Wow, now here's a picture you would not expect to see from a "tech" event, but it's here. Stephanie Agresta, whom I met last year, was at SXSW (South By Southwest) in Austin, when blogger Robert Scobble took this photo.
But Stephanie's more than this. She's a New York-based Internet Marketing Consultant with a great track record and solid clients.
Here's one of Stephanie's videos made at SXSW:
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Stephanie Agresta Shows Boobs at BlogHaus at SXSW By Scobble
Francisco Da Costa Gets The Outster From Chris Daly in SF
Who is this guy? Well he's not the greatest person. He's a local San Franciscan who I give space to here because he's also pissed off a lot of people, but not in the same way as Mike Cherico.
In his opposition to a local development project, Francisco Da Costa managed to hurl racial insults at just about everyone. Check out what Heather Knight at the SF Chronicle reported:
Activist quits Prop. F coalition over controversial writings
Heather Knight - SF Chronicle, March 19, 2008
A heated debate over two June ballot measures that would dramatically reshape San Francisco's Bayview-Hunters Point has taken an ugly turn over one proponent's Internet postings, which people on both sides of the campaign are calling racist, sexist and anti-Semitic.
Francisco Da Costa, a City Hall gadfly and environmental activist, has long posted his controversial thoughts on Bayview-Hunters Point and City Hall politics on various Web sites. But apparently nobody took much notice of his rants until he became a signed proponent of Proposition F. That measure would mandate that half of the new homes built under redevelopment plans for the Hunters Point shipyard and Candlestick Point be affordable.
Proposition G, the competing measure, is backed by Lennar Corp., the construction company that wants voter approval to remake the area. It has pledged that 25 percent of new homes will be affordable and calls the 50 percent mandate a "poison pill" that would kill the project.
Da Costa blasted the many high-priced political consultants and media men hired by Lennar for being "Jews that make so much money off poor people in the Bayview and want to make more."
He also wrote, "History sure will repeat itself but this time it will be reminiscent of a time when Crystals fell from the ceilings and there was a hue and cry." Many have read this as a reference to Kristallnacht, the night in 1938 Germany that saw the destruction of Jewish neighborhoods.
Da Costa also blasts African American supporters of Prop. G, alluding to them being slaves to Lennar by writing they can "partake in the bread crumbs - the same old way the Plantation was run - Masta, Masta, Masta."
When Da Costa's writings surfaced in recent weeks, they were promptly condemned by several political clubs including the powerful Democratic County Central Committee. The committee last week also voted to endorse Lennar's Prop. G and oppose Prop. F.
Scott Wiener, chair of the committee, said the group voted on the merits of the measures, but noted the Prop. F campaign's embracing of Da Costa even though his style was well-known at City Hall and raised eyebrows.
"It's one thing if you associate with someone and then out of the blue they say something offensive," Wiener said. "It's quite another thing if you have someone with a track record of acting in a really inappropriate and bizarre way, and then you consciously choose to make that person your main proponent."
Supervisor Chris Daly, Prop. F's most prominent backer, said he has heard Da Costa speak at multiple Board of Supervisors meetings and that his public testimony can be "uncomfortable." But Daly said he only became aware of Da Costa's writings on Thursday. The next day Daly said he asked Da Costa to step aside as a proponent of the campaign, which he agreed to do.
"We had a problem within the coalition and we dealt with it," Daly said. "It would be great if we could discuss the merits of the measures and vote them up or down based on the merits."
Da Costa told The Chronicle that he "never, ever" meant for the crystals comment to be taken as anti-Semitic, but he doesn't regret the other remarks. He said they reflect his anger at the city's most powerful people doing nothing to help children and the elderly in Bayview-Hunters Point.
"It's not politically correct but it's frustration," he said. "I say it as I feel it."
According to Giannina Miranda with the city's Department of Elections, San Franciscans will receive voter information handbooks before the June election - with Da Costa's name as a proponent of Prop. F even though he has asked for it to be removed.
"The proponents cannot remove their name right now," she said. "It's past the deadline."
In his opposition to a local development project, Francisco Da Costa managed to hurl racial insults at just about everyone. Check out what Heather Knight at the SF Chronicle reported:
Activist quits Prop. F coalition over controversial writings
Heather Knight - SF Chronicle, March 19, 2008
A heated debate over two June ballot measures that would dramatically reshape San Francisco's Bayview-Hunters Point has taken an ugly turn over one proponent's Internet postings, which people on both sides of the campaign are calling racist, sexist and anti-Semitic.
Francisco Da Costa, a City Hall gadfly and environmental activist, has long posted his controversial thoughts on Bayview-Hunters Point and City Hall politics on various Web sites. But apparently nobody took much notice of his rants until he became a signed proponent of Proposition F. That measure would mandate that half of the new homes built under redevelopment plans for the Hunters Point shipyard and Candlestick Point be affordable.
Proposition G, the competing measure, is backed by Lennar Corp., the construction company that wants voter approval to remake the area. It has pledged that 25 percent of new homes will be affordable and calls the 50 percent mandate a "poison pill" that would kill the project.
Da Costa blasted the many high-priced political consultants and media men hired by Lennar for being "Jews that make so much money off poor people in the Bayview and want to make more."
He also wrote, "History sure will repeat itself but this time it will be reminiscent of a time when Crystals fell from the ceilings and there was a hue and cry." Many have read this as a reference to Kristallnacht, the night in 1938 Germany that saw the destruction of Jewish neighborhoods.
Da Costa also blasts African American supporters of Prop. G, alluding to them being slaves to Lennar by writing they can "partake in the bread crumbs - the same old way the Plantation was run - Masta, Masta, Masta."
When Da Costa's writings surfaced in recent weeks, they were promptly condemned by several political clubs including the powerful Democratic County Central Committee. The committee last week also voted to endorse Lennar's Prop. G and oppose Prop. F.
Scott Wiener, chair of the committee, said the group voted on the merits of the measures, but noted the Prop. F campaign's embracing of Da Costa even though his style was well-known at City Hall and raised eyebrows.
"It's one thing if you associate with someone and then out of the blue they say something offensive," Wiener said. "It's quite another thing if you have someone with a track record of acting in a really inappropriate and bizarre way, and then you consciously choose to make that person your main proponent."
Supervisor Chris Daly, Prop. F's most prominent backer, said he has heard Da Costa speak at multiple Board of Supervisors meetings and that his public testimony can be "uncomfortable." But Daly said he only became aware of Da Costa's writings on Thursday. The next day Daly said he asked Da Costa to step aside as a proponent of the campaign, which he agreed to do.
"We had a problem within the coalition and we dealt with it," Daly said. "It would be great if we could discuss the merits of the measures and vote them up or down based on the merits."
