Walking On Marbles

President Barack Obama was born in Hawaii, one of the United States, in 1961. His mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was a United States citizen. Both of these facts confer upon Barack Obama natural born citizenship in these United States, as per the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. He is therefore eligible to be President. To quote one of my favorite movies, “these are the facts of the case, and they are undisputed.”

A number of people, though, continue to assert that they “just want to see his birth certificate” to “make sure [Obama]‘s eligible to be President.” These same people conveniently failed to ask for John McCain’s birth certificate, though we know he was born in a foreign country, on land leased by the United States, in the Panama Canal Zone. The immediately racist foundation of this dichotomy, needing to see the brown man’s papers, is fodder for another discussion.

The calculated and coordinated effort by Republican legislators and conservative citizens to write state laws regarding the President’s birth certificate have one purpose only: to keep his reelection campaign legally, politically, and economically distracted as the campaign season begins. They want him walking on marbles. President Bill Clinton, the last Democratic president, spent half of his second term in court, fighting spurious lawsuits and challenges related to his personal conduct. The coordinated attack based in the special prosecutor’s office took it’s toll on both President Clinton and his effectiveness to affect policy.

Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona vetoed the “birther” bill passed by Arizona’s legislature requiring candidates for the presidency of the United States to submit their birth certificate in order to be listed on the state’s ballot. The key here isn’t that she objected to the merits of the bill itself. She simply decried the proof of a lack of foreskin being codified into law. Either way, that ridiculous farce of a bill failed.

Similar bills are being considered in thirteen other states, and Louisiana’s governor, the former “Republican Barack Obama” (politician of non-anglo ethnicity with ties to an immigrant community) Bobby Jindal, has indicated that when the “birther bill” passes the legislature in his state, he’ll sign it.

From Donald Trump’s whorish attempts to wave the birther flag to revive ratings for his television career to Russell Pearce‘s attempt to treat the President of the United States like the Republicans treated the last Democratic President of the United States (they focused on Clinton’s genitals, too) this coordinated strategy is the GOP’s attempt to secure victory in an election they are unable to win on the merits.

And Democrats, whose faith in the process of democracy and belief that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice” need to prepare for the mud slinging, and quick. I’m not arguing that we need to get down and dirty with them. I’m saying that assuming good will of the political opposition in the face of evidence to the contrary is putting a blindfold on while they’re throwing down marbles.

We can’t … the United States can’t afford to be that imbalanced.

Spread the Word.

Related Articles

• “Trump, HI Gov. Spar Over Birth Certificate Issue” and related posts (theyeshivaworld.com)
• Romney: ‘I Believe The President Was Born In The United States’ (VIDEO) (alternet.org)
• Bachmann: Obama’s certification of live birth ‘should settle’ birther issue (politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com)

Kidnapping the Future

“I believe that children are our future…”

-Whitney Houston

The Future

Arizona is trying to kidnap the next generation of Latinos in the United States.  Rather than simply legislating that brown people are bad, or that Latinos are only allowed to work as gardeners and nannies in the Grand Canyon State (because neither of those would be politically correct), these segregationists are giving President Obama and Latino-America the finger by attacking children, taking away their citizenship, native language, education, and ability to “Win the Future”.

Jan Brewer, the Republican governor of Arizona, coupled with State Senator Russell Pearce and a Republican-controlled state legislature, has already declared it legally acceptable for law enforcement to stop citizens who “look Latino illegal.” When pressed for a description, though, they were unable to provide one.  What did happen after the passage of SB1070, though, is citizens of the United States with Latino heritage, Spanish surnames, or brown skin were stopped and harassed until that law was struck down by a federal court.  Now, the racists and segregationists have shifted tactics and targets. The laws proposed violate the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States because they:

1. deny citizenship to children born in the United States to undocumented parents;
2. create “non-citizen”- and “citizen”-stamped birth certificates;
3. deny medical services/public education to “non-citizens” born in the United States;
4. require school teachers, administrators, and hospital personnel to determine citizenship status/deny services; and
5. forbid “non-citizens” from driving, and impose jail-time for those who do (and confiscate their legal property for Arizona’s benefit)

The new proposed legislation, then, is creating a segregated society by stealing the citizenship of native-born United States citizens. The coded language, calling their targets “illegal” and focusing on “immigration”, allows them to navigate the mainstream media with their racism only being called out by those they’re targeting.  This battlecry of “illegals” and “taxpayer services” hides in plain sight the determination by Arizona Republicans to sweep the state clean of brown people.

