Blog Title: the Bakare Chronicles

In choosing Barack Obama as our President-elect, the United States has spoken definitively that hope still springs eternal. On November 4, 2008, we saw the repudiation of a conservative philosophy of demonizing government involvement; that preyed upon the irrational fears sourced in racial bigotry; and which championed an amoral form of capitalism, unbound by regulation designed with the public's interest at heart.

President-elect Obama's sweeping victory cannot be dismissed as just a reaction to an economic meltdown or as the epilogue of a vastly unpopular President. It is a vision of a majority who is steadily shifting culturally into a more moderate nation. Obama, it should be noted, is not post-racial, he is multicultural in his demeanor - he is ecumenical in his behavior, and he is embracing in his person. These descriptions epitomize him as our leader, and describes the wide coalition that has been built and hopefully the country he shall lead.

This election is momentus for the generational change it seems to foreshadow, the possible geographical shift it reflects, and, thank God, the racial progress it promises.  But most of all, President-elect Obama's victory, large enough to indicate a mandated level of support, presents an opportunity for the country to step out in a new and brighter direction. A direction imbued with, as Barack said last night, "a new spirit of patriotism, sacrifice, and responsibility." I believe he is correct, except this is not going to be a "new spirit".  It is a revived spirit! It is the same spirit which emboldened all walks of humanity in the 60's civil rights movement to storm the halls of oppression.  It is a ressurgance of the spirit which caused those brave souls to sing the refrain "We Shall Overcome" in the face of violence. And now, in 2008, it is the spirit adopted by a majority of Americans, who have gladly responded to that refrain in the words "Yes. We. Can."

Truly it is a time to hope.

Friends. 

This is what history feels like.

This is what is looks like.

For many of us living in America as African-Americans, there has been a silent storm within us, shouting out to the heavens - please Lord, let us see the ideals lived out in our life time.

Today, we are living out part of Dr. King's prophetic dream - we are watching the majority of our country say to the world:

We are ready to be counted among the many people of this world who will judge men by the content of their character.

"We have frequently printed the word Democracy, yet I cannot too often repeat that it is a word the real gist of which still sleeps, quite unawakened, notwithstanding the resonance and the many angry tempests out of which its syllables have come, from pen or tongue. It is a great word, whose history, I suppose, remains unwritten, because that history has yet to be enacted."

"He who oppresses a poor man insults his maker. He who is kind to the needy honors him" -Proverbs 14:31

"If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thuder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters...Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it nevr will."

If you hold strong stock in polls, it certainly looks as if John McCain and Sarah Palin are headed for a loss this election, and deservedly so.



Their campaign by any real analysis has been pedestrian.  They failed to convey any new ideas to push the nation into its future, and disgustingly continued a brand of politics which promotes the insecurities of our various and sundry people groups. Senator McCain failed miserably in something good politicians cannot afford to do if they aspire to the highest offices in the land.  He could not measure the pulse of our current trends in our politics. He could not see that the voters, facing the enormity of the nations problems, wanted a higher level of discourse from their leaders - a more substantive debate.



Barack Obama, however, saw our national climate and properly addressed it during the primary season. Who can forget the words of his "Yes We Can" speech during the New Hampshire Primary:

"You, all of you who are here tonight, all who put so much heart and soul and work into this campaign, you can be the new majority who can lead this nation out of a long political darkness.

John McCain, and certainly Sarah Palin didn't get the memo. We were looking for candidates who saw that all of our citizens are proud and all of our citizens love this country. They answered our desires with cynical ads about "spreading the wealth around" and questioning the patriotism of Barack Obama, even calling a sitting Senator a socialist.



The politics of fear in a classical sense.



But more damning to McCain is the fact that even though a great majority (80 percent) of Americans believe this country has gone in the wrong direction - John McCain's Republican party offers nothing new to the table and in his first action that could be considered Presidential, he chose Sarah Palin as his running mate.  A neophyte when it pertains to foreign policy, and, I would say, national level issues. A politician unashamed of playing in on the racist under-current of some of our citizens. Even today Ms. Palin pulled the "socialism" card.



