I have always believed that our veterans are the only ones who can speak cogently about war.  We have many in our community, and I rarely hesitate to recommend one of their diaries or comments.  I beg your indulgence to allow me to offer some reflections as a grand daughter, daughter, niece and aunt of war veterans.

"Just" and "war" are two terms used in the same sentence that ranckle my peacenick sensibilities, and yet, I comprehend the meaning.  My Dad and uncles believed that WWII was a "just war."  They are dead now, and I am saved from unpleasant arguments about the current Iraq occupation.

As someone who grew up in North Carolina during the 80's and 90's, it is hard to find words to convey the role has Jesse Helms played in my worldview. One of the first memories I have of Helms is being told that he had said "vulgar and common" things about my grandfather, Thad Stem, a poet who wrote liberal columns for the Raleigh News & Observer at the same time Helms was a political commentator on a Raleigh television station.

Originally posted on Citizen Orange.

"I think Obama would be a disaster, and there's a lot of
reasons," said [Leroy] Pollard, explaining the rumors he had heard about the candidate from friends he goes camping with. "I understand he's from Africa, and that the first thing he's going to do if he gets into office is bring his family over here, illegally. He's got that racist [pastor] who practically raised him, and then there's the Muslim thing. He's just not presidential material, if you ask me."

Eli Saslow - Washington Post (30 June 2008)

Yesterday my stepson, Justus, started a conversation here on Daily Kos and since I’m the candidate he referenced, I thought I’d chime in.

This morning on NHPR, Dan Gorenstein did a segment on the upcoming campaign event in Unity, NH, with Sens. Obama and Clinton. One resident of Unity was not pleased at all with the impending media circus. But the winner quote was about Sen. Obama:

"...he’s a good speaker but he’s ah, he’s like a Martin Luther King speaker. He rants like a Negro, and I don’t like that."

He rants like a Negro. Let's take a closer look at the rantings of a couple of Negros.

First of all it was a good read!  At 72 I have been reading about politics for a long time.  Sirota's book was a breath of fresh air for it has been a while since I have seen anything that takes what I learned during the Vietnam era and carries that spirit forward to the very different milleau of today's strange politics.  That may sound strange to some the younger members of our group and it may sound pretentious to my contemporaries.  I'm speaking now as one of the people we called "the walking wounded" half with respect and half with derision as we let our own young juices drive us during that phase of American politics.  What do we old codgers have to offer now?  Had we done our job better we would not be in the mess we are in now.  It certainly is not because we did not try.  So why are we here?  What did we learn?  How did we fail? And what does it have to do with Sirota's book?  Come and look below the break and I'll explain.

A diary I read today on a right-wing blog has stuck in my head.  In it the author goes over the same tiresome ranting and raving about Reagan, Limbaugh, and liberals, but then does something I've never seen on a right-wing site.  He invokes Martin Luther King.  And with that he enters a bizarro world, destoys the meaning of the word "liberal", and sends a warning to us all...

I was working on a diary which I will post next week which will explain why Obama can win on both Change and Experience. Real life experience.   While doing some research for the piece, I was forced to read John McCain's Wiki for comparisons and I was shocked by some of the statements on the page. None of which are disputed.  Let's jump.

The issue of race has been injected into this presidential campaign both as a source of pride and progress and as a wedge to scare and intimidate. Of course, this is often true in our election seasons as Republican voter suppression takes center stage and the taking for granted of the African-American vote by the Democrats is often a problem.

This election, perhaps, draws the most stark contrast between presidential candidates as Barack Obama represents the first African-American to be nominated by a major party, and John McCain features one of the most checkered pasts in memory on the other side. There are three major issues on the McCain side that I want to explore here.

