How American Racism & the Doctrine of White Supremacy Trumps the New 'Postracial Myth'

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/15/opinion/15mon4.html

All,

The ongoing stark reality vs. the illusory 'postracial' myth...

Kofi


EDITORIAL OBSERVER

Even Now, There’s Risk in ‘Driving While Black’
By BRENT STAPLES
Published: June 14, 2009
New York Times

The experience of being mistaken for a criminal is almost a rite of passage for African-American men. Security guards shadow us in stores. Troopers pull us over for the crime of “driving while black.” Nighttime pedestrians cower by us on the streets.

And black men who work as undercover cops are occasionally shot to death by white colleagues, as happened to a young officer named Omar Edwards when he was off duty and in plain clothes last month in New York City.

We have often been seen as paranoid for attributing these things to bias. But the racial stereotypes that link blackness and crime have recently become a hot topic in social science.

These pervasive and often unconscious biases affect social transactions of all kinds. They drive voting behavior. They make it likely that black defendants will receive longer sentences than whites for comparable crimes. They wreak havoc with the job possibilities of young black men. And they give the lie to the idea that the Unites States is becoming a “postracial” country.

The psychologists Gordon Allport and Leo Postman showed more than half a century ago that preconceptions about race distorted human judgment and sometimes caused people to recall things that had never happened. Their best-known study mimicked the parlor game “telephone.”

In this version, subjects who often included students were shown a now-famous slide depicting typical passengers in a New York City subway car. At the center of the image stand two figures: a black man dressed in a natty suit and a white man in shirtsleeves holding a straight razor.

After being shown the slide, subjects were asked to describe it to others who had not seen it. These people then described it to others, who then passed on their descriptions as well. Those who had heard the story secondhand were then asked to recount it. More than half the time, the razor was said to be held not by the white man but by the well-dressed black man, who was sometimes described as brandishing it wildly.

This country has changed considerably in the more than 60 years since these data were published. But the mental calculus that shifted the razor into the black man’s hand is still very much a part of the American scene. It comes into play every day in courtrooms, in city streets and especially in job interviews.

People who believed that racism was on the wane were mightily shocked by the research into the effect of race on hiring policies that appeared in the 2007 book “Marked: Race, Crime and Finding Work in an Era of Mass Incarceration,” by the Princeton sociologist Devah Pager. After sending carefully selected test applicants to apply for low-level jobs with hundreds of employers, Ms. Pager found that criminal convictions for black men seeking employment were, in many contexts, “virtually impossible to overcome,” partly because those convictions reinforced powerful, longstanding stereotypes.

The stigma of conviction turned out to be less damaging for whites. Indeed, white men who claimed to be fresh out of prison were just as likely to be called back for second interviews as black men with no history of criminal involvement. The young black men were best-case applicants — bright, well-spoken college students posing as high school graduates. But racial stereotypes prevented employers from seeing their virtues.

“Being black in America today,” Ms. Pager writes, “is just about the same as having a felony conviction in terms of one’s chances of finding a job.”

People who believe that blunt-force racism is a thing of the past tend to gasp when they see this data. But the findings are consistent with what black job seekers and community organizations have been saying about their experiences for a long time.

All of this should come as sobering news to people who believe that the election of an African-American president moved the country into a new phase beyond racism. We may yet reach that goal. But we won’t do it by pretending that centuries-old biases were magically swept away in a single election. We can do it only by exorcising poisonous preconceptions that go to the very heart of who we are.

All,

This is the viciously racist and barbaric society we actually live in...

Kofi



S.C. GOP Activist Calls Gorilla an "Ancestor" of First Lady
June 14th, 2009
By Pamela Gentry, Senior Political Analyst

June 15, 2009 - A South Carolina Republican has apologized for posting a comment on his Facebook page, he called a joke, suggesting the Gorilla that escaped form a local zoo was an ancestor of First Lady Michelle Obama.

But no one is laughing. The comment was racist and unacceptable.

Rusty DePass, a former state Senate candidate, is a former chairman of the Richland County Republican Party and the former State Election Commission chairman in South Carolina. DePass posted the controversial comment shortly after hearing of the gorilla's escape, saying: "I'm sure it's just one of Michelle's ancestors - probably harmless."

Following outrage over the remark, DePass removed the comment from the social networking site and apologized, claiming the comment was a joke and he was only referencing Obamas past comments on evolution.

When the local news station WIS TV 10, caught up with DePass about his comment he admitted it was a direct reference to the first lady, "I am as sorry as I can be if I offended anyone."

The comment was clearly in jest," DePass added. "The comment was hers, not mine," he said. DePass contends the first lady made statements in the media that humans are all descendants of ap-es

So far no one has found a comment by Mrs. Obama.

Columbia Mayor Bob Coble released a statement saying: "You know, I don't think there's anything funny about that comment. That is the first lady of the United States. We've had a long tradition of wonderful first ladies, and I don't think any of them deserve that type of comment."

The Vile Politics of Anti-Obama Racism: How Racial Hatred Guides the American Right

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/opinion/14rich.html?em


All,

The disturbing reality of anti-Obama racism and the persistent ideological doctrine of white supremacy in the United Hates today...Stay tuned...

Kofi


OP-ED COLUMNIST

The Obama Haters’ Silent Enablers
By FRANK RICH
Published: June 13, 2009
New York Times

WHEN a Fox News anchor, reacting to his own network’s surging e-mail traffic, warns urgently on-camera of a rise in hate-filled, “amped up” Americans who are “taking the extra step and getting the gun out,” maybe we should listen. He has better sources in that underground than most.
The anchor was Shepard Smith, speaking after Wednesday’s mayhem at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. Unlike the bloviators at his network and elsewhere on cable, Smith is famous for his highly caffeinated news-reading, not any political agenda. But very occasionally — notably during Hurricane Katrina — he hits the Howard Beale mad-as-hell wall. Joining those at Fox who routinely disregard the network’s “We report, you decide” mantra, he both reported and decided, loudly.

What he reported was this: his e-mail from viewers had “become more and more frightening” in recent months, dating back to the election season. From Wednesday alone, he “could read a hundred” messages spewing “hate that’s not based in fact,” much of it about Barack Obama and some of it sharing the museum gunman’s canard that the president was not a naturally born citizen. These are Americans “out there in a scary place,” Smith said.

Then he brought up another recent gunman: “If you’re one who believes that abortion is murder, at what point do you go out and kill someone who’s performing abortions?” An answer, he said, was provided by Dr. George Tiller’s killer. He went on: “If you are one who believes these sorts of things about the president of the United States ...” He left the rest of that chilling sentence unsaid.

These are extraordinary words to hear on Fox. The network’s highest-rated star, Bill O’Reilly, had assailed Tiller, calling him “Tiller the baby killer” and likening him to the Nazis, on 29 of his shows before the doctor was murdered at his church in Kansas. O’Reilly was unrepentant, stating that only “pro-abortion zealots and Fox News haters” would link him to the crime. But now another Fox star, while stopping short of blaming O’Reilly, was breaching his network’s brand of political correctness: he tied the far-right loners who had gotten their guns out in Wichita and Washington to the mounting fury of Obama haters.

What is this fury about? In his scant 145 days in office, the new president has not remotely matched the Bush record in deficit creation. Nor has he repealed the right to bear arms or exacerbated the wars he inherited. He has tried more than his predecessor ever did to reach across the aisle. But none of that seems to matter. A sizable minority of Americans is irrationally fearful of the fast-moving generational, cultural and racial turnover Obama embodies — indeed, of the 21st century itself. That minority is now getting angrier in inverse relationship to his popularity with the vast majority of the country. Change can be frightening and traumatic, especially if it’s not change you can believe in.

