history of racist symbolism, or how
frightening this image feels at a time when death threats against President
Obama have been on the rise.
Please join me and other ColorOfChange.org members in demanding that the Post
apologize publicly and fire the editor who allowed this cartoon to go to print:
http://www.colorofchange.org/nypost/?id=1699-158105
The Post would have us believe that the cartoon is not about Obama. But on the
page just before the cartoon appears, there's a big picture of Obama signing the
stimulus bill. A reader paging through the Post would see Obama putting pen to
paper, then turn the page to see this violent cartoon. The imagery is chilling.
There is a clear history in our country of racist symbolism that depicts Black
people as apes or monkeys, and it came up multiple times during the presidential
campaign.
We're also in a time of increased race-based violence. In the months following
President Obama's election there has been a nationwide surge in hate crimes
ranging from vandalism to assaults to arson on Black churches. There has been an
unprecedented number of threats against President Obama since he was elected,
with hate-based groups fantasizing about the killing of the president. Just a
week ago, a man drove from Louisiana to the Capitol with a rifle, telling the
police who stopped him that he had a "delivery" for the president.
There is no excuse for the Post to have allowed this cartoon to be printed, and
even less for Editor Col Allan's outright dismissal of legitimate concerns.
But let's be clear who's behind the Post: Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch, the Post's
owner, is the man behind FOX News Channel. FOX has continually attacked and
denigrated Black people, politicians, institutions at every opportunity, and
ColorOfChange has run several campaigns to make clear how FOX poisons public
debate.
I don't expect much from Murdoch. However, with enough public pressure, we can
set the stage for advertisers and subscribers to think long and hard before
patronizing outlets like the Post that refuse to be held accountable.
You can help, by making clear that the Post's behavior is unacceptable, and by
asking your friends and family to do the same. Please join me:
http://www.colorofchange.org/nypost/?id=1699-158105
Thanks.
Yesterday, the day after President Obama signed his stimulus bill into law, the
NY Post ran a cartoon depicting the bill's "author" as a dead monkey, covered in
blood after being shot by police. You can see the image by clicking on the link below.
In the face of intense criticism, the Post's editor is standing by the cartoon,
claiming that it's not about Obama, has no racial undertones, and that it was
simply referencing a recent incident when police shot a pet chimpanzee. But it's
impossible to believe that any newspaper editor could be ignorant enough to not
understand how this cartoon evokes a history of racist symbolism, or how
frightening this image feels at a time when death threats against President
Obama have been on the rise.
Please join me and other ColorOfChange.org members in demanding that the Post
apologize publicly and fire the editor who allowed this cartoon to go to print:
http://www.colorofchange.org/nypost/?id=1699-158105
The Post would have us believe that the cartoon is not about Obama. But on the
page just before the cartoon appears, there's a big picture of Obama signing the
stimulus bill. A reader paging through the Post would see Obama putting pen to
paper, then turn the page to see this violent cartoon. The imagery is chilling.
There is a clear history in our country of racist symbolism that depicts Black
people as apes or monkeys, and it came up multiple times during the presidential
campaign.
We're also in a time of increased race-based violence. In the months following
President Obama's election there has been a nationwide surge in hate crimes
ranging from vandalism to assaults to arson on Black churches. There has been an
unprecedented number of threats against President Obama since he was elected,
with hate-based groups fantasizing about the killing of the president. Just a
week ago, a man drove from Louisiana to the Capitol with a rifle, telling the
police who stopped him that he had a "delivery" for the president.
There is no excuse for the Post to have allowed this cartoon to be printed, and
even less for Editor Col Allan's outright dismissal of legitimate concerns.
But let's be clear who's behind the Post: Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch, the Post's
owner, is the man behind FOX News Channel. FOX has continually attacked and
denigrated Black people, politicians, institutions at every opportunity, and
ColorOfChange has run several campaigns to make clear how FOX poisons public
debate.
