Nelson Mandela's Letter To Our President-Elect

TransGriot Note: I've been comparing this historic election of our first African-American president to the 1994 one in which South Africans stood in long lines to elect Nelson Mandela as South Africa's first Black president. Here's Nelson Mandela's congratulatory letter to our president-elect.


5 November 2008

Senator Barack Obama,
Chicago

Dear Senator Obama,

We join people in your country and around the world in congratulating you on becoming the President-Elect of the United States. Your victory has demonstrated that no person anywhere in the world should not dare to dream of wanting to change the world for a better place.

We note and applaud your commitment to supporting the cause of peace and security around the world. We trust that you will also make it the mission of your Presidency to combat the scourge of poverty and disease everywhere.

We wish you strength and fortitude in the challenging days and years that lie ahead. We are sure you will ultimately achieve your dream making the United States of America a full partner in a community of nations committed to peace and prosperity for all.

Sincerely,

N R Mandela

President Elect Obama's Victory Speech

The victory speech.

Yes We Did!

It's one time I will happily say (and will write the post on November 5 if it plays out) I was wrong about an issue. I've always told friends that I believed the United States was too obstinately racist to ever put in my lifetime an African-American man in the Oval Office. I've always believed for that reason the first African-American president would be a woman rather than an African-American man.

Monica Roberts, October 1, 2008

Okay, I'll say it. I was wrong. And I'm saying it with a wide as Texas smile on my face.

What my people have been hoping, dreaming and praying for to happen for almost 150 years has finally come true. We have an African-American president.

President Elect Barack Hussein Obama, Jr.

Come January 20 the White House will have occupants who share the same heritage as the people who built it.

He didn't just squeak by. It was an electoral college blowout. He garnered 61 million votes, the most in US history. The victory was especially sweet because he also exorcised the ghosts of Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004.

In one fell swoop the election of President-elect Obama (God, I love the sound of that) has begun the repair the damage to our country's international good name severely damaged by the Bush misadministration.

It's a history making election on a lot of levels, and one which I and a lot of people around the world will be celebrating for a while. I cried when he hit the magic 270 mark at 11 PM EDT and thought about how my late grandmother would have loved to have seen this.

We African-Americans were dancing in the streets last night. We were joined by our fellow Americans and people around the world. We're standing a little taller and smiling a lot wider this morning.

It's a new morning on America. For the first time many of us have a reason to be proud of our country. I'm loving the fact that for the first time in a while I have a president I can be proud of and look up to.

I'm happy that on my niece's ninth birthday she'll get to witness the inauguration of our nation's first African-American president.

And so will I.

I've Voted-Now It's Your Turn

I've done my civic duty, now it's time for you to do yours. If you haven't voted, please do so.

If you need to know where your precinct is, click on this link

"There's no question that in the next thirty or forty years a Negro can also achieve the same position that my brother has as president of the United States, certainly within that period of time."

Robert F. Kennedy, May 1961

Depending on where you live, you'll have until 6 or 7 PM to cast your ballot. So let's do this. Get your vote on. There's history to be made today.

It's E-Day

It's E-Day. Election Day 2008. After two years of primaries, debates and a hard fought stretch run it comes down to peeps casting their ballots. The denizens of Dixville Notch NH, have already done so. At midnight they cast their ballots with the results being 15-6 for Obama.

I'm about to head out the door right now to my precinct to cast a history making presidential vote for Barack Obama. While I'm nervous about the outcome, I'm cautiously optimistic as well. The trends are breaking his way right now, but we'll know in a few hours whether he'll be our next president as this historic day wears on.

I was happy to hear the Redskins lost to the Steelers 23-6. So if the Redskins Election Predictor holds true to form there will be a very festive crowd in Grant Park tonight.

I also get a chance to weigh in on the McConnell-Lunsford US senate race as well along with other state and local races.

I've waited long enough. Time to get rolling to the precinct.

Political Football

If both campaigns are showing a little more interest than usual in tonight's Monday night football tilt between the Washington Redskins and the Pittsburgh Steelers, there's a good reason for it.

Since 1940, the Redskins last home game before a presidential election has presaged the eventual winner in 16 out of 17 elections. If the Redskins win that game, the incumbent party goes on to win that election. If the Redskins lose, the party out of power wins the election.

The only time the Redskins Game Predictor has been inaccurate was in 2004. The Green Bay Packers marched into FedEx Field and beat the Redskins but Junior won(?) anyway. The other interesting twist in this game is that the Steelers head coach, Mike Tomlin is African-American, mirroring the presidential race.

So McCain will probably be rooting for the Redskins, while Obama will be probably be doing the same for the Steelers. So will I and every other Obama supporter tonight.

