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'This is your victory'

2008-11-05T10:16:00.000-05:00

Barack Obama:

"If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

It's the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen, by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different, that their voices could be that difference.

It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled. Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states.

We are, and always will be, the United States of America.

It's the answer that led those who've been told for so long by so many to be cynical and fearful and doubtful about what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day. VideoWatch Obama's speech in its entirety »

It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this date in this election at this defining moment change has come to America.

A little bit earlier this evening, I received an extraordinarily gracious call from Sen. McCain.

Sen. McCain fought long and hard in this campaign. And he's fought even longer and harder for the country that he loves. He has endured sacrifices for America that most of us cannot begin to imagine. We are better off for the service rendered by this brave and selfless leader.

I congratulate him; I congratulate Gov. Palin for all that they've achieved. And I look forward to working with them to renew this nation's promise in the months ahead.

I want to thank my partner in this journey, a man who campaigned from his heart, and spoke for the men and women he grew up with on the streets of Scranton and rode with on the train home to Delaware, the vice president-elect of the United States, Joe Biden.

And I would not be standing here tonight without the unyielding support of my best friend for the last 16 years the rock of our family, the love of my life, the nation's next first lady Michelle Obama.

Sasha and Malia I love you both more than you can imagine. And you have earned the new puppy that's coming with us to the new White House.

And while she's no longer with us, I know my grandmother's watching, along with the family that made me who I am. I miss them tonight. I know that my debt to them is beyond measure.

To my sister Maya, my sister Alma, all my other brothers and sisters, thank you so much for all the support that you've given me. I am grateful to them.

And to my campaign manager, David Plouffe, the unsung hero of this campaign, who built the best -- the best political campaign, I think, in the history of the United States of America.

To my chief strategist David Axelrod who's been a partner with me every step of the way.

To the best campaign team ever assembled in the history of politics you made this happen, and I am forever grateful for what you've sacrificed to get it done.

But above all, I will never forget who this victory truly belongs to. It belongs to you. It belongs to you.

I was never the likeliest candidate for this office. We didn't start with much money or many endorsements. Our campaign was not hatched in the halls of Washington. It began in the backyards of Des Moines and the living rooms of Concord and the front porches of Charleston. It was built by working men and women who dug into what little savings they had to give $5 and $10 and $20 to the cause.

It grew strength from the young people who rejected the myth of their generation's apathy who left their homes and their families for jobs that offered little pay and less sleep.

It drew strength from the not-so-young people who braved the bitter cold and scorching heat to knock on doors of perfect strangers, and from the millions of Americans who volunteered and organized and proved that more than two centuries later a government of the people, by the people, and for the people has not perished from the Earth.

This is your victory.

And I know you didn't do this just to win an election. And I know you didn't do it for me.

You did it because you understand the enormity of the task that lies ahead. For even as we celebrate tonight, we know the challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime -- two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century.

Even as we stand here tonight, we know there are brave Americans waking up in the deserts of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan to risk their lives for us.

There are mothers and fathers who will lie awake after the children fall asleep and wonder how they'll make the mortgage or pay their doctors' bills or save enough for their child's college education.

There's new energy to harness, new jobs to be created, new schools to build, and threats to meet, alliances to repair.

The road ahead will be long. Our climb will be steep. We may not get there in one year or even in one term. But, America, I have never been more hopeful than I am tonight that we will get there.

I promise you, we as a people will get there.

There will be setbacks and false starts. There are many who won't agree with every decision or policy I make as president. And we know the government can't solve every problem.

But I will always be honest with you about the challenges we face. I will listen to you, especially when we disagree. And, above all, I will ask you to join in the work of remaking this nation, the only way it's been done in America for 221 years -- block by block, brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.

What began 21 months ago in the depths of winter cannot end on this autumn night.

This victory alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were.

It can't happen without you, without a new spirit of service, a new spirit of sacrifice.

So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility, where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other.

Let us remember that, if this financial crisis taught us anything, it's that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers.

In this country, we rise or fall as one nation, as one people. Let's resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long.

Let's remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House, a party founded on the values of self-reliance and individual liberty and national unity.

