3 comments

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  Elaine Brown

  7 months ago

  Thank you, Brother. Thank you for your important and correct analysis. The only thing I would add is that the other benefit of an Obama presidency is that it has the potential to create the conditions for the development, finally, of a new and sweeping progressive, if not revolutionary, movement toward the liberation of African people in the U.S., on the Continent and elsewhere, who continue to live at the bottom of life in the world.
  
  Elaine Brown
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• 

  Derick Powers

  7 months ago

  This is the single most negative, rediculous, and self-contradictory analysis I have read thus far of Barack Obama's winning the White House.
  
  It's just plain wrong.
  
  I could give a line by line refutation of the all the mistakes and misrepresentations this writer makes, but let's keep this simple: the first and biggest is enough.
  
  In the second paragraph Mr. Aima says:
  
  "the potential benefits to the African World of an Obama presidency are mostly overshadowed by the numerous and more probable negative outcomes. Thus, it appears that the Obama Presidency will be seriously challenged to facilitate any substantial benefit to the greater good of the African American or African World communities "
  
  Mr. Aima goes on to make too many logical fallacies to concisely summarize, but then at the end of this rediculously negative tirade, he completely reverses himself, saying:
  
  "Finally, despite all of the potential pit falls just discussed we must still acknowledge that Mr. Obama’s ascendancy to the presidency is one of the most hopeful signs for people of African descent since the fall of apartheid in South Africa. The President of the United States has the most powerful bully pulpit in the world and just his presence on the world stage along with the images of his beautiful wife and daughters will inspire hope in many, and dispel stereotypical notions of black inferiority that are still too prevalent in today’s world. The Obama First Family is just a symbol, but it is a powerful symbol that can be used to motivate and encourage people of African descent, and other oppressed people across the globe."
  
  I know you want your cake and to eat it too, but you can't have it both ways. The color of anyone's skin is not what matters. The content of their character is. The content of Obama's character, he has made clear over the last year in a very grueling election cycle.
  
  The content of your character is plain to see by anyone who has eyes with which to see.
  
  Derick Powers
  reply
• 

  Derick Powers

  7 months ago

  War Room
  
  By Alex Koppelman
  
  Thursday, Nov. 6, 2008 14:00 EST
  
  What does Obama's victory mean?
  
  Everyone agrees that Barack Obama's election sent a powerful message to the country and the world, that it was and is a meaningful moment.
  
  But what, exactly, does it mean?
  
  I solicited a platoon of reporters, bloggers, commentators, academics and policy wonks on what they think it means, forcing them to winnow down their answers to a single sentence that begins with the same two words: "It means ..."
  
  Here are more than three dozen responses, sorted alphabetically. Some are funny, others serious; many are poignant, a few are edgy.
  
  But all of them, I think, are pretty darn good. Here goes:
  It means we can see the end of Nixonland from here.
  -- Spencer Ackerman, senior reporter, the Washington Independent
  
  It means "hope" is not a four-letter word ... but "Bush" is.
  -- Sean Aday, associate professor of media studies, George Washington University
  It means you can run for office no matter your name.
  -- Kenneth Baer, Democratic speechwriter and principal, Baer Communication
  
  It means the long national nightmare is over.
  Dean Baker, economist, Center for Economic Policy Research
  
  It means that after years of splintering divisiveness, we're back in this together again.
  -- Jared Bernstein, economist, Economic Policy Institute
  
  It means Americans are starting to realize that there's nothing compassionate about conservatism.
  -- Brian Beutler, blogger, brianbeutler.com
  
  It means the Union won, with unions.
  -- Lindsay Beyerstein, freelance journalist, majikthise.com
  
  It means the era of conservatism is over.
  -- Michael Cohen, senior research fellow, New America Foundation
  
  It means that this damned thing [conservatism] doesn't work!
  -- Brian Cook, editor, In These Times (invoking Doc Brown)
  
  It means the 9/11 era -- of dealing with the world 9/11 created rather than using 9/11 as a political club -- has finally begun.
  -- Brad DeLong, economics professor, UC-Berkeley
  
  It means that James Cheney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman did not die in vain.
  -- Matthew Duss, research associate, Center for American Progress Action Fund
  
  It means that my two sons will grow up in a country where everybody knows that an African-American can become president.
  -- Henry Farrell, assistant professor, George Washington University
  
  It means the Democrats have two years to show they can govern through effective, progressive policymaking … tick, tick, tick.
  -- Tim Fernholz, writing fellow, the American Prospect
  
