Some folks don't know that the man who shot Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth, was a famous actor at the time. He considered himself a a member of the better class of Southern gentleman. In a biography I read a great quote from him: "If we elect an abolitionist president now, it will mean that eventually we will have to elect a NEGRO PRESIDENT." He felt that killing Lincoln would take the power out of the abolitionist movement and push back the dreaded vision of a future United States living under a black president. Well, saints be praised, the abolitionist president got his brains blown out, but we still got our negro president! Apparently, blotting out one part of the equation did not automatically blot out the other part. I hope that Brother Abraham is looking down on us today, knowing his life was not lived in vain. Also, Brother Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, and everyone else who gave their life for the struggle. Some things are just inevitable...
But damn it, I hope Mr. Obama keeps himself surrounded by security and secret service guys because I can't stomach another assassination. Stop all this mystical "I'll die when it's my time to die" stuff! Keep him safe, and keep him covered at all times. I don't want Michelle to be the next grieving widow of the great martyred hero. We've already had waaaay too much of that. Barack Obama must stay in for at least two terms, if not THREE like FDR. The scum of the Earth who want him killed MUST be smoked out like the rats they are and stopped proactively. Don't be so sure that the assassination of the truth tellers ended in previous decades. The world has changed, but not as much as some may believe. There's still plenty of ugliness and hatred out there. So cover our new president like he's Jesus.
I want to say this right now, once and for all. When Barack won the nomination, I ran out of time to sit here on the website. But that doesn't mean I've lost interest or changed my mind about Barack. I just felt like, OK, he's got the nomination, now let me get on with other stuff. As far as I'm concerned, Barack Obama is already the President of the United States. George Bush is a JOKE, and his administration should be tried for crimes against humanity. When he won his second term in '04, I was disgusted. I thought of his second term as just four years of waiting for this sucker to get out of office. Now, the McCain CIRCUS is trying to make it APPEAR that Barack is slipping in the polls, or that his supporters have softened up. But you can FORGET THAT! All I'm doing is takin care of my own business while I WAIT for Bush to fade into the past. I have learned how to prevent myself from boiling over with sheer RAGE, but inside, I am counting the minutes until the November election. And if McCain manages to twist the voting results into a victory for him, I WILL NOT ACCEPT HIM AS MY PRESIDENT. I'm serious as a heart attack here: I do not want to be an American if McCain gets elected President. The man is a twisted little FREAK. I can easily see him going into a Vietnam flashback in the Oval Office. I think he's NUTS, and on top of being NUTS, his policies will RUIN the United States from within and from without. Low-income Americans cannot take another four years of teetering on the brink of EXTINCTION. And now it's been SO LONG that we have struggled and suffered, we're not just going to accept another rigged election, like the one we had in 2000. We're not going to accept another CLUELESS JERK telling us what amounts to, "You'll just have to sacrifice even more so that we can continue our NOBLE CAUSE in Iraq." If that's what I hear after Election 08, I will PUBLICLY REFUSE TO ACCEPT HIS LEADERSHIP. I will demonstrate until the police take me to jail, because I am SICK OF THIS BS!! We've sacrificed all we have to sacrifice, and we're SICK OF SACRIFICING...especially in support of this ugly NOBLE CAUSE in the Middle East and the rest of the world. We're a bloody JOKE in the eyes of the world--A CRUEL JOKE at that. I am telling you straight up, McCain will NEVER be MY PRESIDENT. I will leave the country and apply for visitor status in Canada, Denmark or the Netherlands rather than stand behind that little MONSTER. We have been DRAGGED to the point where we can't just walk away from the election saying, "Well, I guess we'll just have to wait until next time..." We've waited long enough for our leaders to lead us where WE want to go. More of the Bush BS will bring this country to the bottom of the food chain, and I'm not goin down with it. Just as my ancestors fled to the US to escape creepy dictators, I will escape this country, because it's not a good country anymore. It's an evil country. I AGREE WITH THE MUSLIMS WHO SAY AMERICA IS THE GREAT SATAN. WE ARE THE EVIL EMPIRE. I'm GLAD RONALD REAGAN IS DEAD. I'M GLAD JERRY FALWELL IS DEAD. I'M GLAD JESSE HELMS and that other old bag of bones, the hundred-year-old SCARECROW, ARE DEAD. They needed to die in order for this country to get a better world agenda. I will claim Obama as my president in November. If the McCain machine manages to officially "WIN" I will call for Obama to be the People's President. I mean this: I will not follow McCain through hell. I will start a movement of people who gather in Washington DC around Barack Obama and proclaim him THEIR PRESIDENT. If we have to fight a civil war over this, SO BE IT. If the "United" States splits into two countries, FINE BY ME. I'm not gonna support another administration full of CRIMINALS.
I know a lot of Obama supporters are thinking "Don't even worry about McCain being president. He can't win." But I have it from believable sources that "the fix is in" for McCain. He's going to win just like Bush won. Nobody with a heart wanted Bush, but he "WON" anyway. And I'm sick of voting and having the votes get lost, or some jack-ass county in OHIO makes all the difference, and all these other sneaky tricks. The stakes are too high to let another election get stamped out like a cigarette butt. It's OVER, and I don't CARE if the election gets rigged in favor of McCain. I'm not gonna sit down and shut up if that FREAK gets elected. I'll be an American refugee before I follow that creep.
TELL ME IF YOU FEEL THE SAME.