Those are values that we all share. And while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress.

As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, we are not enemies but friends. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.

And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices. I need your help. And I will be your president, too.

And to all those watching tonight from beyond our shores, from parliaments and palaces, to those who are huddled around radios in the forgotten corners of the world, our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand.

To those -- to those who would tear the world down: We will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security: We support you. And to all those who have wondered if America's beacon still burns as bright: Tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth, but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope.

That's the true genius of America: that America can change. Our union can be perfected. What we've already achieved gives us hope for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations. But one that's on my mind tonight's about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta. She's a lot like the millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing: Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old.

She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn't vote for two reasons -- because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.

And tonight, I think about all that she's seen throughout her century in America -- the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can't, and the people who pressed on with that American creed: Yes we can.

At a time when women's voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot. Yes we can.

When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs, a new sense of common purpose. Yes we can.

When the bombs fell on our harbor and tyranny threatened the world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a democracy was saved. Yes we can.

She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that "We Shall Overcome." Yes we can.

A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination.

And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change.

Yes we can.

America, we have come so far. We have seen so much. But there is so much more to do. So tonight, let us ask ourselves -- if our children should live to see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper, what change will they see? What progress will we have made?

This is our chance to answer that call. This is our moment.

This is our time, to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can.

Thank you. God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America."

"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union."

2008-11-05T10:06:00.001-05:00

[ This is the speech I heard Obama give, where he went in my mind from being something special, to being something exceptional]

"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. "

US Elections Prediction

2008-11-04T10:03:00.000-05:00

The official Felix analysis predicts a victory for Obama with 309 electoral college votes to McCain's 229.

I have analyzed every opinion poll for every state that matters and made some judgments based on voter suppression, the general trending of the last few days plus the last minute bump that Obama will get; the death of his grandmother, general momentum toward him etc.

I have had to make some tough calls on states that are too close to call, (college seats in brackets) these are Indiana(11), Minnesota (11)Ohio (20) and Florida (27) - it is entirely feasible that Obama will win all of these but the fraud and voter suppression in Ohio and Florida is to endemic and the polls too close to lift them in Obama's favor. - in my opinion. In the real world I would give Florida to Obama because McCain has hardly ever led in an poll there..but the east west corridor will swing it to McCain, like it did Bush in 2004 and voter anomalies in the 2004 elections, in that area, are off the scale! (according to the results 90% 'voted' bush in that east west corridor even though the majority of residents are registered democrats!!)

So there you have it. At the end of the day Obama will win decisively and that is all that matters. And I would put the Champagne on ice if he wins Indiana at 6pm then open it if he takes Florida at 7.30pm

Fraud Update

2008-10-30T20:13:00.002-04:00

I don't like pasting content of other peoples articles, I don't want to get sued by the magazines - anyway - In the current Rolling Stone Magazine, in a neat new perfect bound format. Kennedy and Palast look at how the GOP try to suppress voters and how this works to their advantage. One thing in particular, that strikes, is that the number of votes that were suppressed in New Mexico in 2004 was THREE TIMES the majority that George Bush won!. And that is / was a safe Red state, meaning if they can do it in a place like NM then what hope Ohio or even Pennsylvania?

I am really getting cold feet about this election, it's not that, essentially Obama has done enough in a fair world to win. It's that the conditions for actually being able to vote go so against the sort of people that would vote for Obama. Being thrown off the role and suppressed, or given provisional ballots of which half are subsequently thrown away without reason. There is also the 'black' thing, where a small percentage , allegedly, can't bring themselves to vote for a black man even though they said they would. Ignore that, that's just junk to make excuses afterward as to why Obama, amazingly, didn't get the votes he thought he would.

Another good comment is that no matter how much you unravel the votes as fraudulent after the case, if McCain is 'elected' no will in the world will overturn that. If McCain 'wins' outright - amidst mass suppression, then how do you get that back? how do you go to all those states, find and open all those ballot boxes and re-count. You can't - there will be bitterness and a virtual civil war for a few weeks in America, but it won't stop McCain on the podium January 20th nor will it prevent Palin being president within 2 years of that.

