Wayne Brady is right

So, first, a tiny bit of context, in the video link below.

Wayne Brady on Bill Maher on Obama's Blackness

For hundreds of years, Black slaves in this country were denied the chance to even learn rudimentary reading and writing skills. The ability to articulate was crime, often punishable by beatings, mutilations, and even death. Articulation was literally the next step in evolution and denying this to blacks was a key to maintaining the falsehood that we were less than human.

Articulate African Americans were literally not allowed to be Black by the racist structure that had enslaved them.

There was a time that eloquence and grace were attributes to be valued. Think of Paul Robeson, or Harry Belefonte, Jackie Robinson, or Dr. King, or Malcolm. Respect and poise were never confused with weakness. Far from it: they were signs of strength, self control, and maturity.

Anyone who hoped that voting for a Black president meant you'd be putting a thug in the White House really ought to re-think their understanding of what it means to be an African American.  And I mean that even more for the African Americans who happen to read this than our Caucasian brothers & sisters out there.

Opposite Ends of the Mall

From the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. asked America a question.

And, as he spoke the response echoed against the vast canyon walls of human history.

Twice.

God loves poetry.

About The Year That Past

Some truly amazing things happened in 2012 (Obama, Felix Baumgartner, SpaceX, Curiosity, The Dark Knight Rises, Game of Thrones) and some truly horrible things also happened in 2012. But, for me, personally, they all pale in comparison to one singular event.

I got married.

And it was frakkin' awesome.

But not nearly as awesome as her.

If you can feel me smiling a bit more than usual in 2013, that's why.

Happy New Year, folks.  Let's get to it!

4more

Whew!

That was a close one.  At least it felt like it.

But, given the President's coattails, squashing some of the worst ideologues, partisans,  chauvinists, and intolerants in the process, I can't help but wonder if he didn't intentionally throw that first debate just to keep the dark money invested in a losing Romney campaign instead of many other winnable Senate races.

Like Andrew Sullivan says, "meep meep".

Now, let's get back to work.

Don't Let will.i.am Destroyed America!

Remember this video?



And how we were all so inspired and fired up and ready to go two years ago?

I may have mentioned this in a previous blog post, but it's worth repeating:

I had a dream back in February of 2009, about month after the inauguration. In the dream, I was at Camp David during a snow-covered winter night, interviewing President Obama for this very blog.

I kid you not.

And after he'd given me the walking tour of the place and introduced me to the First Lady (where, I'm sure, if it had been in real life, I would have traded a few stories with her about the old Third World Center at Princeton), I stopped him and asked him if there was anything he wanted to say directly to my readers. And the President's words were, and I quote:

"Keep dreaming. But be ready to do the work."

I'm reminded of John F. Kennedy's speech about the moon landing.

"We choose to do these things not because they are easy, but because they are hard."

The easy part, my friends, was electing Obama.

When it was all a wonderful silly dream about how amazing we could make this country.

But the fact of the matter is, it's a lot of freakin' work. And I don't have to tell you that work, frankly, sucks. It's tiring and time consuming and it takes away from all the games you want to play and all the movies you want to watch.

But laziness has a very high cost.

My point is, things are very hard in the country right now. And we keep hearing about this so-called enthusiasm gap, where all of the energy appears to be with the people who are so mad that Obama's not a magician and can just make 30 million jobs and trillions of dollars in debt to China and a crappy infrastructure and political corruption disappear by wiggling his nose like Samantha on "Bewitched".

And THESE fools would rather that Obama stop, so we can keep on losing 700,000 jobs a month, like we were back when I had that dream.

I'm not talking to them. I'm talking to all of you who watched that will.i.am song and decided that I should vote for Obama because it would be kewl.

To Hell with Kewl. This country still needs your help. We're moving, very slowly, in the right direction, but we need to continue to have a supportive congress and local government to make it happen.

Obama's not officially on the ballot next month, but everything that he and his supporters have bled to put into law is. And all of the positive things that have been done and could be done are in jeopardy.

Are you really telling me that just because will.i.am didn't call up all of his celebrity buddies to make a new video for this midterm election, you don't have a beat you can dance to that can take your butt into a voting booth next month?

Do we really have to have theme music before we can get to work and save the country?

Just because the Black Eyed Peas aren't inspired to make this election entertaining, that's not an excuse, people!

Click the link in the title of this blog, find out who's on the ballot locally, and VOTE!

And email 20 other people you know and make sure they vote! And tell them to do the same.

Our country is literally dancing on the precipice.

Two Americas

Last time I checked, wasn't the City of Chicago and, for that matter, the whole State of Illinois, still part of the United States of America?

So why are all of these conservatives cheering because AMERICA, not just Chicago, but AMERICA, lost the bid for the next Olympics?

Oh, right. I forgot. It's because Obama lobbied for it.

I'm reminded of an incident way back when I was in high school. I was driving home late one night after visiting a classmate who lived in the Northeast corner of Baltimore. Since I lived on the exact opposite side of the city, I had a bit of a drive ahead of me, so I wanted to stop & get some gas. There were no brand name stations around, but I did manage to find one mom & pop-ish full-service station still open at 11PM.

So, I pull up to the pump, and the guy in the station waves to me, saying "I'll be there in a second."

So I wait. And I wait. And I wait. And another car pulls into the station. The guy comes out of the booth, pumps gas for the other car, and then goes back into the booth.