I don't expect much from Murdoch. However, with enough public pressure, we can
set the stage for advertisers and subscribers to think long and hard before
patronizing outlets like the Post that refuse to be held accountable.
You can help, by making clear that the Post's behavior is unacceptable, and by
asking your friends and family to do the same. Please join me:
http://www.colorofchange.org/nypost/?id=1699-158105
Thanks.
Ron Walters on the Stimulus and the Black Community
Ron Walters urges the black community to get on the case for their fair share of the stimulus. RGN
From Stimulus to Recovery: Follow the Money
By Ron Walters
Now that the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act” has been signed into law by President Obama, what has happened through much trial and tribulation is tantamount to what Cuba Gooding said in one of his movies – “show me the money.” We have been shown the money, $787 billion, and now it is up to us to get down to business and follow the money and then access it for the good of our communities. The stakes are enormous. This is one of the rare moments in history when a cruise-ship size load of funds docks in our states in a few weeks, but if we are not savvy enough to know enough how to access the funds, that ship could come in and leave us with substantial needs unmet.
The Act is a big one with lots of sections, and you can Google the title of the Act above and look at them all. But I will provide a quick glimpse of a few things in Title 9 on “Labor, Health, and Human Services and Education.”
• $4 billion is added to the Workforce Investment program.
• $500 million of that amount goes to states for adult employment and training activities;
• $1.2 billion will go to states for youth under 24 years old for summer jobs;
• $1 billion will go to states to assist dislocated workers employment and training;
• Another $500 million will be put in the dislocated worker reserve to assist through June 30 2010;
• $50 million will go to YouthBuild programs through June 30, 2010;
• $750 million will provide grants for training and placement of workers for careers in energy efficiency and renewable energy employment
• $120 million will be allotted to fund Community Service jobs for senior citizens.
• $500 million will be given to states to augment their Unemployment Insurance funds
• $300 million for Job Corp.
This is the time for black leaders the various communities to come together and work out a system of communicating information to many people who have been laid off, who are disabled, who are youth, who have been unemployed, who are elderly but want to work, and generally everyone who wants to participate in the program funded by this Act. Citizens themselves who want to participate in these programs, many of which are already going in some states like YouthBuild and some that have been shut down, sho uld contact the office of their elected officials at the local, county, state and national level to find the entry point into these activities.
The Obama Administration has vowed to create a website RECOVERY.GOV for the average citizen to follow how these funds will be used. That will not be a place to access the programs, but to understand how they are being distributed and what effect the funding is having on things like the unemployment rate.
As the debate has suggested, this may not be the last stimulus package needed to jump-start the economy by the spending made possible through job creation. But our national organizations such as the Congressional Black Caucus, Black Leadership Forum, National Urban League, NAACP, National Action Network, RainbowPush, and others should follow the distribution of such funds carefully to see whether or not the black community is getting a fair share of those jobs and the other resources made available by this Act.
I must confess however, to being somewhat worried when I see that Black leaders have not visited the White House to make their position felt on this matter, but on Friday, February 13, 60 Latino and Latina leaders from around the country visited the White House for a briefing by key White House staff. Perhaps we should not have been first in the door among racial and ethnic groups – perhaps we would not have been permitted to be first – but we should make it plain that there is an expectation that the black community would experience a fair distribution of these funds.
Without the black vote, there would be no Barack Obama in the White House. Take away the states where the Black vote influenced an Obama victory: North Carolina, Virginia, District of Columbia, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana, and John McCain would have won the election. Our claim on policy fairness is strong.
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. =2 0 His latest book is: The Price of Racial Reconciliation (University of Michigan Press)
From Stimulus to Recovery: Follow the Money
By Ron Walters
Now that the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act” has been signed into law by President Obama, what has happened through much trial and tribulation is tantamount to what Cuba Gooding said in one of his movies – “show me the money.” We have been shown the money, $787 billion, and now it is up to us to get down to business and follow the money and then access it for the good of our communities. The stakes are enormous. This is one of the rare moments in history when a cruise-ship size load of funds docks in our states in a few weeks, but if we are not savvy enough to know enough how to access the funds, that ship could come in and leave us with substantial needs unmet.