Arizona is proceeding like Germany in the 1930s, scapegoating a single group through discriminatory legislation, incrementally stripping them of citizenship, due process and access to services, and forcing them to vacate by creating a climate of persecution, harassment and suspicion.  Though these laws, like the previous attempt, will be found unconstitutional if they are passed, it is a wake-up call for Latinos and the United States that they are garnering enough support to be moved out of committee and voted on by a state legislature.  In fact, these proposed laws and the copycat legislation in 15 other states should give all Americans pause.

Kidnapping is a crime to be punished, not a method of governing a state or the nation.

Related Articles

• Arizona Panel Passes Birthright Citizenship Law (foxnews.com)
• Arizona Lawmakers Push New Round of Immigration Restrictions
• Arizona Sets Stage For Another Legal Showdown Over Immigration
• Black Code, Arizona
• I See Ghosts
• Illegal immigration likely to be hot topic at USF form
• Sweeping AZ Immigration Bills Target Undocumented Children
• To Win the Future, America Must Win the Global Competition in Education

Haley Barbour, Lindsey Graham, Jeff Sessions and John McCain: Racial Hegemony, Patriarchy and the Heterosexual Domination of American Life

“Justice too long delayed is justice denied.”

-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

A wise Latina once said, before she stepped up to sit down on the bench in the United States Supreme Court, that a person who’s life experience (specifically a female person of color) is fraught with navigation of racial, gender and cultural mazes will render a decision regarding justice that is more just than a person who’s life experience encounters few cultural, racial, gender or economic obstacles.  Time and again in the past two years, her words and observations (as well as the words and observations of thousands of others) have been borne true by the elected leaders of the United States government.

Senator Jeff Sessions’ assertions that Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor “shouldn’t bring her personal background into the courtroom” even as he is bringing his is an assertion of rich white male normalcy that he is offended is being questioned.  The entire tenor of her confirmation hearings, and those of Professor Leonard Liu who followed her into that Senate chamber, was the questioning of a distinct, colored perspective and American experience because it did not match his.

2012 Republican presidential hopeful, Governor Haley Barbour, recently harkened back to his idyllic boyhood, praising the White Citizen’s Council of Yahzoo, Mississippi where he grew up.  Not only did he romanticize a terrorist organization, he sought to negate (because it didn’t match his) the experiences of millions of black, white and brown Americans even while he tried to claim part of it. He recalled attending a speech by Dr. Martin Luther King, yet belittled the experience because “he couldn’t hear very well,” and “[he] paid more attention to the girls than to King.”

His privilege, both white and economic, allowed him to bypass the turbulent growth of the United States during the Civil Rights Movement. He attended segregated schools through high school, and the “business community” made sure that the KKK (populated by economically disenfranchised whites) didn’t cause any problems that he could see.  His dismissal of integration, segregation, lynchings and the struggle for civil rights as “not that bad” is a perspective that few people in the United States can honestly attest to, and one even fewer experienced.

It’s not his statements, though, which are problematic.  It’s his experience (or lack thereof).  The rich, white, male, heterosexual cocoon in which he has existed his entire life allows him to negate the experience of black, brown, red, yellow, female, poor, homosexual American experiences that more people than not live in each day.