Wow, what a beautiful sight to see, barack and michelle onstage together, claiming the nomination. As Maya Angelou says in one of her her poems, "I am the hope of the slave..." All the years of effort are paying off. The African-American gene pool has finally produced a black president. The Black Gene has circulated all the way to the presidency. Man, that is HISTORY! God bless them.
Watching the obama nominee speech, I was getting all nervous when the speech was closing, because it was the same sequence that led up to bobby kennedy waving and saying goodnight, thanks for the good work, now it's on to chicago...then bobby walks out through the kitchen door and the bullets start flyin...It really put me on edge. I felt like saying to the TV set "Barack! Don't go out through the kitchen!"
The night bobby got hit was my 16th birthday. I always have a birthday around california primary time. That particular night, I was all wound up with teenage birthday joy. Then all at once the kennedy legacy was torn to shreds. It was such a sad way to finish off the night, crashing down off of all that joy into a painful nightmare. I guess I still get a case of the jitters when I see something that reminds me of it. My heart is just TIRED of grieving over all the damn assassinated heroes... Regarding Hillary, she should take over for Edward Kennedy.
She should become the sorcerer's apprentice until Ted either retires or passes away. s
Hillary should become the continuation of Teddy's place in the Senate. I believe they are very similar in character
A friend of a friend happens to be in Army Intelligence, going way back to the Nixon Administration. He says Barack will be the nominee for the democrats, but John McCain will win anyway. It'll be rigged just like the GW Bush election was, and millions of people who vote for Obama will be ready to riot. John McCain will die during the first year of his presidency, and Colin Powell will be asked to take over and lead a military-style regime. OK, maybe this is just another urban legend or phony psychic prediction, and I don't want to upset the apple cart. However, I think more people should be aware of this as a distinct possibility--and get READY for it! What are the Obama voters going to do when the November election turns out as phony as Bush 2000? They're gonna be OUTRAGED, and they won't just take it sitting down. No more goofy "hanging chad" jokes. There will be a riot something like the 1968 revolt during the season of MLK and RFK's assassinations. Al Gore will step in as the wise old monk who has already lived through this, and he'll stabilize the democrats for a while, but you know as well as I do that the Obama believers will raise hell. Obama works like a pack horse for two years, inching his way along toward a hard-earned victory--but "somehow" McCain just flies in over the top. Another one of those "missing ballot boxes" type problems in one little redneck county. And the people who have suffered under Bush will not be able to contain their rage. Cities will burn. The chaos level will go up to red-hot levels, and McCain and Powell will manage the crisis like it's a military coup. Then "like clockwork" Ol Man McCain's cancer will come back, or he'll have a bad car accident, or whatever. He'll die and Colin Powell will get grandfathered in. So here's what I'm telling you. Get ready. Don't spend the next few months just fantacising about why Obama should win the election. Board up your houses because the tornadoes are comin. Don't just WAIT for everything to happen and THEN figure out some radical plan of action. I think we should be organising a massive demonstration and PLAN what we're going to say and do. The election is as rigged as a boxing match. We'll have to demand that the vote counting procedure get audited and everything else we can do to make it crystal clear that we aren't gonna accept this CLOWN SHOW as a legitimate election. Do you want to live under another 8 years of Republicanism? Watching them manipulate the world for fun and profit...I feel that if Obama doesn't get elected I want to leave the damn country. Go to Canada where the drug laws are better. Wait out the End Times smokin ganja. Now it sounds like I'm just being silly, but I'm really as serious as a train wreck.
I want a NEW POSITION developed for Obama to be the first in--THE PEOPLE'S PRESIDENT. That would be the winner of the popular vote. Why let the best-loved candidate just go off into the sunset after the republicans rig the election? Tell them NO, We're not going to take this. The majority of people voted for Obama, and by God you are going to let us have the president we want. We voted him in, and he's not gonna just ride into the distant horizon. He's our leader. So let him lead us. I am sick of watching the guy who wins the personality test get knocked off the wall. LISTEN, ya'll. This ain't no joke.
I just caught this little clip on yahoo or msn that quotes Hillary Clinton as saying to Barack: "If you haven't got the votes, it doesn't matter..." Tell me what that is supposed to mean. Hillary seems to have perched on the ridge of a canyon like a big ol' buzzard, just waiting for some fatal accident to occur in Barack Obama's campaign. Then she can swoop down and catch him like a field mouse. Like the PREDATOR she really is! "DANG!!!" What is this woman waiting for? SHE'S LOSING! It's like she can't BELIEVE that she is losing. Whoever said back at Wellesley or Harvard that Hillary would probably be the first woman president made a pronouncement that Hillary has taken SO SERIOUSLY that she can't stop believing it. She seems to be saying "WAIT! I'm supposed to win. What's happening here? Isn't there SOME DIRTY TRICK WE CAN PULL THAT WILL PARALYZE OBAMA AND MAKE ME THE WINNER AFTER ALL?" Is there any way she can come out of this on top? I mean, even if she gets FED Florida and Michigan like raw meat, she still can't close the gap between herself and Barack, isn't that right? She and Bill know this game so well, they're like those OLD card dealers in Nevada...you know the ones who look like they're about 72, all old and skinny and dried-up lookin, and they've been dealing cards for about 50 years, and they know every trick there is? Not just the quick and easy ones, but the ones you have to memorize and get real good at, so you can pull them ahead of time, so that the average card playing tourist hasn't got a CHANCE? Yeah, that's what Florida and Michigan are to Bill and Hill. These two are devious tricksters from so far back, a lot of people don't even see them coming. But that's what makes them SO GOOD at the game. Hillary, the unflappable old PRO. Been playin since she was 4, back on the mean streets of Park Ridge. And, ya know, she thought the FIX WAS IN ON THIS DEAL! What happened? WHAT IS SHE WAITING FOR??? Somebody stop this woman before she causes serious HARM!
