John Dunbar
October 27, 2008 12:00am
TROUBLED US banks could use the US Government's $US700 billion bailout to buy rival banks, pay bonuses, or simply hoard, according to reports.
As the economic crisis worsens, lawmakers on both sides of Congress are starting to gripe that the much-touted $A1.04 trillion rescue package is seemingly far different from the one they were sold by the Bush administration.
The bailout was initially to be used in buying devalued mortgage-backed securities from tottering banks to unclog frozen credit markets.
Then it was about using $US250 billion of it to buy stakes in banks. The idea was that banks would use the money to start making loans again.
But reports are surfacing that bankers may instead use the money to buy other banks, pay dividends, give employees a raise and executives a bonus, or just sit on it.
Three weeks after becoming law, and with the first dollar of the $US700 billion yet to go out, officials are just starting to discuss helping strapped homeowners to avoid foreclosure.
But also of concern to some senators is the seeming change of tack from Treasury.
In buying equity stakes in banks, Treasury has "deviated significantly from its original course", says Senator Richard Shelby, on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. Senator Shelby was one Republican who opposed the bailout.
The centrepiece of the Emergency Economic Stabilisation Act is the 'troubled asset relief program' or TARP for short. Critics note that tarps are used to cover things up.
The money was to go into buying "toxic" mortgage-backed securities whose value has slid in step with home prices. But Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson then followed European governments into the banking business, diverting $US250 billion to buy stock in healthy banks to spur lending.
Bank executives hinted they might instead use it for acquisitions. Chairman of the Senate banking committee, Christopher Dodd, said this move was "beyond troubling".
A day after Senator Dodd made the comment, the government confirmed that PNC Financial Services Group was approved to receive $US7.7 billion in return for company stock. At the same time, PNC said it was acquiring National City Corp for $US5.58 billion.
Other planned uses of the money have lawmakers bristling, even though there is nothing in the law that they just wrote to prevent those uses.
Senator Charles Schumer questioned allowing banks that accept bailout bucks to continue paying dividends on their common stock.
He said he also feared banks might stuff the money "under the proverbial mattress" rather than make loans.
Neel Kashkari, head of the Treasury's financial stability program, said there are few strings attached to the capital-infusion program because too many rules would discourage financial institutions from participating.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Uses for $700 billion bailout money ever shifting
By JOHN DUNBAR – 5 days ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — First, the $700 billion rescue for the economy was about buying devalued mortgage-backed securities from tottering banks to unclog frozen credit markets.
Then it was about using $250 billion of it to buy stakes in banks. The idea was that banks would use the money to start making loans again.
But reports surfaced that bankers might instead use the money to buy other banks, pay dividends, give employees a raise and executives a bonus, or just sit on it. Insurance companies now want a piece; maybe automakers, too, even though Congress has approved $25 billion in low-interest loans for them.
Three weeks after becoming law, and with the first dollar of the $700 billion yet to go out, officials are just beginning to talk about helping a few strapped homeowners keep the foreclosure wolf from the door.
As the crisis worsens, the government's reaction keeps changing. Lawmakers in both parties are starting to gripe that the bailout is turning out to be far different from what the Bush administration sold to Congress.
In buying equity stakes in banks, the Treasury has "deviated significantly from its original course," says Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, the top Republican on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. "We need to examine closely the reason for this change," said Shelby, who opposed the bailout.
The centerpiece of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act is the "troubled asset relief program," or TARP for short. Critics note that tarps are used to cover things up. The money was to be devoted to buying "toxic" mortgage-backed securities whose value has fallen in lockstep with home prices.
But once European governments said they were going into the banking business, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson followed suit and diverted $250 billion to buy stock in healthy banks to spur lending.
Bank executives hinted they might instead use it for acquisitions. Sen. Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Senate banking committee, said this development was "beyond troubling."
Sure enough, a day after Dodd, D-Conn., made the comment, the government confirmed that PNC Financial Services Group Inc. was approved to receive $7.7 billion in return for company stock. At the same time, PNC said it was acquiring National City Corp. for $5.58 billion.
"Although there will be some consolidation, that's not the driver behind this program," Paulson recently told PBS talk show host Charlie Rose. "The driver is to have our healthy banks be well-capitalized so that they can play the role they need to play for our country right now."
Other planned uses of the bailout money have lawmakers protesting, although it is only fair to note there is nothing in the law that they just wrote to prevent those uses.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. questioned allowing banks that accept bailout bucks to continue paying dividends on their common stock.
"There are far better uses of taxpayer dollars than continuing dividend payments to shareholders," he said.
Schumer, whose constituents include Wall Street bankers, said he also fears that they might stuff the money "under the proverbial mattress" rather than make loans.
Neel Kashkari, head of the Treasury's financial stability program, told Dodd's committee this past week that there are few strings attached to the capital-infusion program because too many rules would discourage financial institutions from participating.
As the bank plan has become a priority, the effort to buy troubled assets has receded from the headlines. Potential conflicts of interest pose all kinds of problems in finding qualified companies to manage that program.
"Firms with the relevant financial expertise may also hold assets that become eligible for sale into the TARP or represent clients who hold troubled assets," Kashkari said.
The challenge was made plain when the Treasury hired the Bank of New York Mellon Corp. as "custodian" of the troubled assets purchase program. The bank will conduct "reverse auctions" to buy the toxic securities on behalf of the Treasury. The lower the price they set, the better chance sellers have of getting rid of the devalued securities.
On the same day it hired Mellon, the Treasury also picked the company to receive a $3 billion investment as part of the capital-infusion program. The same bank hired to help manage part of the economic rescue plan became a beneficiary of it.
With the Nov. 4 election nearing, lawmakers decided it was important to remind the government officials running the bailout program about parts of the law aimed at helping distressed homeowners by offering federal guarantees to mortgages renegotiated down to lower monthly payments.
"The key to our nation's economic recovery is the recovery of the housing market," Dodd said. "And the key to recovery of the housing market is reducing foreclosures."
Sheila Bair, who heads the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., responded that her agency is working "closely and creatively" with Treasury officials to "realize the potential benefits of this authority."
WASHINGTON (AP) — First, the $700 billion rescue for the economy was about buying devalued mortgage-backed securities from tottering banks to unclog frozen credit markets.
Then it was about using $250 billion of it to buy stakes in banks. The idea was that banks would use the money to start making loans again.
But reports surfaced that bankers might instead use the money to buy other banks, pay dividends, give employees a raise and executives a bonus, or just sit on it. Insurance companies now want a piece; maybe automakers, too, even though Congress has approved $25 billion in low-interest loans for them.
Three weeks after becoming law, and with the first dollar of the $700 billion yet to go out, officials are just beginning to talk about helping a few strapped homeowners keep the foreclosure wolf from the door.
As the crisis worsens, the government's reaction keeps changing. Lawmakers in both parties are starting to gripe that the bailout is turning out to be far different from what the Bush administration sold to Congress.
In buying equity stakes in banks, the Treasury has "deviated significantly from its original course," says Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, the top Republican on the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee. "We need to examine closely the reason for this change," said Shelby, who opposed the bailout.
The centerpiece of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act is the "troubled asset relief program," or TARP for short. Critics note that tarps are used to cover things up. The money was to be devoted to buying "toxic" mortgage-backed securities whose value has fallen in lockstep with home prices.
But once European governments said they were going into the banking business, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson followed suit and diverted $250 billion to buy stock in healthy banks to spur lending.
Bank executives hinted they might instead use it for acquisitions. Sen. Christopher Dodd, chairman of the Senate banking committee, said this development was "beyond troubling."
Sure enough, a day after Dodd, D-Conn., made the comment, the government confirmed that PNC Financial Services Group Inc. was approved to receive $7.7 billion in return for company stock. At the same time, PNC said it was acquiring National City Corp. for $5.58 billion.
"Although there will be some consolidation, that's not the driver behind this program," Paulson recently told PBS talk show host Charlie Rose. "The driver is to have our healthy banks be well-capitalized so that they can play the role they need to play for our country right now."
Other planned uses of the bailout money have lawmakers protesting, although it is only fair to note there is nothing in the law that they just wrote to prevent those uses.
Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. questioned allowing banks that accept bailout bucks to continue paying dividends on their common stock.
"There are far better uses of taxpayer dollars than continuing dividend payments to shareholders," he said.
Schumer, whose constituents include Wall Street bankers, said he also fears that they might stuff the money "under the proverbial mattress" rather than make loans.
Neel Kashkari, head of the Treasury's financial stability program, told Dodd's committee this past week that there are few strings attached to the capital-infusion program because too many rules would discourage financial institutions from participating.
As the bank plan has become a priority, the effort to buy troubled assets has receded from the headlines. Potential conflicts of interest pose all kinds of problems in finding qualified companies to manage that program.
"Firms with the relevant financial expertise may also hold assets that become eligible for sale into the TARP or represent clients who hold troubled assets," Kashkari said.
The challenge was made plain when the Treasury hired the Bank of New York Mellon Corp. as "custodian" of the troubled assets purchase program. The bank will conduct "reverse auctions" to buy the toxic securities on behalf of the Treasury. The lower the price they set, the better chance sellers have of getting rid of the devalued securities.
On the same day it hired Mellon, the Treasury also picked the company to receive a $3 billion investment as part of the capital-infusion program. The same bank hired to help manage part of the economic rescue plan became a beneficiary of it.
With the Nov. 4 election nearing, lawmakers decided it was important to remind the government officials running the bailout program about parts of the law aimed at helping distressed homeowners by offering federal guarantees to mortgages renegotiated down to lower monthly payments.
"The key to our nation's economic recovery is the recovery of the housing market," Dodd said. "And the key to recovery of the housing market is reducing foreclosures."
Sheila Bair, who heads the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., responded that her agency is working "closely and creatively" with Treasury officials to "realize the potential benefits of this authority."
World Tires of Rule by Dollar
Paul Craig Roberts
Counterpunch
October 30, 2008
What explains the paradox of the dollar’s sharp rise in value against other currencies (except the Japanese yen) despite disproportionate US exposure to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression?
The toxic American derivatives were marketed worldwide by Wall Street.
The answer does not lie in improved fundamentals for the US economy or better prospects for the dollar to retain its reserve currency role.
The rise in the dollar’s exchange value is due to two factors.
One factor is the traditional flight to the reserve currency that results from panic. People are simply doing what they have always done. Pam Martens predicted correctly that panic demand for US Treasury bills would boost the US dollar.
The other factor is the unwinding of the carry trade. The carry trade originated in extremely low Japanese interest rates. Investors and speculators borrowed Japanese yen at an interest rate of one-half of one percent, converted the yen to other currencies, and purchased debt instruments from other countries that pay much higher interest rates. In effect, they were getting practically free funds from Japan to lend to others paying higher interest.
The financial crisis has reversed this process. The toxic American derivatives were marketed worldwide by Wall Street. They have endangered the balance sheets and solvency of financial institutions throughout the world, including national governments, such as Iceland and Hungary.
Banks and governments that invested in the troubled American financial instruments found their own debt instruments in jeopardy.
Those who used yen loans to purchase, for example, debt instruments from European banks or Icelandic bonds, faced potentially catastrophic losses. Investors and speculators sold their higher-yielding financial instruments in a scramble for dollars and yen in order to pay off their Japanese loans. This drove up the values of the yen and the US dollar, the reserve currency that can be used to repay debts, and drove down the values of other currencies.
The dollar’s rise is temporary, and its prospects are bleak. The US trade deficit will lessen due to less consumer spending during recession, but it will remain the largest in the world and one that the US cannot close by exporting more. The way the US trade deficit is financed is by foreigners acquiring more dollar assets, with which their portfolios are already heavily weighted.
The US government’s budget deficit is large and growing, adding hundreds of billions of dollars more to an already large national debt. As investors flee equities into US government bills, the market for US Treasuries will temporarily depend less on foreign governments. Nevertheless, the burden on foreigners and on world savings of having to finance American consumption, the US government’s wars and military budget, and the US financial bailout is increasingly resented.
This resentment, combined with the harm done to America’s reputation by the financial crisis, has led to numerous calls for a new financial order in which the US plays a substantially lesser role. “Overcoming the financial crisis” are code words for the rest of the world’s intent to overthrow US financial hegemony.
Brazil, Russia, India and China have formed a new group (BRIC) to coordinate their interests at the November financial summit in Washington, D.C.
On October 28, RIA Novosti reported that Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin suggested to China that the two countries use their own currencies in their bilateral trade, thus avoiding the use of the dollar. China’s prime Minister Wen Jiabao replied that strengthening bilateral relations is strategic.
Europe has also served notice that it intends to exert a new leadership role. Four members of the Group of Seven industrial nations, France, Britain, Germany and Italy, used the financial crisis to call for sweeping reforms of the world financial system. Jose Manual Barroso, president of the European Commission, said that a new world financial system is possible only “if Europe has a leadership role.”
Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said that the “economic egoism” of America’s “unipolar vision of the world” is a ”dead-end policy.”
China’s massive foreign exchange reserves and its strong position in manufacturing have given China the leadership role in Asia. The deputy prime minister of Thailand recently designated the Chinese yuan as “the rightful and anointed convertible currency of the world.”
Normally, the Chinese are very circumspect in what they say, but on October 24 Reuters reported that the People’s Daily, the official government newspaper, in a front-page commentary accused the US of plundering “global wealth by exploiting the dollar’s dominance.”
To correct this unacceptable situation, the commentary called for Asian and European countries to “banish the US dollar from their direct trade relations, relying only on their own currencies.” And this step, said the commentary, is merely a starting step in overthrowing dollar dominance.
The Chinese are expressing other thoughts that would get the attention of a less deluded and arrogant American government. Zhou Jiangong, editor of the online publication, Chinastates.com, recently asked: “Why should China help the US to issue debt without end in the belief that the national credit of the US can expand without limit?”
Zhou Jiangong’s solution to American excesses is for China to take over Wall Street.
China has the money to do it, and the prudent Chinese would do a better job than the crowd of thieves who have destroyed America’s financial reputation while exploiting the world in pursuit of multi-million dollar bonuses.
Counterpunch
October 30, 2008
What explains the paradox of the dollar’s sharp rise in value against other currencies (except the Japanese yen) despite disproportionate US exposure to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression?
The toxic American derivatives were marketed worldwide by Wall Street.
The answer does not lie in improved fundamentals for the US economy or better prospects for the dollar to retain its reserve currency role.
The rise in the dollar’s exchange value is due to two factors.
One factor is the traditional flight to the reserve currency that results from panic. People are simply doing what they have always done. Pam Martens predicted correctly that panic demand for US Treasury bills would boost the US dollar.
The other factor is the unwinding of the carry trade. The carry trade originated in extremely low Japanese interest rates. Investors and speculators borrowed Japanese yen at an interest rate of one-half of one percent, converted the yen to other currencies, and purchased debt instruments from other countries that pay much higher interest rates. In effect, they were getting practically free funds from Japan to lend to others paying higher interest.
The financial crisis has reversed this process. The toxic American derivatives were marketed worldwide by Wall Street. They have endangered the balance sheets and solvency of financial institutions throughout the world, including national governments, such as Iceland and Hungary.
Banks and governments that invested in the troubled American financial instruments found their own debt instruments in jeopardy.
Those who used yen loans to purchase, for example, debt instruments from European banks or Icelandic bonds, faced potentially catastrophic losses. Investors and speculators sold their higher-yielding financial instruments in a scramble for dollars and yen in order to pay off their Japanese loans. This drove up the values of the yen and the US dollar, the reserve currency that can be used to repay debts, and drove down the values of other currencies.
