Racism Over? I don't think so

Inauguration of Abraham Lincoln

The hundreds of thousands that are filling up the mall in D.C. for the inauguration are not an indication of racism gone away, or diminished. It is still there. Its in the song the RNC made of Obama. That is big stuff, not a local level issue. Obama is there for many reasons. One of course, the guy is incredibly intelligent, articulate, wise and many other things. Plus he was pushed along by us having a president that was totally the opposite. But then, does that mean we are less racist?


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Far Fewer Consider Racism Big Problem
Little Change, However, at Local Level


By Michael A. Fletcher and Jon Cohen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, January 19, 2009; Page A06

As President-elect Barack Obama prepares to take office, far fewer black and white Americans say they view racism as "a big problem" in American society than said so in mid-1996, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

With the nation poised to inaugurate its first African American president, the survey found that just over a quarter of all Americans said they see racism as a large societal problem, less than half of the 54 percent who said so about a dozen years ago. Americans also have high hopes that Obama -- who is of mixed-race parentage but refers to himself as African American -- will inspire an improvement in race relations.

But even as declining numbers of Americans see racism as a big problem for the country, there has been little change in the amount of racism people perceive in their local communities. The survey also found that there has been little change over the past six years in the proportion of African Americans who said they have experienced racial bias in housing, employment and other areas... more

Can a U.S. President Save the World?

It wouldn't have seemed possible until we saw George W. Bush almost destroy the world. If one American president can cause so much chaos, then another can bring just as much resolution to the world's problems.

It is not so much that Obama is so special (although he is quite remarkable)... it is what he represents... it is what we as the American populace has become. The presidency is a mirror of the nation. If we elected Barack Obama it is because we are ready for his type of leadership.

As many have said. Thank you George W. Bush for your terrible presidency. Without the mess you created, we might not have been as open to someone like Obama.

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Wanted: A New U.S. Grand Strategy

by Fareed Zakaria
Washington Post
December 13, 2008

Barack Obama's campaign for president began with his opposition to the war in Iraq. But before last week's terror attacks in India, the subject of foreign policy had disappeared, almost completely overshadowed by the economic crisis.

This doesn't mean that international issues will be ignored. No doubt the national security team Obama is announcing this week will be quick to tackle the many issues in their inbox, and will likely do so with intelligence and competence. There are enough problems to occupy them fully -- Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, al-Qaeda, Iran, Russia -- and they will face unexpected crises like the Mumbai assaults.

But we must hope that as president, Obama does more than select a good team, delegate well and react intelligently to the problems that he will confront. He must have his administration build a broader framework through which to view the world and America's relations with it -- a grand strategy.

At this moment, the United States has a unique opportunity to push forward a vision that aligns its interests and ideals with those of most of the world's major powers. But it is a fleeting opportunity. Grand strategy sounds like an abstract concept--something academics discuss -- and one that bears little relationship to urgent, jarring events on the ground. But in the absence of strategy, any administration will be driven by the news, reacting rather than leading. For a superpower that has global interests and is forced to respond to virtually every problem, it's all too easy for the urgent to drive out the important...


President-elect Obama has powers of his own... I will not exaggerate the importance of a single personality, but Obama has become a global symbol like none I can recall in my lifetime. Were he to go to Tehran, for example, he would probably draw a crowd of millions, far larger than any mullah could dream of. Were his administration to demonstrate in its day-to-day conduct a genuine understanding of other countries' perspectives and empathy for the aspirations of people around the world, it could change America's reputation in lasting ways.

This is a rare moment in history. A more responsive America, better attuned to the rest of the world, could help create a new set of ideas and institutions -- an architecture of peace for the 21st century that would bring stability, prosperity and dignity to the lives of billions of people. Ten years from now, the world will have moved on; the rising powers will have become unwilling to accept an agenda conceived in Washington or London or Brussels. But at this time and for this man, there is a unique opportunity to use American power to reshape the world. This is his moment. He should seize it.

Posted by Fareed Zakaria on December 1, 2008 12:14 PM

link to complete article

Bush Administration says Obamas can't move into Blair House early

It seems very strange that the Bush administration will not let the Obamas move into Blair House before January 15th. Obama asked for the accommodations so that his daughters could start school right after the holidays, thus making their transition less stressful. Blair House is logical, especially because of the heightened security it can offer. Plus, having Obama across the street from the White House would probably make the country feel a little more secure. Maybe Bush thinks Obama will be too close for comfort. No matter what the reason, has anyone ever heard of a president-elect being denied a request of this nature?

It would be interesting to see what is really on the Blair House schedule that is more important than a request from our incoming president.

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The Blair House web site states:

Blair House has stood in front of the White House for more than 180 years, witness to events of extraordinary importance for the nation and her people. For decades the rooms of this stately home have played an even more active role, serving United States foreign policy as a gracious residence, meeting place, and sanctuary for visiting heads of state.

Obama aides: White House says Obamas can't move into Blair House early, other events scheduled

By PHLIIP ELLIOTT | Associated Press Writer
Chicago Tribune
3:29 PM CST, December 12, 2008

CHICAGO (AP) — President-elect Barack Obama asked the White House if his family could move to Washington earlier than normal, but aides say the White House couldn't give them the official guest house as early as his family wanted.

The Obamas had asked White House officials to move into Blair House about two weeks before the traditional date so their two daughters could start their new school when classes resume Jan. 5. Obama aides say the White House told them that the request cannot be met because the current administration still has plans for the historic government home across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House.

