This was a motherfucking revolution. Not a Che walking through the jungles of Bolivar revolution. No Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver standing in black leather jackets and a shotgun "fuck the pigs revolution". This was the revolution that CLR James wrote about in The Black Jacobians or Paulo Friere wrote about in Pedagogy Of The Opressed.
This was a revolution about seizing power. Power to reshape urban school systems; power to cool a planet; power to harness runaway markets; power to reassert an ideal founded in Philadelphia and recast at the reflecting pool by a southern preacher, and power nurtured in a small cell on Robben Island -that there can be no compromise for individual freedom.
Tuesday at noon, revolution beamed down on the face of an illiterate Kenyan woman sitting behind an ex-President. She could not understand the words that were being spoken, but witnessed their meaning on the faces of hundreds of thousands, who came to hear her grandson accept the leavers of power.
Last night I walked down U Street in the nation’s capital and, booming from speakers in a parked car were the speeches of Barack Obama, laid down over hip hop and jazz tracks. Like Bob Marley, Obama’s words of eloquence, poetry and intellect are now seeping into the global consciousness. These words of revolution carried on the digital waves of the Internet will be played in Bodegas in Harlem, at Youth night in Cotton Valley Louisiana, in back alleys in Lagos, on side-walks in Ho-Chi- Minh-City, and on IPods in Amsterdam.
Hope is the material out of which dreams are formed, and then transformed into imagination which fuels revolution. The revolution that began on January 20 is so powerful that a child in Zimbabwe watching a black and white television screen, powered by a generator, imagined himself differently after a black hand reached for a bible on the steps of the Capitol. A young college girl in China looked at the podium on the Capitol and imagined, "I can change my village, my town, my city, my country for the next generation." Revolution comes when regular people imagine themselves to be great.
This was a revolution that will affect every capital and village in the world. We may not see the results in our lifetime, but then we just might. We cannot know because none of us has ever been here before.
Yesterday, Moses did not just ask to "Let my people go," but was appointed to the motherfucking throne.
Gil Scott-Heron was wrong. The revolution was televised on a 42-inch flat screen in HDTV. I know because, like the rest of the world, I saw it with my own eyes.
Showing posts with label obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label obama. Show all posts
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Sunday, January 4, 2009
What Of The Palestinian People?
There are certain realities in the hundred-year-OLD war THAT IS CURRENTLY being aired on the 24-hour news cycle between Israel and Hamas. First, American politics have, and for the foreseeable future, aligned itself with Israel. Hamas has refused to retract on its founding principles that Israel must be destroyed, and thus have been declared by America and the European Union, to be a terrorist organization. Hamas is the duly-elected representative of the Palestinian people as a result of fair and open elections. Israel and America responded to Hamas' election by imposing a smothering economic boycott of Gaza, that has had a devastating toll on the Palestinian people.
Finally, there have been atrocities committed by both sides that blur the meanings of words such as "terrorist."
President-elect Barack Obama said in Israel this summer, "If someone was raining rockets down on the house that my daughters slept in, I would do everything I could to stop it." Who could not agree with the President-elect on that statement? However, even the Israelis knew that Obama's words were an act of political pandering to the Jewish vote, in a hotly contested Democratic Primary election. It was also a simplistic response to a nuanced set of political realities. Clearly, someone who gave a complex speech on race just a few months earlier, knew that.
The MORE POIGNANT questions for the President-elect are "what if someone built a fence around the south side of Chicago and then imposed an airtight economic boycott of those caged inside?" "What if the people were not allowed to travel outside of that wall, and WERE subjected to what former President Jimmy Carter described as apartheid conditions?" "What if the sole purpose of this economic boycott was to force the elected representatives from power?" "Would the President-Elect simply sit in his living room and watch his daughters world slowly strangled?"
And it must be remembered that the Palestinian people did not turn to Hamas because of its political ideology. The Palestinians had lost faith in the corrupt Palestinian Authority and what they saw as the West's unwillingness to reign in Israel's expansion policies into Palestinian lands through illegal settlements and the building of a security wall –on Palestinian land.
There is no debate that Hamas' adherence to radical Islam is a major impediment to peace. Only despots carry on a war in the name of God. It is unrealistic to expect that the person sitting across the table from you would trust any agreement as long as you openly called for his destruction. Even the Arab governments in the region despise Hamas.
However, the Israelis raining high-tech weaponry down on one of the most densely populated centers on the planet, simply cannot go unchallenged by the moral world. This war was launched as much for internal politics as it was for attacking Hamas.
It has become too exhaustive to assign blame to this mess. What is clear is that the Israelis and the Palestinians cannot resolve this conflict on their own. The United States needs to be honest brokers. No other President has come to power with the goodwill of the world AND THE ABILITY TO force the TWO parties into a meaningful and lasting peace AGREEMENT MORE than Obama. Obama needs to speak to the world with the same moral complexities that he did on race. To the shock of the media, America appreciated HAVING A MATURE DIALOGUE on its original sin. I suspect the world is ready for the same nuanced analysis on the middle-east, too.
To speak of Israeli pain and not mention the pain that Palestinian people have lived with since the formation of Israel, can no longer be this country's policy. The fact is - the people who have suffered the most in THIS mess - are the Palestinians families, who want no more than anyone else –a future for their children. In poll after poll, residents of Gaza support a two state solution with Israel as a peaceful neighbor.
When Barack Obama speaks of this crisis as President, he must speak not only of Israel's security, but also, "what of the Palestinian people?"
Finally, there have been atrocities committed by both sides that blur the meanings of words such as "terrorist."
President-elect Barack Obama said in Israel this summer, "If someone was raining rockets down on the house that my daughters slept in, I would do everything I could to stop it." Who could not agree with the President-elect on that statement? However, even the Israelis knew that Obama's words were an act of political pandering to the Jewish vote, in a hotly contested Democratic Primary election. It was also a simplistic response to a nuanced set of political realities. Clearly, someone who gave a complex speech on race just a few months earlier, knew that.
