Obama's Presidency: Let the Transformation Begin...

Leonard Pitts wrote this memorable column on the transformational effect of Obama's presidency:

''For the first time in my adult lifetime I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change.'' -- Michelle Obama, Feb. 18, 2008

I always thought I understood what Michelle Obama was trying to say.

You are familiar, of course, with what she actually did say, which is quoted above. It provided weeks of red meat for her husband's opponents, who took to making ostentatious proclamations of their own unwavering pride in country.

But again, I think I know what the lady meant to say. Namely, that with her husband, this brown-skinned guy with the funny name, making a credible run for the highest office in the land, she could believe, for the first time, that ''we the people'' included her.

It is, for African Americans, an intoxicating thought almost too wonderful for thinking. Yet, there it is. And here we are, waking up this morning to find Barack Obama president-elect of these United States.

In a sense, it is unfair -- to him, to us -- to make Tuesday's election about race. Whatever appeal Obama may have had to African Americans and white liberals eager to vote for a black candidate, is, I believe, dwarfed by his appeal to Americans of all stripes who have simply had enough of the politics of addition by division as practiced by Karl Rove and his disciples, enough of the free floating anger, the holiday from accountability, the nastiness masquerading as righteousness, the sheer intellectual dishonesty, that have characterized the era of American politics that ends here.

But in the end, after all that, there still is race.

And it would be a sin against our history, a sin against John Lewis and Viola Liuzzo, against James Reeb and Lyndon Johnson, against Fannie Lou Hamer and Martin Luther King, against all those everyday heroes who marched, bled and died 40 years ago to secure black people's right to vote, not to pause on this pinnacle and savor what it means. It would be a sin against our generations, against slaves and freedmen, against housemen and washerwomen, against porters and domestics, against charred bodies hanging in southern trees, not to be still and acknowledge that something has happened here and it is sacred and profound.

For most of the years of the American experiment, ''we the people'' did not include African Americans. We were not included in ''we.'' We were not even included in ``people.''

What made it galling was all the flowery words to the contrary, all the perfumed lies about equality and opportunity. This was, people kept saying, a nation where any boy might grow up and become president. Which was only true, we knew, as long as it was indeed a boy and as long as the boy was white.

But as of today, we don't know that anymore. What this election tells us is that the nation has changed in ways that would have been unthinkable, unimaginable, flat out preposterous, just 40 years ago. And that we, black, white and otherwise, better recalibrate our sense of the possible.

There was something bittersweet in watching Michelle Obama lectured on American pride this year, in seeing African Americans asked to prove their Americanness when our ancestors were in this country before this country was. There was something in it that was hard to take, knowing that we have loved America when America did not love us, defended America when it would not defend us, believed in American ideals that were larger than skies, yet never large enough to include us.

We did this. For years unto centuries, we did this. Because our love for this country is deep and profound. And complicated and contradictory. And cynical and hard.

Now it has delivered us to this singular moment. Barack Obama is president-elect of the United States.

And we the people should be proud.

Ltr to Liebermann's Rabbis: Tell McCain to Stop the Hate

Just an excerpt from Jesse Kornbluth's letter to Joe Lieberman's Rabbis:

I often think about Kristallnacht, that terrible night in Germany when it became unmistakably clear what the Nazis intended for the Jews. Almost a hundred Jews murdered, tens of thousands deported, windows smashed, businesses seized -- and hundreds of synagogues burned. Quite the "November surprise," if you will. But even after this horrific orgy of violence in 1938, there were many German Jews who didn't get it, who thought they were safe, who thought this was where it ended.

Now we know better. We say "Never again." But look around you, gentlemen. History does repeat, and in this case, with spooky echoes of Germany's darkest decade. A bad economy. A search for someone who can be dehumanized and blamed. The cries for "justice". And then....?

How would we recognize Kristallnacht if it happened today?

My fear: It's on the horizon, and coming closer every day.

Today "The Other" is Barack Obama. At a McCain-Palin rally the other day, there was a cry from a yahoo in the crowd: "Off with his head!" John McCain and Sarah Palin have not condemned that man. Indeed, they promise to ratchet up their "questions" about Obama in the final weeks of the campaign. At this point, it seems, they'd find nothing upsetting if the audiences at their rallies showed up with torches and pitchforks.

Jews, above all others, should fear this kind of hate speech. It may start with the demonization of one black man. Then it will move on to greedy Wall Streeters and "Jewish bankers" and a "liberal media" owned and controlled by Jews. [It's already happening: The Anti-Defamation League reports "a dramatic upsurge in anti-Semitic statements" on financial message boards on the Web. ] And then -- it sounds crazy, but it sounded crazy to many Jews in Germany -- the mob will come for us. Because that's where this goes. It's where it always goes. No matter where it starts, it ends with the Jews -- we're the ultimate "Other."

Well, they may go for Muslims this time around instead. But the point is made. Can anybody move McCain to compassion?

Muslim Hero to New York Subway Jews

In a twist on post-9/11 worldviews, a young Muslim man risked his life to help two Jewish victims of a racist attack in a New York subway. The perpetrators were yelling "Merry Christmas!" and in response, a young Jewish couple said "Happy Hannukah!" - it being, in fact, Hannukah at the time and not Christmas, incidentally - to which the Christmas-yellers responded by a brutal physical attack. The Muslim, a Sunni originally from Pakistan - ooh, doesn't he fit the terrorist profile? - came to their rescue, and was himself beaten up by the Merry Christmas crew.

Now don't tell me about how many Christians are shuddering, saying "That's not typical of us!"