Anybody from Pittsburgh have a Terrible Towel they can lend me?

Barack's Presidential Resume

TransGriot Note: Stumbled across this courtesy of the TheLadders.net website. it wrote sample resumes for John McCain and Barack Obama for president.

So the next time someone spots that 'he's not qualified' shade, send them to this link.

Halloween Politricks In Michigan

The GOP is becoming unglued as the election continues to trend Obama's way.

Somehow this doesn't (or shouldn't) shock me, but even this I have to shake my head at. Peep this story from Grosse Pointe Farms.

McCain supporter Shirley Nagle refused to give Halloween candy to children if their parents didn't support the McPalin ticket.



Ah, compassionate conservatism at its finest.

Obama Landslide?

Thanks to record breaking early voting turnout and historic turnouts of African-American voters, this election is turning quite interesting. Obama is competitive in states that haven't voted Democratic in decades and this election is being played save Pennsylvania on GOP turf.

<p><strong>><a href='http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/interactives/campaign08/electoral-college/'>Electoral College Prediction Map</a></strong> - Predict the winner of the general election. Use the map to experiment with winning combinations of states. Save your prediction and send it to friends.</p>


The question is will Barack Obama have a blowout win on Tuesday, or will it be a narrow upset win (gag) for John McCain?

The map is interactive, so you can click on it and change states from one candidate to the other with the corresponding change in electoral votes.

Last Sprint To The Finish

This marathon of a historic presidential race is racing to a climax. The candidates are crisscrossing the country hitting the battleground states, unleashing their last minute ads, doing rallies, unleashing their ground games to get their voters to the polls, making the GOTV calls.

In the GOP's case its 'suppress the African-American vote', unleash the dirty tricks and the right-wing slime machine. They know as Dr. King famously predicted:

"I can forsee the Negro vote becoming the decisive one in national elections."

For those of you that may not be frequent voters like moi, and want to know where you polling place is, you can check out the Obama website VoteForChange.com

The League of Women Voters also has a great non partisan website called vote411.org

Need directions to your polling place? Hit this Google website to get them. I tested it with my own address and my polling place popped up marked on an easy to read map.

And for those folks who still need convincing that Obama is the real deal and will be an outstanding president, send them the link to the Blueprint For Change.

Feel like making a financial donation to the Obama campaign? Here's the site.

People, I'm beyond ready for the long national nightmare to be over. On November 5 I want to wake up hearing the words 'President-elect Obama' broadcast on all the networks.

Let's make Robert Kennedy's May 1961 remarks come true.

"There's no question that in the next thirty or forty years a Negro can also achieve the same position that my brother has as president of the United States, certainly within that period of time."

It'll be especially delicious to see Faux News correspondents have to say the words 'President Obama' for the next four to eight years.

My Halloween Nightmare

What am I scared of this Halloween? It's not Jason, Chucky, Leatherface, Hannibal Lechter or the Klan.

It's hearing the words President-elect McCain or President Palin.



Talk about scary. This would be worse than any horror movie I've ever paid money to watch. This is a news report I don't want to come home to on November 5

Friends don't let friends vote Republican. Not when our nation's future is at stake.

I'm The Sidekick John McCain

TransGriot Note: Been a while since I've done one of my song rewrites. Got the idea for this one when I heard the latest attack on Obama concerning his Harvard education. This from someone mind you who graduated 894th out of 898 in his Naval Academy class.

Here's my latest rewrite, so enjoy.


I'm the Sidekick John McCain
(sung to the tune of 'If I Only Had A Brain)

I survived prison cell trauma
Not eloquent as Obama
And crashed too many planes
My scholastic record's spotty
And my attitude is snotty
'Cause I'm the sidekick John McCain

I stepped out on my first honey
For Cindy's Budweiser money
For that I have no shame
I'm conservative as can be
Supported the Bush policies
'Cause I'm the sidekick John McCain

My campaign is grossly failing
'Cause I selected Sarah Palin
For my VP running mate
I don't know economics
And my temper is atomic
'Cause I'm the sidekick John McCain

In this critical election
I expect massive rejection
'Cause Bush and I are the same
The working class gets slammed
And I want to bomb Iran
'Cause I'm the sidekick John McCain



Crossposted from the Bilerico Project

Seven More Days

One week to go. Seven days. I'm climbing the walls waiting to cast my ballot in this historic election. And I'm wishing I could cast my ballot right now.

If you are in a state that allows early voting, please do so.

Be alert for the GOP trickery that will be deployed on Election Day.

McCain Campaign Worker Attack Story Busted

It must be hard to be a McCain supporter these days. Your candidate is losing badly to horror of horrors, an educated biracial Black man.