I find this gruelling primary season very CORROSIVE to my faith in mankind. The way she just WON'T QUIT. She tries to make that seem like she's not a quitter, stalwart to the end, having the courage to go on when the tide has turned against her. But scratch the surface and you see her STALKING the presidency, waiting and poised to strike if Obama falters for one second. Waiting for some slimy abberation to come crawling out of the depths of hell, hard-wired to drag Obama down and place her on the throne. Pray to God the Clintons don't succeed.
On the other hand, I think it's cool that Obama has just let her run herself into the dust. He wishes it could be over, but he says, "OK, Miss Hillary, just go right ahead and keep sluggin it out..." And all that does is to make more people get disgusted with her. And Obama just waits it out, tappin his toe and whistling a little tune...I mean, what is it gonna take for Hillary to accept defeat? The HUBRIS is getting really stinky...what have we got left? Two more states and puerto rico, or what? What is she hopin for? But it's been very good, the way Barack has handled this. He's one smart cookie...I just pray he doesn't lose by some technicality in the last round, thanks to crooked politics.
WOW!! What a sharp-lookin pair Obama and Edwards make! I hadn't heard or seen any news all day, until about midnight I logged on to Barack's site and saw the photo of the two of them right in front. VERY, VERY COOL! I know Mr. Edwards has said he does not want to be vice president, but, golly-gee, I wish he'd reconsider!! I voted for him back in the California primary. Back then I still didn't feel sure that Obama was tuned in to the issues of poverty...he seemed a little bit of a "limosine liberal" who had all kinds of good things to say, but didn't directly address the concerns of the poor. And since I AM poor, I had to choose the candidate who said the most relevant things about MY problems. I couldn't pretend I was someone else just so I could vote for the first black president. Well, since then, Obama has satisfactorily bridged that gap, but I still think Mr. Edwards would be a priceless asset to Mr. Obama's administration. As vice president, Mr. Edwards would have MORE TIME to work on those poverty issues than he would if he had become the president. The president is SOOOO busy with ALL the issues, he can't really concentrate on the second-class citizens. And, come on, don't resist, you know as well as I that poor folks ARE second-class citizens. So what we need is the NUMBER TWO man at the White House aiming his mental powers at the poverty issues!!! WO!! Then we'd REALLY have some justice! Not just a bunch of Berkeley liberals TALKING but doing NOTHING. That would be a ticket sent from heaven! Please, John Edwards, think about it!
And here's another piece of prophecy. Don't forget you heard it here FIRST on Barack Obama dot com! DARKNESS CURES CANCER! I got a bolt of lightning out of the blue when this thought hit me, a while back. There was some little blurb about how RADIATION is turning out to be much less effective than it was hoped to be in the treatment of cancer patients. It just flew by off of cable TV or the internet, one of those little 15-second medical blah-blahs that are always coming out of the media these days. But then it hit me...if RADIATION is turning out to make the cancers GROW and spread, then TOTAL DARKNESS would be the thing that would make them shrink and disappear! DARKNESS THERAPY!!! AND SLEEP!!! Sleeping in total darkness in a controlled environment would provide the body with the opportunity to HEAL ITSELF! I betcha a nickel SLEEP DEPRIVATION IS ONE OF THE KEY ELEMENTS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF CANCER. Too much stress, anxiety, noise, sleeping with one eye half open, thinking in your sleep, worrying in your dreams, and living in a world of TOO MUCH LIGHT! It's never REALLY dark anymore! There's always some dang little red, blue or green blinking electronic eyeball staring at you, added to all the other stuff that makes life hectic. Cell phones, air travel, security sensors, computers, microwaves, satellites. Even when you lay down with all the lights turned off, you're really still laying there getting bombarded with all kinds of vibrations. And the body just gets FRIED by all that. What we need is to go into a state of deep sleep in a dark and silent room, with perfectly clean air, no pollutants such as glue holding the floor tiles down, toxic chemicals in the paint on the walls, bleach in the sheets we're lying on, even the chemicals in hair color and the crud in batteries...and just totally SLEEP. Maybe the length of time would be determined by the needs of the patient. It's a strange thing, I've been thinking about this for a few days now, and then this big blast of energy with John Edwards endorsing Barack Obama...the two events melded together, making me think of Mrs. Edwards, with her cancer. This is why I decided to just announce the idea right here. Mrs. Edwards, I hope you will try this!Create a totally natural environment--not just a room in the ordinary sense, but a sort of SLEEP LAB. No electrical wiring in the walls, the walls themselves made of natural wood, SOUNDPROOF, no vinyl in the furniture, no telephone, no TV, no windows, a bed made of wood, with a 100% natural-fiber mattress, no foam rubber in the pillows, no paint, no man-made floor covering, a big dreamy-soft comforter, breathing with an oxygen tube in your nose, and just SLEEP. Forget the kids, forget the guilt, lose the nervous tension, and just sleep in total darkness. All day, all night, for as long as you can, as often as you can. I bet you will find yourself losing that cancer. PEACE-OUT!! Time for ME to sleep!