And I wait. And I wait some more. And then the guy looks out of the booth and smiles, saying "Oh, did you want some gas?"

I said "I get the picture" and left.

Do I even need to say that I'm Black and this guy was white?

What I could never fit my head around was this: I was coming to buy gas from him. I was going to literally put money in his hands.

But no. He doesn't want MY money. He doesn't want anything to do with me. He would rather hurt his own business than help me in any way.

Cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Now, am I saying that all opposition to Obama is racial? No, not really.

But what I AM saying is that a lot of opposition to Obama is just as irrational, crazy, and self-destructive as racism.

They don't want him talking to their children so he can tell them to stay in school. They don't want him lobbying for an American city to host the Olympics.

They don't want him anywhere doing anything for or with or about anyone.

It may not be race-based, but, if I can use a computer programming analogy for a moment, it sure has the same methods and interface as racism.

Why Kucinich WIll Never Be President

Or, Frankly, Ron Paul, or Tom Tancredo, or Carol Mosley Braun or any number of politicians who are, regardless of what you think of their politics, at some base level, qualified.

It's the same reason why someone as manifestly unqualified as Sarah Palin is still considered a legitimate national figure. Or why John Edwards or even the President himself, Barack Obama, was considered a legit contender after less than a single term at the national level in the senate.

I'm reminded of the very last episode of "The Practice", where Alan Shore was finalizing his relationship with Crane, Poole, & Schmidt, ultimately leading to 5 years of Emmy glory on "Boston Legal". As Shore introduced his assistant/paramour Tara to his new boss Denny Crane, Crane said to her in typical Denny fashion: "We only hire pretty people here. Are you a pretty girl, soldier?"

It's the same reason, apparently, that Kennedy beat Nixon, or why Reagan beat Mondale, or why Clinton beat Dole.

The camera loves them.

And when the cameras love them, the press love them.

More specifically, the advertisers love them.

Yes, there is substance to many of the debates, and, yes, I do truly believe that Obama is far and away the best person for the job. But if he looked like Al Sharpton, he'd never stand a chance.

The modern presidential election has bore more than a passing resemblance to American Idol for quite some time, but it's all behind the scenes, in media focus groups who decide who can best get the American public to keep tuning into 24/7 cable news outlets to drive advertising dollars to support the revenue streams of those networks.

And let's be honest, do you REALLY want to see Dennis Kucinich on your TV every night for 4 years?

I'm just sayin'.

Born in the USA

I have, on occasion, been known to indulge in conspiracy theories.

For instance, there's a part of me that still believes that John Kerry struck some kind of deal born of Skull & Bones to basically throw the 2004 election for George Bush. After all, he fought like a hellcat to destroy Howard Dean, robocalls & all, but declined from using similar tactics against the 43rd president.

So, yes, I do buy into some conspiracy theories. But I find the recent Birther phenomenon so amusing for two reasons:

1. for it to be true, you have to assume the complicity of The State of Hawaii, at least two major Hawaiian newspapers, the Federal Election Commission, John McCain, Sarah Palin, and basically the entire Republican political apparatus. And that various elements had been upholding this conspiracy for nearly 50 years (that, or they went back and planted false evidence in the record, 1984-style). To which, I would respond, why? If Sarah Palin had some serious doubt about Obama's citizenship, do you think she would have waited a second to use that in a campaign speech? She was damn near calling the man a terrorist because he'd been in some guy's house. Which gets to the larger issue of most conspiracy theories, namely the presumption that all of the important famous people are out to punk the rest of the world so they can.... do what, exactly? "Control us"? I mean, really, if all of these players were interested in fabricating Obama's birth, wouldn't they have come up with a better cover story.

2. To borrow a line from Rush Limbaugh, the Birther movement is totally about race. The guy who's credited with originally trying to discredit Obama's nationality is a dude who once ran for congress on the promise that he would "exterminate Jew Power in America". The woman who shouted down that congressman in his town hall meeting about the birther stuff ended her tirade with "I want my country back!", because, of course, this can't really be America if a Black man is now president. Lou Dobbs teased the notion that Obama might even be an illegal immigrant. The fact is, these people are looking for anything that would just undo the last election, because that election proves that the majority of America thinks they're a bunch of crackpots.

Barack Obama is an American.

And he's your President.

Suck it up.

"....proud to be an American..."

"I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--

I, too, am America."
- Langston Hughes
I know I've been pretty quiet since the election back in November.   A lot has
happened since then - personally, professionally, artistically, romantically.

In many ways, I feel like anything I could write now would really pale in comparison
to the reality of the moment.