Your so called $150,000 designer clothed 'hockey mom' VP candidate has been relentlessly lampooned on Saturday Night Live and is considered seriously unqualified by a majority of the American people, including members of your own party and the previous Secretary of State, Colin Powell.

To top it off your usual slimy race baiting attacks aren't working.

Well, in a shades of Susan Smith moment, a young McCain supporter, College Republican and volunteer named Ashley Todd from Aggieland (AKA College Station, TX) claims that around 9 PM EDT she was beat up and robbed at a Pittsburgh ATM by a large Black man and had a backwards 'B' carved into her face because she was a McPalin supporter.

Predictably Faux News, Matt Drudge, the right wing blogosphere, and right wing talk radio jumped on this as 'evidence' of left wing 'hatred'. It neatly plays into the well worn conservative race baiting theme of white women being attacked by Black criminals. It even prompted statements from the McPalin and Obama campaigns.

Hold up, flag on the play.

Like Susan Smith's over a decade ago, the story started falling apart. I was suspicious when it was noted she was from College Station. Texas A&M is home to the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library. Translation, she's conservative.

The College Republicans chiming in only cemented the impression for me that this story smelled worse than a sewage treatment plant.

Details of this story also didn't pass the smell test. The 'B' on her face was carved backwards and was too neat. If she was struggling against a larger, stronger attacker the 'B' carving to her face would have been more uneven. In addition, an angry attacker would have left far more bruises and serious injuries than what she is shown in her picture to have suffered.

Since she was attacked at an ATM, the surveillance tape video would have showed this attacker, right? Wrong. When the Citizens' Bank ATM security tape was checked at the time she claimed the alleged assault happened, no large Black man in the tape.

Her bank card info also shows no account activity at that time or the location where she claimed she was robbed.

Surprise, surprise.

The Pittsburgh police noted the inconsistencies as well, She amended her story to add a sexual assault and claiming she'd been hit and blacked out. They gave her a lie detector test which she failed.

She later confessed to faking the story and will be charged with filing a false report

But once again, the McPalin forces and the GOP will do anything to win. The only thing they have left is race baiting. It's getting dangerously close to inciting violence for real.

Conscientious Stupidity

'Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.' Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love, 1963

As I've mentioned ad nauseum on this blog, I despise stupidity. Whether it's the willful ignorance of the creation science peeps, the sheeple who swallow political lies in the face of overwhelming logical evidence debunking it or the peeps who brag about being uninformed, as a TK stupidity irks me to no end.

And this political season has been chock full of it.

One of the things I've been most concerned about over the last twenty years has been this anti-intellectual strain as the conservative movement rose to power.

It concerns me because the republic our Founding Fathers set up thrives when reasoned debate takes place and we rationally and thoughtfully discuss issues of importance to Americans.

But with poisonous partisanship injected into the public discourse, it has so contaminated the body politic that we have political gridlock as a result. Political discourse resembles a WWE wrestling match or playing the dozens back in the hood. And one of the things that really irks me is the lack of intelligence in some of our political leaders.

When I'm pondering who I'm going to cast a ballot for, I'm not looking at how well a person speaks (although that's a major plus after the last 8 years of an inarticulate dumbass in the White House) how cute they look in their $150,000 wardrobe, whether they can fly a jet or not or I can have a beer with them. The quality that's most important to me is do you have the intelligence to handle the complex job of being in that position?

But unfortunately we have so many people fixated on superficial crap that they overlook the fact that when it comes to being the president, intelligence counts.

There They Go Again...GOP Vote Suppression

As someone who has experienced firsthand GOP vote suppression tactics, I'm concerned about the bull that I'm hearing over alleged 'voter fraud' that's been peddled over the last week.






I'm even more concerned over the reports of people's tires being slashed at a North Carolina Obama rally and the weeks long nekulturny behavior being expressed at McPalin hate rallies.

The GOP is once again taking pages out of their reprehensible vote suppression playbook and if there's anyone who needs to be investigated for voter fraud, it's the Republican Party.

But to me that's a sign that once again, the GOP is scared and know deep down they're losing.

They know that masses of Americans have rejected their message and all they have left is firing up their bigot base. It exposes the bankruptcy of conservatism in terms of the fact they can't win a straight up debate on the merits of their arguments.

It shows the nation and the world their morals and the lie of their 'country first' slogan when they resort to brownshirt tactics, race baiting and obfuscation to win elections.

It shows that they know that Dr. King predicted that the Black vote would be decisive in national elections and the Robert Kennedy forecast that a Black president would be elected within 40 years.

But this time, your reprehensible BS ain't gonna work. People are tired of your narrow exclusionary vision for America and want something better.

And this time you're gonna be dragged kicking and screaming along for the ride.

