the empire strikes back

As we approach one of the most important elections (symbolically and otherwise) in US history. it is heartening to see signs of a growing consensus around Barack Obama (see Republican and conservative support for Barack Obama in 2008 and also Republicans and Conservatives Endorsing Barack) which has the potential to unify the country and redraw the political map. On the other hand it is a source of concern that the McCain campaign in its death-throes (inshaAllah) along with other elements of the far right are getting more vicious as election day approaches. (Feds disrupt skinhead plot to assassinate Obama)

racism and the mcain-palin campaign

For a while I've been meaning to do a post about how the McCain-Palin rallies have been starting to reveal an uglier, more bigoted side to the far-right's resistance to Obama. Of course, that was before Obama was lynched-in-effigy on a Christian College campus and before a McCain volunteer mutilated her own face and made up a story about how she was attacked by a big black Obama supporter. The McCain camp may try to distance itself from the behavior of its supporters but in reality, such extreme behavior is really just a natural reflection of the top of the ticket. It just seems like their real face is coming out now that their campaign seems to be in its death throws.

Capitol Hill Blue: McCain: racist, bigot & homophobe

Grenada's past;
mccain camp silences muslim organizer or "with friends like these..."
sarah palin on obama's winning the democratic nomination for president : "sambo beat the bitch!" (what ?!?!?!)
more on mccain's racially problematic politics
mccain, racism and religious bigotry
mccain - romney ?
mccain's spiritual advisor hates muslims and islam
should john mccain reject and denounce minister john hagee?
john mccain: "i hated the gooks. i will hate them as long as i live."

president obama and afro-latinos

Blacklatino.net: Will President Barack Obama make a difference for Afro-Latinos? by Christopher Rodriguez

obama redraws map of religious voters

NPR: Obama Redraws Map Of Religious Voters by Barbara Bradley Hagerty

obama roasts mccain at the alfred e. smith dinner

some brother must have really done her wrong...

or at least that was my first impression of Anne Price-Mills, the Black female delegate who was interviewed after Hillary Clinton's speech at the Democratic Convention.



She intends to vote for Hillary Clinton at the convention, but isn't sure if she'll vote for Obama in the general ?!?!?

heru: barack obama is septimius severus

I haven't posted anything from Heru in a while, so here is something new:



Planet Grenada and Heru
"i've seen ethiopians knocking out rome"
Wikipedia: Septimius Severus

I should say that I still definitely plan on voting for Obama and I think that some of Heru's criticisms are a bit misdirected. On the other hand, I often think that the United States would be better off with with a parliament so that other voices (for example, like those represented by Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente) could have a voice in the government.

At the same time, it is a bit unclear to me how things would shake out after all the political dust settled under a parliament: There would be Greens and Socialists but there would also be Libertarians. The Democratic Party might clarify its status as a center-left labor party. But then Republicans would probably break-up into an economic and a social conservative group. And you'd also see a more vocal (possibly separate) role for anti-immigrant voices, the hawks, the theocrats and others. More later?

unfit for publication: obama nation vaccination

You may have heard of Jerome Corsi's Obama Nation which represent's his attempt to "Swiftboat" the Democratic presidential candidate. If so you might also be interested in checking out the pdf of Unfit for Publication which is a point-by-point rebuttal of many of the dishonest claims in Corsi's work. Corsi himself seems to be a pretty foul kind of bigot who compares Islam to a virus and makes a number of negative comments about "rag heads" and Catholics.

obama and father's day

This past Sunday, Obama gave a sermon on fatherhood at the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago. And can I say how deep it is to see a candidate actually give a sermon as opposed to merely pandering to Evangelicals? I'm also sure that Obama is absolutely relieved to be able to speak for himself in a church instead of having others speak on his behalf (and have the media assume he approves the message). In this sermon, Obama manages to strike a tone somewhere between government-responsibility and community-responsibility which I think works really well. I'm curious about how it will play among the "religious right" and the white "values voters"?

the dark knight: the rise of "the real" obama

Goatmilk: THE DARK KNIGHT: The Rise of “The Real” Obama

an open letter to certain white women who are threatening to withhold support from obama in november

This is an open letter to those white women who, despite their proclamations of progressivism, and supposedly because of their commitment to feminism, are threatening to withhold support from Barack Obama in November. You know who you are.

