http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/uploaded/obamaserious--450-x-338--20080103-983.jpg
Resolute, Tough, Intense... Presidential

There is something in the air tonight. It's the stirring of history, mixed with hope fulfilled.


Today I read Martin Luther King Jr's Letter from the Birmingham Jail. It's a ten page long letter that amazed me in how much it moved me, describing the thinking behind King's struggle in 1963 to get better treatment for Blacks, justifying his non-violent civil disobedience.

And tonight, I see Barack Obama win the Iowa caucus. I hear him give an incredibly inspiring speech-- one that will eclipse the brilliant speech that John Edwards gave.

I watch the tough, thick skinned pundits gush with exuberance as they experience the magic that I've witnessed when I was in Obama's presence. He didn't give ME the chills, but I could see the incredible excitement and energy he inspired among his supporters.

Something magical happened tonight, something that will change America.

Obama pulled very strong among independents and there's an excellent chance they will flock to him in New Hampshire. South Carolina, 50% African American, will surely fall to Obama as his message of hope erases the fear of disappointed failed expectations.

Okay. So tonight I AM feeling chills just thinking about the meaning of a black man winning the Iowa caucus. This is a poignant moment in history. The echoes of this vote will extend far beyond the numbers. You could sense it in the shock and thrill that the pundits were experiencing. They know. This was a seismic event. The American people, the people of the world know. They know that the people of Iowa demonstrated the beauty and vibrancy of democracy, of justice, of equality. Bill Clinton used hope as an essential part of his campaigns. Barack Obama has inherited, appropriated, inherited it-- you chose how to characterize the acquisition. But it's clear that Bill was not able to pass it on to Hillary.

And Obama is manifesting that hope in a way that will swell, like a tidal wave on the distant shores of South Carolina, Florida, California, throughout the south... and it will turn fans of Bill who turned to Hillary as a substitute into buoyed supporters of Obama, floating in the sea of hope his single Iowa win has produced. Who would have guessed. None of the pundits, that's for sure.

Watching Obama give his acceptance speech, his demeanor was serious. Taking photos, I found the faces were intense, emotional, not pretty. This is a man of passion, who, in his moment of victory, did not exult, he spoke to the challenges, which, in his heart, he believes he has a chance, the hope, to face and best.

There were moments, as I watched this intense, serious, powerful black man, that I worried that he would scare some insecure whites. One black writer friend has observed that the mainstream film industry has never allowed a black man to make love to a white woman. Will the mainstream allow a black man to manifest true strength, power and toughness? Obama's no minister, like Jesse Jackson. He's no pacifist, like ML King. Can America handle a tough, strong black man with a mission? Watching the pundits, it seems like a yes. But history is replete with strong black men embarassed, even shamed by stupid white bigots with a little bit of power.

Chris Matthews observed that Blacks got the vote 50 years before women, an suggested that the pattern may be repeating itself here. Perhaps history is being recapitulated, and electing a black man president is the next historical step before the election of a woman.

I am certain that there are tens of thousands of racists, maybe more, who will be very upset about tonight. It will not be easy for Obama. But Obama is a strong man who is no naive innocent. He will triumph.

The democratic turnout was up 89%, with about an 18% increase among Republicans. This bodes well for a massive victory for Obama.

Probably, already, the pollsters have begun matching up Obama against Huckabee, Romney , McCain and maybe Giuliani, who's gambling on a very different strategy. Ron Paul hit double digits and beat Giuliani. Thompson, coming in third may have been handed a second chance, after most pundits declaring him dead.

Things are even more interesting that most imagined. And we haven't even started speculating on vice presidential matches. Would Hillary run as VP? Are there other women who might be possibilities on the Democratic side? How about women on the Republican side?

http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/oped ... d_hist.htm (http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/opedne_rob_kall_080103_obama_2c_hope_and_hist.htm)

What Obama's Iowa Win Means for Everyone

By Arianna Huffington, HuffingtonPost.com. Posted January 4, 2008.

Obama's win gives us all hope. It signifies the kind of country we imagine ourselves being: optimistic, forward-looking and unafraid to take risks.

Even if your candidate didn't win tonight, you have reason to celebrate. We all do.

Barack Obama's stirring victory in Iowa -- down home, folksy, farm-fed, Midwestern, and 92 percent white Iowa -- says a lot about America, and also about the current mindset of the American voter.

Because tonight voters decided that they didn't want to look back. They wanted to look into the future -- as if a country exhausted by the last seven years wanted to recapture its youth.