I'm watchin our man discuss the Jeremiah Wright statements on C Span. I appreciate the fact that Barack has decided to follow up with this, because it brings us all back to the page we were on before the Rev kicked up his little heels in the dust. I am totally agreeing with Barack when he says the Rev DISRESPECTED him by coming out with the second round of ridiculous statements...I feel that's VERY TRUE! Rev Wright shows himself to be a selfish HUSTLER. It doesn't matter to him that his spiteful arguments cause damage to Obama's campaign, he just CAN'T RESIST coming out again to BLAB in his own defense. And what does that tell you? Does he have "the black church" at heart, or is he just another ornery egotist who can't see that what's happening now is not about HIM? I was deeply offended by the way Rev Wright tried to backbite Barack, turning this into a confrontation with the character of a knife fight. Like, boil it all down to the basest level of "You dissin my mama? Now I'm gonna KILL YA!" Couldn't leave well enough alone after the first round of fighting. Just HAD to come out again to get in a few vicious digs. Really shows the true character of the good rev'rend, doesn't it? He has the same kind of vibrations as a George Wallace type. He personifies exactly what has to be overcome by BOTH sides of the black-white conflict. He and Louis Farrakhan exist in the same realm. Their reaction to the white power structure seems to be "I can be just as ugly, hateful and vicious as you!!!" And where does that bring ANY of us? It drags down BOTH sides.
I keep going back to the Biography of Malcolm X. I know Martin Luther King is great, but Malcolm X really hit my mind and heart in a spine-tingling way. The way he went into the Nation of Islam and fought from that perspective for years. Then gradually the REAL TRUTH started to melt his heart of stone. I'm not jokin here, I'm wipin tears out of my eyes as I write this. The process MALCOLM went through is the process we ALL have to go through in order to be spiritually healed. This clash between Obama and the Reverend is THE SAME as the clash between Brother Malcolm and the Honorable Elijah Mohammed. Malcolm had the smarts and the genuine spirituality to see the PURE TRUTH, while Elijah Mohammed was just fighting for his own side exactly the same way his white devils were doing. This is why for me Malcolm X is the one soul-chilling figure in the whole revolution who tells it like it REALLY IS. If you REALLY want to end this war between white and black, BOTH SIDES have to let go of the past. Dwelling on the wounds of battle is the very thing that keeps the wounds from disappearing.
And here's the bottom line: these people who come out making statements about how the white power structure owes all black people an "apology" or some form of compensation for the damages of the past are really inwardly CYNICAL MANIPULATORS trying to HUSTLE A BIG JACKPOT using this "wounded martyr" routine to make white people feel guilty. And now, in the present time, the barriers have broken down to the point where we have white people subsisting on food stamps and black people graduating from Princeton. Yes, there are still instances of social injustice against black people, but the power structure has opened a lot more doors, ALMOST to the point of reversing the roles. It GAULS me to listen to these black tenured professors at the highest-ranking universities in the world talking about how rotten life is for black people, when I barely struggle through each month. Yet I'm being told I have to pay back the descendants of plantation slaves. The racial barriers are not as monolithic as they were in the past. There are a lot more POOR white people than there are super-rich tycoons. If every black person got a tax rebate for all the crap that has ever happened to black people, the whole US Treasury would be emptied down to the last dollar. Then the country would be too anemic to improve the standard of living for the victims of today's crap. It can't be done. It wasn't right, but we can't pay down the debts left over from what was done hundreds of years ago. All we can do is work to bring those imbalances back into balance in this world today. Like it or not, the bottom line is, black people have to get over it and let go of their raging resentment. And at the same time, the white ruling class has to continue to break down racial barriers until there IS no WHITE RULING CLASS. There are only high achievers, medium achievers, and laid-back achievers who do what they do in life by THEIR OWN CHOICE, not by the hand of some royal elite. Not every person in the world was MEANT to go to college and become a career intellectual. There are people who would be happy as pigs in slop just have some fairly decent blue-collar job. But NOBODY--NOBODY--should be suffering in poverty that scars them and holds them back. And at this point, there are plenty of WHITE PEOPLE suffering in that crushing, oppressive way, right along with the blacks and browns. But you don't hear much about that. Comedians still go on, stereotyping white people as these spoiled airheads, like we're all a bunch of Paris Hilton spoiled brats. George Lopez really offends me sometimes, and Chris Rock, because they refuse to acknowledge that there are poor, humble, hard-working white people who SUFFER to get by every day--and there are black people starring on TV shows, making damn good money cashing in on racial stereotypes that don't really apply to today's world. The issues of TODAY'S WORLD are more about the extremes of wealth and poverty, in whatever ethnic groups are affected. That's what we all have to work on, and LET GO of all this old racial separation.
So anyway, THANK YOU for having the guts to come out and tell old Reverend Wright to GET OVER IT. You earn a boy scout badge of bravery for telling him to catch up with the times.
OK. I feel secure and calm again, now that Barack has explained his position a little more. See, I don't care about what people say, I care about what people DO. I don't care if Barack agrees or disagrees with Reverend Wright. I care about WHAT HE DOES WITH HIS POSITION AS PRESIDENT. Because that's what is going to affect me. His secret feelings are none of my business--as long as he doesn't dump them on me in the form of weird revenge games. EVERYONE GETS ANGRY--it's what you DO with your anger that makes a difference. This is what I wish more black people would get through their heads. Your anger is completely understandable--but YOU have to process it out of your system through constructive means. Many black people do this very well--channeling the anger--but there are still too many of you just resorting to HATRED and violent rage, NOT UNDERSTANDING CERTAIN FACTS OF LIFE that would make you more level-headed if you would only LEARN.