We don’t know whether the tiny subset of domestic terrorists in this crowd is egged on by political or media demagogues — though we do tend to assume that foreign jihadists respond like Pavlov’s dogs to the words of their most fanatical leaders and polemicists. But well before the latest murderers struck — well before another “antigovernment” Obama hater went on a cop-killing rampage in Pittsburgh in April — there have been indications that this rage could spiral out of control.

This was evident during the campaign, when hotheads greeted Obama’s name with “Treason!” and “Terrorist!” at G.O.P. rallies. At first the McCain-Palin campaign fed the anger with accusations that Obama was “palling around with terrorists.” But later John McCain thought better of it and defended his opponent’s honor to a town-hall participant who vented her fears of the Democrats’ “Arab” candidate. Although two neo-Nazi skinheads were arrested in an assassination plot against Obama two weeks before Election Day, the fever broke after McCain exercised leadership.

That honeymoon, if it was one, is over. Conservatives have legitimate ideological beefs with Obama, rightly expressed in sharp language. But the invective in some quarters has unmistakably amped up. The writer Camille Paglia, a political independent and confessed talk-radio fan, detected a shift toward paranoia in the air waves by mid-May. When “the tone darkens toward a rhetoric of purgation and annihilation,” she observed in Salon, “there is reason for alarm.” She cited a “joke” repeated by a Rush Limbaugh fill-in host, a talk-radio jock from Dallas of all places, about how “any U.S. soldier” who found himself with only two bullets in an elevator with Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and Osama bin Laden would use both shots to assassinate Pelosi and then strangle Reid and bin Laden.

This homicide-saturated vituperation is endemic among mini-Limbaughs. Glenn Beck has dipped into O’Reilly’s Holocaust analogies to liken Obama’s policy on stem-cell research to the eugenics that led to “the final solution” and the quest for “a master race.” After James von Brunn’s rampage at the Holocaust museum, Beck rushed onto Fox News to describe the Obama-hating killer as a “lone gunman nutjob.” Yet in the same show Beck also said von Brunn was a symptom that “the pot in America is boiling,” as if Beck himself were not the boiling pot cheering the kettle on.

But hyperbole from the usual suspects in the entertainment arena of TV and radio is not the whole story. What’s startling is the spillover of this poison into the conservative political establishment. Saul Anuzis, a former Michigan G.O.P. chairman who ran for the party’s national chairmanship this year, seriously suggested in April that Republicans should stop calling Obama a socialist because “it no longer has the negative connotation it had 20 years ago, or even 10 years ago.” Anuzis pushed “fascism” instead, because “everybody still thinks that’s a bad thing.” He didn’t seem to grasp that “fascism” is nonsensical as a description of the Obama administration or that there might be a risk in slurring a president with a word that most find “bad” because it evokes a mass-murderer like Hitler.

The Anuzis “fascism” solution to the Obama problem has caught fire. The president’s nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court and his speech in Cairo have only exacerbated the ugliness. The venomous personal attacks on Sotomayor have little to do with the 3,000-plus cases she’s adjudicated in nearly 17 years on the bench or her thoughts about the judgment of “a wise Latina woman.” She has been tarred as a member of “the Latino KKK” (by the former Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo), as well as a racist and a David Duke (by Limbaugh), and portrayed, in a bizarre two-for-one ethnic caricature, as a slant-eyed Asian on the cover of National Review. Uniting all these insults is an aggrieved note of white victimization only a shade less explicit than that in von Brunn’s white supremacist screeds.

Obama’s Cairo address, meanwhile, prompted over-the-top accusations reminiscent of those campaign rally cries of “Treason!” It was a prominent former Reagan defense official, Frank Gaffney, not some fringe crackpot, who accused Obama in The Washington Times of engaging “in the most consequential bait-and-switch since Adolf Hitler duped Neville Chamberlain.” He claimed that the president — a lifelong Christian — “may still be” a Muslim and is aligned with “the dangerous global movement known as the Muslim Brotherhood.” Gaffney linked Obama by innuendo with Islamic “charities” that “have been convicted of providing material support for terrorism.”

If this isn’t a handy rationalization for another lone nutjob to take the law into his own hands against a supposed terrorism supporter, what is? Any such nutjob can easily grab a weapon. Gun enthusiasts have been on a shopping spree since the election, with some areas of our country reporting percentage sales increases in the mid-to-high double digits, recession be damned.

The question, Shepard Smith said on Fox last week, is “if there is really a way to put a hold on” those who might run amok. We’re not about to repeal the First or Second Amendments. Hard-core haters resolutely dismiss any “mainstream media” debunking of their conspiracy theories. The only voices that might penetrate their alternative reality — I emphasize might — belong to conservative leaders with the guts and clout to step up as McCain did last fall. Where are they? The genteel public debate in right-leaning intellectual circles about the conservative movement’s future will be buried by history if these insistent alarms are met with silence.

It’s typical of this dereliction of responsibility that when the Department of Homeland Security released a plausible (and, tragically, prescient) report about far-right domestic terrorism two months ago, the conservative response was to trash it as “the height of insult,” in the words of the G.O.P. chairman Michael Steele. But as Smith also said last week, Homeland Security was “warning us for a reason.”

No matter. Last week it was business as usual, as Republican leaders nattered ad infinitum over the juvenile rivalry of Sarah Palin and Newt Gingrich at the party’s big Washington fund-raiser. Few if any mentioned, let alone questioned, the ominous script delivered by the actor Jon Voight with the G.O.P. imprimatur at that same event. Voight’s devout wish was to “bring an end to this false prophet Obama.”

This kind of rhetoric, with its pseudo-Scriptural call to action, is toxic. It is getting louder each day of the Obama presidency. No one, not even Fox News viewers, can say they weren’t warned.

The Iranian State Fights Back Against Mass Demonstrations

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/15/world/middleeast/15assess.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

All,

First: The Bad News...

Kofi


NEWS ANALYSIS

Leader Emerges With Stronger Hand
By BILL KELLER and MICHAEL SLACKMAN
Published: June 14, 2009
New York Times


TEHRAN — The jokes among Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s detractors are legion. In one, he looks in the mirror and says, “Male lice to the right, female lice to the left.” In the West, one American tabloid rarely misses a chance to refer to him as “Evil Madman” and in the days before his re-election here he was taunted as a “monkey” and as a “midget.”

Whether his 63 percent victory is truly the will of the people or the result of fraud, it demonstrated that Mr. Ahmadinejad is the shrewd and ruthless front man for a clerical, military and political elite that is more unified and emboldened than at any time since the 1979 revolution.

As president, Mr. Ahmadinejad is subordinate to the country’s true authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who commands final say over all matters of state and faith. With this election, Mr. Khamenei and his protégé appear to have neutralized for now the reform forces that they saw as a threat to their power, political analysts said.

“This will change the face of the Islamic Republic forever,” said one well-connected Iranian, who like most of those interviewed declined to be named in the current tense climate. “Ahmadinejad will claim an absolute mandate, meaning he has no need to compromise.”

When he was first elected president in 2005, Mr. Ahmadinejad showed his fealty to the leader, gently bending over and kissing his hand.