The MORE POIGNANT questions for the President-elect are "what if someone built a fence around the south side of Chicago and then imposed an airtight economic boycott of those caged inside?" "What if the people were not allowed to travel outside of that wall, and WERE subjected to what former President Jimmy Carter described as apartheid conditions?" "What if the sole purpose of this economic boycott was to force the elected representatives from power?" "Would the President-Elect simply sit in his living room and watch his daughters world slowly strangled?"
And it must be remembered that the Palestinian people did not turn to Hamas because of its political ideology. The Palestinians had lost faith in the corrupt Palestinian Authority and what they saw as the West's unwillingness to reign in Israel's expansion policies into Palestinian lands through illegal settlements and the building of a security wall –on Palestinian land.
There is no debate that Hamas' adherence to radical Islam is a major impediment to peace. Only despots carry on a war in the name of God. It is unrealistic to expect that the person sitting across the table from you would trust any agreement as long as you openly called for his destruction. Even the Arab governments in the region despise Hamas.
However, the Israelis raining high-tech weaponry down on one of the most densely populated centers on the planet, simply cannot go unchallenged by the moral world. This war was launched as much for internal politics as it was for attacking Hamas.
It has become too exhaustive to assign blame to this mess. What is clear is that the Israelis and the Palestinians cannot resolve this conflict on their own. The United States needs to be honest brokers. No other President has come to power with the goodwill of the world AND THE ABILITY TO force the TWO parties into a meaningful and lasting peace AGREEMENT MORE than Obama. Obama needs to speak to the world with the same moral complexities that he did on race. To the shock of the media, America appreciated HAVING A MATURE DIALOGUE on its original sin. I suspect the world is ready for the same nuanced analysis on the middle-east, too.
To speak of Israeli pain and not mention the pain that Palestinian people have lived with since the formation of Israel, can no longer be this country's policy. The fact is - the people who have suffered the most in THIS mess - are the Palestinians families, who want no more than anyone else –a future for their children. In poll after poll, residents of Gaza support a two state solution with Israel as a peaceful neighbor.
When Barack Obama speaks of this crisis as President, he must speak not only of Israel's security, but also, "what of the Palestinian people?"
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Checkmate Blagojevich
In an earlier blog I wrote that true criminals are often brilliant, charming and delusional in how they see themselves and the world around them. Gov. Rod Blagojevich is a true criminal and naming Roland Burris, a former state attorney general, who has a fairly distinguished career as public servant is brilliant. Oh did I mention that Burris is African-American.
Now the ball is in the Democrats and Barack Obama's court. The Democrats have indicated they will not seat any appointment by Blagojevich. However, the Governor has the legal and constitutional authority to appoint the replacement for Obama.
The Senate has no legal or constitutional authority to deny the appointment. The United States Supreme court in Powell v. McCormack ruled that congress could not deny Harlem Democrat Adam Clayton Powell his seat in congress. Just two years earlier, the court in Bond v. Floyd enjoined the Georgia Legislator from denying Julian Bond a seat in that body.
Burris, on the other hand, has a legitimate claim to a United States Senate seat for the next two years. He is in no way implicated with Blagojevich's criminality. He rightly states that the citizens of Illinois have a constitutional right to two senators and he is answering the call for public service. And besides Burris is 70 years-old. What the hell does he care if Harry Reid is pissed off?
The problem that the Democrats have is that the reality of the white boy club called the United States Senate will now come into full view. The debate will move away from Blagojevich's sleaziness and possible criminality to 99 white men looking down their nose at an African-American from taking his senate seat.
You have to appreciate the move from that insane Governor in Illinois.
Now the ball is in the Democrats and Barack Obama's court. The Democrats have indicated they will not seat any appointment by Blagojevich. However, the Governor has the legal and constitutional authority to appoint the replacement for Obama.
The Senate has no legal or constitutional authority to deny the appointment. The United States Supreme court in Powell v. McCormack ruled that congress could not deny Harlem Democrat Adam Clayton Powell his seat in congress. Just two years earlier, the court in Bond v. Floyd enjoined the Georgia Legislator from denying Julian Bond a seat in that body.
Burris, on the other hand, has a legitimate claim to a United States Senate seat for the next two years. He is in no way implicated with Blagojevich's criminality. He rightly states that the citizens of Illinois have a constitutional right to two senators and he is answering the call for public service. And besides Burris is 70 years-old. What the hell does he care if Harry Reid is pissed off?
The problem that the Democrats have is that the reality of the white boy club called the United States Senate will now come into full view. The debate will move away from Blagojevich's sleaziness and possible criminality to 99 white men looking down their nose at an African-American from taking his senate seat.
You have to appreciate the move from that insane Governor in Illinois.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
There Is Whoring In The Whore House?
I had doubts from the very beginning of the veracity of some of the ranting by Illinois Governor Gov. Rod Blagojevich on the Federal wiretaps. Next I knew that the juvenile mentality of the corporate media would attempt to tie the scandal to Barack Obama.
I have practiced criminal defense law for the last ten years. Most of my clients are not necessarily bad, they just do stupid things, sometimes totally out of their character. In that sense everyone in America is capable of committing a crime.
But then there are the 25 percent true criminals. The one thing all true criminals have in common is that they are fucking insane. They suffer from narcisssitc personalities so deep that they are capable of committing almost any act. They are often brilliant, charming and delusional in how they see themselves and the world around them.
Blagojevich is a true criminal. When you are under federal investigation. When you have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on lawyers to keep the federal government at bay. Why would you talk into an open mike and shake down politicians? Because you are fucking insane!
It is highly dubious that Jessie Jackson Jr. knowing that the governor is demented and under federal investigation would enter into a pay for play deal given his family’s experience with the Feds. After all his father probably has an FBI file longer than War and Peace.
It is troubling that the Feds released Jackson’s name in federal wiretaps and indictment on the basis of Blagojevich rants. This is a classic government tactic to run some bag man to ground to give up someone higher up on the food chain. Even if Jackson’s camp offered to raise governor Elvis money in return for the senate appointment, that is not illegal.
