A party whose base is animated in part by its opposition to illegal immigration is probably not going to "import" someone, as it were, for the biggest job in the land. But in the age of Obama, the GOP is suffering from a serious dearth of credible minority leaders—people who can speak with authority to an increasingly multiethnic electorate. And the shortfall is especially glaring in regard to Latinos, who are the country's fastest-growing minority group (they represented 7.4 percent of the electorate in 2008, up from 6 percent in 2004 and 5.4 percent in 2000) but are trending heavily Democratic, despite their religious, family-first leanings (George W. Bush took 44 percent of the Latino vote in 2004 versus only 31 percent for John McCain in 2008).
This is where Fortuño comes in. For Republicans, using Fortuño to fuel the eternal flame of 2012 speculation serves to make the GOP seem, at least, like a more welcoming place for Latinos—however whimsical his chances of reaching the White House currently are.
William Newell, a Penobscot Indian and former chair of the anthropology department of the University of Connecticut, claims that the first Thanksgiving was not “a festive gathering of Indians and Pilgrims, but rather a celebration of the massacre of 700 Pequot men, women and children.” In 1637, the Pequot tribe of Connecticut gathered for the annual Green Corn Dance ceremony. Mercenaries of the English and Dutch attacked and surrounded the village; burning down everything and shooting whomever try to escape. The next day, Newell notes, the Governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony declared: “A day of Thanksgiving, thanking God that they had eliminated over 700 men, women and children.” It was signed into law that, “This day forth shall be a day of celebration and thanksgiving for subduing the Pequots.” Most Americans believe Thanksgiving was this wonderful dinner and harvest celebration. The truth is the “Thanksgiving dinner” was invented both to instill a false pride in Americans and to cover up the massacre.
Am infuriated. One of the first teaching jobs I got was as a history teacher in the NYC public school system. How in the facking hell does this country get away with not teaching their children about this massacre? No wonder when it comes to public education I am on the side of conservative homeschoolers and radicalunschoolers than with the Bloomberg loving UFT?
How can I look into the eyes of a child and say "Happy Thanksgiving" after reading about the horrible beginnings of "Thanks Giving"? more this way»
Prince Harry has been all over the headlines lately. Last week we--and he--learned that his five-year relationship withgirlfriend, Chelsea Davy ended after Chelsea announced it on Facebook. Only weeks before that, footage of the Prince calling a fellow army cadet "Paki" was released. And today, we got our hands on the Royal's very own personal diary, which foreshadows much of the Prince's offensive behavior. The entries below from January 2005 bring us into the mind of a Nazi-uniform-sporting Prince. Come back next week for more entries from our exclusive series, The Prince Harry Diaries.
Juan Cole has been on a roll tying up the historical threads that are going to make the next 4 to 8 years rather interesting. As a Middle Eastern Politics scholar, he's been relentless in his dismantling of the pro-Zionist propaganda that justified the invasion of Gaza all the while smacking ruthlessly Hamas and all those involved in islamocentric power struggles.
The Martin Luther King, Jr. that most Americans know is the man who said, "I have a dream" at a massive rally 250,000 strong in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 1963, while standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during a March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. That speech is about racial justice and ultimate reconciliation in the United States, and with the changes wrought in American law and practice by the Civil Rights movement, it is a speech that Americans can still feel hopeful about, even if we have not, as Dr. King would have said, "gotten there yet."
But there was another King, the critic of the whole history of European colonialism in the global South, who celebrated the independence movements that led to decolonization in the decades after World War II. The anti-imperial King is the exact opposite of the Neoconservatives who set US policy in the early twenty-first century. Barack Obama, who inherits King's Civil Rights legacy and is also burdened with the neo-imperialism of the W. era, has some crucial choices to make about whether he will heed the other King, or whether he will get roped into the previous administration's neocolonial project simply because it is the status quo from which he will begin his tenure as commander in chief.
The Civil Rights movement was not just about sitting on the front of the bus or eating at a cafeteria counter. It was about reparations. Reparations for the crimes of imperialism. Reparation for the subjugations, enslavement and exploitation of whole races and social classes of peoples.
In the "Let Freedom Ring" speech, the speech that I believe had him finally killed, Dr. King expresses rather poetically : more this way»
If you bomb a UN school, you're manufacturing your own terrorists:
In 1996, Israeli jets bombed a UN building where civilians had taken refuge at Cana/ Qana in south Lebanon, killing 102 persons; in the place where Jesus is said to have made water into wine, Israeli bombs wrought a different sort of transformation. In the distant, picturesque port of Hamburg, a young graduate student studying traditional architecture of Aleppo saw footage like this on the news [graphic]. He was consumed with anguish and the desire for revenge. He immediately wrote out a martyrdom will, pledging to die avenging the innocent victims, killed with airplanes and bombs that were a free gift from the United States. His name was Muhammad Atta. Five years later he piloted American Airlines 11 into the World Trade Center.
Israeli official rhetoric suggests that the government hopes a massive attack on Gaza will turn the population against Hamas. But violence against Israelis has always made public opinion there more hawkish. Why should the Palestinians be any different? In their more reflective moments, even senior Israeli politicians recognise that more killing is likely further to radicalise the Palestinians. A columnist in Haaretz, a liberal Israeli paper, recalled this week that Ehud Barak, the defence minister, who is masterminding the attack on Gaza, once told him that if he were a Palestinian "I would join a terror organisation".
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"I must admit moreover that it may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the Civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on unessential points. The tendency of a usurpation on one side or the other, or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them, will be best guarded by an entire abstinence of the Government from interference in any way whatever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order, and protecting each sect against trespass on its legal rights by others."