On Saturday, the leader demonstrated his own enthusiasm for the re-elected president, hailing the outcome as “a divine blessing” even before the official three-day challenge period had passed. On Sunday, Mr. Ahmadinejad flaunted his achievement by mounting a celebration rally in the heart of an opposition neighborhood of Tehran, and holding a victory news conference where he scorned the West and made a joke out of his main opponent’s quasi-house arrest.

Commenting on the Obama administration’s conciliatory overtures, he also suggested that his willingness to reconcile with foreign governments would depend on their willingness to swallow his disputed election.

Asked about speculation that in his second term he would take a more moderate line, he smirked, “It’s not true. I’m going to be more and more solid.”

He can afford to be. With the backing of the supreme leader and the military establishment, he has marginalized all of the major figures who represented a challenge to the vision of Iran as a permanently revolutionary Islamic state.

In many ways, his victory is the latest and perhaps final clash in a battle for power and influence that has lasted decades between Mr. Khamenei and Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former president who, while loyal to the Islamic form of government, wanted a more pragmatic approach to the economy, international relations and social conditions at home.

Mr. Rafsanjani aligned himself and his family closely with the main reform candidate in this race, Mir Hussein Moussavi, a former prime minister who advocated greater freedom — in particular, greater freedom for women — and a more conciliatory face to the West. Another former president and pragmatist, Mohammed Khatami, had also thrown in heavily with Mr. Moussavi.

The three men, combined with widespread public support and disillusionment with Mr. Ahmadinejad, posed a challenge to the authority of the supreme leader and his allies, political analysts said.

The elite Revolutionary Guards and a good part of the intelligence services “feel very much threatened by the reformist movement,” said a political analyst who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution. “They feel that the reformists will open up to the West and be lenient on the nuclear issue,” he said. “It is a confrontation of two ways of thinking, the revolutionary and the internationalist. It is a question of power.”

Since the vote was announced Saturday, Mr. Moussavi has been the hero of seething antigovernment protests in Tehran, but so far they have been contained by legions of riot police officers and hampered by a shutdown of that critical organizing tool, text-messaging. Mr. Moussavi said he was being “closely monitored” in his home, but hoped to speak at a rally on Monday.

“He ran a red light, and he got a traffic ticket,” Mr. Ahmadinejad quipped when asked about his rival.

Unless the street protests achieve unexpected momentum, the election could cast the pro-reform classes — especially the better off and better educated — back into a state of passive disillusionment, some opposition figures said.

“I don’t think the middle class is ever going to go out and vote again,” one Moussavi supporter lamented.

When he first caught the West’s attention, Mr. Ahmadinejad had been plucked from an obscure provincial governorship and made mayor of Tehran. There he established himself as a promising populist politician. He refused to use the mayor’s big car or occupy the mayor’s grand office. He didn’t accept his salary.

Four years ago, the supreme leader anointed him as the fundamentalist presidential alternative to two candidates the leader thought less reliable, Mr. Rafsanjani and Mehdi Karroubi, a former speaker of Parliament. (Mr. Karroubi, a reformist cleric, tried again in this election, and on Friday was humiliated by the announcement that he had come in fifth in a field of four — after the invalidated ballots.)

Although his first election was marred by allegations of cheating, Mr. Ahmadinejad was credited with being genuinely street smart. He roused crowds with vague attacks on the corruption of the elite, with promises of a vast redistribution of wealth, and with appeals to Iranian pride. By playing to the Muslim world’s feelings of victimization by the West and hatred of Israel, he won adulation on the Arab street even as Arab leaders often disdained him, and that in turn earned him credibility at home.

“The old generation of the Islamic Revolution was going to die off,” said one Iranian analyst. “We thought they would inevitably give way to the reformers. But they found Ahmadinejad, and he was a wise choice. He was a new breed of populist — a new breed of demagogue.”

He is the son of an iron worker, a traffic engineer by education, but political analysts said that he might have been molded most by his experience in the Revolutionary Guards.

As president he has presided over a time of rising inflation and unemployment, but has pumped oil revenues into the budget, sustaining a semblance of growth and buying good will among civil servants, the military and the retired.

More important, he has consolidated the various arms of power that answer ultimately to the supreme leader. The Revolutionary Guards — the military elite — was given license to expand into new areas, including the oil industry and other businesses such as shipbuilding.

The Guardian Council, which oversees elections, had its budget increased 15-fold under Mr. Ahmadinejad. The council has presided over not only Friday’s outcome, but over parliamentary majorities loyal to Mr. Ahmadinejad.

For a time, it appeared that he was losing the favor of the supreme leader. Under Mr. Ahmadinejad, Iran was hit with sanctions by the United Nations Security Council, inflation and unemployment soared and unrest was rising at home as social restrictions were increased. Two of his own ministers quit, criticizing his management of the state, and Parliament discussed the prospect of impeachment.

The president seemed to stumble often. He raised tensions with the West when he told a United Nations General Assembly that he rejected the post-World War II order. He was mocked when he said at Columbia University in 2007 that there was not a single gay person in Iran. In April, nearly two dozen diplomats from the European Union walked out of a conference in Geneva after he disparaged Israel.

But political analysts said that back home, the supreme leader approved, seeing confrontation with the West as helpful in keeping alive his revolutionary ideology, and his base of power. President Obama’s conciliatory tone toward Iran, some Iranians believe, threatened to relax Iranian vigilance and the powerful forces to defend it.

Mr. Obama has made clear he still intends to explore an opening to Iran, though the questions of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s legitimacy and the consolidation of hard-line power could complicate his strategy.

“The coming period will not be an easy one,” said Gamal Abdel Gawad, director of the international relations section at the Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo. “Any change will be slow and difficult because we have an elite that is very much united in its hard-line orientation.”



Bill Keller reported from Tehran, and Michael Slackman from Cairo.

Mass Demonstrations in Iran Question Government and its Clerical leadership

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/16/world/middleeast/16iran.html?ref=global-home

All,

The fierce struggle for real democracy in Iran continues. Meanwhile the arrogant, reactionary Iranian government and their dogmatic religious sponsors will continue to try to hold back the tides of History but even they will ultimately fail...Stay tuned...

Kofi



Top Cleric Calls for Inquiry as Protesters Defy Ban in Iran
By ROBERT F. WORTH and NAZILA FATHI
Published: June 15, 2009
New York Times


TEHRAN — Hundreds of thousands of people marched in silence through central Tehran on Monday to protest Iran’s disputed presidential election in an extraordinary show of defiance that appeared to be the largest antigovernment demonstration here since the 1979 revolution.

The march was largely peaceful, but toward the end of the day, gunfire broke out in at least one clash between protesters and militia members, and one protester was reported killed. News photographs showed several people who appeared seriously injured.

The march began hours after Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called for a inquiry into opposition claims that the election was rigged in favor of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The ayatollah’s call — announced every 15 minutes on Iranian state radio throughout the day — was the first sign that Iran’s top leadership might be rethinking its position on the election.

Mr. Khamenei announced Saturday that the election results showing a landslide victory for Mr. Ahmadinejad were fair, but on Sunday he met with Mir Hussein Moussavi, the former prime minister and moderate who was the main opposition candidate, to listen to his concerns.

The silent march was a deliberate and striking contrast with the chaos of the past few days, when riot police sprayed tear gas and wielded clubs to disperse scattered bands of angry and frightened young people. In Isfahan, south of the capital, more violence broke out on Monday, with police attacking a crowd of several thousand opposition protesters with sticks and tear gas, and rioters setting fires in parts of the city.

