Over the last months, we've seen once again just how desperately far the McCain-Palin campaign will go to try to lie and distort its way into power, using the worst of smear tactics, even to the point of trying to associate Obama with terrorism, and allowing members of their audiences to call for violence against Obama without any condemnation.
If this has not been the kind of campaign that not only repeats the tactics of the Bush administration, but magnifies their intensity, I don't know what it is...
Thankfully, Colin Powell's eloquent words of endorsement for Obama in response to this campaign of lies and distortions has finally unmasked, from the Republican side, the nakedness of the doublethink campaign of McCain-Palin. In place of all the violence and distortion of the McCain-Palin campaign, Obama can lead this country to a GREEN NEW DEAL, and this is why I will be voting for him....
If supporters of Obama do not insist that he and his campaign remain faithful to core principles, and demand that his campaign remain accountable to true public interests (opposition to perpetual war spending and capitulation to corporate power and control over our government), then the Obama campaign will become little more than another political facade behind which our constitution and our democracy will continue to be eroded, while a distracted public continues to entertain itself with the delusions of consumer democracy.
If you want to be a real supporter of the principles the Obama campaign said it stood for during the Primary, join the UPRISING of citizens who are working to hold all politicians, including Obama, ACCOUNTABLE!
For a great discussion of the issues at stake in the way you hold (or do not hold) the Obama campaign accountable, listen to Glenn Greenwald's Salon Radio Interview with David Sirota, author of Uprising: An Unauthorized Tour of the Populist Revolt Scaring Wall Street and Washington, posted today (July 28) at:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/
If you really want to hold the Obama campaign accountable to the principles it stood for during the primary campaign, JOIN the UPRISING, and don't allow the campaign to take your vote in November for granted! If you want your vote to count for something real, the campaign cannot be allowed to assume that you will vote for Obama no matter what positions he takes.
As David Sirota notes near the end of his interview with Greenwald, whether or not Obama will stand up for, and truly represent, the interests of American citizens against corporate corruption of our government, will depend on how well citizens hold him to account. If we give up this struggle now, and allow his campaign to assume we will vote for him no matter what positions he decides to take, we should not expect from Obama anything better than we get from other politicians--not much at all.
If we want the Obama campaign to represent us, we need to put pressure on it to hold it accountable. And as voters, our ultimate responsibility is to demand that our vote count for something-- in this case, to make it clear that if the Obama campaign wants our vote, it needs to be responsible to us on issues like those at stake in the FISA bill.
I feel many hopes have been betrayed by Obama's vote in favor of the FISA bill. Hillary Clinton voted against this bill, so why could Obama not vote against it? Those of us who signed on to the Obama campaign as a campaign that would NOT practice politics as usual on issues that concern our fundamental rights, such as FISA and WAR spending, feel deeply betrayed.
Frankly, I have to say that all my excitement and passion for the Obama campaign has been dissipated by this vote. And nothing short of a clear declaration by Obama that he will not continue to support immunity from the law by the President or corporations will bring any real passion back.
Because of this betrayal, like many others, I now have to reconsider whether I will even vote for Obama in November. He seems to have shamelessly taken the votes of many of us for granted in voting for this FISA bill.
This is such a fundamental constitutional issue, I frankly cannot fathom why he would betray not only constitutional principle but so many of his most passionate supporters, by voting in favor of a FISA Bill that so betrays our constitutional rights.
The only explanation would seem to be that somehow he has sold out to the power of the telecom companies and the political establishment, Democratic and Republican, that has been selling our constitutional democracy down the river for unbridled power and profit.
Because I am severely disenchanted, I will not contribute to the Obama campaign or support it in any other way unless Obama shows a strong recommitment to defense of the Constitution against Presidential lawbreaking, Congressional abdication of power, and the perpetual war that is making a mockery of all our rights. The primary campaign of Obama was based on these fundamental principles. If, now that Obama has the nomination, he now feels he can already ignore these fundamental commitments, and betray the fundamental demands of the citizens who supported his primary campaign, then I have to conclude that the Obama campaign no longer deserves either our support or our hopes.