The Act is a big one with lots of sections, and you can Google the title of the Act above and look at them all. But I will provide a quick glimpse of a few things in Title 9 on “Labor, Health, and Human Services and Education.”
• $4 billion is added to the Workforce Investment program.
• $500 million of that amount goes to states for adult employment and training activities;
• $1.2 billion will go to states for youth under 24 years old for summer jobs;
• $1 billion will go to states to assist dislocated workers employment and training;
• Another $500 million will be put in the dislocated worker reserve to assist through June 30 2010;
• $50 million will go to YouthBuild programs through June 30, 2010;
• $750 million will provide grants for training and placement of workers for careers in energy efficiency and renewable energy employment
• $120 million will be allotted to fund Community Service jobs for senior citizens.
• $500 million will be given to states to augment their Unemployment Insurance funds
• $300 million for Job Corp.
This is the time for black leaders the various communities to come together and work out a system of communicating information to many people who have been laid off, who are disabled, who are youth, who have been unemployed, who are elderly but want to work, and generally everyone who wants to participate in the program funded by this Act. Citizens themselves who want to participate in these programs, many of which are already going in some states like YouthBuild and some that have been shut down, sho uld contact the office of their elected officials at the local, county, state and national level to find the entry point into these activities.
The Obama Administration has vowed to create a website RECOVERY.GOV for the average citizen to follow how these funds will be used. That will not be a place to access the programs, but to understand how they are being distributed and what effect the funding is having on things like the unemployment rate.
As the debate has suggested, this may not be the last stimulus package needed to jump-start the economy by the spending made possible through job creation. But our national organizations such as the Congressional Black Caucus, Black Leadership Forum, National Urban League, NAACP, National Action Network, RainbowPush, and others should follow the distribution of such funds carefully to see whether or not the black community is getting a fair share of those jobs and the other resources made available by this Act.
I must confess however, to being somewhat worried when I see that Black leaders have not visited the White House to make their position felt on this matter, but on Friday, February 13, 60 Latino and Latina leaders from around the country visited the White House for a briefing by key White House staff. Perhaps we should not have been first in the door among racial and ethnic groups – perhaps we would not have been permitted to be first – but we should make it plain that there is an expectation that the black community would experience a fair distribution of these funds.
Without the black vote, there would be no Barack Obama in the White House. Take away the states where the Black vote influenced an Obama victory: North Carolina, Virginia, District of Columbia, Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana, and John McCain would have won the election. Our claim on policy fairness is strong.
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. =2 0 His latest book is: The Price of Racial Reconciliation (University of Michigan Press)
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Targeting Obama: White Nationalism Lives!!!! Ted Kefalinos
For various reasons the blog has not been very active of late. The blog will remain to both recognize what will be the transformative the presidency of Barack Obama and provide progressive perspectives on how that transformation is taking place. Elections have consequences. That reality has been exhibited from Day One. Not only has Obama gotten overwhelming praise for the most part of his appointments, his actions are returning our government to its Constitutional principles and governance based on knowledge and integrity.
The lack of activity on the blog has been for several reasons. There were the holidays. Then my wife had serious surgery. Then there was the inauguration. In recuperation my wife has had set backs. Over last few days, however, she is getting the feeling of what it means to be normal.
Having said all of that, one of the concerns among African American and progressives has been that Obama's election would be portrayed as though America had achieved some sort of "post-racial" society and claims of racism would delegitimized. While Obama's election with 45% of America's whites voting for him does not attest to racism being a thing of the past, his election was the result of a NEW MAJORITY in America. He won by a landslide!! The majority of the American electorate rejected the meanness and racism of the Reagan Revolution.