An Obama aide said the family was told that there were previously scheduled events at the Blair House and guests could not be displaced. The aide, who was not authorized to speak about Obama family matters, spoke on the condition of anonymity...more

I - Obama's Heritage of Political Activism

Interesting how leadership and activism often don't just erupt in a person.  Obama is a third generation political mover...  Think of the difference between the first generation and the third.

On another note.  The London Times has a knack for bad titles...

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From The [London] Times
December 3, 2008
Beatings and abuse made Barack Obama’s grandfather loathe the British

by Ben Macintyre and Paul Orengoh 

The President-elect’s relatives have told how the family was a victim of the Mau Mau revolt

Barack Obama’s grandfather was imprisoned and brutally tortured by the British during the violent struggle for Kenyan independence, according to the Kenyan family of the US President-elect.

Hussein Onyango Obama, Mr Obama’s paternal grandfather, became involved in the Kenyan independence movement while working as a cook for a British army officer after the war. He was arrested in 1949 and jailed for two years in a high-security prison where, according to his family, he was subjected to horrific violence to extract information about the growing insurgency.

“The African warders were instructed by the white soldiers to whip him every morning and evening till he confessed,” said Sarah Onyango, Hussein Onyango’s third wife, the woman Mr Obama refers to as “Granny Sarah”.

Mrs Onyango, 87, described how “white soldiers” visited the prison every two or three days to carry out “disciplinary action” on the inmates suspected of subversive activities.

“He said they would sometimes squeeze his testicles with parallel metallic rods. They also pierced his nails and buttocks with a sharp pin, with his hands and legs tied together with his head facing down,” she said The alleged torture was said to have left Mr Onyango permanently scarred, and bitterly antiBritish. “That was the time we realised that the British were actually not friends but, instead, enemies,” Mrs Onyango said. “My husband had worked so diligently for them, only to be arrested and detained.”

Mr Obama refers briefly to his grandfather’s imprisonment in his best-selling memoir, Dreams from My Father, but states that his grandfather was “found innocent” and held only for “more than six months”.

Mr Onyango served with the British Army in Burma during the Second World War and, like many army veterans, he returned to Africa hoping to win greater freedoms from colonial rule. Although a member of the Luo tribe from western Kenya, he sympathised with the Kikuyu Central Association, the organisation leading an independence movement that would evolve into the bloody uprising known as the Mau Mau rebellion.

“He did not like the way British soldiers and colonialists were treating Africans, especially members of the Kikuyu Central Association, who at the time were believed to be secretly taking oaths which included promises to kill the white settlers and colonialists,” Mrs Onyango said.

In his book, Mr Obama implies that his grandfather was not directly involved in the anticolonial agitation, but his grandmother said that her husband had supplied information to the insurgents. “His job as cook to a British army officer made him a useful informer for the secret oathing movement which would later form the Mau Mau rebellion,” she said. The Mau Mau used oaths as part of their initiation ceremony.

Mr Onyango was probably tried in a magistrates’ court on charges of political sedition or membership of a banned organisation, but the records do not survive because all such documentation was routinely destroyed in British colonies after six years.

“To arrest a Luo ex-soldier, who must have been a senior figure in the community, is pretty serious. They must have had some damn good evidence,” said Professor David Anderson, director of the African Studies Centre at the University of Oxford and an authority on the Mau Mau rebellion.

The British responded to the Mau Mau uprising with draconian violence: at least 12,000 rebels were killed, most of them Kikuyu, but some historians believe that the overall death toll may have been more than 50,000. In total, just 32 European settlers were killed.

According to his widow, Mr Onyango was denounced to the authorities by his white employer, who sacked him on suspicion of consorting with “troublemakers”. He may also have been the victim of a feud with an African neighbour who worked in the district commissioner’s office. Mr Onyango, notoriously outspoken, appears to have accused this official of corruption.

According to Mrs Onyango, her husband was arrested by two soldiers, and taken to Kamiti prison, the national maximum-security prison outside Nairobi.

“This was like a death camp because some detainees died while being tortured,” Mrs Onyango said. “We were not allowed to see him, not even taking him food.” She said her husband was told that he would be killed or maimed if he refused to reveal what he knew of the insurgency, and was beaten repeatedly until he promised “never to rejoin any groupings opposed to the white man’s rule”. Even after he had confessed, and renounced the insurgency, the physical abuse allegedly continued.

Some of Mr Onyango’s fellow inmates were beaten to death with clubs, according to Mrs Onyango. “In fact, my late husband was lucky to have left the prison alive without any serious bodily harm, save for the permanent scars from beatings and torture, which remained on his body till he died.”

Like all family histories, retold many years after the events, some elements of Mrs Onyango’s account are hazy. For example, the white men she described as “soldiers” are far more likely to have been Special Branch officers, who wore a uniform that was indistinguishable from military uniform to most Africans.

Mrs Onyango also described an incident of her husband’s “torture”, which was nothing of the sort. “The white soldiers would spray his body with an itching chemical. This, he said, could make him scratch his body till it bled.” Almost certainly, Mr Onyango was being treated for body lice but apparently he was so used to brutality that he assumed the routine chemical delousing treatment was another form of abuse.

During Mr Obama’s first visit to Kenya in 1988, his grandmother recalled the growing resentment against white colonial rule in Kenya, with rallies and mounting violence that would explode into full-scale rebellion in 1952. “Most of this activity centred on Kikuyuland,” she told him. “But the Luo, too, were oppressed, a main source of forced labour. Men in our area began to join the Kikuyu in demonstrations . . . many men were detained, some never to be seen again.”

