There is none as Irish as Barry Obama?

In Ollie's Pub, Moneygall, Co. Offaly

Well Obama, came, saw and conquered in Ireland last weekend. The first American President to come to Ireland was John Fitzgerald Kennedy in 1963. His reception was rapturous both as the first Irish American President and first Catholic President of the United States. Since then 5 more Presidents have visited Ireland. Four of them have claimed Irish roots, each of them came on whistle-stop tours full of photo-ops for the folks back home, each of them came the year before an election and, while we must give Barack Obama the benefit of the doubt, none of them made a second trip.

Clinton and Regan had fairly obvious Irish roots but it may surprise you to know that Richard Nixon was also of Irish descent from the Quaker Milhous family from Co. Kildare. Indeed 16 of the 43 Presidents of the United States have been of Irish descent but it may also surprise you that the majority were of Ulster –Scots background. They were Andrew Jackson, James Knox Polk, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, Chester A. Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.



So Barack made the pilgrimage to one of his ancestral homelands and the fact that Kenya is still waiting may reflect the small size of the Kenyan vote in America – over 40 million Americans claim Irish descent. So on Monday 23rd May 2011 the birthplace of the president's great-great-great-grandfather celebrated its brief moment of glory. A hundred flags of Ireland and the United States were raised this afternoon on the only street in Moneygall, Co. Offaly.

Unlike the Kenyan father he hardly knew Barack Obama’s Irish descent is on his remarkable mother, Ann Dunham’s side of the family. He is descended six generations on from Falmouth Kearney who was born about 1830 in Moneygall, Ireland and died 21 March 1878. He immigrated to the U.S. on the ship Marmion on 20 March 1850, along with his sister Margaret Cleary and her husband, William. Moneygall today is a small Sraidbhaile (Street village in Gaelic or one horse town in American) in Co. Offaly and like so many of the impoverished inhabitants of the time they were fleeing the famine or as it is called in Gaelic, An Gorta Mór – The Great Hunger.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/07/gorta-mor-irelands-great-hunger.html

Two years after he settled in the US, Falmouth married Charlotte Holloway. In 1860 they were living in Deerfield, Ohio; the 1870 census has them in Tipton County, Indiana. Charlotte Kearney died in 1877, followed by her husband a little over a year later. They left three sons, and five daughters. One of those girls, Mary Anne, had a grandson called Stanley Armour Dunham. His daughter gave birth in August 1961 to a boy called Barack Hussein Obama.

Canon Stephen Neill from Cloughjordan, who carried out the initial research into President Barack Obama's links with Moneygall, was on hand for the flag raising ceremony and was no doubt gratified at both the visit and how the President introduced himself later when he made a speech in College Green in the centre of Dublin. "My name is Barack Obama, of the Moneygall Obamas and I've come home to find the apostrophe we lost somewhere along the way," he said.


Moneygall, Co. Offaly - centre of the world for 90 minutes

The Stars and Stripes flew beside the Irish flag where the President was met by huge cheers of "Obama, Obama" – on the same spot where President Bill Clinton wooed onlookers in 1995. It was good to see Barry O’Bama deliver his speech in front of the original Irish Parliament Building. It should be the future Irish Parliament building; maybe a bankrupt bank will sell it cheaply?

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/10/irish-parliament-building.html

In the speech Barack Obama last night drew upon the memory of John F Kennedy and Bill Clinton to deliver a powerful message of determination and hope. Capping a momentous day with an address to a crowd of 40,000 in Dublin, he said Ireland's best days are still to come. Speaking of the ties between Ireland and the United States, he said he had "come home".


Barack and Michelle Obama in College Green, Dublin

However, his visit was cut short when he flew on to London the same day to avoid an ash cloud from the latest Icelandic volcano eruption. There was genuine warmth and spontaneity in his speech in Dublin even if the introductory speech by the Irish Taoiseach Enda Kenny slightly betrayed the fact that his Irish host was more used to making speeches from the backs of trucks in Co. Mayo, which he represents in the Irish Parliament.


Obama (with a toilet plunger!) in the 2003 Chicago St. Patrick's Day Parade - He joked (?) during his speech in Ireland that they were so marginalised by the organisers that they were last in the parade, just ahead of the roadsweepers cleaning up

There is a strange irony that Barack Obama was coming to Ireland to claim his Irish roots so he would look less foreign in the eyes of America. And whilst his speech was infectious and appreciated by the home crowd it was not aimed at them. It was the first hustings for Barack Obama’s 2012 election campaign and this time Barack won’t need Joe Biden with him to connect with the Irish vote.