Fact #1: The majority of so-called "white" people in the USA are not upper-class white supremacists. This is something that black people need to soak in. I remember a black guy I worked with, he was from Americus, Georgia. He would come up with these statements I thought were totally unfair. One day he blurted out, "All white people think alike!" I can't remember the specific situation we were talking about, but it was obvious he really believed what he was saying. I stayed calm and explained to him, that statement is just as unfair and untrue as "All black people look alike." If you believe that statement, apparently you don't know very many black people. But it's also apparent that this guy didn't really know very many white people either. Another day, a small group of people had gathered around a big work table. It was getting toward the end of the day, and there was this last-minute rush of things that had to get done before closing time, so half the department gathered around, just pushing to get things done fast. We were slapping labels on big manilla envelopes, taping up small boxes that had to go out, and a list of ther little chores, and we were all yakking while we wrapped up the last half hour of the day. Nothing especially important was said by anybody. It was just your typical workplace group chatter. Suddenly our man from Americus said to me, "I bet you think black people don't do nothin but sit on the porch eatin watermelon!" It hit me like a punch in the gut. I was stunned. I made an effort not to argue or snap at him, but I said, "No, that's really not what I think. And it's not fair for you to make that assumption." Maybe in Georgia there are more white people who think like that, but here in California there are many progressive thinkers who don't look at things through a narrow lens. And this guy needed to figure that out and stop insulting the hell out of people before he knew anything about them. I couldn't tell this guy my whole life story right there in the last 15 minutes of the day, but I tried to convey the idea that I have known and loved black people. I don't lump them all together into stupid generalizations, because they are all individuals, as unique as any other kind of person. I think he absorbed at least SOME of what I said, and he seemed more relaxed as time went on. I just wanted him to understand that white people think all kinds of different things, we aren't this unified body of people who all think alike for genetic reasons. We have many different points of view and philosophies ranging from one extreme to the other. We may not always understand black people exactly as they would wish to be understood, but we sincerely TRY. And you should try too. Because MOST white people don't buy into any racist theory, and they don't consider themselves part of the George Bush Ivy League WASP crowd. To me, when I hear "white" people, I think of George Bush. He is actually distantly related to the Queen of England. His forefathers have been wealthy for a looooong, long time, and his position in life is such that he COULD think of himself as NOT JUST COMMON FOLK. OK, that crowd is getting smaller and smaller as time goes by, because they don't spread themselves around too much. They tend to only marry other people of the same class, and they're very tight-fisted with the ol' dollar. Of course there are exceptions, but it's fair to say there are threads of similarity running through their communities. Those are the real "white" people. Most of the rest of us are some part Native American, or some other mixed race combo, and we don't talk the way George Lopez impersonates us, we're not rich, and we're not totally clueless about what's goin on. We'd be embarrassed to go to dinner at the White House because we don't have any fussy-proper manners, and we probably wouldn't have anything fancy enough to wear. Don't lump us all together as one big ball of white bread dough. We KNOW it wasn't right what happened during the slave days, but we can't change history anymore than you can. SO GET OVER IT!
Fact #2: Many other ethnic groups have been exploited as slaves throughout history. My mother was a SLAV, and guess what, the word SLAV means SLAVE. It's just a european way of saying SLAVE. The Slavic people were kept as slaves by every major power in Europe. The Balkan states have been conquered and oppressed by almost everybody at one time or another. Although they look "white" they are as humble as farm laborers, because they were regarded by the Nazis as sub-humans who should be wiped off the face of the Earth. This is no joke. Jews were not the only group of people the Nazis wanted to exterminate. My grandparents came to the USA to escape the onslaught of World War ONE. My mom used to tell me things like "How am I going to get all high and mighty toward the Mexicans who come here illegally, when MY FATHER was an illegal immigrant himself. He jumped off a fishing boat and SWAM into New York Harbor! He was here for 5 years, hiding from the Immigration officials, until he finally got married and had kids. So what am I gonna say about the illegals running all over california now? I'd have to be the world's worst hypocrite to say they should all be rounded up and sent back." I am so thankful I had her for my mother, instead of some cracker hick. She passed away in 2000, but her influence is within me to the end. She was such a good teacher on these kinds of issues. She was no more a member of the exclusive country club crowd than Cesar Chavez. She was KIND to people who were regarded as the scum of the earth. When I was about 14, she and my brother and I lived in a ROOM in a building that was populated by cheap whores and dope-pushing bikers. The girls who lived upstairs were heroin addicts. The manager of the building was their pimp, and he performed abortions on his kitchen table. There was a homeless street girl who would sometimes crash on an old mattress in the basement. The girls who lived upstairs regarded this homeless gal as the lowest of the low--BENEATH them, because at least they had rooms to live in. So here you had a bunch of trashy junkies thinking they were a cut above this homeless street girl. One night Mom woke me and my brother up, saying this girl was going to come in and sleep in our room. It was cold outside and she had nowhere to go, so my mom let her crash on our sofa. We were kinda scared of her. We just didn't know what she might try to pull, or maybe she would stink up the sofa, because she was DIRTY. But Mom told us "Don't you ever look down on ANYONE! Because they're human, just like you. Something horrible might have happened to her that ruined her life and she can't pull herself out of it, but that doesn't mean God loves her less than he loves so-called "good" people." This is what I have to remember of my mother--a humble soul with way-above-average insights into the questions of life. The first live musical performance I saw was in about 1962, when my mom took me to see RAY CHARLES. This was back when white people just didn't go to the other side of town to watch negro performers. My mom LOVED Ray Charles and wouldn't have none of it about racial segregation. I was 10 or 11, and I had never been in a big hall full of black people. Ray Charles and the Raylettes rocked that house, just like he was portrayed by Jamie Fox in the movie RAY. When I watched the movie, I got tears in my eyes, remembering it. The Raylettes were dancin in their sequined dresses, and Ray was such a stone groove, I was ELECTRIFIED. I was looking around at the audience, a sea of black people, dancin, and my whole soul opened up and said "YES!!!" Once in a while we'd get a suspicious look from a black person, because we were the only white folk in the audience, but as soon as we DIDN'T snap back with some nasty attitude, they would just shrug and look like, "OK, if it ain't a problem for you, then it ain't a problem for us either." I thank God I had this upbringing, it made me so much more compassionate than if I had had some uptight conservative mom.
