The Race Card

Just a few days before the election, the Pennsylvania GOP (allegedly, PA is where this originated) pulls the race + patriotism card, again. I’m not sure if this is like a desperate last swing in the dark by a campaign that knows they’ve lost, or if McCain and friends are actually banking on this working. People say they don’t like negative ads, but it’s been proven that they work. Maybe the GOP is hoping to stir up some last minute anxiety about Obama and his angry black man pastor. The best thing for Obama to do in my opinion is to either not respond, or to do a kind of political sidestep and make the more righteous point that negative attack ads won’t fix the economy.

Sarah Palin as President

dope site i saw courtesy of PostBourgie. had me laughing, talking loudly, gasping… please enjoy.

Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live. WTF?

Making fun of yourself doesn’t work as well when you’re not really in on the joke.

Why Not Voting Is Pointless, Ahistorical, and Selfish

about those folks i keep talking to who don’t want to vote. particularly those whose politics i would otherwise agree with and who claim to be immersed in some kind of a struggle.

dont be so selfish.

why dont marginalized/oppressed/black people realize that

a. the system is not in their interest
b. the system is not going to all of sudden be in their interest
c. some of our smartest comrades are those who learn how to work the system
d. when that happens, you should be able to recognize it and respond appropriately

radical change occurs radically, not by you indulging in some personal and self-righteous rebellion by doing something silly like not voting, voting for someone we all know won’t win, or voting for mccain at the last minute because “it doesnt matter”.

in response to some of the justifications i’ve heard for not voting, or not voting for obama:

not voting is not a “right”. nobody ever had to earn their right not to vote.

there is no utility in not voting. nobody gives a flying cow if you don’t vote.
if you do vote, however, you are exercising a right that many people have died for, and you are using your privilege to participate in your country’s politics and potentially change the way things are run.

voting and working for radical change are not contradictory nor mutually exclusive. You not voting does not mean you believe in radical change, and it certainly is not going to create radical change, ever. you not voting cannot create anything. it is inaction. moreover, you voting does not mean that you can’t also be working towards creating radical change.

your claim that it makes no difference if republicans or democrats are in office is just not true. a quick look at the last sixteen years of this country can illustrate that. no, barack obama is not going to incite a communist uprising, but he can affect everyday issues like federal funding for social programs, taxes for the middle class, not to mention his decision in the likely appointment of up the three supreme court justices and how that could drastically impact legislation and the criminal injustice system for decades to come. he’s not Huey Newton, but he’s certainly not John mccain. if your primary concern is “survival” as you claim, wouldn’t it be in your interest to make immediate decisions that will better enable that survival?

like i said, don’t be so selfish. people are always talking about ‘obama doesn’t line up with all of my beliefs’ and ‘none of the candidates represent all of my values’. my answer is: it’s not about you. (and you should know by now that things don’t work like that). it’s about achieving the most good for the most people. it’s about electing the person that you think would be best for the country. no, i don’t agree with obama about a war in afghanistan, and cynthia mckinney might be more in line with my politics, but i know she is not going to win. so when it comes down to it, do i think it’d be in the best interest of most americans for obama or mccain to be in office?

We cannot confuse our means with our end. i am not saying that you have to necessarily “believe in” the system that oppresses you, and you certainly don’t have to trust it or its politicians to engender all of the change you wish to see. But afterall, unfortunately, at this point in history (and maybe only until your revolutionary agenda is realized), that is not the enacted role of electoral politics.

we have to be aware of our end goal, if it is some radically different form of socioeconomic political organization, and realize what paths of action will, or will not, get us there. don’t act (or refuse to act) based on a system that does not exist. we have to live in the present, acknowledge what avenues of action will realistically create change now, and simultaneously work towards our ultimate goals within and without the system.

P.S. i encourage you to research barack obama. dig up his less publicized interviews, look at the work he did before going to law school. check out some things that his (former) pastor has said. look at the social programs of his (former) church. i think obama is quite brilliant. please, beautiful black folks, think twice before harping on about how he’s not addressing this or that enough. and if you are going to do that, be fair about hating. get in mccain’s soup equally as much. he hasn’t mentioned black people except to apologize about voting against MLK day multiple times. obama is running, his politics (although not wholly public for practical reasons) are considerably progressive, he’s black, he’s actually black, and he’s swooning the world with his intelligence and his message. you cant have your cake and eat it too (at least not before it’s done). do you want him to win or not?