Election Potential Fraud Update

2008-10-23T18:44:00.003-04:00

As posted by Jonathan Freedland in the Guardian on Monday.

There are 12 states pinpointed where there could be problems dealing with voters on election day, through too big a turnout and / or simply the technology infrastructure not being ready or acceptable for the volume of votes..

Now, not surprisingly, if you go to Real Clear Politics and paint these states red then give everything else that is left, and not already solid Democrat blue, to Obama - McCain wins..and maybe CNN will spew that this was a racist thing, or bad polling or whatever...because that is the way it will be portrayed - even so, i think that Obama will still win but we will see results in the following states that favor McCain but don't make any sense in the previous trends..Thus, watch these states on November 4th!

Indiana, Georgia, Florida, Ohio, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado and Virginia..

USA Presidential Election - Fraud Watch

2008-10-20T20:45:00.003-04:00

We're getting close to the big day and already the stars are aligning for massive voter fraud, yet again. Only this time I think that the Republican machine may have been outwitted.

It's complicated go into but here is the best route I can give you. Opinion polls show that Obama is on track to win the game and that McCain would have to pull out some serious stops to tip the balance of power back his way. Simply he cannot hope to do this unless, as is usual, he wins Ohio and Florida, at the least. Now, of late, these states are pretty much going for Obama in a big way, except when you factor in a weighted average of a variety of polls then it doesn't look as clear cut. If three pollsters put Obama 10 points ahead and one puts McCain 1 point ahead then Obama's average is about 5 or 6, factor in the "margin of error" and it becomes a "toss up" state. And that is how the media are seduced into describing it. Yet this is not the case..Ohio is going to vote Obama. Come election day, Anderson or Wolf will discuss how this swing state tipped to McCain in the end even though the Exit Polls will show Obama ( like they did with Kerry in 2004) - McCain, somehow will have won it. The lines of voters unable to get in, the dispossessed & repossessed thrown off the register at the same time they were thrown out of the house they were conned into buying. And finally it's E-Voting time and all these electronic tallies on equipment supplied by Republican donors.

Now I don't want to be all conspiracist but check these sites:

Black Box Voting

Real Clear Politics

Rasmussen Reports

With Black Box Voting, they point you to the states that have suspect voting procedures where "middlemen" are able to interfere with the results before they are issued. The play with the Real Clear Politics map and see what would happen if certain states strangely swung McCains way - no surprise they are more or less the same states. Then look at Rasmussen which is doing a great job of getting the public ready to think that the big bowls of fruit, like Ohio and Florida are "too close to call" and that Obama has a reasonable lead but never quite manages to break clear. Softening up the media and the publics expectations.

This election is not a toss up - it is a slam dunk for Obama and any result different to that is cataclysmic fraud. Then we get a couple of years of McCain who retires for ill health and Coo-eee we have Palin the Patsy ready to jump when the corporate interests say. Sarah Palin, the female Bush (sic)

Oil get a Grip

2008-04-18T19:05:00.002-04:00

Today oil reached $117.00 a barrell. Those that predicted $200 a barrell are really not far off the mark.

I don't get it. It happens every time there is a bad oil story, for example today it is a sabotaged pipe in Nigeria, so the price is hiked and then it stays hiked, even after said pipe is long since repaired.

It is dangerous to use oil as a hedge for the American economy and is really insane. There is no rhyme or reason with the markets and the world economy at the moment making it entirely unpredictable. Who would invest in that environment?

I don't like to make predictions but to call a massive recession is not really far off the mark. What I would try to do though is think a tipping point for a depression, which we can't rule out either. This will happen when the UK has a real FTSE crash of about 20% and oil gets above $150 a barrel.

Interworld Radio News 3rd April 2008

2008-04-03T09:19:00.001-04:00

I am trying to get an RSS feed for this but until then I hope to publish it regularly. The website is available here: Interworld.

