rootwork the rootsblog: a cyberhoodoo webspace

getting your game on and keeping your eyes on the prize: word by rickydoc trickmaster

SATURDAY,

that friend i was talking about, adam banks, teach rhetoric
here at syracuse, one of keiths folk, askd me to be on that

wright panel, i wrote back somewhat snarly that ima
pass man, i applaud the effort but im trhu w/rwright,

and i aint gon give no noveltime to a sideshow ...
(im in the woodshed now, no discretionary time no where)

this what he wrote back

pulling my coat when im
in no mood to listen

message received
acknowledged

check

-----------------------------

i hear you on that.  seems to be the dominant read on him.  trying to
see all sides, though, i can't just brush him off like that.  the bill
moyers interview and the press club talk (before the Q/A session) were
carefully thought out, well put together, and even conciliatory toward
whitefolk and the nation in a lot of ways. even the naacp speech had a
lot of that in it too.

the naacp speech was trying to challenge the naacp to have some
backbone and really step past its old boojie semi activism.  he even
said that he supported obama in that speech (though he did it in
veiled language to keep the naacp from having the IRS on their
behinds).  politically, i cant see why he would build with the naacp
and their footdragging scared politics of the last 30,40 years if his
intent was to take down his boy.

i don't blame him for either of those goals.  the Q/A at the press
club is where it bordered on farce, and that pissed me off too, but
that could easily be one of those moments where he just failed. 
intended to go in there lucid, thoughtful, and just lost his mind when
he saw the foolishness of how they came at him (foolishness he should
have known to expect, of course).  guess im sayin there's a difference
between trying to do right and messin up vs. just egotrippin from jump.

only reason im willing to try to read it a lil different is that he
did lay low for a long time and let obama do his thing even though
obama really did do him wrong in how he handled the
"denounce/repudiate" stuff after the first go round--a go round in
which the supposedly worst quotes werent even from wright but wright
quoting an ambassador in iraq.

guess i dont see wright as quite the same as the old black left
either.  nor do i think he was charging obama with pushing the left
line--matterfact, most of the black left laid low once they saw obama
having a real chance (like cornel changed his tune).

i think it was definitely ill advised, bad timing, and all of that,
but i guess im willing to read the situation and him a little
differently.  the man had a hit put out on his character, nobody was
willing to step out there for him the first time, *and* he watched the
same hit go down on obama's campaign in PA--the isht that billary and
her people did to obama in PA is exactly the same thing they did to
wright the first time, and tried to do to obama by going after wright.
  he might have just had one of those enough is enough moments, and
handled some of it poorly.  if it looked to him, like it looked to a
lot of people that this thing was done in PA, that billary and her
folks worked the backroom deals that were going to get her the
nomination, and seeing himself torn down in the process, i dont know,
i think that would be enough to make a lot of people step out there,
and that it wouldnt be all ego.

only real problem is that wright should have peeped his boy's cards,
since he made it a point to praise him (talkin bout farrakhan). 
farrakhan got 20-30 years experience knowing that some fights with the
american media are no win situations, you aint gonna be heard, and you
gonna be intentionally misinterpreted anyway (like the gov't and AIDS
comment--of course he never said the gov't had anything to do with it,
just that a lot of people who look at what happened with tuskegee, and
with AIDS drug trials being misrepresented in south africa, would say
that its at least possible.  and we know that aint how it was reported).

so anyway, long story short, i feel you on the read, and feel a lot of
the frustration you bringing.  matterfact, at least two of the folk on
the panel are bringing just about the exact same read as yours.  i
just think there's more to the story that the rest of us aint gonna
know for a good long time.  hard left politics or not, i think
jeremiah been committed and in the fight way too long to come out and
intentionally do a drive by on his boy just to get some spotlight. 
guess we'll see sooner or later....

as for the program tomorrow, i aint pushing no one way of reading it
though, was just trying to make sure that we got a space to think it
through together without having to rely on these wackass media
outlets.  cause even if you right, its a major moment for blackfolk
and the political process, and one where we got to ask how we want to
deal with it.

thanks for considerin it though.  you know i appreciate your wisdom on
these things.

ab


----------------------------

FRIDAY MORNING

hello world, buddy of mine is hosting a forum on rev wright
i should go but that hurt me so much i believe ima pass

wrights timing is so bad i got no slack in my heart for him
dont want to hear no reasoned debate - waste of noveltime

im thru w/him, aint giving no more
time to a sideshow

got boy obama in a crouch, taking fire from hillary and her colored minions, wright and the hard black left, mccain and the republicans, racists crawling out from under rocks

mccain and the racists, well thats just the way it is, but hillary and wright hurt

i shouldnt post damn near this entire article about hillarys use of racism
her willingness to violate everything shes stood for in progressive politics

this politics of resentment shes fanned will poison relations for years

im just noting his vulnerabilities she say - im not actually using them
like them republicans would, im just pointing them out, again and again

folk say obama got this far cause he black deluded
got this far because he bringing what america need

a new politic, a higherground - this longgame
this the nature of struggle in the 21st century

providing a new way, an african american way
a higher ground to which others aspire

clueless dinosaurs like wright best get up to speed
the game is on

hard left just as problematic as the hard right

and hillary has just scratched the surface
of the racism this campaign will unleash

hillary has fanned the dogs of war

but if obama cant handle hillary, cant handle mccain, how
he gon handle putin, mugabe, osama

carville say if hillary was to give obama one of her cojones they would
both have two - boy obama gon have to learn how to work w/both hands

clinton buy into bully america, just as determined as bush
was to prove how tough she can be, how rough she play

okay, i give it to her, she play
rough, she play real rough - but

subtle she is not, and if the nomination get took by such venal means, ima have
to sit it out, cant support that, can reward that

i suspect my little vote dont mean nothing to them, but
it mean something to me -

if blackfolk sit it out and the repubs win, (or worse the
dems win without us) we got to be ready to take a punch

i suggest the passions unleashed by obamas run have yet to play out
i believe its gon get ugly, i believe the hurting has just begun

everybody gon need to throw down on this
one, everybody gon have to do they part

i believe times about to get hard o regulators
obama win obama lose, we bout to go thru the fire

word by rickydoc trickmaster

wouldbe prophet of
the hoodoo way

in the name of
the conqueror

get your game on

-----------------------

from article in nation by betsy reed called: race to the bottom

Yet what is most troubling--and what has the most serious implications for the feminist movement--is that the Clinton campaign has used her rival's race against him. In the name of demonstrating her superior "electability," she and her surrogates have invoked the racist and sexist playbook of the right--in which swaggering macho cowboys are entrusted to defend the country--seeking to define Obama as too black, too foreign, too different to be President at a moment of high anxiety about national security. This subtly but distinctly racialized political strategy did not create the media feeding frenzy around the Rev. Jeremiah Wright that is now weighing Obama down, but it has positioned Clinton to take advantage of the opportunities the controversy has presented. And the Clinton campaign's use of this strategy has many nonwhite and nonmainstream feminists crying foul. 

While 2008 was never going to be a "postracial" campaign, the early racially tinged skirmishes between the Clinton and Obama camps seemed containable. There were references by Clinton campaign officials to Obama's admission of past drug use; the tit-for-tat over Clinton's tone-deaf but historically accurate statement that Martin Luther King needed Lyndon Johnson for his civil rights dreams to be realized; and insinuations that Obama is a token, unqualified, overreaching--that he's all pretty words, "fairy tales" and no action.