This is why, now, I just FEEL things as VIBRATIONS more than analyzing each sentence. I have this saying: "Truth is a vibration." You KNOW when someone is speaking the truth, because you feel the vibration of truth emanating out of them. And I felt the truth in Barack as he made his speech. He ain't lyin. My doubts have been removed. I got the answer I needed, and as far as I'm concerned the issue is resolved.
But I just want to say this--HATE is a vibration too. And when Reverend Wright goes into his BLACK RAGE raps, he's emanating nothing but HATE. It's like he INDULGES in something that is not good for anyone. Him standing there screaming as he does in the video clips is no better than some NAZI shouting "LOOK OUT NIGGER! THE KLAN'S GETTIN BIGGER!" in the sense that all it does is incite a knee-jerk reaction of equal hatred in the audience. His words and his voice are DESIGNED to get people all worked up in an un-thinking kind of way. And that is irresponsible. The audience is like a bag of charcoal briquettes, and Rev. Wright's hatespeech is like lighter fluid and a match. What good is that going to do anyone? I think he needs to calm down a little and stop FEEDING on his own rage. I actually AGREE with his statements about 9/11--the US brought it on themselves by being PIGS. But screaming GODDAMN AMERICA over and over isn't going to make to make things BETTER. His hate is no different from the guys who flew the planes into the World Trade Center. This is what EVERYONE has to understand. HATE is universal. It makes no difference who is hating and why, what excuse they have. Because EVERYBODY thinks they have the perfect excuse. White people hating black people is exactly the same as black people hating white people. Even though black people may feel it's more justified on their side, white people have their own excuses for hating too. They blame it on the screwed-up things black people do, failing to see that it's an endless cycle on both sides. SO SNAP OUT OF IT! Remember CHER in the movie MOONSTRUCK? SNAP OUT OF IT!!!
OK-OK, I edited out some of the posts that were too personal. I HATE being censored! Why do I get censored while ugly dames like Geraldine Ferraro get to say stupid shit like she did today? I'm askin you seriously...Why does the Obama aide have to RESIGN for speaking TRUTH, while the former vice presidential candidate from BAYRIDGE gets to spew out stale old BS with no repercussions? This is the way of the world. I guess the repercussions come in the form of YET ANOTHER victory for Barack and another defeat for Miss Daisy. Remarks from Miz Geraldine are classic Brooklyn Italian. Attitudes like this remind me of the Spike Lee film, Do The Right Thing. Remember the owner of the pizza place, played by Danny Aiello? And the two sons, who would stand around saying stuff like this? This is the level of intelligence that produces such ignorance. It STINKS! It seems like every day, Hillary's traveling circus stoops to a new low. She must be getting desperate. If Hillary tries to twist the results of the Florida and Michigan "do-overs" she should be disqualified for cheating. If she wins the election, you'll KNOW it's rigged. You all might be saying there's no way she could possibly win, but don't put it past her. She'll pull some evil tricks and somehow end up president, either legally or otherwise. If that happens, God help us at the Democratic Convention. It will break out into a RIOT. Yeah, I think the 08 election will be the wildest one since 68, when Nixon won. Bobby Kennedy had been assassinated a few months earlier, just a couple of months after Martin Luther King. And there were people ready to fight. Martha and the Vandellas, remember them? They did a song called HEATWAVE, which went to the top of the charts during the riots that followed the death of Dr. King. Cities across the country went up in flames. I want to say, I believe it's entirely possible that this year could get as wild and crazy as that. The potential is there. If this election turns out UGLY like the 2000 election, people will be ready to raise hell. Someone needs to back down, and neither one knows whywhy it should be them. Maybe it's hubris on both parts. But people are going to protest wildly if there's another George Bush style victory. Al Gore wins the popular vote, but thanks to some pre-planned screw-ups in Florida and Ohio, Bush wins. It was like the whole system told every voter, "George Bush senior knew what he had to do to get his son elected, and he did it. And we don't CARE if you're angry about it. You'll take what we give you!" OK, this time around they won't just put a pillow over their face and scream. All HELL will break loose. I think Hillary should be forewarned that people are watchin her every move and if she pulls something crooked, she won't be able to talk her way out of it. This is one of the deepest issues influencing the mood of America today. People are sick of being told "You're SCREWED--GET OVER IT!!!"
Ooooohhh. the all-night commentator is fallin asleep at the keyboard...time to hit the hay.
This was a good event. I was glad that all the barking stopped about the race issue. I was glad to see Hillary just quietly accept that she isn't always right and sometimes gets egg on her face. Saying one thing and doing--or NOT doing--another. I came away feeling good about all three candidates.
