An Article by:

By Steve Hammons

As Barack Obama continues to move ahead in the Democratic presidential primaries, we note that ethnic background and gender still seem to be playing important and interesting roles.

The many domestic and foreign affairs issues we face, such as the candidates’ positions on the invasion and occupation of Iraq, are also key parts of the debates and campaigns.

According to recent surveys and demographic studies, Hillary Clinton’s support, in part, comes from white women and older Democrats.

Reasons for this seem obvious.

Some white women see one of their own and feel that giving her support is appropriate. They identify with her. This seems like a natural response.

Older Democrats may feel comfortable with “another Clinton” and, should we say it? – they might feel more comfortable voting for an all-white candidate. This may be a factor for some Democrats with lower educational levels, which is also a group supporting Clinton to some degree.

Obama gets support from younger voters and increasingly from men. Since Obama is a relatively young father of two young kids, these voters might naturally identify with him. His youthful manner might also be attractive.

Men probably identify with him not just because he is a male, but because he is a male who appears to be admirable and a “regular guy.”

INVASION, OCCUPATION OF IRAQ

Some of the main differences between Obama and Clinton, of course, are their positions and actions regarding the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Many Americans now believe that intelligence information was inaccurate about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. There is significant evidence that indicates this was intentional on the part of some people within the Bush administration and those connected to it.

Many people believe that the Bush administration was willing to send our troops to Iraq, to die and be terribly injured, for access oil, to assist other governments in the Middle East and to “finish the job” that former president George H.W. Bush wisely did not undertake – invading and taking over Iraq.

Some researchers say there were those in and associated with the Bush administration who wanted to pour monies of the U.S. Treasury into war profiteering and those who wanted to establish permanent U.S. bases in Iraq to influence and police the Middle East region for decades to come.

It has been said that there were Bush administration people and others who wanted to show they were “macho” – the “chicken hawks” – even though few of them had ever served in combat environments themselves. Many even avoided military service in Korea and Vietnam.

Other aspects of the invasion and occupation seemed to indicate the huge egos and incompetence of those associated with the Bush administration.

The deceptive and dishonorable nature of some of these players also seems evident to many people.

We have spent hundreds of billions of dollars on the invasion and occupation of Iraq. This has been, in large part, borrowed money. There are many hidden costs as well.

The Bush administration’s Iraq fiasco has nearly broken our Army, Army Reserve, National Guard and has broken the bodies, minds and spirits of many good American soldiers, Marines and their families.

According to some research, hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians, including children, have been killed as a result of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Many more have been terribly injured.

Though she may not have intended all of these results, this is what Hillary Clinton supported when she voted to authorize military action by the Bush administration against Iraq.

This is what Barack Obama opposed.

STIRRING THE MELTING POT

Obama’s support includes African-Americans. This is not surprising since his father was from Kenya, Africa.

Obama’s father and mother were divorced when he was two years old.

After the divorce, his father went on to get a Ph.D. from Harvard in economics and then returned to Kenya to pursue a career there.

Obama spend formative childhood and teen years in Hawaii, and was raised by his mother and her parents, Stanley and Madelyn Dunham, who were originally from Wichita, Kansas.

Obama has noted that his grandfather, Stanley Dunham, joined the Army in WWII after Pearl Harbor and served under Gen. George Patton in Europe. Obama’s grandmother, Madelyn, worked on a bomber assembly line during the war.

This reminds us that it can be fairly and accurately said that Obama is a mixed-ethnicity American. He straddles a sometimes wide divide of Americans from different ethnic backgrounds.

But, he is not the only one. Nowadays, after many generations of mixing the different ethnic groups of people in the U.S., there are millions of mixed-ethnicity Americans.

If your family has some Scottish, Cherokee and Swedish, you have a mixed-ethnicity. Are you part African, part English with maybe some Dutch in the family tree? Same thing. Was great-grandma half-Mexican and grampa Joe part-Navajo? Join the club.

Obama is in good company here.

Along these lines, Hispanics seem to be a swing vote of sorts in the Democratic primaries. Many Mexican-Americans and African-Americans sometimes compete for the same turf, whether it is access to decent blue-collar jobs or other resources. This can create friction.