One of the amazing things is the feigned shock of the media at the fact that Blagojevich would be offering a pay to play deal on a United States Senate Seat. From the town aldermen to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, politicians have been engaged in the pay to play game since the beginning of the republic. How do you get the Ambassadorship to London or Paris? You raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for the guy that wins the Presidency. Now the media is shocked to find out that there is whoring going on in the whore house.
But then the juvenile corporate media has spent the last week trying to muddy Barack Obama with the scandal. If Obama attempted to influence the governor's pick, that is within political norms. But now the media is implying that Obama must be dirty because he came out of Chicago politics.
We are on the verge of a global depression. Yet, the media is fascinated with a thug governor from a corrupt state. Bernard L. Madoff alone stole fifty billion ($50,000,000,000.00)dollars. How the hell do you steal 50 billion dollars and no one notices. There has to be other banks involved with Madoff. The SEC has said it had credible evidence ten years ago and did not act or did it just turn a blind eye? When Madoff is added with the other looting that took place on Wall Street on a generational scale, Blagojevich looks like a petty street criminal.
Why has Blagojevich and Obama been the lead story the last weeks rather than Madoff and Wall Street. The problem is that the same corporate looters that have created this mess pay the salaries of the talking heads that dominate the national media. Now that it is the ultimate pay to play.
I have practiced criminal defense law for the last ten years. Most of my clients are not necessarily bad, they just do stupid things, sometimes totally out of their character. In that sense everyone in America is capable of committing a crime.
But then there are the 25 percent true criminals. The one thing all true criminals have in common is that they are fucking insane. They suffer from narcisssitc personalities so deep that they are capable of committing almost any act. They are often brilliant, charming and delusional in how they see themselves and the world around them.
Blagojevich is a true criminal. When you are under federal investigation. When you have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on lawyers to keep the federal government at bay. Why would you talk into an open mike and shake down politicians? Because you are fucking insane!
It is highly dubious that Jessie Jackson Jr. knowing that the governor is demented and under federal investigation would enter into a pay for play deal given his family’s experience with the Feds. After all his father probably has an FBI file longer than War and Peace.
It is troubling that the Feds released Jackson’s name in federal wiretaps and indictment on the basis of Blagojevich rants. This is a classic government tactic to run some bag man to ground to give up someone higher up on the food chain. Even if Jackson’s camp offered to raise governor Elvis money in return for the senate appointment, that is not illegal.
One of the amazing things is the feigned shock of the media at the fact that Blagojevich would be offering a pay to play deal on a United States Senate Seat. From the town aldermen to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, politicians have been engaged in the pay to play game since the beginning of the republic. How do you get the Ambassadorship to London or Paris? You raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for the guy that wins the Presidency. Now the media is shocked to find out that there is whoring going on in the whore house.
But then the juvenile corporate media has spent the last week trying to muddy Barack Obama with the scandal. If Obama attempted to influence the governor's pick, that is within political norms. But now the media is implying that Obama must be dirty because he came out of Chicago politics.
We are on the verge of a global depression. Yet, the media is fascinated with a thug governor from a corrupt state. Bernard L. Madoff alone stole fifty billion ($50,000,000,000.00)dollars. How the hell do you steal 50 billion dollars and no one notices. There has to be other banks involved with Madoff. The SEC has said it had credible evidence ten years ago and did not act or did it just turn a blind eye? When Madoff is added with the other looting that took place on Wall Street on a generational scale, Blagojevich looks like a petty street criminal.
Why has Blagojevich and Obama been the lead story the last weeks rather than Madoff and Wall Street. The problem is that the same corporate looters that have created this mess pay the salaries of the talking heads that dominate the national media. Now that it is the ultimate pay to play.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Bill Ayers Kicked Chris Matthews Ass
Bill Ayers made a brilliant statement on the importance of a strong leftist intellectual voice in America's politics. Matthew's weepy white catholic, Pennsylvania slice of America was challenged for its willingness to tolerate law breaking. Somebody has to be willing to challenge the hypocrisy the "center right" myth, that is 21st century American politics.
Sunday, November 16, 2008
The Spook Who Sat Next To The Door
Bobby Jindal is now being pushed as the answer to the Republican Party. When Bear Bryant faced a team with black players that ran circles around his all white "Tide", he supposedly said "I got to get me one of them." Now after the ass whipping the democrats just gave Republicans with "that one" at the top of the ticket, they now need them "one".
But before the democratic establishment rewrites history, lest we not forget, Barack Obama was not embraced by the democrats. He won the nomination because he went around them, over them, and through them. Obama won dragging the party of the old south kicking and screaming all of the way into the 21st century. This thing was suppose to be over by Super Tuesday remember?
Now the Republican Party needs a 21st century face to slap on their 20th century party of, being against gay marriage, immigration, affirmative action, a woman's right to choose, support of public education and sensible regulation of markets. They now looking for their spook to sit next to the door.
The genius of Obama, is that he let it be known up front that he is firmly attached to the African-American community. When faced with his first major crisis to his nomination over Jeremiah Wright, Obama looked at the world and said "I could no more disown this man than I could the black community. He is like family to me." Translation: I am a black American by choice and it is too late for me to change. Obama challenged the democrats to look in the mirror and decide what it means to be a 21st century political party.
Jindal has not used his life experience to lead Louisiana's Republican Party into the 21st century reality that the world looks like him. And if his state and party wants to compete, it must create a new paradigm that embraces diversity.
Jindal has risen to the top of Louisiana republican politics by doing what many African-Americans have done for generations to move up; put on white face, red lip stick, and get up on the table and do the gig. Jindal ran as a born again Christian and made it clear that he embraced with zeal the ideology of a 20th century party.