Your Whiteness is Showing by Tim Wise

political bits

1. I really like this image but was a bit surprised by how the mainstream networks were covering it. They were like "what is this mysterious gesture?". It is just another reminder of how "white" the mainstream press is in its perspective. It also an example of how Obama's candidacy (and hopefully his presidency) has the opportunity of being a sort of national teach-in on race relations; first by offering a peek into the Black church, and now introducing white people to African-American greeting practices.


Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, share a victory "dap" during an election night rally in St. Paul, MN

2. I'm not sure who Obama should pick as his running mate but I've been interested in Senator Jim Webb of Virginia ever since I'd caught part of an interview with him on NPR. He's a Vietnam veteran and an ex-Republican who today is highly critical of George W. Bush and the current Iraq War.

NPR: Senator Jim Webb, Choosing His Battles

3. I never cease to be amazed by the number of third-party candidates who run for president in each election in relative anonymity. Of course you have the Greens and the Libertarians, but there are also at least three different kinds of "socialist" parties (four if you count the Nazi party), you have the Fascist party, the Prohibition Party, the Constitution Party and even the Vampire, Witches and Pagan Party which are all putting up candidates. Some of these candidates seem to be running more as a joke or as a publicity stunt and others are "serious" but are obviously long-shots while many seem to lie somewhere in between.

4. A couple of the third-party presidential candidates are former elected officials who "defected" from the major parties. One is former Republican Congressman, Bob Barr who is running as the Libertarian Party candidate this year. One can only hope that he can serve as a spoiler for McCain in this election.

5. On the scary side, I recently found out that former Democratic member of Congress Rep. Cynthia McKinney is running for president on the Green Party ticket. I say scary because I think McKinney is likely to be a "spoiler". Some of the angry/ disappointed/ disgruntled Clinton supporters have already expressed their willingness to vote for McCain. But now McKinney offers yet another (arguably more attractive) option for liberals who don't want to vote for Obama. Given the tensions which currently exist in the Democratic party between Clinton supporters and Obama supporters, I think that there is a non-trivial mass of people who might be willing to make such a protest vote.

6. Now that I think about it, if Hillary had won her argument to the superdelegates, and they overruled the will of the non-superdelegates who went for Obama, I would have given serious thought to voting for McKinney myself.

7. By the way, times like these are why I wish we had proportional representation in the US so that genuine multi-party system could arise.

thoughts on obama's resignation from trinity united church of christ

So Obama finally resigned his membership at Trinity United Church of Christ. The whole situation is weird and sad on all kinds of levels.

One of the weird aspects is that the straw that broke the camel's back on this issue was a recent sermon last Sunday by the Catholic priest, Rev. Dr. Michael Pfleger but obviously Obama isn't even Catholic.



Also weird is the way that Pfleger's comments are being characterized. As "hateful"? As a rant? As "racist"? Admittedly, he was a bit harsh on Hillary but I would say that occasionally that being harsh on politicians in certainly part of the role of being a "prophetic" preacher. Pfleger's sermon also wasn't a "rant". It was definitely a rhetorically effective performance intended to satirize Hillary Clinton. But it certainly wasn't wild and irrational. By implication, Pfleger was simply making the point that some of the actions and reactions of Hillary Clinton and some of her supporters are motivated by a sense of racial entitlement. That's a perfectly reasonable and coherent claim and it is worth being discussed. It is either true or not true. Especially bizarre is the claim that the sermon was racist?!?!

The sad part of all this is the extent to which liberation theology is being demonized by the media and is being excluded from the political discourse. More generally, it is sad that the media and the political process can have as much influence as they on a person's religious declarations.

"well, i'm not gonna take the white house in 2008 on just my sparkling wit and funding from hostile governments."

I've mentioned the television show Angel and the fictional evil secret-society The Circle of the Black Thorn in a previous post. (see circle of the black thorn.) The only bit I wanted to talk about was how the last season started to get much more explicitly political. For example, from the season's very first episode there is a scene where the main characers are going through the files of Wolfram & Hart, an evil demon-owned LA legal firm:

ANGEL
This is unbelievable.
FRED
I think I've lost my appetite, which is kind of a first.
LORNE
(reading a file)
Hmm, well, this is interesting. Apparently old Joe Kennedy tried to get out of his deal with the firm.
ANGEL
That explains a lot.
LORNE
Yeah, but George, Senior - he read the fine print. There's no one these guys don't have a piece of.