Senator Lindsey Graham is a study in the absurdity of white, male, wealthy privilege.  He has actually taken to the floor of the United States Senate to apologize to his fellow rich, white, male Senator Jon Kyl for having to take the time to work.  It isn’t clear what Senator Kyl is supposed to be doing with his time, whether it is leisure or the pursuit of wealth or the accumulation of power, instead of working to negotiate the strategic arms reduction treaty; or voting on unemployment insurance for the 9.8% of Americans who are without work; or having his voice heard in favor of discrimination against gay and lesbian service members; or pushing the button to insure that the most wealthy citizens of the United States are not discriminated against by having to pay their commensurate share of taxes to fund to the government; or denying the opportunity to attain higher education or serve in the armed forces of the United States to adults whose lives are marred by having been brought to the land of opportunity illegally as children; or arguing to prevent the federal government from inspecting and insuring the safety of the food citizens consume. Both Senator Graham and Senator Kyl find it an affront to their experience to be forced to work for their paycheck, to meet their responsibilities to serve citizens (whom their actions show) they believe to be beneath them and unworthy of their efforts or their concerns.

And finally, a study in all of these expressions of domination, Senator John McCain.  Himself a heterosexual veteran of the armed forces, he would deny that honor to homosexual Americans without cause.  Having stated he would consider ending segregation if the leaders of the military indicated it was warranted, he capitulated to his own homophobia when they did so.  Having stated he needed to see a report detailing the military’s ability to incorporate the (already serving) aforementioned soldiers, he then changed his mind after service members were surveyed, sighting “literally thousands” of soldiers he said told him they had a problem with homosexuals.  Amazingly, he then stood on the floor of the Senate and proclaimed the end of discrimination against gays and lesbians in the military to be “a sad day.” Spoken like a man who had not for one day of his life, including his incarceration in a North Vietnamese prison, existed in a position of anything less than white, rich, male, heterosexual privilege.  Even in his incarceration, he was accorded a position of privilege, according to his own accounts.

These five rich, white, heterosexual men have failed in their responsibilities as leaders because they have perpetuated a system of domination, codified into law what is calcified in their experience, and refuse, stubbornly refuse, to acknowledge that there is more than one American experience.  They would rather dance together on their island of privilege than give life to the words and ideals which gave birth to this nation.

What is more amazing (or frightening for those of us who take the spirit of Thomas Jefferson’s poetry to heart) is that in struggling to ascertain their place in American society, there are many who learn the wrong lessons from what Justice Sotomayor has said, who feel that their struggles have given them the only clear interpretation of the the American experience, and attempt to join the landed (rich), white, male, educated class without any realization that their entrance into the “old boys club” is impossible, and that it is indeed the dismantling of that club which needs to occur.

Black men like Michael Steele, who find themselves in possession of some male and/or economic privilege, attempt to stand a few rungs up and climb higher by stepping on the heads and backs of other Americans.  White women like Sarah Palin, who realize that by speaking to white, poor fears, they can garner some acclaim, but find that they are still marginalized (both in terms of validation of their experience or longevity of accumulated power) when their fifteen minutes are over.  Women of color like Michelle Malkin, who find that they can exist at the fringes but never reach the acceptance of Anne Coulter, or Sean Hannity, or Bill O’Reilly or Glenn Beck.

The paradigm through which the American experience is viewed continues to be rich, elite, white, male, and heterosexual.  That individuals who grow up with all of these privileges have them is not problematic.  That they fail to understand them as privileges, or that there are other American experiences that they must take into account in order to be leaders in the United States of America, is egregious and a moral failing on par with knotting a noose, or lighting a cross, or voting to maintain segregation of gay and straight, rich and poor, male and female, or black and white.

Related Articles

• Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour Criticized for Downplaying ’60 Racial Tensions (politicsdaily.com)
• Why Haley Barbour whitewashes history (salon.com)

Dear Scott and Lisa

Dear Senator Brown and Senator Murkowski,

I envy you your day job.  You have the ability to uphold and enforce the ideals which make disparate people Americans, not with every vote you cast, but with many…including this one.

