This is primarily a direct response to all of the so-called "Latino" organizations, specifically MAPA - the Mexican American Political Association & Hermandad Latino Americana, who have recently put out the call for all to convene and participate in the organizing efforts to get Barack Obama (Obama Rama) elected to the presidency.
If you are considering answering that call there are some things that you should really consider before allowing yourself to get caught up in what i like to call the "Obama Drama" and committing any amount of your time or money to his campaign.
Before i give you my own opinion i would like to call your attention to a fantastic article that Mumia Abu Jamal wrote recently urging everyone to look very closely at who Obama is, where he comes from, and whose interests he has at heart. (This article is posted at the bottom end of this e-mail for your reading pleasure and please share it with others).
The other persons ideas i would urge you to take into consideration would be that of Ralph Nader who if you didn't know is also running for president right now. His article voicing similar feelings that Mumia has is also posted at the end of this e-mail for you to read.
One thing that both did not mention and that everyone who i tell this to is seriously shocked by is that Obama has the same blood running through his veins as the Bush Family and the Cheney Family...literally! He is both George W. Bush's cousin and Dick Cheney's cousin, not to mention a whole entire list of ancestors he is related to that goes all the way back to the ancient royal/ruling class bloodlines of Europe. Here is where you can find proof of this, out of their own mouths! Go too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niGLijlQ6WUSEE FOR YOURSELVES HOW MUCH OF A JOKE THEY TRY TO MAKE OUT OF THIS IN ORDER TO DISMISS THE VERY REAL TRUTH BEHIND THE (S)ELECTION OF U.S. PRESIDENTS....
Why is this relevent/important? It matters because we do not directly vote for any president ever and never have voted directly for any of the white corporate male executives (including Obama) in our country. They have all been selected and the one with the purest family royal bloodlines wins. There have been exceptions but those exceptions were eliminated quickly. The sooner we come to live this reality the sooner we can move on with our lives. When leaders of organizations that identify themselves as grassroots and for working people, such as the two that i mentioned above at the beginning of this e-mail, call upon us to give our time and money to politicos who are blood relatives connected to Feudal Europe and Corporate America we cannot forgo simply asking WHY?
MAPA and HERMANDAD LATINO-AMERICANA have forgotten or do not know or refuse to acknowledge that there are hundreds and thousands if not millions of youth and working class radicals that will no longer chase our tails around in a circle by seeking remedies, apologies, and reparations from individuals who compromise the integrity of the community and who are tied into, represent, and empower the corporate political process set up and established to maintain control over the dynamic, radical, revolutionary, and democratic organizing efforts in battles waged for freedom on a daily basis in our neighborhoods, community centers, councils, unions, co-ops, and even families!
i name MAPA AND HML because these two are representative of so many other organizations who over the course of the next six months, and forever if we let them, will be calling upon all of us to get behind a politico who says one thing and does another. Listen for the catch words: "change", "freedom", "democracy", "unity", "working-class America", "what the people want", "peace", "make no mistake about it" (Villaraigosa's favorite opening line) on and on and on but watch their actions: status-quo, bondage, authoritarianism, divisiveness, protection of property above the rights of the community, the hoarding of and allegiance to money, male dominance, and most of all WAR.
MAPA just put out a call to attend this years National Latino Congreso and as part of that requested the community to attend an extravagant ballroom dinner to feed Obama and all of his cohorts so that he can in return feed us all of the above mindless catch phrases and promises that only a Homer Simpson and everyone in the community of Springfield could and would lap up. One year the President of MAPA and so many other members of the established opposition to the establishment paid hundreds of dollars to register in the NLC, crossed a picket line in front of the National Latino Congreso to enter and give speeches, presentations, catch camera angles, and rub elbows and toast with wine glasses among the bourgeois elite.
There is no doubt in my mind that some of these same so-called leaders of the people attended and encouraged the community to attend the 2006 summer conference the National Council of La Raza put on where Karl Rove, the Nazi murderous architect of both invasionary Gulf wars, was invited as the guest speaker and welcomed as one to discuss and debate immigration issues with.
Check out the info. for yourselves and try to remember what has happened over the last 8 years. Better yet, the last 500+ years on Native American soil. You will be amazed at what we are in store for in the next 4 years. Separate your soul from the process they have set up to framework our lives. Support real change on a daily basis through hard work in the gardens, cultural schools and institutes, Hip Hop and it's four cultural elements, serving "Food not Bombs", co-ops, peace coalitions, etc. etc. Let there be art, love, music, and creativity where the revolution is concerned!