In this the final home stretch, let us hope that john McCain will try to salvage the hopefully only thing he can possibly win back - his honor.

In an effort to attack Barack Obama, John McCain has cut-out another piece of his soul by turning to some of the most under-handed and disgraceful tactics seen to date.  McCain is now funding a nationwide robocall campaign which has charged Barack Obama with "working closely" domestic terrorist William Ayers. 

"Hello. I'm calling for John McCain and the RNC because you need to know that Barack Obama has worked closely with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, whose organization bombed the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, a judge's home and killed Americans," a voice says in the automated calls that have been heard in Virginia, Ohio, Florida and elsewhere."

[WATCH]
 

Frankly, Rep. Bachmann needs to be helped to the door and voted out of our Congress.

"I think he knows what Rome is. Rome is the mob. Conjure magic for them and they'll be distracted. Take away their freedom and still they'll roar. The beating heart of Rome is not the marble of the senate, it's
the sand of the coliseum. He'll bring them death - and they will love him for it."

So spoke the character Gracchus in the movie Gladiator, as he explains to his fellow Senator of Rome's ability to be seduced and drawn away from itself by the vitriol of the mob. 

It would appear that John McCain and Sarah Palin have been weened from Commodus' political breast.  At McCain's town hall meetings (if you can call them that) the seen has been more like a crowd watching batedly at a UFC match -
anticipating a brutal knock out or at least a blood-letting.  At one instance, an African-American conservative (yes they've come out from their rocks), James T. Harris, a Milwaukee talk-show host (an obvious plant), stood at the mic and said,

In another meeting an elderly lady announced her inability to trust Sen. Obama. Based on you ask? Because she'd heard he's an Arab. Thankfully, all since of decorum had not left Sen. McCain, who softly rebuked the lady.  McCain is struggling ladies and gentlemen. His campaign instituted the nuclear strategy, and he is struggling to go along full boar.  To his credit. 

However, we need to be candid. His campaign has been reprehensible in it's charactertization of Sen. Obama's relationships with people like Ayers, and has been recklessly aggressive in stoking racial tensions in this country.  That
elderly lady didn't care that he was pro-choice or not opposed to civil marriage.  She couldn't vote for Obama because she thought he was of Arabic heritage.  That is racism 101.  Fear and loathing based on nothing but a persons being.

We need as a country to take careful notice of this mob mentality.  In this country with it's history of political violence and racial aggression.  We need, as people of conscious, to require a higher level of discourse from our candidates - regardless of party. For the sake of our future.

Since the beginning of the general election the MSM has reported on the standard political trappings.  Attack ads, polls, the debates, guilt by associations and the rest of the gotchas. However, it would appear that the current troubling economic climate has changed the tone of the election to one of substance first. During this moment of definition, John McCain has failed miserably to lead.  In fact, he has obviously instructed his staff of Rove-ites to begin an even more cynical brand of politics - identity politics to the nth degree.  Call into question Sen. Obama's character, call into question his honesty - his Americanism and yes his race.

I say this because, if you listen to what they are promoting, you would think we were living in the United States of the 1950's and 60's.  "He's not one of us", "Barack HUSSEIN Obama", "He's palling around with terrorists", "He's not a Christian!" That is racial, that is fear mongering and that is a campaign who cannot rely on their stance on the issues to win the day. Hate, racism and more evidently classism is alive and well in this countries "heartland".  And John McCain and Sarah Palin have lowered themselves to the this class of politician.  Recently, Palin described Sen. Obama as not a man who sees America like you and I see America. We see America as a force of good in this world.  We see an America of exceptionalism." During one of these types of tyraids a member of the mob crowd yelled out, "KILL HIM!"