The dollar’s rise is temporary, and its prospects are bleak. The US trade deficit will lessen due to less consumer spending during recession, but it will remain the largest in the world and one that the US cannot close by exporting more. The way the US trade deficit is financed is by foreigners acquiring more dollar assets, with which their portfolios are already heavily weighted.
The US government’s budget deficit is large and growing, adding hundreds of billions of dollars more to an already large national debt. As investors flee equities into US government bills, the market for US Treasuries will temporarily depend less on foreign governments. Nevertheless, the burden on foreigners and on world savings of having to finance American consumption, the US government’s wars and military budget, and the US financial bailout is increasingly resented.
This resentment, combined with the harm done to America’s reputation by the financial crisis, has led to numerous calls for a new financial order in which the US plays a substantially lesser role. “Overcoming the financial crisis” are code words for the rest of the world’s intent to overthrow US financial hegemony.
Brazil, Russia, India and China have formed a new group (BRIC) to coordinate their interests at the November financial summit in Washington, D.C.
On October 28, RIA Novosti reported that Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin suggested to China that the two countries use their own currencies in their bilateral trade, thus avoiding the use of the dollar. China’s prime Minister Wen Jiabao replied that strengthening bilateral relations is strategic.
Europe has also served notice that it intends to exert a new leadership role. Four members of the Group of Seven industrial nations, France, Britain, Germany and Italy, used the financial crisis to call for sweeping reforms of the world financial system. Jose Manual Barroso, president of the European Commission, said that a new world financial system is possible only “if Europe has a leadership role.”
Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said that the “economic egoism” of America’s “unipolar vision of the world” is a ”dead-end policy.”
China’s massive foreign exchange reserves and its strong position in manufacturing have given China the leadership role in Asia. The deputy prime minister of Thailand recently designated the Chinese yuan as “the rightful and anointed convertible currency of the world.”
Normally, the Chinese are very circumspect in what they say, but on October 24 Reuters reported that the People’s Daily, the official government newspaper, in a front-page commentary accused the US of plundering “global wealth by exploiting the dollar’s dominance.”
To correct this unacceptable situation, the commentary called for Asian and European countries to “banish the US dollar from their direct trade relations, relying only on their own currencies.” And this step, said the commentary, is merely a starting step in overthrowing dollar dominance.
The Chinese are expressing other thoughts that would get the attention of a less deluded and arrogant American government. Zhou Jiangong, editor of the online publication, Chinastates.com, recently asked: “Why should China help the US to issue debt without end in the belief that the national credit of the US can expand without limit?”
Zhou Jiangong’s solution to American excesses is for China to take over Wall Street.
China has the money to do it, and the prudent Chinese would do a better job than the crowd of thieves who have destroyed America’s financial reputation while exploiting the world in pursuit of multi-million dollar bonuses.
The Post-Election Struggle to Come
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
For a downloadable MP3 copy of this Black Agenda Radio commentary visit the Black Agenda Radio archive page.
The election is now upon us. Barring massive theft - and only a fool thinks the Republicans will not steal as massively as they possibly can - it appears Barack Obama will be the next President of the United States. There is something that is much more certain than Obama's election, and that is, that the current economic crisis will deepen, punctuated with increasingly frequent upheavals as the capitalist system convulses in the throes of insurmountable contradictions. And there is another certainty: that Barack Obama will respond to these convulsions as his corporate friends and backers demand. He will try to do something about rebuilding U.S. infrastructure, but not necessarily in ways that benefit the inner cities, and certainly not in ways that clash with corporate plans for urban America - plans that reserve little space for populations that presently live there. And whatever Barack Obama spends on people's needs will take a back seat to propping up the corporate sector, and feeding the all-devouring military industrial complex.
We know this is true, because Obama has already shown it to be so. The bailout of Wall Street, which he embraced instantaneously, is but the first of many demands that will be made on the national treasury. All of Obama's economic advisors, the ones that count, are steeped in the corporate culture: organized theft. They serve government in order to serve their class. Obama picked them, so there is no reason to doubt he will follow their advice. Which means every economic measure they undertake will be geared to corporate health, not popular welfare. They will build barricades to preserve what is left of the corporate order, but it will never be enough to withstand the shocks that are in store. And the people will wind up with little to nothing.
What the bankers don't get, the military will. Obama has not only committed to maintaining the current structures of the U.S. Armed Forces, but to expanding the "boots on the ground" by 92,000 soldiers and Marines. These troops will have to be sent somewhere, requiring new overseas facilities, a whole new generation of equipment, and increases in salaries and benefits to keep the recruits coming. But most of all, the new administration will face tremendous pressures to deploy forces to project military power where U.S. economic power is no longer decisive - and that will mean a lot of foreign destinations in the coming months and years. Before the crisis of finance capital hit, the military was already strangling the nation's ability to meet human needs.
Only a fundamental break with militarism can halt this spiral into bankruptcy and war. But nothing in Barack Obama's background offers any evidence he is capable of making that break.
No, the American people are not doomed, because they will fight back, as people always do. But that bleak struggle will take place under very different direction than today's so-called Black and progressive "leadership," most of whom are hopelessly wedded to Obama. They claim they will take up the people's cause, after the election. But nobody should believe them. Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente, of the Green Party, will be there, part of the new leadership to replace those who capitulated to Obama. Elections come and go. Struggle is a constant.
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com
For a downloadable MP3 copy of this Black Agenda Radio commentary visit the Black Agenda Radio archive page.
The election is now upon us. Barring massive theft - and only a fool thinks the Republicans will not steal as massively as they possibly can - it appears Barack Obama will be the next President of the United States. There is something that is much more certain than Obama's election, and that is, that the current economic crisis will deepen, punctuated with increasingly frequent upheavals as the capitalist system convulses in the throes of insurmountable contradictions. And there is another certainty: that Barack Obama will respond to these convulsions as his corporate friends and backers demand. He will try to do something about rebuilding U.S. infrastructure, but not necessarily in ways that benefit the inner cities, and certainly not in ways that clash with corporate plans for urban America - plans that reserve little space for populations that presently live there. And whatever Barack Obama spends on people's needs will take a back seat to propping up the corporate sector, and feeding the all-devouring military industrial complex.
We know this is true, because Obama has already shown it to be so. The bailout of Wall Street, which he embraced instantaneously, is but the first of many demands that will be made on the national treasury. All of Obama's economic advisors, the ones that count, are steeped in the corporate culture: organized theft. They serve government in order to serve their class. Obama picked them, so there is no reason to doubt he will follow their advice. Which means every economic measure they undertake will be geared to corporate health, not popular welfare. They will build barricades to preserve what is left of the corporate order, but it will never be enough to withstand the shocks that are in store. And the people will wind up with little to nothing.
What the bankers don't get, the military will. Obama has not only committed to maintaining the current structures of the U.S. Armed Forces, but to expanding the "boots on the ground" by 92,000 soldiers and Marines. These troops will have to be sent somewhere, requiring new overseas facilities, a whole new generation of equipment, and increases in salaries and benefits to keep the recruits coming. But most of all, the new administration will face tremendous pressures to deploy forces to project military power where U.S. economic power is no longer decisive - and that will mean a lot of foreign destinations in the coming months and years. Before the crisis of finance capital hit, the military was already strangling the nation's ability to meet human needs.
Only a fundamental break with militarism can halt this spiral into bankruptcy and war. But nothing in Barack Obama's background offers any evidence he is capable of making that break.
No, the American people are not doomed, because they will fight back, as people always do. But that bleak struggle will take place under very different direction than today's so-called Black and progressive "leadership," most of whom are hopelessly wedded to Obama. They claim they will take up the people's cause, after the election. But nobody should believe them. Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente, of the Green Party, will be there, part of the new leadership to replace those who capitulated to Obama. Elections come and go. Struggle is a constant.
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com
Obama Panders to Racists
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
For a downloadable MP3 copy of this Black Agenda Radio commentary visit the Black Agenda Radio archive page.
With unseemly haste, the corporate media consensus seems to have rushed to the conclusion that the so-called "Bradley Effect" is a myth; that white covert racism will not be a significant factor on November 4, and that the polls are accurately reflecting a looming landslide for Barack Obama.
Obama may, indeed, win by a landslide, but such an outcome most certainly would not signal that race and racism are no longer huge factors in American political life in general, or in this election cycle, in particular. Indeed, the zeal with which corporate pundits seek to declare the end of race as a defining element of U.S. politics serves only to confirm its overarching presence in the political culture.
The Bradley Effect refers to the tendency of some whites to lie to pollsters about their intentions to vote for a Black candidate. Not only is it asserted that the Bradley Effect is no longer operative - that whites are telling pollsters the truth this time around - but some pundits claim that the phenomenon is an urban legend. As a journalist since 1970, I have observed "The Effect" in action on many occasions, with white votes for Black candidates in local races consistently lower than the polls predicted. The Bradley Effect is an historical reality, one that every political campaign in racially mixed jurisdictions has taken into account. Those who attempt to discredit the Bradley Effect are, in reality, seeking to declare racism in America a non-issue, unworthy of further attention. They have seized on Barack Obama's campaign as proof that Black agitation is outdated and even harmful to the national interest.
Obama has encouraged whites to believe that, once he is in the White House, Black complaints about racism in public life can be deemed irrelevant; that the long debate over white skin privilege and entrenched institutional racism will be over. The most shameless proponent of this baseless notion is Frank Rich, a supposedly liberal columnist for the New York Times. In a piece titled "In Defense of White Americans," Rich cites Obama's high polling marks as sufficiently compelling to declare that "It's past time to come to the unfairly maligned white America's defense." Rich ridicules the idea that "a black guy is doomed among Reagan Democrats, Joe Sixpacks, rednecks, Joe the Plumbers or whichever condescending term you want to choose."
Well, Rednecks, Reagan Democrats and all kinds of racists may well vote for Obama. He has praised their hero, Ronald Reagan, effectively declaring that the world-class race-baiter wasn't a racist, after all. Obama has blamed his own former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and every other Black that complains about racism for creating harmful diversions that stand in the way of solving the nation's "real" problems. Barack Obama is successful because he coddles racists, in hopes of getting their vote. But a Black candidate's willingness to malign other Blacks and pander to racists does not signal the end of racism. Rather, it confirms that race is central to U.S. political life. Racists can vote for Obama, and feel good about themselves. But you won't find me celebrating.
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com
For a downloadable MP3 copy of this Black Agenda Radio commentary visit the Black Agenda Radio archive page.
With unseemly haste, the corporate media consensus seems to have rushed to the conclusion that the so-called "Bradley Effect" is a myth; that white covert racism will not be a significant factor on November 4, and that the polls are accurately reflecting a looming landslide for Barack Obama.
Obama may, indeed, win by a landslide, but such an outcome most certainly would not signal that race and racism are no longer huge factors in American political life in general, or in this election cycle, in particular. Indeed, the zeal with which corporate pundits seek to declare the end of race as a defining element of U.S. politics serves only to confirm its overarching presence in the political culture.
The Bradley Effect refers to the tendency of some whites to lie to pollsters about their intentions to vote for a Black candidate. Not only is it asserted that the Bradley Effect is no longer operative - that whites are telling pollsters the truth this time around - but some pundits claim that the phenomenon is an urban legend. As a journalist since 1970, I have observed "The Effect" in action on many occasions, with white votes for Black candidates in local races consistently lower than the polls predicted. The Bradley Effect is an historical reality, one that every political campaign in racially mixed jurisdictions has taken into account. Those who attempt to discredit the Bradley Effect are, in reality, seeking to declare racism in America a non-issue, unworthy of further attention. They have seized on Barack Obama's campaign as proof that Black agitation is outdated and even harmful to the national interest.
Obama has encouraged whites to believe that, once he is in the White House, Black complaints about racism in public life can be deemed irrelevant; that the long debate over white skin privilege and entrenched institutional racism will be over. The most shameless proponent of this baseless notion is Frank Rich, a supposedly liberal columnist for the New York Times. In a piece titled "In Defense of White Americans," Rich cites Obama's high polling marks as sufficiently compelling to declare that "It's past time to come to the unfairly maligned white America's defense." Rich ridicules the idea that "a black guy is doomed among Reagan Democrats, Joe Sixpacks, rednecks, Joe the Plumbers or whichever condescending term you want to choose."
Well, Rednecks, Reagan Democrats and all kinds of racists may well vote for Obama. He has praised their hero, Ronald Reagan, effectively declaring that the world-class race-baiter wasn't a racist, after all. Obama has blamed his own former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and every other Black that complains about racism for creating harmful diversions that stand in the way of solving the nation's "real" problems. Barack Obama is successful because he coddles racists, in hopes of getting their vote. But a Black candidate's willingness to malign other Blacks and pander to racists does not signal the end of racism. Rather, it confirms that race is central to U.S. political life. Racists can vote for Obama, and feel good about themselves. But you won't find me celebrating.
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com
The Racist Sheriff Rules in Phoenix
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
For a downloadable MP3 copy of this Black Agenda Radio commentary visit the Black Agenda Radio archive page.
It is broadly received wisdom that America has turned the corner on race, that the nation has already entered a post-Civil Rights era, in which those who complain about institutional racism and the vestiges of old-time Jim Crow should be dismissed as misguided at best, subversive at worst. It's rather easy to counter this false picture on the institutional racism front: the comparative racial statistics show an undeniable, living connection between past oppressions and present Black conditions. The sheer weight of numbers tells the tale in ways that no amount of celebrity anomalies like Tiger Woods, Oprah - even Barack Obama - can contradict.
Some of the old structures of brazen, unashamed racism are very much alive and kicking. Old-time racism in its most raw and barbaric form thrives in the criminal justice system: the American Gulag that is the shame of the planet. And the man who proudly personifies this system is Joe Arpaio, the sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, which includes metropolitan Phoenix. Arpaio was born in Massachusetts, but he is the living, breathing example of the racist lawman whose popularity flows from utter contempt for society's "Others," principally non-whites and the poor.
Arpaio is extremely popular because he acts out the worst prejudices and hatreds of a huge segment of the citizenry - large majorities of voters share his pathological personality traits, as demonstrated by Arpaio's consistent success at the polls. TV's 60 Minutes has twice featured Arpaio, whom they treat as a likeable character. This jailhouse tyrant is an American icon: the professional sadist as hero and role model. And there can be no doubt that racism is at the core of Arpaio's fame, as citizens lash out vicariously through him to mete out cruel humiliations on the hated "Other."
A federal judge has attempted to put some brakes on Arpaio's very public abuses of the over one hundred of thousand men and women who pass through the county jail every year. The judge ruled that Arpaio caused "needless suffering and deterioration" to mentally ill inmates, and fed prisoners unhealthy food in unsanitary cells, depriving them of medical screening and care. And those are just some of the abuses in one section of the huge jail facility.
Arpaio has made a career of abusing inmates. He operates so-called "volunteer" chain gangs for both men and women, makes male inmates wear pink underwear to humiliate them, and set up a tent city where daytime temperatures have been recorded at 150 degrees in the top bunks.
Arpaio displays his barbarism like a badge; he has been re-elected with strong majorities since 1992. Decent people in the Phoenix area tried to recall the sheriff in 2007, but failed to get enough signatures to put the measure on the ballot. The recall would have failed, anyway. A survey taken during the petition drive found that "nearly three out of four respondents opposed the recall, and 65 percent...held a positive opinion of Arpaio."