-El Machete
Here are the articles:
MUMIA'S
Is Obama's Victory Ours? [col. writ. 6/5/08] (c)'08 Mumia Abu-Jamal With the attainment of the required delegates to claim the Democratic Party's nomination for U.S. president, Sen. Barack H. Obama (D. ILL.) has written a new page in American history. For by so doing he succeeds where Channing Phillips, Shirley Chisholm, Jesse Jackson, Sr., and Al Sharpton could not - by gaining the necessary delegates to demand nomination. Of course, there have been numerous Black candidates for president, but these have been third party efforts designed more to raise issues, to organize or protest than to actually win elections. Some of the best known have been Eldridge Cleaver (former Black Panther Minister of Information) , Dick Gregory, Dr. Lenora Fulani, and the former congresswoman, Cynthia McKinney. But this is a different kettle of fish, for Obama's candidacy is the closest to make it to the winner's circle. What also distinguishes Obama from his predecessors is he doesn't come from civil rights, Black liberation, socialist or anti war movements. (He often remarks at speeches, "I'm not against all wars, I'm just against dumb wars") Indeed, although his detractors may try to paint him as a leftist liberal this is hardly true. On issues both foreign and domestic he would've been more at home in the Republican Party of his senatorial forebear, Edward Brooke of Massachusetts . For though he is Black by dint of his African father, he has studiously avoided Black political groups in his long, harrowing climb to the rim of the White House. He has studiously avoided the very real and long standing grievances of Black America. In fact, he tried to run a 'post-racial' campaign until Sen. Hillary R. Clinton (D.N.Y.) (and her rambunctious husband, former Pres. Bill), brought race front and center during the Super Tuesday February primaries, by trying to pigeonhole him as 'the Black candidate'. This primary wounded Obama, and as he won in the delegate count, he also lost a number of primary states, such as Ohio and Pennsylvania , which are necessary for a win in November. Politics is the art of making people believe that they are in power when in fact, they have none. It is a measure of how dire is the hour that they've passed the keys to the kingdom to a Black man. As in many American cities, Black Mayors were let in when the treasuries were almost barren, and tax bases were almost at rock-bottom. With the nation's manufacturing base also a thing of history, amidst the socioeconomic wreckage of globalization, with foreign affairs in shambles, the rulers reach for a pretty, brown face to front for the Empire. 'Real change that you could believe in' would be an end to Empire, and an end to wars for corporate greed, not just a change of the shade of the political managers. That change, I'm afraid, is still to come.
NADER'S Nader: Obama trying to 'talk white' By M.E. Sprengelmeyer Originally published 12:05 a.m., June 25, 2008 Updated 07:01 p.m., June 25, 2008
Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader accused Sen. Barack Obama, the presumed Democratic Party nominee, of downplaying poverty issues, trying to "talk white" and appealing to "white guilt" during his run for the White House.Nader, a thorn in the Democratic Party's side since the 2000 presidential election, has taken various shots at Obama in recent days while ramping up his latest independent run for president.In a wide-ranging interview with the Rocky Mountain News on Monday, he said he is running because he believes Democrats, like Republicans, are too closely aligned with corporate interests.Economic exploitationNader was asked if Obama is any different than Democrats he has criticized in the past, considering Obama's pledge to reject campaign contributions from registered lobbyists."There's only one thing different about Barack Obama when it comes to being a Democratic presidential candidate. He's half African-American, " Nader said. "Whether that will make any difference, I don't know. I haven't heard him have a strong crackdown on economic exploitation in the ghettos. Payday loans, predatory lending, asbestos, lead. What's keeping him from doing that? Is it because he wants to talk white? He doesn't want to appear like Jesse Jackson? We'll see all that play out in the next few months and if he gets elected afterwards."The Obama campaign had only a brief response, calling the remarks disappointing.Asked to clarify whether he thought Obama does try to "talk white," Nader said: "Of course."I mean, first of all, the number one thing that a black American politician aspiring to the presidency should be is to candidly describe the plight of the poor, especially in the inner cities and the rural areas, and have a very detailed platform about how the poor is going to be defended by the law, is going to be protected by the law, and is going to be liberated by the law," Nader said. "Haven't heard a thing.""We are obviously disappointed with these very backward-looking remarks," Obama campaign spokeswoman Shannon Gilson said.Plans to visit DNCNader said he plans to travel to Denver during this summer's Democratic National Convention, hoping to highlight an alternative agenda that he thinks the party should pursue. His appearance in the city is sure to anger some Democrats who believe his presence on the ballot during the contested 2000 election cost Al Gore votes, helping Republican George Bush win the disputed election.Nader rejects that blame, saying Democrats "scapegoated" him instead of looking at other factors that contributed to the defeat.'Appeal to white guilt'Nader said he is not impressed with Obama and that he does not see him campaigning often enough in low-income, predominantly minority communities where there is a "shocking" amount of economic exploitation. He pointed to issues like predatory lending, shortages of health care and municipal resources, environmental issues and others."He wants to show that he is not a threatening . . . another politically threatening African-American politician," Nader said. "He wants to appeal to white guilt. You appeal to white guilt not by coming on as black is beautiful, black is powerful. Basically he's coming on as someone who is not going to threaten the white power structure, whether it's corporate or whether it's simply oligarchic. And they love it. Whites just eat it up."© Rocky Mountain News