Then towards the end of the season they introduced a Hillary Clinton stand-in, the character of Helen Brucker, a female Senator who is planning to win the presidency in 2008 with the help of Wolfram & Hart:

SENATOR
It's nice to see you again so soon, Angel.
ANGEL (upon finding out that Senator Brucker was a member of the Circle of the Black Thorn)
Senator. I had no idea you were so well...connected.
SENATOR
Well, I'm not gonna take the White House in 2008 on just my sparkling wit and funding from hostile governments.
(chuckles)

Angel being a supernatural drama, the Senator actually isn't really human, but instead is some kind of demonic hellspawn who has managed to occupy a human body. Another interesting bit about this (which really wasn't on my mind when thse episodes first aired in 2004) is the fact that, in the series finale, Senator Brucker is killed with an axe to the head by Charles Gunn, the main Black character of the show. This all aired well before Obama declared his intentions to run for President to run so it is unlikely that Gunn is meant to be an Obama stand-in.

This has all been on my mind because "Power Play", the episode which introduced the Senator's character aired this past Friday morning, and the series finale "Not Fade Away" just aired this Monday morning.

Transcripts:
Power Play
Not Fade Away

obama and different religious communities

On religion factor, it's Obama for president by Douglas Todd

Let's cut to the almost-inevitable chase: How will Barack Obama do against John McCain in this fall's rumble for the U.S. presidency? With signs showing Hilary Clinton will have to drop out of the race, we're going to be left to determine whether the 46-year-old black Democrat or 71-year-old white Republican will climb into the powerful office. And that requires looking at the religion factor.

In American politics, which hugely affects Canada and the globe, religious loyalties deeply shape voters' preferences. But November will see a volatile election as things are changing dramatically on the U.S. religious front. The main reason is the country's large white evangelical bloc, worth more than one out of every four votes, won't be the all-important factor it was in bringing George W. Bush to power in 2000 and 2004.

If you harbour any doubts about how big a role religion plays in American politics, look at the blanket media coverage early this month of Obama's relationship to his boisterous former Chicago preacher, Jeremiah Wright.

For his part, McCain also has links with radical Christian leaders, even though they've not received the same level of attention. Still, McCain's opponents repeatedly question how the Arizona senator could embrace preacher John Hagee, who has denounced Catholicism as the "Great Whore" and believes Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment on "sinful" New Orleans. The latest polls show, overall, Obama holding onto about 47 per cent of Americans' support, compared to McCain's 43 per cent. Given that, let's break down how religious groups in the U.S. might lean come the fall ballot.

JEWS
American Jews generally lean to Democrats over Republicans. A Gallup poll showed Jews would vote for Obama over McCain by a margin of 61 per cent to 32 per cent. The trouble for Obama is Jews count for only one out of every 58 American voters.

MUSLIMS
The Muslim vote also goes strongly to Obama. Muslim leaders are actively questioning McCain's ties with Muslim-bashing Protestant preachers. However, Muslims make up only one out of every 166 Americans.

AFRICAN-AMERICAN PROTESTANTS
These black Chrisians account for a significant seven per cent of Americans. They're a slam dunk for Obama. Polls show nine out of 10 will vote for their Harvard-educated Christian brother, a member of the United Church of Christ denomination.

THE NON-RELIGIOUS
Most Americans who say they're non-religious (16 per cent) strongly favour Obama over McCain.

WHITE EVANGELICALS
Eight years of Bush in the White House have changed the political shape of American evangelicalism. Many evangelicals are no longer making opposition to abortion and gay marriage their prime issues. Some Christian leaders are calling for evangelicals to stop being "useful fools" who blindly follow the Republican party no matter what. George Barna, a respected evangelical pollster, says white evangelical support for the Republican party is down to 29 per cent, a calamitous decline.

McCain, an Episcopalian who attends his wife's Baptist church, also has to deal with not being the first choice of the Religious Right, which had wanted Mike Huckabee. Aware of his lack of credibility among these hawks, McCain had argued the U.S. military needs to stay in Iraq for a century (a position he softened Thursday, May 15, 2008) and he's been singing the praises of some hard-line televangelists.