Interworld

South Africa‚s Business Day newspaper claims Zimbabwe's President Robert
Mugabe has privately conceded defeat and is deciding if he should contest
a run-off vote. Mugabe has lost control of parliament for the first time
since independence in 1980 and the opposition Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) is claiming victory in last Saturday's elections. However, a
run-off presidential vote may be called if MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai
fails to secure a clear majority. According to the final results of the
election for parliament's lower house, the Movement for Democratic Change
(MDC) won 99 seats, while Mugabe's ZANU-PF won 97 seats and a breakaway
MDC faction won 10. One independent candidate won a seat. No official
results have yet been announced for the presidential vote.

Al-Qaeda‚s number two Ayman al-Zawahiri has defended the killings of UN
staff, describing the United Nations as an enemy of Islam. The interview
was released in an audiofile on Wednesday according to the monitoring
group IntelCenter. Responding to questions compiled by Islamist web sites,
Zawahiri defended Al-Qaeda attacks on UN offices in Algiers which killed
41 people in December and the 2003 bombing of a UN building in Baghdad
which claimed 22 lives. Zawahiri denied that Al-Qaeda killed innocent
people, and said those who died in Algeria were not innocent victims but
ŒCrusader unbelievers‚ who are defended by governments against Islamic
beliefs. Zawahiri, who, like his leader Osama Bin Laden is believed to be
hiding in Afghanistan or Pakistan also refuted reports that the Al-Qaeda
head‚s health is failing.

At least 6,000 people in Kenya have been affected by flooding following
heavy rains in the southern coastal district of Taveta. The Kenya Red
Cross Society fears it will create widespread health and humanitarian
problems. The most affected people are those who were scattered across the
country following the eruption of violence over the disputed results of
the December 2007 elections. The Kenya Red Cross says groups of people
have been marooned, with transport services also affected as they attempt
to move their camps to higher ground. The camps most affected by flooding
included those in Nakuru in the Rift Valley Province and the neighbouring
town of Naivasha.

Aid agencies report a marked upsurge in cases of child trafficking in
Mozambique. According to the charity Save the Children, there have been 52
suspected cases of trafficking involving young women and children since
the beginning of the year alone. Experts say most victims of human
trafficking and exploitation are lured by their captors from Mozambique to
South Africa with the promise of better lifestyles. Chris McIvor, the
country director for Save the Children UK in Mozambique, believes the
increase could indicate a deeper and more pervasive problem throughout
Southern Africa. Experts believe the situation is also aggravated by the
lack of a legal provision for prosecuting human traffickers in Mozambique
even though the practice is illegal under international law.

North Korea will suspend all dialogue and has reportedly threatened
Œmilitary counter-measures‚ against South Korea, in a growing spat between
the two nations. According to the Yonhap news agency, the North Korean
military made the threats after failing to win an apology for remarks by
South Korea's Defence Ministry suggesting that it could target the North's
suspected nuclear sites if an attack looked imminent. The row between the
Koreas follows stalled talks on implementing a nuclear disarmament. North
Korea agreed last year to abandon its nuclear programme in return for aid.
In recent days North Korea has expelled South Korean managers from a joint
industrial base, test-fired short-range missiles and verbally attacked
South Korea‚s president, Lee Myung-bak in the state media.

Authorities in China have given the go-ahead to a Chinese drug maker to
begin large-scale production of a human bird flu vaccine, after a second
clinical trial showed the vaccine was safe and effective. The vaccine will
be the first of its kind to tackle a virus which experts say claims the
lives of 63 per cent of the people it infects. The vaccine uses substances
called antigens which stimulate the production of antibodies to attack the
bird flu virus when introduced into the body. Tests of the vaccine were
carried out on 402 participants aged between 18 and 60. According to
China's State Food and Drug Administration, there were minimal cases of
the drug causing side effects.

Democratic Comparison

2008-04-02T12:17:00.001-04:00

Good information to help you decide!

Good research on each of the Democratic candidates

Click away!

