THE HOME STRETCH

Barack Obama

A More Perfect Union

delivered 18 March 2008, Philadelphia, PA

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[As prepared for delivery]

"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union." Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across the 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 slave owners -- 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 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 O.J. 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. 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.

RUDE IS NOT DISRESPECT

FERRARO: RUDE; TALKING HEADS: RUDER; SHARPTON: RUDEST

AS VOTERS WITNESSED THE FIRST AND ONLY FEMALE YET NAMED TO THE TICKET OF EITHER MAJOR PARTY, THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 1984 ASSURED ITS MENTION IN HISTORY BOOKS. ELECTION NIGHT SAW A ONE-SIDED LANDSLIDE, RONALD REAGAN WAS REELECTED BY AN ALL-TIME RECORD MARGIN, WINNING EVERY ELECTORAL COLLEGE VOTE, EXCEPT THOSE CAST FOR RESIDENTS OF WASHINGTON D.C., MASSACHUSSETTS AND THE FELLOW MINNESOTANS OF THE VANQUISHED FORMER VICE PRESIDENT, WALTER MONDALE.

THE MOST NORTH MEDITERRANEAN CLIMATE ON THESE SHORES HAS SAN FRANCISCO IN IT, WHERE THE DOG DAYS OF SUMMER IN ORWELL’S YEAR PROVIDED A RARIFIED MILIEU; THOSE GATHERED OUT THE AIR CONDITIONED DRONE OF NEW YORK, CHICAGO AND COUNTRYSIDE IN AUGUST; MUST HAVE BREATHED DEEP QUAFFS OF UNTREATED AIR, TO NEED A SWEATER AT DUSK WAS LIKE NEW FREON. THEY WERE TRUE BELIEVERS AGAIN! DEMOCRATS! THE DELEGATES GOT GASSED ON THE CADENCE OF JESSE JACKSON ORATORY, MARIO CUOMO, ERUDITE, KEYNOTE ON THE TWO AMERICAS A PURE CHRYSTAL OF TRIBAL CREED WERE TRANSPORTED. WALTER MONDALE, A MINISTER’S SON, GAVE THE PROCEEDINGS ITS APOGEE, CHOOSING REPRESENTATIVE GERALDINE A. FERRARO OF NEW YORK AS A RUNNING MATE, THE ACCLAIMATION GIVEN TO THAT TICKET COULD BE FELT ALL THE WAY TO THE WEST SIDE OF DETROIT THROUGH THE CATHODE RAY TUBE AND SPEAKER ON THE COLOR RCA, AS I WATCHED, I KNEW I’D ALWAYS BE A DEMOCRAT, EVEN IF I GOT RICH; UNLIKE NEW DEAL DEMOCRAT RONALD REAGAN WHOSE IDEOLOGY DID A 180 DEGREE TURN WHEN THE PROSPERITY OF THOSE YEARS PUT HIM IN A HIGHER TAX BRACKET.

MORE APT AS CORPORATE SHILL THAN ACTOR. AFTER THE HOLLYWOOD GIGS DRIED UP, AS HOST/SPOKESMAN OF TV WESTERN “DEATH VALLEY DAYS” TOUTING 20 MULE TEAM BORATEEM AND LATER G.E. ACTOR; BANK ACCOUNTS AND PARTY AFFILIATION COULD BE CHARTED ON A GRAPH. THAT CONVENTION WAS FAMILY REUNION, TENT MEETING ALTAR CALL, ROCK AND ROLL, GROUP THERAPY, UNIVERSITY LECTURE HALL,THE LAST TRIBAL ONE.

NOW EXPERTS PREARRANGE; EXTRACT RANDOMNESS; ENGINEER UNITY, THE RESULT DREARIER EVERY FOUR YEARS WITH ALL THE ATMOSPHERE OF A HIGH SCHOOL ASSEMBLY, A ROTTEN TV VARIETY SHOW NOBODY WOULD WATCH IF THE NUCLEAR FOOTBALL WASN’T SOMEHOW INVOLVED. WANTING MOST JUST TO WIN, TO HOLD POWER, CANDIDATES ARE SO ADEPT AT STAGECRAFT, AND PARTY LINES ARE BLURRY AT BEST.