But I would like to say a few things:

• I love that Michelle's mother is moving into the White House, because it is representative of the reality for many Black families here in America. My grandmother lived in my parents' house since before I was born, and there's something to be said for having another adult who is not working a full-time job there to help raise the children. And, let's be blunt, it's much more likely for Blacks to BE the nanny instead of HAVING a nanny. But, even more importantly, having a blood relative to help with your babies is probably always better. So I love that America is going to have a "First Nana".
• I went to the Martin Luther King Day parade here in Los Angeles yesterday, and I love the weird trick of fate that we get to celebrate MLK the day before we inaugurate our first Black president. There were Obama t-shirts & signs & bootleg merchandise EVERYWHERE. But what's even more cool is how crazy diverse the MLK Day Parade itself was - there was a huge Korean contingent; Brazilian carnival-style dancers & floats, even freakin' Hari Krishnas. :-) A reminder that King's dream wasn't just about Black people. It was, and continues to be, about everybody.
• Needless to say, I can understand how some on the left are highly pissed off about the whole Rick Warren thing. But, as I think those who oppose things like Prop 8 here in California are beginning to learn, this is a democracy, and the only way to win a majority for your beliefs is to change hearts and minds. And that means you have to talk to people who may believe in things that you hate, and they have to actually be in the room in order to talk to them. I stopped listening to some folks that I like because they believe something different than me, and, frankly, that's a sign of my own weakness. And ours. So, let's be real about this. Rick Warren is a far cry from Jerry Falwell or Pat Robertson, and he probably represents a very large cross-section of the church-going populace of this country. Even if you're a big believer in separation of church and state, even if you're an atheist or an agnostic, you still have to share the country with the religious people. You can't get rid of them just like they can't get rid of you, no matter how much either of you would like. That, my friends, is what democracy is all about. Just like talking to Iran is not appeasement, giving an olive branch to the Christian middle is not an endorsement. Have faith that the President may just know what he's doing.
• Don't you just love that last sentence? Above all else, I love the return of a presumption of competence to the Federal government.
• The last time I was on the national mall was 1995 for the Million Man March. After watching the festivities of the day, I'm suddenly itching to go back and go on all the tours. If I may paraphrase our new First Lady, this may not be the first time I've been proud of my country, but today is definitely the day that I've felt MOST proud to call myself an American.
  

OK. Now, let's get to work.

Seven Days Later

Barack Hussein Obama II will be the 44th President of the United States of America.

Honestly, I don't even know where to begin.

Moments after the networks called the election on Obama's behalf, my friend called me and said, simply "this proves that Love Beats Fear."

A few days later, another friend called and said this:

"Yo, man. I had this dream last Tuesday night, where this whack dude was the President, and he was fuckin' everything up. So we had an election, and there was another old whack dude running against a black dude.

And you know what? The black dude won.

Crazy shit, right?

So, I was just callin' to ask, did you have the same dream?"

My own personal analogy is that it's the difference between standing in a room in the dark for eight years, and suddenly someone switches on the lights. Nothing physically in the room has changed. But the light banishes the shadows. It makes the gems in the room shine. It illuminates the paths forward. Where once there was nothing but fear and uncertainty, we can now, all see the possibilities.

Now, let's take them.

U.S.A.

Mirror, Mirror

As I've mentioned in the past, one of my favorite episodes of the original Star Trek is entitled "The Enemy Within" - a transporter malfunction creates two versions of Captain Kirk.

One is intelligent, wise, compassionate, yet indecisive.

The other is....

Well, see for yourself:



Forceful? Yes. Decisive? Yes. But also crazed, lustful, paranoid.

And yet, as Spock points out, while separated, neither one is capable of surviving without the other. In the end, as much as the two repulse each other, they're forced to literally embrace each other to both survive and lead.

So, I've been following the coverage of the growing lynch mob qualities of the Palin/McCain rallies over the last few weeks.

And let's be real about this: McCain may be the official party nominee, but Sarah Palin is really the standard bearer for this particular facet of the Republican party these days. Given the choice, I'm sure many of them would prefer to have her at the top of the ticket simply because they trust her more. In their mind, she's one of them, through and through. McCain is, sadly, just someone who's hitched his carriage to them on the vain hope that this pony will carry him all the way to the Oval Office.

Honestly, I feel sort of sorry for both of them.

McCain, because, after the abuse he suffered at the hands of Bush & Co. back in 2000, could not get over his Presidential fixation and has debased himself over and over again by cowtowing to Bush, Falwell, et. al., hoping that these people that he once scorned will finally let him in the club. Frankly, much of his career has been spent seeking acceptance from the "cool kids". Originally, he hoped that by being a rebel Republican, he'd be popular among the Hollywood & press elites. And it worked. But it wasn't enough to get him elected, because as far as most Democrats are concerned, he's still a Republican. One they might want to have a beer with, but a Republican, nonetheless. So he did a switch, seeking favor from within his party. But, by then, it was too late, he'd pissed too many of them off. And the only reason he's the nominee now is because everyone else in the GOP field proved to be unacceptable to at least one sizable faction within the party (Rudy's too liberal and Romney's too Mormon for the cultural conservatives, and Huckabee was too much of a policy lightweight for the neocons and finance conservatives). In short, everyone else's constituencies killed the one guy they were the most offended by, and none of them were paying attention to McCain, leaving him the last man standing.

Sarah Palin's just like McCain in that her ambition consistently overrides whatever better judgment she may have about her career. I get the sense that when she was approached about taking the VP spot, she must have said to herself "well, how hard can it be?" My sympathy for her comes from the fact that she'll probably go down in the annuls of presidential election history in the same breath as Admiral Stockdale or Dan Quayle as a figure of national ridicule. But don't be misled. Even if McCain loses, we've probably not heard the last of Gov. Palin on the national stage.

Of course, there are limits to my sympathy.

And I suspect that McCain didn't fully appreciate the Frankenstein's monster he'd created by turning Palin loose to stoke up her base with the notion that Obama might somehow be a member of some fictitious joint Black/Muslim sleeper cell.