From the point of view of Obama's supporters, the edge was taken off some of these conflicts by the mere fact of his stunning electoral success, built as it was on significant white support. Melissa Harris-Lacewell, a professor of politics and African-American studies at Princeton and an Obama volunteer, recalls that for black Americans "Iowa was an astonishing moment--watching Barack win the caucus felt like Reconstruction. There was something powerful about feeling as though you were a full citizen." In democracy, Harris-Lacewell explains, "the ruled and rulers are supposed to be the same people. The idea that black folks could be engaged in the process of being rulers over not just black folks but over the nation as a whole struck me as very powerful."

Soon enough, however, that powerful idea came under attack.

"More than any single thing, that moment with Bill Clinton in South Carolina represents the rupture that was coming," says Harris-Lacewell. The moment occurred in late January, when the former President compared Obama's landslide win, in which he received a major boost from African-American voters, to Jesse Jackson's victories there in 1984 and 1988. Because the former President offered the comparison unprompted, in response to a question that had nothing to do with Jackson or race, the statement was widely read as chalking up Obama's win to his blackness alone and thus attempting to marginalize him as a doomed minority candidate with limited appeal. Obama was now "the black candidate," in the words of one Clinton strategist quoted by the AP.

By March, multiple videos of Wright, Obama's former pastor, had popped up on YouTube and had begun to play on an endless loop in the right-wing media. "God damn America for treating your citizens as less than human," Wright inveighed, reciting a litany of racial complaints. And he said in his sermon immediately following 9/11, "America's chickens are coming home to roost."

According to Smith College professor Paula Giddings, author of a new biography of Ida B. Wells, Ida: A Sword Among Lions and the Campaign Against Lynching, Wright's angry invocation of race and nation tapped into a reservoir of doubt about the very Americanness of African-Americans. "American citizenship has always been racialized as white. Who is a true American? Are African-Americans true Americans? That has been the question," she says.

In Obama's case--given his mixed-race lineage, his Kenyan father, his experiences growing up in Indonesia, his middle name (Hussein)--questions about his devotion to America carry a special potency, as xenophobia mingles with racism to create a poisonous brew. The toxicity is further heightened in this post-9/11 atmosphere, in which an image of Obama in Somali dress is understood as a slur and e-mails claiming that he is a "secret Muslim" schooled in a madrassa spread virally, along with rumors that he took the oath of office on a Koran. The madrassa and Koran canards have been thoroughly debunked, but still they persist--and few have been willing to stand up and say, So what if he was a Muslim? For her part, Clinton, asked on 60 Minutes whether Obama was a Muslim, said, "There is nothing to base that on, as far as I know."

Giddings calls the Wright association a "litmus test" that Obama must pass, saying, "It will be interesting to see if a man of color, a man who's cosmopolitan, can be the quintessential symbol of America" as its President.

Obama initially responded to that challenge with his speech in Philadelphia on March 18. While condemning Wright's words, he placed them in a historical context of racial oppression and said, "I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community." (More recently, of course, Obama did renounce him.) But in the Philadelphia speech, called "A More Perfect Union," Obama also outlined a racially universal definition of American citizenship and affirmed his commitment to represent all Americans as President. "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 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."

A mere three days after Obama spoke those words, Bill Clinton made this statement in North Carolina about a potential Clinton-McCain general election matchup: "I think it'd be a great thing if we had an election year where you had two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country. And people could actually ask themselves who is right on these issues, instead of all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics." Whether or not this statement constituted McCarthyism, as one Obama surrogate alleged and as Clinton supporters vigorously denied, the timing of the remark made its meaning quite clear: controversies relating to Obama's race render him less fit than either Hillary or McCain to run for president as a patriotic American. A couple of weeks later, Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen went so far as to call on Obama to make another speech, modeled after John F. Kennedy's declaration in 1960 that, despite his Catholicism, he would respect the separation of church and state as President--as though Obama's blackness were a sign of allegiance to some entity, like the Vatican, other than the United States of America.

In the Democratic debates, enabled by the moderators, Hillary Clinton has increasingly deployed issues of race and patriotism as a wedge strategy against her opponent. First, in the debate in Cleveland on February 26, she pressed Obama not only to denounce but to reject Louis Farrakhan--to whom he was spuriously linked through Reverend Wright, who had taken a trip with the black nationalist leader in the 1980s. In style as well as content, that attack was a harbinger of things to come. In the most recent debate, ABC's George Stephanopolous and Charles Gibson peppered Obama with questions such as, "Do you believe [Wright] is as patriotic as you are?" and, regarding former Weatherman Bill Ayers, a Chicago neighbor and Obama supporter, "Can you explain that relationship for the voters and explain to Democrats why it won't be a problem?" Time after time, Clinton picked up the line and ran with it. "You know, these are problems, and they raise questions in people's minds. And so this is a legitimate area...for people to be exploring and trying to find answers," she said, seeming to abandon her argument that these issues are fair game now only because they will be raised by Republicans later and thus are relevant to an evaluation of Obama's electability.

The Wright, Farrakhan and Ayers controversies have been fueled by a craven media, and ABC's performance in the debate has rightly been condemned. But given that Clinton is the one who is running for President and who purports to represent liberal ideals, her complicity in such attempts to establish guilt by association is far more troubling. While she has dealt gingerly with the matter of Wright in the wake of his recent appearance at the National Press Club--accusing Republicans of politicizing the issue--she also took pains to remind reporters that she "would not have stayed in that church under those circumstances."

It's disappointing, to say the least, to see the first viable female contender for the presidency participate in attacks on her black opponent's patriotism, which exploit an anxious climate around national security that gives white men an edge both over women and people of color--who tend to be viewed, respectively, as weak and potentially traitorous. Says Paula Giddings, "This idea of nationalism and patriotism pulling at everyone has demanded hypermasculine men, more like McCain than the feline Obama, and demanded women whose role is to be maternal more than anything else."

For Hillary Clinton, the gendered terrain of post-9/11 national security politics has been treacherous indeed. As Elizabeth Drew observed in The New York Review of Books, Clinton took steps in the Senate, like joining the Armed Services Committee, "to protect herself from the sexist notion that a woman might be soft on national security." As a 2002 study by the White House Project, a women's leadership group, found, "Women candidates start out with a serious disadvantage--voters tend to view women as less effective and tough. Recent events of war, terrorism, and recession have only...increased the salience of these dimensions." Clinton has been quite successful in allaying these concerns, although she faces a Catch-22: her reputed toughness and ruthlessness have helped ratchet up her high negatives. The White House Project study found that a woman candidate faces a unique tension between the need to show herself "in a light that is personally appealing, while also showing that she has the kind of strength needed for the job she is seeking."

Of course, Clinton's decision to play the hawk may have had other motivations. Perhaps she really believed that voting to authorize the war in Iraq was the right thing to do (which is, arguably, even more worrying). But her posture in this campaign--threatening to "totally obliterate" Iran after being asked how she would respond in the highly improbable event of an Iranian nuclear strike against Israel, for example--has at least something to do with a desire to compete on a macho foreign policy playing field. It's the woman in this Democratic primary race who has the cowboy swagger: the nationalist and militaristic rhetoric, the whiskey-swilling photo-ops, the gotcha attacks for perceived insults to a working-class electorate (as in "Bittergate") that is usually depicted as white and male.