The Sheriff has recently taken to staging raids on public buildings in cities around the county, searching for undocumented aliens. Arpaio is the modern version of the southern sheriff with hound dogs and bullwhips, operating in one of the nation's biggest cities. Don't dare say old-style racism is a thing of the past. It is very much alive, and has many names; one of them is Joe Arpaio.
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com
For a downloadable MP3 copy of this Black Agenda Radio commentary visit the Black Agenda Radio archive page.
It is broadly received wisdom that America has turned the corner on race, that the nation has already entered a post-Civil Rights era, in which those who complain about institutional racism and the vestiges of old-time Jim Crow should be dismissed as misguided at best, subversive at worst. It's rather easy to counter this false picture on the institutional racism front: the comparative racial statistics show an undeniable, living connection between past oppressions and present Black conditions. The sheer weight of numbers tells the tale in ways that no amount of celebrity anomalies like Tiger Woods, Oprah - even Barack Obama - can contradict.
Some of the old structures of brazen, unashamed racism are very much alive and kicking. Old-time racism in its most raw and barbaric form thrives in the criminal justice system: the American Gulag that is the shame of the planet. And the man who proudly personifies this system is Joe Arpaio, the sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, which includes metropolitan Phoenix. Arpaio was born in Massachusetts, but he is the living, breathing example of the racist lawman whose popularity flows from utter contempt for society's "Others," principally non-whites and the poor.
Arpaio is extremely popular because he acts out the worst prejudices and hatreds of a huge segment of the citizenry - large majorities of voters share his pathological personality traits, as demonstrated by Arpaio's consistent success at the polls. TV's 60 Minutes has twice featured Arpaio, whom they treat as a likeable character. This jailhouse tyrant is an American icon: the professional sadist as hero and role model. And there can be no doubt that racism is at the core of Arpaio's fame, as citizens lash out vicariously through him to mete out cruel humiliations on the hated "Other."
A federal judge has attempted to put some brakes on Arpaio's very public abuses of the over one hundred of thousand men and women who pass through the county jail every year. The judge ruled that Arpaio caused "needless suffering and deterioration" to mentally ill inmates, and fed prisoners unhealthy food in unsanitary cells, depriving them of medical screening and care. And those are just some of the abuses in one section of the huge jail facility.
Arpaio has made a career of abusing inmates. He operates so-called "volunteer" chain gangs for both men and women, makes male inmates wear pink underwear to humiliate them, and set up a tent city where daytime temperatures have been recorded at 150 degrees in the top bunks.
Arpaio displays his barbarism like a badge; he has been re-elected with strong majorities since 1992. Decent people in the Phoenix area tried to recall the sheriff in 2007, but failed to get enough signatures to put the measure on the ballot. The recall would have failed, anyway. A survey taken during the petition drive found that "nearly three out of four respondents opposed the recall, and 65 percent...held a positive opinion of Arpaio."
The Sheriff has recently taken to staging raids on public buildings in cities around the county, searching for undocumented aliens. Arpaio is the modern version of the southern sheriff with hound dogs and bullwhips, operating in one of the nation's biggest cities. Don't dare say old-style racism is a thing of the past. It is very much alive, and has many names; one of them is Joe Arpaio.
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com
No Way to Hide Truth: Cell Phone Does Cause Tumor
Chanyut Phrukkumwong
NaturalNews
Thursday, Oct 30, 2008
Long-term exposure to electromagnetic radio waves at certain strengths does cause brain tumors. Just like in the case of cigarette smoking, which nobody realized could damage your health until the era where lung cancer caused by regular smoking showed up. Such warnings about the dangers from electromagnetic radio waves from cell phones have been around for some years now. But the reporting has not been very widespread because of the attempt to hide this truth from those who hold the stake, which is certainly the cell phone industry (manufacturers).
Dr. George Carlo is among the first scientists who warned the public about this danger. He refused a billion-dollar bribe from the cell phone industry who told him to keep quiet about the research results that he conducted. Take a look at his website, (http://www.safewireless.org).
Other honest doctors and health advocates have helped this warning to become more widespread and more understandable by comparing such dangers with the ones associated to smoking. Everybody mistook, at first, that smoking was healthy but we have later come to know that it is dangerous.
More warnings about cell phones can be found here (http://www.naturalnews.com/cell_phone.html) .
We may notice that such warnings about the danger of cell phone is usually put out by honest doctors, health advocates, health-related people while hidden by cell phone industries or technology-related people. Until recently, this issue was mentioned about by the technology-related web site like CNET or ZD net.
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/…
http://www.cnet.com/4520-6033_1-5741203…
Even though an objection against the research finding is also there, we know that it is only a voice from cell-phone industry who has tried its best to conceal this fact and to protect itself from losing the profits. This shows that the industry itself has already realized this truth simply because there is no way to hide it.
So what’s the deal? Is it possible to stop using cell phone? No way. Cell phone has become part of our daily lives. It helps us in case of emergency or while being in the place where we need to talk and no other safe communication device is available. We should take action to minimize such risk and to be responsible for our own health. Simply be smart. Take moderate practice. Make use of it but do not let it harm us. Use headset, use handsfree feature, use it only when a wired phone is not available, do not go for a long conversation, send a message instead of talking. There are quite a number of techniques to minimize the risk.
Also, we can be selective by choosing a cell phone model that emits minimum strength of electromagnetic waves possible. Check out here http://www.fda.gov/cellphones/qa.html#6.
Details about the concentration of electromagnetic waves at home noted in the following article is also of interest http://www.naturalnews.com/023307.html.
Since cell phone has become a world-wide public issue, everyone in the world uses it while its long-term use does cause some diseases, there should be a public law that helps administer the marketing, selling, and the use of cell phone the same way as on cigarettes or sports drinks. The law that enforces the labeling of warning message on every cell phone and/or cell phone shop like “Long-term use of cell phone causes cancer“, “Cell phone causes autism”, that prohibits children under the age of 15 or so (whose physical development is still not so endured as adult) to buy a cell phone is strongly encouraged.
Want more live evidence? Take a look at this now! >>> http://www.fitnesssavedmylife.com.
NaturalNews
Thursday, Oct 30, 2008
Long-term exposure to electromagnetic radio waves at certain strengths does cause brain tumors. Just like in the case of cigarette smoking, which nobody realized could damage your health until the era where lung cancer caused by regular smoking showed up. Such warnings about the dangers from electromagnetic radio waves from cell phones have been around for some years now. But the reporting has not been very widespread because of the attempt to hide this truth from those who hold the stake, which is certainly the cell phone industry (manufacturers).
Dr. George Carlo is among the first scientists who warned the public about this danger. He refused a billion-dollar bribe from the cell phone industry who told him to keep quiet about the research results that he conducted. Take a look at his website, (http://www.safewireless.org).
Other honest doctors and health advocates have helped this warning to become more widespread and more understandable by comparing such dangers with the ones associated to smoking. Everybody mistook, at first, that smoking was healthy but we have later come to know that it is dangerous.
More warnings about cell phones can be found here (http://www.naturalnews.com/cell_phone.html) .
We may notice that such warnings about the danger of cell phone is usually put out by honest doctors, health advocates, health-related people while hidden by cell phone industries or technology-related people. Until recently, this issue was mentioned about by the technology-related web site like CNET or ZD net.
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/…
http://www.cnet.com/4520-6033_1-5741203…
Even though an objection against the research finding is also there, we know that it is only a voice from cell-phone industry who has tried its best to conceal this fact and to protect itself from losing the profits. This shows that the industry itself has already realized this truth simply because there is no way to hide it.
So what’s the deal? Is it possible to stop using cell phone? No way. Cell phone has become part of our daily lives. It helps us in case of emergency or while being in the place where we need to talk and no other safe communication device is available. We should take action to minimize such risk and to be responsible for our own health. Simply be smart. Take moderate practice. Make use of it but do not let it harm us. Use headset, use handsfree feature, use it only when a wired phone is not available, do not go for a long conversation, send a message instead of talking. There are quite a number of techniques to minimize the risk.
Also, we can be selective by choosing a cell phone model that emits minimum strength of electromagnetic waves possible. Check out here http://www.fda.gov/cellphones/qa.html#6.
Details about the concentration of electromagnetic waves at home noted in the following article is also of interest http://www.naturalnews.com/023307.html.
Since cell phone has become a world-wide public issue, everyone in the world uses it while its long-term use does cause some diseases, there should be a public law that helps administer the marketing, selling, and the use of cell phone the same way as on cigarettes or sports drinks. The law that enforces the labeling of warning message on every cell phone and/or cell phone shop like “Long-term use of cell phone causes cancer“, “Cell phone causes autism”, that prohibits children under the age of 15 or so (whose physical development is still not so endured as adult) to buy a cell phone is strongly encouraged.
Want more live evidence? Take a look at this now! >>> http://www.fitnesssavedmylife.com.
Ex-Italian President: Provocateur Riots Then “Beat The Shit Out Of Protesters”
Cossiga says Italian government should “do what I did” under Operation GLADIO - infiltrate protest groups with agent provocateurs
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga has offered a solution to the Italian government in dealing with widespread demonstrations by students and teachers over a cut in state funding of education - use agent provocateurs to start riots and then have the police “beat the shit out of the protesters”.
Cossiga, former Italian President, Prime Minister, Minister of the Interior, and one of the founders of the Operation GLADIO covert intelligence unit, encouraged Silvio Berlusconi and current Minister of the Interior Robert Maroni to “do what I did when I was Minister of the Interior,” namely infiltrate what so far have been relatively peaceful demonstrations, radicalize them, start riots, then engender public support for a heavy-handed police response.
Cossiga’s full statement translated reads as follows.
“Maroni should do what I did when I was Minister of the Interior. University students? Let them do what they want. Withdraw the police from streets and universities, infiltrate the movement with provoking agents ready for anything ["agenti provocatori" is the Italian term] and let them devastate shops, put fire to the cars and put cities to the sword for ten days.
Then, strengthen by people’s support, the sound of the sirens from ambulances will have to overwhelm that from the police and carabinieri [italian military police]. Law enforcement officers should pitilessly beat the shit out of protesters and send them all to the hospital. They should not arrest them since the courts would free them immediately, but they should beat them savagely, and they should beat savagely as well those teachers that incites them: not old professors, just the young school teachers.”
Cossiga is essentially describing the problem-reaction-solution dialectic that he exploited when he was in government. Under the banner of Operation GLADIO, which was unveiled after parliamentary investigations in Italy, Switzerland and Belgium, NATO sponsored secret armies committed acts of violence and terrorism and blamed the attacks on left-wing political movements, allowing far-right governments to seize power in numerous European countries.
“You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game,” right-wing terrorist and GLADIO agent Vincezo Vinciguerra explained the so-called “strategy of tension” in sworn testimony.
“The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, the Italian public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security. This is the political logic that lies behind all the massacres and the bombings which remain unpunished, because the state cannot convict itself or declare itself responsible for what happened.”
GLADIO-orchestrated false flag terror attacks, such as the Bologna train bombing in 1980 which killed 85 people, were revealed during the Italian parliamentary investigation as having been overseen by elements of the U.S. intelligence apparatus. At the very least, U.S. intelligence sat on prior knowledge of bombings and allowed them to go ahead.
Cossiga’s call to infiltrate protest groups and provocateur violence, giving the police public backing to “beat the shit” out of them, is a false flag tactic that has been employed numerous times during major protest events around the world.
Indeed, the scenario Cossiga is describing is exactly what happened at the violent 2001 Genoa G8 summit, during which Italian police planted bombs in headquarters being used by protest groups as an excuse to conduct raids and “beat the shit” out of peaceful demonstrators.
A similar tactic was also attempted during last year’s SPP summit protest in Quebec Canada. Canadian police were caught dressed up as rock-wielding anarchists intent on causing riots.
Peaceful protesters identified the agent provocateurs and the police later had to admit the fact despite going to the lengths of publicly staging the arrests of their own officers.
Last year, Cossiga drew on his first-hand personal experience in conducting false flag terror operations to declare that 9/11 was an inside job and that this fact was “common knowledge” amongst global intelligence agencies.
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga has offered a solution to the Italian government in dealing with widespread demonstrations by students and teachers over a cut in state funding of education - use agent provocateurs to start riots and then have the police “beat the shit out of the protesters”.
Cossiga, former Italian President, Prime Minister, Minister of the Interior, and one of the founders of the Operation GLADIO covert intelligence unit, encouraged Silvio Berlusconi and current Minister of the Interior Robert Maroni to “do what I did when I was Minister of the Interior,” namely infiltrate what so far have been relatively peaceful demonstrations, radicalize them, start riots, then engender public support for a heavy-handed police response.
Cossiga’s full statement translated reads as follows.
“Maroni should do what I did when I was Minister of the Interior. University students? Let them do what they want. Withdraw the police from streets and universities, infiltrate the movement with provoking agents ready for anything ["agenti provocatori" is the Italian term] and let them devastate shops, put fire to the cars and put cities to the sword for ten days.
Then, strengthen by people’s support, the sound of the sirens from ambulances will have to overwhelm that from the police and carabinieri [italian military police]. Law enforcement officers should pitilessly beat the shit out of protesters and send them all to the hospital. They should not arrest them since the courts would free them immediately, but they should beat them savagely, and they should beat savagely as well those teachers that incites them: not old professors, just the young school teachers.”
Cossiga is essentially describing the problem-reaction-solution dialectic that he exploited when he was in government. Under the banner of Operation GLADIO, which was unveiled after parliamentary investigations in Italy, Switzerland and Belgium, NATO sponsored secret armies committed acts of violence and terrorism and blamed the attacks on left-wing political movements, allowing far-right governments to seize power in numerous European countries.
“You had to attack civilians, the people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game,” right-wing terrorist and GLADIO agent Vincezo Vinciguerra explained the so-called “strategy of tension” in sworn testimony.
“The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, the Italian public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security. This is the political logic that lies behind all the massacres and the bombings which remain unpunished, because the state cannot convict itself or declare itself responsible for what happened.”
GLADIO-orchestrated false flag terror attacks, such as the Bologna train bombing in 1980 which killed 85 people, were revealed during the Italian parliamentary investigation as having been overseen by elements of the U.S. intelligence apparatus. At the very least, U.S. intelligence sat on prior knowledge of bombings and allowed them to go ahead.
Cossiga’s call to infiltrate protest groups and provocateur violence, giving the police public backing to “beat the shit” out of them, is a false flag tactic that has been employed numerous times during major protest events around the world.
Indeed, the scenario Cossiga is describing is exactly what happened at the violent 2001 Genoa G8 summit, during which Italian police planted bombs in headquarters being used by protest groups as an excuse to conduct raids and “beat the shit” out of peaceful demonstrators.
A similar tactic was also attempted during last year’s SPP summit protest in Quebec Canada. Canadian police were caught dressed up as rock-wielding anarchists intent on causing riots.
Peaceful protesters identified the agent provocateurs and the police later had to admit the fact despite going to the lengths of publicly staging the arrests of their own officers.
Last year, Cossiga drew on his first-hand personal experience in conducting false flag terror operations to declare that 9/11 was an inside job and that this fact was “common knowledge” amongst global intelligence agencies.
Time for Troy is Now!
[col. writ. 10/22/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
As these words are written, Troy Davis's life may be measured in hours, if Georgia has its way.
His case is proof positive of how easy it is for a state to send someone to the death house, and how hellishly difficult it is to fight one's way out.
His case is ripped throughout with false testimony, with 80% of his trial witnesses now admitting as much. Of 9 people who testified at trial, 7 have recanted, saying they were forced by the cops to lie on him.