And, for the record, I'd just like to say two things:

1. If I were Obama, I would stand up during that prime time speech he's going to give the week before the election and say "Yes, my full name is, in fact Barack HUSSEIN Obama, and I have about as much in common with with Saddam Hussein as Bill Clinton has with George Clinton. Think, people!"

2. "Muslim" != "Enemy". My family was all raised in Protestant, Methodist traditions in the country churches on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Yet, my uncle converted to Islam some 30 years ago. And I can tell you that he, his wife, and his six children are among the most thoughtful, considerate, compassionate, disciplined, spiritual people I have ever known. His Islamic faith has given him a core of inner peace and personal strength the likes of which I feel I have almost never seen among even Christian clergy. And the VAST majority of Muslims are like that. Blaming all Muslims for the actions of a man like Bin Laden is like blaming all Christians for the actions of Hitler. Or Jim Jones. Or Timothy McVeigh.

But my point is this:

Even if Obama wins in a landslide next month (which, according to FiveThirtyEight.com, has a better than 50% probability of occurring. Hope springs eternal), these people who are currently literally screaming for his head aren't going anywhere.

The fearful, the paranoid, the hateful - these, too, are very much part of America. Always have been.

And yet, in these very same parts of the country, you probably get the highest recruitment ranks from the military. The highest church participation and activism. These people love this country. Many of them have wildly different, and, in some cases, mutually exclusive view of what this country is supposed to be.

And, as long as no one is picking up a pitchfork or a rope, that's actually OK.

It's called democracy.

I know Kos likes to talk about "breaking their spirits" and Karl Rove was renowned for seeking a permanent Republican majority, the fact of the matter is, short of straight up genocide, neither side can ever get rid of the other.

No matter how much it disgusts or repulses us, that other America is still America. And we could not have what we have without it.

That's not to say that it's a good thing. Far from it. The provincial hatreds and prejudices and fears are, in my mind, a part of our national shame.

And the generational times are changing for the better. But I don't think any of us on either side of the divide should delude ourselves into thinking that we can ever be rid of the other completely.

So, with that in mind, we have to look for the common ground, where it can be found.

And, where it cannot, and it comes to a point where we have to lay hands on each other in a non-Christian way to resolve our differences...

Well, just the thought of that makes me sad. But I have to acknowledge that there may just be some people who are beyond reasoning.

At which point, like Jill Scott said, we just have to take off these rings and deal with it.

It's ALL America. The good and the bad.

But, personally, just like J.J. Abrams, I'm encouraged by the fact that Star Trek is making it's return in the same year that a transformative, hopeful figure like Barack Obama potentially becomes the new leader of the free world. It's no accident that Star Trek's Final Frontier was the projected future from JFK's New Frontier. I mean, who can dispute the Kennedy-eque qualities of a character like this:



Yes, it's always been a challenge. But I, for one, am filled with hope.

The hope that this country will have leadership again who will once again make us proud through their actions at home and abroad. The hope that we will find the means and the will to resolve our most pressing problems while capitalizing on our most golden opportunities.

I believe the cultural zeitgeist is changing. I believe the sci-fi worlds of "Blade Runner" and "Mad Max" where an outgrown of our sense that The Future was dying. But now, people have hope again. The future looks bright again.



There will always be serpents. But that doesn't make the fruits of the garden any less sweet.

Knives in GunFights

I remember back in college watching Shaquille O'Neal play for LSU during the NCAA tournament. He was an absolute monster - at one point, it seemed as though the entire opposing team was defending Shaq as he stood under the basket, and the other four members of the LSU team all just stood outside of the 3 point line WITH THE BALL, completely dumbfounded as to what they should do next.

They passed the ball to Shaq through quadruple coverage, and he still dunked it for the score.

He was a freight train. And if it wasn't for the other scrubs on that team, he would have been completely unstoppable.

In 1995, Shaq lead the Orlando Magic to the NBA Finals in only his 3rd season in the league.

And this unstoppable superman and his team got swept by the Houston Rockets and one of Shaq's idols, Hakeem Olajuwon. Swept and embarassed.

Shaq admits that this was only the second time in his life that he cried openly. And he said he father told him "I think you paid Mr. Olajuwon a little too much respect."

I watched tonight's debate literally screaming at the TV.

McCain left himself open to at least a half-dozen areas of attack tonight, and Obama didn't take a single one. Not one. Meanwhile, McCain built an argument across the entire debate, like a prosecutor making a case - "Senator Obama just doesn't understand A, B, and C", and concluded that Barack doesn't possess the wisdom or judgement to be president.

And all the while, Obama opened damn near every statement with "John is right about this".

Like Al Gore said, you've got to be ready to rip your opponent's lungs out in a debate.

Obama is brilliant, and charismatic, and has the collective hopes and dreams and positive wishes of an entire generation behind him.

But, as my roommate pointed out, "they still crucified Jesus."

That debate performance may have just cost us the election.

God help us.

Living in a Post-Rational World

So, before all of you liberals, progressives, and Democrats start doing the electoral victory dance because the failing economy has turned the tide presumably in Obama's favor, let me make one observation:

Although most people don't want to admit it, the vast majority of the electorate does not cast a vote for a specific policy or issue, even when they say they do. They're not voting for the issue, but for their emotional response to the issue.