My attitude is changing towards the campaigns. I'm starting to feel that any one of the three candidates would be competent to do the job of President. Nobody's perfect--not even Hillary. Honestly, I feel like the launch phase of this whole campaign season experienced some turbulence. But it was smart of everyone involved to bring this last round of squabbling to a halt. Can we all just get along, as Rodney King once said...
I wonder if Mr. Obama would accept the position of Vice President if it were offered to him. Or would that just make him miserable, playing second violin to Hillary...It's next to impossible for LEOS to back down, come in second, or stay in the background. I hope to hear more pointed discussion of specific issues from now on, and as little as possible of all the goofy bickering. Each candidate should talk about what HE/SHE is going to DO, not a lot of trash about what someone said or did 5 years ago. They're ALL GOOD! Any one of them could do the job. They shouldn't wrangle so much over non-issues. CALMLY TALK ABOUT YOURSELVES and don't worry about the next guy. The journalists and the candidates' major supporters blow as much hot air into the campaign as the candidates do--probably more. A lot of this is up to the media to run a clean, mature campaign season. I swear! Part of what has to change about the way the game of politics is played is way the media covers the campaigns. Too much hollywood-style gossip just to fill in time on the network. VERY JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL!
I tried to stay hopeful during Mr. Obama's concession speech last night, and I wouldn't even CONSIDER giving up, but I have to admit it: I'm sad. I'm not only sad about this little momentary pause in the march toward victory. I'm sad about everything that has taught me that "THE HOUSE ALWAYS WINS." I know it's just negative to mull over the past, but sometimes you can't avoid it. Your soul sometimes needs to replay all the things you've experienced during your entire lifetime.
I'm a 55 year old white woman who has lived on the West Coast all my life. I've never been MAINSTREAM. I'm not a WASPy white person. My mother was born in Tacoma, WA in 1925, a child of Yugoslavian Catholic immigrants. Her mother worked as a MAID. Her father worked as a commercial fisherman. My grandmother experienced the peak of her working life in about 1959, when she had the honor of serving a full Thanksgiving feast to Senator John F. Kennedy. I still remember her describing with RAPTURE the moment when she presented a huge roasted turkey on a silver platter to Senator JFK. How nice he was, how he helped her with the last moments of placing the wide, heavy platter on the table. How he said something perfectly witty to his host. How she decided to vote for him when he ran for president in 1960 just because he had been the least bit friendly during that brief exchange. You might call this the first moment of my conscious interest in politics. I was about 7.
I was born in June 1952, which was an election year. Even though I was an infant, I think I probably soaked up the excitement of election time when IKE won the race in November 52. I vaguely remember my Dad sitting at the dinner table wearing his big wide 1950s style tie, with an I LIKE IKE pin stuck in it. I remember the ARGUING that went on between my Dad and Mom. Dad was a World War 2 Marine from farm country outside St. Louis MO. He was a big athletic blond, a red-blooded all-american patriot and a hardline republican. My Mom and her family were liberal democrats from the Mario Cuoma school of thought. They engaged in heated arguments about the candidates as the election years rolled by. The TV debate between Nixon and Kennedy provoked hours of opinionated discussion. When Kennedy won in 1960, my mother's family were ecstatic. My Dad grumbled that his presidency would be a disaster. By 1964, my parents were divorced. So in a way, I identify with mixed-race people. Both my parents were white, but my Dad was a completely different breed from my mother. My Dad's people were all Anglo Protestants who had been American citizens for 300 years. My mother's people were Southern European immigrants who spoke broken English and had come in through Ellis Island. There was no way they could hold a marriage together. Every little daily transaction was fraught with bickering and disagreements. They NEVER agreed on anything, because their cultural roots were so conflicting. When my mother left my father, I basically went with her and formed an opinion that my Dad was EVIL. My mother struggled in menial jobs while my Dad became a millionaire. I'm sure this built a structure in my mind that democrats SUFFER under cold-hearted judgmental republicans. This poured right into the huge cultural revolution that sprang up during the 60s. I was jolted out of the north-coastal california suburbs into the low-rent districts of East San Jose. In one year's time I went from reading Dennis the Menace and Peanuts cartoon books for kids over to the biography of Malcolm X, Eldridge Cleaver's SOUL ON ICE and The Cross and the Switchblade by reformed gangster Nicky Cruz. My schoolyard friends went from proper little white children to a school that was terrorized by Mexican gang members. I heard the Black Panthers shouting out of Oakland and thought "RIGHT ON!" It was shocking, traumatic, frightening and painful--but it also opened my mind to people and issues I never would have understood if I had stayed in the middle class. I learned how to STAND UP TO BULLIES and negotiate settlements. I learned how the poor SUFFER under the RICH. I grew to understand how IMPOSSIBLE it is for the small fish at the bottom of the food chain to suddenly DECIDE to just pull themselves up and become big fish. And how easy it is to slip into drugs and street crime when you're trapped at the bottom. Yes, I became one hell of an angry white girl. I learned way too much about life at the bottom to EVER go back to the middle class and just be complacent. In my own way, I fought for the revolution.
