June 25, 2007

The crux of my argument is that there are, as of this writing, only 170 days left in summer. For some this is a difficult thesis, but I am willing to defend it if you would only have a little suspension of disbelief. Picture how I am living…

Why I Cannot Conceivably Vote for Barrack Obama

        If it comes down to it, I am more convinced than ever that Obama cannot even win the black vote. More evidence suggests that Obama doesn’t identify with African-american culture, almost in the same vein as Condoleezza-lies-a-lot Rice. Instead of lending his face to a backwards war and generally pretending that African-american angst doesn’t exist though, Obama takes the quickest and cheapest shot possible as evidenced by his “personal responsibility” speech in which he derided African-american males to take care of their illegitimate children and to stop pointing the finger at social injustices. (June 19, 2007 Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/18/AR2007061801363.html )

        He is not the product of slavery, so it is rather easy for him now to discredit the effects of such a terrible institution. Personal responsibility is important and essential to the success of the black community as a whole. Men and women alike are confronted with that daily in their choices. However, until you can remove the system of oppression that perpetuated the Social irresponsibility in the first place then you will make little overall progress no matter what happens at the individual level.

Sure, guys like Obama have succeeded. (Great for you Obama, after only one generation... but there have been others in this country for years compounded by generations with hopes on the shelf: getting the full dosage of a power struggle that Barrack would have at least been partially insulated from in his white middle class upbringing.) Johnny come lately to the ‘hood sounds like he needs to spend more time in Chicago barbershops, even though there is seldom a black man around to tell him that he might want to shift his focus elsewhere. (I wonder if black people could one day go to the brink of extinction here in the United States like the Native American.) I also wonder how much of this type of castigation is not a result of being behind in the polls?

Speaking of politics, I have a confession to make. I am a Republican of the rarest breed: a black Republican of more than four generations who has personally never voted for a Republican presidential candidate. Oh, sometimes I have good intentions of supporting my “party” but overall, I look at the health of the nation when presidential elections come rolling around. (Besides, between the two-party system and Electoral College it is my assertion that we are not living in a true democracy in the first place and all political parties are moot.) My first election was a no-brainer: when Clinton played the sax on Late Night with Arsenio Hall in my senior year of high school, I knew that I would vote for him. Twice, I was rewarded when he won in consecutive terms.

After those elections though, I took serious stock of crossing party lines but in each case saw the Democrat as being the best candidate for America. In light of this troubling war in Iraq, I am already looking at the Democratic candidate that is most suited for getting U.S. out of this fiasco even though I cannot, by law, participate in the Democratic Primary process. This is where you come in. Read my top five reasons (David Letterman style) why I couldn’t conceivably vote for Barrack Obama should he win the Democratic Primary, which at this point seems unlikely. Warning: reasons get more expansive… and even narrower.

5. Barrack Obama is the contrived and charming choice.

Periodicals like New Statesman and Time endorse Obama as a person that could influence the world, but this sort of “journalism” is good for speculation and charming audiences only. Barrack Obama is the feel good candidate at a time when we don’t really need to feel all that good about ourselves. Face it, we screwed up. We ran afoul by going to war against Iraq and Afghanistan when we had troubles in New York City. We botched our attempt at being a global leader in environmental concerns. We bungled up the Middle East further by backing elections in the failed Palestinian state when all of the choices were less than palatable. We erred on the side of caution, and ultimately inaction, when it came to the ambitious nuclear programs of North Korea and Iran. The high esteem that Americans enjoyed at the expense of the rest of the world has sunk in opinion polls because our problems are too many to name right now. This isn’t the best time to pat ourselves on the back.

Do you really need the politically correct answer? Here it goes… I don’t see any brothers like Vernon Jordan around him so I’m assuming he’s going this alone. I can’t think of too many important figures endorsing him, which leads me to believe that Barrack is scrounging for whoever is left and wants to come along on his ride. A book campaign will only get you on a best-seller list. Not that the popular vote matters in this country though. Feel free to read between the lines in both directions.