The British colonial authorities began a sustained campaign to quell the Mau Mau uprising, establishing numerous detention camps that some historians describe as “Kenya’s Gulag”, where inmates were frequently abused. “There was torture in Kenya during the Mau Mau emergency, institutional and systematic, and also casual and haphazard,” Professor Anderson writes in Histories of the Hanged: Britain’s Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire (2005). “Violence . . . was intrinsic to the system, and the use of force to compel obedience was sanctioned at the highest level.”

At the height of the rebellion, an estimated 71,000 Kenyans were held in prison camps. The vast majority were never convicted. Letters smuggled out of the camps complained of systematic brutality by warders and guards. According to the Harvard historian Caroline Elkins, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her exposé of British atrocities during the Mau Mau uprising, there were reports of sexual violence and mutilation using “castration pliers”. “This was an instrument devised to crush the men’s testicles,” she writes in Britain’s Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya (2005). “Other detainees also described castration pliers, along with other methods of beating and mutilating men’s testicles.”

Several hundred letters from camp inmates survive in the Kenyan National Archives, “chronicling camp conditions, forced labour, torture, starvation and murder”, according to Ms Elkins. One white policeman, Duncan McPherson, told Barbara Castle, the former MP, that conditions in some detention camps were “worse, far worse, than anything I experienced in my 4½ years as a prisoner of the Japanese”.

Mr Onyango was 56 when he was arrested, and he emerged from imprisonment prematurely aged and deeply embittered. In his memoir, Mr Obama described his grandfather’s shocking physical state: “When he returned to Alego he was very thin and dirty. He had difficulty walking, and his head was full of lice.” For some time, he was too traumatised to speak about his experiences. Mrs Onyango told her grandson: “From that day on, I saw that he was now an old man.”

Understandably, Mr Onyango held a lifelong grudge against the British for the way he had been treated, yet he was doubtful that the independence movement would succeed. “How can the African defeat the white man,” he told his son, “when he cannot even make his own bicycle?”

Barack Obama Sr, Mr Onyango’s son and the President-elect’s father, seems to have inherited his father’s attitudes towards the colonial power. He was also arrested, for attending a meeting in Nairobi of the Kenya African National Union (Kanu), the organisation spearheading the independence movement. Mrs Onyango told Mr Obama that his father, unlike her husband, had been held only for a short time in the white man’s prison: “Because he was not a leader in Kanu, Barack was released after a few days.”

Mr Onyango was a victim of the fight for Kenyan independence, but his son became a direct beneficiary of that movement. In 1960, Barack Obama Sr travelled on a scholarship to the University of Hawaii, as part of a programme (sponsored by John F. Kennedy) to train young Kenyans to rule their own country.

Mrs Onyango said that the combative spirit shown by her husband during Kenya’s bloody independence struggle has passed down through the generations to the future president. “This family lineage has all along been made up of fighters,” she said. “Senator Barack Obama is fighting using his brain, like his father, while his grandfather fought physically with the white man.”

Bloody birth of a nation

— In 1895, the British Government establishes the East Africa Protectorate and opens up the fertile highlands of Kenya to whites

— Kenya becomes a British colony in 1920. A year later, members of the Kikuyu tribe, angered by exclusion from political representation, form Kenya’s first African political protest movement

— In 1952, the Mau Mau rebellion against colonial rule erupts and for the next seven years Kenya is under a state of emergency

— Uprising is put down by military action and the detention of thousands of Mau Mau suspects in prison camps. Only 32 European civilians are killed in the violence, but more than 50,000 Africans are believed to have died

— Kenya becomes independent on December 12, 1963, with Jomo Kenyatta elected its first President

II Obama's Heritage of Political Activism

Here are comments from the London Times articles on Obama's grandfather's association with the Kenya African Union

link to comments

Emma, Southampton UK You are quite right in arguing that history is never that clear cut as to label good and bad guys. The problem is that a certain influential world leader forcibly defined several nations as all "evil "and others including his own country as all "good".

M.Murakami, Tokyo, Japan

Unfortunate incident however, we shouldn’t lose sight of the brutality of the Mau that brought on that sort of response. And the truth is that Kenya has gained far more from colonialism than it lost, today's Kenya's ministers still regard foreigners as a convenient cash cow.

Andrew , Adelaide, Australia

The British will definitely have committed sins in the colonial era, some government instructed and some through soldiers own behaviour.

I am not sure of the point of dragging this up again. This was quite some time ago. Britain is not the same now and did many good things in its past.

Talese Amer, Londontown,

Mr Woodward in Manchester omits that slavery in the US was, pre-independence - British. It is unfair to call it America's original sin...It was simply another in a long litany of European imperial sins. One of which was Kenya.
Stockton Mick and Dublin Mick: same person? Bit like Ireland and UK...

GB, Berlin, Germany

If you are interviewing Sarah Onyango, why don't you ask her where exactly Obama was born? I thought she was not allowed to speak to reporters.

Mary, Oklahoma, USA

The British never left Kenya. They own huge acres of land in Rift Valley Province; control tourism, tourist resorts hotels everywhere in Kenya. Tribalism and tribal strifes in Kenya are merely divide and conquer British tools unleashed by British trained Africans homeguards posing as leaders!

AKECH, New Brunswick,

It's payback time!

You Brits better watch out ;-)

rachael78, New York, USA

Made "civilised"? Big cities, capitalism and tea parties are not the only definition of civilisation.

Before the Roman Empire tribes of "barbarians" roamed Europe and killed each other and the Romans made them civilised by, erm, killing them. Yes, very logical.