Bad Economics

2008-03-28T14:28:00.004-04:00

Let's see how screwed up the economy is and how simple it would be to solve it. Bear Sterns, once worth $171.00 a share now worth about $5, a reduction of ...oh you work it out.. Let me suggest something. Firstly, whose fault is it that BS messed up with their own BS about economics? They do not deserve to be bailed out. IF they loaned, somewhere down the line the amount of money to buy the average house in the US, $250K let's say. They loaned to no-hopers at an introductory rate of say 5%, to get them hooked. They would be getting a total interest repayment after 25 years of $145K...after two years they hike these losers up to 12%, then their profit on the loan of the 25 years is a whopping $540K. BUT these losers soon realised that they actually had nothing to lose so defaulted. This drops the value of the home ( most of these losers live together) so BS no longer get a cent and still have a hard to sell home on their books. NOW, let's say the loser - for we are talking about Bear Sterns, and not the smart guys who realised dumping their home they could buy it back for half the price in a year or so.

Bear Sterns decided to help the homeowner out and CUT their mortgage rate to half the introductory rate..$77K earned over 25 years, as opposed to $540 in the money grubbing days. This is a 1/7th projected earnings. But there is no housing crash and the homeowner can work toward increasing his mortgae over time as his personal economy picks up. That 1/7th could really end up being half over the period. Which means that BS would be worth half their peak - about $90 a share.

It is a sorry state for the economy when financier would rather go bust then give something back to the people they are bleeding dry. Because their investors would rather it be that way.

I don't mean to be derogatory when i refer to the people at the bottom of the economic ladder as losers. They are not. The irony is the bankers refer to them as that, because of the risk, and yet they lend and MUST suffer the consequences and not be bailed out by the government. An economic crash would be painful, but not for those that have nothing to lose.

Economics

2008-03-17T12:40:00.003-04:00

I don't know why this sub-prime, financial crisis disaster is continuing to be spread out. The US economy is bankrupt and, for some reason, the people managing this at government and private investor level are terrified to admit it. To me, they are prolonging the agony.

Each time a Bear Sterns (or in the UK, a Northern Rock) go cap in hand to the government is a clear indicator that there is no money. Modern economics are built on confidence and inflated economic statistics to get everyone to continue playing the game but ultimately there is a boom and bust cycle for a rich to poor system to work. This requires a big financial clearout once in a while where the smart investors have long since secured and hidden their wealth while the greedy people keep playing in an ever tighter game with little latitude to spin their old tricks.

At the end of the day the whole economy is a game played with other peoples money where, in an abstract way, you have to go to these people to get the money to play. That is banks. But when they cannot 'find' the money. The bubble bursts.

I think a 40% cut in the value of the US Economy is on the cards - expect the Dow Jones to be around 8,000 by the end of the year - gold at 1400 and oil above $150.. i'll date stamp that now!

The price of everything

2007-09-11T09:46:00.001-04:00

Heard on the radio this morning that Oil is up from 29 bucks a barrel to almost 80 since 10th September 2001. That gold is around 700 bucks an ounce from about 230 an ounce. The stockmarket is roughly the same and the economic outlook is worse.

Republican politics don't seem to be doing a great deal for the average American citizen. All the bin-laden, terror and Texan swagger won't help those defaulting on sub prime mortgage. The tax cuts for the rich won't help the sliding stocks that soccer mums banked on for their kids education. Bin laden's speech, recently, has shifted away from infidels to sound more like a Michael Moore rant about global warming, economic collapse etc. He should know, the Russians quit Afghanistan because it cost too much. The war in Iraq costs a lot of tax payers money, but like the deals cut with the pharmaceutical companies. The US Military industrial complex is now a cash cow for investors subsidized by poorer peoples taxes.

So if you invest in pharmaceuticals or military related industries. You are not helping America, you are shafting average Americans who subsidize this folly when they should be using those taxes for healthcare, education et al.

Rant over, see you next year

Blair, Bush and Iran

2006-12-12T09:55:00.000-05:00

What, really, do we care what the has-beens, Bush and Blair, think? No one likes you, go home.

Will either of them conspire to attack Iran? Will Israel do it by proxy and 'drag' the 'allies' into it. Maybe, who knows.