One, Jeffrey Sapp, swore by affidavit that "The police came and talked to me and put a lot of pressure on me to say 'Troy said this' or 'Troy said that.' I got tired of them harassing me, and they made it clear that the only way they would leave me alone is if I told them what they wanted to hear. I told them that Troy told me he did it, but it wasn't true. Troy never said that or anything like that."
But these recantations have fallen on deaf judicial ears, both in Georgia, and in Washington. Indeed, there has never even been a hearing on these recantations.''
In another era, Davis would've had a new trial. But that was before the draconian AEDPA (Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act), of 1996, (signed into law by Bill Clinton, by the way), that makes it increasingly difficult for judges to grant relief -- or even to get hearings.
In fact, even the state court judge, Georgia's Supreme Court Justice Leah Ward Sears, in her dissenting opinion, noted that the bar has been set so high for granting a new trial that no one could meet it.
Not even Troy Davis -- an innocent man.
If Troy Davis is to be saved, it will take the People to demand it.
For more information, contact: www.amnestyusa.org/troydavis or
www.troyanthonydavis.org.
-- (c) '08 maj
As these words are written, Troy Davis's life may be measured in hours, if Georgia has its way.
His case is proof positive of how easy it is for a state to send someone to the death house, and how hellishly difficult it is to fight one's way out.
His case is ripped throughout with false testimony, with 80% of his trial witnesses now admitting as much. Of 9 people who testified at trial, 7 have recanted, saying they were forced by the cops to lie on him.
One, Jeffrey Sapp, swore by affidavit that "The police came and talked to me and put a lot of pressure on me to say 'Troy said this' or 'Troy said that.' I got tired of them harassing me, and they made it clear that the only way they would leave me alone is if I told them what they wanted to hear. I told them that Troy told me he did it, but it wasn't true. Troy never said that or anything like that."
But these recantations have fallen on deaf judicial ears, both in Georgia, and in Washington. Indeed, there has never even been a hearing on these recantations.''
In another era, Davis would've had a new trial. But that was before the draconian AEDPA (Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act), of 1996, (signed into law by Bill Clinton, by the way), that makes it increasingly difficult for judges to grant relief -- or even to get hearings.
In fact, even the state court judge, Georgia's Supreme Court Justice Leah Ward Sears, in her dissenting opinion, noted that the bar has been set so high for granting a new trial that no one could meet it.
Not even Troy Davis -- an innocent man.
If Troy Davis is to be saved, it will take the People to demand it.
For more information, contact: www.amnestyusa.org/troydavis or
www.troyanthonydavis.org.
-- (c) '08 maj
SOCIALISM, for SOME
[col. writ. 10/22/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
Stimulus package. Bailouts. Banking rescues.
It has been generations since we've witnessed scenes such as these.
Government officials spin like jacks, as they proclaim a policy one day, only to renounce it the next. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rushes up and spirals downward in a matter of minutes, visual, measurable reminders of the volatility in the markets.
Money is dumped into failing financial houses, failing banks, and private companies, in an attempt to 'prime the pump', we are told.
Companies that have been icons for over a century, fade away like dew in the morning sun.
And this ain't just national; it's global.
A year ago, British banking giant, Northern Rock, fell into a crisis. For months the government sought to persuade private investors to take a bite; but there were no takers. In February, the institution was nationalized, and the government pumped in £87 billion to keep it afloat. The bank was salvaged, but thousands of its employees were fired.
The Northern Rock debacle, coupled with the $700 billion bailout has set off alarm bells among the investor class. One billionaire investor, Jim Rogers, was quoted thus: "America is more communist than China is right now. You can see that this is welfare of the rich, it is socialism for the rich -- it's just bailing out financial institutions. this is madness, this is insanity, they have more than doubled the American national debt in one weekend for a bunch of crooks and incompetents. I'm not quite sure why I or anybody else should be paying for them."*
What makes it even more surreal is how politicians hurl charges at other politicians of "socialist!" Ignored is the socialism accorded to the wealthy bankers and houses of high finance.
Of course, this isn't anything like real socialism at all.
For the working class, the working poor, and millions in the middle, this economic crisis is a terrifying portent of things to come. They know that hard times will only get harder.
They wish they had some of the 'socialism' that has been lavished on the rich.
--(c) '08 maj
[*Palmer, Steve, "Capitalist Crisis -USA: Goodbye Wall Street," Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! (Oct. - Nov. 2008/London), p.3 ]
Stimulus package. Bailouts. Banking rescues.
It has been generations since we've witnessed scenes such as these.
Government officials spin like jacks, as they proclaim a policy one day, only to renounce it the next. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rushes up and spirals downward in a matter of minutes, visual, measurable reminders of the volatility in the markets.
Money is dumped into failing financial houses, failing banks, and private companies, in an attempt to 'prime the pump', we are told.
Companies that have been icons for over a century, fade away like dew in the morning sun.
And this ain't just national; it's global.
A year ago, British banking giant, Northern Rock, fell into a crisis. For months the government sought to persuade private investors to take a bite; but there were no takers. In February, the institution was nationalized, and the government pumped in £87 billion to keep it afloat. The bank was salvaged, but thousands of its employees were fired.
The Northern Rock debacle, coupled with the $700 billion bailout has set off alarm bells among the investor class. One billionaire investor, Jim Rogers, was quoted thus: "America is more communist than China is right now. You can see that this is welfare of the rich, it is socialism for the rich -- it's just bailing out financial institutions. this is madness, this is insanity, they have more than doubled the American national debt in one weekend for a bunch of crooks and incompetents. I'm not quite sure why I or anybody else should be paying for them."*
What makes it even more surreal is how politicians hurl charges at other politicians of "socialist!" Ignored is the socialism accorded to the wealthy bankers and houses of high finance.
Of course, this isn't anything like real socialism at all.
For the working class, the working poor, and millions in the middle, this economic crisis is a terrifying portent of things to come. They know that hard times will only get harder.
They wish they had some of the 'socialism' that has been lavished on the rich.
--(c) '08 maj
[*Palmer, Steve, "Capitalist Crisis -USA: Goodbye Wall Street," Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! (Oct. - Nov. 2008/London), p.3 ]
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Riot Squads, SWAT Teams Preparing For Election Day Trouble
Police prepare for unrest
By Alexander Bolton
Posted: 10/21/08 07:58 PM [ET]
Police departments in cities across the country are beefing up their ranks for Election Day, preparing for possible civil unrest and riots after the historic presidential contest.
Public safety officials said in interviews with The Hill that the election, which will end with either the nation's first black president or its first female vice president, demanded a stronger police presence.
Some worry that if Barack Obama loses and there is suspicion of foul play in the election, violence could ensue in cities with large black populations. Others based the need for enhanced patrols on past riots in urban areas (following professional sports events) and also on Internet rumors.
Democratic strategists and advocates for black voters say they understand officers wanting to keep the peace, but caution that excessive police presence could intimidate voters.
Sen. Obama (Ill.), the Democratic nominee for president, has seen his lead over rival Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) grow in recent weeks, prompting speculation that there could be a violent backlash if he loses unexpectedly.
Cities that have suffered unrest before, such as Detroit, Chicago, Oakland and Philadelphia, will have extra police deployed.
In Oakland, the police will deploy extra units trained in riot control, as well as extra traffic police, and even put SWAT teams on standby.
"Are we anticipating it will be a riot situation? No. But will we be prepared if it goes awry? Yes," said Jeff Thomason, spokesman for the Oakland Police Department.
"I think it is a big deal - you got an African-American running and [a] woman running," he added, in reference to Obama and GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin. "Whoever wins it, it will be a national event. We will have more officers on the street in anticipation that things may go south."
The Oakland police last faced big riots in 2003 when the Raiders lost to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the Super Bowl. Officials are bracing themselves in case residents of Oakland take Obama's loss badly.
Political observers such as Hilary Shelton and James Carville fear that record voter turnout could overload polling places on Election Day and could raise tension levels.
Shelton, the director of the NAACP's Washington bureau, said inadequate voting facilities is a bigger problem in poor communities with large numbers of minorities.
"What are local election officials doing to prepare for what people think will be record turnout at the polls?" said Shelton, who added that during the 2004 election in Ohio voters in predominantly black communities had to wait in line six to eight hours to vote.
"On Election Day, if this continues, you may have some tempers flare; we should be prepared to deal with that but do it without intimidation," said Shelton, who added that police have to be able to maintain order at polling stations without scaring voters, especially immigrants from "police states."
Carville, who served as a senior political adviser to former President Bill Clinton, said that many Democrats would be very angry if Obama loses. He noted that many Democrats were upset by Sen. John Kerry's (D-Mass.) loss to President Bush in the 2004 election, when some Democrats made allegations of vote manipulation in Ohio, the state that ultimately decided the race.
Experts estimated that thousands of voters did not vote in Ohio because of poor preparation and long lines.
Carville said Democratic anger in 2004 "would be very small to what would happen in 2008" if the same problems arose.
Carville said earlier this month that "it would be very, very, very dramatic out there" if Obama lost, a statement some commentators interpreted as predicting riots. In an interview Tuesday, however, Carville said he did not explicitly predict rioting.
"A lot of Democrats would have a great deal of angst and anger," said Carville, who predicted that on Election Day "the voting system all around the country is going to be very stressed because there's going to be enormous turnout."
Other commentators have made such bold predictions.
"If [Obama] is elected, like with sports championships, people may go out and riot," said Bob Parks, an online columnist and black Republican candidate for state representative in Massachusetts. "If Barack Obama loses there will be another large group of people who will assume the election was stolen from him….. This will be an opportunity for people who want to commit mischief."
Speculation about Election-Day violence has spread on the Internet, especially on right-wing websites.
This has caught the attention of police departments in cities such as Cincinnati, which saw race riots in 2001 after police shot a young black man.
"We've seen it on the Internet and we've heard that there could be civil unrest depending on the outcome of [the election,]" said Lt. Mark Briede of the Cincinnati Police Department. "We are prepared to respond in the case of some sort of unrest or some sort of incident."
Briede, like other police officials interviewed, declined to elaborate on plans for Election Day. Many police departments have policies prohibiting public discussion of security plans.
James Tate, second deputy chief of Detroit's police department, said extra manpower would be assigned to duty on Election Night. He said problems could flare whichever candidate wins.
"Either party will make history and we want to prepare for celebrations that will be on a larger scale than for our sports teams," Tate said.
He noted that police had to control rioters who overturned cars after the Tigers won the 1984 World Series.
"We're prepared for the best-case scenario, we're prepared for the worst-case scenario," he said. "The worst-case scenario could be a situation that requires law enforcement."
But Tate declined to describe what the worst-case scenario might look like, speaking gingerly like other police officials who are wary of implying that black voters are more likely than other voting groups to cause trouble.
Shelton, of the NAACP, said he understands the need for police to maintain order. But he is also concerned that some political partisans may point their finger at black voters as potential troublemakers because the Democratic nominee is black.
Shelton said any racial or ethnic group would get angry if they felt disenfranchised because of voting irregularities.
Police officials in Chicago, where Obama will hold a Nov. 4 rally, and Philadelphia are also preparing for Election Day.
"The Chicago Police Department has been meeting regularly to coordinate our safety and security plans and will deploy our resources accordingly," said Monique Bond, of the Chicago Police Department.
Frank Vanore, of the Philadelphia Police Department, said officials were planning to mobilize to control exuberant or perhaps angry demonstrations after the World Series, which pits the Phillies against the Tampa Bay Rays.
He said the boosted police activity would "spill right over to the election. "
http://www. youtube. com/watch?v=bktq8igrdGo
http://www. texasstandup. com/texasstandup/Vote_Early%21. html
By Alexander Bolton
Posted: 10/21/08 07:58 PM [ET]
Police departments in cities across the country are beefing up their ranks for Election Day, preparing for possible civil unrest and riots after the historic presidential contest.
Public safety officials said in interviews with The Hill that the election, which will end with either the nation's first black president or its first female vice president, demanded a stronger police presence.
Some worry that if Barack Obama loses and there is suspicion of foul play in the election, violence could ensue in cities with large black populations. Others based the need for enhanced patrols on past riots in urban areas (following professional sports events) and also on Internet rumors.
Democratic strategists and advocates for black voters say they understand officers wanting to keep the peace, but caution that excessive police presence could intimidate voters.
Sen. Obama (Ill.), the Democratic nominee for president, has seen his lead over rival Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) grow in recent weeks, prompting speculation that there could be a violent backlash if he loses unexpectedly.
Cities that have suffered unrest before, such as Detroit, Chicago, Oakland and Philadelphia, will have extra police deployed.
In Oakland, the police will deploy extra units trained in riot control, as well as extra traffic police, and even put SWAT teams on standby.
"Are we anticipating it will be a riot situation? No. But will we be prepared if it goes awry? Yes," said Jeff Thomason, spokesman for the Oakland Police Department.
"I think it is a big deal - you got an African-American running and [a] woman running," he added, in reference to Obama and GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin. "Whoever wins it, it will be a national event. We will have more officers on the street in anticipation that things may go south."
The Oakland police last faced big riots in 2003 when the Raiders lost to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the Super Bowl. Officials are bracing themselves in case residents of Oakland take Obama's loss badly.
Political observers such as Hilary Shelton and James Carville fear that record voter turnout could overload polling places on Election Day and could raise tension levels.
Shelton, the director of the NAACP's Washington bureau, said inadequate voting facilities is a bigger problem in poor communities with large numbers of minorities.
"What are local election officials doing to prepare for what people think will be record turnout at the polls?" said Shelton, who added that during the 2004 election in Ohio voters in predominantly black communities had to wait in line six to eight hours to vote.
"On Election Day, if this continues, you may have some tempers flare; we should be prepared to deal with that but do it without intimidation," said Shelton, who added that police have to be able to maintain order at polling stations without scaring voters, especially immigrants from "police states."
Carville, who served as a senior political adviser to former President Bill Clinton, said that many Democrats would be very angry if Obama loses. He noted that many Democrats were upset by Sen. John Kerry's (D-Mass.) loss to President Bush in the 2004 election, when some Democrats made allegations of vote manipulation in Ohio, the state that ultimately decided the race.
Experts estimated that thousands of voters did not vote in Ohio because of poor preparation and long lines.
Carville said Democratic anger in 2004 "would be very small to what would happen in 2008" if the same problems arose.
Carville said earlier this month that "it would be very, very, very dramatic out there" if Obama lost, a statement some commentators interpreted as predicting riots. In an interview Tuesday, however, Carville said he did not explicitly predict rioting.
"A lot of Democrats would have a great deal of angst and anger," said Carville, who predicted that on Election Day "the voting system all around the country is going to be very stressed because there's going to be enormous turnout."
Other commentators have made such bold predictions.
"If [Obama] is elected, like with sports championships, people may go out and riot," said Bob Parks, an online columnist and black Republican candidate for state representative in Massachusetts. "If Barack Obama loses there will be another large group of people who will assume the election was stolen from him….. This will be an opportunity for people who want to commit mischief."
Speculation about Election-Day violence has spread on the Internet, especially on right-wing websites.
This has caught the attention of police departments in cities such as Cincinnati, which saw race riots in 2001 after police shot a young black man.
"We've seen it on the Internet and we've heard that there could be civil unrest depending on the outcome of [the election,]" said Lt. Mark Briede of the Cincinnati Police Department. "We are prepared to respond in the case of some sort of unrest or some sort of incident."
Briede, like other police officials interviewed, declined to elaborate on plans for Election Day. Many police departments have policies prohibiting public discussion of security plans.
James Tate, second deputy chief of Detroit's police department, said extra manpower would be assigned to duty on Election Night. He said problems could flare whichever candidate wins.