Part two of the same answer isn’t so politically correct, so there was your warning. Show me the political fat cats willing to go on record and say that they will get behind Barrack Obama 100% right now. Most are hedging their bets until after the primary when they will jump on or off his bandwagon depending on whether or not he actually secures the Democratic nomination. The only problem with this syndrome is that it is often too late to shape the serious debate and issues facing America were it to actually take place. Without the right people backing him right now, I don’t see him forming any hard line stance that can elevate him above any and all Republican comers.

Let’s face it: the white people that could be around him are otherwise enamored with a juicier first. Besides, I honestly think that white people would change the Constitution for Arnold Schwarzznegger before they would elect Barrack.

Given the difficulty in Iraq, I believe that we need a strong military Commander in Chief as our next president of the United States. Barrack has no prior military experience at all. Even George W. Bush knew that he at least had to fake military service in order to be considered for the job of President of the United States of America. Where is Obama’s fake or even slick attempt at fooling people into thinking that becoming a member of the Air National Guard in Honolulu was akin to serving our country honorably? For the record, Barrack was never in the Air National Guard, even in cushy Honolulu.

Granted Obama could have easily joined the Army JAG corps and guaranteed himself a spot “in the rear guarding the gear” for the first Gulf War. He could have further put himself out of harm’s way by signing up for the JAG corps reserve component, but he didn’t. Our country was at war, and Barrack Obama was of age and he chose not to serve –as was his right. The only thing wrong with this is if he had political aspirations at this time and knowingly missed his opportunity to serve the country. There was a time not very long ago when even the elite would not have dared to shirk the ultimate of civic responsibilities while considering a career in politics.

As it stands right now, I am more qualified to lead this nation’s armed services than Barrack Obama, and that is sad. I was once only a fireman in the Coast Guard. Was Barrack Obama even in the Seabees or Civil Air Patrol? Can someone with no prior military service get us out of the brand new Vietnam in the Middle East, bourgeoning Cold War part two with Russia and the potential showdowns with North Korea and China? I don’t think so. Sure there is much that should be left to diplomacy but the reality is that we are already facing a war on three fronts. If the greatest military minds ever assembled couldn’t win a war on even two fronts, what makes people think that Obama can win on three albeit potential fronts?

His Secret Service protective code nickname is “Renegade” but he is far from radical. He thoroughly beat Alan Keyes in the 2004 Illinois Senate election which is proof of his moderation. (Alan Keyes is the quintessential black radical Republican, often full of harebrained schemes and unconventional approaches to long standing problems. The only person that would lose to Keyes in this scenario is Minister Farrakhan.) I think that it pretty much goes without saying that there would be no African-american candidate that isn’t radical. The popular entertainer Wayne Brady could easily trade in his fame and suddenly appear far-reaching if he were to run for office. African-americans are committed to changing the ways of this wicked country through shock therapy, reparations and good old fashioned socialism. Colin Powell could announce that he is running for president tomorrow and because of his stance on Affirmative Action and universal health care, or more aptly the need for the two, he would be labeled a radical by his fellow Republican peers.

Barrack’s presence in the race suggests unity, compromise and an unfailing appeal to the center. The only problem with that stance is that African-americans have never really been interested in the center, along with the rest of American genres. We are a country of competing special interests. His lack of fervor to choose hard stances will eventually serve to cut him off from whatever base he can cultivate. In a presidential election, it is critical to mobilize your base with key defining issues. To date, Barrack Obama really doesn’t have any. His position in the polls already reflects that a year-and-a-half out.

This is a surface issue, but remarkably important to me, and I suspect, other real African-americans but Barrack Obama is barely black. And I really mean “real” in the sense that being an African-american entails taking part or being associated with the negative black experience of discrimination in the United States. Barrack Obama is the product of a foreign exchange Kenyan that was not even nationalized in the United States and a white woman. His mother traces her lineage to the Confederate President Jefferson Davis. By all practical accounts he grew up in a white middle class family in a state that has very few African-americans living in it: Hawaii. He spent significant time in Jakarta during his formative years but the foremost African-american role model is conspicuously absent in his life. With this absence come questions as to whether or not he is truly fit to represent the repair of institutionalized racism and systematic oppression in this country’s vile history rife with chattel slavery.