If Obama has decided to sell out to the Power establishment by supporting FISA, he must realize he is also selling down the river the hopes of all of us who trusted that he would be different and would fight for us, rather than sell us out in favor of the usual political grab for power--
I am sick of heart. If even Obama can so easily give up the fight for what was at stake in the FISA bill, then where do we go? Where do we look for someone who will use power to represent OUR public interests rather than the interests of corporate power and private profit?
Who really has "a much broader base to build a winning coalition on"?
There is a clear pattern emerging from the Clinton campaign, but it's not the one Hillary Clinton wished to suggest. Hillary's recent words underline a clear pattern in the way both the Clintons have been using race in this campaign. However poorly worded, Hillary's recent words suggest the fundamental reason the Clintons have betrayed the honorific title of "first black president" once bestowed on Bill Clinton by the great American writer Toni Morrison:
"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she said in an interview with USA TODAY. As evidence, Clinton cited an Associated Press article "that found how Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me.""There's a pattern emerging here," she said.
The African-American community has clearly recognized and understood the implications of this pattern of racialized discourse, and has almost completly renounced and rejected the Clintons as a result. Results from the Indiana and North Carolina primaries this week indicate that over 90% of African-Americans voted against the Clintons.And since the election of a Democratic President in November depends so heavily on the African-American vote, all superdelegates need to be asking, in spite of Hillary Clinton's claims to the contrary: Who really has "a much broader base to build a winning coalition on"?
“People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster.”
These words were written, not by Rev. Jeremiah Wright in 2008, but by one of the most eloquent and famous American writers of the mid-twentieth century: James Baldwin (in his 1955 collection of essays titled Notes of a Native Son). After witnessing the frenzy with which the corporate media complex manufactured a major controversy out of a few poorly-chosen words by Obama during a private fund-raiser, we're now being forced to witness the explosion of the second phase of the manufacture of the Jeremiah Wright controversy.
We've seen how the corporate media has been struggling to structure this story in ways that set Obama and Wright against each other, so that our racialized Republic’s spectator-consumers can once again be entertained by the tragic spectacle of two black men fighting against each other. As Baldwin noted in the 1950s, “One of the things that distinguishes Americans from other people is that no other people has ever been so deeply involved in the lives of black men.” Baldwin’s words are being proven all too prophetically true once again.
On Tuesday night after Tim Russert in the Debate lowered himself to the position of dredging up pig-slop produced by the right-wing Republican attack machine to try to smear Obama with antisemitism, I put out a call asking if anyone knew of postings of support for Obama from the Chicago Jewish community, since I thought such statements from the Jewish community that knew Obama best would provide the best counter to this kind of vicious nonsense.
Gidon Remba, a long-time peace activist (Peace Now) and author of the excellent Blog "Tough Dove Israel" responded with just the information I was looking for from the Chicago community--two web videos, which along with Obama's own beautiful response during the debate about bridging the divide between the Jewish and African-American communities, ought to be in every Obama supporter's personal toolbox for responding to any of these viciously idiotic attacks on Obama:
Obama's Debate response on UTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3rOUOM9z3CY
Web Video 1: Chicago Jewish Community Leaders Defend Obama on Israel: Lee Rosenberg http://tough-dove-israel.blogspot.com/2008/02/chicago-jewish-community-leaders-defend.html Web Video 2: Chicago Jewish Community Leaders Defend Obama Against Smear Campaign-Rabbi Sam Gordon http://tough-dove-israel.blogspot.com/2008/02/chicago-jewish-community-leaders-on.html
Gidon Remba's Blog posts these and many other resources for Obama supporters, and the entire Blog is a great resource for anyone with interest in learning more about how one can take a progressive "pro-Israel" stance that is also "pro-Palestinian." Check it out! (and all of Gidon's original response is copied below)--
Original Text of Senators' Letter from: http://www.pjvoice.com/v32/openletter.pdf
Over the past several weeks, many in the Jewish community have received hateful emails that use falsehood and innuendo about Senator Barack Obama's religion and attack him personally. As Jewish United States Senators who have not endorsed a candidate for the Democratic nomination, we condemn these scurrilous attacks.
We find it particularly abhorrent that these attacks arc apparently being sent specifically to the Jewish Community. Jews, who have historically been the target of such attacks, should be the first to reject these tactics.