My friends that is a low-water mark for our 21st century political process.

Many thought that Sen. McCain was too honorable to resort to this kind of politics.  They were wong.  But more than that, he is trynig to distract us from the reasons for this new attempt to distract us. 

He (John S. McCain) is unfit to lead us as President. He has flunked numerous tests of Presidential leadership.

• He failed to lead, in any substantive way, as the Wall Street crisis struck. He said "The fundamentals of the economy were strong" which cost him credibility on the economy. 
• He showed a level of eradic behavior, which may indicate an inability to stand under pressure - falsely suspending his campaign to go to Washington and attend a White House briefing, where he did not utter a audible sound for 40 minutes; and even than was unhelpful.
• He dies bit show political stature.  Even in the town hall debate, he seems out of his depth.
• Now he has decided to move totally away from substantive discussion on the issues, in favor of drudging up "ancient history" in Bill Ayers.

On a day when the Dow dips below 10,000 John McCain's campaign has given decisive reasons why they should not be blessed with our votes on November 4th.

1. Sarah Palin and ostensibly John McCain are attacking Barack Obama over his association with Reverend Wright -- even though John McCain himself explicitly said this spring that Wright was off limits. During this springs primaries, John McCain said "It's not the message of the Republican Party...It's not the message of my campaign. I've pledged to conduct a respectful campaign." Obviously McCain and Palin have lossed what remaining grace and character they had.
   
   
2. McCain and Palin used the entire weekend not building American's confidence in our system of capitalism, but an association with Bill Ayers!  A man whose wrong-doings were conducted when Sen. Obama was 8 years old.
3. The Wall Street Journal today revealed Mr. McCain plans " major reductions to Medicare and Medicaid" to pay for his ill thought health care plan.

That is enough for me.  We are in serious economic difficulty around the WORLD, and John McCain decides to go for the cultural jugular.  To coin a phrase made popular by our last Democratic President - "IT'S THE ECONOMY STUPID!"

Joe Biden won the debate.  He was deeper and more thoughtful during the foreign policy portions of the conversation, and continued to hit a populace tone that will resonate with every American in the middle class. We also learned (as MOST already thought) that Sarah Palin is painfully unable to articulate any substantive way that a McCain-Palin administration would be different than the Bush-Cheney administration of these last 8 years.  We were confirmed in our belief that she was going to fit the talking points she has learned to the air time she had to fill, knowing she would receive no follow-up from the emaciated moderator (It appeared to me that she was nearly reading verbatim complete answers to expected questions); and that she exceeding a very low set of expectations.

All that said, we could have fast forwarded all of it to the most important portion of the debate. When the candidates were asked whether the vice presidency is properly designated as a part of the executive or legislative branch, Sarah Palin dodged the question by saying the framers of the Constitution "were very wise there in allowing through the Constitution much flexibility there in the office of the vice president."

Ladies and Gentlemen, we need hear no more.  We have just gone through eight years of a Vice President who did not recognize their place on the dance card.  It was a debacle, a debacle which ended up with two (2) wars, a tragically mangled relationship between the executive branch and the legislative branch of our government, the INTENDED consequence of a CIA agents name being leaked, and not last or least billions of dollars of tax giveaways provided for big oil companies via a secretly written energy policy.

I don't know about you, but if Gov. Palin wants to follow in Cheney's ideas of the Vice Presidency we all know where our vote should go.

OBAMA-BIDEN!

I don't know Mr. Trumka, but I appreciate - no, I respect him for speaking out on an undercurrent issue of this campaign.  Undercurrent to the MSM, but not to many of "we the people" - RACISM.

Now, I disagree with Mr.Trumka on one thing. We who are not yet encapsulated in the politics of party or running for office cannot let blatant racism go without calling the perpetrators (especially ones we know) racists. I have found that many of them continue with their separatist notions because they have not been confronted about them.

Yes. We. Can.