During his campaign for governor, there was serious discussion in Louisiana's African-American business community to support Jindal. Jindal campaign made it clear, that he was not interested in being seen as too friendly with African-Americans. Jindal never made a serious attempt to court black voters, he ran instead as a right-wing ideologue. Governor Jindal remains as isolated from the state’s African-American population as any previous Republican Governor. According to a number of African-American state legislators Jindal’s policy toward black legislators is “to ignore us”
What the Republican Party needs is not to slap a colored face on a party of bigotry, it needs to replace its “southern strategy” with an urban strategy. Republicans need not abandon its core values of little government, low taxes and pro-business.
Republicans needs to finally embrace George Bush call for compassionate conservatism. Just because the message had a bad messenger does not mean that the message was wrong. You cannot go into an urban community and tell its citizens that you are stuck here because you are morally deficient and lazy. You have to fix the schools, make sure children don’t go to bed hungry, make the streets safe and stop locking up young men for life because they sold a narcotic. Then and only then will urban voters listen to your philosophy of low taxes and limited government. Be the party of pro-life by making a moral argument not by forcing the government between a woman and her doctor.
Republicans must finally live up to the true Christian ideals that they say girds their moral core. I cannot imagine that Jesus of the New Testament would tell a loving gay couple that they are going to hell. Republicans must stop attempting to convert the world’s diversity that enlivens our cities into a white, patriarchal, Eurocentric philosophy.
But most importantly, accept the truth. Republicans did not lose the 2008 Presidential race, and congress because of George Bush, the Iraq War, or the market meltdown. They lost because they are now a white, southern, rural party. They won in large numbers only in places where low educated voters live. The Republicans won large in rural America not because of their economic principles and vision but because those voters brought into their bullshit of fear the gays, the blacks, the immigrants and the nerd with big ears and a Muslim name.
A nerdy brown governor from a small poor state, or a beauty queen from a small/big state ain’t going to change that.
America has suffered decades of dysfunction because of a limited two party system controlled by one corporate master. Imagine the damage that will be done with only one dominant political party. Democracy does not flourish without a loyal opposition. America needs the Republican Party to get it shit together real fast.
But before the democratic establishment rewrites history, lest we not forget, Barack Obama was not embraced by the democrats. He won the nomination because he went around them, over them, and through them. Obama won dragging the party of the old south kicking and screaming all of the way into the 21st century. This thing was suppose to be over by Super Tuesday remember?
Now the Republican Party needs a 21st century face to slap on their 20th century party of, being against gay marriage, immigration, affirmative action, a woman's right to choose, support of public education and sensible regulation of markets. They now looking for their spook to sit next to the door.
The genius of Obama, is that he let it be known up front that he is firmly attached to the African-American community. When faced with his first major crisis to his nomination over Jeremiah Wright, Obama looked at the world and said "I could no more disown this man than I could the black community. He is like family to me." Translation: I am a black American by choice and it is too late for me to change. Obama challenged the democrats to look in the mirror and decide what it means to be a 21st century political party.
Jindal has not used his life experience to lead Louisiana's Republican Party into the 21st century reality that the world looks like him. And if his state and party wants to compete, it must create a new paradigm that embraces diversity.
Jindal has risen to the top of Louisiana republican politics by doing what many African-Americans have done for generations to move up; put on white face, red lip stick, and get up on the table and do the gig. Jindal ran as a born again Christian and made it clear that he embraced with zeal the ideology of a 20th century party.
During his campaign for governor, there was serious discussion in Louisiana's African-American business community to support Jindal. Jindal campaign made it clear, that he was not interested in being seen as too friendly with African-Americans. Jindal never made a serious attempt to court black voters, he ran instead as a right-wing ideologue. Governor Jindal remains as isolated from the state’s African-American population as any previous Republican Governor. According to a number of African-American state legislators Jindal’s policy toward black legislators is “to ignore us”
What the Republican Party needs is not to slap a colored face on a party of bigotry, it needs to replace its “southern strategy” with an urban strategy. Republicans need not abandon its core values of little government, low taxes and pro-business.
Republicans needs to finally embrace George Bush call for compassionate conservatism. Just because the message had a bad messenger does not mean that the message was wrong. You cannot go into an urban community and tell its citizens that you are stuck here because you are morally deficient and lazy. You have to fix the schools, make sure children don’t go to bed hungry, make the streets safe and stop locking up young men for life because they sold a narcotic. Then and only then will urban voters listen to your philosophy of low taxes and limited government. Be the party of pro-life by making a moral argument not by forcing the government between a woman and her doctor.
Republicans must finally live up to the true Christian ideals that they say girds their moral core. I cannot imagine that Jesus of the New Testament would tell a loving gay couple that they are going to hell. Republicans must stop attempting to convert the world’s diversity that enlivens our cities into a white, patriarchal, Eurocentric philosophy.
But most importantly, accept the truth. Republicans did not lose the 2008 Presidential race, and congress because of George Bush, the Iraq War, or the market meltdown. They lost because they are now a white, southern, rural party. They won in large numbers only in places where low educated voters live. The Republicans won large in rural America not because of their economic principles and vision but because those voters brought into their bullshit of fear the gays, the blacks, the immigrants and the nerd with big ears and a Muslim name.
A nerdy brown governor from a small poor state, or a beauty queen from a small/big state ain’t going to change that.
America has suffered decades of dysfunction because of a limited two party system controlled by one corporate master. Imagine the damage that will be done with only one dominant political party. Democracy does not flourish without a loyal opposition. America needs the Republican Party to get it shit together real fast.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Saturday, November 1, 2008
A Letter To The Unborn
Dear Grandchild
You are not yet born. But as I move joyously through my autumn years and I watch my babies grow into full adults, I know your time is near. Something wonderful will happen on November 4, 2008. A struggle will complete itself. The shackles of mental slavery that have persisted in each one of your ancestors including me will melt away. A journey will be complete.
This moment will not mean as much to you, as you will view it from the filter of a history book. It will be an historical event for you. An important event never the less that will be taught besides the Civil War, World War II and the Civil Rights Movement. But know this event is the reason why you will walk down any city street in the world with an air of confidence unburdened by the self-doubt that comes with being less than the whole.