You have publicly voiced your support for the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Very soon, you will have another chance to show that you stand by your words – and on the right side of history. I’m counting on you to do the right thing for our troops, for our national security, and for our country by voting to allow a debate and then a vote to end this discriminatory policy.

Unlike the scared old guard in the Senate; the John McCains who remember the writing of the Declaration of Independence, but not it’s meaning; the Jim DeMints who revel in their sudden (undeserved) notoriety for their lack of moral direction and their constant perpetuation of stereotypical class warfare and bigotry; or the Mitch McConnells who are simply glad someone will give them a microphone even though they have nothing to say; you both have shown that despite many of your political differences of opinion (with me), you are willing at times to step outside of the lockstep Republican agenda and do what you feel is right.

“Don’t ask don’t tell” is a throwback to a bygone age, when segregation was okay because “they were different from us.”  But they’re not different from us.  They are Americans.  We are Americans.  All We Want To Do Is Fight For Our Country.

Scott.  Lisa.  Right now your vote to allow a vote to repeal discrimination in the Armed Forces of the United States is you fighting for our country.  It is a brave step.  Thank you for taking it.

Sincerely,

Reynaldo Macias

I’m Tired, Too

For two years of the presidential campaign, from 2007-2008, I lived and breathed politics.  Though I didn’t begin Spreading the Word until early 2008, I was reading and talking about the candidates long before then (think 2004 Democratic National Convention’s keynote speech).  With the election of Barack Obama, it seemed that I’d be able to go back to my day job, teaching, and be able to leave the day-to-day political awareness and direction of the nation to my elected representatives.

I was wrong.

The election of Barack Obama angered many Republicans, scared some people who are “bitter, clinging to their guns and religion”, gave birth to the Tea Party movement, and generally ginned up even more opposition than I believed possible.  I’m not sure why I thought his opponents would understand they LOST THE ELECTION and be a little quieter.  But John Boehner and Eric Cantor continue to lie and scream about the president; Lindsey Graham is sitting on Meet The Press complimenting the President on his parenting style while blasting a series of untruths that the President is “governing as an American liberal in a center-right nation” and that the President hasn’t done any “heavy lifting” on legislation; Mitch McConnell is saying that Republicans are going to run in November on “Repeal and Replace”; and Sarah Palin is helping John McCain run further and further into the weeds on the right side of the political spectrum.

While I know politics isn’t flag football, I don’t expect it to be Celebrity Death Match, either.  It seems, though, that implementing an agenda which speaks to the best in the American ideals and meets the goals stated in the Constitution is going to be a continuous engagement, because the opponents are galvanized.

We have to continue to participate – to write, to speak, to think, to act, to vote.

I know.  I’m tired, too.  But if not us, then who?

I Told You So

President Jimmy Carter is stating what I’ve been saying for a while (and was “taken to task” for in the comment section of the last post).  Namely, many of the attacks, both in the “substance” and tone, against President Barack Obama, are thinly veiled expressions of racist disbelief that a black man is POTUS.  And while I was compiling my evidence and articulating a reply, it suddenly dawned on me that I can lead horses (or elephants) to water, but I can’t make them drink.  Understand that this is not simply Republican-bashing.  It is simply a realization that while there are many independents and Democrats (and some Republicans) who disagree with the President’s ideological and practical governance of the United States, the extreme ideas by fearful and ignorant people are gaining traction with the not so ignorant because they hold one thing in common: Fear of a black planet.

There are groups of people angry and scared and confused whose sole similarity with each other is their hatred of the President.  Elderly people who will benefit from changing the manner in which their medical insurance is billed and their prescriptions are screaming at their elected representatives that President Obama is a socialist; people are saying “they want their country back,” but when asked what they means answer, “I don’t know”; Glenn Beck is on “national television” saying that the half-white President has a problem with white people…the President’s birth/legitimacy is still being questioned, by “concerned” almost-citizens and echoed by members of Congress – where were they when Senator McCain was running for the office?  And if you don’t know why that’s relevant, you’ve proven my point.