Bush's re-election in 2004 was a monument to the power of fear and fear-mongering. Be Very Afraid was Bush/Cheney's Plans A through Z. The only card in the Rove-dealt deck. And it worked. America, its vision distorted by the mushroom clouds conjured by Bush and Cheney, made a collective sprint to the bomb shelters in our minds, our lizard brains responding to fear rather than hope.

And the Clintons -- their Hillary-as-incumbent-strategy sputtering -- followed the Bush blueprint in Iowa and played the fear card again and again and again.

Be afraid of Obama, they warned us. Be afraid of something new, something different. He might meet with our enemies. His middle name is Hussein. He went to a madrassa school. A vote for him would be like rolling the dice, the former president said on Charlie Rose.

And the people of Iowa heard him, and chose to roll the dice.

Obama's win might not have legs. Hope could give way to fear once again. But, for tonight at least, it holds a mirror up to the face of America, and we can look at ourselves with pride. This is the kind of country America was meant to be, even if you are for Clinton or Edwards -- or even Huckabee or Giuliani.

It's the kind of country we've always imagined ourselves being -- even if in the last seven years we fell horribly short: a young country, an optimistic country, a forward-looking country, a country not afraid to take risks or to dream big.

Bill Clinton has privately told friends that if Hillary didn't win, it would be because of the two weeks that followed her shaky performance in the Philadelphia debate.

But it wasn't those two weeks. Indeed, if we were to pinpoint one decisive moment, it would be Bill Clinton on Charlie Rose, arrogant and entitled, dismissive and fear-mongering. And then Bill Clinton giving us a refresher course in '90s-style truth-twisting and obfuscation -- making stuff about always having been against the war, and about Hillary having always been for every good decision during his presidency and against every bad one, from Ireland to Sarajevo to Rwanda.

So voters in Iowa remembered the past and decided that they didn't want to go back. They wanted to move ahead. Even if that meant rolling the dice.

Again, this moment may not last. But, for tonight, I am going to savor it -- and cross my fingers that it may stand as the day that fear as a winning political tactic died. Killed by an "unlikely" candidate -- as Obama called himself again and again -- who seized the moment, and reminded America of its youth and the optimism it longs to recapture.

http://www.alternet.org/story/72596/

Dems:

Hope for some new shit and eat speeches - 4
Sue for some new shit and get a good lawyer - 3
Keep the same old shit and don't flush - 3
Really weird guys - 0

Reps:

Southern Fried Chickenshit - 4
The Boss - 2
His honor, General/Admiral the Fifth - 1
The man with two first names - 1
People who we forgot already - 2


One hell of an election coming up... No matter what happens, Robert Johnson cashes in on his deal with the devil and America sings the blues.

What kinda secular religion is dis?

http://www.cascadeblues.org/Legends/RobertJohnson/RobertJohnson.jpg

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http://ohv.parks.ca.gov/pages/1233/images/hope-valley-a.gif

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I had a lot of fun with a girl named Hope. She didn't look anything like this though

http://google.blognewschannel.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/google-olga-call-girl.jpg

Sorry for the gratuitious cheesecake. Someone should come spank me..preferably her

http://images.jupiterimages.com/common/detail/00/02/23240200.jpg

Charming guy... charming family...

Content free talk that makes our hearts go pitty-pat...

New and improved... but, still just like the original.

IT'S CAMELOT II in technocolor!

http://www.markville.ss.yrdsb.edu.on.ca/projects/classof2007/16chong/spears/CAMELOT.jpg

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f8/JFK_and_family_in_Hyannis_Port,_04_August_1962.jpg/586px-JFK_and_family_in_Hyannis_Port,_04_August_1962.jpg

Hope in what?


Just saying "hope" doesn't really mean anything.

Sure we could "wish upon a star" and hope for a return trip to Kansas after clicking our heels but this ain't the movies. There's reality to deal with and just stretching out our "hearts filled with hope" has no meaning whatsoever. So let's take a look at what we can expect if Obama were to be elected. Who would he turn to for policy and advise cause he sure ain't going to be the one writing policy:

ALLAN NAIRN: Well, Obama’s top adviser is Zbigniew Brzezinski. Brzezinski gave an interview to the French press a number of years ago where he boasted about the fact that it was he who created the whole Afghan jihadi movement, the movement that produced Osama bin Laden. And he was asked by the interviewer, “Well, don’t you think this might have had some bad consequences?” And Brzezinski replied, “Absolutely not. It was definitely worth it, because we were going after the Soviets. We were getting the Soviets.” Another top Obama person—

AMY GOODMAN: I think his comment actually was, “What’s a few riled-up Muslims?” And this, that whole idea of blowback, the idea of arming, financing, training the Mujahideen in Afghanistan to fight the Soviets, including Osama bin Laden, and then when they’re done with the Soviets, they set their sights, well, on the United States.