Da Costa told The Chronicle that he "never, ever" meant for the crystals comment to be taken as anti-Semitic, but he doesn't regret the other remarks. He said they reflect his anger at the city's most powerful people doing nothing to help children and the elderly in Bayview-Hunters Point.
"It's not politically correct but it's frustration," he said. "I say it as I feel it."
According to Giannina Miranda with the city's Department of Elections, San Franciscans will receive voter information handbooks before the June election - with Da Costa's name as a proponent of Prop. F even though he has asked for it to be removed.
"The proponents cannot remove their name right now," she said. "It's past the deadline."
Mike Cherico - Glamour Blogger Pissed Off "JE" Englebert and A Lot Of People
Mike Cherico - Glamour Blogger Pissed Off "JE" Englebert and A Lot Of People
Ok.So I get a press release on some guy named Mike Cherico and wonder what the hell's going on with a dude I've never even heard of? This is what I was sent:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
MARCH 19TH 2008
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
GLAMOUR BLOGGER HAS MORE SCAMS
Glamour Magazine execs weren't the only ones duped by newly unemployed dating blogger Mike Cherico. Nightlife Kingpin and Co owner of Manhattan hot spots Suzie Wong’s and Prime, "JE" Englebert also had run-ins with the former famous blogger.
Cherico was using Glamour's name and trading his blog articles for personal hook-ups.
One such instance occurred last Halloween, when he allegedly offered Englebert a spot in his blog, only in exchange for tickets to the Playboy Mansion’s hottest party of the year. Three days before the big bash in L.A. Cherico reportedly bragged about the party on his blog and initiated his own demise by asking women what to wear to such an event like the mansion's annual Halloween party.
Cherico never made it to the Halloween bash and it wasn’t long before Cherico showed up in New York demanding bottle service at one of JE’s nightclubs.
Now, what’s next for JE?, as he approaches his next big Playboy Mansion party on April 19th
To me, the guy was fired. Big deal? Why the effort to continue to throw mud at him? What's the deal?
So I do a little Internet picking around with the links I'm given by this media guy via email, but it's not enough for me. So I look beyond them.
Well, Mike Cherico is a 32-year old now former sex blogger who wrote for Glamour Magazine, had a blog called "Man Needs Date" and apparently dated a lot of women who did not get pleasure from the experience, or let's just say he didn't give them a proper orgasm.
Seriously.
But, Ok. What else?
Well the problem is that he's pissed off the wrong people, like "JE" Englebert. Mike Cherico was with a well-known magazine and used his status to get what he wanted and did, but never gave in return and he angered a lot of women he dated and wrote about them. And in some cases he did this with (new) media people, that's the error.
If it's true you never mess with a person who buys their Internet ink by the barrel, then it's more true that you never refuse to give an orgasm to a person who has a blog or works for a magazine. By dating a female blogger called "Miss Smarty Shoes", then acusing her of having herpes and then hitting on another woman in front of her , then writing about it on his blog, that pretty much sealed the deal for Mike's ouster at Glamour, as she shot back at him, and all of this was picked up by thje blog, Jezebel, and the rest is history.
When someone makes a blog with the title "Men Who Annoy Us: Don't Date This Man" you know you've got massive problems. Mike needs a PR fix, fast!
Stay tuned. I can't believe Mike's not speaking out about this, if only to keep whatever fame he's got going a bit longer.
9-11 Commission Report "Agrees" With Pastor Wright On 9-11
Senator Barack Obama gave a speech that was historic and timely in talking about the need to talk about race in America. This speech, or the need for it, was created by mainstream non-Black America's first-time exposure to the firery oratory of a minister in a Black Church.
Retired Pastor Jeremiah Wright's sermons, portions of which were captured on video and seen by many, were described as upsetting and disagreeable. And it seems that talk show after talk show has someone Black agreeing with the overall idea that everything -- everything -- Pastor Wright said was wrong.
This is what drew my attention and caused me to look at, first, what Pastor Wright was recorded as saying and, second, an event that Pastor Wright talked about: September 11th 2001.
Now, before I continue I will report that I will never forget any aspect of "9-11" or where I was on that day. It started for me, waking up on my couch after having gone to sleep watching television. It was on Channel 2, KTVU TV, Oakland, and the first sight on the screen was the fire that broke out in One World Trade Center. I thought the building was just on fire, but as you may remember if you were around then, it was evident that the building had been struck by a plane, and then we watched as another aircraft ran right into the second tower.
It was a moment which caused me to reach for the phone and call everyone I knew from here to New York City. And on top of all of that, I didn't know if we were a target in some way. Remember the Pentagon was hit as well. And all of this was on television unfolding before us.
I was scared and so were a lot of people who didn't go to work that day in Oakland. People who gathered at establishments like Arazmendi, the place known for its thin-crust pizza and yummy pastries -- a great start in the morning turned into an all day hangout to talk about what was going on, and so it was this for the rest of that week.
I'll never forget that.
But one question I had was "Why?" What did we -- America -- do? And given that it seemed to me like a crime rather than an act of war (where we could not blame a country) I wondered who we would get -- what person could we jail? Who could we blame? That was the first time I heard of Osama Bin Ladin. It would not be the last time.
A few years later, the 9-11 Commission released the findings of its extensive review of how 9-11 came to be and what we could do to make sure it did not happen again. There are parts of the commission's report that's telling regarding what we did -- or more to the point, what we did not do.
What it all boils down to is that America did not take Radical Islam seriously and moreover, America has not even heard of Radical Islam. Meanwhile the socio-economic foundation that created 9-11 was being formed. The 9-11 Commission report states:
In the 1970s and early 1980s, an unprecedented flood of wealth led the then largely unmodernized oil states to attempt to shortcut decades of development. They funded huge infrastructure projects, vastly expanded education, and created subsidized social welfare programs. These programs established a widespread feeling of entitlement without a corresponding sense of social obligations. By the late 1980s, diminishing oil revenues, the economic drain from many unprofitable development projects, and population growth made these entitlement programs unsustainable. The resulting cutbacks created enormous resentment among recipients who had come to see government largesse as their right. This resentment was further stoked by public understanding of how much oil income had gone straight into the pockets of the rulers, their friends, and their helpers....
By the 1990s, high birthrates and declining rates of infant mortality had produced a common problem throughout the Muslim world: a large, steadily increasing population of young men without any reasonable expectation of suitable or steady employment-a sure prescription for social turbulence. Many of these young men, such as the enormous number trained only in religious schools, lacked the skills needed by their societies. Far more acquired valuable skills but lived in stagnant economies that could not generate satisfying jobs.
Millions, pursuing secular as well as religious studies, were products of educational systems that generally devoted little if any attention to the rest of the world's thought, history, and culture. The secular education reflected a strong cultural preference for technical fields over the humanities and social sciences. Many of these young men, even if able to study abroad, lacked the perspective and skills needed to understand a different culture.
