Category: Barack Obama

Crossposted from The Wild Wild Left and to Station Charon and My Left Wing

You would have thought by now we may have figured out that Saturn’s strategy just might be a flawed one.

I guess it all depends on what one defines as their own.

“Blank document”. I recall older Word versions and I seem to think it used to be “New Document”. New is so much more positive than Blank.

I had an English teacher in high school, Teresa Brandon, who’d say “Go for the guts.” She was a rebel teacher who brought Dunkin Donuts to our early morning English Lit/Shakespeare class each Wednesday, in defiance of the “No food in class” rules. Beyond her exemplary teaching, she also had an extraordinary talent – she could neatly shove a billiard ball in her mouth without locking her jaw. These are skills that impress a high school junior.

You are forewarned: if you are not up for reading ramblings of a reminiscent, tangential and seemingly unrelated nature, please move to the next diary…;)

In honor of Ms. Brandon (though against her desire of clean, concise length), I’ll unashamedly go for the gut and dammit, I won’t apologize. And this is not purely a candidate diary.

That said…

(crossposted at Dailykos)

8 weeks ago today in a blog on DailyKos and many other sites I posted a proposal for a Obamathon fundraising drive to help Barack Obama win in the first Super Tuesday (February 5th). Since then 896 people have donated $48,771 dollars via that page and Obama has gone from a underdog to a clear front runner within reach of the nomination.

But there is still work to do to get there. Obama has to run two campaigns at once. He still has to win the Democratic nomination and also he has to run against Senator McCain. He is facing a two front battle. It is still a uphill fight but it can be won.

So I’m relaunching the Obamathon as the Obamathon 2.0 (real original name I know) and setting a new goal of $100,000 by April 22, the day of the next primary.

In less than 24 hours, a story that began with the disclosure that State Department employees were peeking into the passport records of Barack Obama, it has come to light that the snooping also extended to Hillary Clinton and John McCain. While there is still much that is unknown, these revelations are being treated by the victims as a serious breach of privacy and security.

The Bush administration has developed a reputation as the most secrecy obsessed administration in history. Over the past seven years they have:

• sought to withhold public records like those of Dick Cheney’s meetings with lobbyists
• reclassified thousands of documents that were previously available
• banned photos of military caskets being returned from Iraq
• thrown roadblocks in front of legislation to enhance the Freedom of Information Act
• opposed investigations into Iraq, 9/11, Katrina, wiretapping, intelligence failures, U.S. attorney firings, etc.
• instructed aides to defy Congressional subpoenas

Brought to you by…

News Corpse

The Internet’s Chronicle Of Media Decay.

by BlackAgendaReport Managing Editor Bruce Dixon.

This is an interesting point-of-view of Obama’s campaign:

I can see that pointing out stuff about religion is about as interesting as watching grass grow or flies mate.  I will avoid that at all cost.

I have been accused of being an Obama supporter—WRONG!  I have not endorsed anyone at this point.  I do defend him on some issues and have been critical on others.  As I have with other candidates.  I do, however, see Obama as an important person that could possibly unify a party that is divided.

I cannot support Clinton.  Why?  her pro-business platform and her leadership position within the DLC.  Most of her platform is start out of the playbook of the DLC.  IMO, this organization is trying hard to purge all “true” progressives from the party.

McCain?  He was looking pretty good until he flip=flopped on torture, tax cuts, and other issues.  Because of this reversal of stands, just to win the suppoort of hard core conservs will forever eliminate him from my consideration.

All that said, the media has chosen who they want to be the two candidates and that choice is McCain and Clinton.  Just watch MSM and you will concur with my findings.  I love the pundits that disguise their obvious dislike for Obama as fair and balanced report–IT IS NEITHER!

I fear that the MSM will be successful in their pushing of the two candidates and if they are, we will have 4 more years of Bush policies. no matter which one is elected.  

If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman of any color, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.

Geraldine Ferraro, Torrance Daily Breeze, March 7, 2008

It now appears that Geraldine Ferraro’s now-famous first sentence was at least partially right, albeit a week or so early.  If Obama were a white man, he would not be in the position he is today: not, as Ferraro would have it, a position in which he receives the uncritical positive regard of much of the population,  but one where he is being called to answer for the attitudes and actions of the entire Black community.  Her fourth sentence proved prophetic as well: the whole country has been caught up in the concept.