Many black journalists feel the same way. In her January 2007 Salon article asserting that Obama "isn't black," columnist Debra Dickerson writes: "lumping us all together [with Obama] erases the significance of slavery and continuing racism while giving the appearance of progress." Indeed, the appearance is all that some can concentrate on, as Obama does have the visage and typical phenotype of many black people that have lived in the United States for many generations. Only one thing though: he isn’t African-american, nor was he connected in any way to a significant pool of African-americans during that critical time when he formed his opinion of issues vital to African-americans.

The closest he came to being African-american was receiving an honorary Doctor of Law from Xavier of Louisiana, a historically black college. Somehow, I don’t see Barrack chilling on the yard down in ‘Nawlins though. Barrack is even absent the popular marks of the black talented tenth that have become ever so prevalent after W.E.B. DuBois coined the phrase: he has no African-american fraternal affiliations, he held no high profile social action posts, and he wasn’t even in Jack & Jill. He did play varsity basketball, even though that was in Hawaii where he should have been an All-American given the demographics. I would present this as primary proof that Obama is apparently not that good at basketball though, rather than engage in the stereotyping.

A more poignant and pertinent question to Obama would be “who brought you into the ranks of African-americans in this country?” He would do well to point out who schooled him, but I suspect that Columbia and Harvard University are all that he could come up with. In white society, indeed, that is enough. Black people have always been a different story though… Anyway, call me crazy but if we are about to have a black-white love-in, and put the horrors of slavery behind U.S., as a nation, then it should be a product of slavery leading the chorus and not someone totally unaffected –let alone one affected more by the Confederate cause, laced with the trappings of aristocratic privilege and academic supremacy or elitism.

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Solomon & Me

Solomon, The Builder, makes for a great biblical story.  I recently had the opportunity to reexamine the story at a men’s conference held by the Tried Stone Missionary Baptist Church on February 24 of this year.

There was one caveat in the story that applies to just about every man: we are fallible even in our greatness and divine anointing.  There is no question that Solomon was anointed by God.  He was the richest man that the world has ever seen and the ruler of the known world at the time of his reign.  Solomon was said to possess the entire spectrum of human understanding available to mortal man on this earth: thirty-three degrees.

As you may already know, Solomon was the son of David the great warrior king charged with erecting a house lavish enough to house the word of God.  The Arc of the Covenant would rest in the sanctum sanctorum, or holiest of holies, in the temple that he would construct.  He was said to be the wisest man in all of human existence, and more than capable of the task because of his favor with the Lord and magnificent managerial skills.

 Solomon is well-documented in the Bible and holds the distinction of being both a subject and an author of books associated with the historical collection from which it is derived.  His fame is still increased by the rituals and moral allegories that are based on his great achievements in the oldest fraternity that the world has ever seen, contained in the rights of passage of Freemasonry.  Solomon wasn’t just great in his day, and his name and fame are still in popularly used in global culture.

Solomon was a true renaissance man.  He wrote poetry (Ecclesiastes) and was skilled in the sciences of his time.  Yet even in his anointing and great importance of his task, a flaw in his character was allowed to remain and fester.  Solomon was also a terrible womanizer.  They say that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, and as a son of David, it is easy to see how his impulsive decisions regarding associating with women could get him into trouble.  The Bible says that Solomon had 700 wives and princesses to go along with his 300 concubines.  That is quite a number of women to keep satisfied, even for the richest and wisest man in the world.

What is more, though, Solomon loved women of a different sort than his own kind.  Being a God-fearing man was enough for Solomon, but he didn’t impose his own belief system on his wives’ or other associates.  At first one can see that this could be interpreted as a sign of his tolerance, but the problem with Solomon’s taste in women brought him out of favor with the Lord because of disobedience.  The Lord wanted Solomon’s great attributes all for His glory and Solomon began appeasing his wives’ by building lesser temples for their heathen gods in Israel after completing his life’s purpose. 

One by one, all of his wives’ turned away from Solomon in his old age and he was left empty because his true fulfillment came from the God that was now angered with him.

For all of Solomon’s flaw, though, it is important to note that he was still God’s favorite.

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