They're not voting FOR a pro-life platform - they're voting because aligning themselves with the pro-life platform makes them FEEL better about their relationship with God.

They're not voting FOR environmental platform - they're voting because aligning with conservationism makes them FEEL like responsible stewards of the planet.

They're not voting FOR gun control - they're voting because the idea of gun control makes them FEEL safer.

As I mentioned earlier, Republicans figured this out a long time ago and decided to just cut out the middle man: they don't even really bother to run on issues anymore. Their campaigns are almost like reality TV shows, with characters cast in the roles as candidates to elicit specific emotional responses.

"The Maverick"

"The Hockey Mom"

"The Guy You'd Like To Have A Beer With"

Bill Clinton got it. He was "The Man From A Place Called 'Hope'".

Obama gets it, too. Just look at the early speeches.

The point is, if you're pinning your hopes for the election on convincing people with a rational argument about taxes and incentives and plans and such, I've got news for you: the average American is not listening.

They're feeling.

And if you want to win, you'd better start feeling and sharing and eliciting those feelings right along with them.

The Place Where Dreams Are Born

Let me wax poetic for a moment.

A few days ago, I wrote a blog post about the use of both negative and positive manifestation through the manipulation of collective emotional energy in the election process. I titled it "Before Sunrise", to hearken back to my Election '04 postmortem, "The Sun WILL Rise" (with a little nod to Richard Linklater), but also because so many of us seemed to be in a dark, scary place during this part of the election cycle, and, as they say, it's always darkest before the dawn.

But what else happens in the dark before the dawn?

We dream.

One of my dreams as I wrote that blog was that there would be a place where people could share their dreams and hopes and aspirations for the future of this country and the world, and where that collective, beautiful, joyous energy could coalesce into powerful, inspired action.

So, imagine my shock when a friend pointed me to this brand new blog:

Change. Hope. Dream.

Yes, a new blog, inspired by MY blog, that does exactly what I was hoping for.

Talk about a manifestation!

Dreams do become real.

So, GO THERE. Share your dreams. Share the blog. Help us all conjure the real magic that will transform the world around us.

Before Sunrise

I love logic.

That comes from my training and natural inclinations towards math, science, and the rational process. I like to know how and why things work.

I have also always been a creature of faith.

Perhaps it's the rural roots of my family and our own brushes with the esoteric and unseen.

And I don't consider these to be mutually exclusive.

One of my all-time favorite books is "Fire In The Mind" by George Johnson. In it, he examines a pair of seemingly mutually exclusive systems of thought in Santa Fe, New Mexico - the nuclear physics labs in Los Alamos and the traditional religions of the local Native American tribes - and shows that, in many ways, they have much more in common than the average person would think. After all, whether it's a sky god or an electron, they both use a series of instruments and tools to predict the behavior of things we cannot experience directly with our 5 senses, but which they both assume have a direct impact on your everyday life.

So, let's start with a somewhat lazy logical argument:

I'm an enormous believer in Arthur C. Clarke's so-called Third Law of Prediction:

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic"

And by "technology", I'm pretty much in agreement with Wikipedia's initial definition that it is "a broad concept that deals with a species' usage and knowledge of tools and crafts, and how it affects a species' ability to control and adapt to its environment."

Now, if that's true, than the logic student in me would also posit a corollary - that anything that appears to be magic is simply the usage and knowledge of a series of tools and crafts that the observer does not fully understand.

In short, magic is simply a science you haven't figured out yet.

Which is why I'm a big fan of John Dee.

For those of you who don't know, Dee was, officially, the queen's surgeon, as in Queen Elizabeth I of England, way back in the 16th century. Not only was Dee a scientist and a mathematician of the first order, he was also a specialist in mysticism and the occult. So, not only did the queen turn to Dee for his scientific acumen, but she relied on him to interpret her dreams, to check the path and influence of the stars, etc. Because, of course, back in those days, if you were a scholar, you studied everything and treated it all with equal weight based on the actual results, without having a bias to one system of thought over another (e.g. rational science over mysticism).

But, you'll notice, individuals in positions of power almost always have someone next to them, just behind the scenes, who is doing.... something that the average layman doesn't quite understand.

Every King Arthur has a Merlin behind him to "work the roots", as they used to say back in "the country", to help him stay in power.

Now, I'm sure some of you have read this and said "wow, Day really hides his insanity quite well. I had no idea he was such a madman."

And that's OK, because I needed to put what I'm about to say in some context first.

I want to talk about Karl Rove.

I know what you're thinking.

And, yes, you're 100% right - I AM saying that Rove is to Bush as Merlin is to King Arthur or Gandalf is to Aragorn and so on and so on.

And it didn't fully click for me until today. Here's why.

Right after the 2004 Presidential election, I wrote a post called "The Sun WILL Rise", in which I said the reason why Bush won was because he was, literally, The Candidate of Fear (tm). The entire electorate had bought into the fear paradigm - Republicans were afraid of what might happen to them if Bush lost, and Democrats were afraid of what might happen if Bush won. But the fact of the matter was that everyone's attention and emotional energy was all focused on Bush. Our collective national fear put him in office.

So, as I wrote in a 2006 blog called "The California Democratic Party Sucks", I was no longer going to vote out of fear ever again, even if the absence of my vote for Phil Angelides meant that Arnold would get re-elected governor. I was only going to vote FOR what I believed in, not AGAINST anything.