Frustrated in their search for a decent living, unable to benefit from an education often obtained at the cost of great family sacrifice, and blocked from starting families of their own, some of these young men were easy targets for radicalization.
A Jihad is a holy war, and in Bin Ladin, who was the product of the dynamics described above, Radical Islam had its holy warrior. Bin Ladin was a hero in the triumph of Afganitan over the Soviet Union in 1988. The 9-11 Commission reports:
April 1988 brought victory for the Afghan jihad. Moscow declared it would pull its military forces out of Afghanistan within the next nine months. As the Soviets began their withdrawal, the jihad's leaders debated what to do next.
Bin Ladin and Azzam agreed that the organization successfully created for Afghanistan should not be allowed to dissolve. They established what they called a base or foundation (al Qaeda) as a potential general headquarters for future jihad.
And Bin Ladin got no help from the U.S. in the Afghad jihad. Late, he would target the United States, first for sending troups into Somalia:
After U.S. troops deployed to Somalia in late 1992, al Qaeda leaders formulated a fatwa demanding their eviction. In December, bombs exploded at two hotels in Aden where U.S. troops routinely stopped en route to Somalia, killing two, but no Americans. The perpetrators are reported to have belonged to a group from southern Yemen headed by a Yemeni member of Bin Ladin's Islamic Army Shura; some in the group had trained at an al Qaeda camp in Sudan.44
When Pastor Wright said "The Chickens were coming home to roost," it's these developments that he was referring to. What Pastor Wright is recorded as saying is, according to ABC News:
Rev. Jeremiah Wright, former pastor of Sen. Barack Obama's church, Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ, "said the U.S. had brought on the [9-11 terrorist] attacks with its own terrorism." ..."We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye. We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and the black South Africans, and now we are indignant. Because the stuff we have done overseas has now been brought back into our own front yard. America's chickens are coming home to roost."
Unfortunately, there is nothing in the 9-11 Commission Report to refute those statements. With respect to the complex laticework of events that formed the disaster that is September 11, 2001, Pastor Wright is painfully correct.
What is increasingly clear to me is that America does not know about itself and what it has done. We entered Somalia with what both the Bush and Clinton Administration believed were good intentions or at least they were presented that way to the American public -- to disarm to allow the delivery of food after the ouster of the dictator Siad Barre, whom the U.S. gave aide to during his tenure -- and watched as our collective lack of understanding of the cultural landscape and the warring factions led to what PBS called "An Ambush". An Ambush led by Osama Bin Ladin. An Ambush that served as preview of what was to come later: September 11, 2001.
The U.S Government may have told the public the aim of the troup visit was to disarm, but to Somalis it seemed more like an occupation.
Osman Ato, a wealthy Somali businessman and supporter of American troup involvement, told the New York Times:
"Otherwise, you can be assured any wrong move will worsen the situation," said Mr. Ato, who has financed General Aidid and led the warlord's forces in some clan battles in Somalia this year. "We expect the Americans to behave as a friendly force, not as an occupation force."
But even before the American troup occupation, it was clear America had a history in Somalia and not a good one. This is what Former U.S Ambassador to Somalia Robert Oakley said in 1995 about Ato and the U.S. in Somalia:
"He's very shrewd," said Robert Oakley, a former United States Ambassador to Somalia and its special envoy during the United Nations mission there. "Obviously he knows how to make deals and how to work with the Americans. He understands what makes sense to us.
"Not that he's our man," he (Oakley) said. "Politically, he can't afford to be too close to the Americans. He's one of the people keenly aware of how much damage we did to Somalia. "
The "damage we did to Somalia" is described in detail by Alex de Waal in his document called "U.S. War Crimes in Somalia". What did we do in Somalia? According to De Waal, the "humanitarian" intentions were a cover for occupation of Somalia by the United States under the "emerging doctrine of ‘humanitarian intervention’ " by the United States. And in that effort, it's also clear, according to Waal, that American soldiers were not respectful of Somalis, and that's putting it mildly:
Waal reports...
When the Marines landed on Mogadishu beach on 9 December 1992, hopes were high that they would solve the problems of Somalia. But not only had they disappointed on that front—particularly on the issue of disarming the militiamen—but the behaviour of a large number of the troops was deplorable. Many countries had sent hardened paratroopers and other combat troops on a mission in which police training and civil engineering skills were needed. In many cases the operations quickly degenerated into routine brutality against Somali civilians.
Waal also presents the July 12, 1993 U.S attack on Somali Civilians and a death toll estimated at between 60 to 500 people, and which so upset the people there, that an angry crowd turned on, then killed, four journalists.
Waal's account of the U.S. in Somalia in 1993, and the 9-11 Commission Report are must read documents by all Americans. The one figure that's ties both together is Osama Bin Ladin.
Pastor Wright is correct: the Chickens that were hatched in Somalia did come home to roost. As a Black American, I'm used to foreign policy being discussed in the church. That this is shocking to some Americans makes me wonder just how much they know about their own United States.
If the "common American" doesn't know American Culture and is not aware of or interested in what the United States actually does around the World, then that person can be easily manipulated by powerful political forces, some of the same that caused the errors in Somalia in 1993 that eventually created the foundation for 9-11 in 2001.
Pastor Wright is right.
Retired Pastor Jeremiah Wright's sermons, portions of which were captured on video and seen by many, were described as upsetting and disagreeable. And it seems that talk show after talk show has someone Black agreeing with the overall idea that everything -- everything -- Pastor Wright said was wrong.
This is what drew my attention and caused me to look at, first, what Pastor Wright was recorded as saying and, second, an event that Pastor Wright talked about: September 11th 2001.
Now, before I continue I will report that I will never forget any aspect of "9-11" or where I was on that day. It started for me, waking up on my couch after having gone to sleep watching television. It was on Channel 2, KTVU TV, Oakland, and the first sight on the screen was the fire that broke out in One World Trade Center. I thought the building was just on fire, but as you may remember if you were around then, it was evident that the building had been struck by a plane, and then we watched as another aircraft ran right into the second tower.
It was a moment which caused me to reach for the phone and call everyone I knew from here to New York City. And on top of all of that, I didn't know if we were a target in some way. Remember the Pentagon was hit as well. And all of this was on television unfolding before us.
I was scared and so were a lot of people who didn't go to work that day in Oakland. People who gathered at establishments like Arazmendi, the place known for its thin-crust pizza and yummy pastries -- a great start in the morning turned into an all day hangout to talk about what was going on, and so it was this for the rest of that week.
I'll never forget that.
But one question I had was "Why?" What did we -- America -- do? And given that it seemed to me like a crime rather than an act of war (where we could not blame a country) I wondered who we would get -- what person could we jail? Who could we blame? That was the first time I heard of Osama Bin Ladin. It would not be the last time.