There is none as Irish as Barry Obama?

In Ollie's Pub, Moneygall, Co. Offaly

Well Obama, came, saw and conquered in Ireland last weekend. The first American President to come to Ireland was John Fitzgerald Kennedy in 1963. His reception was rapturous both as the first Irish American President and first Catholic President of the United States. Since then 5 more Presidents have visited Ireland. Four of them have claimed Irish roots, each of them came on whistle-stop tours full of photo-ops for the folks back home, each of them came the year before an election and, while we must give Barack Obama the benefit of the doubt, none of them made a second trip.

Clinton and Regan had fairly obvious Irish roots but it may surprise you to know that Richard Nixon was also of Irish descent from the Quaker Milhous family from Co. Kildare. Indeed 16 of the 43 Presidents of the United States have been of Irish descent but it may also surprise you that the majority were of Ulster –Scots background. They were Andrew Jackson, James Knox Polk, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, Chester A. Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.



So Barack made the pilgrimage to one of his ancestral homelands and the fact that Kenya is still waiting may reflect the small size of the Kenyan vote in America – over 40 million Americans claim Irish descent. So on Monday 23rd May 2011 the birthplace of the president's great-great-great-grandfather celebrated its brief moment of glory. A hundred flags of Ireland and the United States were raised this afternoon on the only street in Moneygall, Co. Offaly.

Unlike the Kenyan father he hardly knew Barack Obama’s Irish descent is on his remarkable mother, Ann Dunham’s side of the family. He is descended six generations on from Falmouth Kearney who was born about 1830 in Moneygall, Ireland and died 21 March 1878. He immigrated to the U.S. on the ship Marmion on 20 March 1850, along with his sister Margaret Cleary and her husband, William. Moneygall today is a small Sraidbhaile (Street village in Gaelic or one horse town in American) in Co. Offaly and like so many of the impoverished inhabitants of the time they were fleeing the famine or as it is called in Gaelic, An Gorta Mór – The Great Hunger.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/07/gorta-mor-irelands-great-hunger.html

Two years after he settled in the US, Falmouth married Charlotte Holloway. In 1860 they were living in Deerfield, Ohio; the 1870 census has them in Tipton County, Indiana. Charlotte Kearney died in 1877, followed by her husband a little over a year later. They left three sons, and five daughters. One of those girls, Mary Anne, had a grandson called Stanley Armour Dunham. His daughter gave birth in August 1961 to a boy called Barack Hussein Obama.

Canon Stephen Neill from Cloughjordan, who carried out the initial research into President Barack Obama's links with Moneygall, was on hand for the flag raising ceremony and was no doubt gratified at both the visit and how the President introduced himself later when he made a speech in College Green in the centre of Dublin. "My name is Barack Obama, of the Moneygall Obamas and I've come home to find the apostrophe we lost somewhere along the way," he said.


Moneygall, Co. Offaly - centre of the world for 90 minutes

The Stars and Stripes flew beside the Irish flag where the President was met by huge cheers of "Obama, Obama" – on the same spot where President Bill Clinton wooed onlookers in 1995. It was good to see Barry O’Bama deliver his speech in front of the original Irish Parliament Building. It should be the future Irish Parliament building; maybe a bankrupt bank will sell it cheaply?

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/10/irish-parliament-building.html

In the speech Barack Obama last night drew upon the memory of John F Kennedy and Bill Clinton to deliver a powerful message of determination and hope. Capping a momentous day with an address to a crowd of 40,000 in Dublin, he said Ireland's best days are still to come. Speaking of the ties between Ireland and the United States, he said he had "come home".


Barack and Michelle Obama in College Green, Dublin

However, his visit was cut short when he flew on to London the same day to avoid an ash cloud from the latest Icelandic volcano eruption. There was genuine warmth and spontaneity in his speech in Dublin even if the introductory speech by the Irish Taoiseach Enda Kenny slightly betrayed the fact that his Irish host was more used to making speeches from the backs of trucks in Co. Mayo, which he represents in the Irish Parliament.


Obama (with a toilet plunger!) in the 2003 Chicago St. Patrick's Day Parade - He joked (?) during his speech in Ireland that they were so marginalised by the organisers that they were last in the parade, just ahead of the roadsweepers cleaning up

There is a strange irony that Barack Obama was coming to Ireland to claim his Irish roots so he would look less foreign in the eyes of America. And whilst his speech was infectious and appreciated by the home crowd it was not aimed at them. It was the first hustings for Barack Obama’s 2012 election campaign and this time Barack won’t need Joe Biden with him to connect with the Irish vote.