AnneMarie, Cork,

The abundance of cameras makes this very hard to do today. I mean, look at the very benign torture that was exposed at Abu Griab. Even the communist country of China can't hide their atrocities.

I hope Obama isn't hiding a grudge that will destroy many.

Timuchin, Jacksonville, FL, USA

Yes, that sort of thing happens all over, but how much of it is told to tell the TRUTH; for instance, here in America, Palm Beach, Florida where blacks lived on the Island in little shanty shacks that Flagler himself had burned down and proclaimed he was the first to inhibite the Island. Not true.

Ms. Machalle Brown, West Palm Beach, USA

This is not surprising. Britain and Europe in general are notoriously, violently racist societies, far more than the US ever was. The sad part is that you still are, and yet you don't even realize it, that's how much racism is ingrained in your "enlightened" society.

Cherry, Brooklyn, NY, USA

I´ve no doubt that the British tortured in every colony Why are people so defensive about ´´their ´´ancestors..Look at the recent events in Kenya, torture and indiscriminate killings commonplace.Why should Obama hate the Brits,anymore than white Americans for the they treat black Americans in USA.

edward donagher, ajijic, mexico

""Hopefully Obama is sensible and educated enough not judge a nation of 6m people on the actions of a few.""

Isn't this what the rest of the world did to innocent citizens of the U.S. when you assaulted and abused us for one man's policies? So how tight does that shoe feel on the other foot now?

Cherry, Brooklyn, NY, USA

Every country can be held responsible for things like this:
US- slaughter of Native Americans
Spain- slaughter of South Americans
Turkey- Armenian Genocide
Germany- Holocaust
France-slave trade
Rwanda- Genocide
Its everywhere! The Brits upheld law and order for a long period of time and helped many.

George Woodward, Manchester, UK

The problem with this story is the Mau Mau emergency was not declared until 3 years after Obama's father's supposed work.His relatives also claimed Barack Obama was born in Kenya. Elkin's book was a work of "advocacy"- as she admitted..

Peter Gee, Nairobi,

While the treatment of Obama's father does Britain no credit, perhaps his grandson would do well to reflect that had he been born in Afghanistan and acted in a similar fashion, he might now be languishing in Guantanamo Bay.
Hopefully this will enable him to take positive steps to prevent terrorism.

Mike, Eastbourne, UK

By 1953, almost half of all Kikuyus had no land claims at all. The results were worsening poverty, starvation, unemployment and overpopulation. The economic bifurcation of the Kikuyu set the stage for what was essentially a civil war within the Kikuyu during the Mau Mau Revolt.

Winston Montgomery, Cors, Wales

By 1948, 1.25 million Kikuyu were restricted to 2000 square miles (5,200 km²), while 30,000 settlers occupied 12,000 square miles (31,000 km²). The most desirable agricultural land was almost entirely in the hands of European settlers.

Winston Montgomery, Cors, Wales

Christine, USA.

Smallpox infected blankets.....

I presume your ancestors were plains Indians. I'd suggest looking a little closer to home for the big player killer of Plains Indians than here.....

Personally I'll never forgive the Italians for the sacking of Iceni.

Dave St Peters, London,

The wider point was that this happened 60 years ago and Britain's standards have supposedly changed since then. Guantanamo suggests that America's have not. We cannot change history, only the future. The best way we can honour Obama's grandfather and others like him is ensuring it never recurs.

Jonathan, London,

Hopefully Obama is sensible and educated enough not judge a nation of 6m people on the actions of a few. Every nation on this earth - Obama's included - has shameful events in their histories. Hindsight makes it easy to label good and bad guys - in reality history is never that clear cut.

Emma, Southampton, UK

It is so sad to read the comments that the British 'civilized' other societies. You certainly weren't very civilized when you supplied pox infected blankets to my ancestors! Civilized? You take but those you took from were not happy shining your boots or making your tea? Clean your mirror!

Cristine, NC, USA

does mick from dublin want a lollipop? or just a little footnote about ireland and some sympathy? Sounds to me like Obama's great grandfather was nothing more than a traitor and was treated accordingly. This article takes a dangerously sympathetic and casual outlook on the actions of the Mau Mau..

Rob, London,

For matt who thinks Caroline Elkin's work was sensational, you can thank your propaganda machinery. please come to kenya one day and let me introduce me to some survivors of the British Gulag then you can speak with authority. better still you can visit your colonial office and ask to see the record

Wachira, Nakuru, Kenya

I think calling the British Empire "evil" is a display of profound ignorance. Sadly, it's the product of national masochism - rather than see the good and the bad, we choose to only see the bad. Law, order, intolerance, servitude, education, justice, injustice - these were all parts of the Empire.

James David, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK

mike, stockton, uk: In my travels when I indicate that I'm Irish not English, people generally launch into an unwanted tirade of abuse about the Brits. I guess they mean people like you. At a time when peace is finally achieved in the North, I find your comments provocative and far from civilised.

Claire, Brussels, Belgium

Of course the Mau Mau never tortured anyone and always respected human rights and treated British soldiers and Kenyan police officers according to the Geneva Convention. They also never organised themselves into gangs butchering loyalist Africans with machetes. Rose tinted history is great isn't it?

John, Manchester, UK

I think if Mick Stockton reads his history books again he will find that it was the Irish missionaries in the Dark ages who civilised not only England but Europe as well.

mick, preston, england

You may want to mention that Caroline Elkins work has been overwhelmingly criticised, with many stating it's purely sensationalist, one stating "'I shudder for those of her students who expect academic rigour: Elkins doesn't let facts stand in the way of a good rant.'" .

matt, nottingham,

There seem to be many notions this article inspires. My take away was that the life of a father effects, but is never the same as the life of the son. That and how amazing opportunities can change in a generation.