A few years later, the 9-11 Commission released the findings of its extensive review of how 9-11 came to be and what we could do to make sure it did not happen again. There are parts of the commission's report that's telling regarding what we did -- or more to the point, what we did not do.
What it all boils down to is that America did not take Radical Islam seriously and moreover, America has not even heard of Radical Islam. Meanwhile the socio-economic foundation that created 9-11 was being formed. The 9-11 Commission report states:
In the 1970s and early 1980s, an unprecedented flood of wealth led the then largely unmodernized oil states to attempt to shortcut decades of development. They funded huge infrastructure projects, vastly expanded education, and created subsidized social welfare programs. These programs established a widespread feeling of entitlement without a corresponding sense of social obligations. By the late 1980s, diminishing oil revenues, the economic drain from many unprofitable development projects, and population growth made these entitlement programs unsustainable. The resulting cutbacks created enormous resentment among recipients who had come to see government largesse as their right. This resentment was further stoked by public understanding of how much oil income had gone straight into the pockets of the rulers, their friends, and their helpers....
By the 1990s, high birthrates and declining rates of infant mortality had produced a common problem throughout the Muslim world: a large, steadily increasing population of young men without any reasonable expectation of suitable or steady employment-a sure prescription for social turbulence. Many of these young men, such as the enormous number trained only in religious schools, lacked the skills needed by their societies. Far more acquired valuable skills but lived in stagnant economies that could not generate satisfying jobs.
Millions, pursuing secular as well as religious studies, were products of educational systems that generally devoted little if any attention to the rest of the world's thought, history, and culture. The secular education reflected a strong cultural preference for technical fields over the humanities and social sciences. Many of these young men, even if able to study abroad, lacked the perspective and skills needed to understand a different culture.
Frustrated in their search for a decent living, unable to benefit from an education often obtained at the cost of great family sacrifice, and blocked from starting families of their own, some of these young men were easy targets for radicalization.
A Jihad is a holy war, and in Bin Ladin, who was the product of the dynamics described above, Radical Islam had its holy warrior. Bin Ladin was a hero in the triumph of Afganitan over the Soviet Union in 1988. The 9-11 Commission reports:
April 1988 brought victory for the Afghan jihad. Moscow declared it would pull its military forces out of Afghanistan within the next nine months. As the Soviets began their withdrawal, the jihad's leaders debated what to do next.
Bin Ladin and Azzam agreed that the organization successfully created for Afghanistan should not be allowed to dissolve. They established what they called a base or foundation (al Qaeda) as a potential general headquarters for future jihad.
And Bin Ladin got no help from the U.S. in the Afghad jihad. Late, he would target the United States, first for sending troups into Somalia:
After U.S. troops deployed to Somalia in late 1992, al Qaeda leaders formulated a fatwa demanding their eviction. In December, bombs exploded at two hotels in Aden where U.S. troops routinely stopped en route to Somalia, killing two, but no Americans. The perpetrators are reported to have belonged to a group from southern Yemen headed by a Yemeni member of Bin Ladin's Islamic Army Shura; some in the group had trained at an al Qaeda camp in Sudan.44
When Pastor Wright said "The Chickens were coming home to roost," it's these developments that he was referring to. What Pastor Wright is recorded as saying is, according to ABC News:
Rev. Jeremiah Wright, former pastor of Sen. Barack Obama's church, Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ, "said the U.S. had brought on the [9-11 terrorist] attacks with its own terrorism." ..."We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye. We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and the black South Africans, and now we are indignant. Because the stuff we have done overseas has now been brought back into our own front yard. America's chickens are coming home to roost."
Unfortunately, there is nothing in the 9-11 Commission Report to refute those statements. With respect to the complex laticework of events that formed the disaster that is September 11, 2001, Pastor Wright is painfully correct.
What is increasingly clear to me is that America does not know about itself and what it has done. We entered Somalia with what both the Bush and Clinton Administration believed were good intentions or at least they were presented that way to the American public -- to disarm to allow the delivery of food after the ouster of the dictator Siad Barre, whom the U.S. gave aide to during his tenure -- and watched as our collective lack of understanding of the cultural landscape and the warring factions led to what PBS called "An Ambush". An Ambush led by Osama Bin Ladin. An Ambush that served as preview of what was to come later: September 11, 2001.
The U.S Government may have told the public the aim of the troup visit was to disarm, but to Somalis it seemed more like an occupation.
Osman Ato, a wealthy Somali businessman and supporter of American troup involvement, told the New York Times:
"Otherwise, you can be assured any wrong move will worsen the situation," said Mr. Ato, who has financed General Aidid and led the warlord's forces in some clan battles in Somalia this year. "We expect the Americans to behave as a friendly force, not as an occupation force."
But even before the American troup occupation, it was clear America had a history in Somalia and not a good one. This is what Former U.S Ambassador to Somalia Robert Oakley said in 1995 about Ato and the U.S. in Somalia:
"He's very shrewd," said Robert Oakley, a former United States Ambassador to Somalia and its special envoy during the United Nations mission there. "Obviously he knows how to make deals and how to work with the Americans. He understands what makes sense to us.
"Not that he's our man," he (Oakley) said. "Politically, he can't afford to be too close to the Americans. He's one of the people keenly aware of how much damage we did to Somalia. "
The "damage we did to Somalia" is described in detail by Alex de Waal in his document called "U.S. War Crimes in Somalia". What did we do in Somalia? According to De Waal, the "humanitarian" intentions were a cover for occupation of Somalia by the United States under the "emerging doctrine of ‘humanitarian intervention’ " by the United States. And in that effort, it's also clear, according to Waal, that American soldiers were not respectful of Somalis, and that's putting it mildly:
Waal reports...
When the Marines landed on Mogadishu beach on 9 December 1992, hopes were high that they would solve the problems of Somalia. But not only had they disappointed on that front—particularly on the issue of disarming the militiamen—but the behaviour of a large number of the troops was deplorable. Many countries had sent hardened paratroopers and other combat troops on a mission in which police training and civil engineering skills were needed. In many cases the operations quickly degenerated into routine brutality against Somali civilians.
Waal also presents the July 12, 1993 U.S attack on Somali Civilians and a death toll estimated at between 60 to 500 people, and which so upset the people there, that an angry crowd turned on, then killed, four journalists.
Waal's account of the U.S. in Somalia in 1993, and the 9-11 Commission Report are must read documents by all Americans. The one figure that's ties both together is Osama Bin Ladin.
Pastor Wright is correct: the Chickens that were hatched in Somalia did come home to roost. As a Black American, I'm used to foreign policy being discussed in the church. That this is shocking to some Americans makes me wonder just how much they know about their own United States.