We won't dignify these falsehoods by repeating them in order to refute them. Instead, we will express our outrage at these tactics, which are being used to demonize a good and decent man and our friend and colleague. Attempting to manipulate voters into supporting or opposing one candidate or another based on despicable and fictitious attacks is disgraceful. These false and malicious attacks should not be part of our political discourse.
All voters should support whichever candidate they believe would make the best president. We sincerely hope that Americans will make that decision based on the factual records of these candidates, not false charges circulated by anonymous mass emails.
Sincerely,
Carl Levin
Barbara Boxer
Ben Cardin
Russ Feingold
Frank Lautenberg
Bernie Sanders
Ron Wyden
[Posted on American Jewish Committee website at]:
http://www.ajc.org/site/c.ijITI2PHKoG/b.2818289/apps/nl/content2.asp?content_id={4260E7C5-3554-4174-9683-A595BFAEB524}¬oc=1
January 15, 2008 – New York – American Jewish Committee Executive Director David Harris, concerned about hateful emails besmirching Senator Barack Obama, joined today with heads of other national Jewish organizations in an open letter to the Jewish community.
The full text of the open letter follows:
As leaders of the Jewish community, none of whose organizations will endorse or oppose any candidate for President, we feel compelled to speak out against certain rhetoric and tactics in the current campaign that we find particularly abhorrent. Of particular concern, over the past several weeks, many in our community have received hateful emails that use falsehood and innuendo mischaracterizing Senator Barack Obama's religious beliefs and who he is as a person.
These tactics attempt to drive a wedge between our community and a presidential candidate based on despicable and false attacks based on religion. We reject these efforts to manipulate members of our community into supporting or opposing candidates.
Attempts of this sort to mislead and inflame voters should not be part of our political discourse and should be rebuffed by all who believe in our democracy. Jewish voters, like all voters, should support whichever candidate they believe would make the best president. We urge everyone to make that decision based on the factual records of these candidates, and nothing less.
Since this week's debate between Clinton and Obama brought onto the national stage the smears being propagated by opponents of Obama to cloud his campaign with accusations of anti-semitism, it's important for all supporters of Obama to become familiar with the background of this smear campaign, and of Jewish repudiations of it, so that you can help to defend Obama against these smears (filled with innuendo, big lies, and distortion) as you encounter them in your work for Obama.
Here are three points of reference you can use to familiarize yourself with appropriate responses to this smear campaign:
1) Abraham Foxman, a leader of the Anti-Defamation League, which is one of the fiercest defenders of the Jewish community against anti-semitism, has already rejected these smear efforts directed against Obama:
2) As Ira N. Forman, Executive Director of the National Jewish Democratic Council, has written, leaders from nine non-partisan Jewish organizations have already taken (in January) "the nearly unprecedented step of signing onto a strongly worded letter repudiating these smear tactics," which are being promoted by a right-wing attack machine. Forman's article from the Philadelphia Jewish Voice provides great background and response to this smear campaign, and you can refer people to this article, which I've inserted here below the fold, and is available at:
http://www.pjvoice.com/v32/32401lasky.aspx
3) Seven Jewish U.S. Senators have signed an additional letter, initiated by Michigan's Carl Levin, repudiating this smear campaign. For more information about both of these letters, see the January 23 article from Baltimore Jewish Times, at
As I'm preparing to watch the debate tonight, I'm thinking a lot about why I have been drawn to the Obama campaign after years of feeling so depressed and hopeless about our lack of real political choices in this country.
Obama not only talks about the Urgency of NOW and the importance of having a new approach to politics to address the urgent issues of global warming, poverty, and war; He not only talks about the importance of involving people in his campaign and building it from the ground up, but it's clear he is structuring his campaign to actually do this! Look at his on-the-ground strategies for canvassing and organizing voters in all the states he has won victories in over the last month.
I just watched the wonderful 5-minute response Obama gave to Bush's state of the union speech, which is posted here on UTUBE--have a look, if you havent already seen this -- it provides a great summary of many of the reasons the Obama campaign is great in both its rhetoric AND its practice, which is what our country needs over the next eight years-- inspirational leadership for fundamental change!