Lest we forget!

As we approach the 44th President's Inauguration let us not forget the person who above all others made it possible. Step forward and take a bow, Governor of the Great State of Alaska, (The one next door to Russia), The Honorable Sarah Palin!



PS. Who was the guy she used to run with?

Lest we forget!

As we approach the 44th President's Inauguration let us not forget the person who above all others made it possible. Step forward and take a bow, Governor of the Great State of Alaska, (The one next door to Russia), The Honorable Sarah Palin!



PS. Who was the guy she used to run with?

Obama Nation

Barack Obama has triumphed despite the snide undertone of smear campaigns and the racism which dare not speak its name with the innuendo “He is not like us...” “He is not really an American” “He is a secret Muslim.” Good on Colin Powell who was so annoyed by the negative smear campaign against Obama that he ringingly endorsed him whilst respecting his old friend John McCain;

"I come to the conclusion that because of his ability to inspire, because of the inclusive nature of his campaign, because he is reaching out all across America, because of who he is and his rhetorical abilities - and we have to take that into account - as well as his substance - he has both style and substance - he has met the standard of being a successful president, being an exceptional president," said Powell in his sweeping endorsement. "I think he is a transformational figure. He is a new generation coming into the world -- onto the world stage, onto the American stage -- and for that reason I'll be voting for Senator Barack Obama."

But Powell said he found the implicit religious bigotry troubling and tellingly remarked "He's always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, 'What if he is [a Muslim]?' Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?"

The cheer leader for the smear campaign was Jerome Corsi who received a Ph.D. from Harvard University in political science in 1972 and has written many books and articles, including, Unfit for Command: “Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry”. This was the discredited smear against John Kerry in the 2004 Presidential Election by the Republican Front Organisation, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. John Kerry it must be remembered, despite his privileged background, served his country in Vietnam, was decorated for bravery and had three purple hearts, unlike George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld who when they had a choice didn’t fight for their country. Given his previous form Jerome Corsi parades his “Ph.D.” on the front of his book ”Obama Nation” as if this makes the shallow smear by association contents more believable. In this attempted political hatchet job he tries to show why the alleged “extreme leftism of an Obama presidency would leave the United States weakened, diminished and divided, why Obama must be defeated - and how he can be.” Luckily the American People saw through this warmed up partisan pap masquerading as analysis and Jerome Corsi, Ph.D. or no Ph.D., is now a discredited busted flush.



After Barack Obama's historic victory, one of the greatest taboos in American politics has been put to rest. Almost 400 years after the first African slaves were transported to Jamestown, Virginia, the United States at last has a black president. When Barack Obama takes the oath of office in January, he should say a heartfelt thanks to the pioneers who led the way in the aftermath of the US Civil War.

For it was not until the 1860s, with the exhausted, slave-holding Southern states beaten and occupied by Union troops, that the first great wave of black politicians swept into Washington. Liberated from slavery by Abraham Lincoln, Southern blacks enthusiastically chose other blacks to represent them, sending a total of 17 black senators and representatives to Congress during the "Reconstruction" years of the late 1860s and 1870s.

Tragically, Reconstruction was a false dawn. When Northern troops pulled out of the South after 1876, the old white landowners reasserted their power. Blacks were steadily stripped of the vote, and the last black US congressman finished his term in 1901.



It took the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s to restore the vote to millions of Southern blacks. But although civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King and Jesse Jackson dominated the headlines, few were elected to Congress. They preferred to work on the streets than in Washington - and so, even today, Obama is only the fifth black senator in history.

It's hard to see what this will mean for the world yet. Obama himself has written: "I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views." Is there any better symbol of how the American Revolution can correct itself than the realisation that the first 16 Presidents of the US could have owned the 44th President as a piece of property?