If the "common American" doesn't know American Culture and is not aware of or interested in what the United States actually does around the World, then that person can be easily manipulated by powerful political forces, some of the same that caused the errors in Somalia in 1993 that eventually created the foundation for 9-11 in 2001.
Pastor Wright is right.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Respect our veterans, let them VOTE!
Today marks the fifth anniversary of the start of the War in Iraq. More Americans have now died in Iraq that were killed by the terrorist attacks on the 11th of September, 2001. Countless more have been injured, both physically and psychologically, yet the Veterans Administration continues to dis-serve those who they are chartered expressly to aid. They don't even want to help Veterans register to vote. Something is very wrong.
The VA, as a federal agency, has the discretion under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, (the so-called Motor Voter Law) to determine if it would serve as a voter registration agency, according to election law experts. The NVRA mandated that state agencies from motor vehicle departments to welfare offices offer people the chance to register to vote, while federal agencies such as the VA can opt to register voters. Why does the VA continue to function as an impediment to our veterans on issues from disability payments to voter registration?
There are currently more than 400,000 claims pending with the Veterans Benefits Administration. You would be staggered to learn the error rates in processing these claims. The Walter Reed fiasco showed that we don't always provide returning service members, coming home with record levels of combat stress, the services they've earned, and until Senator Barack Obama stepped in we were expecting them to pay for their own meals as in-patients.
Barack Obama believes America has a sacred trust with our veterans. He is committed to creating a 21st Century Department of Veterans' Affairs that provides the care and benefits our nation�s veterans deserve. He is explicitly intent on mental health treatment for troops and veterans suffering from combat-related psychological injuries.
From the benefits bureaucracy to the refusal to provide transition services and help homeless veterans with such basic rights as access to psychological treatment and registration to vote, the Veterans Administration is in a shambles. The time for change is now.
A March 6th letter from Senators Feinstein and Kerry to James B. Peake, Secretary of Veterans Affairs, stated, "Nearly one year ago, your predecessor, Secretary Nicholson, was questioned about the lack of access to nonpartisan voter registration services for our nation's veterans. A response to this inquiry was never received."
The letter also noted that "despite this lack of response, we now understand that the VA has engaged in litigation against voter registration efforts by third-party groups in VA facilities. In light of the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals decision that voter registration groups are not allowed to register veterans, we strongly urge you to focus on what the VA can do to ensure all veterans have access to registration."
This is unacceptable. The time for change at the VA is now. We need a new sense of urgency. Barack Obama has a record of acting to help veterans as a member of the Veterans' Affairs committee, he understands TBIs and PTSD, and he has a plan ready to go.
Respect, courtesy, and support are not too much to expect. Join Veterans for Obama.
The VA, as a federal agency, has the discretion under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, (the so-called Motor Voter Law) to determine if it would serve as a voter registration agency, according to election law experts. The NVRA mandated that state agencies from motor vehicle departments to welfare offices offer people the chance to register to vote, while federal agencies such as the VA can opt to register voters. Why does the VA continue to function as an impediment to our veterans on issues from disability payments to voter registration?
"Keeping faith with those who serve must always be a core American value and a cornerstone of American patriotism. Because America's commitment to its servicemen and women begins at enlistment, and it must never end."
— Barack Obama,
Speech in Kansas City, MO,
August 21, 2007
There are currently more than 400,000 claims pending with the Veterans Benefits Administration. You would be staggered to learn the error rates in processing these claims. The Walter Reed fiasco showed that we don't always provide returning service members, coming home with record levels of combat stress, the services they've earned, and until Senator Barack Obama stepped in we were expecting them to pay for their own meals as in-patients.
Barack Obama believes America has a sacred trust with our veterans. He is committed to creating a 21st Century Department of Veterans' Affairs that provides the care and benefits our nation�s veterans deserve. He is explicitly intent on mental health treatment for troops and veterans suffering from combat-related psychological injuries.From the benefits bureaucracy to the refusal to provide transition services and help homeless veterans with such basic rights as access to psychological treatment and registration to vote, the Veterans Administration is in a shambles. The time for change is now.
A March 6th letter from Senators Feinstein and Kerry to James B. Peake, Secretary of Veterans Affairs, stated, "Nearly one year ago, your predecessor, Secretary Nicholson, was questioned about the lack of access to nonpartisan voter registration services for our nation's veterans. A response to this inquiry was never received."
The letter also noted that "despite this lack of response, we now understand that the VA has engaged in litigation against voter registration efforts by third-party groups in VA facilities. In light of the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals decision that voter registration groups are not allowed to register veterans, we strongly urge you to focus on what the VA can do to ensure all veterans have access to registration."
This is unacceptable. The time for change at the VA is now. We need a new sense of urgency. Barack Obama has a record of acting to help veterans as a member of the Veterans' Affairs committee, he understands TBIs and PTSD, and he has a plan ready to go.
Respect, courtesy, and support are not too much to expect. Join Veterans for Obama.
Source: After trade to Raiders, Hall to get seven-year, $70 million deal
ESPN.com news services
Atlanta Falcons cornerback DeAngelo Hall says he will finalize a contract with Oakland by Thursday morning, allowing the trade sending him to the Raiders to be completed.
A source told ESPN's Chris Mortensen that the deal is for seven years and worth $70 million. The amount of guaranteed money and bonuses in the contract have not been finalized.
The source also told Mortensen the teams are discussing possibly more compensation than just a second-round pick for the Raiders to acquire Hall, a two-time All-Pro.
If the deal goes through as planned, the Falcons will have three second-round draft picks and four of the first 48 selections under first-year general manager Thomas Dimitroff.
Hall said he is scheduled to fly to Oakland on Wednesday to meet with Raiders officials, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
"There is just some tweaking of the language that needs to be done, some minor details," Hall told the newspaper. "No deal breakers."
Hall, a former first-rounder taken with the eighth pick in the 2004 draft, would be paired with Nnamdi Asomugha, giving Oakland one of the top cornerback tandems in the game.
The move would also provide insurance if Asomugha were to leave as a free agent following next season. The Raiders placed the exclusive franchise tag on Asomugha, guaranteeing him at least $9.465 million in 2008. They still would like to sign him to a long-term deal.
If the deal goes through, the Raiders would have only one draft pick in the first three rounds. Oakland picks fourth in the opening round and traded its third-round pick last year to New England for a pick used to draft offensive lineman Mario Henderson.
Atlanta Falcons cornerback DeAngelo Hall says he will finalize a contract with Oakland by Thursday morning, allowing the trade sending him to the Raiders to be completed.
A source told ESPN's Chris Mortensen that the deal is for seven years and worth $70 million. The amount of guaranteed money and bonuses in the contract have not been finalized.