ALLAN NAIRN: Right. And later, during Bill Clinton’s administration, during the Bosnia killing, the US actually flew some of the Afghan Mujahideen, the early al-Qaeda people—the US actually arranged for them to be flown from there to Bosnia to fight on the Muslim/NATO side.

Another key Obama adviser, Anthony Lake, he was the main force behind the US invasion of Haiti in the mid-Clinton years during which they brought back Aristide essentially in political chains, pledged to support a World Bank/IMF overhaul of the economy, which resulted in an increase in malnutrition deaths among Haitians and set the stage for the current ongoing political disaster in Haiti.

Another Obama adviser, General Merrill McPeak, an Air Force man, who not long after the Dili massacre in East Timor in ’91 that you and I survived, he was—I happened to see on Indonesian TV shortly after that—there was General McPeak overseeing the delivery to Indonesia of US fighter planes.

Another key Obama adviser, Dennis Ross. Ross, for many years under both Clinton and Bush 2, a key—he has advised Clinton and both Bushes. He oversaw US policy toward Israel/Palestine. He pushed the principle that the legal rights of the Palestinians, the rights recognized under international law, must be subordinated to the needs of the Israeli government—in other words, their desires, their desires to expand to do whatever they want in the Occupied Territories. And Ross was one of the people who, interestingly, led the political assault on former Democratic President Jimmy Carter. Carter, no peacenik—I mean, Carter is the one who bears ultimate responsibility for that Timor terror that Holbrooke was involved in. But Ross led an assault on him, because, regarding Palestine, Carter was so bold as to agree with Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa that what Israel was doing in the Occupied Territories was tantamount to apartheid. And so, Ross was one of those who fiercely attacked him.

Another Obama adviser, Sarah Sewall, who heads a human rights center at Harvard and is a former Defense official, she wrote the introduction to General Petraeus’s Marine Corps/Army counterinsurgency handbook, the handbook that is now being used worldwide by US troops in various killing operations. That’s the Obama team.

http://www.youtube.com/swf/l.swf?video_id=yqoFwZUp5vc

http://www.blackagendareport.com/images/stories/063/2008ObamaTurnRightCartoon.jpg

Obamamania

Barack Obama's corporate-made and -financed presidential campaign is the product of three distinct factors, all mitigating against Black self-determination and political cohesion: 1) corporate decisions, made a decade ago, to provide media and financial support to pliant Black Democrats that can be trusted to carry Wall Street's water; 2) a widespread desire among whites to prove through the safe and simple act of voting that they are not personally racist, and/or to dismiss Black claims of pervasive racism in society, once and for all; 3) a huge reservoir of Jim Crow era, atavistic Black thinking that refuses to evaluate Black candidates' actual political stances, but instead revels in the prospect of Black faces in high places. A President Obama would, of course, be the zenith of such narrow, non-substantive, objectively self-defeating visions.

In 2007, the Obama "package" amply satisfied all three "constituencies." Corporations found him a loyal ally on Capitol Hill and on the speaking circuit, rewarding him handsomely for his fealty; millions of whites came to believe Obama could solve the "race problem" by his mere presence, at no cost to their own notions of skin privilege; and infinitely manipulable Black dreams of the ultimate Head-Negro-in-Charge. Many, if not most, Black folks yearn to see a Supreme HNIC before they die, and will not question how he got there or whom he really serves.

<SNIP>
The same forces that shut down the Black Freedom Movement to pursue their own private interests, 40 years ago, have metastasized into corporate servants of the rich. With the gradual extinction of Black journalism, African Americans have grown to believe that Celebrity = Power - a fatal equation that strips Black America of independent agency, of political autonomy, and makes them putty in the hands of media corporations and their Wall Street masters.

This is the underlying, broader meaning and threat of Obamamania (or Obama-ism). In the final analysis, it's not about how HE got there, it's about why there are so few mechanisms to make Obama, the Congressional Black Caucus, and any corporate-bought Black personality, an instant "leader" - never to be held accountable to Black people at-large.

http://www.blackagendareport.com/index. ... &Itemid=33 (http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=483&Itemid=33)


http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B00007FOML.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

http://www.blackagendareport.com/images/stories/063/2008ObamaTurnRightCartoon.jpg

Obamamania

Barack Obama's corporate-made and -financed presidential campaign is the product of three distinct factors, all mitigating against Black self-determination and political cohesion: 1) corporate decisions, made a decade ago, to provide media and financial support to pliant Black Democrats that can be trusted to carry Wall Street's water; 2) a widespread desire among whites to prove through the safe and simple act of voting that they are not personally racist, and/or to dismiss Black claims of pervasive racism in society, once and for all; 3) a huge reservoir of Jim Crow era, atavistic Black thinking that refuses to evaluate Black candidates' actual political stances, but instead revels in the prospect of Black faces in high places. A President Obama would, of course, be the zenith of such narrow, non-substantive, objectively self-defeating visions.