This event will have been made possible by family that has been lost to us through the passage of time. There are no photographs, no streets names or any indication that they ever came this way. Other than being recorded in a ships manifest, or a court house record, we will never know who they were. Yet, their spirit hangs over me in this moment as if they had taken my hand and walked me through the hills of north Louisiana yesterday.
Your great grandfather is still alive. He is 87. He is small man, with a large soul. He only made it to the seventh grade. He went back to night school and got his GED. He drove a meat truck for 30 years. This was back breaking work. He would leave early in the morning and I would not see him until it was almost time to go to bed. The fact that he is still with us to witness this event is a blessing.
Your great grandmother has been dead for 10 years now. I carry her loss with the deep wound of a child that has buried his parent. I also carry anger about her life. A woman of fierce intellect, unnerving courage and unlimited character. She was the rock of our family. But she was born a generation too early. If born in this time, she would have been a lawyer or doctor, or politician, a leader. Everything that I am, I owe to her and your grandfather. The excitement of the coming event is limited only by my sorrow that she did not live to see it.
On November 4, 2008, this country America will elect Barack Obama President. To you he will be a legend. You will hear of his feats in your first years of life. Babies will be named after him, streets and schools will bear his name, and great statues will stand in our nation’s capital to honor him.
But know to us, that he is no legend. He was a man no different from any of us. Like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, he knew fear and doubt. But he had in him the ability to find the courage in us to make black people and the nation great. With his guidance, I hope we will change the world and in doing so your future.
I pray that you and your generation will have the courage to find the greatness in you to change yours for the better too.
Grand pa
You are not yet born. But as I move joyously through my autumn years and I watch my babies grow into full adults, I know your time is near. Something wonderful will happen on November 4, 2008. A struggle will complete itself. The shackles of mental slavery that have persisted in each one of your ancestors including me will melt away. A journey will be complete.
This moment will not mean as much to you, as you will view it from the filter of a history book. It will be an historical event for you. An important event never the less that will be taught besides the Civil War, World War II and the Civil Rights Movement. But know this event is the reason why you will walk down any city street in the world with an air of confidence unburdened by the self-doubt that comes with being less than the whole.
This event will have been made possible by family that has been lost to us through the passage of time. There are no photographs, no streets names or any indication that they ever came this way. Other than being recorded in a ships manifest, or a court house record, we will never know who they were. Yet, their spirit hangs over me in this moment as if they had taken my hand and walked me through the hills of north Louisiana yesterday.
Your great grandfather is still alive. He is 87. He is small man, with a large soul. He only made it to the seventh grade. He went back to night school and got his GED. He drove a meat truck for 30 years. This was back breaking work. He would leave early in the morning and I would not see him until it was almost time to go to bed. The fact that he is still with us to witness this event is a blessing.
Your great grandmother has been dead for 10 years now. I carry her loss with the deep wound of a child that has buried his parent. I also carry anger about her life. A woman of fierce intellect, unnerving courage and unlimited character. She was the rock of our family. But she was born a generation too early. If born in this time, she would have been a lawyer or doctor, or politician, a leader. Everything that I am, I owe to her and your grandfather. The excitement of the coming event is limited only by my sorrow that she did not live to see it.
On November 4, 2008, this country America will elect Barack Obama President. To you he will be a legend. You will hear of his feats in your first years of life. Babies will be named after him, streets and schools will bear his name, and great statues will stand in our nation’s capital to honor him.
But know to us, that he is no legend. He was a man no different from any of us. Like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, he knew fear and doubt. But he had in him the ability to find the courage in us to make black people and the nation great. With his guidance, I hope we will change the world and in doing so your future.
I pray that you and your generation will have the courage to find the greatness in you to change yours for the better too.
Grand pa
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Don't Be Afraid
I have spent the last several days talking to my African-American friends. We simply cannot get our heads around the fact that the first African-American candidate is lining up to win a 1964 LBJ landslide. Our 400 year experience simply does not allow us to comprehend this moment.
My 87 year-old father told me Sunday, that he does not care what the polls say. He will not believe it until he sees it. The truth is most African-Americans feel that tinge in their spine that it will all collapse in the next several days. In the movie Blade Runner, at the end an artificial human decides to save rather than kill the Harrison Ford character. As he reaches to pull the terrified Harrison Ford from a ledge, he says “To be a slave is to always be afraid.” To be black in America is to be always afraid.
Don’t. Not this time. This is our moment. Show up on Election Day and vote in numbers that will become legend. But most important, enjoy the next several days. This will never happen again in history. From among the slaves a leader has risen to lead the world.
This is our moment in sun.
My 87 year-old father told me Sunday, that he does not care what the polls say. He will not believe it until he sees it. The truth is most African-Americans feel that tinge in their spine that it will all collapse in the next several days. In the movie Blade Runner, at the end an artificial human decides to save rather than kill the Harrison Ford character. As he reaches to pull the terrified Harrison Ford from a ledge, he says “To be a slave is to always be afraid.” To be black in America is to be always afraid.
Don’t. Not this time. This is our moment. Show up on Election Day and vote in numbers that will become legend. But most important, enjoy the next several days. This will never happen again in history. From among the slaves a leader has risen to lead the world.
This is our moment in sun.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Turn Out The Lights
Okay I am not going to beat up on John McCain. Besides the intellectual right are having their piece of him right now and its just not good to get in the middle of family disputes.
I watched the rerun of last nights debate with the sound turned down. It is the visuals that are hurting McCain. Obama leaps from the screen. He is focused and calmed. And he is a beautiful man. Never underestimate the value of being pleasing to the eye in politics
McCain on the other hand just looks angry. His left jaw is swollen, he is pale and he is just old. In the movie Knocked Up, there is a hilarious scene where the manager of the rope line tells a pretty, hot 30-something, that she cannot come into the club. She then curses him out. He quietly pulls her to the side and whispers " its not that u ain't hot, in fact I would love to tap that booty, but you just old.