The source also told Mortensen the teams are discussing possibly more compensation than just a second-round pick for the Raiders to acquire Hall, a two-time All-Pro.
If the deal goes through as planned, the Falcons will have three second-round draft picks and four of the first 48 selections under first-year general manager Thomas Dimitroff.
Hall said he is scheduled to fly to Oakland on Wednesday to meet with Raiders officials, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
"There is just some tweaking of the language that needs to be done, some minor details," Hall told the newspaper. "No deal breakers."
Hall, a former first-rounder taken with the eighth pick in the 2004 draft, would be paired with Nnamdi Asomugha, giving Oakland one of the top cornerback tandems in the game.
The move would also provide insurance if Asomugha were to leave as a free agent following next season. The Raiders placed the exclusive franchise tag on Asomugha, guaranteeing him at least $9.465 million in 2008. They still would like to sign him to a long-term deal.
If the deal goes through, the Raiders would have only one draft pick in the first three rounds. Oakland picks fourth in the opening round and traded its third-round pick last year to New England for a pick used to draft offensive lineman Mario Henderson.
NFL Draft Order Round-By-Round - As Of Feb 29
NFL Draft Order Round-By-Round - As Of Feb 29
This is the NFL Draft selection order, which could change as we get closer to the draft itself and with trades.
Tentative 2008 Round-By-Round NFL Draft Order (As of February 29, 2008)
03/03/2008
ROUND ONE
1- 1- 1 Miami
1- 2- 2 St. Louis
1- 3- 3 Atlanta
1- 4- 4 Oakland
1- 5- 5 Kansas City
1- 6- 6 New York Jets
1- 7- 7 New England from San Francisco
1- 8- 8 Baltimore
1- 9- 9 Cincinnati
1-10-10 New Orleans
1-11-11 Buffalo
1-12-12 Denver
1-13-13 Carolina
1-14-14 Chicago
1-15-15 Detroit
1-16-16 Arizona
1-17-17 Minnesota
1-18-18 Houston
1-19-19 Philadelphia
1-20-20 Tampa Bay
1-21-21 Washington
1-22-22 Dallas from Cleveland
1-23-23 Pittsburgh
1-24-24 Tennessee
1-25-25 Seattle
1-26-26 Jacksonville
1-27-27 San Diego
1-28-28 Dallas
1-29-29 San Francisco from Indianapolis
1-30-30 Green Bay
1-31- New England Forfeited
1-32-31 New York Giants
ROUND TWO
2- 1-32 Miami
2- 2-33 St. Louis
2- 3-34 Oakland
2- 4-35 Kansas City
2- 5-36 New York Jets
2- 6-37 Atlanta
2- 7-38 Baltimore
2- 8-39 San Francisco
2- 9-40 New Orleans
2-10-41 Buffalo
2-11-42 Denver
2-12-43 Carolina
2-13-44 Chicago
2-14-45 Detroit
2-15-46 Cincinnati
2-16-47 Minnesota
2-17-48 Atlanta from Houston
2-18-49 Philadelphia
2-19-50 Arizona
2-20-51 Washington
2-21-52 Tampa Bay
2-22-53 Pittsburgh
2-23-54 Tennessee
2-24-55 Seattle
2-25-56 Cleveland
2-26-57 Miami from San Diego
2-27-58 Jacksonville
2-28-59 Indianapolis
2-29-60 Green Bay
2-30-61 Dallas
2-31-62 New England
2-32-63 New York Giants
ROUND THREE
3- 1-64 Miami
3- 2-65 St. Louis
3- 3-66 Kansas City
3- 4-67 New York Jets
3- 5-68 Atlanta
3- 6-69 New England from Oakland
3- 7-70 San Francisco
3- 8-71 Buffalo from Baltimore
3- 9-72 Buffalo
3-10-73 Minnesota from Denver
3-11-74 Carolina
3-12-75 Chicago
3-13-76 Detroit
3-14-77 Cincinnati
3-15-78 New Orleans
3-16-79 Houston
3-17-80 Philadelphia
3-18-81 Arizona
3-19-82 Minnesota
3-20-83 Tampa Bay
3-21-84 Washington
3-22-85 Tennessee
3-23-86 Seattle
3-24-87 Cleveland
3-25-88 Pittsburgh
3-26-89 Jacksonville
3-27-90 Chicago from San Diego
3-28-91 Green Bay
3-29-92 Dallas
3-30-93 Indianapolis
3-31-94 New England
3-32-95 New York Giants
ROUND FOUR
4- 1- Miami
4- 2- St. Louis
4- 3- New York Jets
4- 4- Atlanta
4- 5- Oakland
4- 6- Kansas City
4- 7- Baltimore
4- 8- San Francisco
4- 9- Denver
4-10- Carolina
4-11- Chicago
4-12- Detroit
4-13- Cincinnati
4-14- New Orleans
4-15- Buffalo
4-16- Philadelphia
4-17- Arizona
4-18- Minnesota
4-19- Houston
4-20- Denver from Washington
4-21- Tampa Bay
4-22- Seattle
4-23- Cleveland
4-24- Pittsburgh
4-25- Tennessee
4-26- San Diego Exercised in Supplemental Draft
4-27- Jacksonville
4-28- Dallas
4-29- Indianapolis
4-30- Green Bay
4-31- New England
4-32- New York Giants
ROUND FIVE
5- 1- Kansas City from Miami
5- 2- St. Louis
5- 3- Atlanta
5- 4- Denver from Oakland
5- 5- Kansas City
5- 6- New York Jets
5- 7- San Francisco
5- 8- Baltimore Exercised in Supplemental Draft
5- 9- Chicago from Carolina
5-10- Buffalo from Chicago
5-11- Detroit
5-12- Cincinnati
5-13- New Orleans
5-14- Buffalo
5-15- Denver
5-16- Arizona
5-17- Minnesota
5-18- Houston
5-19- Philadelphia
5-20- Tampa Bay
5-21- Washington
5-22- Cleveland
5-23- Pittsburgh
5-24- Tennessee
5-25- Jacksonville from Seattle
5-26- Jacksonville
5-27- San Diego
5-28- Indianapolis
5-29- Green Bay
5-30- Dallas
5-31- New England
5-32- New York Giants
ROUND SIX
6- 1- Miami
6- 2- St. Louis
6- 3- Oakland
6- 4- Kansas City
6- 5- New York Jets
6- 6- Atlanta
6- 7- Baltimore
6- 8- San Francisco
6- 9- Chicago
6-10- Detroit
6-11- Cincinnati
6-12- New Orleans
6-13- Buffalo
6-14- St. Louis from Denver
6-15- Carolina
6-16- Minnesota
6-17- Houston
6-18- Philadelphia
6-19- Arizona
6-20- Washington
6-21- Kansas City from Tampa Bay
6-22- Pittsburgh
6-23- Seattle from Tennessee
6-24- Cleveland from Seattle
6-25- Philadelphia from Cleveland
6-26- San Diego
6-27- Jacksonville
6-28- New York Giants from Green Bay
6-29- Dallas
6-30- Indianapolis
6-31- New England
6-32- New York Giants
ROUND SEVEN
7- 1- Miami
7- 2- Minnesota from St. Louis
7- 3- Kansas City
7- 4- New York Jets
7- 5- Atlanta
7- 6- Oakland
7- 7- San Francisco
7- 8- Baltimore
7- 9- Detroit
7-10- St. Louis from Cincinnati
7-11- New Orleans
7-12- Buffalo
7-13- Denver
7-14- Carolina
7-15- Chicago
7-16- Houston
7-17- Buffalo from Philadelphia
7-18- Arizona
7-19- Oakland from Minnesota through New York Jets
7-20- Denver from Tampa Bay
7-21- Washington
7-22- Tennessee
7-23- Philadelphia from Seattle
7-24- Cleveland
7-25- Atlanta from Pittsburgh
7-26- Seattle from Jacksonville
7-27- San Diego
7-28- Dallas
7-29- Indianapolis
7-30- Green Bay
7-31- New England
7-32- Kansas City from New York Giants
Barack Obama's Epic, Historic Speech On America and Race
Regardless of what Rush Limbaugh says, Senator Barack Obama gave the best speech of his political life and one of the best presentations of an idea and an ideal by an elected official in World history.