In 2007, the Obama "package" amply satisfied all three "constituencies." Corporations found him a loyal ally on Capitol Hill and on the speaking circuit, rewarding him handsomely for his fealty; millions of whites came to believe Obama could solve the "race problem" by his mere presence, at no cost to their own notions of skin privilege; and infinitely manipulable Black dreams of the ultimate Head-Negro-in-Charge. Many, if not most, Black folks yearn to see a Supreme HNIC before they die, and will not question how he got there or whom he really serves.

<SNIP>
The same forces that shut down the Black Freedom Movement to pursue their own private interests, 40 years ago, have metastasized into corporate servants of the rich. With the gradual extinction of Black journalism, African Americans have grown to believe that Celebrity = Power - a fatal equation that strips Black America of independent agency, of political autonomy, and makes them putty in the hands of media corporations and their Wall Street masters.

This is the underlying, broader meaning and threat of Obamamania (or Obama-ism). In the final analysis, it's not about how HE got there, it's about why there are so few mechanisms to make Obama, the Congressional Black Caucus, and any corporate-bought Black personality, an instant "leader" - never to be held accountable to Black people at-large.

http://www.blackagendareport.com/index. ... &Itemid=33 (http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=483&Itemid=33)


http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B00007FOML.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

Damn near everything written here might apply, with proper substitution of nouns, to Clinton and women. It is her ace in the hole, I suspect her lose in Iowa will serve to motivate that aspect of her constituency. "It is past time that a women assume that pinnacle of male power", or some such. It is about impossible to argue with someone who has adopted this position. "Sexist!" "Thatcher, never heard of her." Such is the state of our media and education, surely an example of Moronification.

What a bitch for liberals, to be forced to choose between two "must have" candidates. Small wonder their discomfort, confusion and petty viciousness. Yet not a dimes worth of difference.

The chickens of identity politics come home to roost. While the most basic identity, worker, is dismissed as archaic, irrelevant. Goebbels would eat his heart out for such subtle, effective manipulation.

BP, I agree with your big point but the article eats posted is racist as fuck.

"Head Negro In Chief"? Its not talking about "multicultural, PC" liberals there, its making a claim about *most* black people. Thats a crock of shit. I wouldn't be real comfortable talking about 'women' and Hilary in that context either.

BP, I agree with your big point but the article eats posted is racist as fuck.

"Head Negro In Chief"? Its not talking about "multicultural, PC" liberals there, its making a claim about *most* black people. Thats a crock of shit. I wouldn't be real comfortable talking about 'women' and Hilary in that context either.

I agree it is a way simplistic, broad brush, but I think the entire article made some good observations. That post of mine reflects more my frustration with political discussion around the house.

BP, I agree with your big point but the article eats posted is racist as fuck.

"Head Negro In Chief"? Its not talking about "multicultural, PC" liberals there, its making a claim about *most* black people. Thats a crock of shit. I wouldn't be real comfortable talking about 'women' and Hilary in that context either.

I agree it is a way simplistic, broad brush, but I think the entire article made some good observations. That post of mine reflects more my frustration with political discussion around the house.

I think one of the reasons the whole premise of the article is wrong/misstated -- and it is wrong -- is that the basic identity of Worker is so completely stratified. Think about just the gap between the $25/hr federal employee and the minimum wage schlub. And there's not even a huge culture divide to speak of in that example.

BP, I agree with your big point but the article eats posted is racist as fuck.

"Head Negro In Chief"? Its not talking about "multicultural, PC" liberals there, its making a claim about *most* black people. Thats a crock of shit. I wouldn't be real comfortable talking about 'women' and Hilary in that context either.

We gotta bring you up to speed on what racism means kid.

"Head nigger in charge" is a phrase I hear all the time in the neighborhood.

By the way, did you see the Gators-Wolverines game? You are UF, not FSU yes?

BP, I agree with your big point but the article eats posted is racist as fuck.

"Head Negro In Chief"? Its not talking about "multicultural, PC" liberals there, its making a claim about *most* black people. Thats a crock of shit. I wouldn't be real comfortable talking about 'women' and Hilary in that context either.

We gotta bring you up to speed on what racism means kid.

"Head nigger in charge" is a phrase I hear all the time in the neighborhood.