The broad river of people in Tehran — young and old, dressed in traditional Islamic gowns and the latest Western fashions — marched slowly from Revolution Square to Freedom Square for more than three hours, many of them wearing the signature bright green ribbons of Mr. Moussavi’s campaign, and holding up their hands in victory signs. When the occasional shout or chant went up, the crowd quickly hushed them, and some held up signs bearing the word “silence.”

“These people are not seeking a revolution,” said Ali Reza, a young actor in a brown T-shirt who stood for a moment watching on the rally’s sidelines. “We don’t want this regime to fall. We want our votes to be counted, because we want reforms, we want kindness, we want friendship with the world.”

Mr. Moussavi, who had called for the rally Sunday but never received official permission for it, joined the crowd, as did Mohammad Khatami, the reformist former president. But the crowd was so vast, and communications had been so sporadic — the authorities have cut off phone and text-messaging services repeatedly in recent days — that many marchers seemed unaware they were there.

“We don’t really have a leader,” said Mahdiye, a 20-year-old student. “Moussavi wants to do something, but they won’t let him. It is dangerous for him, and we don’t want to lose him. We don’t know how far this will go.”

The protesters said they would continue, with another major rally planned for Tuesday. But it was too soon to tell whether Mr. Khamenei’s decision to launch a probe, or the government’s decision to let the silent rally proceed, would change the election results. Many in the crowd said they believed the government was simply buying time, and hoping the protests would dissipate, as smaller protest movements have in 1999 and 2003.

“Anything is possible,” said Hamid, a 50-year-old financial adviser who, like many protesters, declined to give his last name because he feared repercussions. “If the people insist on this movement, if it continues here and in other parts of Iran, the pressure will build — and maybe Ahmedinejad will be forced to resign.”

In Washington, a State Department spokesman, Ian Kelly, said the United States is “deeply troubled” by the unrest in Iran and is concerned about allegations of ballot fraud. But he stopped short of condemning the Iran security forces for cracking down on demonstrators and said Washington does not know whether the allegations of fraud are, in fact, true.

In Moscow, meanwhile, an official at the Iranian Embassy said that Mr. Ahmadinejad had delayed a visit to Russia that was to have started Monday. The meeting, in Yekaterinburg, is of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization that includes Russia, China and four Central Asian countries. He now plans to travel on Tuesday, the official said.

As concern about the vote spread among Western governments, the European Union’s 27 member states planned to issue a joint call on Iran to clarify the election outcome, Reuters reported. The French government summoned the Iranian ambassador to register concern about the fairness of the vote, and Germany planned to follow suit.

The Spanish foreign minister, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, told reporters in Luxembourg, “There is a need to clarify the situation and to express our concern that a sector of the population are having difficulties in expressing its opinion.” In Berlin, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany called for a “transparent examination” of reports of irregularities.

The United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said he had been “closely following the situation” and welcomed the announcement that there would be some manner of investigation. “The genuine will of the Iranian people should be fully respected,” he said.

Earlier, Reuters said stick-wielding supporters of Mr. Ahmadinejad clashed with marching backers of Mr. Moussavi. Other reports said some of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s followers paraded outside the British and French Embassies in Tehran following remarks by political leaders in London and Paris casting doubt on the Iranian leadership’s conduct.

There were reports of considerable violence overnight on Sunday, as opposition Web sites reported that security forces raided a dormitory at Tehran University and 15 people were injured. Between 150 and 200 students were arrested, by these accounts, but there was no immediate confirmation of the incident from the authorities. There were also reports of official action against students in the cities of Esfahan, Shiraz and Tabriz.

Iran’s Interior Ministry announced on Saturday that Mr. Ahmadinejad had won about 63 percent of the vote, after a hard-fought election campaign and the rise of a broad reform-oriented opposition that clearly had rattled Iran’s ruling elite. Opposition leaders have catalogued a list of what they call election violations and irregularities in the vote, which most observers had expected to go to a second-round runoff.

Opposition members from all the major factions were arrested late Saturday and Sunday and included the brother of a former president, Mohammad Khatami, opposition Web sites reported. Some were released after several hours.

In a press conference on Sunday, Mr. Ahmadinejad had dismissed the protesters as soccer hooligans who had lost a match, in a comment that appears to have stoked their determination.

“People feel really insulted, and nothing is worse than that,” said Azi, a 48-year-old woman in an elegant yellow headscarf who participated in the massive Monday rally. “We won’t let the regime buy time, we will hold another march tomorrow.”

At nightfall, large numbers of Tehranis took to their roofs for a second night, chanting “God is great!” and “Death to the dictator!” in neighborhoods across the city. The A.P., quoting residents, also reported that shooting was also heard in three districts of wealthy northern Tehran.



Reporting was contributed by Clifford J. Levy from Moscow, Alan Cowell from Paris, Sharon Otterman from New York, Victor Homola from Berlin, and Neil MacFarquhar from the United Nations.

The Ultimate Meaning of President Obama's Speech in Cairo, Egypt: "A New Beginning"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/04/obama-egypt-speech-video_n_211216.html

All,

President Obama's June 4, 2009 speech at Cairo University in Egypt is an undeniably important and watershed moment in contemporary American foreign policy if only because it rhetorically raises and openly acknowledges the major political, ideological, economic, religious, and cultural issues, contradictions, problems, tragedies, and conflicts facing the complex and often virulently violent relations between the United States, Israel, Palestine, and much of the heavily Arabic Islamic/Muslim world in both the Middle East and the U.S.

What distinguishes Obama's address however--especially for an American president--is how strikingly upfront and far more honest and direct his analytical and ideological assessment is of the meaning of this byzantine history. Obama also acknowledges the highly oppressive and destructive dynamics of imperialist politics and economics via both government invasion, infiltration, and military occupation by the U.S. as well as the ongoing milatarism of the state of Israel (and its brutal colonial dismissal of the rights of national sovereignty and self determination of the Palestinians) and the subsequent retaliatory attacks on Israeli citizens, property, and civilians by various Arabic terrorist and national liberation organizations like that of Hamas and Hezballah, and the late Yasir Arafat's PLO.

So while there is nothing particularly new or suprising in Obama formally calling for peace on all sides and for an end to this global conflict, what is significant is the fact that the President evinces a deep intellectual and emotional respect and admiration for the accomplishments and historically civilized values of Islamic culture in a manner that is neither condescending nor crassly hyperbolic. It is this strikingly sincere and respectful tone more than anything else that makes the speech so extraordinary given the context of the American government's clearly reactionary, exploitive, and manipulative historical role in many Arabic societies in both the Middle East and toward Muslims and the religion of Islam generally in the West. In this respect then Obama is to be commended for his rhetorical approach and tone in his speech that was clearly well received by the Egyptians and much of the Islamic/Muslim world in the region as well as globally.

However, it still remains to be seen if any of this rhetoric will be transformed into real action via actual hard foreign policy shifts and genuinely new political, economic, and cultural arrangements and relations between the United States, Israel, Palestine, and millions of Muslims in Europe, Asia, Africa and South America. This of course is the real political, moral, and ideological challenge facing not only Obama's administration but the rest of us. Stay tuned...