Barack said what many Americans, including me, have felt for years: that each generation of us is better and an improvement over the last one, and that just because one person in your family or a good friend has a racist point of view does not mean you have to disown them or reject them. That such views are the sum total of their experience, but they too change and we as a whole grow by understanding each other and working together.
It was a speech of sweeping arch and beauty that started out a bit rough, but then soared to greatness when Obama talked from a personal perspective.
It was a turning point and in my view shows why Obama's right for this time in American history.
His unique background really is the example of the complexity of America, and its contradictions, and his rise to President may very well signal a course for a new American hegemony, one that's more inclusive and collaborative with other countries and one that's less demonic and threatening in such a way as to cause the events that led to 9-11.
Here's the video of this great speech:
OBAMA SPEECH IN FULL: A MORE PERFECT UNION - TEXT
OBAMA SPEECH IN FULL: A MORE PERFECT UNION
Tuesday, March 18th, 2008/ 10:17:53 ET
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
“We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.”
Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.
The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.
Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution – a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.
And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part – through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.
This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign – to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together – unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction – towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.
This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.
I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton’s Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I’ve gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world’s poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners – an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.
It’s a story that hasn’t made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts – that out of many, we are truly one.
Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.
This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either “too black” or “not black enough.” We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.
And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.
On one end of the spectrum, we’ve heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it’s based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we’ve heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.
I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely – just as I’m sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.
But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country – a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.
As such, Reverend Wright’s comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems – two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.
Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way
But the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.
In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:
“People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend’s voice up into the rafters….And in that single note – hope! – I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones. Those stories – of survival, and freedom, and hope – became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn’t need to feel shame about…memories that all people might study and cherish – and with which we could start to rebuild.”
That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety – the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity’s services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.
And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions – the good and the bad – of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother – a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.
Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.
But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America – to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.
The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we’ve never really worked through – a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.
Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, “The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past.” We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.
Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven’t fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today’s black and white students.
Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments – meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today’s urban and rural communities.
A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one’s family, contributed to the erosion of black families – a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods – parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement – all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.
This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What’s remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.
But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn’t make it – those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations – those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright’s generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician’s own failings.
And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.
In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything, they’ve built it from scratch. They’ve worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.
Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren’t always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.
Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze – a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns – this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.
This is where we are right now. It’s a racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy – particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.
But I have asserted a firm conviction – a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people – that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.
For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances – for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives – by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.
Ironically, this quintessentially American – and yes, conservative – notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright’s sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.
The profound mistake of Reverend Wright’s sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It’s that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country – a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen – is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope – the audacity to hope – for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.
In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds – by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.
In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world’s great religions demand – that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother’s keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister’s keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.
For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle – as we did in the OJ trial – or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright’s sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she’s playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.
We can do that.
But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we’ll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.
That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, “Not this time.” This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can’t learn; that those kids who don’t look like us are somebody else’s problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.
This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don’t have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.
This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn’t look like you might take your job; it’s that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.
This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should’ve been authorized and never should’ve been waged, and we want to talk about how we’ll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.
I would not be running for President if I didn’t believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation – the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.
There is one story in particularly that I’d like to leave you with today – a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King’s birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.
There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.
And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that’s when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.
She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.
She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.
Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother’s problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn’t. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.
Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they’re supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who’s been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he’s there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, “I am here because of Ashley.”
“I’m here because of Ashley.” By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.
But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.
END
Monday, March 17, 2008
No Florida Revote - CNN's Wolf Blitzer Insults Florida As Not Having Act Together
This is being explained as "breaking news" as I watch CNN's "The Situation Room". The Florida government and legislature has given up on the idea of having a revote. So the matter of any possible Clinton delegate gain from a Florida revote is officially gone from the Florida perspective.
The Chair of the Democratic Party in Florida said that even if the DNC paid for the revote, it could not be done. Wolf Blitzer just insulted Florida by stating they could not get their act together! The Florida Democratic Party said that it's up to the Obama and Clinton campaigns to settle the matter.
He's said it again, stating that he hopes Michigan can get it's act together.
The Chair of the Democratic Party in Florida said that even if the DNC paid for the revote, it could not be done. Wolf Blitzer just insulted Florida by stating they could not get their act together! The Florida Democratic Party said that it's up to the Obama and Clinton campaigns to settle the matter.
He's said it again, stating that he hopes Michigan can get it's act together.
Gov David Paterson's Swearing-In Speech
This is Governor David Patterson's rousing and historic speech given today after he was sworn in as the new Governor of New York. Patterson takes over for the resigned Eliot Spitzer; he's the first African American and Blind Governor in New York history. In the speech, he sited the problem of the meltdown of Bear Sterns as an economic challenge for New York.
Donald Trump’s Senior Advisor, George Ross, Visits Nassau Community College
From the tumultuous real estate market and negotiating techniques, to strategies for job success and the keys elements to Donald Trump’s entrepreneurial proficiency, George Ross, Executive Vice President and Senior Counsel for the Trump Organization, demonstrated his business prowess and expertise in front of over fifty eager students, professors and invited guests.
Moderated by AAA Spokesperson Robert Sinclair, the event seamlessly combined Mr. Ross’s business intellect and Mr. Sinclair’s outstanding communication skills.