  It means that, following the political equivalent of locusts, the plague, the trials of Job, and 40 years (more or less) in the wilderness, it is actually fun to be a Democrat again.
  -- Kathy Geier, the G Spot
  
  It means the world is ready to follow if America is ready to lead.
  -- Mark Leon Goldberg, Undispatch.com
  
  It means that we grabbed the steering wheel and pulled on the hand brake just before this bus called the U.S. of A. careened into the abyss.
  -- Jaana Goodrich, Echidne of the Snakes
  
  It means that the Republican Party has to give up appeals to coded racism and accept the reality that United States is a multiethnic democracy.
  -- Jeet Heer, freelance journalist, Regina, Saskatchewan
  
  It means that the conservative era is over, and a progressive one has a chance to begin.
  -- Michael Kazin, professor of history, Georgetown University
  
  It means Barack Obama now has earned the additional challenge of showing that he's not Bill Clinton, circa 1993, and that 2010 won't be 1994.
  -- Ed Kilgore, managing editor, the Democratic Strategist
  
  It means that the voters will punish incompetence, even at the cost of voting for intelligence and eloquence.
  -- Mark A.R. Kleiman, professor of public policy, UCLA
  
  It means that the 9/11 era is over.
  -- Ezra Klein, senior editor, the American Prospect
  
  It means the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
  -- Joe Klein, columnist, Time
  
  It means at least three Supreme Court justices who aren't vetted by the religious right.
  -- Andrew Leonard, Salon
  
  It means the end of the great national nightmare that began on April 12, 1861, when Americans began the long struggle to determine what an American is -- that the hue of a citizen's skin does not determine their value to themselves and their fellow citizens of this great experiment.
  -- Robert Mackey, historian and consultant, Washington, D.C.
  
  It means that sometimes being "pro-America" means different things to voters than to politicians.
  -- Mike Madden, Salon
  
  It means that I will see a Latino president and Supreme Court justice in my lifetime.
  -- Sylvia Manzano, political scientist, Texas A&M University
  
  It means the North has won the Civil War.
  -- Harold Meyerson, Washington Post columnist and American Prospect editor at large
  
  It means market fundamentalism no longer has a veto and it is now possible to build an economy with widely shared prosperity.
  -- Larry Mishel, Economic Policy Institute
  
  It means America is not afraid!
  -- Dayo Olopade, reporter, the Root
  
  It means there is more to America than is dreamt in Karl Rove's philosophy.
  -- Harold Pollack, public health researcher and writer, University of Chicago
  
  It means that the term "proud conservative" is now more toxic than "San Francisco liberal" ever was.
  -- Sarah Posner, columnist, the American Prospect
  
  It means the Democrats have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make good on some bold promises.
  -- Eric Rauchway, professor of history, UC-Davis
  
  It means national conversations about sexism and homophobia are up next.
  -- Alyssa Rosenberg, staff correspondent, Government Executive
  
  It means, as a friend in Tbilisi, Georgia, said to me today, that our nation managed to "push the reset button," and in one action, revived all the wonderful, idealistic overtones that go with the word "America."
  -- Jeremy Rosner, Democratic pollster, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research
  It means power even that seems at times absolute is ultimately fleeting.
  -- Laura Rozen, journalist, Mother Jones
  
  It means, as ever, that America is capable of surprising itself -- and the world.
  -- Tom Schaller, Salon
  It means I can start watching State of the Union addresses and presidential news conferences once again, without feeling embarrassed.
  -- Gary Segura, political scientist, Stanford University
  It means Barack Obama will be able to get a cab in New York anytime he wants.
  -- Adam Serwer, the American Prospect
  
  It means that some right-wing entrepreneur will be on the market with the "Obama Countdown Clock" within the week.
  -- Walter Shapiro, Salon
  
  It means that we can finally have someone represent the black community to mainstream America who isn't Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton or wearing a summertime fur coat and platinum chains.
  -- Jesse Taylor, founder and editor, Pandagon.net
  
  It means sunset has arrived after Reagan's morning in America, and it's now the optimistic dawn of a bright new day.
  -- Mark Thoma, Economist's View
  
  It means the beginning of the end of a nightmare that began on Nov. 4, 1980.
  -- Jonathan Weiler, political scientist, UNC Chapel Hill
  
  It means that principled, visionary domestic and foreign policy need not come at the expense of morality and justice.
  -- Patricia Weitsman, political scientist, Ohio University
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