What Bush/Blair don't get is that people are utterly sick and tired of their rhetoric and their unbelievable arrogance. They both know, full square, that when they retire no-one will care or want to care about them. No Thatcher-style dinner speeches for Blair or fabulous book deals for Bush ( Bush in His Own Words, well it would sell for the comedy factor if nothing else).

I read that David Blunkett, ex home secratary, couldn't even sell a thousand copies of his book after he quit. What future do Blair and Bush have as elder statesmen after they have pissed all over the world? Helped to make it a more miserable place. None, and they know it that is why they think and believe, still, that they have some authority. No big global changes will happen until they shutup and go, for sure, and only then can we hope what does change is positive.

No Google

2006-12-12T09:54:00.000-05:00

Apparently I can't have ads on this site because Google say I "attack other groups". Anyone like to comment where this happens or where I "actively oppose an orginisation"? This isn't China.

September 11th Revisited

2006-09-11T09:35:00.000-04:00

Below is an article that was written five years ago on September the 12th, I thought I would post it as it pretty much still stands up today.

12th September 2001

To attack the largest economy with incredible accuracy right in the heart of it’s ‘World Trade Centre’, killing thousands, is incomprehensible. To do it using America’s own planes, domestically prepared and executed is unthinkable.

America has been hit a massive sucker punch and is dazed on the canvas. It should make the most of the count instead of jumping up too quickly to hit back. This enemy is not someone of equal stature. It is devious and dirty. It is small, nimble and without morals. America is in danger of acting like a champion boxer flailing arms against a swarm of bee’s.

America can drop a nuclear bomb on Osama Bin Laden’s head tomorrow. In a week his followers could hit back with something equally as atrocious as Tuesdays events. Finding the ‘enemy’ is one thing. Understanding and defining the enemy is an essential concern that, unfortunately, will not bother America too much.

America and the western world needs to focus its issues and address them as a coherent objective. The action should not be to lynch somebody in full view of the grieving family’s of New York and Washington but to make sure that this horror will never happen again. Killing leaders and members of a group that appear to have little difficulty in arranging martyrs will not remove future threats one iota.

To recover from this without spilling more innocent blood is going to be extremely difficult. If capturing Osama Bin Laden and bringing him to justice is the focus, then extreme international pressure –and promises- will certainly persuade the Taliban to hand him over swiftly. I fear that alone is not enough to satisfy the American anger.

To witness the bitterness and hate exchanged on the Islamic and other related internet newsgroups is abhorrent. The bulk of the bile regurgitated by American’s. You only need channel hop the news to pick up incidents of hate against Islam by the narrow minded and excuse picking racists. This is the complex challenge that presents itself to America.

Strapping Bin Laden to an electric chair will anger his followers -at the last count represented in 34 countries. Making overtones that Islam is the enemy, or offending the culture in any way directly, will insult and attack a religion with over a billion followers.

Clear lines need to be made. World leaders to state and overstate, until it sinks in, that the people responsible for the destruction in America are obsessive fundamentalists who are not representatives of the Islamic faith. No newspaper editor should allow publication of any article or comment, however shrouded, to negate Islam. No ‘readers letter’ should be published that insinuates responsibility as Arab or Muslim. This is not a Holy War. No God would condone the murder of thousands of innocent people. It is the duty of the media to report the news free from prejudice or bias. If we do not adhere strictly to this ideal we are in danger of aiding and abetting terroism. Not just against ourselves but against Islam.

WTC Feed

2006-08-19T18:20:00.000-04:00

As it is nearing Sep 11th five years anniversary, i thought I would make available the Press Association feeds for that day. Basically this is the newswires EXACTLY as it came in so all you conspiracy theorists can corroborate what you like from this unedited information. It is also interesting to see what other news got lost that day.

PA News Feed

Remember this is compeletey uneditied from it's original format so plenty of sludge to get through.