Mr. Ross began the evening by cracking a multitude of jokes, including references to the Celebrity Apprentice and his interactions with Mr. Trump. Ross, senior legal and business advisor to Trump, stressed the importance of speaking to students and how strikingly different the current landscape is from when he grew up. ‘’I really enjoy the opportunity to meet college students. What you’re going through is a lot harder than what I went through. The world has gone up six knots in speed.’’
Mr. Ross placed the blame for the sub prime meltdown squarely on the ‘’greed’’ of hungry banks. Evidently, these individuals felt that it was permissible to take advantage of helpless homeowners and in the end provided them mortgages that they knew could never be paid. ’’Most people are completely ignorant and go somewhere where they feel completely comfortable,’’ said Ross. This, in reference to the fact that consumers went to banks where it was simple and easy, not where they had the most advantageous opportunity to restructure their plans. They trusted the experts in the industry and were severely betrayed.
Surprisingly, Ross asserted that the best negotiators are two-year olds. ‘’It takes time, effort and pre-planning, and if you do that then you’ll do good.’’ Since negotiation is ubiquitous and people are practicing all the time, there are no concrete rules to establish.
Mr. Ross illustrated that it’s essential in a conducive business environment to not become complacent and numb. In 1990, Mr. Trump was $990 million in debt, due in large part to banks providing him endless amounts of financing. Moreover, everything Mr. Trump touched towards the end of the 80’s turned into gold and financial institutions had the willingness and desire to offer him significantly more capital than needed. As a result of both parties foolhardy behavior, Trump was going through an arduous time period that would take years to resolve.
In addition, Mr. Ross, a real estate attorney for more than fifty years and a professor of negotiation at NYU for more than twenty years, was Trump’s first lawyer in New York. Although the budding business man possessed no experience or significant credentials at the age of 27 when he entered the field of real estate, he was equipped with tremendous enthusiasm, passion and persistence. These underlining characteristics instantly attracted Ross to the possibility of representing Trump throughout various real estate deals.
‘’Donald would try to teach me that white was black. When I got through it wasn’t black, it was dark gray. His key is both enthusiasm and perseverance. Also, he does not get into the nitty gritty. He delegates to the next person down the line,‘’ remarked Ross, advisor on the reality television show The Apprentice for several seasons.
The quintessential example of Mr. Trump’s visionary and transformative ideals was when he sought to purchase the Commodore Hotel from the Pennsylvania Railroad Station in an extremely innovative way. In an effort to revolutionize the run down hotel into a bright and prosperous place for guests to stay, he needed to borrow $80 million from the bank, receive the right of imminent domain from the state of New York, and convince the city that in a time of overwhelming pessimism in which hotel occupancy rates were under 30%, his bold idea would succeed and he could provide them the $15 million that they were owed by the Railroad Station. ’’The Donald’’ performed exceedingly well at mastering all these challenges and several years ago sold his share in the hotel for a sizable profit.
Ross equated Trump’s substantial success to the prime fact that he’ll ‘’do something no one else will do. He’ll do it bigger and better.’’ His overriding ability to see the opportunity and seize the opportunity has ultimately turned him into one of the most recognizable and trailblazing entrepreneurs of the 21st century.
In the case of Mr. Ross and Mr. Trump, they both learned very early on that in business being different makes all the difference in one’s attempt to turn their ideas into action.
Moderated by AAA Spokesperson Robert Sinclair, the event seamlessly combined Mr. Ross’s business intellect and Mr. Sinclair’s outstanding communication skills.
Mr. Ross began the evening by cracking a multitude of jokes, including references to the Celebrity Apprentice and his interactions with Mr. Trump. Ross, senior legal and business advisor to Trump, stressed the importance of speaking to students and how strikingly different the current landscape is from when he grew up. ‘’I really enjoy the opportunity to meet college students. What you’re going through is a lot harder than what I went through. The world has gone up six knots in speed.’’
Mr. Ross placed the blame for the sub prime meltdown squarely on the ‘’greed’’ of hungry banks. Evidently, these individuals felt that it was permissible to take advantage of helpless homeowners and in the end provided them mortgages that they knew could never be paid. ’’Most people are completely ignorant and go somewhere where they feel completely comfortable,’’ said Ross. This, in reference to the fact that consumers went to banks where it was simple and easy, not where they had the most advantageous opportunity to restructure their plans. They trusted the experts in the industry and were severely betrayed.
Surprisingly, Ross asserted that the best negotiators are two-year olds. ‘’It takes time, effort and pre-planning, and if you do that then you’ll do good.’’ Since negotiation is ubiquitous and people are practicing all the time, there are no concrete rules to establish.
Mr. Ross illustrated that it’s essential in a conducive business environment to not become complacent and numb. In 1990, Mr. Trump was $990 million in debt, due in large part to banks providing him endless amounts of financing. Moreover, everything Mr. Trump touched towards the end of the 80’s turned into gold and financial institutions had the willingness and desire to offer him significantly more capital than needed. As a result of both parties foolhardy behavior, Trump was going through an arduous time period that would take years to resolve.
In addition, Mr. Ross, a real estate attorney for more than fifty years and a professor of negotiation at NYU for more than twenty years, was Trump’s first lawyer in New York. Although the budding business man possessed no experience or significant credentials at the age of 27 when he entered the field of real estate, he was equipped with tremendous enthusiasm, passion and persistence. These underlining characteristics instantly attracted Ross to the possibility of representing Trump throughout various real estate deals.
‘’Donald would try to teach me that white was black. When I got through it wasn’t black, it was dark gray. His key is both enthusiasm and perseverance. Also, he does not get into the nitty gritty. He delegates to the next person down the line,‘’ remarked Ross, advisor on the reality television show The Apprentice for several seasons.
The quintessential example of Mr. Trump’s visionary and transformative ideals was when he sought to purchase the Commodore Hotel from the Pennsylvania Railroad Station in an extremely innovative way. In an effort to revolutionize the run down hotel into a bright and prosperous place for guests to stay, he needed to borrow $80 million from the bank, receive the right of imminent domain from the state of New York, and convince the city that in a time of overwhelming pessimism in which hotel occupancy rates were under 30%, his bold idea would succeed and he could provide them the $15 million that they were owed by the Railroad Station. ’’The Donald’’ performed exceedingly well at mastering all these challenges and several years ago sold his share in the hotel for a sizable profit.
Ross equated Trump’s substantial success to the prime fact that he’ll ‘’do something no one else will do. He’ll do it bigger and better.’’ His overriding ability to see the opportunity and seize the opportunity has ultimately turned him into one of the most recognizable and trailblazing entrepreneurs of the 21st century.
In the case of Mr. Ross and Mr. Trump, they both learned very early on that in business being different makes all the difference in one’s attempt to turn their ideas into action.
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