Clinton has, to be sure, faced a raw misogyny that has been more out in the open than the racial attacks on Obama have been. But while sexism may be more casually accepted, racism, which is often coded, is more insidious and trickier to confront. Clinton's response to "Iron my shirt" was immediate and straightforward: "Oh, the remnants of sexism, alive and well." Says Kimberlé Crenshaw, law professor at Columbia and UCLA and executive director of the African American Policy Forum, "While sexism can be denounced more directly, that doesn't mean it's worse. Things that are racist have yet to be labeled and understood as such."

While on occasion Obama's campaign has complained of racial slights, Obama himself has avoided raising the charge directly. Even so, Clinton supporters make the twisted claim that it is Obama who has racialized the campaign. "While promoting Obama as a 'post-racial' figure, his campaign has purposefully polluted the contest with a new strain of what historically has been the most toxic poison in American politics," wrote Sean Wilentz in The New Republic in an article titled "Race Man." Bill Clinton recently groused that the Obama camp, in the controversy over his Jackson remark, "played the race card on me."

As for the way the Clinton campaign has dealt with race, Crenshaw says, "It started with a small drumbeat, but as the campaign has proceeded, as Hillary has taken part in things, more people are really seeing this as a 'line in the sand' kind of moment."

Among the black feminists interviewed for this article, reactions to the declarations of sexism's greater toll by Clinton supporters--and their demand that all women back their candidate out of gender solidarity, regardless of the broader politics of the campaign--ran the gamut from astonishment to dismay to fury. Patricia Hill Collins, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland and author of Black Feminist Thought, recalls how, before they were reduced to their race or gender, the candidates were not seen solely through the prism of identity, and many Democrats were thrilled with the choices before them. But of the present, she says, "It is such a distressing, ugly period. Clinton has manipulated ideas about race, but Obama has not manipulated similar ideas about gender." This has exacerbated longstanding racial tensions within the women's movement, Collins notes, and is likely to alienate young black women who might otherwise have been receptive to feminism. "We had made progress in getting younger black women to see that gender does matter in their lives. Now they are going to ask, What kind of white woman is Hillary Clinton?"

The sense of progress unraveling is profound. "What happened to the perspective that the failures of feminism lay in pandering to racism, to everyone nodding that these were fatal mistakes--how is it that all that could be jettisoned?" asks Crenshaw, who co-wrote a piece with Eve Ensler on the Huffington Post called "Feminist Ultimatums: Not in Our Name." Crenshaw says that, appalled as she is by the sexism toward Clinton, she found herself stunned by some of the arguments pro-Hillary feminists were making. "There is a myopic focus on the aspiration of having a woman in the White House--perhaps not any woman, but it seems to be pretty much enough that she be a Democratic woman." This stance, says Crenshaw, "is really a betrayal."

Frances Kissling, the former president of Catholics for a Free Choice, attributes this go-for-broke attitude to the mindset of corporate feminism. "There's a way in which feminists who have been seriously engaged in electoral politics for a long time, the institutional DC feminist leadership, they are just with Hillary Clinton come hell or high water. I think they have accepted, as she has accepted, a similar career trajectory. They are not uncomfortable with what has gone on in the campaign, because they see electoral campaigns as mere instruments for getting elected. This is just the way it is. We have to get elected."

The implications of all this for the future of feminism depend significantly on the outcome of the primary, says Kissling. "If Clinton wins, the older-line women's movement will continue; it will be a continuation of power for them. If she doesn't win, it will be a death knell for those people. And that may be a good thing--that a younger generation will start to take over."

Many younger women, indeed, have responded to the admonishments of their pro-Hillary second-wave elders by articulating a sophisticated political orientation that includes feminism but is not confined to it. They may support Obama, but they still abhor the sexism Clinton has faced. And they detect--and reject--a tinge of sexism among male peers who have developed man-crushes on the dashing senator from Illinois. "Even while they voice dismay over the retro tone of the pro-Clinton feminist whine, a growing number of young women are struggling to describe a gut conviction that there is something dark and funky, and probably not so female-friendly, running below the frantic fanaticism of their Obama-loving compatriots," wrote Rebecca Traister in Salon.

It's not just young feminists who have taken such a nuanced view. Calling themselves Feminists for Peace and Obama, 1,500 prominent progressive feminists--including Kissling, Barbara Ehrenreich and this magazine's Katha Pollitt--signed on to a statement endorsing him and disavowing Clinton's militaristic politics. "Issues of war and peace are also part of a feminist agenda," they declared.

In some sense, this is a clarifying moment as well as a wrenching one. For so many years, feminists have been engaged in a pushback against the right that has obscured some of the real and important differences among them. "Today you see things you might not have seen. It's clearer now about where the lines are between corporate feminism and more grassroots, global feminism," says Crenshaw. Women who identify with the latter movement are saying, as she puts it, "'Wait a minute, that's not the banner we are marching under!'"

Feminist Obama supporters of all ages and hues, meanwhile, are hoping that he comes out of this bruising primary with his style of politics intact. While he calls it "a new kind of politics," Clinton and Obama are actually very similar in their records and agendas (which is perhaps why this contest has fixated so obsessively on their gender and race). But in his rhetoric and his stance toward the world outside our borders, Obama does appear to offer a way out of the testosterone-addled GOP framework. As he said after losing Pennsylvania, "We can be a party that thinks the only way to look tough on national security is to talk, and act, and vote like George Bush and John McCain. We can use fear as a tactic and the threat of terrorism to scare up votes. Or we can decide that real strength is asking the tough questions before we send our troops to fight."

As comedian Chris Rock quipped, Bush "fucked up so bad that he's made it hard for a white man to run for President." Rock spoke too soon: many are hungry for a shift, but the country needs the right push to get there. Unfortunately, from Hillary Clinton, it's getting a shove in the wrong direction.

----------------------

couldnt have said that no better myself

in struggle

rdoc

THURSDAY MORNING

well well well

hillary operatives in dc, organization called womens voices womens votes
using robocalls in north carolina to supress black vote

busted by a local nonprofit that traced anonymous calls when
black residents protested misleading information

suppressing the black vote is a political felony

kinda like putting nelson mandela on the terrorist watch list
mistake says washington, congress vows to fix it

may 3rd declared nyc day of absence behind sean bell case
rioting passe, blackfolk try a no spend boycott

likely to fail but what the hell
a luta continua - more or less

rdoc




WEDNESDAY  4:01 AM

hello world, last class yesterday, ima free man
usually i just crash for a week or so but im so desperate

i hope i hit the ground running
look here i aint gon say i told you so

but who let rev wright out
what possess him to step out now

some say the hard black left gunning for obama
in a war for the hearts and souls of blackfolk

some say the reverend wright just a gloryhound in
love with the sound of his voice

some say he a plant for clinton, well okay maybe not him
but the folk giving him play (who is this barabara reynolds)

i say he took his eyes off the prize

i credit him for the service trinity has provided

the right reverend has his role to play in the struggle
but warrior need to know when to come strong when to lay low

not your moment man, aint about you
forgive him lord, he know not what he do

not a clue

let me put this next post under human interest maybe
the turtle above was run over by a car

nursed back to health by a good samaritan except for
that crushed leg - so he was given a set of wheels

i enjoyed posting that

im outta here, rest or work
either one count as

rest for the weary

speaking of which, a nyfa in fiction, a vote of confidence just when i need
it, i forgot i applied, one of those spur of the moment things, today nyfa

tomorrow a mac, im
burning a candle

all my love

rdoc

springbreak woodsheds: clocking pages and the nature of endgames

SUNDAY MORNING

last day of miniwoodshed, got some work done, clocked some pages
but lord knows i wish i had done more - but aint that always the case

okay okay i know what you want, commentary - lets look at repubs voting
for hillary in order to weaken obama - she got 119,000 of them in texas and beat

obama by 101,000- the word among repub strategists is keep hillary in the race

"It's as simple as, I don't think McCain can beat Obama if Obama is the Democratic choice," says one in texas "I do believe Hillary can mobilize enough [anti-Clinton] people to keep her out of office."