However before we get too excited we need to remind ourselves that the United States is still riddled with racist outcomes which President Obama will need to tackle. To give just one example: the American Civil Liberties Union found in 2006 that although the races use drugs at the same rate, black Americans – who comprise 12 per cent of the population – make up 74 per cent of all drug offenders sentenced to prison. Obama could very easily have slipped into this vortex when, as a young man, he occasionally snorted coke. If he had been arrested and jailed for it like one in five black men, he wouldn't be President; he wouldn't even be able to vote. This election shows a desire by American people to move beyond the sterile stupidities of racism, but it is the middle of the story, not the end. Obama and Black Americans have had to work against “voter suppression laws” which are a disgrace to democracy in states such as Tennessee and Kentucky which work to disenfranchise Black voters. And then there is the great distortion and fetish at the heart of America’s Criminal Justice system – the desire to devote huge resources so America can kill mainly Black and Hispanic prisoners after poor trials, poor defence and poor jurisprudence to ensure it is up there with China, Iran and Saudi Arabia as a State Killer. (http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/09/stay-granted-for-troy-davis.html )



But Obama’s world view will be more complex? A man with a background among the colonised has never before become the head of the world's largest empire. Obama's grandfather was detained in a British Guantanamo for six months during the bloody occupation of Kenya. As a child, Obama watched helpless as the CIA armed and funded the crazed dictator Suharto to commit mass murder of civilians. Yet how much has this informed Obama's policies, as a pragmatic politician working within a system riddled with undemocratic pressures? He certainly disagrees with many of the vicious extremes of Bush, from Iraq to torture. His plans for a massive investment in renewable energy to wean the US slowly off its addiction to oil will have transformed the country's foreign policy, ending its need for the Saudi tyranny and bursts of war in Mesopotamia. (http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/04/britain-in-iraq.html )

But the main effect of will be the demise of the Great American Warrior fighting false and meaningless wars – internal wars against Abortion, Gays, Immigrants and Gun Control, and external wars against Drugs, Terror, Muslims and its totally illegal blockade of Cuba which more than anything has kept Cuba as a communist state, albeit one with a health system and hurricane preparedness which puts the US to shame. America needs to rediscover partnership and give and take – it can not continue to be the spoilt child who only thinks of what it wants and then throws a tantrum when the other kids don’t want to play. Obama will also have the tackle the great poison at the heart of American Foreign policy which, surprisingly you might think, did not rear its head in the Election debate, the issue of Middle East “Rogue States.”

You will not be surprised to hear that this doesn’t include the Middle Eastern “rogue state” which has attacked each and every one of its neighbours including destroying the EU funded infrastructure of Gaza, dismembering Lebanon, occupying the sovereign territory of Syria, occupying East Jerusalem and the West Bank which it is settling and applying collective punishment to the civilian population (in defiance of the “quaint” Geneva Conventions), which has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty and which has developed nuclear weapons. And did I mention that its previous Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, had personally led a terrorist massacre of women and children? During the raid on Qibya, Jordan in 1953, a total of 69 Palestinians were killed and forty-five houses, a school, and a mosque were blown-up. The act was condemned by the US State Department, the UN Security Council, and by Jewish communities worldwide. And the previous Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s father was Quartermaster of the Irgun terrorist organisation (you know the guys who killed both the British and UN Peace Envoys and hanged three British soldiers including a Jewish lad from the East End). Current Prime Minister’s Tzipi Livni’s father was the leader of the Irgun group which carried out the King David Hotel massacre which killed 91 people including 17 Jews. And did I mention that another previous Israeli Prime Minister, Menachim Begin, was the Irgun leader who gave the order? But less of rogue states with terrorist links whose support by the US is entirely contrary to America’s strategic interests. But perhaps Barack might suggest to Israel’s leadership that if it is to survive and prosper it will not do so by military means and it is now a time for change?


Sears Tower from Grant Park, Chicago

Barack Obama’s rally and speech in Grant Park, Chicago on the 5th November inspired more than the American electorate and I am sure, unlike his predecessor after 9/11 he will not squander the goodwill and longing for partnership the rest of the world feels. I spent some time in Chicago in 1982, staying up the road from Grant Park in the wonderful University Club at the corner of Monroe and Michigan and with an office in a law firm high up in Sears Tower, then the highest building in the world so I have some insight into the Chicago he moved to and Chicago law firms which he and Michelle Robinson worked for.

Whatever about “State Street being a Great Street” Chicago was "My Kinda Town" and I came away with an abiding affection for the place. But unlike New York the Windy City was no melting pot. Chicago was the city which bound America together and where it did real business in the products of the Great Plains at the Chicago Mercantile exchange. 22,000 ton “Lakers” ships could come up the St Lawrence and the amazing Great Lakes from the Atlantic Ocean and connect by barge with the Mississippi, Ohio, Missouri, Red and Arkansas Rivers through the wonderfully named “Chicago Navigation and Sanitary Canal.” All railway lines led to Chicago including the great express trains; the “20th Century Limited” from New York, the “Superchief” from Los Angeles and the “Spirit of New Orleans” from the Mississippi Delta.