One of two political parties has nominated every human ever elected to the executive branch of U.S. government. The two party system has survived or Americans have survived it; it continues. Third Party candidates gin up the fervor of true believers in occassional quadrennials, gumming up the works for number-crunchers, party hacks and the big-party candidate whose support on the margins may be bled for irrational reasons; too much agreement on issues with #3, historic forces outside the ken of elected officeholders who wield only as much power and influence as a majority allows, splitting political loyalties, grudges held against LBJ for positions, decisions dictated by historic inevitability, by southern democratic grudges held against rended party identidy useless, despite longstanding concord on an array of issues other than Civil Rights; recreated the political landscape, and the “Solid South” that delivered its votes to the democratic candidate, except national hero Eisenhower, like clockwork each cycle since FDR, wavering in 1960 when JFK, a Roman Catholic was nominated; has been Republican fodder since 1968, when Alabama’s Democratic Governor George Wallace ran third party, support for Democrat Humphrey had all slack pulled out of it, giving Nixon a narrow victory.

FERRARO: RUDE; TALKING HEADS: RUDER; SHARPTON: RUDEST

After a paid speech last week at the Torrance Cultural Center in California, Geraldine A. Ferraro, 1984 Democratic Party nominee for vice-president, was quoted in a Torrance newspaper, The Daily Breeze: “If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman of any color, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.”

The first I heard of the Bruhaha was MSNBC, whose on camera personnel is a subject of my closest observation since my disability checks started, OK even before that.

first impression : it was such a rude thing, that even the whole New York City personna thing, and hearing her accent (Bronx? Queens? Far Rockaway? Islip?) as The practiced replies of a welltrained politician flowed like city water from a kitchen faucet, to whichever, whosever camera was next; the whole set : including corect voice modulation, tone, volumes, each offering customized as approriate to fit whichever provisos, context, and juxtiposed reasons not to misunderstand her, or take her too seriously,…using her skills extemporaneous, improvising, theanswer quality varied with the esteem the asking reporter rated, personally, establishment-wise, tv ratings; so that her level of interest, annoyance, level of education and other valuations I won’t presume to label; a dazzling performance. Her bag of tricks were as comfortable to her as a pair of broke in shoes; even the reactions to her top shelf material; that revealed something more real, offering a glimpse, of how much more well educated she is than you or anyone else you know. probably almost anyone confronted in her political career required her to tone it down to avoid intimidating even some friends, and it was a lesson learned how offputting when men realize she is smarter than they ever thought true of their own self, smarter right now than they can get even in a make believe world or no matter if life extectancy doubled. In the span of time since academy days and satisfying enough ofher private mother-housewife lifescript she was psychologically unable to avoid, ethnic &cultural forces aside, raising her three boys still provided a stronger sense of achievement than anything else she set her hand to, especially the whole vice president episode; she realized before she said yes to walter it meant her name would appear in print and be read by schoolchildren for as long as america lasted or us history was taught in it; so many people had jabbered a rendition of the facts as if by a rare, uncommon sense and sensibility, they percieved what millions with good eyesight, and even correctable vision failed to, as if seeing through a glass darkly, the glass look being looked through has yet to be other than tv picture tube glass, of the tv set they were watching in august 1984, watching a tv channel as wall to wall convention coverage by all three networks preempted many favorite shows. a tv set then was the filter through which three networks and pbs offered pictures and descriptions of the outside world. with fewer outlets and before the vcr became more affordable (it wasn’t yet like a toasteroven for people our age), the information source most convenient and free was tv news and increased reliance cut across all lines: economic, racial, regional, generational, religious, Ethnic, less so across educational lines-studies seemed am at proving that the longer you go to school and read books causes a drop in the entertainment experienced watching tv.