Mary, Chicago, USA

Seems fairly likely; we certainly behaved quite badly in Kenya.

David, Maldon, UK

You don't gain and maintain an Empire by being nice to people. Look at all the Empires throughout history. We have to remember the world is a very different place to even 50 years ago. It is very easy to get on our human rights high horse and condemn every Empire throughout history.

Chris, London, UK

What a suprise - the Empire tortured people. It's not an unusal story, it's a well known fact that the British Empire was as brutal and represive as allmost any other - the actions of the Colonial autoritys are directly comparable to those of figures such as Mao, Pinochet or Stalin. It was evil.

James, London, UK

Ah ha, some compensation seems to be called for, I'm sure we can pay for one of our human rights lawyers to represent the family, which will soon number in the thousands.

John, lincoln,

Today the Americans and the British just use African dictators to do that to Africans. Witness all the papa leaders they patron like Museveni. The American's fund and arm Meles of Ethiopia to brutally occupy Somalia. Nothing has changed.

Sam Hudson, London, UK

wish we had done a better job!

Maybe Irish Mick should realise Ireland wouldnt be civilised if it was not for the British!

mike, stockton, uk

Barack Obama must therefore know in his heart that no matter who does it or when it occurs in the historical sense torture is wrong, tends to create destructive attitudes in both the torturer and the victim and has no place in a modern civilised nation. We must hope he puts that lesson into practice

Chris Coles, Medstead, Alton, United Kingdom

Small World. What a turnaround!

rosalie a abbey, Phoenix,

Since William Ayers wrote most of Obama's first book, we should ask Ayers how Obama described this to him. That would tell us how Obama regards the British and the white man in general. That would be an interesting conversation.

Lee Ruth, Athens, USA

They did the same to the Irish...for about 300 years.

Mick, Dublin, Ireland

Given the difference in the stories told, I would say one is probably true and the other a total fiction told for attention.

Nona, New York City, USA

So the Obama's Granfather betrayed those who trusted and provided a living for him, put his British friends lives at risk, became a non-uniformed combatant spy for the rebels, and when caught (in an age when spies would be automatically shot) THEN he realised that the British were the enemy!

Tom Genin, Seymour, CT

What a sad tale of oppression. Present day African leaders treat their own kind just as cruelly as the Brits treated the Africans if not worse. Idi Amin comes to mind, Rwanda's genocide, Sudan, Darfur et al. Humans are the cruellest of all creatures and yet they can also be the noblest. Strange!

Naomi, Lodi, USA

The ways of empire and occupation don't change. Direct link from Kenya to Palestine to Iraq and Afghanistan. Dear professor claims it was white man's burden eh..

rh, la, us

III Obama's Heritage of Political Activism

They Fought For Britian, then turned to rebellion
December 3, 2008
London Times

by David Anderson

The story of Hussein Onyango Obama’s political activism will make Kenyans proud, and might also give some Americans a new insight into their President-elect. Having answered the call to join the British Army during the Second World War, Barack Obama’s grandfather was among 75,000 Kenyans who served in Burma. Demobilised after the war, they came home with bulging pockets and high expectations. But having fought for freedom against the Japanese, they returned to a colony that had little to offer.

Unable to find dignified jobs, and thwarted in their efforts to invest their savings in small businesses by colonial rules and regulations, the ex-soldiers became disillusioned and dangerous. Obama plied his trade as a cook, and took domestic service with a British Army officer in the White Highlands.

As a new nationalist politics emerged after 1945 to challenge colonial rule in Kenya, the returning soldiers were in the vanguard of protest. Some affiliated to the KCA (Kikuyu Central Association). Later many more flocked to the broader-based KAU (Kenya African Union) that replaced the KCA in 1946. Obama, a Luo from Nyanza province in the west of the country, was among many for whom the nationalist reach of the KAU held appeal.

The KAU had begun organising the collection of funds by 1947. The next year a more radical group within the KAU, led by former army comrades from the Burma front, had secretly begun other collections that would buy the weapons with which the Mau Mau embarked upon its rebellion.

Was [Hussein Onyando] Obama connected with this radical ginger group? It is impossible for us to know for sure, and it is doubtful that even his family would have been aware of the political machinations within the KAU at the time, but it does seem the most plausible reason for his arrest and trial in 1949.

Those convicted of political subversion, or of membership of unregistered or banned political organisations, were liable to prison sentences. Violence was endemic in Kenya’s penal system long before the Mau Mau rebellion. Even in the 1930s and 1940s beatings and other punishments were routine. As a prisoner convicted of a political charge, Obama would certainly have been subjected to interrogations by Special Branch, who by 1950 were keen to find out as much as they could about the embryonic Mau Mau movement.

His disillusionment with the British after his incarceration is hardly surprising. But it seems not to have dented his political will. His son, Barack Obama’s father, briefly returned to Kenya after his education in the US and became a supporter of Kenya’s ruling nationalist party under Jomo Kenyatta. But when, in 1965, Kenyatta reneged on his promises to bring social democracy to Kenyans through building a welfare state and consolidating land reform, Obama’s father took up his pen. Writing in the influential magazine the East African Journal, he chastised Kenyatta and his Government for lacking the courage of their convictions. He lamented that without the reforms that were so urgently needed, Kenya’s social problems would haunt its future.

Amid the burning farms and violent mayhem of the early months of 2008, these words were grimly prophetic.