And, yes, Arnold was re-elected, but, if you look at his record since then, for all intents and purposes, he may as well have been a blue-dog Democrat for the last two years.

Now, consider what's happened this year - there had been a tremendous amount of positive energy flowing in Barack Obama's direction. He figured out that it wasn't enough to have good policies. You also had to inspire people and activate their hearts. Luckily, he also has the skills to do that. The Democrats were on their way to a landslide victory.

Until McCain chose Sarah Palin as his running mate.

Oh, wait - let me clarify that.

Until Karl Rove and his surrogates who are now running McCain's campaign forced him to choose Sarah Palin as his running mate.

And, while everyone on the left and in the media is screaming "but she's completely unqualified!!! She's a right-wing ideologue!!! She has a history of misuse of power!!!", they've all completely missed the point.

The Rovians made McCain pick her BECAUSE she's unqualified. BECAUSE she's an ideologue. BECAUSE she has a history of misusing power.

They picked her because she terrifies us.

Sarah Palin is The New Candidate of Fear (tm).

And now, instead of all this talk about hope and the future, we get Democrats and Obama supporters running around with their hair literally on fire over the possibility of President Palin.

I mean, people who've been completely silent over the course of this entire campaign have suddenly been bombarding me with crazed e-mails, sounding like Randy Quaid in "Independence Day":

"We've got to stop them!!!!!!"

The entire focus of the campaign is now on her - those who love her, and those who're afraid of her. And, at the moment, our collective national fear is putting her in office.

The manipulation of the emotional state of a group of people as large as a voting electorate is a science that Rove has employed for decades to adjust and control the political landscape to his liking. A science that the average person simply doesn't understand.

It's magic.

So, for those of you who support Barack Obama like I do, here's the plan - remember how you felt when you saw this?


Don't be misled by the news or the opposition: Our candidate gets it. He knows the power of the collective American spirit is what has propelled him this far and is what can bring him to victory.

So, from now until Election Day, stop forwarding all of those e-mails about how crazy Sarah Palin is.

Instead, tell me stories about the America you dream about.

The President and leadership you hope for.

The Future you believe in.

Write about your own faith in tomorrow, and forward THAT email to everybody in your address book. Re-ignite your belief in the horizon and pass those on to everyone you know.

There's a reason why this is Obama's logo:


To paraphrase Harvey Dent, it's always darkest before the dawn, but keep dreaming about the warmth of the sun on your face, and I promise you, THE DAWN IS COMING.

And remember to vote FOR Obama.

What You Got To Say NOW?

Watching that Obama acceptance speech tonight, I kept thinking back to the end of "8 Mile", with Eminem in the final MC battle against his nemesis, Papa Doc, the head of the so-called "Leaders of the Free World" clique.

Now, for those of you who've never seen an MC Battle before, it's basically a competitive performance where two rappers are given a fixed period of time in a hip-hop club to mock each other with rhyming lyrics they make up on the spot, i.e. freestyle. The crowd decides which one dissed the other the hardest, and awards him the victory.

By this point in the film, Eminem, who lived in a trailer park with his broke down mom (Kim Basinger) had just gotten his ass kicked by the entire Free World crew in a team beatdown, after one of them had had sex with his new girlfriend. And his own crew were so lame that one of them had even shot himself in the foot trying to be tough.

But watch how it all plays out. It's profane, but, man, is it worth it.


 After that total tongue lashing, where Eminem basically threw every attack he knew was coming right back in Papa Doc's face, he as completely speechless and was booed off stage. Eminem wins.

I'm saying all of that to say, what could John McCain and the Republicans possibly say next week in response to Obama tonight that could have any weight or value?

Obama just asked McCain and the Rovians "Is THAT the best you've got?"

The balls in your court, boys.

The Leader of the Free World

Damn that Obama!!!! I was supposed to be the first Black president!

PSYCHE. :-)

MSNBC & CNN are 4 years late.

I called this back in 2004, in a blog post I called "The Future".

Barack Hussein Obama is the presumptive nominee from the Democratic Party for President of the United States of America.

Think about that for a minute.

As we sit, a Black man has a 50/50 shot at becoming the leader of the free world.

And, if I can get all Marcus Garvey-ish on it for a moment, we're basically a coin toss away from having a man who looks like, frankly, the majority of the population of this planet, become the de-facto leader of said planet.

A bi-racial man of African descent who was raised by Americans of European descent, who worships with the majority religion on Earth (namely, Christianity), but wears a name with deep cultural resonance with the 2nd largest religion on Earth (namely Islam).

Delicious.

Silence is golden

I'm sure many of you have been wondering why I haven't had anything to say about all of the recent electoral controversies of the last two months. Nothing on Rev. Wright, or Bosnian snipers, or phone calls at 3 in the morning, or bitterness in small town Pennsylvania, or the Weathermen, or flag lapel pins, or bowling, or whiskey shots, or even the debate last night on ABC.

And, yes, I do spend a fair amount of time following these stories, and I have pretty strong opinions. So strong, sometimes, that it literally drives up my blood pressure and makes my hands tremble in fury.

Which doesn't feel good.

So I don't say anything.

Because these things are distractions.

As my roommate likes to say, "they keep us all REAL busy, don't they?"

So, I've chosen to contribute as little as possible to the cacaphony, because, at the end of the day, the choice is really very simple:

If you like the direction the country is going in right now, internationally and economically, vote for John McCain.