As television eroded cultural boundries on every front, homogenizing american awareness of what was going on around them in both rich and poor, black and white, yankees, hillbillies, cowboys, indians and city slickers started talking more alike, and people of all ages enjoyed america’s funniest videos, cops and other programs like they were all the same age, tv watching provided common ground for jew and gentile, catholic and protestant to laugh at each other, and provided a view of atheists, aliens and/or foreigners (legal and/or illegal), poor people, criminals, and other miscellaneous outsiders, a non sectarian fear of the unknown, leaving all worship, dietary laws to the individual as jehovah commanded whatever flock, sect, etc. etc. to obey, in his segment of the judeo-christian opening to all us citizens who believe in at least jehovah and the old testament of the holy bible a framework of mutual understanding that any english speaking member of a recognized traditional judeao-christian following, temple, cathedral, etc. etc. will find unoffensive offering hope a future era of interfaith cooperation by agreeing together who are those we mutually need to keep an eye on and/or straighten out

Accomplishments and financial reward until enough time and freedom allowed her the mobility and contact outside the home to begin the formation of real world adult goals to pursue, that it was into a male oriented , Patrician paradigm she entered, where the view of women as objects to be dominated had the greatest circulation in the currency of ideas she expected was commonplace in a run of the mill business environment aspects demands lifescript requirements ithe course professional, political, and important social relationships surerank, . cunning the yokels her easily as Grandma might open the handsome wooden case that held her good rodgers silver on Thanksgiving when all the family’s there.

The meanness conveyed in her words was undeflected, and her minimizing couldn’t blunt what a sore loser she is and probably always has been. Senator Barack Obama winning votes she coveted for Hillary meant being African American was lucky this year; like some bratty kids I remember from my 2 seasons playing organized Little League baseball. Luck explained any success an opponent might have. No one likes losing but the big reason sports are encouraged in childhood development is learned by playing the game itself, by osmosis, without lectures and books. It even must dawn on slow-witted kids, the appreciation for the skill and effort of others; the value of hustle and effort, learning what a game is; only a game. One learns to accept loss; as well as how to be a good winner. It usually works.

I clearly remember seeing the first game of the 1968 World Series on TV: it was the first World Series game I ever watched, the whole 3^rd grade watched it together at school, the hometown Detroit Tigers played the defending World Champion St. Louis Cardinals, Bob Gibson pitched a shut-out, with 17 strike outs, still the single game record for World Series play. My unaided memory of the game is that the Tigers never had a chance (see box score below) after a 1^st inning double by Tiger legend Al Kaline, 4 singles and a walk account for all Tiger baserunners, with Mickey Stanley getting caught stealing. I don’t recall seeing a post season major league game even close to being as lop-sided as that one seemed. Bob Gibson won 24 games and ended the regular season with an astonishing compiled ERA of 1.12 earning both the 1968 National League Cy Young Award and MVP, receiving every first place vote cast for senior circuit MVP.