Kofi

"A New Beginning"
Speech by U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama
Cairo University
Cairo, Egypt
June 4, 2009

I am honored to be in the timeless city of Cairo, and to be hosted by two remarkable institutions. For over a thousand years, Al-Azhar has stood as a beacon of Islamic learning, and for over a century, Cairo University has been a source of Egypt's advancement. Together, you represent the harmony between tradition and progress. I am grateful for your hospitality, and the hospitality of the people of Egypt. I am also proud to carry with me the goodwill of the American people, and a greeting of peace from Muslim communities in my country: assalaamu alaykum.

We meet at a time of tension between the United States and Muslims around the world - tension rooted in historical forces that go beyond any current policy debate. The relationship between Islam and the West includes centuries of co-existence and cooperation, but also conflict and religious wars. More recently, tension has been fed by colonialism that denied rights and opportunities to many Muslims, and a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations. Moreover, the sweeping change brought by modernity and globalization led many Muslims to view the West as hostile to the traditions of Islam.

Violent extremists have exploited these tensions in a small but potent minority of Muslims. The attacks of September 11th, 2001 and the continued efforts of these extremists to engage in violence against civilians has led some in my country to view Islam as inevitably hostile not only to America and Western countries, but also to human rights. This has bred more fear and mistrust.

So long as our relationship is defined by our differences, we will empower those who sow hatred rather than peace, and who promote conflict rather than the cooperation that can help all of our people achieve justice and prosperity. This cycle of suspicion and discord must end.

I have come here to seek a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world; one based upon mutual interest and mutual respect; and one based upon the truth that America and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition. Instead, they overlap, and share common principles - principles of justice and progress; tolerance and the dignity of all human beings.

I do so recognizing that change cannot happen overnight. No single speech can eradicate years of mistrust, nor can I answer in the time that I have all the complex questions that brought us to this point. But I am convinced that in order to move forward, we must say openly the things we hold in our hearts, and that too often are said only behind closed doors. There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other; to learn from each other; to respect one another; and to seek common ground. As the Holy Koran tells us, "Be conscious of God and speak always the truth." That is what I will try to do - to speak the truth as best I can, humbled by the task before us, and firm in my belief that the interests we share as human beings are far more powerful than the forces that drive us apart.

Part of this conviction is rooted in my own experience. I am a Christian, but my father came from a Kenyan family that includes generations of Muslims. As a boy, I spent several years in Indonesia and heard the call of the azaan at the break of dawn and the fall of dusk. As a young man, I worked in Chicago communities where many found dignity and peace in their Muslim faith.

As a student of history, I also know civilization's debt to Islam. It was Islam - at places like Al-Azhar University - that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe's Renaissance and Enlightenment. It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed. Islamic culture has given us majestic arches and soaring spires; timeless poetry and cherished music; elegant calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation. And throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality.

I know, too, that Islam has always been a part of America's story. The first nation to recognize my country was Morocco. In signing the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796, our second President John Adams wrote, "The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims." And since our founding, American Muslims have enriched the United States. They have fought in our wars, served in government, stood for civil rights, started businesses, taught at our Universities, excelled in our sports arenas, won Nobel Prizes, built our tallest building, and lit the Olympic Torch. And when the first Muslim-American was recently elected to Congress, he took the oath to defend our Constitution using the same Holy Koran that one of our Founding Fathers - Thomas Jefferson - kept in his personal library.

So I have known Islam on three continents before coming to the region where it was first revealed. That experience guides my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn't. And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.

But that same principle must apply to Muslim perceptions of America. Just as Muslims do not fit a crude stereotype, America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire. The United States has been one of the greatest sources of progress that the world has ever known. We were born out of revolution against an empire. We were founded upon the ideal that all are created equal, and we have shed blood and struggled for centuries to give meaning to those words - within our borders, and around the world. We are shaped by every culture, drawn from every end of the Earth, and dedicated to a simple concept: E pluribus unum: "Out of many, one."

Much has been made of the fact that an African-American with the name Barack Hussein Obama could be elected President. But my personal story is not so unique. The dream of opportunity for all people has not come true for everyone in America, but its promise exists for all who come to our shores - that includes nearly seven million American Muslims in our country today who enjoy incomes and education that are higher than average.

Moreover, freedom in America is indivisible from the freedom to practice one's religion. That is why there is a mosque in every state of our union, and over 1,200 mosques within our borders. That is why the U.S. government has gone to court to protect the right of women and girls to wear the hijab, and to punish those who would deny it.

So let there be no doubt: Islam is a part of America. And I believe that America holds within her the truth that regardless of race, religion, or station in life, all of us share common aspirations - to live in peace and security; to get an education and to work with dignity; to love our families, our communities, and our God. These things we share. This is the hope of all humanity.

Of course, recognizing our common humanity is only the beginning of our task. Words alone cannot meet the needs of our people. These needs will be met only if we act boldly in the years ahead; and if we understand that the challenges we face are shared, and our failure to meet them will hurt us all.

For we have learned from recent experience that when a financial system weakens in one country, prosperity is hurt everywhere. When a new flu infects one human being, all are at risk. When one nation pursues a nuclear weapon, the risk of nuclear attack rises for all nations. When violent extremists operate in one stretch of mountains, people are endangered across an ocean. And when innocents in Bosnia and Darfur are slaughtered, that is a stain on our collective conscience. That is what it means to share this world in the 21st century. That is the responsibility we have to one another as human beings.

This is a difficult responsibility to embrace. For human history has often been a record of nations and tribes subjugating one another to serve their own interests. Yet in this new age, such attitudes are self-defeating. Given our interdependence, any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail. So whatever we think of the past, we must not be prisoners of it. Our problems must be dealt with through partnership; progress must be shared.

That does not mean we should ignore sources of tension. Indeed, it suggests the opposite: we must face these tensions squarely. And so in that spirit, let me speak as clearly and plainly as I can about some specific issues that I believe we must finally confront together.

The first issue that we have to confront is violent extremism in all of its forms.

In Ankara, I made clear that America is not - and never will be - at war with Islam. We will, however, relentlessly confront violent extremists who pose a grave threat to our security. Because we reject the same thing that people of all faiths reject: the killing of innocent men, women, and children. And it is my first duty as President to protect the American people.

The situation in Afghanistan demonstrates America's goals, and our need to work together. Over seven years ago, the United States pursued al Qaeda and the Taliban with broad international support. We did not go by choice, we went because of necessity. I am aware that some question or justify the events of 9/11. But let us be clear: al Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 people on that day. The victims were innocent men, women and children from America and many other nations who had done nothing to harm anybody. And yet Al Qaeda chose to ruthlessly murder these people, claimed credit for the attack, and even now states their determination to kill on a massive scale. They have affiliates in many countries and are trying to expand their reach. These are not opinions to be debated; these are facts to be dealt with.

Make no mistake: we do not want to keep our troops in Afghanistan. We seek no military bases there. It is agonizing for America to lose our young men and women. It is costly and politically difficult to continue this conflict. We would gladly bring every single one of our troops home if we could be confident that there were not violent extremists in Afghanistan and Pakistan determined to kill as many Americans as they possibly can. But that is not yet the case.

That's why we're partnering with a coalition of forty-six countries. And despite the costs involved, America's commitment will not weaken. Indeed, none of us should tolerate these extremists. They have killed in many countries. They have killed people of different faiths - more than any other, they have killed Muslims. Their actions are irreconcilable with the rights of human beings, the progress of nations, and with Islam. The Holy Koran teaches that whoever kills an innocent, it is as if he has killed all mankind; and whoever saves a person, it is as if he has saved all mankind. The enduring faith of over a billion people is so much bigger than the narrow hatred of a few. Islam is not part of the problem in combating violent extremism - it is an important part of promoting peace.