so my question is are repubs allowed to vote in penn
what about the other states left, when does this farce end

obamas shot in penn seem to be rooted in the white male swing voter
read an article say he needs to emphasize his community organizing roots

show he understand their problems and has an idea of addressing
them beyond amorphous calls for change - speaking of which

i see obama had to reject and denounce pastor wright - brother wright
maybe a little too oldschool for the strategic moment

some blackfolk gon charge obama for this one but the players
UNDERSTAND THE GAME and gon give him room to play it

21st century stylee

this hnn article says there will be 3 issues facing new presidents - economy, healthcare and national security - then makes case obamas position on all 3 more viable, that on national security both clinton and mccain basically want to do more of the same and that obama is the only real democrat left running

article say we got a serious choice to make - and the long campaign has been good for
fleshing folk out and how on so many levels we cant afford to blow this

marching on the crossroads, where
the yellow cross the dog

the shape of the future lies in
the choice of the moment

WORD by
trickmaster

wouldbe prophet of
the hoodoo way

FRIDAY 857 pm

a good day, not a great day but a good day

interesting newsweek article on race and gender in american politics
let me try to give you the gist of it, ill clean it up later

law review article: unconscious race and gender bias in the 2008 election
this columnist was interviewing the authors - this a synopsis of what it said:

they say even folk who profess egalitarian belief generally harbor instinctive bias
against blacks, say 80 - 90% of americans have mild bias against blacks - 30 to 40% more so

say credentials that help white job applicants dont necessarily help black applicants
and that the 2008 election is like an elaborate job interview

say with blacks folk have implicit animus, with women implicit stereotypes

say two kinds of judgments, the automatic unconscious system, the implicit
and the slower reason based deductive judgment, the explicit

to fight stereotype women arent leaders clinton has to carry herself as a strong leader
say she is able to fight that bias explicitly w/no cost to herself

obama has a tougher job because bias against blacks is more of an animus
black is considered negative without regard to specific, blacks bad whites good

so obama has to work against being perceived as black, folk have to interpret him with positive energy
imagery american tend to associate with whites, so his campaign has amorphous goals

like hope and aspiration because cant embrace black goals

say white voters have at the last moment a TENDENCY TO FLINCH when voting for obama
the bradley effect - just cant bring themselves to push the button

say in the general election clinton will be forced to appeal to more voters who want
women to be conventional helpmeets

that in the general election obama will face fewer whites who care about a post racial future
liberal democrats like the idea that race wont matter, republicans and independents not so much

say there is also a correlation between 'blacks' and 'foreign' which will attempt to tar
obama with his middlename and questioning his patriotism

which will be a problem in the general running against an authentic war hero
say winning a long tough primary will address concern about whether he is electable

say obama cannot play the victim card, anything that draw attention to race will hurt him

"Studies suggest that when you press people on their gender-stereotypical biases, they kind of laugh it off. Because it's not such a hot issue. They're like, "Whatever. I'm not sexist." But if you press them on their racial biases, particularly in regards to blacks, one of two things happens.  If they're low on explicit racial prejudice, they become contrite, apologetic, they want to know what they can do to overcome it. But if they are high on explicit racial bias, they become angry and antagonistic. When you accuse whites who harbor certain levels of racism of racist behavior, it actually makes them angry towards you. And that's why Obama can't afford to push back. He has to acknowledge and affirm that he's black so as not to alienate black voters, but he can't do it in such a way as to raise anxieties among white voters."

say clinton battling explicit assumptions, obama implicit ones:

"There's a real split here about implicit associations and explicit ones. The efforts to articulate concerns about racism in the way you described are explicit efforts. Look at yourself, think about it, examine the data--that's a deliberative process meant to get people to reason through the problem and confront themselves in a different way. But you can't fight implicit biases with reasoned argument. It's not how they work. They work on an intuitive, affective, emotional level. Pushing back just makes people angry. You don't see that working very well in the research. And it wouldn't work in this campaign either. Instead, the candidates should combat implicit bias implicitly--Hillary has to look like a leader all the time; Obama looks inspirational. You fight fire with fire. "

say the rnc and mccain will avoid race or gender baiting in the election
but depend on ancillary forces to make these attacks, obamas youthful drugs

his patriotism, his pastor, expect these ancillary attacks, expect them to be effective

say it doesnt cost mccain anything to disassociate himself from hussein attacks and
in denying it just further impresses it on the minds of is the dpopulace.

"The other question here is how Obama and Clinton may tear themselves apart heading into the convention and the general election by raising all these questions about each other. They're provoking these implicit biases among the general electorate as we speak--and the Republican Party may not have to do much next fall."

personally i think the superdelegates tod hillary to chill or else
she hant been throwing the kitchen sink lately, having to work thru

ancillary forces like ferraro

now ive pretty much just restated what it said in the article
i cut the excess and tried to cover the salient points

may clean it up, make it mine, may just leave it, acknowledge the steal and
keep on pushing, original article was a mighty fine read

a luta continua
rdoc

FRIDAY  1120am

didnt do a lick of work yesterday, and morning almost gone still nothing
once i realized im in my endgame i believe it scared me - just flat out scared me,

its like okay, when i finish this one i should have a real novel
after all these years im almost afraid to have no more excuses

so im sitting here at the SACRED DESK about to face the beast one more again
got to go into longhand now, word by word got to move these last 50 pages to higher ground

when you need good rich critical narrative, longhand seems to work best some primal connection w/the hand the mind and the pen, and the slower

pace gives your mind TIME TO PLAY W/THE WORDS as you create them

got some good commentary for you but wont be able
to focus until i see if i get a good days work in

if you hear from me this evening you will know im good to go - clocking pages
IF YOU DONT, MEAN IM STILL RUNNING SCARED

pray for me
rdoc



THURSDAY 330 AM

okay, i figured out why im dragging, its the endgame, last 40 pages or so
all these threads have to be tied up - the novel has to become transcendent

- so many novels fall down in the endgame, this where the rubber meets the road

WAS JUST THINKING ABOUT SOMETHING ONE OF MY COLLEAGUES PAT MOODY ONCE PUT ON MY MIND, I WAS DOING A CLASS FOR ONE OF HER PROJECT ADVANCE SEMINARS AND SAID MY WORK IS FEEL GOOD WORK AND FEEL GOOD DONT GET NO RESPECT IN LITERATURE AND SHE SAID ALMOST ANGRILY I DONT REMEMBER THE EXACT WORDS BUT BASICALLY THAT LITERATURE WAS SUPPOSE TO EXPLORE THE DEEP DARK UNFACEABLE IN THE HUMAN CONDITION AND IT WAS LIKE A REVELATION TO ME, I THINK OF IT WHEN IM WORKING THIS NOVEL NOW -  IM STILL WHO I AM, IM STILL A DELTA SOULDOCTOR AND THIS NOVEL STILL GON BE A HEALING SPELL BUT I GOT TO GET THERE DEEP . . . GOT TO GO DEEP . . . THANKS PAT . . . GOOD LOOKING OUT

just keep pushing rick, inch by inch, step by step, PARAGRAPH BY PARAGRAPH - 4 more days before i have to return to the planet,

been listening to country and western all week - does that
surprise you dear regulators - thats good working music

got to switch to bessie soon, me and terry adkins spose to do a bessie smith performance
collaboration as part of an exhibit he doing at the community folk art center next month

looking forward to that - more time out of my schedule but what can you do - some projects you dont say no to -

okay let me give you some commentary and get back to work
lets look at my beloved kenya:

i am not confident that this deal has solved the problem
the tangled issues of land reform and ethnic redistribution