Baseball Almanac Box Scores Detroit Tigers 0, St. Louis Cardinals 4
Game played on Wednesday, October 2, 1968 at Busch Stadium II
Detroit Tigers ab r h rbi McAuliffe 2b 4 0 1 0 Stanley ss 4 0 2 0 Kaline rf 4 0 1 0 Cash 1b 4 0 0 0 Horton lf 4 0 0 0 Northrup cf 3 0 0 0 Freehan c 2 0 0 0 Wert 3b 2 0 1 0 Mathews ph 1 0 0 0 Tracewski 3b 0 0 0 0 McLain p 1 0 0 0 Matchick ph 1 0 0 0 Dobson p 0 0 0 0 Brown ph 1 0 0 0 McMahon p 0 0 0 0 Totals 31 0 5 0	St. Louis Cardinals ab r h rbi Brock lf 4 1 1 1 Flood cf 4 0 1 0 Maris rf 3 1 0 0 Cepeda 1b 4 0 0 0 McCarver c 3 1 1 0 Shannon 3b 4 1 2 1 Javier 2b 3 0 1 2 Maxvill ss 2 0 0 0 Gibson p 2 0 0 0 Totals 29 4 6 4
Detroit 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 – 0 5 3 St. Louis 0 0 0 3 0 0 1 0 x – 4 6 0 Detroit Tigers IP H R ER BB SO McLain L (0-1) 5.0 3 3 2 3 3 Dobson 2.0 2 1 1 1 0 McMahon 1.0 1 0 0 0 0 Totals 8.0 6 4 3 4 3 St. Louis Cardinals IP H R ER BB SO Gibson W (1-0) 9.0 5 0 0 1 17 Totals 9.0 5 0 0 1 17 E–Cash (1), Northrup (1), Freehan (1). 2B–Detroit Kaline (1,off Gibson). 3B–St. Louis McCarver (1,off McLain). HR–St. Louis Brock (1,7th inning off Dobson 0 on, 2 out). SH–Gibson (1,off McLain). CS–Stanley (1,2nd base by Gibson/McCarver); Javier (1,2nd base by Dobson/Freehan). SB–Brock (1,2nd base off McLain/Freehan); Javier (1,2nd base off McLain/Freehan); Flood (1,2nd base off Dobson/Freehan). U–Tom Gorman (NL), Jim Honochick (AL), Stan Landes (NL), Bill Kinnamon (AL), Bill Haller (AL), Doug Harvey (NL). T–2:29. A–54,692.
Game played on Wednesday, October 2, 1968 at Busch Stadium II
Baseball Almanac Box Score

Bob Gibson belongs among a rarified elite of clutch World Series performers. He appeared in three World Series during a five season span (1964, 67, 68) against three different teams, all required Gibson to start a decicive game 7 for all the marbles, pressure that Gibson, a peerless competitor, appeared to welcome. 2-1 in game seven starts, a 7-2 post-season performer before the playoff era makes Gibson one of the most sucessful non-Yankee World Series starters of all time, he equaled the World Series record 3-0 best pitching performance in a seven game series, and set a World Series game record for strikeouts, fanning 17 in game one against Detroit in 1968. Few athletes ever offered a team what Bob Gibson supplied. The difference winning requires at the championship level in a professional team sport cannot be measured just by crunching numbers, and made more difference to the winning St Louis teams of the 60’s than any one player I can name. Gibson shocked the baseball world in 1964 as St. Louis won its first pennant since 1946, over the Phillies dead body.

and they played all day games in the Series back then, Detroit had been absent from World Series play since Allied Forces achieved complete victory on VJ Day ending WWII, they beat the Cubs about two months after US bomber crews dropped a pair of A-Bombs on the Japanese mainland ( Cub fans know the 2008 season is the 63^rd since fielding an entrant to the fall classic). Our teacher, Mr. Perry rolled one of metal carts the 4 foot tall atop which B&W TV sets were mounted bolted or welded. Yet each set was heavily marked “A/V Dep’t” in black letters with a 1960’s era magic marker, Southfield School Board bought in bulk: Touching any known surface with the uncapped felt of the business end of one meant change of a permanence nature unfamiliara no going back permanent color (forget cloth), kept locked in their desk, away from kids not to mention cloth in case a little K-6 crook swiped one, these TV sets that to be as heavy as a kitchen stove, it could be identified.

Ms. Ferraro did not disavow the remark. Mrs. Clinton, while calling it regrettable, did not break with her. On Wednesday, March 12, who was on the Clinton finance committee, resigned from the campaign after being criticized by Mr. Obama’s advisers, among others.

She accused the Obama campaign of misrepresenting her remarks to hurt Mrs. Clinton, saying: “They have played the race card time after time after time. The campaign has a goal, which is to attack Hillary. They have to find a way and they can’t do it on experience, on issues, so they look for places. They came up with this, and, well, here we go.” She specifically accused David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, of using race as a tactical weapon and of implying that her remarks were racist.