"Either party will make history and we want to prepare for celebrations that will be on a larger scale than for our sports teams," Tate said.
He noted that police had to control rioters who overturned cars after the Tigers won the 1984 World Series.
"We're prepared for the best-case scenario, we're prepared for the worst-case scenario," he said. "The worst-case scenario could be a situation that requires law enforcement."
But Tate declined to describe what the worst-case scenario might look like, speaking gingerly like other police officials who are wary of implying that black voters are more likely than other voting groups to cause trouble.
Shelton, of the NAACP, said he understands the need for police to maintain order. But he is also concerned that some political partisans may point their finger at black voters as potential troublemakers because the Democratic nominee is black.
Shelton said any racial or ethnic group would get angry if they felt disenfranchised because of voting irregularities.
Police officials in Chicago, where Obama will hold a Nov. 4 rally, and Philadelphia are also preparing for Election Day.
"The Chicago Police Department has been meeting regularly to coordinate our safety and security plans and will deploy our resources accordingly," said Monique Bond, of the Chicago Police Department.
Frank Vanore, of the Philadelphia Police Department, said officials were planning to mobilize to control exuberant or perhaps angry demonstrations after the World Series, which pits the Phillies against the Tampa Bay Rays.
He said the boosted police activity would "spill right over to the election. "
http://www. youtube. com/watch?v=bktq8igrdGo
http://www. texasstandup. com/texasstandup/Vote_Early%21. html
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
10 Things the Food Industry Doesn't Want You to Know
By Adam Voiland Adam Voiland – Mon Oct 20, 5:31 pm ET
Two nutrition experts argue that you can't take marketing campaigns at face value
With America's obesity problem among kids reaching crisis proportions, even junk food makers have started to claim they want to steer children toward more healthful choices. In a study released earlier this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that about 32 percent of children were overweight but not obese, 16 percent were obese, and 11 percent were extremely obese. Food giant PepsiCo, for example, points out on its website that "we can play an important role in helping kids lead healthier lives by offering healthy product choices in schools."
The company highlights what it considers its healthier products within various food categories through a "Smart Spot" marketing campaign that features green symbols on packaging. PepsiCo's inclusive criteria--explained here--award spots to foods of dubious nutritional value such as Diet Pepsi, Cap'n Crunch cereal, reduced-fat Doritos, and Cheetos, as well as to more nutritious products such as Quaker Oatmeal and Tropicana Orange Juice.
But are wellness initiatives like Smart Spot just marketing ploys? Such moves by the food industry may seem to be a step in the right direction, but ultimately makers of popular junk foods have an obligation to stockholders to encourage kids to eat more--not less--of the foods that fuel their profits, says David Ludwig, a pediatrician and the co-author of a commentary published in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association that raises questions about whether big food companies can be trusted to help combat obesity. Ludwig and article co-author Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition at New York University, both of whom have long histories of tracking the food industry, spoke with U.S. News and highlighted 10 things that junk food makers don't want you to know about their products and how they promote them.
1. Junk food makers spend billions advertising unhealthy foods to kids. According to the Federal Trade Commission, food makers spend some $1.6 billion annually to reach children through the traditional media as well the Internet, in-store advertising, and sweepstakes. An article published in 2006 in the Journal of Public Health Policy puts the number as high as $10 billion annually. Promotions often use cartoon characters or free giveaways to entice kids into the junk food fold. PepsiCo has pledged that it will advertise only "Smart Spot" products to children under 12.
2. The studies that food producers support tend to minimize health concerns associated with their products.In fact, according to a review led by Ludwig of hundreds of studies that looked at the health effects of milk, juice, and soda, the likelihood of conclusions favorable to the industry was several times higher among industry-sponsored research than studies that received no industry funding. "If a study is funded by the industry, it may be closer to advertising than science," he says.
3. Junk food makers donate large sums of money to professional nutrition associations.The American Dietetic Association, for example, accepts money from companies such as Coca-Cola, which get access to decision makers in the food and nutrition marketplace via ADA events and programs, as this release explains. As Nestle notes in her blog and discusses at length in her book Food Politics, the group even distributes nutritional fact sheets that are directly sponsored by specific industry groups. This one, for example, which is sponsored by an industry group that promotes lamb, rather unsurprisingly touts the nutritional benefits of lamb. The ADA's reasoning: "These collaborations take place with the understanding that ADA does not support any program or message that does not correspond with ADA's science-based healthful-eating messages and positions," according to the group's president, dietitian Martin Yadrick. "In fact, we think it's important for us to be at the same table with food companies because of the positive influence that we can have on them."
4. More processing means more profits, but typically makes the food less healthy.Minimally processed foods such as fresh fruits and vegetables obviously aren't where food companies look for profits. The big bucks stem from turning government-subsidized commodity crops--mainly corn, wheat, and soybeans--into fast foods, snack foods, and beverages. High-profit products derived from these commodity crops are generally high in calories and low in nutritional value.
5. Less-processed foods are generally more satiating than their highly processed counterparts.Fresh apples have an abundance of fiber and nutrients that are lost when they are processed into applesauce. And the added sugar or other sweeteners increase the number of calories without necessarily making the applesauce any more filling. Apple juice, which is even more processed, has had almost all of the fiber and nutrients stripped out. This same stripping out of nutrients, says Ludwig, happens with highly refined white bread compared with stone-ground whole wheat bread.
6. Many supposedly healthy replacement foods are hardly healthier than the foods they replace.In 2006, for example, major beverage makers agreed to remove sugary sodas from school vending machines. But the industry mounted an intense lobbying effort that persuaded lawmakers to allow sports drinks and vitamin waters that--despite their slightly healthier reputations--still can be packed with sugar and calories.
7. A health claim on the label doesn't necessarily make a food healthy.Health claims such as "zero trans fats" or "contains whole wheat" may create the false impression that a product is healthy when it's not. While the claims may be true, a product is not going to benefit your kid's health if it's also loaded with salt and sugar or saturated fat, say, and lacks fiber or other nutrients. "These claims are calorie distracters," adds Nestle. "They make people forget about the calories." Dave DeCecco, a spokesperson for PepsiCo, counters that the intent of a labeling program such as Smart Spot is simply to help consumers pick a healthier choice within a category. "We're not trying to tell people that a bag of Doritos is healthier than asparagus. But, if you're buying chips, and you're busy, and you don't have a lot of time to read every part of the label, it's an easy way to make a smarter choice," he says.
8. Food industry pressure has made nutritional guidelines confusing.As Nestle explained in Food Politics, the food industry has a history of preferring scientific jargon to straight talk. As far back as 1977, public health officials attempted to include the advice "reduce consumption of meat" in an important report called Dietary Goals for the United States. The report's authors capitulated to intense pushback from the cattle industry and used this less-direct and more ambiguous advice: "Choose meats, poultry, and fish which will reduce saturated fat intake." Overall, says Nestle, the government has a hard time suggesting that people eat less of anything.
9. The food industry funds front groups that fight antiobesity public health initiatives.Unless you follow politics closely, you wouldn't necessarily realize that a group with a name like the Center for Consumer Freedom (CCF) has anything to do with the food industry. In fact,Ludwig and Nestle point out, this group lobbies aggressively against obesity-related public health campaigns--such as the one directed at removing junk food from schools--and is funded, according to the Center for Media and Democracy, primarily through donations from big food companies such as Coca-Cola, Cargill, Tyson Foods, and Wendy's.
10. The food industry works aggressively to discredit its critics.According to the new JAMA article, the Center for Consumer Freedom boasts that "[our strategy] is to shoot the messenger. We've got to attack [activists'] credibility as spokespersons." Here's the group's entry on Marion Nestle.
The bottom line, says Nestle, is quite simple: Kids need to eat less, include more fruits and vegetables, and limit the junk food.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Behind the Money Crash
[col. writ. 10/8/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
For millions of people, the economic crash and crisis seems almost mystical.
What happened? Why did it happen? How did it happen?
It seems more complex than it really is. That's because the corporate media is, more often than not, a contributor to confusion, rather than a source of clarity.
The media thrives on conflict, chaos and controversy.
That's why I found in the {British} left press what I've never seen in the corporate media: the text of a 2002 open letter from U.S. financier, Warren Buffett to his Berkshire Hathaway shareholders. Buffett, one of the richest people in the U.S., warned his shareholders to avoid 'derivatives'. which he described as "time bombs, both for the parties that deal in them, and the economic system."
Buffett explained that derivatives are financial agreements for the exchange of money at some future date, which can be 20 years or more. What makes them dangerous is they're collateralized, or guaranteed, based on often faulty reference points. For example, derivatives may be traded saying in 10 years, GM stocks will double its 2004 value, and if it does in 2014, the instrument buyer will receive say, $10 million. In many cases, before the contract is ripe, not a penny has changed hands, yet some companies assigned these instruments a value, recorded them on their books as assets, when in fact, they had no real value.
Remember Enron? On paper, they were rolling in dough. In fact, however, they were rolling in paper -- for, at any time, if they hit a snag, they had no real cash to cover corporate debts -- it was on the books, but not in the banks.
Again, Buffett explained six years ago why these instruments should be avoided, writing to his shareholders:
The derivatives genie is now well out of the bottle, and these instruments will
almost certainly multiply in variety and number until some event makes their
toxicity clean.
Knowledge of how dangerous they are has already permeated the electricity and
gas businesses, in which the eruption of major troubles caused the use of
derivatives to diminish dramatically. Elsewhere, however, the derivatives
business continues to expand unchecked. Central banks and governments have
so far found no effective way to control, or even monitor, the risks posed by
these contracts.*
In closing, Buffett warned, "derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction, carrying dangers that......are potentially lethal."
--(c) '08 maj
{Source: Labour & Trade Union Review (No. 191: Oct. 2008), pp.16-18}
For millions of people, the economic crash and crisis seems almost mystical.
What happened? Why did it happen? How did it happen?
It seems more complex than it really is. That's because the corporate media is, more often than not, a contributor to confusion, rather than a source of clarity.
The media thrives on conflict, chaos and controversy.
That's why I found in the {British} left press what I've never seen in the corporate media: the text of a 2002 open letter from U.S. financier, Warren Buffett to his Berkshire Hathaway shareholders. Buffett, one of the richest people in the U.S., warned his shareholders to avoid 'derivatives'. which he described as "time bombs, both for the parties that deal in them, and the economic system."
Buffett explained that derivatives are financial agreements for the exchange of money at some future date, which can be 20 years or more. What makes them dangerous is they're collateralized, or guaranteed, based on often faulty reference points. For example, derivatives may be traded saying in 10 years, GM stocks will double its 2004 value, and if it does in 2014, the instrument buyer will receive say, $10 million. In many cases, before the contract is ripe, not a penny has changed hands, yet some companies assigned these instruments a value, recorded them on their books as assets, when in fact, they had no real value.
Remember Enron? On paper, they were rolling in dough. In fact, however, they were rolling in paper -- for, at any time, if they hit a snag, they had no real cash to cover corporate debts -- it was on the books, but not in the banks.
Again, Buffett explained six years ago why these instruments should be avoided, writing to his shareholders:
The derivatives genie is now well out of the bottle, and these instruments will
almost certainly multiply in variety and number until some event makes their
toxicity clean.
Knowledge of how dangerous they are has already permeated the electricity and
gas businesses, in which the eruption of major troubles caused the use of
derivatives to diminish dramatically. Elsewhere, however, the derivatives
business continues to expand unchecked. Central banks and governments have
so far found no effective way to control, or even monitor, the risks posed by
these contracts.*
In closing, Buffett warned, "derivatives are financial weapons of mass destruction, carrying dangers that......are potentially lethal."
--(c) '08 maj
{Source: Labour & Trade Union Review (No. 191: Oct. 2008), pp.16-18}
Scare Tactics
[col. writ. 10/4/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
With the passage of the Wall St. bailout bill, a major line has been crossed in U.S. economic and political history.
The rulers can do anything, as long as they leaven it with fear.
Just like the Iraq War authorization, with enough fear Congress will roll over, and say, "Uncle."
And there was an avalanche of fear. The corporate media sold oceans of fear and dread, just as it sold facile patriotism, the Iraq War and the so-called "War on Terror."
Using individual tales of fallen 401(k)s, or of a few firings, they successfully insinuated that unless the bailout passed, you might loseyour job, or your 401(k) might turn to dust.
They ran the banner headlines of the drop of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and scared legislators into flipping their prior no votes into yea votes.
Here's the deal. What we've seen from both major political parties is the greatest transfer of public wealth into private hands in history. Indeed, it is privatization run amok.
It is a bailout, pure and simple, that the media and its masters want you to call a 'rescue', but who is rescued?
You? C'mon.
Does a government that facilitated the loss of millions of jobs; that scuttled public education; that gave away the public treasury to Wall St. bankers; that sold a long war based on lies; that allowed millions of homeowners to fall into foreclosures, give a damn about you?
A government that cared about its people wouldn't have led them to this disaster.
Think of it this way: the same government that fought for months to privatize social security, or in other words, to invest peoples' retirement funds into stocks, came up with this bailout plan.
If the government was successful, some 40 million people (those 65 and over) would've been flat broke. What they couldn't do one way, they did another, for the economic hole that another trillion dollars will blow into the deficit spells danger to this project.
If you elect a government based on its rhetoric of anti-government, of deregulation, of the 'blind hand of the market', you get economic carnage, crony capitalism, and misery for millions.
Moreover, what you have is the privatization of the State, by its rental by private capital.
For, in both houses of Congress, in both major parties, we find pols who have received tens of thousands of dollars from Wall St. Can anyone deny that this money donated to Congress was wasted? (By 'wasted', I mean to those who made those donations -- not to average Americans).
As the saying goes, 'you get what you pay for.'
It might also be said that you get what you vote for.
--(c) '08maj
{Note: Check out www.opensecrets.org for data on Congress for sale.}
With the passage of the Wall St. bailout bill, a major line has been crossed in U.S. economic and political history.
The rulers can do anything, as long as they leaven it with fear.
Just like the Iraq War authorization, with enough fear Congress will roll over, and say, "Uncle."
And there was an avalanche of fear. The corporate media sold oceans of fear and dread, just as it sold facile patriotism, the Iraq War and the so-called "War on Terror."
Using individual tales of fallen 401(k)s, or of a few firings, they successfully insinuated that unless the bailout passed, you might loseyour job, or your 401(k) might turn to dust.
They ran the banner headlines of the drop of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and scared legislators into flipping their prior no votes into yea votes.
Here's the deal. What we've seen from both major political parties is the greatest transfer of public wealth into private hands in history. Indeed, it is privatization run amok.
It is a bailout, pure and simple, that the media and its masters want you to call a 'rescue', but who is rescued?
You? C'mon.
Does a government that facilitated the loss of millions of jobs; that scuttled public education; that gave away the public treasury to Wall St. bankers; that sold a long war based on lies; that allowed millions of homeowners to fall into foreclosures, give a damn about you?
A government that cared about its people wouldn't have led them to this disaster.
Think of it this way: the same government that fought for months to privatize social security, or in other words, to invest peoples' retirement funds into stocks, came up with this bailout plan.
If the government was successful, some 40 million people (those 65 and over) would've been flat broke. What they couldn't do one way, they did another, for the economic hole that another trillion dollars will blow into the deficit spells danger to this project.
If you elect a government based on its rhetoric of anti-government, of deregulation, of the 'blind hand of the market', you get economic carnage, crony capitalism, and misery for millions.
Moreover, what you have is the privatization of the State, by its rental by private capital.