Meanwhile, even though Obama is pro-choice on abortion and homosexual rights and says the U.S. must get out of Iraq, many born-again Christians like him anyway, for talking passionately about the redemptive power Christ has had in his life. An informal poll by the leading evangelical youth magazine, Relevant, found evangelicals in their 20s would overwhelmingly vote for the black senator.

ROMAN CATHOLICS
Catholics are key because they make up the swing vote in U.S. elections. Comprising 24 per cent of Americans, Catholics have for the past nine elections consistently backed the winning horse for president. Though public polls have not yet directly compared how McCain and Obama would do among Catholics, McCain will likely be in trouble among them for embracing the combative Protestant Hagee, who took until May 13 to apologize for branding Catholicism a "cult."

There is little doubt events beyond religion will stir up voters before the November election, particularly if a conflict arises with Iran. But barring an earth-shattering political event, I'd place my bets, given religion-rooted trends, on Obama for president.

rev. 'icarus', the obama campaign, & the left

The Black Commentator: Rev. ‘Icarus’, the Obama Campaign, & the Left by Bill Fletcher, Jr. gives some insight into what Rev. Wright's real crime was and why certain folks got so mad.

chicago mayor richard daley on obama - ayers

There are a lot of reasons that Americans are angry about Washington politics. And one more example is the way Senator Obama's opponents are playing guilt-by-association, tarring him because he happens to know Bill Ayers.

I also know Bill Ayers. He worked with me in shaping our now nationally-renowned school reform program. He is a nationally-recognized distinguished professor of education at the University of Illinois/Chicago and a valued member of the Chicago community.

I don't condone what he did 40 years ago but I remember that period well. It was a difficult time, but those days are long over. I believe we have too many challenges in Chicago and our country to keep re-fighting 40 year old battles.

assorted bits

I feel like quickly sharing a couple of quick items which have been on my mind rather than doing extended blogging on any one of them.

1. I don't think any reasonable person believes for a second that Obama believes that the U.S. government invented HIV/AIDS in a laboratory so why would it even matter if his ex-pastor believes it?

2. Similarly, Obama clearly doesn't believe that bombing government buildings is an acceptable way to change government policy and the Weatherman were from over 40 years ago so why is Ayers an issue today?

3. Maybe its just me, but on my planet Hillary Clinton's comment that "Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again" is orders of magnitude more offensive than the "bitter" comment and may even be the biggest gaffe made by a candidate in the election so far.

4. I recently bought the Pitch Black trilogy on DVD (see islamo-futurism?) Other than the Dune books, it is the only non-trivial portrayal of Muslims in the future of which I'm aware. Also Vin Diesel is kind of badass. InshaAllah, I'll start watching the first one this Sunday afternoon.

5. Finally, check out Third Resurrection. I updated it yesterday. Recently I've only been able to add entries in spurts. It was gratifying to see that Blackamerican Muslim bloggers are talking about issues related to "Third Resurrection" (in the loose sense of the blog). But I do kind of wish that members would add posts on their own (hint, hint) Still, I'm glad that the bloggers out there are dealing with serious , meaningful topics.

rev. jeremiah wright: a change is going to come / national press club

Rev. Jeremiah Wright's Speech on the theme "A Change is Going to Come" at the NAACP dinner in Detroit



Rev. Jeremiah speaking at the National Press Club (Parts I, II, III)







Some of the following clips (from the Q&A) are hilarious, but not politic. As Wright says over and over again, he's a pastor not a politician. My guess is that these appearances might help Rev. Wright's standing among those already disposed to like him. But in the long run, I don't think his comments will play very well among white voters who are on the fence about Obama.

On an unrelated note, I thought Rev. Wright's answer to the question on Islam was rather interesting:

MODERATOR: Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the father but through me.” Do you believe this? And do you think Islam is a way to salvation?

WRIGHT: Jesus also said, “Other sheep have I who are not of this fold.”

Given that Christian exclusivism was one of the major factors in my own rejection of Christianity, I occasionally wonder what my path would have been if I was brought up in a place like Trinity United.

It is actually a bit disheartening that some Christians will be upset with Rev. Wright because he is too inclusive for their tastes.

Jeremiah Wright Question/Answer at the National Press Club (Part I, II, III)

the compassion forum

CNN: Transcript of Obama and Clinton speaking on matters of faith and values at The Compassion Forum