It should, though, create teamwork. The “divide and conquer” strategy seems to be in play at times when wedges are driven between the Hispanic and African-American communities. They should be working together to obtain better jobs, educational opportunities, housing and health care.

Many Native American Indians have very substandard resources and opportunities too.

And, we might want to remember that the majority of poor and underprivileged Americans, adults and children, are white.

An interesting development in the ongoing discussions about Mexican-Americans and Mexican immigration is that two states with two of the largest populations of Native American Indians, Oklahoma and Arizona, have recently passed some of the toughest anti-immigrant laws in the country.

Isn’t it interesting that many Hispanic, Mexican and other immigrants from south of Mexico are of part-Native American Indians and part Spanish ancestry. They have darker skin, like Indians of North America. They have straight black hair and some of the facial characteristics of North American Indians.

And at the same time, Oklahoma and Arizona passed some of the most stringent laws against these immigrants. This just seems like an interesting dynamic.

After all, let’s not forget, amid all the talk about securing our borders and saving the English language from destruction, it is probably safe to say that some people just don´t like others who have different color skin, who look different, speak in a different way and have different cultural and social characteristics.

The ethnic factors in play seem to need a fresh perspective from many of us.

Whether the ongoing presidential race is focusing on the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the multi- and mixed-ethnicity of Americans or the other issues of the day, it might be helpful to look carefully and objectively at all the elements involved.

Americans do face dangers from enemies, foreign and domestic. Our democracy, our freedoms, our Constitution and our peace and prosperity are at risk.

As we select our next president and other federal, state and local government officials, our wisdom and intelligence, or lack thereof, can have very serious consequences, as we have seen in recent years.

Tags: clintons, empire, Global, governing, government, imperialism, politics, Steve Hammons
Categories: Commentary, Global, Politics, Imperialism, Steve Hammons, clintons
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An Article by:

Russell Cole

David Shuster was recently placed on indefinite suspension by MSNBC, following remarks that were made by Shuster during an episode of Countdown, where he was substituting as the host for Kieth Olbermann. When discussing Chelsey Clinton’s participation in her mom’s campaign for the Democratic Primary, Shuster questioned whether Chelsy was being “Pimped out in some weird sort of way,” by her parents. The remark made by Shuster was in reference to the use of Chelsey by the Clinton Campaign as an agent who was charged with the task of campaign calling celebrities, on occasions, and, sometimes, to contact members belonging to the extra-democratic council of elders; otherwise referred to as Super-delegates.

I had actually watched the show in question, and – although I had, in fact, observed the statements made by Shuster – the incident failed to registered as anything apart from the ordinary and unremarkable. However, apparently, Shuster’s remarks incited furry on the part of the Clintons and the Clintonian Political Machine. Hillary Clinton refused to participate in a debate that is to be hosted by NBC if Shuster is ever to return to his employment at MSNBC. Accordingly, the executives at NBC capitulated and placed Shuster on indefinite suspension.

The problems exemplified by this course of events that involved Shuster; his employer, MSNBC; and the Clintonian Political Machine are more than apparent. Corporate journalism has capitulated to the pressures placed upon it by an agent that would, otherwise, constitute an object of its journalistic coverage, in order for the journalism syndicate not to lose access to its subject, who, also, sometimes, serves as a source. For a journalism syndicate to obey the commands placed upon it by those who are powerful in society tarnishes any claim by the journalism organization to be providing unfettered and unbiased reports of those who have acquired positions of significance whereby their actions can have an impact upon many others.

For this reason alone, MSNBC should rehire Shuster. In fact, it was later revealed that Chelsey was assigned to a Super-delegate – where she met with him in person during the course of a private breakfast – who happened to be close in age to the former First Daughter. However, rather than addressing the Clintonian use of Chelsey in this instance, and the implications it can have, lending itself for the comparison - not in all respects, but, at least, to some - with other more unsavory forms of exploitation, it is more important to point out that Shuster should be returned to his position because he is simply one of the best in the profession.