David Anderson is Professor of African Politics and director of the African Studies Centre at the University of Oxford

Obama to the U.S. population - lose weight

After overeating yesterday, it may be good for all of us to read the following report:
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Los Angeles Times

Obama and obesity: Change you can believe in? 1:00 PM, November 27, 2008

In addition to mortgage rescues, banking bailouts and healthcare reform, some people would like to know what President-elect Barack Obama intends to do about the nation's growing girth. Not to worry. A think tank called the Public Health Advocacy Institute, housed at Northeastern University's School of Law, sent a list of nearly 50 legal and policy recommendations designed to combat obesity to Obama's Health and Human Services transition team this week. "Public health, unlike some other national assets, cannot be 'rescued' or 'bailed out,' " PHAI President Richard Daynard wrote in a cover letter attached to the document. "A sophisticated and aggressive federal approach to obesity is desperately needed." Among the recommendations:

* Issue an executive order demanding that all executive branch agencies consider the impact of major federal legislation on the obesity epidemic, similar to the Environmental Justice Executive Order of 1994. * Impose federal taxes, both sales and excise, on purchases of unhealthy foods and beverages and earmark the revenue for obesity programs. * Prohibit and remove all commercial promotion of food in schools and educational settings receiving federal funds.

* Provide funding through the 2009 reauthorization of the federal Child Nutrition Bill to establish a garden in every school. * Establish strict federal regulations limiting food and beverage advertising to children, including the Internet. To see a copy of the document, go to the PHAI website. PHAI is a nonprofit law and policy research organization. -- Shari Roan

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Smart People

Photo of LBJ and Mexican President Lopez Mateos at UC Berkeley in 1964

During the presidential campaign, there was much criticism of Obama and his "elitism" - the natural intellectual prowess that he is now showing us. The writer of the article below says that good presidents don't necessarily need to be smart. Well there are many ways of being smart.

You can be like Clinton who always knew all the facts about everything. Or you can be smart like LBJ who was brilliant at dealing with people and governmental structures. You could be like Obama who not only knows it all but knows how to act like a President (so sad that our last President didn't know how to do that and we were so forgiving -big mistake).

For such important leadership positions, you need both type of smarts. LBJ may not have read Nietzsche, but I still think he was a genius. Growing up in the Texas Hill Country in the early 20th century was not conducive to learning about the great philosophers.

Obama's smarts took a different turn when he left Occidental College in California to go to Columbia University in New York. The environment helped him reach his potential. Too bad so many kids don't get that kind of chance. And thank goodness he did...

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Good Time for a Brainy President
Washington Post
November 27, 2008
by David Broder

...I am struck by how lucky this country is, at the moment, that the president-elect is a super-smart person like Barack Obama.

With each passing day, it becomes more evident that even the smartest and most experienced managers of the American economy are struggling to understand -- and fix -- what has gone wrong in our markets.
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I attempt to follow the discussion in newspapers and on Jim Lehrer's "NewsHour" and other deeply serious television programs about the latest moves by the Federal Reserve Board and the Treasury -- and I am stumped.

The sums are so staggering, the vocabulary so unfamiliar, the experience so uninformative that I have not a clue whether Bernanke, Paulson and Co. are on top of the situation or are inadvertently making things worse.

That's an embarrassing admission. I get paid to cover the government, and this is by far the most important challenge facing Washington. But I am utterly dependent on others to decipher the clues that may unravel these mysteries.

Obama is not similarly handicapped. Even in the emotional maelstrom of his election victory, and even with the pressures of assembling his administration, everything points to his managing to focus on the policy choices looming in the economic field.

I have talked to two people on the fringe of the transition team -- both members of Congress with major responsibilities in the economic area. Both have been asked for input by Obama, and both say that the quality of his questions -- and his follow-ups -- were a measure of the depth of his knowledge of the situation.

He has not been tested that rigorously in the news conferences he has held so far, but his ability to respond to the questions he has been asked, to make his points in a coherent, balanced way and to avoid any misstatement has certainly been a treat to watch...

...for a nation in crisis, it is worth giving thanks for the performance the next president has turned in so far -- and for the mind that is working on the nation's behalf.

davidbroder@washpost.com
for complete article click here

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton has accepted Obama's offer of the position of U.S. Secretary of State.  Now this is going to be an interesting administration.  I wonder how Bill Clinton will be involved, because as most people imagine, Bill can't imagine not being in the middle of things.

At least most of us can say that Hillary Clinton will represent the nation with dignity and (hopefully) honesty.  Let's hope Bill can stay in line.

News
World news
Obama White House
Hillary Clinton to accept Obama's offer of secretary of state job
President-elect Barack Obama reaching out to former rivals to build a broad coalition administration

Ewen MacAskill in Washington
guardian.co.uk, Monday November 17 2008 21.48 GMT

Hillary Clinton plans to accept the job of secretary of state offered by Barack Obama, who is reaching out to former rivals to build a broad coalition administration, the Guardian has learned.

Obama's advisers have begun looking into Bill Clinton's foundation, which distributes millions of dollars to Africa to help with development, to ensure that there is no conflict of interest. But Democrats do not believe that the vetting is likely to be a problem.

Clinton would be well placed to become the country's dominant voice in foreign affairs, replacing Condoleezza Rice. Since being elected senator for New York, she has specialised in foreign affairs and defence. Although she supported the war in Iraq, she and Obama basically agree on a withdrawal of American troops...more

I - Obama and Immigration

'Mixed-Status' Families Look to Obama

By Kari Lydersen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 16, 2008; A04

CHICAGO, Nov. 15 -- The people were of different nationalities and backgrounds, but they had a common refrain: Don't split up our families.