Downtown Chicago


And from the 1920’s black people and many others fleeing from the failed agri-economies of the southern states, the dustbowl and the Great Depression arrived in Chicago looking for work in the stockyards and abattoirs which once encircled the downtown “Loop.” So Chicago was a black majority city but black people did not exist in the city government which was carved up by the Democratic Party machine under Mayor Richard Daley and others which played to the white ethnic groups who shared the spoils of patronage, the Irish, Poles and Italians. That was until 1983 when Harold Washington united the fractious black groups with Hispanics to redress the balance until, sadly, he died in office of a heart attack in 1987. The lesson of Harold Washington’s campaign was well learnt by the young Barack Obama who has widened the dragnet of inclusion and reaching out to the uncommitted but has done it with an iron discipline and focus. He was, like all successful candidates, indeed lucky, no more so in having George W. Bush as his campaign manager spectacularly arranging a financial collapse and engineering “socialist” solutions which the Wobblies could only have dreamt of! But Obama has made his own luck and I’m sure will capitalise on it, as he said himself in Grant Park;


Harold Washington - Mayor of Chicago 1983 - 1987

“If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours: "We are not enemies, but friends… though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection.

This is our time - to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth - that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism and doubt, and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: yes, we can.”

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/11/government-of-people-by-people.html

Never has the motto of the United States “E Pluribus Unum” had more meaning. And as for Jerome Corsi Ph. D. and his seminal work ”Obama Nation” do rush down to your discount bookstore to snap it up now for 50 cents, as it certainly won’t be reprinted!

Obama Nation

Barack Obama has triumphed despite the snide undertone of smear campaigns and the racism which dare not speak its name with the innuendo “He is not like us...” “He is not really an American” “He is a secret Muslim.” Good on Colin Powell who was so annoyed by the negative smear campaign against Obama that he ringingly endorsed him whilst respecting his old friend John McCain;

"I come to the conclusion that because of his ability to inspire, because of the inclusive nature of his campaign, because he is reaching out all across America, because of who he is and his rhetorical abilities - and we have to take that into account - as well as his substance - he has both style and substance - he has met the standard of being a successful president, being an exceptional president," said Powell in his sweeping endorsement. "I think he is a transformational figure. He is a new generation coming into the world -- onto the world stage, onto the American stage -- and for that reason I'll be voting for Senator Barack Obama."

But Powell said he found the implicit religious bigotry troubling and tellingly remarked "He's always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, 'What if he is [a Muslim]?' Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?"

The cheer leader for the smear campaign was Jerome Corsi who received a Ph.D. from Harvard University in political science in 1972 and has written many books and articles, including, Unfit for Command: “Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry”. This was the discredited smear against John Kerry in the 2004 Presidential Election by the Republican Front Organisation, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth. John Kerry it must be remembered, despite his privileged background, served his country in Vietnam, was decorated for bravery and had three purple hearts, unlike George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld who when they had a choice didn’t fight for their country. Given his previous form Jerome Corsi parades his “Ph.D.” on the front of his book ”Obama Nation” as if this makes the shallow smear by association contents more believable. In this attempted political hatchet job he tries to show why the alleged “extreme leftism of an Obama presidency would leave the United States weakened, diminished and divided, why Obama must be defeated - and how he can be.” Luckily the American People saw through this warmed up partisan pap masquerading as analysis and Jerome Corsi, Ph.D. or no Ph.D., is now a discredited busted flush.



After Barack Obama's historic victory, one of the greatest taboos in American politics has been put to rest. Almost 400 years after the first African slaves were transported to Jamestown, Virginia, the United States at last has a black president. When Barack Obama takes the oath of office in January, he should say a heartfelt thanks to the pioneers who led the way in the aftermath of the US Civil War.

For it was not until the 1860s, with the exhausted, slave-holding Southern states beaten and occupied by Union troops, that the first great wave of black politicians swept into Washington. Liberated from slavery by Abraham Lincoln, Southern blacks enthusiastically chose other blacks to represent them, sending a total of 17 black senators and representatives to Congress during the "Reconstruction" years of the late 1860s and 1870s.

Tragically, Reconstruction was a false dawn. When Northern troops pulled out of the South after 1876, the old white landowners reasserted their power. Blacks were steadily stripped of the vote, and the last black US congressman finished his term in 1901.