In every man's life there is a season and McCain's season to be President has long passed. It is sad that McCain did not realize that before this election. Now we are forced to watch the "empty embarrassment" of a dying campaign in the last days of one of the most important Presidential races in history
I watched the rerun of last nights debate with the sound turned down. It is the visuals that are hurting McCain. Obama leaps from the screen. He is focused and calmed. And he is a beautiful man. Never underestimate the value of being pleasing to the eye in politics
McCain on the other hand just looks angry. His left jaw is swollen, he is pale and he is just old. In the movie Knocked Up, there is a hilarious scene where the manager of the rope line tells a pretty, hot 30-something, that she cannot come into the club. She then curses him out. He quietly pulls her to the side and whispers " its not that u ain't hot, in fact I would love to tap that booty, but you just old.
In every man's life there is a season and McCain's season to be President has long passed. It is sad that McCain did not realize that before this election. Now we are forced to watch the "empty embarrassment" of a dying campaign in the last days of one of the most important Presidential races in history
Friday, October 10, 2008
Thursday, October 2, 2008
V.P Debate
Sarah Palin is not a bimbo as Bill Mahr called her. She is bright, pretty and got that something called charisma. I have actually felt sorry for her over the last week. However, the problem with Palin is that she rose to the top of Alaska politics because it is a small state and she was able to move up on her natural ability. But what is apparent is that she lacks curiosity. She has never engaged in any sustained rigorous intellectual growth. She does not read. And most important for a President she has not given much thought to America and its place in the world.
She did not embarrass herself tonight. But in a time when the financial markets are in a meltdown, we are in a war in two countries, Iran and North Korea is seeking nuclear weapons, she is ill prepared to be President. Go to the senate and come back in eight years.
Joe Biden would have made a great President. I feel better tonight that he will be at Obama’s side.
She did not embarrass herself tonight. But in a time when the financial markets are in a meltdown, we are in a war in two countries, Iran and North Korea is seeking nuclear weapons, she is ill prepared to be President. Go to the senate and come back in eight years.
Joe Biden would have made a great President. I feel better tonight that he will be at Obama’s side.
Friday, September 26, 2008
The Debate
Barack Obama is intelligent, in command of the facts and showed he understands the global dynamics of 21st century politics. McCain is a Trojan horse for Sarah Palin. McCain was dismissive of a younger leader that is just more prepared to be President. Obama is the one.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Congress To End Affirmative Action For White Men
A bipartisan group of congress announced today they will be introducing legislation to end all affirmative action for white men by January 1, 2009. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said “After 250 years of both government and private sector affirmative action for white men, we believe the time has finally come to tell this group that they must stand on their own. “
This legislation is seen by some congress effort to quell the growing resentment from constituents who have become frustrated that white men cannot seem to get their shit together. For many in the country the proposed 700 billion dollar Wall Street bail out was the final straw. Ms Cora Lee Jones-Smith, President of the Malcolm X Public Housing Tenant Association in Dayton Ohio expressed the country’s frustration when she said: “We have given them the Presidency 44 straight times, we have given them access to the best schools for 200 years, when they ran the Savings and Loan Industry in the ground in the 80’s we bailed them out and once again they get in trouble and they run back to us for another 700 billion dollars. It is time to say to these people get real jobs and get off of the government tab and start taking care of themselves. “
The citizen group “BAIL OUT MY ASS” announced yesterday that over a million citizens signed their online petition asking congress to reject giving white men another 700 billion dollars. Said Joe Santiago the group’s spokesman “Enough is enough. They are even talking about giving foreign white men our money in this bail out. If blacks can endure slavery and within a generation of the ending of Jim Crow elect a president, and If Hispanics can literally walk to this country and immediately began prospering, white men after 200 hundred years of affirmative action ought to be able to clean up their own mess. “
However, Presidential Candidate John McCain said “It would be premature at this point to end affirmative action for white men. We still don’t have enough billionaires and you know by 2050 the country will be majority brown and we need affirmative action for white men to stay in place at least to then”
This legislation is seen by some congress effort to quell the growing resentment from constituents who have become frustrated that white men cannot seem to get their shit together. For many in the country the proposed 700 billion dollar Wall Street bail out was the final straw. Ms Cora Lee Jones-Smith, President of the Malcolm X Public Housing Tenant Association in Dayton Ohio expressed the country’s frustration when she said: “We have given them the Presidency 44 straight times, we have given them access to the best schools for 200 years, when they ran the Savings and Loan Industry in the ground in the 80’s we bailed them out and once again they get in trouble and they run back to us for another 700 billion dollars. It is time to say to these people get real jobs and get off of the government tab and start taking care of themselves. “
The citizen group “BAIL OUT MY ASS” announced yesterday that over a million citizens signed their online petition asking congress to reject giving white men another 700 billion dollars. Said Joe Santiago the group’s spokesman “Enough is enough. They are even talking about giving foreign white men our money in this bail out. If blacks can endure slavery and within a generation of the ending of Jim Crow elect a president, and If Hispanics can literally walk to this country and immediately began prospering, white men after 200 hundred years of affirmative action ought to be able to clean up their own mess. “
However, Presidential Candidate John McCain said “It would be premature at this point to end affirmative action for white men. We still don’t have enough billionaires and you know by 2050 the country will be majority brown and we need affirmative action for white men to stay in place at least to then”
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Sarah Girl, I Do Believe I See Your Teeth
They must have failed to feed Vice-Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin before she gave her speech tonight. She went after Barack Obama as if he was red meat. Be careful though, tomorrow is a new day and Obama is the master of the comeback. Palin crossed the line with some of her attacks. And folks living in a glass house should not throw stones. Judging from the steady stream of bad news about America’s new hockey mom, that ain’t plexi-glass, she staring through.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Trifling Ass Negroes Are Uptown Too
I cannot believe that Martin Luther King died on a balcony to liberate Kwame Kilpatrick from a sex scandal. Nor, can I believe Malcolm X left a widow and young children so Sharpe James could sell his mistress city property at a low ball figure and she in within months resell it for thousands of dollars in profit. Did Thurgood Marshall spend his life liberating us so two black judges in Shreveport could be indicted and found guilty of taking bribes for as little as one hundred fifty dollars to lower bonds? Did my mother and father carry me to civil rights rallies so Congressman Bill Jefferson of New Orleans could run for reelection under the cloud of an indictment?