ARE complicated in that leaders and their families BEEN beneficiaries
of a system that has rewarded government officials and assorted elites

with land taken from the dispossessed since independence, which just
aggravated a legacy of dispossession under british policy during colonialism

we got generations of resentment at play here

neither politician has shown the vision it will take to truly address this problem and
instead of demanding redress aggrieved kenyans have turned on their neighbors

tribalism, land reform and ethnic redistribution are entrenched issues that have not
been addressed by this agreement and as long as they have not kenya will smolder

may the GODS BE
GOOD to her

i find hope in the union of
mark and boke, here i find

BLESSINGS

ALL MY LOVE
rdoc




WEDNESDAY

hello world, been working all morning and coming up with TRASH i just got to accept
and move on - best i can do without stopping my forward motion

okay, todays commentary, lets do this quick:

geraldo say that since obama and deval used the samewords must be some sort of black genius camp where impressive blacks are given marching orders

i wish - mission control indeed

geraldo say it leave a sour note in his throat - sorry about that raldo, weve always had players , just more of them getting thru

what else - check out BOING BOING, interesting techie site, it . . . .
you know, i aint feeling this, maybe later . . .

need to see if i can get me a couple more paragraphs today
for every good page look like i got to clock 20 bad ones

BEST I GET BUSY

in struggle
rdoc

in the name of the conqueror: let the hordesman be

TUESDAY LATE

this the traveler knows: strategy
is the key that opens all locks

okay, look like its gon be a knuckleduster, look like hand to hand
inch by inch, step by step - delegate by delegate - on to

pennsylvania - and look here, no more mr nice blogger
they want knuckleduster then knuckleduster its

gotta be, boy obama want to be president he gon have
to show some steel - if he cant handle lowblow hillary

likely wont be able to handle big dogs on
de global set - lets see what you got, son

focus dawg:

1st test: 1st of many:
knuckleduster time

in the name of the conqueror
let the hordesman be

rickydoc trickmaster

wouldbe prophet of
the hoodoo way

TUESDAY

hello world, not feeling that magnanimous towards hillary today
clearly she is going to fight on till the last dog dies and it feels

she has roughed boy obama up a little bit lately
(helped by snl and the daily show)

but i should have expected no less i guess, can only hope
obama wins both texas and ohio and stops this farce

the personal ruthlessness of the clinton campaign has soured me
i expect the politics of personal destruction from republicans not democrats,

its like evidence of what obama, and the american
people, would like to leave behind

other day hillary say when asked if barack is muslim, well not to my knowledge

o thats cold, im just tired of it all now and can only hope obama
can hang in there and not get weary, he will have to show some fighting

spirit i guess cause it look like hillary gon keep on coming at him
and i guess thats understandable - im that way myself, wouldnt be a novelist

unless i believed in hammering my head against that wall till something give
15 years i been working on this novel and in my heart i know if necessary

i would give it 15 more - havent done any novelwork in 2 weeks now
me and geo finally finish that application process yesterday but i am

woefully behind in class prep for today, no novel today either
but tomorrow, tomorrow im back in a mini woodshed

so help me god

all my love
rdoc

MONDAY

hello world, whats the latest
found a cd of mingus piano solos

thats a good thing
last day of initial app readings

thats a good thing
hillary and obama still duking it out

thats bad

and now the clinton campaign say they in it for the
longhaul no matter what happens tomorrow

i can only hope obama wins w/large enuf margins to call this a day
folk try to equate obamas support among white men and hillarys

with white women as evidence of sexism but i think its more that
older whitewomen are her most dedicated base -

if she wasnt their great hope she would have been cut loose by everybody
by now - but they feel about hillary the way i feel about obama

do or die - if he makes mistakes he makes mistakes but i believe in him and im
with him irregardless - i have faith he will grow into the role

and i feel sorry for hillarys supporters, i understand their pain

be nice to have a woman president, just wont be hillary, not this time - like jessie and
al, perhaps hillary is just not the one - and her campaign excesses remind us why

or maybe she just ran up on one of those once in a political lifetime phenoms - obama
thats the breaks - politicians have to be just as capable of losing as they are winning, kinda like

your books going out of print, comes with the territory, got to take
the good with the bad - huffington post this morning say hillary campaign

is running on magical thinking, if they say it hard enuf, believe it hard enuf
their version of reality is the reality - problem w/magical thinking is that it

at its best, it has to have some connection, no matter how tenuous, with reality
that has not been the case w/the clinton spin machine, they operate in that

oldschool bush mode, who you gon believe, me or your lying eyes
and they real quick to call people deluded fools - o the real side

the only question left is will hillary go out gracefully or hand to hand
based on what weve seen i fear hand to hand - theyve already started spinning

ohio and texas - if obama doesnt win big it means democrats are reconsidering

i can only hope obama wins big enuf to put this puppy to bed
ima burn a candle

and regarding hillarys latest salvo evoking the bomb and the red telephone
ima quote from an earlier bill clinton: the pre fairytale 1992 bill clinton: the man from hope:

"If one candidate is trying to scare you, and the other one is trying to make you think, if one candidate's appealing to your fears, and the other one's appealing to your hopes, you better vote for the person who wants you to think and hope."

all my love
rdoc

comparison of obama/clinton congressional records: kenyan fines and redistributions

SATURDAY 10 AM

hello world, i got this comparison of hillary and obamas voting records
over the syracuse black grad students email, i cant testify as to the veracity of it

will have to look into the claims of it when i get a chance
whats really impressive is the weight of the two lists, one is just

stroking constituents, the other is real work, contrasts so strong hard to believe nobody else has used it if its real

gotta check them out - i will park it here til then:

================

Senator Clinton, who has served only one full term - 6yrs. - and another year campaigning, has managed to author and pass into law - 20 - twenty pieces of legislation in her first six years.

These bills can be found on the website of the Library of Congress
www.thomas.loc.gov <http://www.thomas.loc.gov/> , but to save you
trouble, I' ll post them here for you.

1. Establish the Kate Mullany National Historic Site.
2. Support the goals and ideals of Better Hearing and Speech Month.
3. Recognize the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.
4. Name courthouse after Thurgood Marshall.
5. Name courthouse after James L. Watson.
6. Name post office after Jonn A. O'Shea.
7. Designate Aug. 7, 2003, as National Purple Heart Recognition Day.
8. Support the goals and ideals of National Purple Heart Recognition Day.
9. Honor the life and legacy of Alexander Hamilton on the bicentennial of his death.
10. Congratulate the Syracuse Univ. Orange Men's Lacrosse Team on winning the championship.
11. Congratulate the Le Moyne College Dolphins Men's Lacrosse Team on winning the championship.
12. Establish the 225th Anniversary of the American Revolution Commemorative Program.
13. Name post office after Sergeant Riayan A. Tejeda.
14. Honor Shirley Chisholm for her service to the nation and express condolences on her death.
15. Honor John J. Downing, Brian Fahey, and Harry Ford, firefighters who lost their lives on duty.

Only five of Clinton 's bills are, more substantive.