We also know that military power alone is not going to solve the problems in Afghanistan and Pakistan. That is why we plan to invest $1.5 billion each year over the next five years to partner with Pakistanis to build schools and hospitals, roads and businesses, and hundreds of millions to help those who have been displaced. And that is why we are providing more than $2.8 billion to help Afghans develop their economy and deliver services that people depend upon.

Let me also address the issue of Iraq. Unlike Afghanistan, Iraq was a war of choice that provoked strong differences in my country and around the world. Although I believe that the Iraqi people are ultimately better off without the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, I also believe that events in Iraq have reminded America of the need to use diplomacy and build international consensus to resolve our problems whenever possible. Indeed, we can recall the words of Thomas Jefferson, who said: "I hope that our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us that the less we use our power the greater it will be."

Today, America has a dual responsibility: to help Iraq forge a better future - and to leave Iraq to Iraqis. I have made it clear to the Iraqi people that we pursue no bases, and no claim on their territory or resources. Iraq's sovereignty is its own. That is why I ordered the removal of our combat brigades by next August. That is why we will honor our agreement with Iraq's democratically-elected government to remove combat troops from Iraqi cities by July, and to remove all our troops from Iraq by 2012. We will help Iraq train its Security Forces and develop its economy. But we will support a secure and united Iraq as a partner, and never as a patron.

And finally, just as America can never tolerate violence by extremists, we must never alter our principles. 9/11 was an enormous trauma to our country. The fear and anger that it provoked was understandable, but in some cases, it led us to act contrary to our ideals. We are taking concrete actions to change course. I have unequivocally prohibited the use of torture by the United States, and I have ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed by early next year.



So America will defend itself respectful of the sovereignty of nations and the rule of law. And we will do so in partnership with Muslim communities which are also threatened. The sooner the extremists are isolated and unwelcome in Muslim communities, the sooner we will all be safer.

The second major source of tension that we need to discuss is the situation between Israelis, Palestinians and the Arab world.

America's strong bonds with Israel are well known. This bond is unbreakable. It is based upon cultural and historical ties, and the recognition that the aspiration for a Jewish homeland is rooted in a tragic history that cannot be denied.

Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust. Tomorrow, I will visit Buchenwald, which was part of a network of camps where Jews were enslaved, tortured, shot and gassed to death by the Third Reich. Six million Jews were killed - more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today. Denying that fact is baseless, ignorant, and hateful. Threatening Israel with destruction - or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews - is deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve.

On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people - Muslims and Christians - have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. For more than sixty years they have endured the pain of dislocation. Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead. They endure the daily humiliations - large and small - that come with occupation. So let there be no doubt: the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own.

For decades, there has been a stalemate: two peoples with legitimate aspirations, each with a painful history that makes compromise elusive. It is easy to point fingers - for Palestinians to point to the displacement brought by Israel's founding, and for Israelis to point to the constant hostility and attacks throughout its history from within its borders as well as beyond. But if we see this conflict only from one side or the other, then we will be blind to the truth: the only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security.

That is in Israel's interest, Palestine's interest, America's interest, and the world's interest. That is why I intend to personally pursue this outcome with all the patience that the task requires. The obligations that the parties have agreed to under the Road Map are clear. For peace to come, it is time for them - and all of us - to live up to our responsibilities.

Palestinians must abandon violence. Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and does not succeed. For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America's founding. This same story can be told by people from South Africa to South Asia; from Eastern Europe to Indonesia. It's a story with a simple truth: that violence is a dead end. It is a sign of neither courage nor power to shoot rockets at sleeping children, or to blow up old women on a bus. That is not how moral authority is claimed; that is how it is surrendered.

Now is the time for Palestinians to focus on what they can build. The Palestinian Authority must develop its capacity to govern, with institutions that serve the needs of its people. Hamas does have support among some Palestinians, but they also have responsibilities. To play a role in fulfilling Palestinian aspirations, and to unify the Palestinian people, Hamas must put an end to violence, recognize past agreements, and recognize Israel's right to exist.

At the same time, Israelis must acknowledge that just as Israel's right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine's. The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop.

Israel must also live up to its obligations to ensure that Palestinians can live, and work, and develop their society. And just as it devastates Palestinian families, the continuing humanitarian crisis in Gaza does not serve Israel's security; neither does the continuing lack of opportunity in the West Bank. Progress in the daily lives of the Palestinian people must be part of a road to peace, and Israel must take concrete steps to enable such progress.

Finally, the Arab States must recognize that the Arab Peace Initiative was an important beginning, but not the end of their responsibilities. The Arab-Israeli conflict should no longer be used to distract the people of Arab nations from other problems. Instead, it must be a cause for action to help the Palestinian people develop the institutions that will sustain their state; to recognize Israel's legitimacy; and to choose progress over a self-defeating focus on the past.



America will align our policies with those who pursue peace, and say in public what we say in private to Israelis and Palestinians and Arabs. We cannot impose peace. But privately, many Muslims recognize that Israel will not go away. Likewise, many Israelis recognize the need for a Palestinian state. It is time for us to act on what everyone knows to be true.

Too many tears have flowed. Too much blood has been shed. All of us have a responsibility to work for the day when the mothers of Israelis and Palestinians can see their children grow up without fear; when the Holy Land of three great faiths is the place of peace that God intended it to be; when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed (peace be upon them) joined in prayer.

The third source of tension is our shared interest in the rights and responsibilities of nations on nuclear weapons.

This issue has been a source of tension between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran. For many years, Iran has defined itself in part by its opposition to my country, and there is indeed a tumultuous history between us. In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically-elected Iranian government. Since the Islamic Revolution, Iran has played a role in acts of hostage-taking and violence against U.S. troops and civilians. This history is well known. Rather than remain trapped in the past, I have made it clear to Iran's leaders and people that my country is prepared to move forward. The question, now, is not what Iran is against, but rather what future it wants to build.

It will be hard to overcome decades of mistrust, but we will proceed with courage, rectitude and resolve. There will be many issues to discuss between our two countries, and we are willing to move forward without preconditions on the basis of mutual respect. But it is clear to all concerned that when it comes to nuclear weapons, we have reached a decisive point. This is not simply about America's interests. It is about preventing a nuclear arms race in the Middle East that could lead this region and the world down a hugely dangerous path.

I understand those who protest that some countries have weapons that others do not. No single nation should pick and choose which nations hold nuclear weapons. That is why I strongly reaffirmed America's commitment to seek a world in which no nations hold nuclear weapons. And any nation - including Iran - should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. That commitment is at the core of the Treaty, and it must be kept for all who fully abide by it. And I am hopeful that all countries in the region can share in this goal.

The fourth issue that I will address is democracy.

I know there has been controversy about the promotion of democracy in recent years, and much of this controversy is connected to the war in Iraq. So let me be clear: no system of government can or should be imposed upon one nation by any other.

That does not lessen my commitment, however, to governments that reflect the will of the people. Each nation gives life to this principle in its own way, grounded in the traditions of its own people. America does not presume to know what is best for everyone, just as we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election. But I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. Those are not just American ideas, they are human rights, and that is why we will support them everywhere.