Katrina and The Waves

2005-09-03T15:55:00.000-04:00

Walking on dead bodies is more likely than to be walking on sunshine! Any glibness apart, surely the USA are not in a position to help rebuild Iraq when they stand by and let possibly 10,000 of their own people die on their own soil? Sorry to add to what everyone is already thinking but the situitaion and response is so obvious I cannot articulate anything fresh or new in terms of perspective. A billion dollars buys a lot of speedboats, buses and wages for drivers...compulsory evacuation and a tent city on higher ground like glastonbury. This does not come to much in the way of money. In fact, why not organise a massive free festival 200 miles north with tented accomodation and make it free to anyone with new orleans ID? Instead of spending massive amounts sending in shoot to kill squads to pop anyone ransacking the DVD players from some global chain of stores, I mean, if they are not ransacked, ain't nobody goingt o be coming and buying them in teh next few weeks....better an illicit economy than no economy.

1000 Dead and no CNN

2005-08-31T12:06:00.000-04:00

How come 1,000 people get killed in Iraq as a direct result of the policies and actions of the United States and CNN can't even be bothered to report it save a tiny headline stashed away in the corner of their website? And yes it is the fault of the USA/UK because if they are the architects of the situation in Iraq and these people would not have died today otherwise.

There Is No Al Qaeda

2005-08-31T11:52:00.000-04:00

Finally there seems to be a trend away from projecting the concept of an international terrorist organisation controlled like some multi-nationalo conglomerate. No James Bond style Arab villains living in cages in the Torra Borra, with giant plasms screens, stroking persian cats saying, 'bomb the London tube network'. No we know it for what it has always been, disparate groups acting independently but inspired by what is happening in the middle east. All the attacks in Britain were committed by British people. Question for Messrs Blair and Bush, how do we battle against that? In the UK, historically when we marginalised the afro carribean communities through intrinsic police racism, stupid racist TV shows like, 'Love Thy Neighbour' and we ended up with riots in Brixton and a legacy of negativity and suspicion against that community for being theives, druggies and killers and this restricted chances of further intergration because of those prejudices. Today we still have a racist legacy that hinders. We are now doing the same thing to the muslim community but i think that this level of radicalisation is going to be global and the encumbent backlash will echo for at least the next ten years. We can never know fully how this will manifest itself by imperialist type behaviour in the middle east won't help ease the tension.

Have The Police Really Caught Anyone?

2005-07-29T14:52:00.000-04:00

I don't know, I am a cynical old fart at the best of times but the police swoops don't add up. Of course they are under immense pressure to arrest somebody, anybody - just like they were with the IRA. It's telling that none of the arrests have been charged with anything. They are just being held under the terrorism act. Which is soon going to be 3 months. If they have enough gumpf to arrest then surely they can charge, even a minor charge of being in charge of explosives would keep them on remand for months...but they are not even doing that. If they charge them with anything they can detain them until trial. None of this stops them charging with more seious events later.

In ten years time are we going to have scenes like the Birmingham six being released? Fabricated evidence, unreliable witnesses and forced confessions? Maybe the police have improved since then but I don't think they have a clue at the moment, the killing at Stockwell tells me that. They are no closer to preventing a terrorist attack now than they were on the 6th of July. Blair knows that, they all know that, but the public would rather see the Police rounding people up than three weeks later saying, "we don't have a clue" and shrugging their shoulders, what level of public confidence would that instill?

The thing is they have there people know, they have pretty much told the public these are suicide bombers, how can they now let them go - even if they are innocent. How more incompetent does that make them look? There are not that many smart people in the police force, I mean 'really' smart people. There are not that many smart people in civil service or government either. The irony of all of this is the terrorists aren't that smart either. Whicever way you analyse it, the dumb chasing the stupid is not very clever.

Can I Kill?

2005-07-27T12:38:00.000-04:00

If I am on a tube station and I see a non-white guy on the train acting suspiciously, with a backpack...If I see him mumbling to himself what could be a prayer of some sort, am I allowed to bring out my penknife and slit his throat? If it tunrs out I was wrong, what charges will be pressed against me? Answers on a postcard please....