For, in both houses of Congress, in both major parties, we find pols who have received tens of thousands of dollars from Wall St. Can anyone deny that this money donated to Congress was wasted? (By 'wasted', I mean to those who made those donations -- not to average Americans).
As the saying goes, 'you get what you pay for.'
It might also be said that you get what you vote for.
--(c) '08maj
{Note: Check out www.opensecrets.org for data on Congress for sale.}
Supreme Court Refusal to Hear Troy Davis Case "Truly Shocking"
by Amnesty International, reprinted from Alternet
Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) decried today's U.S. Supreme Court decision to deny a new hearing for Georgia death-row inmate Troy Anthony Davis. The Court had granted Davis a stay of execution just hours before he was scheduled to be put to death while it decided whether to hear the case. In denying Davis' petition for a writ of certiorari, the Court has effectively ended a longstanding battle to have new evidence in Davis' favor heard in a court of law.
"The Supreme Court's decision is truly shocking, given that significant evidence of Davis' innocence will never have a chance to be examined," said Larry Cox, executive director for AIUSA. "Faulty eyewitness identification is the leading cause of wrongful convictions, and the hallmark of Davis' case. This was an opportunity for the Court to clarify the constitutionality of putting the innocent to death –- and in Davis' case, his innocence could only be determined with a new hearing or trial."
"It is disgraceful that the highest court in the land could sink so low when doubts surrounding Davis' guilt are so high," Cox added.
The U.S. Supreme Court denied Davis’ petition for writ of certiorari that was submitted on constitutional grounds of due process and cruel and unusual punishment violations if an individual is put to death despite significant claims to innocence. Davis’ attorneys filed the petition after the Georgia Supreme Court’s narrow 4-3 ruling to deny Davis an evidentiary hearing last March; the ruling was based on technicalities rather than basic questions of guilt and innocence.
Davis was convicted in 1991 of killing Savannah police officer Mark Allen MacPhail. Authorities failed to produce a murder weapon or any physical evidence tying Davis to the crime. In addition, seven of the nine original state witnesses have since recanted or changed their initial testimonies in sworn affidavits. One of the remaining witnesses is alleged to be the actual perpetrator.
Since the launch of its February 2007 report, "Where Is the Justice for Me? The Case of Troy Davis, Facing Execution in Georgia," Amnesty International has campaigned intensively for a new evidentiary hearing or trial and clemency for Davis, collecting well over 200,000 clemency petition signatures and letters from across the United States and around the world. To date, internationally known figures such as Pope Benedict XVI, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter have all joined the call for clemency, as well as lawmakers from within and outside of Georgia.
For more information about the Troy Davis case, please visit: www.amnestyusa.org/troydavis .
Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) decried today's U.S. Supreme Court decision to deny a new hearing for Georgia death-row inmate Troy Anthony Davis. The Court had granted Davis a stay of execution just hours before he was scheduled to be put to death while it decided whether to hear the case. In denying Davis' petition for a writ of certiorari, the Court has effectively ended a longstanding battle to have new evidence in Davis' favor heard in a court of law.
"The Supreme Court's decision is truly shocking, given that significant evidence of Davis' innocence will never have a chance to be examined," said Larry Cox, executive director for AIUSA. "Faulty eyewitness identification is the leading cause of wrongful convictions, and the hallmark of Davis' case. This was an opportunity for the Court to clarify the constitutionality of putting the innocent to death –- and in Davis' case, his innocence could only be determined with a new hearing or trial."
"It is disgraceful that the highest court in the land could sink so low when doubts surrounding Davis' guilt are so high," Cox added.
The U.S. Supreme Court denied Davis’ petition for writ of certiorari that was submitted on constitutional grounds of due process and cruel and unusual punishment violations if an individual is put to death despite significant claims to innocence. Davis’ attorneys filed the petition after the Georgia Supreme Court’s narrow 4-3 ruling to deny Davis an evidentiary hearing last March; the ruling was based on technicalities rather than basic questions of guilt and innocence.
Davis was convicted in 1991 of killing Savannah police officer Mark Allen MacPhail. Authorities failed to produce a murder weapon or any physical evidence tying Davis to the crime. In addition, seven of the nine original state witnesses have since recanted or changed their initial testimonies in sworn affidavits. One of the remaining witnesses is alleged to be the actual perpetrator.
Since the launch of its February 2007 report, "Where Is the Justice for Me? The Case of Troy Davis, Facing Execution in Georgia," Amnesty International has campaigned intensively for a new evidentiary hearing or trial and clemency for Davis, collecting well over 200,000 clemency petition signatures and letters from across the United States and around the world. To date, internationally known figures such as Pope Benedict XVI, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former U.S. President Jimmy Carter have all joined the call for clemency, as well as lawmakers from within and outside of Georgia.
For more information about the Troy Davis case, please visit: www.amnestyusa.org/troydavis .
Barack Obama, Voter Suppression and the Myth of “Vote Fraud”
by BAR Managing Editor Bruce Dixon
With less than three weeks before election day, the fix is definitely in.
The cynically misnamed “Help America Vote Act” mandated the widespread adoption electronic voting machines full of exploitable software holes and lacking any verifiable paper audit trail. Commonly, for example most vote counting software is capable of subtracting votes as well as adding them, and offer no way of telling this has been done after the fact. Network security experts such as Stephen Spoonamore have explained that electronic voting systems are far less secure than electronic banking and credit card transactions, which routinely tolerate level of fraud around 2%.
Ohio in 2004 showed us the pattern of sending Republican-leaning areas more than ample quantities of voting machines and supplies, while routing fewer and faultier machines and inadequate supplies to Democratic-leaning precincts, resulting in long lines, delays and significant falloff in voter participation Voter registration drives of the kind that Obama and this reporter helped organize in back in 1992 have been restricted by law, demonized in the corporate press, and have even become the targets of legal harassment and malicious prosecution .
Perhaps the biggest threats to the voting rights of millions of people this election season are selective and malicious purges of the voter registration rolls, usually undertaken by Republican officials. States and localities have adopted the practice of checking existing voter rolls or sometimes just new registrations against federal and state databases such as the social security and drivers license lists, and eliminating hundreds of thousands of voters whose middle names are on their voter lists but who only have a middle initial on their drivers license or social security record, or vice versa. When this rule was implemented in California, a full 43% of new voter registrations and address changes were denied in Los Angeles county, along with 26% statewide, according to the Los Angeles Times. Rather than discrediting no-match-no-vote rules, results like this have made it a favorite vote-purging tactic on the state and county level nationwide.
Other purging methods have included matching names and birth dates on the voting lists to each other and eliminating both voters with the same or similar names in a city or county without checking, on the basis that it's a duplicate registration, or checking voter rolls against lists of “convicted felons”, sometimes removing multiple voters whose names are the same or similar to that of a single “felon”.
Best of all, election authorities on the state and county level have the power to purge voter rolls secretly, with no public notice of their methodologies or of which voters have been eliminated. The voter doesn't find out till they show up at the polls and are turned away.
Where is Obama, where are Democrats on election integrity?
The answer is not much of anywhere. When the 2000 election was being stolen from Al Gore in Florida, the Democratic party emphatically rejected offers to fly in staff and legal help from around the country, and discouraged public gatherings and demonstrations against the heist then in progress. After the Supreme Court intervened and threw the election to Bush and the entire Congressional Black Caucus protested to the US Senate, urging them to not accept Florida's electoral vote, Al Gore, in his last vice presidential act presiding over the senate, rejected them. If a single Democrat in the US Senate had stood up to reject the vote it would have triggered a debate and perhaps and investigation. But no Democrats stood up for the disenfranchised in Florida, because most of the disenfranchised were perceived to be African American. The last thing the Democratic party wants is to be seen as the party of the Blacks.
Only the Green Party, underfunded and ignored in the national media, bothered to file lawsuits challenging the way votes were counted in some states.
In 2004, despite clear evidence of massive tampering with the vote in Ohio, Florida, New Mexico and elsewhere, John Kerry immediately conceded the election, rejecting calls for protests, lawsuits and investigations, and refusing to fight for every voter to be heard and every vote to be counted. For this, Kerry was duly lauded by his Democratic peers in high office as a statesman, gentleman and good sport, doing what those types do. Once again, the most of the disenfranchised were perceived to be African Americans. While utterly dependent on a large and near-unanimous black vote, the last thing Democrats want is to be seen identifying with the problems of black people.
Just as in 2000, the entire Congressional Black Caucus petitioned the US Senate not to accept Ohio's electoral vote, hoping that at least one Democratic senator, perhaps the chamber's only African American senator, would stand up to fight for every vote. It didn't happen.
In what may foretell his stand the day after a 2008 stolen election, Barack Obama sat down and shut up, leaving California senator Barbara Boxer to be the lone Democrat calling for a debate on whether Ohio's electoral votes should be accepted.
For a second time, only the Green Party attempted to file lawsuits which might expose the process by which the elections were stolen in Ohio and elsewhere. But lawsuits take time, and that one is still in the deposition stage today, four years later. Congressman John Conyers of Detroit, in his capacity as chair of the powerful House Judiciary Committee, has made threatening noises to open real investigative hearings with sworn testimony on the massive vote theft in Ohio, but nothing has come of these. And on the campaign trail, Barack Obama scarcely mentions the massive vote theft of 2000 and 2004, as though he were in denial that it ever happened, or might happen again.
In four years as a US senator, Obama has advanced no legislation that would institute voter-verifiable paper trails, and done little or nothing to advance the notion of a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to vote.
Where is Obama, where are Democrats on voter suppression?
Although the national election was clearly stolen from Democrats in 2000 and 2004, that party has declined to fight for investigations into how massive numbers of Democrat-leaning voters, often black and brown, have been purged from the rolls, how voter registration drives and individual voters have been maliciously prosecuted. Despite the fact that several Republican whistle blowers have come to the fore, most prominently former US District Attorney David Iglesias of New Mexico, with evidence that the White House demanded spurious prosecutions to lower black and brown turnout, one of many impeachment-grade offenses, the US Senate and House, both under Democratic control, declined to pursue vigorous investigations.
Republican operatives have assiduously cultivated the myth that hordes of foreigners and felons are itching for a chance to vote in US elections, on bond issues, school and library levies, and yes, presidential elections. While nobody has ever caught these legions of fake voters at the polls, the fair tale of their presence has become an accepted fact in popular American lore.
Barack Obama is a member of the senate Judiciary Committee, which oversees the Justice Department, and his running mate Joe Biden chairs that committee. If Democrats wanted, any time in the last two years, to put a stop to voter suppression or expose the vacuous myth of large numbers of illegal voters,, these two could have called hearings, subpoenaed witnesses and kept it on the front page for weeks. But again, Democrats don't want to be seen as the party of the blacks, who are the most frequent victims of voter suppression.
If the election is stolen from Obama will he go the way of Gore and Kerry, and refuse to fight to count every vote? Nobody knows. Hopes are high, but Gore and Kerry preserved their elite credentials by refusing to fight the vote thieves. In almost 20 years of political life, Barack Obama has shown himself to be notoriously risk-averse. He doesn't fight. In the words of the Bodie character in HBO's The Wire, “...his heart pumps kool-aid.”
Where are Democrats, where is Barack Obama on the restriction of voter registration drives?
Given that Obama's political career was launched on the success of Project VOTE Illinois, which registered 130,000 voters in the space of a few weeks in 1992, one might expect him to take a special interest in the restrictions states are implementing on voter registration drives. In many parts of the country today, doing the perfectly legal things Project VOTE Illinois did in 1992 might land you a stretch in jail or at least a hefty fine. But now that he's above the fray, the voice of Barack Obama hasn't been heard on the malicious restriction of voter registration drives. In fact, the Boston Globe has reported that he is deliberately distancing himself from ACORN and other voter registration organizations under spurious attack for alleged “vote fraud”.
What you can do-- STEAL BACK YOUR VOTE
Luckily, every heart does not pump kool-aid. Greg Palast and Robert Kennedy Jr. have produced a downloadable comic book outlining seven steps any and everyone ought to take to protect their vote. The first three of these are
Never mail in your ballot. It's like sending your car keys to the thief. You won't be there to see what they do to it.
Vote early --- very early. Since millions of voters will be purged and not notified, it pays to vote early. If you are one of those turned away, you will at least have time to try to remedy the situation. Election day is a bit late, if they have unjustifiably deleted your name from the voter rolls.
Register and register. Register when you move. Register when you change your name. Go online or get on the phone and check your registration before the election.
The book can be downloaded for as little as a penny, and that will get you the other four methods to steal back your vote. Find it at www.stealbackyourvote.com, or at www.gregpalast.com.
Where is Barack, where are Democrats on a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to vote?
Back in the nineties, Chicago's congressman Jesse L. Jackson Jr. advanced the revolutionary idea of a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to vote. Strangely, he has not reintroduced it since Democrats have come into control of the House, but this would be an ultimate solution to the problems of voter suppression and unaccountable voting machines stealing the votes. Making the right to vote on the same par as, say, the right to own a gun, would mandate uniform federal rules for what the voting machines can and cannot do, what the qualifications of voters are and are not, who can be purged and excluded, and much more.
But it would be a fight. And Democrats, most notably Democratic presidential candidates have shown no inclination to fight, especially if it looks like a fight on the side of African Americans. Even with an African American presidential candidate, it doesn't look like this will change any time soon.
If Obama does win by ten or twelve percent of the popular vote, which after all the theft is whittled down to two or three percent, it may be time to reintroduce the idea of a constitutional guarantee of the right to vote. It may be even more timely if he loses.
Obama's constituents in the African American community, a large proportion of those impacted by voter suppression, have to date demanded remarkably little from him. That doesn't mean they don't want anything, though. The Obama Check is one they haven't cashed, one whose amount they dare not peek at, but which they hope will be worth a lot. The time to cash that check is coming, on voting rights and voter suppression. Will he choose to honor it? Can anybody make him do it? These are questions that will be answered, and soon.
Black Agenda Report's managing editor Bruce Dixon is based in Atlanta GA. He can be reached at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com
With less than three weeks before election day, the fix is definitely in.
The cynically misnamed “Help America Vote Act” mandated the widespread adoption electronic voting machines full of exploitable software holes and lacking any verifiable paper audit trail. Commonly, for example most vote counting software is capable of subtracting votes as well as adding them, and offer no way of telling this has been done after the fact. Network security experts such as Stephen Spoonamore have explained that electronic voting systems are far less secure than electronic banking and credit card transactions, which routinely tolerate level of fraud around 2%.
Ohio in 2004 showed us the pattern of sending Republican-leaning areas more than ample quantities of voting machines and supplies, while routing fewer and faultier machines and inadequate supplies to Democratic-leaning precincts, resulting in long lines, delays and significant falloff in voter participation Voter registration drives of the kind that Obama and this reporter helped organize in back in 1992 have been restricted by law, demonized in the corporate press, and have even become the targets of legal harassment and malicious prosecution .
Perhaps the biggest threats to the voting rights of millions of people this election season are selective and malicious purges of the voter registration rolls, usually undertaken by Republican officials. States and localities have adopted the practice of checking existing voter rolls or sometimes just new registrations against federal and state databases such as the social security and drivers license lists, and eliminating hundreds of thousands of voters whose middle names are on their voter lists but who only have a middle initial on their drivers license or social security record, or vice versa. When this rule was implemented in California, a full 43% of new voter registrations and address changes were denied in Los Angeles county, along with 26% statewide, according to the Los Angeles Times. Rather than discrediting no-match-no-vote rules, results like this have made it a favorite vote-purging tactic on the state and county level nationwide.
