Organizing for America | Lee D Blog: RACISM STILL PERSISTS

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RACISM STILL PERSISTS

By Lee Dimin. - Oct 21st, 2008 at 7:56 am EDT

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Today's quote: - "Bigotry's birthplace is the sinister back room of the mind where plots and schemes are hatched for the persecution and oppression of other human beings." - Bayard Ruskin.

Comment: - Race is going to be the key factor in 2008 US Presidential Elections between Democratic candidate Barack Obama, an Illinois senator who is African American, and his Republican opponent, John McCain, a white senator from Arizona. Race will be a determinative issue for a significant numbers of voters in the campaign, despite the fact that a majority of Americans now dislike President George W. Bush’s policies and the fact that the policies and values of John McCain and his vice-presidential nominee, Sarah Palin, are almost identical to those of Bush.

The current economic crises is the worst in the recent history. Obama should be a shoo-in as the probable winner in coming elections. The only reason that may cause his defeat is racism. In many opinion polls, a majority of the elder white voters overwhelmingly reject Obama, even if many of them are unhappy with Bush. Indeed, one-third of Democrats have at various times told pollsters that they will not vote for a black candidate and a recent Associated Press/Yahoo News poll suggested that his race is costing Obama at least six percentage points in the polls. Many Americans today are uncomfortable in openly announcing their own racial bias, yet according to a latest Gallup poll, 7 percent of white voters say Obama’s race makes them less likely to vote for him, which is much less than the previous polls where this ratio rotates round 30 percent but here comes the “Bradley effect” one should never forget as Obama is also leading in the opinion polls like Tom Bradley. The Bradley effect was first noted during the 1982 governor’s race in California, when Tom Bradley, the then African-American mayor of Los Angeles, lost the race to his white opponent despite leading in pre-election polls throughout the campaign. Similar results appeared in 1989, when David Dinkins ran for mayor of New York City and Douglas Wilder sought election as governor of Virginia. Is that what John McCain is counting ion when he says, in regard to Obama's lead, "We got them right where we want them." Is this McCain's method of playing the "race card"? This racism is covert, only implied at through code words. The media, particularly the increasingly popular conservative media, is particularly important here. A July cover of the New Yorker magazine showed a cartoon of Obama wearing a turban and his wife, Michelle, holding a gun. Obama said the cover could encourage misconceptions about him. The magazine said the cover was intended as satire.

There have been a number of developments that speak about the possibility of a turning-point election that can bring the first African American black president in the White house:

First, the weakness and age of the Republican candidate may perhaps indicate that the party itself is truly at the end of a forty-year cycle of power.
Second, of course, is the meltdown, even possibly implosion, of the US economy. This has put states in the Midwest and elsewhere that Bush took in 2000 and 2004 into play.
Third, there has been a noticeable trend in shifting party affiliations in which the Democrats are gaining membership as the Republicans are losing it, especially in key battleground states like Pennsylvania where, in 2008 alone, 474,000 new names have gone on the Democratic rolls, according to the Washington Post, even as the Republicans have lost 38,000. Overall, since 2006, the Democrats have gained at least two million new members, while the Republicans have lost 344,000.
According to the Gallup, self-identified Democrats outnumbered self-identified Republicans by a 37 percent to 28 percent margin this June, a gap that may only be widening. Fourth, there is the possibility of a flood of new, especially young, first-time voters and so are being under-measured by pollsters, as black voters may also be in this election.
Above all, two main issues will determine whether or not the November election will be a realigning one. The Republican Party failures in managing the economy and in involving the country in ruinous wars all dictate a Democratic victory. It is simply impossible to determine the degree to which race may sway voters but, after all, the recent crises faced by American race is the only alarming factor for Democrats that puts the fate of 2008 Presidential elections in the balance.
That in this 21st century, after the lessons we should have learned from the Third Reich, from the Islamic fundamentalists, form The Crusades of the Catholic Church, from the Inquisitions and from the American slavery history and its lynching, we are still a nation with 888 hate groups filled with bigotry of one sort or another,

The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." Would that John McCain, or Sarah Palin, had the character of Barack Obama instead of the name-calling, lying and disgraceful ads produced with their approval. They disgrace America, they disgrace Republicans, and they disgrace the religions they advocate for their actions and words are not :"Christian", but might even be labeled blasphemy according to the reported lifestyle of Jesus Christ.

We don't need a "black" President and we don't needmed a "white" President, we need a brilliant President and there is only one candidate that fits that description. It is Barack Obama. After eight years of the lying administration of George W. Bush, we do not need another couple of liars like McCain and Palin for another four. They disgrace American politics, and make it dirtier than it has ever before been. I urge that you tell all you know that it is time to end the racial divide in this country, end the bigotry, open or hidden, and renew the democracy sought by our founding fathers.

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