New Year: Presidential Race/Gender/Religion Questions

New year, new vows? Forget that - no justice, no peace. "There's war on the streets, there's war in the middle east." (can't remember where that line is from, but feels like I can't even place the decade because of the damn perpetual interventionist military-industrial complex of a government that we pay our taxes to).

On that tip, and this initial tangent, why is it that the American people don't give a shit about learning about the rest of the world and the world's history (broadly) while our "leaders" can't wait to dig their greedy hands and pour the blood of our young soldiers into yet another land abroad? Is the miseducation of the masses a way for the powerful to keep American people insensitive to the plight of the world's people? Damn right it is - and the profits for mass media, quasi-military/quasi-development multi-billion $$ behemoths like Haliburton, and everyone else with a fist up in the Treasury depend on it. " We don't want the damn immigrants here, and bomb their lands as much as you want to keep us safe."

Anyway, that's not my point right here. Election season is at full blast, I guess. The talking heads at the podium give way every night to the multitudes of talking heads from the corporate media, and the message of who we should elect, why we should elect them, and what the basis of that decision should be has been compromised fully at this early point. The battle royale between Hillary and Barrack are less about gender and/or race and more about dynasty, "electability," and "safety" to the so-called undecided masses. While I'm pissed as hell that Kucinich has been edged out of the debates altogether, I'm also pissed that even Edwards is getting the short shrift from the media.

I'll get into the whole race/gender/supporting the white men running for office thing soon enough, I'm sure. But at this moment, I'm kind of over the analyses that I've seen. Some of the discussions that I have been having with folks are also around why it is that white voters seem to be embracing Obama's campaign, and whether that will last. The common thought is "America isn't ready to elect a Black President" - which is a very polarizing statement in its own right. But then there's the question of someone being "palatable" or "safe" in a way that has been repeatedly contrasted with Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton's previous campaigns for the presidency.

I guess I'm annoyed at all of this on a lot of levels, but I want to think about it a little more. With race and gender thrown kind of in our faces, the question of faith/religion is getting lost in the mix. There's a viral campaign going on, just under the mainstream, about Obama being secretly Muslim and a part of a plot to take over the nation by radical fundamentalists. Whatever his personal faith, this thing is going to get really ugly really fast. If it ends up that he was raised Muslim, the know-nothings everywhere will have a field-day, and while the influential radical Zionists will want blood, even the majority of cultural Jews who are currently supporting him may have new reservations. And let's not forget the average "I don't know a Muslim but they're all going to hell" American. Fear (mongering) is a dangerous thing.

Forget that - even if the international conspiracy theories don't do him in - do you really think that we're going to get through this campaign and this attempt to pin a faith on the man without discussions of the Nation of Islam, Minister Farakhan, and the rest of it? Of course, no one wants to mention Muhammad Ali in this mix instead of the most incendiary folks from the large American black muslim community. So I'm putting out there that if the "Obama is Muslim" thing grows larger, we're going to see multiple threads that he'll have to deal with that will focus on the "unsafe" elements of black nationalism (via black muslims), and the "foreignness" of the man with the funny name that people like Andy Rooney can't deal with.

But this is far from over, and I'm far from finished with my anger about all of this. Let's hope I can write more regularly this year. Thanks for coming back.