Other purging methods have included matching names and birth dates on the voting lists to each other and eliminating both voters with the same or similar names in a city or county without checking, on the basis that it's a duplicate registration, or checking voter rolls against lists of “convicted felons”, sometimes removing multiple voters whose names are the same or similar to that of a single “felon”.
Best of all, election authorities on the state and county level have the power to purge voter rolls secretly, with no public notice of their methodologies or of which voters have been eliminated. The voter doesn't find out till they show up at the polls and are turned away.
Where is Obama, where are Democrats on election integrity?
The answer is not much of anywhere. When the 2000 election was being stolen from Al Gore in Florida, the Democratic party emphatically rejected offers to fly in staff and legal help from around the country, and discouraged public gatherings and demonstrations against the heist then in progress. After the Supreme Court intervened and threw the election to Bush and the entire Congressional Black Caucus protested to the US Senate, urging them to not accept Florida's electoral vote, Al Gore, in his last vice presidential act presiding over the senate, rejected them. If a single Democrat in the US Senate had stood up to reject the vote it would have triggered a debate and perhaps and investigation. But no Democrats stood up for the disenfranchised in Florida, because most of the disenfranchised were perceived to be African American. The last thing the Democratic party wants is to be seen as the party of the Blacks.
Only the Green Party, underfunded and ignored in the national media, bothered to file lawsuits challenging the way votes were counted in some states.
In 2004, despite clear evidence of massive tampering with the vote in Ohio, Florida, New Mexico and elsewhere, John Kerry immediately conceded the election, rejecting calls for protests, lawsuits and investigations, and refusing to fight for every voter to be heard and every vote to be counted. For this, Kerry was duly lauded by his Democratic peers in high office as a statesman, gentleman and good sport, doing what those types do. Once again, the most of the disenfranchised were perceived to be African Americans. While utterly dependent on a large and near-unanimous black vote, the last thing Democrats want is to be seen identifying with the problems of black people.
Just as in 2000, the entire Congressional Black Caucus petitioned the US Senate not to accept Ohio's electoral vote, hoping that at least one Democratic senator, perhaps the chamber's only African American senator, would stand up to fight for every vote. It didn't happen.
In what may foretell his stand the day after a 2008 stolen election, Barack Obama sat down and shut up, leaving California senator Barbara Boxer to be the lone Democrat calling for a debate on whether Ohio's electoral votes should be accepted.
For a second time, only the Green Party attempted to file lawsuits which might expose the process by which the elections were stolen in Ohio and elsewhere. But lawsuits take time, and that one is still in the deposition stage today, four years later. Congressman John Conyers of Detroit, in his capacity as chair of the powerful House Judiciary Committee, has made threatening noises to open real investigative hearings with sworn testimony on the massive vote theft in Ohio, but nothing has come of these. And on the campaign trail, Barack Obama scarcely mentions the massive vote theft of 2000 and 2004, as though he were in denial that it ever happened, or might happen again.
In four years as a US senator, Obama has advanced no legislation that would institute voter-verifiable paper trails, and done little or nothing to advance the notion of a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to vote.
Where is Obama, where are Democrats on voter suppression?
Although the national election was clearly stolen from Democrats in 2000 and 2004, that party has declined to fight for investigations into how massive numbers of Democrat-leaning voters, often black and brown, have been purged from the rolls, how voter registration drives and individual voters have been maliciously prosecuted. Despite the fact that several Republican whistle blowers have come to the fore, most prominently former US District Attorney David Iglesias of New Mexico, with evidence that the White House demanded spurious prosecutions to lower black and brown turnout, one of many impeachment-grade offenses, the US Senate and House, both under Democratic control, declined to pursue vigorous investigations.
Republican operatives have assiduously cultivated the myth that hordes of foreigners and felons are itching for a chance to vote in US elections, on bond issues, school and library levies, and yes, presidential elections. While nobody has ever caught these legions of fake voters at the polls, the fair tale of their presence has become an accepted fact in popular American lore.
Barack Obama is a member of the senate Judiciary Committee, which oversees the Justice Department, and his running mate Joe Biden chairs that committee. If Democrats wanted, any time in the last two years, to put a stop to voter suppression or expose the vacuous myth of large numbers of illegal voters,, these two could have called hearings, subpoenaed witnesses and kept it on the front page for weeks. But again, Democrats don't want to be seen as the party of the blacks, who are the most frequent victims of voter suppression.
If the election is stolen from Obama will he go the way of Gore and Kerry, and refuse to fight to count every vote? Nobody knows. Hopes are high, but Gore and Kerry preserved their elite credentials by refusing to fight the vote thieves. In almost 20 years of political life, Barack Obama has shown himself to be notoriously risk-averse. He doesn't fight. In the words of the Bodie character in HBO's The Wire, “...his heart pumps kool-aid.”
Where are Democrats, where is Barack Obama on the restriction of voter registration drives?
Given that Obama's political career was launched on the success of Project VOTE Illinois, which registered 130,000 voters in the space of a few weeks in 1992, one might expect him to take a special interest in the restrictions states are implementing on voter registration drives. In many parts of the country today, doing the perfectly legal things Project VOTE Illinois did in 1992 might land you a stretch in jail or at least a hefty fine. But now that he's above the fray, the voice of Barack Obama hasn't been heard on the malicious restriction of voter registration drives. In fact, the Boston Globe has reported that he is deliberately distancing himself from ACORN and other voter registration organizations under spurious attack for alleged “vote fraud”.
What you can do-- STEAL BACK YOUR VOTE
Luckily, every heart does not pump kool-aid. Greg Palast and Robert Kennedy Jr. have produced a downloadable comic book outlining seven steps any and everyone ought to take to protect their vote. The first three of these are
Never mail in your ballot. It's like sending your car keys to the thief. You won't be there to see what they do to it.
Vote early --- very early. Since millions of voters will be purged and not notified, it pays to vote early. If you are one of those turned away, you will at least have time to try to remedy the situation. Election day is a bit late, if they have unjustifiably deleted your name from the voter rolls.
Register and register. Register when you move. Register when you change your name. Go online or get on the phone and check your registration before the election.
The book can be downloaded for as little as a penny, and that will get you the other four methods to steal back your vote. Find it at www.stealbackyourvote.com, or at www.gregpalast.com.
Where is Barack, where are Democrats on a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to vote?
Back in the nineties, Chicago's congressman Jesse L. Jackson Jr. advanced the revolutionary idea of a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to vote. Strangely, he has not reintroduced it since Democrats have come into control of the House, but this would be an ultimate solution to the problems of voter suppression and unaccountable voting machines stealing the votes. Making the right to vote on the same par as, say, the right to own a gun, would mandate uniform federal rules for what the voting machines can and cannot do, what the qualifications of voters are and are not, who can be purged and excluded, and much more.
But it would be a fight. And Democrats, most notably Democratic presidential candidates have shown no inclination to fight, especially if it looks like a fight on the side of African Americans. Even with an African American presidential candidate, it doesn't look like this will change any time soon.
If Obama does win by ten or twelve percent of the popular vote, which after all the theft is whittled down to two or three percent, it may be time to reintroduce the idea of a constitutional guarantee of the right to vote. It may be even more timely if he loses.
Obama's constituents in the African American community, a large proportion of those impacted by voter suppression, have to date demanded remarkably little from him. That doesn't mean they don't want anything, though. The Obama Check is one they haven't cashed, one whose amount they dare not peek at, but which they hope will be worth a lot. The time to cash that check is coming, on voting rights and voter suppression. Will he choose to honor it? Can anybody make him do it? These are questions that will be answered, and soon.
Black Agenda Report's managing editor Bruce Dixon is based in Atlanta GA. He can be reached at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com
Jim Crow Terrorism
Aquil Aziz
Wrath of Allah News
All Jim Crow did was move his racism into America's institutions. He comfortably resides in the economic policy rooms, the courthouses, the education system, the job market, the welfare office, the healthcare arena, art and entertainment etc. When I was a little boy, my mother use to tell me that the Klan traded in their sheets for three-piece suits.
Now the police murder of Sean Bell was a tragedy of catastrophic proportions. We see that the white corporate media spew at us the dangers of terrorists, however Black America is faced with everyday reality of state sanctioned terrorism, carried out by the police department. The exoneration of the officers' reckless disregard for human life when they fired 50 shots at three unarmed Black men, killing one of them only gave police throughout Amerikkka the greenlight to kill our people.
We need to return to the grassroots action of the 1960's, but we need to update those tactics for the 21st century. Taking action must mean more than marches and chants of "no justice, no peace." When are we going to start the no peace side of our action(s) because we sure as hell ain't getting no justice. What will it take, when they start gunning down our 7 and 8 year old children? Perhaps police will gun down our infants in their strollers and say they posed a threat lying all snug in their blankets as they sleep away. Look at what they did to Pamela Lawton in Pittsburgh, PA when a police officer put his gun in her 7 year old daughter's face and threaten to blow her head off because she was crying. And charges were brought against Pamela Lawton? But I was not surprised when that happened.
We have no other options but to consider retaliation. They're sure as hell not listening to our protesting. We may as well take actions into our own hands or that will be our grandchildren and great grandchildren, and that's if we can make it that far without being exterminated.
Wrath of Allah News
All Jim Crow did was move his racism into America's institutions. He comfortably resides in the economic policy rooms, the courthouses, the education system, the job market, the welfare office, the healthcare arena, art and entertainment etc. When I was a little boy, my mother use to tell me that the Klan traded in their sheets for three-piece suits.
Now the police murder of Sean Bell was a tragedy of catastrophic proportions. We see that the white corporate media spew at us the dangers of terrorists, however Black America is faced with everyday reality of state sanctioned terrorism, carried out by the police department. The exoneration of the officers' reckless disregard for human life when they fired 50 shots at three unarmed Black men, killing one of them only gave police throughout Amerikkka the greenlight to kill our people.
We need to return to the grassroots action of the 1960's, but we need to update those tactics for the 21st century. Taking action must mean more than marches and chants of "no justice, no peace." When are we going to start the no peace side of our action(s) because we sure as hell ain't getting no justice. What will it take, when they start gunning down our 7 and 8 year old children? Perhaps police will gun down our infants in their strollers and say they posed a threat lying all snug in their blankets as they sleep away. Look at what they did to Pamela Lawton in Pittsburgh, PA when a police officer put his gun in her 7 year old daughter's face and threaten to blow her head off because she was crying. And charges were brought against Pamela Lawton? But I was not surprised when that happened.
We have no other options but to consider retaliation. They're sure as hell not listening to our protesting. We may as well take actions into our own hands or that will be our grandchildren and great grandchildren, and that's if we can make it that far without being exterminated.
The Illusion of Post-Racial America
by Aman Gill
This article originally appeared in The Indypendent.
Forty-one years ago, racial tensions - festering since slave times - burst into the Long Hot Summer in the tri-state area. Thirty-four died in Newark, but the most dramatic upheaval came from Plainfield, N.J., a quiet suburb 30 miles from New York City. Amid minor but widespread skirmishes spreading across the region, a lone police officer beat and shot a black youth in the boy's neighborhood. The boy survived, but the cop, quickly surrounded by enraged community members, did not make it out of the neighborhood alive.
Ashanti Alston, a political prisoner activist with the Jericho Movement and former Black Panther who was a teenager in Plainfield at the time, traced the escalating plot for The Indypendent. "The thing about Plainfield that stood out from all the other rebellions was that folks made their way to a gun manufacturing place right outside of the city," Alston says. "They came back to the community with rifles and it was a whole different ball game. It wasn't until the National Guard came that they were able to retake the black community."
Today, decades later, why does racial conflict no longer generate the same kind of heat? Not for lack of ignition. In Queens in November 2006, an undercover vice operation turned into an execution. A 50-shot cop fusillade killed Sean Bell, a young black man heading home on his final night as an unmarried man, and injured two of his friends, all unarmed. The murder won state sanction in April 2008, when a New York State Supreme Court judge accepted at face value the officers' contention that they feared for their lives, making their killing fully legal.
The verdict generated both outrage and despair. Hundreds of people marched that afternoon and "Justice for Sean Bell" signs sprang up throughout the boroughs. But an Al Sharpton-led civil disobedience action in June that might have been the first in a line of battles instead turned out to be the denouement. Things died down.
It's increasingly popular to argue that the fuel for unrest has disappeared because the problem of racism has receded into America's past. This idea has long held sway on the right, but, paradoxically, it's taken Barack Obama's candidacy to elevate this persistent right-wing myth into conventional wisdom.
Civil Rights Unfulfilled
"The history he [Obama] needs to know is the history he rejects," says Lenore Daniels, editorial board member of the Black Commentator, a weekly online magazine. "He rejects the whole Black Power movement: ‘Just the civil rights were fine, we'll leave it at that, there was progress.' [But] the Black Power movement is still relevant. That was a movement talking about economic equality, where King left off."
Histories of struggles are written by the victors. The movements of 40 years ago had winners and losers and, like any war, are remembered more ideologically than objectively. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended Jim Crow and for the first time in U.S. history granted black people formal equality before the law, but failed to transform their lives day-to-day. After 1965, all wings of the movement turned to address this gap: King turned from law and morality to economics; Malcolm X's militancy spread despite his assassination, Black Power was born, and the movement moved north.
Obama's view of a united, post-racial America is in the tradition of how the political establishment - Democrat and Republican - responded to heightened militancy. There was forceful repression, but also a more subtle, ideological response. The language of Jim Crow segregationism gave way to political correctness and new coded terms like "war on drugs." Those who were never allies of the oppressed lauded King and proclaimed the end of discrimination. And black elites, once viewed with suspicion, were welcomed to the table as long as they left their baggage behind. It was unsparing market capitalism for the rest of the community.
The result, as Columbia University historian Manning Marable puts it, is that "Jim Crow no longer existed, but in its place stood a far more formidable system of racial domination, rooted within the political economy and employing a language of fairness and equality." Racism in America may not look like all-white police forces, dogs on black men or sound like speeches by white supremacist politicians. It's more like a termite- infested house - political correctness and black representation in business, media and politics compose a nice-looking picture on the outside. But gashes in the façade expose structural disparities as racially aligned as ever. Statistical measures on rates of poverty, housing, employment and income are not far removed from their 1960s levels.
Black and White
At times, Obama sounds more like Richard Nixon than someone concerned with racism. At the 1968 Republican National Convention Nixon proclaimed, "To those who say law and order is the code word for racism, here is a reply: Our goal is justice for every American." Obama's response to the persecution of the Jena 6 nearly 40 years later sounded a similar note: "Outrage over an injustice like the Jena 6 isn't a matter of black and white. It's a matter of right and wrong."
Obama did not dwell on the marks of racism, so clear to many of us, in the demography of disaster left by Hurricane Katrina. "I do not subscribe to the notion that the painfully slow response of FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security was racially based," he said. "The ineptitude was color-blind." And Obama did not object to the Sean Bell ruling, saying, "The judge has made his ruling, and we're a nation of laws, so we respect the verdict that came down."
Obama's candidacy is seen as an indication that racial barriers no longer exist in the United States. Indeed, the election of a black president would be an undeniable milestone in American history, forcing many white Americans to confront latent fears and distrust of black people. And many see progress in the fact that a black man can run a campaign in which race is incidental. Yet it's taken Obama's embrace of post-racialism, and concurrent distancing from traditional civil rights-style black leadership, to lend viability to his campaign. Some activists see him as the culmination of a trend over the last 40 years of black leaders moving away from the communities they've traditionally served and closer to the political and corporate power that dominates the Democratic Party.