But alas, people who are in the majority rarely acquiesce that their domination of societal and cultural norms without confrontation and overwhelming evidence (and many times not even then).  Whether that is white people in the United States, men on the planet earth, English speakers, heterosexuals, the non-disabled… the domination doesn’t matter.  From our language to our institutions, the codified methods of discrimination are not rewritten without cataclysm.

Sorry… I got a little carried away.  Maureen Dowd, President Carter, and many others are beginning to speak the truth to power.  How long will it take before the people who disagree with the President’s policies, but don’t ascribe to the fearful racist elements that show themselves in screaming fits at town halls an as mouthpieces for economic predators acknowledge and disavow the people that drown out their legitimate arguments?

Just some final thoughts: Here is the post I was beginning to write. I’m including it more for the articles linked…

Unpacking the Knapsack

In critiquing the critics of the President, I have been accused of: a) playing the race card, b) being racist, c) loving a good stereotype, and d) falling back on hyperbole when I didn’t have any facts to back up my assertions.  Hence, I will attempt for those who, in good faith, misunderstand how race plays a part of the wildly aggressive campaign to delegitimize the presidency of Barack Obama, and in doing so simply acknowledge the symptoms without diagnosing the disease, thereby insuring the nation continues to suffer from the illness.

The ridiculous combination of conspiracies being hurled at President Obama are not new ground.  The level of serious consideration that they’ve gained in Congress, though, are.  From Republican Senators and Congresspeople questioning the President’s birthplace, to the continued lie that is “death panels”

White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack

Of National Lies and Racial America

Boy, Oh, Boy

Carter: Racism plays major role in opposition to Obama

The Quick Fix

“President” Barack Obama is not a United States citizen. In a dual press conference with Prime Minister Gordon Brown yesterday at the G-20 in London, England, the usually eloquent leader of the free world let slip that he was, in fact, born in Kenya, and adopted by Ann Dunham when she married his father in Hawaii. Though the slip of the tongue was brief (he answered, “Yes . . . “ when asked by a British reporter if his birth certificate was indeed a forgery), Mr. Obama later acknowledged in an email sent to his Opportunity for America group that he is, indeed, merely a resident alien who’s application for citizenship was denied by the INS in 2003 due to his vocal opposition to the invasion of Iraq.

Senators John McCain (R-Arizona) and Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) moved quickly to address the situation, in a hastily coordinated press conference this morning at 9am (ET). Both men, though, took waiting reporters by surprise. Building on his maverick reputation, Senator McCain announced a new bi-partisan bill to amend the “natural born clause” of the Constitution to allow for Mr. Obama’s continued service to the nation.
“I didn’t really like him, at first, but since we now agree that the fundamentals of the economy are strong, he’s been growing on me. And he’s trying a surge in Afghanistan like I called for in Iraq, so . . . it seems only right to support his presidency in a bi-partisan fashion.”
When asked why he was supporting the bill, Senator McConnell said, “Reid was going to do it, and John was going along, so . . . I’m just getting out there ahead of the curve.” With the numerical superiority enjoyed by the Democrats in both houses of Congress, the bill, nicknamed The Quick Fix, is expected to be voted on later in the afternoon on April 1, 2009.

Following the press conference, Vice-President Biden took the oath of office on the South Lawn of the White House, administered by Chief Justice Roberts. Both men used tele-prompters in order to avoid any constitutional questions. When asked for his comment, the forty-fifth president simply responded, “Mr. Obama will be back in the Oval Office by this time tomorrow, given how quickly my friend John has seen fit to move on The Quick Fix in the Senate. But I’m going to use Air Force One today, just because I can.”

President Biden and Dr. Biden will be moving into the White House after they return from stone cutting celebrations on Easter Island in South America. Mr. and Mrs. Obama, meanwhile, are trying to find a coach seat to return to the United States as soon as possible. There is no word, yet, on whether the couple and their two girls will remain in the Washington area until The Quick Fix is voted on, or whether they’ll retire to Chicago to wait out the storm.

