On Obama and Change
Caroline Kennedy said in the NY Times about Barack Obama:
I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans.
For me, whether or not Barack Obama ultimately wins the Presidency, it is a sign of the American people’s ability to critically look at themselves and change (Obama’s campaign mantra) for the better.
I was thinking about this last weekend while watching a documentary on Martin Luther King. Less than a century ago, blacks were hung from trees and their homes were burned down. Many people did not like what they were seeing when they saw blacks being attacked by dogs, beaten and hosed down with fire hoses. They did not like the images of blacks hanging from trees. They had a self-questioning attitude that led them to do something about the injustice rather than fatalistically accepting it as part of life. Martin Luther King’s documentary reminded me of how an this country looked in on itself and worked to do something about this problem. Certainly there is a long way to go, but it says something that the conversation can take place without being arrested. There is no gang of hooligans trying to kill Obama at every stop.
In my opinion, to deny this is nonsensical and unfair. A black person can now, not only walk around and not be harmed by a gang of racial terrorists, but be a serious contender of the highest office in this land. If he wins, there will (likely) be a peaceful transfer of power.
Filed under: Changing World | Tagged: Barack Obama
LESSON FOR BARACK
Tennessee congressman Harold Ford Jr. stood within reach of becoming the first African-American senator from the old Confederacy since Reconstruction (or as some still like to call it, “the Yankee Occupation”).
Ford’s surprisingly strong campaign had exposed fault lines long buried beneath Tennessee’s creeping - or rather, galloping - suburbanization, where old ways, both good and bad, are rapidly being submerged in the undifferentiated glop of modern American franchise culture. But when money and power are on the line, atavism is the order of the day: ancient fears and hatreds re-emerge - or are mightily encouraged to re-emerge, with all the subtle and not-so-subtle arts of high-tech mass persuasion stoking the flames.
For the stakes in the battle for Tennessee’s Senate seat - once considered a lock for the Republicans - had suddenly grown exceedingly high. A Ford win could wrest control of the chamber away from the GOP, putting a serious crimp in the party’s bacchanal of greed and graft. What’s more, it opens up the possibility of investigations, subpoenas, and worse - for an administration that is not only suppurating with massive corruption, incompetence, extremism and deceit, but has also openly acknowledged several criminal actions, including torture and warrant less surveillance. The Bush Faction simply could not afford to face accountability for its monumental failures and misdeeds.
And so with Ford rising rapidly in the polls, even overtaking his opponent - Bob Corker, a typical tycoon-politician with a bland manner masking sharp practice in his murky business dealings - the Bush Party got serious and whipped out a barn-burning theme from days of yore: the “hot black buck with nothing but white women on his mind.” This was the now-infamous advertisement that featured a scantily-clad, bottle-blond young jezebel saying she’d met “Harold at the Playboy party” and asking him to call her. (Ford, along with 3,000 other people, had attended a party thrown by the magazine at the Super Bowl.) The ad, procured by the Republican National Committee, was so ludicrously over the top that Corker was forced to denounce it, while RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman washed his hands of it, saying it had been created by an “independent organization” without the Party’s input.
It was, in fact, created by Scott Howell, an old Karl Rove hand who had helped craft some of the biggest smear jobs in the last two election cycles, including scaremongering attack ads for George W. Bush in 2004, as the New York Times reports. Howell was hired for the Ford hit by professional spinmeister Terry Nelson, who had been the political director of the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign, where he worked cheek-by-jowl with a certain Ken Mehlman. Despite these intricate threads knitting the race-baiters to the White House, Mehlman continued to maintain, with a straight face, that he had no idea what kind of ad his two old friends might concoct when he handed them a big wad of cash for the operation.
The ad made the national news as a symbol of the unprecedented use of gutter ball in the 2006 campaign was roundly condemned by pundits and politicians everywhere, got Nelson fired from a plum job as a “political adviser” to Wal-Mart, evoked outpourings of sympathy for the victimized Ford, and was finally yanked after just a few days on the air. It was an ignominious failure in every respect but one:
It worked.
Corker, who’d been reeling in the polls for weeks, was suddenly back on top, surging ahead five points after being down by that same margin at the first of the month, as The Tennessean reports. Nor was he so wary of the ad now. “Ever since that attention came on this race from the national media, our numbers have skyrocketed,” he told reporters as he held affable court in the leather recliner on his campaign bus. In fact, the “Playboy” piece was immediately followed by another “independent” ad so scurrilous and inaccurate - falsely accusing Ford of, among other things, pushing abortion pills on children - that some stations refused to run it, while Corker himself then produced a widely aired radio spot that featured brooding jungle drums every time Ford’s name was mentioned.
Corker had called to “the base” - the hard-core conservatives who had abandoned him after he won a bruising nomination fight against two of their favorites - and they had come home. The seemingly irresistible momentum of Ford’s rise, which had carried him from also-ran status to the cover of Newsweek, was stalled. Going into the final days of the campaign, his five-point deficit in the published polls was probably much larger; every black candidate must deal with a “shadow quotient” - a number of white voters, usually 10 to 15 percent, who tell pollsters they are voting for the African-American, but once in the booth pull the lever for the white opponent.
There is of course still racism in the US, and certainly white KKK members and others who may be planning God knows what if Obama actually looks like he has a chance of winning.
Dr. King’s words, besides, “I have a dream” are forgotten. Here is an article explaining it very well:
http://www.newislamicdirections.com/nid/print/dr_martin_luther_king_jr_barack_obama_and_the_fate_of_america/
Ya Haqq!
There are some of our citizens who are scared to hope. Scared to be sorely disappointed. And I say to them:
Just focus on today - this day, this black man is the product of hope. America has come a long way and has got another hope journey to take.
I live in California and an absentee voter and I’m voting for Obama though I believe Edwards is the better candidate.I don’t think Edwards can will California nor any other states and I’m NOT giving Hilary a victory over Obama by voting for someone who won’t win.
Obama definitely inspires hope but as for change. I can’t say he will radically change how this country is run,foreign policy or improving goverment services. When it comes to voting he pretty much sticks to same pattern as Hilary. Obama will be decent president especially compared to what we have now but he’s no savior. He, due to lack experience in DC politics, I think is a “decent” politican. However, like Winston Churchill said about democracy and it applies to Obama:
“Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others.”
Insh Allah nobody will try assasinate him if he wins. May Allah protect him.
I want to believe Obama is different, but something inside tells me he isn’t. Case in point may be his letter to the UN regarding the situation in Gaza, pasted below:
Obama: Israel was forced to close Gaza
01.23.2008 | Haaretz
Dear Ambassador Khalilzad,
I understand that today the UN Security Council met regarding the situation in Gaza, and that a resolution or statement could be forthcoming from the Council in short order.
I urge you to ensure that the Security Council issue no statement and pass no resolution on this matter that does not fully condemn the rocket assault Hamas has been conducting on civilians in southern Israel…
All of us are concerned about the impact of closed border crossings on Palestinian families. However, we have to understand why Israel is forced to do this… Israel has the right to respond while seeking to minimize any impact on civilians.
The Security Council should clearly and unequivocally condemn the rocket attacks… If it cannot bring itself to make these common sense points, I urge you to ensure that it does not speak at all.
Sincerely,
Barack Obama
United States Senator
from: http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=1444
Glad to see you’re ready to come aboard the Obama train brother Tariq… Check out my Blog and make comments..
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