It took the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s to restore the vote to millions of Southern blacks. But although civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King and Jesse Jackson dominated the headlines, few were elected to Congress. They preferred to work on the streets than in Washington - and so, even today, Obama is only the fifth black senator in history.

It's hard to see what this will mean for the world yet. Obama himself has written: "I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views." Is there any better symbol of how the American Revolution can correct itself than the realisation that the first 16 Presidents of the US could have owned the 44th President as a piece of property?

However before we get too excited we need to remind ourselves that the United States is still riddled with racist outcomes which President Obama will need to tackle. To give just one example: the American Civil Liberties Union found in 2006 that although the races use drugs at the same rate, black Americans – who comprise 12 per cent of the population – make up 74 per cent of all drug offenders sentenced to prison. Obama could very easily have slipped into this vortex when, as a young man, he occasionally snorted coke. If he had been arrested and jailed for it like one in five black men, he wouldn't be President; he wouldn't even be able to vote. This election shows a desire by American people to move beyond the sterile stupidities of racism, but it is the middle of the story, not the end. Obama and Black Americans have had to work against “voter suppression laws” which are a disgrace to democracy in states such as Tennessee and Kentucky which work to disenfranchise Black voters. And then there is the great distortion and fetish at the heart of America’s Criminal Justice system – the desire to devote huge resources so America can kill mainly Black and Hispanic prisoners after poor trials, poor defence and poor jurisprudence to ensure it is up there with China, Iran and Saudi Arabia as a State Killer. (http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/09/stay-granted-for-troy-davis.html )



But Obama’s world view will be more complex? A man with a background among the colonised has never before become the head of the world's largest empire. Obama's grandfather was detained in a British Guantanamo for six months during the bloody occupation of Kenya. As a child, Obama watched helpless as the CIA armed and funded the crazed dictator Suharto to commit mass murder of civilians. Yet how much has this informed Obama's policies, as a pragmatic politician working within a system riddled with undemocratic pressures? He certainly disagrees with many of the vicious extremes of Bush, from Iraq to torture. His plans for a massive investment in renewable energy to wean the US slowly off its addiction to oil will have transformed the country's foreign policy, ending its need for the Saudi tyranny and bursts of war in Mesopotamia. (http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/04/britain-in-iraq.html )

But the main effect of will be the demise of the Great American Warrior fighting false and meaningless wars – internal wars against Abortion, Gays, Immigrants and Gun Control, and external wars against Drugs, Terror, Muslims and its totally illegal blockade of Cuba which more than anything has kept Cuba as a communist state, albeit one with a health system and hurricane preparedness which puts the US to shame. America needs to rediscover partnership and give and take – it can not continue to be the spoilt child who only thinks of what it wants and then throws a tantrum when the other kids don’t want to play. Obama will also have the tackle the great poison at the heart of American Foreign policy which, surprisingly you might think, did not rear its head in the Election debate, the issue of Middle East “Rogue States.”

You will not be surprised to hear that this doesn’t include the Middle Eastern “rogue state” which has attacked each and every one of its neighbours including destroying the EU funded infrastructure of Gaza, dismembering Lebanon, occupying the sovereign territory of Syria, occupying East Jerusalem and the West Bank which it is settling and applying collective punishment to the civilian population (in defiance of the “quaint” Geneva Conventions), which has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty and which has developed nuclear weapons. And did I mention that its previous Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, had personally led a terrorist massacre of women and children? During the raid on Qibya, Jordan in 1953, a total of 69 Palestinians were killed and forty-five houses, a school, and a mosque were blown-up. The act was condemned by the US State Department, the UN Security Council, and by Jewish communities worldwide. And the previous Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s father was Quartermaster of the Irgun terrorist organisation (you know the guys who killed both the British and UN Peace Envoys and hanged three British soldiers including a Jewish lad from the East End). Current Prime Minister’s Tzipi Livni’s father was the leader of the Irgun group which carried out the King David Hotel massacre which killed 91 people including 17 Jews. And did I mention that another previous Israeli Prime Minister, Menachim Begin, was the Irgun leader who gave the order? But less of rogue states with terrorist links whose support by the US is entirely contrary to America’s strategic interests. But perhaps Barack might suggest to Israel’s leadership that if it is to survive and prosper it will not do so by military means and it is now a time for change?


Sears Tower from Grant Park, Chicago

Barack Obama’s rally and speech in Grant Park, Chicago on the 5th November inspired more than the American electorate and I am sure, unlike his predecessor after 9/11 he will not squander the goodwill and longing for partnership the rest of the world feels. I spent some time in Chicago in 1982, staying up the road from Grant Park in the wonderful University Club at the corner of Monroe and Michigan and with an office in a law firm high up in Sears Tower, then the highest building in the world so I have some insight into the Chicago he moved to and Chicago law firms which he and Michelle Robinson worked for.