Even so, that white nationalism has ruled America from its inception, it will not die easy. We can see it in the obstructionism of the Republicans. They can only think in their conservative mantras. It was their "let the markets rule" that got us in the mess. Their ideas are bankrupt. Yet, they still think they are in the majority. The ignorance of Rush Limbaugh will take them all down. Obama pledged to reach across the aisle. A part of this problem with the Republicans and Rush Limbaugh is that deeply rooted white nationalism does not die easy or at one election.
That white nationalism does not die easily is evidenced by the deep resentment of many whites that Obama is president. We do know that there is a history of passions around racism and the the white nationalist who espouse such positions. There are several indicators the white nationalist resentment. It is worrying that gun sales have skyrocketed since November 4, 2008. The most democratic media venue, Washington Journal, C-Span's morning call-in, racist passions are very prominent. White nationalist resentment is rearing its ugly head. No where is this ugliness more apparent than the N-word Cookie of Ted Kefalinos. RGN
UPDATE: "Drunken Negro Face" Cookies On Sale at Greenwich Village Bakery
[UPDATE BELOW] At at a time when any decent baker should have been selling racially harmonious black and white cookies by the truckload, one Greenwich Village bakery popular with celebrities and shows like Sex and the City has outraged neighbors by selling a "Drunken Negro Face" cookie in, um, "honor" of President Obama. [Video below.] A shocked customer tells My Fox NY that Ted Kefalinos, proprietor of Lafayette French Pastry, asked her, "Would you like some drunken negro heads to go with your coffee? They're in honor of our new president. He's following in the same path of Abraham Lincoln; he will get his."
Later, her friend stopped by the bakery and said Kefalinos corrected her about the name of the cookies—they're actually drunken "N-word" cookies. She says the backwards baker then repeated the dark suggestion that, like Lincoln, President Obama "will get what's coming to him." Go Secret Service, go!
And it gets worse when Fox's Arnold Diaz goes into the store with a camera and microphone to confront Kefalinos, who suddenly makes Joe the Plumber look like a Rhodes scholar. "I called them Drunken Negro Heads. What's the problem with that?" Kefalinos asks the newscaster with a smirk. "On Inauguration Day I thought it would be cool to change the name to Obama Heads. I just changed it for the day." We suppose Burning Cross Bananas Foster was too complicated to mass-produce.
Kefalinos denies intimating that Obama would be assassinated, and insists that the cookie is "not unflattering. I think it's a fun face... And anyone who says anything else should be ashamed of themselves." Besides, nobody got upset about the "Dead Geese Bread" he sold after the recent Hudson River plane crash. (We're NOT making that up.) Also, Kefalinos insists he can't be racist because, for one thing, "my brother-in-law, he's Cuban." Below, behold the breathtaking train wreck of racist ignorance.
UPDATE: We just spoke with Kefalinos on the phone and he remains utterly oblivious, telling us, "This whole thing was blown out of proportion." He says he's sold out of the "Drunken Negro Cakes" and doesn't plan to make anymore, despite the fact that many customers have been requesting them (he claims). When asked whether he understands that most African-Americans find the word "negro" offensive, Kefalinos explains, "It's a French word. It comes from the French."
Community Board 2 was quick to call for a boycott of Lafayette French Pastry, to which Kefalinos responds, "I'm sorry they feel that way because I was trying to do a nice thing." Not seeming to grasp in any way the degree of outrage he's sparked, he added, "I did it and that's the end of it and it's over."
UPDATE 1/24: Now Ted Kefalinos apologizes: "Seriously, from the bottom of my heart, it was an innocent design I created. It was nothing more than just a piece of art."
Thursday, January 22, 2009
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
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.
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.
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.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
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.”
Saturday, January 17, 2009
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
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
Thursday, January 15, 2009
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.”
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.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
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
Sunday, January 11, 2009
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
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
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