If you don't like the direction the country is going in, but feel that the partisan divide in the country is just insurmountable, so that the best we can hope to do is cobble together the slimmest majority necessary to win and then, with no mandate, make whatever changes are available to that 50.01% of us, vote for Hilary Clinton.

If you don't like the direction the country is going in, and that the problems are so big that the incrementalism available to those slim majorities won't be enough to cut it, and are ready to at least try to bridge the partisan divide to build a real majority so that the entire country can be galvanized actually make some significant changes, vote for Barack Obama.

If you don't think voting for either of these three will effect your life in anyway, write in a 3rd party candidate who you think could, if given a chance, and vote for him.
if you don't think voting AT ALL can change the direction of the country, stay at home, roll up your sleeves, and get to work making your own contribution to making things better.

It's that simple.

Ask yourself what you believe, and then act accordingly.

But don't let them waste your time with this crap.

I know it's hard. Because the crap is madly entertaining.

But it's still crap.

Bogeymen

I cannot tell you how many different ways I've tried to start this post, which I think is indicative of how big a topic this is.

Today, I want to talk about fear.

But let's begin at the beginning.

I was having breakfast with a young lady last week, and the topic drifted into the Presidential election. She commented that so many men who say they couldn't or wouldn't vote for Hilary Clinton are, ultimately, afraid of having a woman as President.


Now, of course, I've made no secret of my support for Barack Obama, but, at least consciously, I would never have thought that my opposition to her may be based in some latent misogyny. Quite the contrary, actually: the foreign policy position she's presented has seemed far more belligerent and, frankly, male than most of her Democratic contenders, to the point where, in some instances, she's starting to sound like the Republicans. My opposition to her has, at least consciously, always been based in my general opposition to DLC-style politics (i.e. "We're Democrats who want to beat up the same people as the GOP, so vote for us instead of those girlie-man Progressives"). Which is why I don't like guys like Joe Lieberman (even before he showed his true colors last year), or Evan Bayh, or even, in some instances, Harold Ford.

On the other hand, the Clintonistas will say the same thing that one of my cousins up in Milwaukee said back in 2004 on why he was supporting Bush: "Sometimes, you need a bully." After all, the world is full of scary stuff and scary people. Isn't it obvious that we need someone big and bad to go beat up the scary people?

And this has been the rapp on Obama - he's not tough enough. If he thinks he can talk to the Iranians, or Al Qaeda, or the North Koreans, or the lobbyists, or the big polluters and pharmeceutical companies, he's either a sucker who's too naive to be in office or a coward who's too spineless to get into a fight.

This is the same thing John Edwards was saying before he dropped out. You've got to be ready to take these people on. Because they're coming to get you. Hell, they may already have you.

And MY GOD, if Obama is talking this Hope crap now, just wait until the Republicans get a hold of him! None of us can possibly imagine the onslaught of character assassinations that will be unleashed against Barack by the likes of Karl Rove and Rush Limbaugh and the Swift Boat Vets and all the other cogs in the Right Wing Attack Machine (tm).

And let's not even get into what radio host Stephanie Miller called "Right Wing World". If you thought WE had enemies to be afraid of, progressives, that's nothing compared to the enemies that the conservatives see.

I mean, let's take a step back for a minute. According to Dictionary.com, the definition of conservative is:
–adjective
1. disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.
2. cautiously moderate or purposefully low: a conservative estimate.
3. traditional in style or manner; avoiding novelty or showiness: conservative suit.



And, once you get past the politically specific definitions, you get to my favorite one:
having the power or tendency to conserve; preservative.

Preserve.
Protect.
Defend.

The very definition of the word assumes a state of constant siege. Their enemies are legion.

It's not just specific terrorist groups like Al Qaeda or Hamas or Hezbollah, in their eyes. It's not just specific countries like Iran or Syria. It's not even the whole of the religion of Islam. It is a clash of whole civilizations. Our very way of life is at stake. These people don't just want to kick us out of their countries. They don't just want to control the world's oil supply. They want to enslave us. They want to steal our God. And, barring that, they want to kill as many of us as they possibly can, for no other reason than the fact that we exist.

I think 9/11 is probably the first time that the average white person in America felt like there was a man out there, somewhere, who was plotting to kill them in the most newsworthy fashion possible, simply because of their identity, as opposed to some assumed grievance.

Which is probably way far fewer Black people in America had their world turned upside down as a result of that day: we've lived under the threat of random, indiscriminate identity-based violence & bloodshed for centuries. So what of Osama Bin Laden wants to blow up my office? The LAPD may shoot me tonight before I can even pull out of the driveway, ya heard?

When I was accepted into Princeton, my older brother pulled me aside and explained to me that, when I got to campus, I was suddenly going to be a "nigger", and subject to unspeakable affronts like the kind he experienced at the University of Maryland back in the early 80's. Things like being bombarded with so-called water balloons filled with ketchup, or having to endure regular racist cat calls from trucks full of his fellow students simply walking home from a late class. And that I needed to steal myself for what was coming.