16. Extend period of unemployment assistance to victims of 9/11.
17. Pay for city projects in response to 9/11
18. Assist landmine victims in other countries.
19. Assist family caregivers in accessing affordable respite care.
20. Designate part of the National Forest System in Puerto Rico as protected in
     the wilderness preservation system.

There you have it, the fact's straight from the Senate Record.

Now, I would post those of Obama's, but the list is too substantive, so I'll mainly categorize. During the first - 8 - eight years of his elected service he sponsored over 820 bills. He introduced

233 regarding healthcare reform,
125 on poverty and public assistance,
112 crime fighting bills,
  97 economic bills,
  60 human rights and anti-discrimination bills,
  21 ethics reform bills,
  15 gun control,
    6 veterans affairs and many others.

His first year in the U.S. Senate, he authored 152 bills and co-sponsored another 427.  These inculded:

The Coburn-Obama Government Transparency Act of 2006 - became law, 
The Lugar-Obama Nuclear Non-proliferation and Conventional Weapons Threat Reduction Act, - became law, 
The Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act, passed the Senate, 
The 2007 Government Ethics Bill, - became law, 
The Protection Against Excessive Executive Compensation Bill, In committee,

and many more. 

In all, since entering the U.S. Senate, Senator Obama has written 890 bills and co-sponsored another 1096.  An impressive record, for someone who supposedly has no record according to some who would prefer that this comparison not be made public.

He's not just a talker.
He's a doer. 

===============

i cant testify, gotta check the figures
but it sound good dont it

in struggle
rdoc

SATURDAY

hello world, lets see, some quickies

spincycles: last week the clintons were saying they had to take texas and ohio to stay in the race
now they saying if the O man doesnt take all 4 states it means democratic voters reconsidering

this means of course that they, double digit leads a couple weeks ago, are afraid
of losing now, and the clinton spin machine in full force,

to be effective spin machines should be intermittent and plausible - the clinton machine is fulltime and blatant

rejecting & denouncing: hispanic leader supporting clinton in texas said hispanics wont vote for obama
because he black and hispanics dont like blacks - clinton asked if she would reject and denounce,

at 1st said she wasnt responsible for attitude of supporters - gently reminded of her demand that
obama reject and denounce farrakhan, campaign later sent out a 'reject and denounce" notice

yesterday mccain pressured to "reject and denounce" anticatholic antigay supporter
gon be a lot of rejecting and denouncing going on this year

kenya: seems the us, under pressure for valuing stability over democracy in africa, put some serious
pressure on kibaki -  rice was sent with message that the time for resolution was 'yesterday'

guess thats it, maybe more later

still buried in applications -  need to tell folk who do funnyfonts, smallfonts,
crampedmargins, etc that making an app harder to read is not a good strategy

we get so many great apps that good and even great works dont get much play
the hard to read get none - when you marching thru 300 good applicants all you doing is

looking for reasons to say no

justice: kenyan elders of the tribe that asked obama to don their robes
have said hillary owes them cattle for offending them by signifying

on the O man in their cultural garb
maybe bush will loan her some

hangloose
rdoc

FRIDAY

hello world, a couple of quickies and its back to these applications
i got so much id like to speak on but who got the time - its hard to believe

all the writing time ive invested in this blog over the last 4 years or so and still dont get but about 100 hits a day - i must be living wrong

but ima writer with a platform that allows me to say what i want to say how i want to say it and can only hope that history will be more interested in what i had to say than my contemporaries were

and also it allows me to work thru conceptual issues that eventually show up in my fiction, and it forces me to ground my spacey longgame tendencies in daily analysis - which is good

its all good, whatever is is

and it doesnt matter, i write because i must - and i trust that the gods of literature would not have laid this obsession upon me if it were not going to pay off somehow someday

so, where was i, right, quickies:

one: recent report on prison population say america has higher percentage of
folk incarcerated than any other nation - a big percentage of them nonviolent

drug users, article say getting tough on crime is getting tough on taxpayers - this is
one of the issues that is going to face obama when and if he becomes president

we are going to expect a lot from him as 1st black president

i almost feel sorry for him, hes going to be pulled in every direction and likely wont
be able to satisfy anybody - in particular me - which is really unfortunate

two: snl catching flak about whiteguy theyve chosen to play obama putting on
blackface and doing his minstrel show skits - no commentary necessary

read this time magazine article say obama should not try to hammer folk
who use his middle name, because that just gives them a weapon to use

against him in the shadows, he should embrace his name as part of

his all things to all people, assert that he has nothing to hide, in his name
or the picture of him in somali robes, otherwise he will spend a lot of energy

putting out brushfires and being ridiculed for it

three: obama catching flak from republicans trying to discredit him before
he can focus on them, hillary gon have to stop distracting him soon -

this primary is a done deal

was reading where the black politicians of cleveland were under pressure
to retract their previous support of hilllary - one said when he tried

to convince his constituents to support hillary at one of his community
meetings some of them started crying - he said he couldnt take it

four: shailja patel, kenyan poet iand activist has provocative
piece on whether violence in kenya was actually ethnic cleansing

its responding to a challenging comment that she got busy

she raises some good points on its politically contrived nature
but what ethnic cleansing is not contrived and orchestrated by

politicians making points - it was maybe not designed as ethnic cleansing
but ethnic cleansing or ethnic redistribution maybe, is what it became

one interesting point she makes is that asian americans in la considered
the los angeles riots an ethnic conflict - that was news to me

one of her more moving points is when she speaks of all the folk
who have reached across the ethnic divide to help and secure

their neighbors under attack, but that is probably the case with
all those ethnic conflicts - its an article worth reading

its clear that the election unleashed longstanding tensions that will have
to be addressed by politicians who love kenya over their own

aggrandizement, i can only hope and pray this is so
we african american get real sentimental about africa

tend to claim whichever country we most familiar with
as our african home away from home

i claim kenya and i pray
for her everynight

in struggle
rdoc

mccain, clinton, nader, dirty tricks and the obama photo: how low can you go; how high can you fly

THURSDAY

hello world, not really much to say, just keeping my chops in
getting tired of political commentary but got to go with the flow

i got 3 interests - all components of struggle as i wage it - literature, hoodoo and politic,

too much of one make me miss the others - but right
now politic is whats happening - this the frontline

and rickydoc always try to be on the frontline,
on the cutting edge - working the roots

of things - where the action is
maximum influence/minimum effort

okay okay, couple of comments and im out of here
no sense using a lot of words when you dont have nothing to say

one: i knoooow they not gon let clemens walk away
with what they sent sister joiner to jail for

took her  medals and all and sent her to jail anyway
perjury indeed - old boy gon keep an eye on that - stay tuned

two: mccain and obama, thats starting to shape up  (need to start saying
obama and mccain dont i, looking for edges anywhere i can get them)

so i see they knuckling already- this work for both of them, it allow
mccain to stay in the news and get his iraq mack

on for the still hesitant republican base - it allow obama to take on the mantle
of defender of the democratic faith in spite of fact not officially anointed

but its clear to mccain, and everybody but the clintons, who their opponent will be,
(unless the clintons can steal some delegates somehow)

mccain is the only republican who could give the O man
a run for his money

recent wall street joural editorial give you the gist of how the republican right have decided to play this disappointment: "mr. mccains great political strength has also long been his main weakness, which is that his political convictions are more personal than ideological.  he believes in duty, honor and country more than he does in any specific ideas."

