"Yes We Can" is the new musical and video tribute to Senator Barack Obama for President by Maria Muldaur and Bonnie Raitt. I was asked to co-produce and distribute the video on behalf of Maria Muldaur and Joel Jaffe of Studio D Recording in Sausalito , CA. It's not to be confused with the first great "Yes We Can" video and song by Will-I-Am, which is a terrific and pioneering work of its own. Also see www.yeswecanthevideo.com
"Yes We Can" - Tribute to Obama By Maria Muldaur and Bonnie Raitt
We have always known music is powerful - that it can affect people, reach them on a very visceral level. Here, then, is a reworking - a mashup, if you will - of a song that was already full of power and emotion. U2's "Sunday, Bloody Sunday" courtesy of YouTube and 1962verbodivino.
Sunday, Bloody Sunday...
I cant believe the news today Oh, I cant close my eyes and make it go away How long... How long must we sing this song? How long? how long...
'Cause tonight... We can be as one tonight...
Broken bottles under childrens feet Bodies strewn across the dead end street But I wont heed the battle call It puts my back up Puts my back up against the wall ... And the battle's just begun There's many lost, but tell me: who has won? The trench is dug within our hearts And mothers, children, brothers, sisters torn apart
...
Wipe the tears from your eyes Wipe your tears away Wipe your tears away I wipe your tears away (Sunday, bloody Sunday) I wipe your blood shot eyes (Sunday, bloody Sunday)
This video is nothing less than a monologue on how some remaining female supporters of Senator Clinton for President are, in pointing out sexism, being sexist themselves.
I point to Salon.com's Editor-in-Chief Joan Walsh as a main example and as one who looks the other way when Michelle Obama is the target of sexism and racism, but not Senator Clinton, followed by Harriet Christian, the terrible and outwardly racist Clinton supporter who gained national attention for her racist and sexist rant against Senator Barack Obama at the DNC Rules Committee Meeting of May 31st.
In fact, I point to this blog "Too Sense" and the article "The Limited Empathy of Joan Walsh" where the blogger dNa writes:
Walsh and Ferraro, experts both on being a black man and running for president, and presumably how easy such an endeavor is, given the vast number of black presidents we have elected. It wasn't that Obama built a top-tier fundraising organization, (from scratch) studied the primary rules and how to take full advantage of them, or ran an disciplined campaign with minimal conflicts it was because it was easy, because otherwise there's no possible way this nigger could have actually pulled it off.
Here Walsh demands a full exoneration for Geraldine Ferraro, complete with deference to her knowledge of how to win "Reagan Democrats," something Ferraro doesn't have the slightest idea how to do. Her supposed rapport with "Reagan Democrats" is based exclusively on the idea that they share the same racial prejudices as she does, which strikes me unbelievably condescending.
With the exception of the use of the "N" word, I totally agree. Joan Walsh lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, not the Deep South, and so should value diversity and attack both racism and sexism, wherever both exist. Instead, she sides with Reagan Democrats, who threaten to back Senator McCain for President.
In this both Walsh, and Suzie Thompkins Buell, the founder of Esprit, have behaved terribly as San Francisco Professional Women of Power. Buell was recently quoted in the Wall Street Journal as saying..
Susie Tompkins Buell, a Hillraiser from San Francisco, said, "What really hurt women the most was to look back and see all this gender bias." Ms. Buell said she hasn't decided whether to vote for Sen. Obama and plans to skip the August Democratic convention.
That's ridiculous and it means Buell's view is just like that of Joan Walsh, who one commenter at the Too Sense wrote of using less-than-kind terms...
Joan Walsh is an insult to white women. She has outright lied, presented misleading information, mischaracterized events, and overall has pushed for a vicious agenda of delegitimizing Obama. She and her coterie of "feminists" have shown themselves to be no better than neo-cons.
Salon was an interesting place for insightful articles, but especially for the past year it has been a complete fluff blog, with Joan Walsh showing such astounding immaturity, it has been a sad spectacle to watch. She has been reactionary, completely illogical, and completely emotional.
She should not be an editor of anything.
Finally, I point to efforts like those of The Denver Group to force a new election at the DNC Convention as divisive and driven by some of the worst elements in the Democratic Party -- some people who are both racist and sexist. The main persons here are Larry Johnson and the afforementioned Harriet Christien; Johnson a Clinton supporter best known for working to find a tape on Michelle Obama that does not exist.
They represent the worst elements of the Democratic Party and should be laughed at, then ignored. America made it's choice for Democratic Presidential representative. And even the Florida and Michigan voters knew their elected officials screwed up in moving their primaries forward. To change the DNC Rules would be to declare that the DNC Rules Committee has no backbone or teeth in any decision it makes, and so anyone could go on -- any state leader -- and thumb their noses at the DNC when it wished to do so.
That's not the right course for the DNC. We must end all sexism and racism in the Democratic Party. Period.