Stockwell Shooting

2005-07-24T16:45:00.000-04:00

Ok, let's look at it this way. A guy of non-white origin ( for that seems to be the distinction nowadays). Is told by a gang of casually dressed guys, looking not indistinct from a bunch of football hooligans, to stop. Making a quick judgement call he decides that they are a bunch of thugs out to beat him up for looking too middle eastern, so he legs it to the place where he is going to feel more safe, in the tube station. Ideally he can make it to the train to get away from these thugs intent on beating him up. Having seen these plain clothed special officers on TV, I would run too if they were chasing me, I'd rather take that chance than get beaten up. The rest, for the unfortuante young man, we know.

The police are tipped off that someone connected to the terrorist attacks in London lives in a house in Tulse hill. They track someone from that building almost as far as the tube then decide to aprehend him before he goes in. The guy is wearing a heavy coat for such warm weather, there could very well be a bomb underneath. They shout at him to stop, he ignores them and runs, scared. The adrenalin rushes and the police pursue the man into the station. Now they are thinking, they must be thinking this man IS carrying a bomb. Are they in a position to shoot him in the head from a distance? No. Are they brave enough to get so close to someone who they genuinely believe is carrying a bomb? No. because there is a risk to their life if they get within feet of him. If this guy is carrying a bomb why doesn't he detonate it? and if he is waiting for the police to get closer before he detonates surely he could have done that outside. But things are happening fast, there is no time for logic. None of this, "put your hands where i can see them" .

Two mistakes happened on Friday. An innocent man chose to run from a gang of men he thought (rightly) were intent on doing him harm.

A group of police officers murdered* someone they wrongly thought intended to do them and others harm.

So what happens now? Unless someone is so obviously a police officer anyone challenged by a gang of plain clothes police is quite rightly going to try and run for there very lives because if they will believe that if these particular type of police suspect you and catch you, they will kill you.

* five shots at point blank range to the head is not manslaughter it is an execution, and exceution without trial, judge, jury or evidence. It took the police a few hours to suspect the guy and another few hours to completely absolve him of any involvment in terrorism. Showing how fickle their evidence must have been in the first place.

London Bombs #2

2005-07-23T02:33:00.000-04:00

Today's shooting in Stockwell is really cause for concern. I get the logic behind the 'why the police shoot someone' obviously if the guy had a bomb under his puffa jacket then he conceivably could have set it off, so killing him is the only guarranteed way to stop it. All that to one side. A group of Police officers chasing some kid into a tube train and then killing him in front of passengers is desperate. It is a desperate action.

The extremists, nationalist groups posting anti-islam vitriol on websites and planning mas mosque attacks. The far right BNP cashing in on the whole shebang.

A couple more shoot to kills and disenfranchised communities will become less supportive of police attempts to 'secure' the safety of the public.

Something awful is bubbling under in Britain. There won't be war on British soil, but to many people, it will feel like it.

Podcast Up

2005-07-15T23:16:00.000-04:00

Anthony and I have done a new twenty minute podcast, it's up and running now, go to itunes and in the music library under podcasts type in the key word Newsvalues...and there you have it!

If you have other software the feed is at http://www.newsvalues.com/standup.xml

or just drag this icon into your podcast window in itunes

Nous avon faite un podcast nouvelle... vingt minit.. ca va maintenant! aller au "itunes" dans le bibliotheque magasin, sous, 'podcasts' ecrit le mot clé "newsvalues" et voila! si vous avez des autres programme de RSS cliquez au dessus de.

Worldcom

2005-07-13T23:07:00.000-04:00

The Worldcom boss getting 25 years really sums up the week..at the beginning we had a sruffy irishman getting ugly rich rock stars to promote a concert that would somehow persuade the ridiculously rich countries to give the relative equivalent of a weeks supply of food to everyone in africa...then some fundamentalists bombed london loosely because the richest nations don't like their countries being in charge of the resources that allows the rich countries to stay rich. Finally, today, some fat cat feels that 40 million in the bank is not enough...so swindles semi-poor people in his country and ends up in jail. Can we see an underlying theme to all of this? It's not that we don't want us in the west to drive a prius and have a nice house in the burbs, it is that quite clearly we cannot trust western culture with money. What culture breeds people who think that 40 million for a man and his family is not enough? There it is staring you in the face. The poor world cannot trust the rich world with money...and why should they when the poor in the west cannot trust the rich with their money in their own country...