mccain gon be a tough cookie to crack, and woulda made mincemeat
of hillarys claim to 'experience' and 'toughness' - hillarys war mongery driven

by polls, mccain the real thing

but you see where mccain recently repudiated the comments of a problematic backer - this gon
to be a problem for him, hes not going to want to be seen as racist or lowballing in any way -

thats just too . . well  . .bush era, which america has thoroughly rejected - notice how even
the smell of it by the clintons got slapped down by the democratic base

in desperation the clintons tried code, problem is everybody know code
it aint code no more when everybody know it

but mccains backers wont mind at all, with them it will be the other way around
mccain will do the slapping - recently the tenn republican party sent out a press release

highlighting obamas middle name, photo of him in somalian robes
and accusing him of surrounding himself with antisemites

mccain said in response, "I will continue to treat senator clinton and senator obama with respect, just as i have treated my primary opponents with great respect.  and if i'm the nominee of the party, i will obviously make sure that everyone within my party knows that this has got to be a respectful debate." 

the rnc told them they would be denounced if they did it again
now thats what i call rejecting and denouncing

i suspect mccain dont have no idea of just how ugly this gon get, but then again
he actually just might - and will do everything he can to avoid being tarred by it

which probably would not have been the case w/hucklebee, i bet hucklebee good
in code, and romney would have picked it up right away, he a quick study

all you got to do is be shameless

mccain the one republican we didnt want to run against, the republicans
have stumbled up on a credible candidate in spite of themselves

cause this likely to  be an ugly campaign had either hillary or obama won
racism, sexism - either one, the freaks will come out to play

it will like the primary start out on the highground but we will
see how it plays if it gets tight - thats when the freak rule

and we will need hillary and her legions, im ready to make nice
hillary wasnt allowed to do her thing in a family fight, but the

clintons still two of the strongest operatives on the board
ask them what they need to keep them happy - to ease the pain

and obama, obama like jackie robinson 1st time he took the field
keep your cool - watch your back - stay on the highroad - watch your back

as for this last link, dont know exactly what category
it should come under, maybe more of the same

in struggle
rdoc

TUESDAY

hello world, be glad when these primaries are over
hoping obama wins ohio and texas so they will be over

in part because i would like to end
the diminishment of hillary clinton

her campaign has gone bad and her desperation
just keep digging the hole deeper

look like im feeling magnanimous now
im feeling like its gotta be over soon

im ready to let the healing begin
im ready to focus on mccain

saw where he berated a rabid supporter the other day,
mccain is going to be a formidable foe

we need to focus

another 8 years of republican rule

is more than i care to contemplate

rdoc

MONDAY

hello world, big buzz on drudge report photo of obama dressed as somali elder
he say it was given to him by clinton operatives

folk up in arms because it appear to be classic clinton machineworks

if so its appallingly clumsy, true she has been clumsy lately
desperation do that to you, but this would be a new low

have to consider possibility that it was a right wing operative w/a
little crossgame designed to hurt both candidates

trying to take a shot at obama before crucial ohio election
because the polls (and good common sense) say he will be a more

formidable foe against mccain - and hurt
the clintons rep at the same time

one hopes thats the case because if it is the clintons
it represents a new low in a season of lows

and it wont help their case, it would bring her
nothing but contempt from the democratic base

it might work with the neanderthals but most of them are republicans
anyway - guess ima just see how this one plays out

my concern about this unending & increasingly dirty campaign
is that it will just do mccains job for him

desperate clintons scare me, they have responded to
accusations of a low blow w/the old bush turnaround

clintons campaign manager, maggie williams, colored woman by the way,

says "If barack obamas campaign wants to suggest that a photo of him wearing
traditional somali clothing is divisive, they should be ashamed"

boy if that aint classic bush turnaround somebody need to tell me what is
course if they sent it out they knew it was divisive

politicans do the traditional garb thing all the time when they touring
including these two - but whoever sent that photo out knew they were

playing off rightwing rumors about obama being a muslim
trying to muddy the field and appeal to the lowest of the low

well, this been good training for obama
still hoping this aint a clinton move

but some of their other moves lately been just as questionable
everyday a new clinton, a new routine, new drama - authenticity this is not

its like she checks the polls everynight and decides what skin she will wear
but hey if he can survive the clinton machine he can

survive anything mccain throw at him
all this just make him a stronger candidate

what you got to do bama is not freak and

make this anything more than the
cheap dirty trick it is

i for one hope this was a rightwing operative instead of
the clintons, this little move hurts both candidates

if the clintons didnt do it, whats sobering is that folk believe they
capable of it -  bad vibes, bad news all around

in struggle
rdoc

ps: and will somebody tell tavis smiley to chill
somebody need to tell him this aint about you

somebody tell old boy to straighten up and fly right

barack obama: believers and heretics and the national dream vs the national nightmare

TUESDAY

hello world, i took these quotes from a webite called
is barack obama the messiah which basically postulates

in spite of its satirical intent that barack obamas candidacy represents a spiritual movement

they spoofing him but you see my translation

under a sidebar called heretics and nonbelievers, it has a piece by glen ford over at black agenda report, who is stridently antiobama

got that radical purity thing going and missing
out on the frontline of struggle today

and all i can think is there but for
the grace of maturity in struggle go i

this qoute is from an daily news column by stanley crouch
rare that me and stanley on the same side of any issue

if barack has helped transcend old verities there is
that - me and stanley both believe in the power of the blues to purify:

==============

Opponents want to dismiss that optimism as "false hope" because they think - or pretend to think - that Barack Obama represents no more than a charismatic political slogan that has even less value than one of the worthless products brilliantly hawked around the clock throughout our media.

Barack Obama is actually a bluesman from Chicago whose big stage is not in a nightclub or a concert hall but the huge national podium on which politics are argued. Obama knows that the blues always present the unvarnished problem and provide a solution through the rhythms and tones of engagement. It is, as the writer Albert Murray has observed, a music of confrontation, and is presented in what amounts to a purification ritual

===========

the latest from the clinton campaign is that obama is stealing lines
spare me, clinton uses his lines, so does mccain -  is that stealing

when hillary say she fired up and ready to go is that stealing
no thats respect, obama got it from some south carolina organizer

he spose to give her credit everytime he use it
what kind of speech that be

as a oral tradition person myself, i can tell you that aint stealing
but the charge is indicative of the way the clintons fight

they have come up with all kinds of negative campaign strategies and this is
just the latest - but ima tell you the only one in this campaign who hadnt

pandered and adjusted his rhetoric to follow polls and others is obama
clinton changes her rhetoric and promises according to weekly polls it seems

and so has the straight talk express guy, the only one who has been consistent
has been obama - the only one who sincerely believes what he has to say