There is no straight line to realize this promise. But this much is clear: governments that protect these rights are ultimately more stable, successful and secure. Suppressing ideas never succeeds in making them go away. America respects the right of all peaceful and law-abiding voices to be heard around the world, even if we disagree with them. And we will welcome all elected, peaceful governments - provided they govern with respect for all their people.

This last point is important because there are some who advocate for democracy only when they are out of power; once in power, they are ruthless in suppressing the rights of others. No matter where it takes hold, government of the people and by the people sets a single standard for all who hold power: you must maintain your power through consent, not coercion; you must respect the rights of minorities, and participate with a spirit of tolerance and compromise; you must place the interests of your people and the legitimate workings of the political process above your party. Without these ingredients, elections alone do not make true democracy.

The fifth issue that we must address together is religious freedom.

Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance. We see it in the history of Andalusia and Cordoba during the Inquisition. I saw it firsthand as a child in Indonesia, where devout Christians worshiped freely in an overwhelmingly Muslim country. That is the spirit we need today. People in every country should be free to choose and live their faith based upon the persuasion of the mind, heart, and soul. This tolerance is essential for religion to thrive, but it is being challenged in many different ways.

Among some Muslims, there is a disturbing tendency to measure one's own faith by the rejection of another's. The richness of religious diversity must be upheld - whether it is for Maronites in Lebanon or the Copts in Egypt. And fault lines must be closed among Muslims as well, as the divisions between Sunni and Shia have led to tragic violence, particularly in Iraq.

Freedom of religion is central to the ability of peoples to live together. We must always examine the ways in which we protect it. For instance, in the United States, rules on charitable giving have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation. That is why I am committed to working with American Muslims to ensure that they can fulfill zakat.

Likewise, it is important for Western countries to avoid impeding Muslim citizens from practicing religion as they see fit - for instance, by dictating what clothes a Muslim woman should wear. We cannot disguise hostility towards any religion behind the pretence of liberalism.

Indeed, faith should bring us together. That is why we are forging service projects in America that bring together Christians, Muslims, and Jews. That is why we welcome efforts like Saudi Arabian King Abdullah's Interfaith dialogue and Turkey's leadership in the Alliance of Civilizations. Around the world, we can turn dialogue into Interfaith service, so bridges between peoples lead to action - whether it is combating malaria in Africa, or providing relief after a natural disaster.

The sixth issue that I want to address is women's rights.

I know there is debate about this issue. I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal, but I do believe that a woman who is denied an education is denied equality. And it is no coincidence that countries where women are well-educated are far more likely to be prosperous.

Now let me be clear: issues of women's equality are by no means simply an issue for Islam. In Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Indonesia, we have seen Muslim-majority countries elect a woman to lead. Meanwhile, the struggle for women's equality continues in many aspects of American life, and in countries around the world.

Our daughters can contribute just as much to society as our sons, and our common prosperity will be advanced by allowing all humanity - men and women - to reach their full potential. I do not believe that women must make the same choices as men in order to be equal, and I respect those women who choose to live their lives in traditional roles. But it should be their choice. That is why the United States will partner with any Muslim-majority country to support expanded literacy for girls, and to help young women pursue employment through micro-financing that helps people live their dreams.

Finally, I want to discuss economic development and opportunity.

I know that for many, the face of globalization is contradictory. The Internet and television can bring knowledge and information, but also offensive sexuality and mindless violence. Trade can bring new wealth and opportunities, but also huge disruptions and changing communities. In all nations - including my own - this change can bring fear. Fear that because of modernity we will lose of control over our economic choices, our politics, and most importantly our identities - those things we most cherish about our communities, our families, our traditions, and our faith.

But I also know that human progress cannot be denied. There need not be contradiction between development and tradition. Countries like Japan and South Korea grew their economies while maintaining distinct cultures. The same is true for the astonishing progress within Muslim-majority countries from Kuala Lumpur to Dubai. In ancient times and in our times, Muslim communities have been at the forefront of innovation and education.

This is important because no development strategy can be based only upon what comes out of the ground, nor can it be sustained while young people are out of work. Many Gulf States have enjoyed great wealth as a consequence of oil, and some are beginning to focus it on broader development. But all of us must recognize that education and innovation will be the currency of the 21st century, and in too many Muslim communities there remains underinvestment in these areas. I am emphasizing such investments within my country. And while America in the past has focused on oil and gas in this part of the world, we now seek a broader engagement.

On education, we will expand exchange programs, and increase scholarships, like the one that brought my father to America, while encouraging more Americans to study in Muslim communities. And we will match promising Muslim students with internships in America; invest in on-line learning for teachers and children around the world; and create a new online network, so a teenager in Kansas can communicate instantly with a teenager in Cairo.

On economic development, we will create a new corps of business volunteers to partner with counterparts in Muslim-majority countries. And I will host a Summit on Entrepreneurship this year to identify how we can deepen ties between business leaders, foundations and social entrepreneurs in the United States and Muslim communities around the world.

On science and technology, we will launch a new fund to support technological development in Muslim-majority countries, and to help transfer ideas to the marketplace so they can create jobs. We will open centers of scientific excellence in Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and appoint new Science Envoys to collaborate on programs that develop new sources of energy, create green jobs, digitize records, clean water, and grow new crops. And today I am announcing a new global effort with the Organization of the Islamic Conference to eradicate polio. And we will also expand partnerships with Muslim communities to promote child and maternal health.

All these things must be done in partnership. Americans are ready to join with citizens and governments; community organizations, religious leaders, and businesses in Muslim communities around the world to help our people pursue a better life.

The issues that I have described will not be easy to address. But we have a responsibility to join together on behalf of the world we seek - a world where extremists no longer threaten our people, and American troops have come home; a world where Israelis and Palestinians are each secure in a state of their own, and nuclear energy is used for peaceful purposes; a world where governments serve their citizens, and the rights of all God's children are respected. Those are mutual interests. That is the world we seek. But we can only achieve it together.

I know there are many - Muslim and non-Muslim - who question whether we can forge this new beginning. Some are eager to stoke the flames of division, and to stand in the way of progress. Some suggest that it isn't worth the effort - that we are fated to disagree, and civilizations are doomed to clash. Many more are simply skeptical that real change can occur. There is so much fear, so much mistrust. But if we choose to be bound by the past, we will never move forward. And I want to particularly say this to young people of every faith, in every country - you, more than anyone, have the ability to remake this world.

All of us share this world for but a brief moment in time. The question is whether we spend that time focused on what pushes us apart, or whether we commit ourselves to an effort - a sustained effort - to find common ground, to focus on the future we seek for our children, and to respect the dignity of all human beings.

It is easier to start wars than to end them. It is easier to blame others than to look inward; to see what is different about someone than to find the things we share. But we should choose the right path, not just the easy path. There is also one rule that lies at the heart of every religion - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. This truth transcends nations and peoples - a belief that isn't new; that isn't black or white or brown; that isn't Christian, or Muslim or Jew. It's a belief that pulsed in the cradle of civilization, and that still beats in the heart of billions. It's a faith in other people, and it's what brought me here today.

We have the power to make the world we seek, but only if we have the courage to make a new beginning, keeping in mind what has been written.

The Holy Koran tells us, "O mankind! We have created you male and a female; and we have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another."

The Talmud tells us: "The whole of the Torah is for the purpose of promoting peace."

The Holy Bible tells us, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God."

The people of the world can live together in peace. We know that is God's vision. Now, that must be our work here on Earth. Thank you. And may God's peace be upon you.