By the way, did you see the Gators-Wolverines game? You are UF, not FSU yes?

I'm both actually -- UF and FSU. Always been a little suspicious of Urban Meyer since the title year when he could never stop calling keepers with Chris Leak.

EDIT: plus, my dad's a Michigan State man so we've always kinda rooted for the Big Ten. Florida will be back but can't continue the Tebow/Harvin/pray for rain crap or some smart Defensive coach or two will smack 'em around. And next year 2 losses probably won't be good enough.

Defense obviously needs to improve.

As for the rest:


and infinitely manipulable Black dreams of the ultimate Head-Negro-in-Charge. Many, if not most, Black folks yearn to see a Supreme HNIC before they die, and will not question how he got there or whom he really serves.

?

I've heard HNIC too. What would you say the point of the above is other than emphasizing that blacks are gangstas, anti-authority thugs, employed in criminality, etc? Why didn't he pile on by citing some rap lyrics?

I'm both actually -- UF and FSU. Always been a little suspicious of Urban Meyer since the title year when he could never stop calling keepers with Chris Leak.

Now don't take away from Michigan's glorious victory!


I've heard HNIC too. What would you say the point of the above is other than emphasizing that blacks are gangstas, anti-authority thugs, employed in criminality, etc? Why didn't he pile on by citing some rap lyrics?

Well I am not seeing that in Ford's article. The motives of a white writer who said some of those same things would perhaps be suspect.

White folks don't read BAR much, you know. Are you saying that he is playing into stereotypes? If so, they are stereotypes that only exists in white people's minds. Sanitizing and gussying up the image of them Black folks is not a powerful or even rational idea in the Black community, that I have seen. The "credit to his race" thing comes from whites.

[quote=Kid Of The Black Hole]I'm both actually -- UF and FSU. Always been a little suspicious of Urban Meyer since the title year when he could never stop calling keepers with Chris Leak.

Now don't take away from Michigan's glorious victory!


I've heard HNIC too. What would you say the point of the above is other than emphasizing that blacks are gangstas, anti-authority thugs, employed in criminality, etc? Why didn't he pile on by citing some rap lyrics?

Well I am not seeing that in Ford's article. The motives of a white writer who said some of those same things would perhaps be suspect.

White folks don't read BAR much, you know. Are you saying that he is playing into stereotypes? If so, they are stereotypes that only exists in white people's minds. Sanitizing and gussying up the image of them Black folks is not a powerful or even rational idea in the Black community, that I have seen. The "credit to his race" thing comes from whites.[/quote:z6p9lsmw]

Huh, I didn't even look at the link, I figured it was a white guy pandering to white perceptions. Coming from BAR it takes a more satirical tone than I was detecting.

As for Michigan's victory, they kicked ass no question and they earned the win. Of course Michigan State had 'em dead to rights this year. But, alas, in the words of Denny Green "we let 'em off the hook!"

You know it occured to me today that the premise of this thread (Obama ?= Change) is a very narrow formulation indeed. Lets concede right away that he doesn't.

That doesn't in any way diminish the fact that the great majority of his supporters are behind him based on promises of big changes. That is a significant statement, one that might bear more development on our end.

That is separate and apart from the fact that he's black which carries a great deal of significance as well.

Its kind of a fluff thread just to point out that Obama is a corporate tool IMO.

BP, I agree with your big point but the article eats posted is racist as fuck.

"Head Negro In Chief"? Its not talking about "multicultural, PC" liberals there, its making a claim about *most* black people. Thats a crock of shit. I wouldn't be real comfortable talking about 'women' and Hilary in that context either.This is from a black-owned,and run site. The point they were making,is Obama is a right-wing Uncle Tom,little different than JC Watts,or Clarence Thomas.Blacks call each other n****r all the time. What about this guy ?

http://www.pandora.ca/pictures20/114510.jpg


Watch this : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgwgD0AUm-8

THIS IS THE SORT OF MAN WE NEED IN THE WHITE HOUSE !! NOT A RIGHT-WING HOUSE STEPIN FETCHIT FOR THE CORPORATE ELITE !!!

If you are here to defend Obama,you need to go over to the "OTHER" PI.

If you are here to defend Obama,you need to go over to the "OTHER" PI.

I don't know if you're making a blanket statement or responding to something in particular, but personally I can't "defend" the actions or stances of some of my best friends so there's no way I could or would defend someone I don't even know.

But I don't think we need to be about that -- defending or not defending the man, any man.

I do think we have to take into account what people think though. We could not do that, but we're already mired in irrelevance so a recipe or More Of Same doesn't seem so appetizing to me.