1. The "Gook" Issue

2. The MLK Holiday Issue

3. The Confederate Flag Issue

Cross-posted by Will Bunch at my Philadelphia Daily News blog, Attytood:

The following article was datelined Aug. 5, 1961, and appeared in the Sunday New York Times the following day. It was headlined: BLIND RIDER HELPS BREAK COLOR LINE:

JACKSON, Miss., Aug. 5 (AP) -- Two Freedom Riders, a blind white woman and a Negro, broke the segregation barrier today in a Jackson, Miss., bus depot.

As I watched Barack Obama take the podium last night and listened to his speech, I was sat in silence, tears streaming down my cheeks with joy,  holding my husband's hand.  It's been a long road, and we still have further to go, but this is a moment in our history that I never thought I'd live to see. As a young black child raised on poetry by my father and mother, one of the poets I learned to love and cherish was Langston Hughes.  

The words of his classic poem echoed in my mind, and I smiled through my tears, because our dream is deferred no more.

There is something historically appropriate that in 2008, a mixed child of an African immigrant and a progressive white woman form Kansas moves just one step away from becoming president. Because, you see, 40 years ago in April, and 40 years ago this week, two men gave their lives for their dreams. And I think more than all the feeble words I can write down, I think two words will suffice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

The Democrats in America have spoken.  

Congratulations to the apparent nominee.

Over the past few months, I have become increasingly worried about Barack Obama's electoral support (or relative lack thereof) within the lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgendered (LGBT) community.  Though I personally know of many LGBT folks that strongly support Obama, there are large numbers of avid LGBT supporters of Hillary Clinton who are very mistrustful of Obama and are now threatening to abandon him (and the party) in the general election.  In the last few days, as Hillary's campaign has started to apparently wind down, I have read several blogs written by very angry anti-Obama/pro-Hillary gay men.

As anyone who has followed the 2008 presidential campaign knows, racism is a fact of life in America.

Much of White America will not vote for Barack Obama purely on the basis of his race. We have seen that in West Virginia. We have seen it in Kentucky. We will see it on a grand scale come the general election.

The family of Robert Kennedy, reminded this spring that it’s been 40 years since they lost him, heard May 23rd that his tragic death had been diminished into a talking point in another senator’s crass campaign rhetoric.  [Sioux Falls Argus-Leader transcript]

In 1968, having won California, Senator Kennedy’s life and his nation were struck, turning joyful hope into instant emotional chaos: [RFK assassination, live audio]

The following day, June 6, I had awakened on my parents’ couch to the sound of a news report from KMOX radio on Dad’s breakfast table, "Senator Robert F. Kennedy died at 1:44 A.M. today." [New York Times]  Mary Ann Templeton and I were to be married that afternoon, at 3:30.

Hillary’s most consistent supporters have been folks over 50, especially women over 50. With her statement about RFK's assassination, and her bizarre "apologetic" explanation (namely, I was thinking about Teddy and so I mentioned Bobby’s assassination), she has lost a substantial number of these supporters. I will not say all. I will not say those closest to her. But I will say, a very significant number. Most importantly, in terms of the race, many superdelegates in this age cohort, who may have been leaning her way, will be looking around for the nearest Exit sign. Ditto for those who were in favor of placing her in the VP slot.

The horrible comments made by Hillary Clinton yesterday, using the assassination of Robert Kennedy in June 1968 as a rationalization of why she is staying in the election, just waiting for something to happen to Barack Obama, sent me back to 1968.  And all that happened that year.  Such, such difficult times, and as I have remembered, I am thunderstruck at the similarities between 1968 and 2008.  Today in this election year, we are dealing with many of the same issues and feel the same sense of a fight to the death for our principles and for our political lives.  

1968 was a volcanic year of violence in our country and the scars are still very, very tender and the memory still very, very fresh. Even now.  Hillary Clinton's comments ripped scar tissue off that terrible wound and poured the acidity of her unbridled ambition all over it.  It hurts very much.  Perhaps because the similarities to today's struggle are uncanny.

These are my memories and experiences of that year, and the years that led up to it, and I invite you to share it with me.  

To start on that journey down this dark, dark memory lane, let me say that "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.... "