Mr. Axelrod, responding in an e-mail message Wednesday night, said, “I never suggested that. I’ve known Gerry for a long time, and I don’t believe that. But what she said was plainly wrong and divisive.” Mrs. Clinton’s reluctance to sideline Ms. Ferraro drew a sharp rebuke on Wednesday from the Rev. Al Sharpton, the black political leader in New York and a former presidential candidate, who questioned whether Mrs. Clinton’s campaign was keeping the issue alive as a way to win white votes in Pennsylvania.

In addition to Ms. Ferraro’s remark, Mr. Sharpton cited Mrs. Clinton’s decision not to fire her top ally in Pennsylvania, Gov. Edward G. Rendell, for saying in February that some white voters there were “probably not ready to vote for an African-American candidate. “When you hear the lack of total denunciation of Ferraro, when you hear Rendell saying there are whites who will never vote for a black, one has to wonder if the Clinton campaign has a Pennsylvania strategy to appeal to voters on race,” Mr. Sharpton said in an interview. “I would hope Mrs. Clinton would make it clear that she is not doing that.”

Both Sharpton and Ferraro made unsucessful bids to be New York’s Democratic Party candidate for U.S. Senate in 1992, losing the state primary to Robert Abrams.. Incumbent Republican Al D Amato won reelection over Democrat Abrams by 2.7% in a six-way race, in which candidates from the Libertarian, New Alliance, Natural Law and Socialist Workers Parties claimed 2..8% from voters that I’m guessing were sending a message to a Democratic Party seen by many traditional supporters as ideological deserters; abandoning principles desperately seeking power, using the coded hate speech of the right.

In 2001, she announced that she was suffering from multiple myeloma, a form of bone cancer

Ferraro Is Battling Blood Cancer With a Potent Ally: Thalidomide

he remembers hearing the word thalidomide half a lifetime ago, when she was a young mother in Queens and it was a pharmaceutical scourge that maimed children.

Now, Geraldine A. Ferraro punches a single tablet of thalidomide through a foil seal before she goes to bed every night. She swallows the pill that once was banned around the world, then sleeps like a rock for eight solid hours.

Thalidomide is prolonging her life, Ms. Ferraro and her doctors believe, in the teeth of an incurable illness.

After a routine physical in December 1998, her physician discovered that Ms. Ferraro was in the early stages of multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that erodes the bones and leads to death within five years for half of those with the diagnosis. For two years, Ms. Ferraro's disease was classified as ''smoldering myeloma,'' or inactive.

When blood tests showed that the cancer cells were increasing, she began to use thalidomide, one of the very first patients in her condition to receive the drug.

''Such a strange thing,'' said Ms. Ferraro, who is 65. ''What was terrible for a healthy fetus has been wonderful at defeating the cancer cells.''

.

Electoral success as seen in the Obama campaign comes from the ground up, vast numbers of uncounted non-voters whose dormancy has cast the most deciding votes in post-war elections. We have seen repeated examples how the nation survives mediocrity rising to the top instead of cream, is it more a republic or more a state afterward? money is allowed to control public discourse, dissemination of information and the political process with ownership of the airwaves by a shrinking elite, secure in the supremacy of property over people before the law, the skillfully crafted free speech argument will always prove the Constitution entitles one to all the speech he can afford; and conversely withholding the means of mass communication from an unsupervised public rabble by proof of ownership of the very means required. How American “Public Television” and “Public Radio” devolved from its origin as a protected cummunity enterprise into the commercial monstrosity it is currently, its very name requiring change to “The Corporation of Public Broadcasting” with corporate sponsors requiring the High Class Commercials seen on PBS; touting these donors not only for the value added product offered for sale as on CBS, ABC, NBC by the sponsor, but praising the dedication to culture, the generosity, the pioneer spirit of these ones made so rich by the labor of so many who now fork over the bread to show a government subsidized film of the natural habitat of far off varmints, ballet dancers it’s impossible to attract a viable commercial audience to; commonly a BBC ripoff, you can’t understand the limeys on; all this support of public betterment made tax deductible long ago, so what began as a sort of American BBC to be supported by tax revenue, was smothered in its crib, U.S. public ownership of anything has been dicey to even talk about even in one’s home muttering to himself, as any millionaire lawyer will tell you, in front of the judges appointed by politicians beholden to billionaires for any credible political campaign in a nation of our current population, increasingly more dependant on modern technology for communication.