Whatever about “State Street being a Great Street” Chicago was "My Kinda Town" and I came away with an abiding affection for the place. But unlike New York the Windy City was no melting pot. Chicago was the city which bound America together and where it did real business in the products of the Great Plains at the Chicago Mercantile exchange. 22,000 ton “Lakers” ships could come up the St Lawrence and the amazing Great Lakes from the Atlantic Ocean and connect by barge with the Mississippi, Ohio, Missouri, Red and Arkansas Rivers through the wonderfully named “Chicago Navigation and Sanitary Canal.” All railway lines led to Chicago including the great express trains; the “20th Century Limited” from New York, the “Superchief” from Los Angeles and the “Spirit of New Orleans” from the Mississippi Delta.


Downtown Chicago


And from the 1920’s black people and many others fleeing from the failed agri-economies of the southern states, the dustbowl and the Great Depression arrived in Chicago looking for work in the stockyards and abattoirs which once encircled the downtown “Loop.” So Chicago was a black majority city but black people did not exist in the city government which was carved up by the Democratic Party machine under Mayor Richard Daley and others which played to the white ethnic groups who shared the spoils of patronage, the Irish, Poles and Italians. That was until 1983 when Harold Washington united the fractious black groups with Hispanics to redress the balance until, sadly, he died in office of a heart attack in 1987. The lesson of Harold Washington’s campaign was well learnt by the young Barack Obama who has widened the dragnet of inclusion and reaching out to the uncommitted but has done it with an iron discipline and focus. He was, like all successful candidates, indeed lucky, no more so in having George W. Bush as his campaign manager spectacularly arranging a financial collapse and engineering “socialist” solutions which the Wobblies could only have dreamt of! But Obama has made his own luck and I’m sure will capitalise on it, as he said himself in Grant Park;


Harold Washington - Mayor of Chicago 1983 - 1987

“If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours: "We are not enemies, but friends… though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection.

This is our time - to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth - that out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope, and where we are met with cynicism and doubt, and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: yes, we can.”

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/11/government-of-people-by-people.html

Never has the motto of the United States “E Pluribus Unum” had more meaning. And as for Jerome Corsi Ph. D. and his seminal work ”Obama Nation” do rush down to your discount bookstore to snap it up now for 50 cents, as it certainly won’t be reprinted!

Latest Poll Reveals 430 New Demographics That Will Decide Election

Latest Poll Reveals 430 New Demographics That Will Decide Election

Bush watch Update - Only 152 Days to go America - Hang in there!

"You see not only did the attacks help accelerate a recession, the attacks reminded us that we are at war."

Washington D.C. ; June 8, 2005.

"I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the Secretary for Defense."

Washington D.C.; April 18, 2006.

"I believe we are called to do the hard work to make our communities and quality of life a better place."

Collinsville, Illinois; January 5 2005.

"I'm honored to shake the hand of a brave Iraqi citizen who had his hand cut off by Saddam Hussein."

Washington D.C.; May 25, 2005.

"For every fatal shooting, there are roughly three non-fatal shootings. And, folks, this is unacceptable in America. And we're going to do something about it."

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; May 14, 2001.

"Rarely is the question asked, is our children learning?"

Florence, South Carolina; January 11, 2000.

"One thing is clear, is relations between America and Russia are good, and they're important that they be good."

Strelna, Russia; July 15, 2006.

"There's a huge trust. I see it all the time when people come up to me and say, "I don't want you to let me down again.'"

Boston, Massachusetts; October 3, 2000.

"You never know what your history is going to be like until long after you are gone."

Washington D.C.; May 5, 2006.

Latest Poll Reveals 430 New Demographics That Will Decide Election

Latest Poll Reveals 430 New Demographics That Will Decide Election

Bush watch Update - Only 152 Days to go America - Hang in there!

"You see not only did the attacks help accelerate a recession, the attacks reminded us that we are at war."

Washington D.C. ; June 8, 2005.

"I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as the Secretary for Defense."

Washington D.C.; April 18, 2006.

"I believe we are called to do the hard work to make our communities and quality of life a better place."

Collinsville, Illinois; January 5 2005.

"I'm honored to shake the hand of a brave Iraqi citizen who had his hand cut off by Saddam Hussein."