Movement Politics vs. Electoral Politics
Alston feels that since the 1970s, the face of mainstream black activism has moved from a base in communities to big money and corporate sway. "No longer do you have the real radical movement folks that were coming out of grassroots movements," Alston says. "You have people tied to money, or tied to established political power. What I look at today is that the Sharptons, the Barack Obamas, the Jesse Jacksons and even a lot of these mega-preachers now are not leaders from the grassroots. They're system leaders that were chosen by either political forces or corporate forces."
After attending Columbia University, Obama put in three years as a community organizer working on a range of neighborhood issues in the largely black Southside of Chicago. But his trajectory afterward - Harvard Law School and a stint as a law professor at the University of Chicago - looks more like the record of black politicians rising up in municipal politics in the 1980s and 1990s than the résumé of earlier leaders like King, Stokely Carmichael or Angela Davis. As he entered politics, he increasingly relied on allies culled from the Chicago elite - after the 2000 Census, he had his state senate district redrawn to make it, according to Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker, "wealthier, white, more Jewish, less-blue collar and better educated." The connections he cultivated with his new well-to-do constituents were vital to his successful 2004 campaign for a U.S. Senate seat.
As Democratic dominance of national-level black politics accelerated, communities' sense of action eroded into the passive live-with-your-fate mode that presently defines U.S. democracy. "When we go back to the 1950s and 1960s," Alston says, "that was the period when people were not relying on the Democratic Party, the party that black folks are so tied to [today]. People were in the streets, people voted through their civil disobedience and direct action and organizing."
The key question is whether much of the agenda in the fight against racial inequality remains unfulfilled. If so, there's plenty to drive modern-day movements, taking outrages like the Sean Bell verdict to illuminate the living economic inequality untouched by 1960s activism. If not, then what happened to Sean Bell is just an aberration that could have happened to anyone, of any class and any race, in a country that has finally fulfilled its egalitarian ideals. That may be an America to hope for, but it's not the one we have today.
Aman Gill is a frequent contributor to The Indypendent, the newspaper of the NYC Independent Media Center.
This article originally appeared in The Indypendent.
Forty-one years ago, racial tensions - festering since slave times - burst into the Long Hot Summer in the tri-state area. Thirty-four died in Newark, but the most dramatic upheaval came from Plainfield, N.J., a quiet suburb 30 miles from New York City. Amid minor but widespread skirmishes spreading across the region, a lone police officer beat and shot a black youth in the boy's neighborhood. The boy survived, but the cop, quickly surrounded by enraged community members, did not make it out of the neighborhood alive.
Ashanti Alston, a political prisoner activist with the Jericho Movement and former Black Panther who was a teenager in Plainfield at the time, traced the escalating plot for The Indypendent. "The thing about Plainfield that stood out from all the other rebellions was that folks made their way to a gun manufacturing place right outside of the city," Alston says. "They came back to the community with rifles and it was a whole different ball game. It wasn't until the National Guard came that they were able to retake the black community."
Today, decades later, why does racial conflict no longer generate the same kind of heat? Not for lack of ignition. In Queens in November 2006, an undercover vice operation turned into an execution. A 50-shot cop fusillade killed Sean Bell, a young black man heading home on his final night as an unmarried man, and injured two of his friends, all unarmed. The murder won state sanction in April 2008, when a New York State Supreme Court judge accepted at face value the officers' contention that they feared for their lives, making their killing fully legal.
The verdict generated both outrage and despair. Hundreds of people marched that afternoon and "Justice for Sean Bell" signs sprang up throughout the boroughs. But an Al Sharpton-led civil disobedience action in June that might have been the first in a line of battles instead turned out to be the denouement. Things died down.
It's increasingly popular to argue that the fuel for unrest has disappeared because the problem of racism has receded into America's past. This idea has long held sway on the right, but, paradoxically, it's taken Barack Obama's candidacy to elevate this persistent right-wing myth into conventional wisdom.
Civil Rights Unfulfilled
"The history he [Obama] needs to know is the history he rejects," says Lenore Daniels, editorial board member of the Black Commentator, a weekly online magazine. "He rejects the whole Black Power movement: ‘Just the civil rights were fine, we'll leave it at that, there was progress.' [But] the Black Power movement is still relevant. That was a movement talking about economic equality, where King left off."
Histories of struggles are written by the victors. The movements of 40 years ago had winners and losers and, like any war, are remembered more ideologically than objectively. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ended Jim Crow and for the first time in U.S. history granted black people formal equality before the law, but failed to transform their lives day-to-day. After 1965, all wings of the movement turned to address this gap: King turned from law and morality to economics; Malcolm X's militancy spread despite his assassination, Black Power was born, and the movement moved north.
Obama's view of a united, post-racial America is in the tradition of how the political establishment - Democrat and Republican - responded to heightened militancy. There was forceful repression, but also a more subtle, ideological response. The language of Jim Crow segregationism gave way to political correctness and new coded terms like "war on drugs." Those who were never allies of the oppressed lauded King and proclaimed the end of discrimination. And black elites, once viewed with suspicion, were welcomed to the table as long as they left their baggage behind. It was unsparing market capitalism for the rest of the community.
The result, as Columbia University historian Manning Marable puts it, is that "Jim Crow no longer existed, but in its place stood a far more formidable system of racial domination, rooted within the political economy and employing a language of fairness and equality." Racism in America may not look like all-white police forces, dogs on black men or sound like speeches by white supremacist politicians. It's more like a termite- infested house - political correctness and black representation in business, media and politics compose a nice-looking picture on the outside. But gashes in the façade expose structural disparities as racially aligned as ever. Statistical measures on rates of poverty, housing, employment and income are not far removed from their 1960s levels.
Black and White
At times, Obama sounds more like Richard Nixon than someone concerned with racism. At the 1968 Republican National Convention Nixon proclaimed, "To those who say law and order is the code word for racism, here is a reply: Our goal is justice for every American." Obama's response to the persecution of the Jena 6 nearly 40 years later sounded a similar note: "Outrage over an injustice like the Jena 6 isn't a matter of black and white. It's a matter of right and wrong."
Obama did not dwell on the marks of racism, so clear to many of us, in the demography of disaster left by Hurricane Katrina. "I do not subscribe to the notion that the painfully slow response of FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security was racially based," he said. "The ineptitude was color-blind." And Obama did not object to the Sean Bell ruling, saying, "The judge has made his ruling, and we're a nation of laws, so we respect the verdict that came down."
Obama's candidacy is seen as an indication that racial barriers no longer exist in the United States. Indeed, the election of a black president would be an undeniable milestone in American history, forcing many white Americans to confront latent fears and distrust of black people. And many see progress in the fact that a black man can run a campaign in which race is incidental. Yet it's taken Obama's embrace of post-racialism, and concurrent distancing from traditional civil rights-style black leadership, to lend viability to his campaign. Some activists see him as the culmination of a trend over the last 40 years of black leaders moving away from the communities they've traditionally served and closer to the political and corporate power that dominates the Democratic Party.
Movement Politics vs. Electoral Politics
Alston feels that since the 1970s, the face of mainstream black activism has moved from a base in communities to big money and corporate sway. "No longer do you have the real radical movement folks that were coming out of grassroots movements," Alston says. "You have people tied to money, or tied to established political power. What I look at today is that the Sharptons, the Barack Obamas, the Jesse Jacksons and even a lot of these mega-preachers now are not leaders from the grassroots. They're system leaders that were chosen by either political forces or corporate forces."
After attending Columbia University, Obama put in three years as a community organizer working on a range of neighborhood issues in the largely black Southside of Chicago. But his trajectory afterward - Harvard Law School and a stint as a law professor at the University of Chicago - looks more like the record of black politicians rising up in municipal politics in the 1980s and 1990s than the résumé of earlier leaders like King, Stokely Carmichael or Angela Davis. As he entered politics, he increasingly relied on allies culled from the Chicago elite - after the 2000 Census, he had his state senate district redrawn to make it, according to Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker, "wealthier, white, more Jewish, less-blue collar and better educated." The connections he cultivated with his new well-to-do constituents were vital to his successful 2004 campaign for a U.S. Senate seat.
As Democratic dominance of national-level black politics accelerated, communities' sense of action eroded into the passive live-with-your-fate mode that presently defines U.S. democracy. "When we go back to the 1950s and 1960s," Alston says, "that was the period when people were not relying on the Democratic Party, the party that black folks are so tied to [today]. People were in the streets, people voted through their civil disobedience and direct action and organizing."
The key question is whether much of the agenda in the fight against racial inequality remains unfulfilled. If so, there's plenty to drive modern-day movements, taking outrages like the Sean Bell verdict to illuminate the living economic inequality untouched by 1960s activism. If not, then what happened to Sean Bell is just an aberration that could have happened to anyone, of any class and any race, in a country that has finally fulfilled its egalitarian ideals. That may be an America to hope for, but it's not the one we have today.
Aman Gill is a frequent contributor to The Indypendent, the newspaper of the NYC Independent Media Center.
Freedom Rider: If "That One" Wins
How will white people react if Barack Obama is elected the 44th president of the United States? Every poll shows Obama leading John McCain with just three weeks to go before election day. More importantly, he is leading in the states that John Kerry won four years ago, and may be able to add some of the states that Kerry, and other Democrats, were unable to win.
Obama's success at getting the votes of millions of white people does not change the fact that the United States is still very racist. A recent poll indicated that many white people, including some who claim to support Obama, continue to hold very negative opinions about black people, often viewing them as "violent," and "complaining."
The response to the worldwide economic meltdown that was engineered by wealthy and powerful white people is now being blamed on black Americans. As the new talking point goes, undeserving black people caused worldwide financial markets to crash when they defaulted on home mortgages. It is a supreme irony that a black man is on the verge of becoming president, while the rest of black America is caught in the familiar role of scapegoat for the nation's troubles.
Obama is truly admired, even loved, by many white people. His appeals to hope and change are indeed potent. The consultants who marketed those phrases certainly knew the power behind them. Obama's refusal to directly address the needs of black people is also appealing to white people. They can support him without having to change the bigoted attitudes they still hold against other black people.
However, it has to be pointed out that lofty campaign talking points can't placate people who are proudly and openly racist. They still don't to see a black person in the position of ultimate political authority, not even an eloquent, biracial, photogenic politician who never addresses black people's needs and who even has a white grand mother to trot out at convenient times. The very idea that a black man will be president makes these people very, very angry.
Hillary Clinton attempted to tap into these sentiments and John McCain does now. Clinton made it clear her campaign was appealing to "hard working people, white people." McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin, uses Obama's middle name, Hussein, at every opportunity and sneers about community organizing, which doesn't really describe the social work that Obama did, but the anti-black sentiment is clearly understood by the audience for whom it is meant. In the first presidential debate John McCain refused to look Obama in the face. The second debate ended without a hand shake between the two, but that was not the most memorable moment. When McCain referred to his opponent as "that one" he was telling his most racist supporters that he shared their disdain and anger at the thought of an Obama presidency.
The parking lot owner in North Carolina who refuses to park cars with Obama bumper stickers didn't get the peace, love, harmony and post-racial memo. He probably wouldn't want a white Democrat to be president, and now he is particularly galled that a black Democrat may be president. He will be a very angry man if Obama is inaugurated in January.
He will blame black people for the mortgage crisis and for every other crisis in the world. Ironically, so will some of the white people who vote for Obama. His strategy of distancing himself from black people allows them to support him while still heaping disdain on the rest of black America. Obama appeals to many white people precisely because of his own denunciation of black demands for justice, or even the memory of past injustice. Rev. Jeremiah Wright knows that all too well.
The racist attacks directed at Obama pose a terrible dilemma. The primary one being that he doesn't acknowledge that racism exists. It has disappeared, bringing black people "90% of the way" towards equality.
If "that one" wins, black people will be very, very happy. The joy will be short lived when the political need to please white America, whether Obama supporters or not, takes precedence over the unrequited love that came Obama's way. Black America is facing an ugly reaction from white people angered because the commander-in-chief is black. White Obama supporters will be able to wash their hands of responsibility for righting America's wrongs because they cast their ballots for a black man.
Black people will face hard times in an Obama presidency. There will be no defense when the beat down begins. Why should there be? Violent, complaining people ought to be punished. They deserve nothing else.
Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.Com. Ms. Kimberley maintains an edifying and frequently updated blog at freedomrider.blogspot.com. More of her work is also available at her Black Agenda Report archive page.
Obama's success at getting the votes of millions of white people does not change the fact that the United States is still very racist. A recent poll indicated that many white people, including some who claim to support Obama, continue to hold very negative opinions about black people, often viewing them as "violent," and "complaining."
The response to the worldwide economic meltdown that was engineered by wealthy and powerful white people is now being blamed on black Americans. As the new talking point goes, undeserving black people caused worldwide financial markets to crash when they defaulted on home mortgages. It is a supreme irony that a black man is on the verge of becoming president, while the rest of black America is caught in the familiar role of scapegoat for the nation's troubles.
Obama is truly admired, even loved, by many white people. His appeals to hope and change are indeed potent. The consultants who marketed those phrases certainly knew the power behind them. Obama's refusal to directly address the needs of black people is also appealing to white people. They can support him without having to change the bigoted attitudes they still hold against other black people.
However, it has to be pointed out that lofty campaign talking points can't placate people who are proudly and openly racist. They still don't to see a black person in the position of ultimate political authority, not even an eloquent, biracial, photogenic politician who never addresses black people's needs and who even has a white grand mother to trot out at convenient times. The very idea that a black man will be president makes these people very, very angry.
Hillary Clinton attempted to tap into these sentiments and John McCain does now. Clinton made it clear her campaign was appealing to "hard working people, white people." McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin, uses Obama's middle name, Hussein, at every opportunity and sneers about community organizing, which doesn't really describe the social work that Obama did, but the anti-black sentiment is clearly understood by the audience for whom it is meant. In the first presidential debate John McCain refused to look Obama in the face. The second debate ended without a hand shake between the two, but that was not the most memorable moment. When McCain referred to his opponent as "that one" he was telling his most racist supporters that he shared their disdain and anger at the thought of an Obama presidency.
The parking lot owner in North Carolina who refuses to park cars with Obama bumper stickers didn't get the peace, love, harmony and post-racial memo. He probably wouldn't want a white Democrat to be president, and now he is particularly galled that a black Democrat may be president. He will be a very angry man if Obama is inaugurated in January.
He will blame black people for the mortgage crisis and for every other crisis in the world. Ironically, so will some of the white people who vote for Obama. His strategy of distancing himself from black people allows them to support him while still heaping disdain on the rest of black America. Obama appeals to many white people precisely because of his own denunciation of black demands for justice, or even the memory of past injustice. Rev. Jeremiah Wright knows that all too well.
The racist attacks directed at Obama pose a terrible dilemma. The primary one being that he doesn't acknowledge that racism exists. It has disappeared, bringing black people "90% of the way" towards equality.
If "that one" wins, black people will be very, very happy. The joy will be short lived when the political need to please white America, whether Obama supporters or not, takes precedence over the unrequited love that came Obama's way. Black America is facing an ugly reaction from white people angered because the commander-in-chief is black. White Obama supporters will be able to wash their hands of responsibility for righting America's wrongs because they cast their ballots for a black man.
Black people will face hard times in an Obama presidency. There will be no defense when the beat down begins. Why should there be? Violent, complaining people ought to be punished. They deserve nothing else.
Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.Com. Ms. Kimberley maintains an edifying and frequently updated blog at freedomrider.blogspot.com. More of her work is also available at her Black Agenda Report archive page.
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