Even hopes the future of human community may be less brutal and violent must be phrased correctly, to avoid alienating sources of capital required to keep the show on the road.

Patrick Healy

Jeff Zeleny

JIM DWYER

CAR CRASH

I am from Detroit so I've done a lot of freeway and winter driving, I was never in a serious accident and only saw one but it is enough. I was in a car near downtown with Dave a friend of mine in those days. We were both getting a ride from a third dude Dave knew in December. It was snowing and we were on I-375 a spur off I-75 everyone's heard of if they've been to Florida, it runs right through midtown by the Baseball stadium etc. any. The snow was deep but it was powdery, and since I noted you're in New York so I'm not telling you anything, If snow is powdery it's the safest snow to drive on because it hasn't melted and tires can get a grip on it almost like sand

We were going along about 35-40 in the flow of traffic and I could hear hear the tires rolling over the snow, which is cool, practically ideal winter conditions but you can't overcome the elements; a car came around us on the right all of a sudden going too fast; I was certain of that because we were going as fast as conditions allowed. (We were in the middle lane but I hate when people who pass on the right especially then-we had just passed Tiger Stadium and the roadway is below street level, for a couple miles there's a concrete barrier in the middle and a sheer sheer twenty feet of concrete a yardaway from the right lane both ways; there's nowhere to go)

The car got just ahead of us on the right and was coming over in our lane to pass another car and it was so wierd, because just an split second before anything happened my emotions went faster than my thinking and as pissed off as I was one second I got scared before a watch could tick; then the fucker started spinning, and time seemed change, to This

THE SHRINE

I found your Shauna Grant Shrine, about a month ago, it's the nicest thing I've seen about her on the web, well written and compassionate; Thank you for that,

I first heard of her after death, I watched an hour long documentary about Shauna Grant and the milieu.she entered, when she went to Southern California

after HS graduation seeking what every person her age were after, when they start West, possessing on average the funds to get there enough to eat for a week or so. I made that same decision in 1979; for the same reason as Shauna, any of the uncounted multitude who make California pilgrimage- American Mecca- seeking proof their life is some more than the dead end they departed.,

When Shauna got has more to do all later events then any factor involving morality, sex drive, rebellion or any of the code our right wing masters to blame the victim in the name of personal responsibility

Even University trained economists were unaware (or refused to warn us) :

Tthe forward march of technology, American Mercantilism, Sexual Repression, Hypocrisy, Sexist Double Standards, Supply and Demand, were about to converge; EXPECT CASUALTIES"

Perfecting mass production of affordable home video exploded the market for porn because millions of people that would not attend a public screening of X film because public stigma created risk (embarrassment, police raids, zoning law

requirements assured locations were either unsavory, inconvenient or both or worse).

Producing such a film requires performers willing to fuck for the camera; interpretation/perversion of law allowed police to regard the use or presence of photo graphic equipment as per se sex for renumeration.; detection of the equipment and people creation any commercially viable requiresof photogenic young women in Southern California in required a created porn a differant nd all I knew waswatched PBS documentary PBS compiled about her after her death, . it was like watching a car crash, in real life I mean. . Appealing as she is her story was so poignant, her angelic look still captivating.

Write back if you have time, please ; .

Over 20 years ago-