Power, Politics, Race, Movement

I just want to share a few ideas that I’ve been thinking about lately. Some of this was inspired by a conversation I had today with my boy Anthony Kelley, you can check it his blog here. I’m just looking to put these ideas out there, not necessarily because I agree with them but because I think they are interesting and worth giving some thought.

- Barack Obama represents the end of ‘African’ people’s history in america, and the end of black organized struggle (3:10). His story allows for the propogation of this idea that there is no black experience, there is only an american experience (which relates to why it is important to distinguish that he is not African american). Obama is being portrayed as this realization of the pro-capitalist “american dream”, although he is not descended from slaves and is from a middle class background. His slogan that there is no white america, there is no black america, there is one america — our america — foreshadows the effect his success could have on the construction of race in the united states. His ascendency to the presidency could potentially catapult this country into an allegedly post-racial reality. He did it, and he’s black, why can’t you?

- Society’s choice to automatically call Barack Obama black is in itself an acknowledgment of the white supremacist power structure. It acknowledges that someone is black based on their experience of anti-black racist sentiment in america, as opposed to what their parents’ races are. This is in response to white people who say “He’s ours too” when referring to the fact that Barack Obama’s mother is white. If racism didn’t exist, maybe we would be calling him white. This is not about the one drop rule, it is about one’s racial experience of oppression in the united states and how the social construction of blackness depends on white supremacy existing, as well as the social construction of whiteness.

- The fact that Sarah Palin has been chosen as John McCain’s running mate is not only embarrassing, but it is offensive and sexist. The fact that he would choose an uninformed, inarticulate, and just plain unqualified woman as his running mate on the sole basis of her gender is exemplary of the sexism in his camp. The fact that no one is calling him out exposes the sexism that is deeply embedded in the fabric of this country. McCain is unabashedly trying to use Palin as a political object, and her gendered image as a political tool, while letting it somehow compensate for the fact that she is very obviously not by any means equipped to be president of a small organization, much less a country. She adds absolutely nothing to the ticket, besides her mediocre to poor performance in college (which Americans seem to favor) and the fact that she is considered a semi attractive woman. That the extent to which she is qualified is not a factor is sexist, and unfortunately it provokes sexist reactions among many people who witness her public embarrassments. She is in many circles representative of “that dumb bitch,” as opposed to being representative of the severe intellectual and political shortcomings of McCain’s team that have resulted in poor decision making.

- Barack Obama IS mass movement. In response to the radicals who don’t believe in voting because it doesn’t matter. In response to those revolutionaries who want to create a movement around change, but can’t seem to create pragmatist approaches to attracting the people. Barack Obama has become the catalyst for this generation’s mass movement. Whether or not he will enact real change will have to be seen. But don’t deny his significance (not as a messiah but as an indicator of the prevalent social and political sentiment of the time) or underestimate his intelligence. I believe he knows exactly what he’s doing, watch closely.

- We are witnessing the fall of the american empire (and perhaps essentially the failure of capitalism). Not only has the dollar decreased 40% in the last six years, but it is not based on anything with real value (ie gold). It is paper that we produce and assign value, therefore, it is not “real”. What does this mean for the future of U.S. competition in the world market, and what does it mean for the supposed amero?

- Helplessness is not real. Everyone has power, it is just a matter of learning to access it and use it.

Only In America: Obama and McCain Go To Church

On Saturday August 16, Democratic Senator of Illinois Barack Obama and Republican Senator of Arizona John McCain, the presumptive Democratic and Republican presidential nominees, met up at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California to discuss politics. This was known as the Saddleback Civil Forum. The Orange County mega church claims 22,000 members, and just completed a $20 million student ministry facility called the Refinery in June. The church’s founding and senior pastor Rick Warren interviewed the presumptive candidates.

In response to the obvious inquiries about the separation of church and state that supposedly exists in the United States, Warren said on the Today Show: “I believe in separation of church and state. I do not believe in separation of faith and politics because faith is simply a worldview. Everybody has a worldview.”

Since when has faith “simply” meant worldview? And who died and named Rick Warren Webster? Who is this guy? If the church is in fact the “greatest force on earth” it has been in the service of colonization, slavery, and The Holocaust. “The Church” itself, an entity created by man, has been behind some of the greatest atrocities in the history of humankind on this earth.