The 300-plus people who attended the meeting Saturday at St. Pius Church in the Pilsen neighborhood were sending a reminder to President-elect Barack Obama to keep his promise to address immigration reform.

"I expect Barack Obama, our engine for change, will do everything he can to keep his promise for comprehensive immigration reform that reunites families who are already separated and keeps families together," said Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (D), who called the meeting and who in the next Congress will reintroduce immigration legislation he co-sponsored last year.

Chicago, Obama's home, has in recent years been at the forefront of the battle over immigration. The wave of massive marches for immigrant rights in 2006 started here, and Chicago groups -- including the grass-roots organization La Familia Latina Unida -- have for several years taken the lead nationally on "mixed-status" families.

The Aguirre and Pulido families that gathered in a Mexican restaurant after sharing their stories at St. Pius are among the nearly 2 million families in the United States with at least one undocumented parent and children who are U.S. citizens. The families' stories, as well as those of others who filled out forms documenting their hardships, will be put in a report and given to Obama.

Ana Pulido's husband came to the United States from Guadalajara, Mexico, at age 15. Ana is a U.S. citizen, and their three sons were born here. Pulido's husband, 35, went to Mexico in 1998 when his father was on his deathbed. He returned to the United States using his nephew's identity, was deported, then returned illegally again. He has a pending deportation order and fears that agents might show up at his home any day.

"I have two choices: divorce him or bring the whole family to Mexico," said Pulido, 31, a real estate agent, who fears that her mother also might be deported. "When you've been married to the same man for years, that's a hard choice."

Her husband, who works as a carpenter and asked that his name not be used, said he has no family or job prospects in Mexico. "My 15-year-old son said if I'm deported, he'll quit school and get a job," he said.

Doris and Robert Aguirre also fear that their family will be split up. Doris Aguirre, 43, who was born in Guatemala, entered the United States illegally with her Honduran-born son, Bladimir. She married Robert Aguirre, a U.S. citizen, and they have a U.S.-born daughter. She and Bladimir have deportation orders, and she fears that she could be sent to Guatemala and her son to Honduras.

But she has faith in Obama: "We gave him our vote of confidence. Latinos voted for Obama; now we're waiting for a response."

"President-elect Barack Obama is committed to reviving immigration reform. This has been a priority throughout his career in public office and will continue to be a priority in an Obama administration," spokeswoman Jen Psaki said...continued

II - Obama and Immigration

Mixed Status Families con't

Washington Post
November 16, 2008

A study by the Pew Hispanic Center found most undocumented immigrants are from Mexico, but there were also citizens with European spouses at the Chicago meeting.

Brian Wilkins, 31, is married to a Bulgarian woman, 26, who was ordered to leave the country after her father's application for permanent residency was denied. Wilkins, who met his wife while selling merchandise on a Britney Spears concert tour, is selling his two suburban Chicago houses and moving to Bulgaria with his wife Dec. 27, even though he doesn't speak the language.

Chicago has led the way in shedding light on such mixed-status families.

In August 2006, Elvira Arellano, the single mother of a U.S.-born son, defied a deportation order and took refuge in a church on Chicago's west side for a year until she was arrested after a speaking engagement in Los Angeles. She now lives in Mexico with her son, Saul, 9, and continues to lobby for immigration reform.

Another Mexican immigrant with a 2006 deportation order, Flor Crisostomo, is "taking sanctuary," as she and supporters say, in the same church.

Some advocates are worried that the administration will not make immigration a priority because of the economic crisis and the controversial nature of the debate.

But Joshua Hoyt, executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, said the economy makes it imperative to address the situation.
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"In a time of economic crisis, it's important to prevent unscrupulous employers from pulling down wages by hiring undocumented workers," he said. "The deportation-only strategy has the effect of destroying families, including the families of many U.S. citizens. If you believe the family is the basic social unit, then that sacred unit should be preserved, and it should not be an ideological or partisan issue."

Anger at Obama doesn't make sense

Obama has more threats than other presidents-elect

By EILEEN SULLIVAN
The Associated Press/Washington Post
Saturday, November 15, 2008; 12:05 AM

WASHINGTON -- Threats against a new president historically spike right after an election, but from Maine to Idaho law enforcement officials are seeing more against Barack Obama than ever before. The Secret Service would not comment or provide the number of cases they are investigating. But since the Nov. 4 election, law enforcement officials have seen more potentially threatening writings, Internet postings and other activity directed at Obama than has been seen with any past president-elect, said officials aware of the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity because the issue of a president's security is so sensitive.

Earlier this week, the Secret Service looked into the case of a sign posted on a tree in Vay, Idaho, with Obama's name and the offer of a "free public hanging." In North Carolina, civil rights officials complained of threatening racist graffiti targeting Obama found in a tunnel near the North Carolina State University campus.

And in a Maine convenience store, an Associated Press reporter saw a sign inviting customers to join a betting pool on when Obama might fall victim to an assassin. The sign solicited $1 entries into "The Osama Obama Shotgun Pool," saying the money would go to the person picking the date closest to when Obama was attacked. "Let's hope we have a winner," said the sign, since taken down.

In the security world, anything "new" can trigger hostility, said Joseph Funk, a former Secret Service agent-turned security consultant who oversaw a private protection detail for Obama before the Secret Service began guarding the candidate in early 2007.
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Obama, of course, will be the country's first black president, and Funk said that new element, not just race itself, is probably responsible for a spike in anti-Obama postings and activity. "Anytime you're going to have something that's new, you're going to have increased chatter," he said.