As an ardent supporter of President Obama (yes, I’m still going to call him that because I know The Quick Fix will pass), I’m a little bothered by the fact that he lied about his birth. Just like I’m sure you’re a little bothered by the fact that today is April Fools:)

Republicans and Republicants

“There will always be ignorant, dangerous people who twist the truth for their own ends.  No amount of arguing will change their minds because their argument isn’t based on facts, it’s based on their own petty point of view.”

- Gail Z. Martin, Dark Haven

My wife told me, after listening to my last post, that I was sounding a bit angrier than usual.  My on-and-off political foil, Wow, said in response to the same, “What’s with lowering yourself to a pointless, name-calling rant?”  And my response is, I’m tired of Republicants.

The elected (and acknowledged) leaders of the Gallant Old Party are bereft of actual ideas.  Listening to Michael Steele, Rush Limbaugh, Anne Coulter, Mitch McConnell, John McCain, Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal, Michelle Bachmann, Tucker Carlson, Pat Buchanan, Newt Gingrich, Judd Gregg, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, John Boehner, Eric Cantor and all of the elected Republicants who claim to speak for conservative Americans when their personal lives and political actions don’t reflect that supposed conservatism is annoying in the utmost.  They don’t seem to grasp the fact that the playbook they’ve been using got tossed with the old coach who got fired in November, and he’d stopped using it years before.They are, as my pleasure reading stated, using arguments which aren’t “based on facts, [but] based on their own petty point of view.”

I get called a liberal a lot, and I recently self-identified as such for the gallop pollster who called my house.  But I’m not certain what that label means.  Just as I’m not certain what the Republican label means.  What I am certain of, though, is that the leadership of the Republican Party doesn’t know who or what it is.  For the last twenty-five years, the GOP has followed Reagan’s “the government is the problem” philosophy to unadulterated ends, and that has proven to be disastrous for our country.

I would like to hear what exactly “conservatism” and conservative values are . . . not from “the right-wing, nut-job extremists” that Stephanie Miller and company spend so many hours satirizing every morning, but from individuals who consider themselves to be conservatives, either fiscal or social.  I feel like I tend to be socially liberal, based on the teachings of the Catholic Church in which I grew up and my study and understanding of the founding principles of the United States.  And I am more and more fiscally conservative, wanting to know why the government is still wasting money like Speaker Pelosi’s recent trip to Italy or the Democratic and Republican earmarks in the recent $410 billion omnibus bill that Congress is working on right now.  But I am cognizant of the fact that it’s difficult to pull yourself up by your bootstraps when you don’t have boots, and part of the government’s responsibility to is to “promote the general welfare,” i.e. make sure Americans have boots.

To answer the question about my recent rants, ravings and anger, all I can say is that I’ve got no problem with Republicans.

It’s the Republicants I can’t stand.

He Knew the Job Was Dangerous When He Took It

“This wasn’t a Republican invasion of Iraq, this was an American invasion”

-Richard Wolfe, Newsweek

" . . . and I broke the lamp in the Oval Office, too."

The splitting headache of being president of the United States is that you inherit with no ambiguity the failures of your predecessor.  With President Obama, the failures of his predecessor are numerous and obvious.  None, however, weighs more heavily on the conscience of the nation than the destruction of a (dangerous) sovereign nation.  In March of 2003, President Bush ordered the United States Army to lead a coalition of world forces to topple the government of Saddam Hussein, ostensibly to keep weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of people like those who destroyed the World Trade Center in New York City, New York on September 11, 2001.

Candidate Obama on the campaign trail pledged to remove the United States from Iraq in sixteen months, if he were to be elected President.  He argued before the invasion (in 2002) that it was a needless waste of American lives and resources, that it removed the focus from retaliation and revenge on al Qaeda (who perpetrated the attacks), and that it was a “dumb war.”  Unfortunately for him, the realities of our involvement are mounting against the audacity of his original stance, and the tempered pledge of his latter.