(as much as a politician can sincerely anything)

and their charge that he is a talker, not a doer is belied by his campaign
hes outorganized them on every front and built a juggernaut of a campaign

we would like to see that kind of competence brought to the presidency - based on her campaigns chaos and blowing her early lead im not seeing evidence of this day 1 competence she keep talking about

and as for her experience, would you let the wife of a brain surgeon cut your head open cause she been
the wife of a brain surgeon x years - i dont think so -  her experience is about the senatorial equivalent

of obamas - and when she says im tested and ready, she means tested fighting dirty w/republicans, not
tested running the country, and quite frankly we're tired of fighting dirty, or we ought to be

is that the only way we can win this, fighting dirty, if so what have we won - thats the
way bush and cheney feel, like guantanamo and torture are okay if the cause is just

look where that attitude got us

and the same kind of sleezy campaign strategies weve seen coming out of the clinton camp
is the same way that they will conduct themselves as president, kinda underhanded

do we really want to go back to all that, or rather stay in all that bush/clinton drama
are we really so afraid of taking a chance on a better way

that we willing to endure more of the politics of personal destruction the clintons so
embody - if hillary wins i will probably vote for her but i will not be a happy democrat

it will be like america is still not ready to move on
from what has become a national nightmare

like we no longer believe the dream of an america that could be is possible -
the clintons want to denigrate vision but w/o vision the people will perish

well hillary been tested by the republicans, obama been tested by the clintons
and if he cant handle clintons he wont be able to handle republican sleeze either

hopefully he can maintain his basic vision of
getting beyond all that but best he be able to

work w/both hands

personally im ready to
turn the page

im outta here

buried in the mfa admission process
300 applicants, 2 stories per applicant

we choose 6, its intense

all my love
rdoc

sharia, krugman and a 24/7 obamara: mythwork, olympus and working w/both hands

SATURDAY NIGHT

hello world, this election is getting rough, the hostility
when you read the comments on online articles

i s getting kinda toxic, all that race and gender hostility coming out
make you wonder if maybe now is not the time for a black

or a woman to run, its getting rough and going to get rougher
its kinda painful watching the freaks come out to play

also kinda painful that the way the clinton camp is playing it now
that theyre behind is so clasic bush/clinton

theyve renamed the superdelegates "automatic" delegates because it sounds better
they are insisting that fl and mich delegates count in spite of agreeing earlier they wouldnt

cring crocodile tears about disenfranchising fl/mich voters/minorities, they are so shameless
and dont care if they alienate fl/mich voters in november

they saying the states obama won dont count because they trend republican
but arent those the very ones we want to contend for

they saying superdelegates more informed than voted delegates
and if they reverse the will of the people so what

they trying to make folk who support him feel like we a bunch of wide eyed cultists
or rabid race baiters  - ive gotten very tired of the clintons drama

feels like whatever they have to say or do to get that nomination they will do it
they will destroy the party if they have to, they will destroy the country if they have to

they have a sense of entitlement that lacks perspective
they just dont know how to fight fair do they

and just like jessie wasnt the right black
perhaps hillary isnt the right woman

at this point i just dont see how this primary can possibly turn out well, whoever wins
is going to catch hell trying to put humpty dumpty back together again

and once again the democrats will have pulled
defeat from victory - just when it really counted

america and the world both
desperately want to turn the page

a luta continua
rdoc

FRIDAY

hello world, two issues on the board, the superdelegate system and all the folk trying to bust baracks
bubble and denigrate hope and inspiration - how do we know its real say the fear mongers

well how do we know its not,

i hear some black superdelegates reconsidering their support
while hustlers like andrew young whistle their masters tune

basically this superdelegate thing is the fatcats saying they dont trust the will of the people -

i thought this the party supposed to represent the will of the people over the fatcats

michael gearson in todays washpost spoke on how funky it is to denigrate hope and the
hollowness of hillarys narratives - he say hillary been trying out three narratives:

hillary the comeback kid: lets call this the giuliani strategy redux: ignore most states as dont count
except for the 'big' states - not exactly a winning scenario for november - or delegates

hillary the fighter: like 'oh if only the clintons were more ruthless' is on everybodys mind, like we
really looking forward to another 8 years of bush/clinton family drama and internecine warfare

hillary the tested: article listed all the ethical baggage the clintons have carried and said
the goal is not just to be vetted, its to be vetted and come out clean

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"Though it is increasingly unlikely, Clinton may still have a path to the nomination -- and what a path it is. She merely has to puncture the balloon of Democratic idealism; sully the character of a good man; feed racial tensions within her party; then eke out a win with the support of unelected superdelegates, thwarting the hopes of millions of new voters who would see an inspiring young man defeated by backroom arm-twisting and arcane party rules.  Unlikely -- but it would be a fitting contribution to the Clinton legacy of monumental selfishness."

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a luta continua
rdoc

THURSDAY

“I could have  saved thousands—if only I’d been able to convince them they were slaves.”

harriet tubman quote more or less, ive used it or variants thereof many times
great quote right, but according to history news network its fake

a 20th century addition by harriet tubman mythmakers
now you know i aint got nothing against mythmaking

old delta mythmaker pride myself on my own mythwork skilz

but i do not like to be took in myself, i also pride myself on my vision, my ability to see the truth of things - friend of mine, milton sernett, just published a book on harriet tubman mythwork

harriet tubman, myth, memory and history

how harriet mythwork been orchestrated over the years
the old delta mythmaker gon have to read it, pick up a few points

on how its done - congrats on finally finishing it milt, good looking out
one that apparently does belong to her is 'ever(y) shut eye aint sleep"

thats good enuf - while i was at it i checked out the article hnn referenced on
harriet quote by feminist writer robin morgan exhorting women to vote for hillary

goodby to all that #2 - effective piece - still not voting for hillary but i can see why some
women will - its unfortunate gender and race bumping head on this one - they kinda cancel each

other out, come down too hard on hillary and you get charged with gender baiting, too
hard on obama and you get charged with race baiting - kinda forces them to fight fair

i can honestly say i think obama is the better choice but i am conscious
this one of those rationalizations after the fact - i got your back

article was so good i considered not linking it, but decided i cant be scared of views
divergent from my own, if thats the case i need to step back, regain my

artistic/intellectual/sorceric perspective, thats where my power come from
what good is a mythworker without an olympian perspective - a cosmic all

speaking of mythwork, interesting commentary generated by susan jacobys on faith column
in washpost column about the archbishop of canteburys call for sharia in england

its the comments really make the column, one guy say christian
morality infuses so much of our own laws that we should

be fair and work some islamic morality in as new members of the collective
but many of his respondees make the point that we want less religiously

based laws, not more - that its okay if folk choose to put religious based
restrictions on themselves but dont impose them on the rest of us by

making it the law of the land, one guy say the church of england is still
thinks like the national church it is in england, thank god we fought a war to

leave all that behind - say its good that religious morality does infuse society
but ithat ts manifestation is or should be, nondenominational and noncoercive

ie we can do without bluelaws and
sharia - but lets keep christmas

see what im saying
rdoc

WEDNESDAY

hello world, boy obama crossed the potomac yesterday
and in virginia took across the board, hispanics (good looking out), workingclass

and women in addition to his usual demographic

these maryland numbers came off a blog so i cant testify but they sound good dont they

latino voters by 6 points 53 - 47
all religions inclu catholics
all age groups inclu seniors
all regions
all education levels

now obama making case that voters have broken in his favor, and superdelegates should follow suit

hillary trying to build firewall in ohio, texas and penn but i dont see any reason they should be
voters seem to be getting more comfortable w/obamarama

and now its become an effort to build enuf of a lead/momentum
that the superdelegates dont broker it away

but ive said that havent i, i probably should move on

like paul krugman, who used to be one of my favorite commentators
but he has gotten so shrilly anti obama lately i had to put him down

his feb 11 krugman blog entry claim clintons aint played the race card and
in naming the cards the clintons aint played, krugman play them himself

like he think maybe aint nobody notice, it was kinda painful
to watch a progressive stalwart stoop so low

boy krugman been frothing over obama and its kinda perplexing
but such as it is, got to put him down, he hits below the belt

i will scan him occasionally but he used to be one of my models
of how its done, - bill clintons 1992 campaign director, david wilhelm

a superdelegate who has endorsed obama, say obama is the model
say he is more electable than hillary, say his campa