The Secret Service also has cautioned the public not to assume that any threats against Obama are due to racism.

The service investigates threats in a wide range. There are "stated threats" and equally dangerous or lesser incidents considered of "unusual interest" _ such as people motivated by obsessions or infatuations or lower-level gestures such as effigies of a candidate or an elected president. The service has said it does not have the luxury of discounting anything until agents have investigated the potential danger.

Racially tinged graffiti _ not necessarily directed at Obama _ also has emerged in numerous reports across the nation since Election Day, prompting at least one news conference by a local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Georgia.

A law enforcement official who also spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly said that during the campaign there was a spike in anti-Obama rhetoric on the Internet _ "a lot of ranting and raving with no capability, credibility or specificity to it"... more

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violence towards a young boy makes even less sense

2 Held in Election Night Beating of Black Youth


By CHRISTINE HAUSER and ANN FARMER

New York Times
Published: November 15, 2008

Alie Kamara, a black Staten Island teenager, watched the results of the Nov. 4 election at a friend’s house. Soon after Barack Obama was declared the winner, he walked home alone to his house in the Stapleton neighborhood.

On the way, as he recounted on Saturday, a dark car pulled up alongside him on Vanderbilt Avenue. Two men jumped out and started to chase him. Two others followed shortly afterward.

“They said ‘Obama!’ ” Alie, 17, told reporters in the driveway of his house on Pine Place, recalling that the men were carrying bats. When the men caught up with him they beat him on the leg and head, he said. “I was bleeding by my head.” ...more

Call to stop ICE Raids

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Immigrant Advocates Reach Out To Obama
Coalition Appears in D.C. To Press Agenda, Events


"We voted in the millions, and now we're going to demand progress in the millions," says Angelica Salas of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. (By Alfredo Duarte Pereira -- El Tiempo Latino)

By N.C. Aizenman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 12, 2008; Page B05

Dozens of immigrant advocates from across the country convened in Washington yesterday to call on President-elect Barack Obama to halt work-site immigration raids and fulfill campaign pledges to offer the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States a path to citizenship within his first year in office.


Representatives of the Fair Immigration Reform Movement, a coalition of grass-roots organizations from Los Angeles, New York and the Washington area, also announced plans to mobilize tens of thousands of immigrants and their supporters for a demonstration on the Mall on Jan. 21, the day after Obama's inauguration.

"We voted in the millions, and now we're going to demand progress in the millions," said Angelica Salas, director of one of the allied organizations, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, at a news conference to publicize the movement's efforts...more

Those suntanned people are taking over!

In Poland a lawmaker proclaimed in Parliament that the Obama election would be the "the end of the white man's civilization."  Maybe he's right.  If a "white man's civilization" is defined as an institution that creates a society of second class citizens, openly insults other human beings, and consciously (or unconsciously) provides second class services, education and rights to certain groups in their constituency, then yes, it is the end of "white man's civilization."

It would make total sense that Klaus Emmerich, Artur Górski, and Jürgen Ganse would be afraid.  Their sense of superiority is now threatened.

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from the Washington Post:

• In Austria, Obama's win prompted a harsh, on-air reaction from a well-known journalist, Klaus Emmerich - [in his] interview with the Austrian newspaper Der Standard, he said that "blacks are not as politically civilized." He also called Obama dangerous and implicitly compared him to Hitler, citing his "rhetorical brilliance" and his ability to "appeal charismatically to people."

• Artur Górski, a legislator from the Law and Justice party...In a speech Wednesday, Górski called Obama "the black messiah of the new Left" and a "crypto-communist" who would undoubtedly prove a "disaster."

• Jürgen Gansel, a party leader and an elected lawmaker in the German state of Saxony, blamed Obama's victory on "the American alliance of Jews and Negroes
  

• Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. On Thursday, during a visit to Moscow, he praised Obama for being "young, handsome and even suntanned."
  

Racism Rears Its Head in European Remarks on Obama
Some Public Figures Display Open Scorn

By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, November 11, 2008; Page A15

BERLIN, Nov. 10 -- Europe erupted in cheers to celebrate Barack Obama's election as president, but the continent is seeing its share of insensitive racial blunders, too.

Over the past week, a number of European lawmakers and journalists have made foot-in-mouth comments regarding America's black president-elect, suggesting that some otherwise respected public figures in Europe are far from enlightened on racial matters... more

link to photo

Obama meets Bush at the White House

MONDAY, NOV. 10, 2008 18:08 EST
Salon.com
Obama meets with Bush
WASHINGTON -- Maybe he was just waiting until he had the right reason to drop by, but Barack Obama made his first-ever trip to the Oval Office Monday afternoon, meeting with President Bush for about an hour to discuss the transition.

Obama and his wife, Michelle, who met separately with Laura Bush, arrived a little early for their visit. The Bushes greeted them outside, the four posed for pictures, and then they went inside for private talks.

"President-elect Barack Obama and Mrs. Michelle Obama were very warmly welcomed today at the White House by President George Bush and First Lady Laura Bush," said Stephanie Cutter, Obama's transition spokeswoman, in a statement that called the meeting "productive and friendly." "They had a broad discussion about the importance of working together throughout the transition of government in light of the nation’s many critical economic and security challenges. President-elect Obama thanked President Bush for his commitment to a smooth transition, and for his and First Lady Laura Bush's gracious hospitality in welcoming the Obamas to the White House..." more

Barack Obama Presidential Victory Speech