City Dwellers and People of Color Are 'Pro-American' Too

"We believe that the best of America is not all in Washington, D.C. We believe, we believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard-working, very patriotic, pro-America areas of this great nation.

This is where we find the kindness and the goodness and the courage of everyday Americans: those who are running our factories and teaching our kids and growing our food and are fighting our wars for us, those who are protecting us in uniform, those who are protecting the virtues of freedom.”

Sarah Palin, remarks to a Greensboro, NC Republican fundraiser, October 16, 2008

The more I hear Sarah Louise Heath Palin flap her gums, the more I loathe her intellectually vacuous Dubya in drag behind.



And like you, Sen Biden, I'm tired.

I'm sick and tired of being told by white Republicans that because I was born and raised on the south side of Houston, I'm intelligent, I vote Democratic, I enthusiastically support public schools, support real science, believe that civil rights should be expanded and provided to all GLBT people, think the wall of separation between church and state is a good idea, and oppose the misguidedly wrongheaded and selfish GOP soak the poor economic policies that I'm 'unpatriotic and un-American.'

Frack you and every beer-swilling illiterate racist and latte-drinking Republican operative who defines being an American and patriotism that way.

We African-Americans love this country so much we've fought in every war since its inception to defend it despite the bulk of us not acquiring our own freedom until 1865. Even with that, we still had to fight 'pro-American' peeps another 100 plus years tooth and nail just to have our humanity and civil rights recognized.

We had to battle 'small-town' Americans whose values told them it was okay to hang people who shared my ethnic heritage from trees, twist Biblical scripture to justify those regressive attitudes and use violence against anyone who dared to protest that injustice.

The bottom line is that dissent is patriotic. I want my country to be better than when I found it for the next generation. That used to be a guiding bipartisan political principle that has gone by the wayside thanks to GOP conservatives and their sellouts pimping racial hatred for their own personal and political gain.

November 4 can't get here fast enough for me so that we can bury the 'Southern Strategy' once and for all and begin to repair the damage done to our country.

Obama IS Cool

When I was on the other side of the gender fence, there were many discussions conducted with Da Fellas in which the concept of being cool was discussed. You got just as many arguments amongst Black men as to who was cool and who wasn't.

Deborah Gregory in this BlackAmerica.web story touched upon it earlier in the campaign. EBONY magazine, one of our publishing icons put together their list of the 25 coolest brothers of all time that is still being debated within the African-American community.

Whatever you call it, having flava, being cool, it's obvious Sen. Obama has it. In addition to being probably the most eloquent substantive brother since Dr. King, Sen. Obama is agonizingly close to accomplishing a long cherished historic milestone in our tumultuous 400 year history as African descended people in North America.

While I wish that Sen. Obama had the type of America that George W. Bush walked into in 2001, to me the fracked up one he'll get on January 20, 2009 is more of a test of his abilities. If he can clean up this mess, it will ensure that the pool of potential presidents in future election cycles won't be just white males.

The nation (and the world) are about to get an 'ejumacation' in how grossly off the mark their perceptions of African descended people are and what we're capable of doing.

Best of all, he is an educated brother. He is a source of pride to young Black boys growing up and young Black men trying to do the right thing and get their education. In him they have visual proof of the rewards of getting advanced degrees.

They also see him standing tall, nattily dressed, calmly laying out his programs, speaking eloquently at rallies in which hundreds of thousands of people attend, thoughtfully answering questions, verbally laying the smackdown on people and looking coolly presidential all the way while doing it.

The other thing that is so cool about him is that he has a beautiful educated sistah standing proudly by his side as his wife that it's obvious he's still in love with with two adorable kids.

But it's that cool factor that enhances his thoughtful intelligence. There's a lot of things we have said about George W. Bush in the last eight years and cool is not one of them.

Coolness under pressure is one quality that is sorely needed when you deal with the tough job of being president.

For a nation desperately hungry for a leader that we can be proud of, Barack Obama is proving to be for those of us in the reality based world, 'That One'.

I'm John McKKKain And I Approved This Message

Dude, you really are losing it aren't you? Inquiring minds wanna know are you running for president or grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan?

Colin Powell Endorses Sen. Obama

In a possibly game changing announcement, former secretary of state Gen. Colin Powell endorsed Sen. Barack Obama for president on NBC's 'Meet The Press' this morning.









This endorsement is huge, no matter what spin is coming from the GOP. This is what secretary Powell had to say in June of this year:



He said it best. This mess is going to require a generational change in leadership in Washington. The election of Obama would "electrify the world."

He's not kidding based on the comments placed here from residents of other nations on this blog and reading the poll results. This election would be a landslide if that were the case. But on November 4 only American citizens can cast their ballots in this pivotal election.

And the world is praying we get it right.