It is not enough that our community is subjected to street hoodlums cruising our urban streets like characters in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clock Work Orange, imposing random violence on the poor. We are now being sold into economic bondage by a predatory political class that see black folks as no more than a commodity to be packaged to white politicians unable or unwilling deal with us as equals. . Paulo Friere in Pedagogy of The Oppressed wrote that the danger of the revolution is that the revolutionary soon comes to resemble the Oppressor.
Does Detroit, the most depressed city in America needs to see its mayor pleading to a judge that he had to violate his bond so he could save the city from impending financial doom, rising sea levels and aliens? Watching Kilpatrick performance in court as he explained his behavior was looking at a walking definition of a narcissistic sociopath. The Appellate court let him out of jail only to see the DA bring additional felony charges against him for committing a battery on a Sheriff Deputy attempting to serve him a legal document. The citizens of Detroit would be safer if the Appellate Court would have upheld the trial judge and let his ass sit in jail.
I know Bill Jefferson personally. He is an extremely intelligent man, who lifted himself from intense poverty and brought his brothers and sisters along with him. Jefferson sent t his daughters to Harvard Law School and built the largest black law firm in the south. Jefferson is a tall man, whose eyes are constantly darting over you, as if he were a predator sizing you up for his next meal. It is hard to feel at ease in his company. Dutch Morial the first black mayor of New Orleans in a viscous mayoral primary 30 years ago, put Jefferson picture on thousands of fake dollar bills and labeled him Dollar-Bill Jeff. Every day since, Jefferson has tried to live up to that moniker.
Jefferson was indicted for “running a criminal enterprise” out of his congressional office. His brother Mose has been indicted too, along with two of Jefferson sisters, one of which is cooperating with the Government. And other family members maybe facing the same fate.
With all of the chaos surrounding Jefferson, he has the audacity of hope that he will be re-elected in November. New Orleans is still teetering from the greatest natural disaster ever to hit an American city, needs Bill Jefferson as their representative in Congress? Truth is Louisiana and New Orleans politics are so bizarre that Jefferson just might make it. You see Dutch Morial son Mark Morial, who too was elected mayor sits in New York as President of the Urban League watching uneasily as a steady stream of his family members and close political associates too go off to jail.
What is despicable is that when these predatory, Armani wearing, Mercedes driving, second home in the Caribbean living, Hampton partying negroes get caught, they always wrap themselves in the blanket woven by Fannie Lou Hammers’ pain of being sterilized without her permission or Emmitt Till laying in a open casket in Chicago beaten beyond recognition, or Andrew young pointing on a Memphis Balcony to where the assassin bullet rang out -killing a dream, or a lone black farmer standing in front of a court house in searing heat -in some rural county down south, that might as well be on another planet in distance from any protection, disobeying the letter tacked to his tree the night before telling him “nigger don’t you show up tomorrow to vote”.
I could understand these trifling ass Negroes more, if they would just be the motherfucking thieves that they are and leave us out of it. The New York Times ran a story today, titled “Is Barack Obama The End Of Black Politics.” I certainly hope so.
It is not enough that our community is subjected to street hoodlums cruising our urban streets like characters in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clock Work Orange, imposing random violence on the poor. We are now being sold into economic bondage by a predatory political class that see black folks as no more than a commodity to be packaged to white politicians unable or unwilling deal with us as equals. . Paulo Friere in Pedagogy of The Oppressed wrote that the danger of the revolution is that the revolutionary soon comes to resemble the Oppressor.
Does Detroit, the most depressed city in America needs to see its mayor pleading to a judge that he had to violate his bond so he could save the city from impending financial doom, rising sea levels and aliens? Watching Kilpatrick performance in court as he explained his behavior was looking at a walking definition of a narcissistic sociopath. The Appellate court let him out of jail only to see the DA bring additional felony charges against him for committing a battery on a Sheriff Deputy attempting to serve him a legal document. The citizens of Detroit would be safer if the Appellate Court would have upheld the trial judge and let his ass sit in jail.
I know Bill Jefferson personally. He is an extremely intelligent man, who lifted himself from intense poverty and brought his brothers and sisters along with him. Jefferson sent t his daughters to Harvard Law School and built the largest black law firm in the south. Jefferson is a tall man, whose eyes are constantly darting over you, as if he were a predator sizing you up for his next meal. It is hard to feel at ease in his company. Dutch Morial the first black mayor of New Orleans in a viscous mayoral primary 30 years ago, put Jefferson picture on thousands of fake dollar bills and labeled him Dollar-Bill Jeff. Every day since, Jefferson has tried to live up to that moniker.
Jefferson was indicted for “running a criminal enterprise” out of his congressional office. His brother Mose has been indicted too, along with two of Jefferson sisters, one of which is cooperating with the Government. And other family members maybe facing the same fate.
With all of the chaos surrounding Jefferson, he has the audacity of hope that he will be re-elected in November. New Orleans is still teetering from the greatest natural disaster ever to hit an American city, needs Bill Jefferson as their representative in Congress? Truth is Louisiana and New Orleans politics are so bizarre that Jefferson just might make it. You see Dutch Morial son Mark Morial, who too was elected mayor sits in New York as President of the Urban League watching uneasily as a steady stream of his family members and close political associates too go off to jail.
What is despicable is that when these predatory, Armani wearing, Mercedes driving, second home in the Caribbean living, Hampton partying negroes get caught, they always wrap themselves in the blanket woven by Fannie Lou Hammers’ pain of being sterilized without her permission or Emmitt Till laying in a open casket in Chicago beaten beyond recognition, or Andrew young pointing on a Memphis Balcony to where the assassin bullet rang out -killing a dream, or a lone black farmer standing in front of a court house in searing heat -in some rural county down south, that might as well be on another planet in distance from any protection, disobeying the letter tacked to his tree the night before telling him “nigger don’t you show up tomorrow to vote”.