But even that is beside the point. What I’m wondering is why we are having a key political event — the first time Obama and McCain “share the same stage” — at a mega church with a revenue that could pay my tuition 1,000 times over. Why, for a national political event, is the host a pastor of a white evangelical church? That just doesn’t add up to me.

Probably because Obama and McCain feel like they need to fight to win the vote of the white evangelicals.

Let’s get into it for a minute.

What is an evangelical? Theologically, evangelicals believe Jesus Christ was the sinless son of God, who was resurrected on Easter Sunday and is coming back to culminate history. They believe that salvation involves belief in Him and His sacrifice. Evangelicals also believe that they have a responsibility to share their faith with as many people as they possibly can.

Politically, about 20% of the electorate describes itself as evangelical or born again (a la GWBush). 40% of evangelicals describe themselves as moderate or liberal. (Moderate probably meaning McCain).

George W. Bush won about 78% of the evangelical vote in the last election, and Kerry carried 22%. In the polls, Obama has not gotten any more than 21% of the evangelical vote, and political analysts think this is because he is “more radically pro-choice” than any previous Democratic candidate. (Thanks to kcts for the stats).

When asked at what point a baby gets ‘human rights,’ McCain responded “at the moment of conception.” My follow-up question to McCain would have been “and when do those rights end?” because for a pro-war, pro-prisons, Vietnam vet I feel like there could be a handful of possible answers . . . Is it when you are born outside of the United States? When you decide not to marry? When you get arrested? Come on. People all across the board are claiming to be in favor of human rights for an embryo, yet they don’t support human rights for half of the people walking the earth. How are you anti-choice and at the same time in favor of capital punishment and a fervent cheerleader for an unjust war? What was I saying about holistic living…

Another statistic worth mentioning is that 70% of evangelicals say they plan to vote for McCain, but only 15% are enthusiastic about it. That’s not surprising. What Obama has to do to take advantage of McCain’s lameness is to emphasize his interest in reducing the number of abortions overall. Clearly, he’s not anti-choice and never will be, but winning more of the ‘moderate’ evangelical vote lies in reiterating his point that he does not encourage abortion, and that a situation where one has to consider abortion is undesirable in the first place. This goes back to “age-appropriate” sex education (uh-oh!), as well as access to contraception.

Speaking of unwanted children, when’s the last time you’ve seen one of McCain’s seven kids? Exactly. They’re hiding. Also, why hasn’t he been given more flack from the religious right for the failure of his first marriage (not to mention that he applied for another marriage license before the divorce was official and married 5 weeks after the split). And what about his vote against Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a moral failure? His public response to that was that “we can all be a little late sometimes in doing the right thing”.

But getting back to the forum, did anyone else notice that McCain, 71, seemed particularly fluent during the interview with Warren? Judging by his prior television appearances, there seem to be signs that he’s suffering from onset senile dementia. So how was the fellow so glib…

Well there is talk of McCain having some prior knowledge about the questions he would be asked. Of course the McCain camp vehemently denies this, and Rick Warren has called the accusations “sour grapes,” but who’s to say? We don’t know what McCain heard.

We Do Know, however, that when Rick Warren said jovially that McCain was in a “cone of silence” where he wouldn’t be able to hear the Obama interview, that he was lying. Lying’s bad, pastor. McCain wasn’t even in the building. He was on his way to the church in a motorcade supervised by the secret service. Meaning that he wasn’t present at the so-called “coin flip” that determined who would go first. As though there was a choice.

But we can’t be sure that McCain’s quick answers despite his tired brain were the result of having access to the questions. Maybe he’s on some new meds. Or maybe Obama’s just a better actor. The latter may be closer to the truth considering the New York Times Caucus blog says that Warren gave both candidates the general topics he would cover, as well as a heads-up about a few specific questions, including What is your greatest moral failing? What is America’s greatest moral failing? And who are the three people you rely on most for wise advice?

Hmm.

But I digress.

As an American (yep, i just identified), I am not down with mixing politics and religion.. nor politics and “faith”. That is not to say that candidates should not be able to run focused campaigns and address their constituencies specifically. But it is to say that no disproportionate amount of attention should be paid to a candidate’s religious beliefs, and, that a candidate’s religious stance should not be referenced during interviews and debates to imply his or her stance on a political issue. If religion does inform a candidate’s position on a particular issue, then that is fine, but at the end of the day it is still a political issue, which at most should be talked about in relation to morals and ethics.