But now it's 2008, 44 years since I hit the streets as a naive child. I have fought for what I believe in, and it has been a long, exhausting, bitter struggle. In my heart of hearts I passionately WANT to believe in the power of Barack Obama's message of hope and self-empowerment. But I have seen it happen too many times that all that hope gets plunged into darkness by this overriding message from the top of the food chain: YOU CAN'T WIN. THE HOUSE ALWAYS WINS. Life is a big CASINO, with the super-rich owning it, the super-tough running it, and the small fish playing in it. And the bottom line is YOU CAN'T WIN. If you were born poor and you have the good fortune of becoming rich, that's a nice jackpot, but you still haven't really won any POWER. Many people have tried, but everyone has failed. Because, you see, winning that big jackpot that makes you LOOK like you've MADE IT doesn't mean you have REALLY changed your status. You're still a small fish, swimming around in a big sea, with people above you, shaping your destiny.
Look at the people who have tried to balance the inequality between the HAVES and the HAVE-NOTS, just within my lifetime. They all got shot dead by the big fish at the top of the food chain. Even the ones who led successful battles against the forces of oppression, who SEEMED for a while to be gaining on the HOUSE, they all ended up LOSING, big-time. Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and John Lennon were the ones who broke my heart the worst. Look at all the modern machinery those guys had. They were world-famous, inspiring millions of people. They built coalitions and SEEMED to have won some significant battles. The night Bobby Kennedy got shot was my 16th birthday. I CELEBRATED HIS VICTORY, but then, overnight, his light was snuffed out. He had been hoping to RISE UP out of the ashes of his brother's assassination and lift his generation into a new era of progressive thinking that would defeat the forces of oppression. Every American who wanted JUSTICE wanted to see Robert Kennedy WIN BIG in November 1968. It was looking SO GOOD! But then, in one ugly spasm from the depths of evil, his mission was cut short. Does anyone have any idea how DEVASTATING this was to all the souls who followed him? Do you see how the forces of darkness came crushing down on us, drowning our faith in the vision of a democratic America? Golly gee, it's no wonder we all went a little off our rockers! Yes, yes, it's all very nice to have brave widows stand at gravesites and proclaim that the LEGACY NEVER DIES. But what ends up ACTUALLY HAPPENING is that each generation produces a few visionaries who lead a movement of progressive thinkers who hope and pray for justice and equality, but end up weeping for their slain leaders. And I'm tired of it. My heart is too sore to want to send another brilliant believer out onto the battlefield. I know Mr. Obama wants to represent all the hopes of the current generation, and he's written a book titled, THE AUDACITY OF HOPE. Uh-huh...That's a great message to send to a generation of kids who don't remember the 60s or even the 80s. But I wonder if the world has REALLY CHANGED enough to let Barack Obama WIN the 08 election and FULFILL the promise of Martin Luther King's DREAM SPEECH. We KNOW there's a big sector of the world population that is shouting out for PEACE and FREEDOM and JUSTICE. And we KNOW that Mr. Obama carries the torch that Martin Luther King carried. We KNOW that his message will make millions of hearts POUND with hope, and that his followers envision a NEW WORLD. But based on what I know about this world, if he (or anybody else) ever gets TOO powerful and seriously challenges the Invisible Ruling Minority and the Military-Industrial Complex in a way that costs them BIG MONEY, he'll be destroyed. End of story. I get this sinking, queasy feeling that Hillary will be our next president no matter how hard we run against her. Because it's already a DONE DEAL. She has all the contacts in all the right organizations and the fix is in. It might be a cliff-hanger to the very end, but I'm betting my money that the status quo will win by a margin of 2 percent in the strategic places that need to be won and Miss Hillary will be our next President. And that woman is DELUDED in such a way that she BELIEVES she represents PROGRESS and CHANGE. Maybe back in her college years she was coming up with some pretty shocking ideas, but now that she's faked her way through the Governor's mansion and the white house as First Lady to one of the sleaziest liars in american history, she's just another sold-out political HO. It makes my SKIN CRAWL to hear BILL CLINTON, a slippery salamander if ever there was one, call the Obama campaign the biggest fairytale he's ever seen. No, Bill. YOUR ADMINISTRATION WAS THE BIGGEST FAIRYTALE--the only problem is that you didn't SEE IT. You were too busy looking at Monica under your desk in the Oval Office. SLIMEBALL!! But Hillary has managed to remain fresh as a daisy through all this hog-slop because she has this image of herself as the 21st century Eleanor Roosevelt. She doesn't even REALIZE that she's spent the last 30 years selling her soul to the Devil in order to fulfill her saintly mission. You see what I mean? She's just a PLAYA who has herself set up to be the next big winner. But in order to win, she's had to compromise all the values she originally believed in and almost PROMISE the Devil she won't do anything to really CHANGE THE WORLD. She'll make enough people happy with their little jackpots to feel like they've changed something. But the real powers that be will be delighted to know that she's really workin for them. It doesn't get any better than that...no matter how hard you try.
This is why I'm sad today. I'm sad with the memories of the fallen heroes of the last 40 years. I'm sad to see that Mr. Obama will probably campaign himself into a state of exhaustion, but at the last minute Hillary will win by that last two percent margin. SORRY PLAYAS! YOU LOSE AGAIN! Cuz it's a fact of life that THE HOUSE ALWAYS WINS. That's the feeling I have in my heart as I watch Obama fight the good fight and Hillary win by resorting to the oldest female tactic on earth--crying little tender tears...for a feminist she sure relies on some old-fashioned tricks. "That hurts my feelings..." OH HONEY DON'T BE HURT!!! HERE, LET A FEW THOUSAND PEOPLE TURN THEIR BALLOTS INTO KLEENEXes, don't cry little lady. Meanwhile she's snickering like Bart Simpson, "SUCKERS!"