###

The Doctrine of White Supremacy, Supreme Court Nominee Sonia Sotomayor, and the Republican Right

All,

The doctrine of White Supremacy/Racism Never Sleeps here in the United Hates Of Hysteria.

As always it is a clear and present danger to us all.

Check out the "cartoon"...

Kofi


Sotomayor Cartoon In The Oklahoman Comes Under Fire
Huffington Post
First Posted: 6- 3-09

Some women's groups are outraged over an editorial cartoon that ran in The Oklahoman newspaper on Wednesday - it depicts Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor strung up like a piñata with a sombrero-clad President Obama handing out bats to Republican members of Congress.

Jean Warner, the chair of the Oklahoma Women's Coalition, wrote:

She's served on the US Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit for 10 years, heard over 3,000 cases and written over 380 opinions (but she's of Puerto Rican descent ~~ ergo the piñata image - right? wink, wink).

Not funny; actually stupid and damaging. A picture speaks louder than words and that cartoon sends a message to women of all ages: "Back off. Know your place. Or we'll take a stick to you and teach you a lesson."

Daily Kos poster OKC law dork wrote:

"I'm appalled that [The Oklahoman] would publish a cartoon showing a federal judge who happens to be a minority strung up from a tree... There is a vigorous racist block of voters in Oklahoma who harbor racist feelings toward 'Mexicans' (usually meaning anyone of Hispanic origin) that I believe this cartoon is catering to."

The editor of the Oklahoman, which is considered to have a conservative editorial viewpoint, did not return calls for comment.

Judge for yourself. Here's the cartoon:



Disturbing National Divisions Over Torture and the Closing of Guantanamo Bay Prison

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090603/ap_on_re_us/us_ap_poll_obama_terrorism;_ylt=AhHMlKb1kCHpIrLIbW9ki2Os0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTJyMGliN3A4BGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMDkwNjAzL3VzX2FwX3BvbGxfb2JhbWFfdGVycm9yaXNtBGNwb3MDMQRwb3MDMgRzZWMDeW5fdG9wX3N0b3J5BHNsawNwb2xsdXNkaXZpZGU


All,

This is very bad news any way you look at it. What can be said about a ravenously greedy and imperialist nation that is this far out of touch with reality and any decent, humane sense of political, moral. and social responsibility? To think that a clinically insane totalitarian and protofascist like Dick Cheney is actually taken seriously and "followed" by millions of Americans is absolutely horrifying to say the least. It is precisely this kind of utterly infantile attitude by far too many people in this society that will no doubt be the ultimate death knell of this nation and everything it allegedly "stands for" if we don't grow the fuck up and actually become civilized members of the world.

On the other hand given the nightmarish history of this country what else is new?...

Kofi



Poll: US divided over torture, closing Guantanamo
By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer
Wed Jun 3, 2009


WASHINGTON – Just over half of Americans say torture is at least sometimes justified to thwart terrorist attacks and are evenly divided over whether to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, according to a poll that underscores the challenges President Barack Obama faces in selling his terror-fighting policies.

Even so, the latest Associated Press-GfK survey also shows that Obama enjoys broad confidence that he can effectively handle terrorism in an era when many people say they still fear becoming a victim of it and when a swath of the public shares the views of Obama's Republican predecessor, George W. Bush.

At the same time, Obama hasn't lost support — he has a strong 64 percent job-approval rating — and nearly half of Americans still think the country's headed in the right direction. That's despite bipartisan rebukes of the new president's ordered closure of the Cuban island facility and former Vice President Dick Cheney's sustained criticism of Obama's approach to terrorism.

Terrorism and Guantanamo emerged in the poll as intensely partisan issues, with viewpoints largely split along ideological lines.

"To uphold the integrity of our Constitution for ourselves and for the world, it is important" that the U.S. close the Guantanamo prison, said Diana Jones, 68, a Democrat from Timonium, Md., who has faith in Obama's terror-battling abilities. "We need to treat other counties as we would want them to treat us." Plus, she added, keeping the prison open puts U.S. troops overseas at risk.

Countered Steve Marsh, 50, a Republican from Guntersville, Ala., who doesn't think Obama is strong enough on terrorism: "I'd just rather see them there than see them here on our soil. ... They don't, in my opinion, deserve to be treated as part of our prison system here. They need to be kept separate."

Such issues have dominated Obama's agenda in recent weeks as he has wrestled with the fallout of Bush-era policies and the legal questions surrounding them, while trying to fend off criticism from friends and foes alike.
Obama ordered the prison's closure and emphatically stated "we don't torture" just days after taking office as he sought to improve a sullied world image. But since then, he has found that making good on those campaign promises has, perhaps, been more difficult than anticipated.

The Democratic-controlled Senate demanded more details of Obama's plan when lawmakers voted 90-6 to refuse to give him $80 billion he requested to shutter the Bush-created prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by early 2010. Republicans also spoke out vigorously against the notion that dangerous terrorism suspects could end up confined on U.S. soil. And foreign allies balked at accepting the transfer of prisoners from the Navy-run facility when the United States didn't appear willing to do the same.

All that prompted Obama to deliver a speech in which he denounced "fear-mongering" by political opponents and insisted that U.S. maximum-security prisons can safely house the prisoners. He also argued anew that closing the prison, which has held hundreds of detainees for years without charges or trials, could make the U.S. safer because the prison would no longer motivate enemies overseas.

A novice commander in chief, Obama risks further defeat of his policies in Congress and disapproval of them abroad if he can't get the public on board. Thus, he's making a tough sell.

For now at least, the AP-GfK poll shows most Americans have faith in him, with 70 percent saying they are confident of Obama's ability to address terrorism. That's divided along party lines, with nearly all Democrats, two-thirds of independents and just over a third of Republicans expressing confidence.

Nearly eight years after terrorists struck on U.S. soil, more than a third of Americans say they worry about the chance that they or their relatives might fall victim to a terrorist attack — essentially unchanged from 35 percent five years ago.
All that said, the poll also shows potential areas of political vulnerability for Obama and indicates he must walk a fine line as he seeks to both protect the country and turn the page on Bush's national security policies.

Some 52 percent of people say torture can be at least sometimes justified to obtain information about terrorist activities from suspects, an increase from 38 percent in 2005 when the AP last asked the question. More than two-thirds of Republicans say torture can be justified compared with just over a third of Democrats.

On Obama's plan to close the Guantanamo prison, 47 percent approve, while 47 percent disapprove. Again, the country is divided on partisan lines, with most Republicans disapproving and most Democrats approving. Independents are evenly divided.

Despite the president's safety assurances, more than half of Americans say they would be worried about the chance of terrorism suspects escaping from U.S. high-security prisons. Yet again, more Republicans express concern than Democrats. Still, the figures indicate that the GOP-fueled fear may be resonating.

Leading the charge by Republicans against Obama's policies is Cheney, who the poll shows may be benefiting from his outspokenness since leaving office. Nearly a quarter had a favorable opinion of the former vice president, a measure that's risen steadily from a low of 13 percent in one 2007 poll.

For all the out-of-power GOP's angst, the poll found one bright spot for it: More people identified themselves as Republican than did last month, 23 percent to 18 percent.

The AP-GfK Poll was conducted May 28 to June 1 by GfK Roper Public Affairs & Media. It involved landline and cell phone interviews with 1,000 adults nationwide and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
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Associated Press writer Natasha Metzler, AP Polling Director Trevor Tompson and News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.

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