Will they instead say, "That's not typical of Muslims!" ... ???

Don't they represent Pat Robertson and his ilk? Don't those thugs represent Christendom and those who follow the many and sundry sects and visions and splinter groups of Christianity? Don't they speak for every and any Christian? If they yelled "Kill the Jews!" - well, didn't Hitler do that, too? So shall we arrest all Christians then, to save the Jews? Are not all Christians alike?

If you don't think so, then why do you apply the same great logic to Muslims? Is not Osama bin Laden the Spokesperson at Large for all Islam? Looks like Gitmo will be the destiny for a hell of a lot of people if we don't rein in our profiling proliferation...

We'll have to detain all Christians on suspicion of killing the Jews, and presumably, to appease the Evangelical wing, detain Jews because if Jesus comes again they might kill him, and of course, we're already detaining Muslims because they are known to be bloodthirsty. Humankind is really basically rotten, and that's what Guantanamo and the Patriot Act and the whole War on Terror are all about. It's about saving humans from themselves by locking them up so somebody can get rich.

Hopefully, that someone will ride the subway ... if there's anyone left to run it. In the meantime, those of us in the real world ought to sit back and enjoy this news story that has a good ending, breaking all the neocon Cheney-Bush-driven stereotypes that are pulling us back into a very dangerous netherworld.

A huge thank you to Hassan Askari!

David Horowitz Celebrates Racism: Margaret Kimberly Offers a Balance

I wanted to write much about the $15 million Horowitz-Coulter Fascist Let's-Make-More-Racists LuvFest promoting our New Gestapo Empire under the guise of demonizing Islam, but I ran into this great columnist...
and here's her column:

Christian/Jewish Fascism Awareness Week
by Margaret Kimberley (source: Black Agenda Report)
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Right wing propagandist David Horowitz has declared October 22nd through October 26th Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week. Horowitz is one of the biggest beneficiaries of right wing welfare, mostly from the hands of ultra-conservative foundations run by the Scaife and Bradley families. He has received more than $15 million in handouts to promote a white supremacist, pro-war agenda.
The current Horowitz obsession is focused on Islam and on keeping Americans whipped into a frenzy of fear and hatred against all Muslims. The very term Islamo-Fascism is a cynical creation of neoconservatives, designed to insure blind adherence to the Bush war on terror scheme.

The biggest perpetrators of terrorist acts are and always have been governments, not individuals of any religion. When the United States refers to "state sponsored" terror, it must be looking in the mirror. War is the very worst act of terror that can be practiced, giving governments permission to kill and commit brutal atrocities that would be loudly condemned if committed by individuals.

If the world's major religions are compared in terms of body count, it is clear that Islam should not be seen as the enemy. The two nations now in the fifth year of a plan to commit wars of aggression in the Middle East are Israel and the United States. If there should be warnings about particular religions and allegations of fascist connections, the perpetrators are Christianity and Judaism, not Islam.

It is manifestly unfair to label entire groups based on the behavior of a few. The Israeli lobby actively promotes war, but it can't be said that all American Jews are themselves pro-war. Around the world Bush is seen as the bogeyman representative of American Christianity. Many Christians may resent the verdict of guilt by association, but they would do well to remember that Muslims are also entitled to make their own pleas of individual innocence.

Instead Muslims are called upon to denounce any act of brutality committed by another Muslim, and to defend their religion from slanderous attacks. What is good for the Muslim goose, should also be good for the Christian and Jewish ganders. Therefore, October 22nd to October 26th in the year 2007 should also be known as Christian/Jewish Fascism Awareness Week.

The lawyers who wrote memos defending torture are all Jews and Christians, so are the members of Congress who advocate for endless warfare. All of the neocons who spent years plotting the occupation of Iraq and now the destruction of Iran are Christians or Jews. None are Muslim, nor are they atheist, agnostic, Baha'i, Zoroastrian, Buddhist, Hindu, or practitioners of Voodoo. All attend churches and synagogues and in fact brag about their religious piety.
Norman Podhoretz, father of neocondom, said of the prospect of bombing Iran, "I hope and pray we will...." Crackpot preacher Rev. John Hagee founded Christians United for Israel, whose sole reason for existing is to guarantee the killing of thousands of Iranians. Hagee wants war and wants Bush to start it whenever he feels like it. "We do not have a declaration of war for Iraq, and neither does the president need one to expand it into Iran." Giving political leaders permission to kill as they please is Fascism 101.

Horowitz and his gang have carried out a very sinister plan. They fit the description of fascists to a T. They believe in endless wars of aggression, the destruction of the last vestiges of civil liberties, and subservience to a corporate power. Yet they have succeeded in wielding the epithet of fascism because of Democratic party treason to Bush, a corporate media that deliberately withholds information from the public, and the apathy and confusion that dominate American life.

Americans do need to be aware of a fascist threat, a threat that comes straight from the White House, Wall Street, and the halls of Congress. It can only be fought if its presence is acknowledged and if citizens know that they still have the power to stop it.

Politicians will be of no help in this struggle. Looking to them for salvation is useless when they are in fact the source of the problem. The Democratic congressional victory is nearly one year old and has yielded nothing but one victory after another for the Bush regime.

In a little more than a year, November 4, 2008, a new president will be elected. Another Fascism Awareness Week should be declared at that time. It should be declared to remind us that the fight to maintain democracy will not end with George W. Bush. That is the awareness we really need now.

(Ms. Kimberley' maintains an edifying and frequently updated blog at freedomrider.blogspot.com. More of her work is also available at her Black Agenda Report archive page.)