The question before us, and before the superdelegates, is whether the third sentence was also true: is he very lucky to be who he is?  Again, contrary to Ferraro, that does not mean lucky to be Black, but is he lucky enough — by virtue of both eloquent argument and personal example — to be able to defuse the effect of his being symbolically associated with those Blacks whom much of white America most hates and fears?

(more)

I just got a CNN email that says precisely the following:

— The State Department says security on Barack Obama’s passport file has been breached, campaign officials tell CNN.

And it’s up on the main page of CNN too.

I have to go somewhere, and I’ll be back in couple of hours.  My question: WTF does this mean?

In a press release I received today, Friends of the Earth Action criticized both leading Democratic presidential candidates for their recent anti-environment, pro-coal comments.  

Senator Hillary Clinton expressed enthusiasm for coal and failed to condemn mountaintop removal during an interview yesterday on West Virginia Public Radio.  Today, Senator Barack Obama delivered a speech in West Virginia advocating so-called “clean coal” as a solution to global warming.

Both are wrong.

“These comments raise serious questions about whether the Democratic candidates are as committed to clean energy as they claim to be,” Friends of the Earth Action President Brent Blackwelder said.  “Coal is not clean-period.  And it is especially dirty and damaging when it is mined through the mountaintop removal process, in which mountains are literally blown to pieces, wiping vast swaths of nature off the map and polluting valleys, streams and rivers.”

Arch-neocon William Kristol and the New York Times seem bent on shoving their racial swiftboating tactics down our throats. Kristol was forced to issue a partial retraction after writing a story that claimed Barack Obama lied when he said he wasn’t present at a sermon by his pastor Jeremiah White that purportedly blamed blamed “the ‘arrogance’ of the ‘United States of White America’ for much of the world’s suffering, especially the oppression of blacks.” Kristol and the right-wing want to paint Obama as a racial extremist, or someone who cynically manipulates racist extremists, and this to frighten white Americans.

Of course, Obama was never at such a sermon. And frankly, it wouldn’t have mattered if he were. Obama spoke his piece on the anger of black America the other day, in a well-received speech on the impact of racial divisions on the United States. While I think Wright’s comments weren’t “divisive” — comments Obama felt he had to disavow — nevertheless, he said they were understandable, given the history of slavery, Jim Crow, and other racial discrimination. And that’s more than any other U.S. politician would give towards the validation of black rage, much of it, as Obama pointed out, directed impotently at misplaced or non-powerful targets, or turned inward.

+++++++++++++++

Noted bioethicist and physician, Steven Miles, comments favorably on my analysis of the APA’s new resolution language concerning a ban on psychologist participation in torture in Bush’s prison gulag abroad:

Ever hear of Saul Alinsky?  He was the writer and teacher of “pragmatic radicals”.  His book, Rules for Radicals, is excellent reading if one wants to be any good at organizing.  As a matter of fact it is a book that Obama has said made a difference in his life and in his activism.  As an old hippie, pinko, commie from my days of protests in the 70’s, his book was an excellent resource for action and planning.

I think that maybe Obama should have kept his admiration for Alinsky to himself.  Just as in the Vietnam War, Giap’s book, People’s Army, People’s War, was required reading for the special operations guys doing the crappy work in the country.  I do believe that Clinton’s campaign has done the same thing with Obama.

I will bet that one is asking what the hell I am talking about.  Answer:  Alinsky had 3 tactics to use.  They were, 1–The real action is the enemy’s reaction, 2–The enemy properly goaded and guided in his action will be your major strength, 3–Tactics, like organization, like life, require that you move with the action.  So far both candidates have had to deal with these three tactics.

My advice would be, if you are using a game plan from a certain source, then you might want to keep it under lock and key, so that your opponent does not use it to bite you in the ass.  Just a thought.  

I watched Obama give one of the greatest speeches I have ever heard today. In a week from Hell. When we barely escaped the collapse of Wall Street while still not addressing the needs of Main Street. I watched a man stand tall and draw a line in the sand with diplomatic skills unseen in American politics in my lifetime. I watched a man stand by a friend, while making it absolutely clear that even though ‘context is everything’ some of Wright’s statements were completely unacceptable. I watched a man I want to be my President.