He has now announced that the US is leaving Iraq . . . sort of.  In nineteen months, in August of 2010, all combat troops will be removed from Iraq.  Mind you, two combat brigades renamed advisors (I saw a bumper sticker that read, “Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam”) and up to 50,000 troops will remain.  This sounds eerily similar to Candidate McCain’s claim that the United States might remain in Iraq, “up to 100 years.”  Speaking of Senator McCain, he is now supporting the President’s plan to withdraw and redirect combat troops, while the President’s own party is attacking his withdrawal because he’s leaving troops there.  While I’m for holding the executive branch accountable and checking its power, the Dems are beginning to feed on themselves again.

Neither of the extremes on Iraq, 1) we were wrong to go in, so lets get out now, nor 2) we liberated Iraq, and it is a “good war” are correct.  What is true is that we are in a hell of a mess, and the blathering response is not helpful to the President, engaging for the troops, or emblematic of the moral and intellectual leadership that we as a nation have enjoyed in the past.

We have a moral obligation to LEAVE IRAQ in a way that leaves A FUNCTIONING IRAQI GOVERNMENT.  And the “you didn’t do what you said you would” finger in the face whining that both parties are doing is singularly ridiculous in the face of the coffins we’re now allowed to see, the sacrifice our soldiers have been ordered to make, and the gaping holes in our national character we must begin to mend.

The President is doing a very good job cleaning up the messes he inherited.  It’s simply going to take some time.

Today, I can announce that our review is complete, and that the United States will pursue a new strategy to end the war in Iraq through a transition to full Iraqi responsibility.

Remarks of President Barack Obama – Responsibly Ending the War in Iraq

Repudiating Bush

Obama sets firm date to end Iraq war he inherited

On the right track, finally, in Iraq

Obama says most troops will leave Iraq by 2010

Obama’s Iraq Speech Receives Mixed Reviews on Capitol Hill

Democrats voice concerns on Obama’s Iraq drawdown plan

Most support plan to bolster U.S. troops in Afghanistan

Playing the Race Card

A fellow blogger called me a “hyper-sensitive weenie”  for stating in a logical, detailed fashion how the New York Post turned into a racist rag on my birthday.  South Carolina’s Governor’s spokesman responded to  House Majority Whip James Clyburn by saying he is playing the race card.  Attorney General Eric Holder stated that we are “a nation of cowards when it comes to discussing matters of race.”  The blogosphere has been atwitter with criticism.  When then-candidate Barack Obama noted that he “doesn’t look like the other presidents on the dollar bills,” the McCain campaign accused him of playing the race card.

Why is it when black folk want to talk about issues of race, or racism, prejudice or discrimination, they are accused of playing the race card?  All of these black men who raised the issue of race have been immediately “taken to task” for speaking on the issue, but white politicians only want to discuss it on Martin Luther King’s birthday, or maybe in a speech during February when they can say how far we’ve come.  Latino politicians speak a little more openly, but mostly from a “can’t we all get along” perspective with the black community.

The discussion about race is long and deep, and is usually held in homogeneous groups.  The election of Barack Obama, a black man with African and Anglo heritage, is allowing us to hold these conversations more openly . . . but with the knee jerk guilt of many majority citizens, when it comes to policy issues (Governor Jindal is taking federal monies for Louisiana to help repair from Bush’s FEMA disaster with Katrina, but he doesn’t want to accept stimulus funds which would directly impact and improve poor black communities in New Orleans) our discussions morph into debate and end in demagoguery.

I like to play blackjack.  But just because I’m talking about black, Jack, doesn’t mean I’m playing the race card.

Update:  The NAACP is calling for the cartoonist’s and the editor’s firings.

Holder ‘nation of cowards’ remark blasted, praised

New York Post apologizes for, yet still defends, chimp cartoon

Visible Man

Clyburn: Opposition To Stimulus Is Slap In Face

Happy Birthday to Me – Post-Racial America?

The racial divide v. the generation gap