But, see, the funny thing is, by the time he pulled me aside, I'd already been going to school with the sons of rich white people for the better part of seven years, and it simply wasn't the case. The worst racial incidents that I'd experienced there both came in 6th grade - in the first, one kid told me that I was the blackest Black person he had ever seen, and, in the second, another kid called me "Buckwheat". When I confronted him about it, he tried to spin it that Buckwheat was famous (thanks to the Eddie Murphy skit) and that it was meant as a term of endearment. Whatever. It stopped. And, as far as the first incident, hey, let's be honest - I'm a deep chocolate brother and I wear my complexion with pride.

And, in the one instance in my life where a white kid did have the nerve to call me "nigger" to my face, he was inches away from having a "come to Jesus" meeting with my fist before the host at that particular party, my token white friend at the time, kicked the offending child out while his mother pleaded with my mom for forgiveness for exposing me to such riff-raff.

The point is, I'd been around white people for a while.

And I wasn't scared of them.

Now, I'm not saying that I'm some hero or that I deserve a "Profiles in Courage" award. Put me in the room with just about any kind of barking dog, and watch my inner punk flourish.

What I am saying is, fear is easy. It usually goes hand in hand with people who talk about being realistic.

But, personally, I'm tired of being afraid.

In her book, "The Game of Life and How To Play It", Florence Scovel-Shinn defines fear as having perfect faith in evil.

It's that other 'F' word that was key for me.

Faith.

And not the way Mike Huckabee means.

Like I wrote the morning after the 2004 Presidential Election in "....the sun WILL rise...", I suddenly understood that I had been a willing participant in a system that validated evil, even if it was only as the lesser of two.

And, in that moment, I decided that I would NEVER, EVER vote for someone because I was afraid of something ever again.

When I wrote "The California Democratic Party SUCKS" back during the 2006 Gubernatorial Election, I caught a lot of flak from my local progressive friends for saying that I would not vote for the Democratic candidate, Phil Angelides, even if that meant re-electing Arnold. They were all terrified of 4 more years of Herr Schwarzenegger. But I had faith that, by not choosing the lesser of two evils, I would get closer to the outcome that I wanted. In short, I put it in the hands of a higher power.

Two years later, I think most Californians will agree that, while he's been less than ideal, the Governator has been a fairly decent steward of the Golden State.

Everyone was so down after Bush was re-elected, and appropriately so. 2005 was an awful year for America. But didn't I say that that particular election was going to be the low point before a progressive surge in the American electorate? Look at the country now - Democratic primaries are seeing, in some cases, double the voter turn out than 4 years ago.... which was already a record year.

My point is, I stopped letting George Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger steal my joy. And that was not blind faith. It was a belief backed by conviction and effort and wisdom. But it is also founded in the fundamental understanding that nothing anybody else can do to me can hurt me more than what I can do to myself.

Which is why I love this little mantra from Frank Herbert's "Dune:
I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.

What so many people may not understand is that Obama is offering the same message and operating on the same frequency as not just RFK or MLK, but of, ultimately, Gandhi.

It's not about Peace Through Strength.

My friends, it is about Strength Through Peace.

Not world peace. Inner peace. Spiritual peace. Human peace. Peace at the center. The peace that passes all understanding.

And folks, you know that I am very much a Prodigal Son when it comes to the traditional church. But the peace that comes from knowing that you are MORE than how a poll or an election or a pundit or an attack ad defines you, let's you confront the smears from the Hannitys and O'Reilly's of the world, directly, without malice, without hatred, and without fear.

The peace that comes from knowing that the true idea at the center of America is much older and deeper and fundamental and eternal and MORE than the political, social, and economic structures that have been put in place on this particular mass of land by these particular people over the last 232 years, and it would be impossible for a group of men in a cave with some explosives or a despot with an army of any size to destroy it - THAT peace lets you confront those with foul intentions with a resolve so steely and a strength so insurmountable that they wither in your presence.

The strength for those confrontations is the same that Gandhi used to dismantle the oppressor of a nation, or that Dr. King used to gain equality for his people.

Now, those who still live in fear simply cannot believe in the validity of any other kind of power besides that which is fear-based. And that's OK.

When it gets scary for them, the rest of us will hold their hands and whisper that it will be alright.

And, honestly, as long as the likes of McCain and even Hilary are preparing to wage war from a place that is ultimately based in fear, neither of them will EVER get my vote. Even if she is the Democratic nominee.

Like I've said before - I'm MORE. And until she realizes that she is, too, she cannot possibly represent me.

And I have faith that the world will unfold to my liking as long as I am true to who I am and what I believe.

Just like the State of California did. And just like the American electorate did.

In short, I think it's time for us all to get past our fear, and have the courage to hope for the world and the life we truly desire.

In all of the areas where you feel the tension to be secure, to be protected, to be safe from the Bogeymen... in every place where you hold your fear like a warm, soothing blanket:

Fear of Republicans.
Fear of Liberals.
Fear of Homosexuals.
Fear of Homophobes.
Fear of white people.
Fear of black people.
Fear of Bush.
Fear of McCain.
Fear of Hilary.
Fear of Obama.
Fear of Bin Laden.
Fear of women.
Fear of men.
Fear of failure.
Fear of success.
Fear of Satan.
Fear of God.
Fear of life.
Fear of death.

Let.
It.
Go.

Because you're already safe.

How could you not be?

You're MORE.

YES WE CAN

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't going to tell you who to vote for. But don't just take my word for it.



Wouldn't it be just poetic for Obama to become the first African-American presidential nominee of a major American political party during Black History Month?