Of all of the relentless and self-assured chatter emanating from the Washington Press Core, David Shuster has provided an unique and refreshing voice, offering empirically based descriptions and evidentially supported adduction that contribute to a stream of informative journalism that certainly marks a high peak in the profession, protruding from a backdrop of low valleys that represent the utterly unprofessional and informatively valueless work generated by his counterparts. For the majority of instances, Schuster appears to actually conduct investigatory research; thus, adding to the empirically derived body of knowledge pertaining to American political affairs while failing to merely reiterate and help propagate the popular narration of events constructed by the group-think of Washington press correspondents.

The value of Shuster’s work should not be understated, considering the alternative options one has when searching for credible sources of cable journalism. Simply from observing the cable news analyses provided upon the Primaries, it is evident that the punditry is merely engaged in speculative indulgences; always insisting upon explaining processes – such as the deliberations of African American women, who, according to the quasi-journalistic expository prose, must make the difficult chose between two competing social identities – a black man and a white women; both with whom an African American women can identify. Are these conclusions offered by the chattering heads supported by research in political psychology or sociology? Sadly, and fairly amazingly, they are not.

With absolutely no support for their conclusions other than their own intuitions and looking-glass-selves, they, nevertheless, articulate their narratives as if such explanations should be considered more credible than an description that I, myself, could provide, taking into consideration that I have no resources or even contacts. Since these accounts proffered to us by the corporate press exist in some state of Limbo between reality and fiction, it is difficult to know what exactly to make out the quasi-journalism manufactured by the chattering class occupying the chairs in cable news. At best, I would describe it as a theoretically vacant and methodologically nonexistent form of armchair political-sociology.

As Jon Stewart has pointed out, the steady stream of empirically unestablished expositions distributed through the cable news medium can be tellingly referred to as newsac. Like musac, it provides an unobtrusive background to spaces that might be otherwise uncomfortable if left in silence. The pacifying character of newsac, however, only persists for as long as one neglects to make it the object of his or her attention, because, as soon as it is scrutinized, its blandish and hollow composition comes to the fore, and, subsequently, incites a vexing realization that what one is hearing qualifies as a commodity that is significantly less than news.

Nothing was more troubling than listening to the chattering heads describe how they were misled by their polling in the days leading up to New Hampshire. These people know nothing about the inferential statistics that go into extrapolating the frequencies of attitudes belonging to an entire population about whom such attributes are inferred. The majority of the buffoons we watch on cable news do not even understand the significance of the margin of error in statistical sampling, let alone the actual operations comprising the methodology of sampling. Therefore, to listen to them joke about the precariousness of their forecasting – a disposition of reticence garnered by their debacle in New Hampshire – smacks of incredulity, because, quite simply, they had nothing to do with the polling; and, their forecasting, rather, reflected merely reading the polls and making predictions based upon the level of support achieved by the various candidates. Therefore, they are giving themselves too much credit. Their contribution to this false prediction is better compared to a high school student who uses the Wikipedia as her or her sole reference when writing a report; never considering that the renderings contained in the Wikipedia might be derived from processes that are not entirely reliable.

Shuster’s work in journalism, however, is markedly different from the preponderance of chatter heard through media transmitting cable news. When covering the Libby Trial for Hardball, Shuster reported voluminous facts belonging to the reality of the unfolding drama. In fact, Shuster’s coverage of the spectacle achieved a degree of precision that was not even remotely attained by his journalistic peers. If one wanted to understand the actualities of the case – and assuming that cable news was one’s only recourse – he or she had no where else to turn other than Shuster. Popularized myths – such as the assertion that Plaine was never undercover – often made by conservative politicos and, then, distributed by journalists who were all too willing to package such manipulative attempts at public relations as actual news was routinely dispelled by Shuster, who, as a contrarian, would point to factual information: statements made by the judge and the prosecutor that indicated that Plaine was in an undercover capacity; telling utterances contradicting the claims dissembled by Administration apologists.

Quite simply, for those of us desperate for legitimate reporting, Shuster’s loss is a devastating blow. Furthermore, when journalism becomes subservient to the agencies of power it should be examining critically, there is certainly something amiss that is in need of correction.

For shame MSNBC. I would iterate the same to the Clintons; however, it has long been apparent that they have no shame.

Russell Cole

Tags: cable news, clintons, david shuster, hillary clinton, journalism, msnbc
Categories: Commentary, journalism, cable news, clintons
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