I could understand these trifling ass Negroes more, if they would just be the motherfucking thieves that they are and leave us out of it. The New York Times ran a story today, titled “Is Barack Obama The End Of Black Politics.” I certainly hope so.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
David Brooks And William Kristol Are Idiots
Conservative columnist unable to find substantive flaws in Obama’s campaign for the Presidency, have descended into hypocrisy. New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote that Obama speech in Berlin lacked the substance of Reagan and declared of Obama’s speech “optimism without reality isn’t eloquence. It’s just Disney. “
First of all Reagan did not have a intellectual bone in his body. Brooks could not name one great speech that Reagan gave that will go down in the pantheon of great Presidential speeches. “Mr. Gobachev bring down this wall” is not a speech it’s a slogan. Congress "make my day” was a line in a Dirty Harry movie. Reagan even as President was a B actor. But he had a clear vision of where he wanted to move the country and he used those B movie acting skills to promise America that if you followed him he would make it “morning in America again”. And for good or bad it worked.
Obama is Reagan on steroids. A man of seemingly unlimited intellect and political skills, he too is promising America a new day with a vision of optimism. It is the height of hypocrisy and disingenuous for Brooks to criticize Obama for doing exactly what his hero Reagan did, only better.
William Kristol of the same newspaper is so frustrated he has started to rift horror movies in a column titled “Be Afraid. Please”, a lift from David Cronenberg’s The Fly. The column is so convoluted I have no idea what point Kristol was trying to make other than if Obama is the President with a Democratic controlled congress, he may lie to us, and send us off to a irresponsible war. But I assume he too was trying to say that Obama is some smooth talking con-man that has hoodwinked the media, the American public and world opinion. And our only hope is that McCain will pull a Truman/Dewey victory.
Rather than being afraid of Obama’s success, Kristol should be concerned at McCain’s failures. Here is a man that has spent a great deal of his adult life in the Senate, yet he seems ill-prepared for the national stage. It has become painful to watch a man of great dignity and independence morph into the worst political candidate in modern history.
If Obama is lacking to be President, I expect the right to raise intellectual arguments that merit consideration. But complaining without reality isn’t criticism. Its just foolishness.
First of all Reagan did not have a intellectual bone in his body. Brooks could not name one great speech that Reagan gave that will go down in the pantheon of great Presidential speeches. “Mr. Gobachev bring down this wall” is not a speech it’s a slogan. Congress "make my day” was a line in a Dirty Harry movie. Reagan even as President was a B actor. But he had a clear vision of where he wanted to move the country and he used those B movie acting skills to promise America that if you followed him he would make it “morning in America again”. And for good or bad it worked.
Obama is Reagan on steroids. A man of seemingly unlimited intellect and political skills, he too is promising America a new day with a vision of optimism. It is the height of hypocrisy and disingenuous for Brooks to criticize Obama for doing exactly what his hero Reagan did, only better.
William Kristol of the same newspaper is so frustrated he has started to rift horror movies in a column titled “Be Afraid. Please”, a lift from David Cronenberg’s The Fly. The column is so convoluted I have no idea what point Kristol was trying to make other than if Obama is the President with a Democratic controlled congress, he may lie to us, and send us off to a irresponsible war. But I assume he too was trying to say that Obama is some smooth talking con-man that has hoodwinked the media, the American public and world opinion. And our only hope is that McCain will pull a Truman/Dewey victory.
Rather than being afraid of Obama’s success, Kristol should be concerned at McCain’s failures. Here is a man that has spent a great deal of his adult life in the Senate, yet he seems ill-prepared for the national stage. It has become painful to watch a man of great dignity and independence morph into the worst political candidate in modern history.
If Obama is lacking to be President, I expect the right to raise intellectual arguments that merit consideration. But complaining without reality isn’t criticism. Its just foolishness.
A LEADER FOR THE WORLD
Now the world will watch and remember what we do here - what we do with this moment. Will we extend our hand to the people in the forgotten corners of this world who yearn for lives marked by dignity and opportunity; by security and justice? Will we lift the child in Bangladesh from poverty, shelter the refugee in Chad, and banish the scourge of AIDS in our time?
Will we stand for the human rights of the dissident in Burma, the blogger in Iran, or the voter in Zimbabwe? Will we give meaning to the words "never again" in Darfur?
BARACK OBAMA
An extrodinary speech. If being popular in western Europe is a political liability at home, then Obama is in trouble. Stop comparing Obama to JFK. The world has never seen this before. Someone raised in the world will become its leader. Extrodinary. I wish my mother was here to see it.
Will we stand for the human rights of the dissident in Burma, the blogger in Iran, or the voter in Zimbabwe? Will we give meaning to the words "never again" in Darfur?
BARACK OBAMA
An extrodinary speech. If being popular in western Europe is a political liability at home, then Obama is in trouble. Stop comparing Obama to JFK. The world has never seen this before. Someone raised in the world will become its leader. Extrodinary. I wish my mother was here to see it.
The Revolution Will Be Televised?
This morning NAS held a press conference in front of Fox News headquarters in New York. He delivered over 600,000 signatures on a Color Of Change/Move On petition to FOX President Roger Ailes. The petition requested that FOX News stop airing racist propaganda. Ailes immediately rejected it.
FOX will say that NAS is just promoting his new album which is number one in the country. Fox will probably be right, but if you can make some change and still challenge corporate racism at its worst, then God Bless America.
NAS was pressured by his record label to change the name of his new album from “Nigger” because it was deemed to be too offensive. Art often offends. One might argue that one of Art’s major roles in society is to offend and therefore shake us from our vegative state and think. An artist should never compromise
If you hand a lot of poor kids a microphone, you get a lot of self-hatred shot back at you. But as the kids mature and get a conscience and figure out the game, you occasionally get some light.
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