Washington D.C.; May 25, 2005.

"For every fatal shooting, there are roughly three non-fatal shootings. And, folks, this is unacceptable in America. And we're going to do something about it."

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; May 14, 2001.

"Rarely is the question asked, is our children learning?"

Florence, South Carolina; January 11, 2000.

"One thing is clear, is relations between America and Russia are good, and they're important that they be good."

Strelna, Russia; July 15, 2006.

"There's a huge trust. I see it all the time when people come up to me and say, "I don't want you to let me down again.'"

Boston, Massachusetts; October 3, 2000.

"You never know what your history is going to be like until long after you are gone."

Washington D.C.; May 5, 2006.

One Term in Paris

Shock! Horror!! Air head celebrity may not be so feather-brained after all!! The socialite Paris Hilton has now mocked John McCain with a retaliatory "campaign ad" – and it could just be funnier than its inspiration, the Republican presidential candidate's spot likening his rival Barack Obama to herself and her fellow denizen of the gossip columns Britney Spears.

Socialite Paris Hilton says her spoof election video is just a bit of fun and she would only run for president if she could take her dog Tinkerbell to the White House - which she would then repaint as the Pink House.

Hilton's online election spoof video has had more than three million hits since being posted on FunnyorDie.com this week. In it, she pokes fun at her inclusion in a recent ad campaign for Republican election candidate John McCain, announcing energy policies and plans to paint the White House pink.

"Thanks for the endorsement white-haired dude, and I want America to know I'm, like, totally ready to lead," she says.

Speaking in Copenhagen, where she is promoting a range of handbags, Paris said she made the video because she was a big fan of FunnyorDie creators Adam McKay and Will Ferrell.

"It was a lot of fun," she said.

Asked about the possibility of launching a real election campaign, Hilton said: "Only if I can bring (my dog) Tinkerbell to the White House.”

Under US law, Hilton - the 27-year-old star of an infamous sex tape - would not be eligible to hold the office of the presidency for eight more years.

Hilton's video has caught McCain's attention. His spokesman Tucker Bounds said: "Paris Hilton might not be as big a celebrity as Barack Obama, but she obviously has a better energy plan."

Hilton's mother, a McCain donor, had lambasted McCain's video as a complete waste of money.

"It is a complete waste of the country's time and attention at the very moment when millions of people are losing their homes and their jobs. And it is a completely frivolous way to choose the next President of the United States," she wrote on the political website Huffington Post.

McCain's original video mocked Democratic rival Barack Obama as a celebrity, similar to Britney Spears or Hilton.

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

One Term in Paris

Shock! Horror!! Air head celebrity may not be so feather-brained after all!! The socialite Paris Hilton has now mocked John McCain with a retaliatory "campaign ad" – and it could just be funnier than its inspiration, the Republican presidential candidate's spot likening his rival Barack Obama to herself and her fellow denizen of the gossip columns Britney Spears.

Socialite Paris Hilton says her spoof election video is just a bit of fun and she would only run for president if she could take her dog Tinkerbell to the White House - which she would then repaint as the Pink House.

Hilton's online election spoof video has had more than three million hits since being posted on FunnyorDie.com this week. In it, she pokes fun at her inclusion in a recent ad campaign for Republican election candidate John McCain, announcing energy policies and plans to paint the White House pink.

"Thanks for the endorsement white-haired dude, and I want America to know I'm, like, totally ready to lead," she says.

Speaking in Copenhagen, where she is promoting a range of handbags, Paris said she made the video because she was a big fan of FunnyorDie creators Adam McKay and Will Ferrell.

"It was a lot of fun," she said.

Asked about the possibility of launching a real election campaign, Hilton said: "Only if I can bring (my dog) Tinkerbell to the White House.”

Under US law, Hilton - the 27-year-old star of an infamous sex tape - would not be eligible to hold the office of the presidency for eight more years.

Hilton's video has caught McCain's attention. His spokesman Tucker Bounds said: "Paris Hilton might not be as big a celebrity as Barack Obama, but she obviously has a better energy plan."

Hilton's mother, a McCain donor, had lambasted McCain's video as a complete waste of money.

"It is a complete waste of the country's time and attention at the very moment when millions of people are losing their homes and their jobs. And it is a completely frivolous way to choose the next President of the United States," she wrote on the political website Huffington Post.

McCain's original video mocked Democratic rival Barack Obama as a celebrity, similar to Britney Spears or Hilton.

See more funny videos at Funny or Die