Forty Five years ago to Martin Luther King II addressed two hundred and fifty thousand people in Washington with his "I have a dream" speech and at 3 am British Time on Friday part of that dream was realised when Barack Hussein Obama formally accept the nomination of the Democratic Party off the United States of American to be its Presidential candidate in the November 2008 election. That was history in the making for millions of Black and Hispanic Americans. It remains to be seen if for the rest of the USA is prepared to swallow painting the White House Black.
Barack Hussein Obama and his Convention and campaign planner did all that they could to both exploit the significance of the day and to distance themselves from the racial aspects so that Martin Luther King III was asked to speak early on rather than prior to the nomination acceptance speech of Senator Obama who only referred to the American Icon on a par with Nelson Mandella, after he had explained himself, confronted Republication criticism outlined his programmed and ended with the revivalist fervour for which Luther King was noted. His message was clear, I am black, I am the dream, but this is today, with today's problems where the future of America is at stake and where racism, sexism and partisan politics will only handicap us and prevent our survival as a great economic and military power.
Around twelve hours later the Republican Party attempted to upstage the Democratic Party by appointing a woman unknown outside of Alaska as the Vice Presidential candidate, albeit a right wing woman whose first speech indicated Margaret Thatcher, Mark Two. So what will Americans and the rest of us make of all this and in reality does it really matter which Party holds the Presidency and which individual it does not.
All the candidates are referring to the need for change and what the main problems confronting the USA and the rest of capitalism are- the economic down turn and credit crunch, resulting is loss of jobs and jobs insecurity and lowering wages, the escalation in house prices brought to a dramatic halt, with repossessions and difficulties raising the finance to enter into the market or move homes to get work or improve employment positions. There is concern about no having enough energy to sustain the existing general standards of livings and concern about the thereat from international terrorism. Then there are the secondary issues concerning the need for good child rearing and good education and appropriate health services when we get sick and become old. Only when the problems facing the majority are effectively tackled do we want to allocate more resources to dealing with the underclass of those who do not want to work, are unable to work regardless of job availability and who are unrepentant and persistent criminals. Yes we should do all we can to prevent their children from continuing anti social behaviour but finding solutions to help the majority has to be our priority, and this applies especially to the problems and needs of other nations unless it is clearly in our direct interests to help them.
The problem is not Russia or the Middle East conflict between Muslim and Jew and Muslim and Christian, the problem is that of the one thousand three hundred million population of China in the midst of quadrupling its economy within the next twenty five years, building four hundred million new homes and one thousand new cities as it transforms from an agricultural peasant economy into a USA type industrial one and does so without the limitations and constraints of the democratic process. In the short term this provides great additional profits for international corporations and, international fixers and financiers because the costs of energy and food will escalate but in the medium term it will destroy the planet if the present use of natural resource energy continues, because all available supplies will be used up and level of pollution and climate change will also escalate. China has the intention to only double its energy use instead of quadrupling as would be normal in terms of its economic expansion but there is little evidence that this will be so. In the land of the free and the democratic if you put up a building which does not confirm to the last environmental energy requirements you will not be able to use it. In the Communist dictatorship of Russia you put up the building, contaminate the air and the water supply and no one takes action, except during eh couple of weeks of the Olympic games.
The acceptance speech of Barack Hussein Obama was set on a special stage built within the stadium of the Denver Broncos - the Mile High stadium and over 70000 people responded positively to the programme of endorsement intermingled with music from established performers. The grand daughter of Dwight Eisenhower introduced a collection of US Admirals and Generals, several black and several women. There was also endorsement from a representative group of hard working men and women all middle aged who had seen jobs disappears overseas or because of other policies of the Bush administration. The highlight speech during the evening before Senator Obama came from Al Gore who has devoted himself to the issue of Global warning and sustainable energy, an issue which clearly divides the two parties and will be discussed further later. He rarely makes Party political speeches these days.
It was during the warm up that I came across the China Today interview with former Prime Minister Tony Blair in which he was full of praise for what the Chinese had achieved through the Olympic Games and how London and the UK hopes to respond in 2012 . He had come to China on a private holiday for the games and to deliver a lecture to the University of Beijing, he appeared very relaxed. He has lost nothing of his charm and natural diplomacy.
And then it was time for Barack Hussein Obama, a serious contender for the Presidency of the second most important nation on the planet. You have got to stop claiming you are the most important and worse still the best.
I was even more impressed with the Barack acceptance speech than I had been with Hilary Clinton. It was brilliantly crafted, talking first of his background, his mother who would wake him up with the dawn to go over his school work. This aspect of hard work and committed fatherhood was evident in the part of his speech about political intentions and programmes. The emphasise was on a political system which protected and rewarded those who worked and contributed to society. Similarly father's had to play their part, sentiments usually defined with the conservative, religious right and no different from the declared position of Governor Palin but who came across as far more of a feminist.
A great chunk of his approach is based on giving the political system back to the ordinary working class people, which is a preposterous proposition if anyone took the gesture seriously. If you are part of a Party Machine then the Party machine rules and the last thing you want is to have share power with the people. The millions spent supporting candidates by sectional interests is not donated out of charity. Everyone expects a return for their investment. Ok so Barack had a difficult childhood and worked hard to get himself through college and started of working to help the underclass but now he lives with his family in a million and a half dollar home and has a million dollar annual income and does not feel uncomfortable socialising with the mega rich and mega powerful. After all that is what he aspires to become. For the moment there is much to commend him.
I particularly liked the way he rounded on the issues which the Republicans are exploiting in relation to nationalism, the armed forces and his inexperience especially what could happen in the middle of the night when called upon to act the Commander and Chief. He commented that he got the message and told Senator McCain that if that is the way he wanted to play the game then bring it on. His best jibe was in terms of the failure of the Bush administration to capture Ben Laden and although he promised to bring the troops back in a responsible way as quickly as possible he indicated there would be a switch of attention to Afghanistan and Pakistan. However it is evident this does not mean flooding Afghanistan with American forces
He saved the revivalist part of his speech to the end reminding us that the question is not what can America, the Government or its President do for you but what can you do for yourself and you community. One of big pitches was support for families and children with a massive input into pre school care reminiscent of the emphasis of the Blair and Brown administrations at home and the emphasis on universal health care telling us of the concern of his mother about costs in relation to her health insurance when she got the cancer which caused her death. There was a moral anger just beneath surface on many issues raised during the evening which I found worrying.
My immediate reaction is that he is a much more formidable man and candidate that I had realised and he has also to judge with having a wife who gave the impression in speech the previous evening being as strong and determined a woman as his mother. She is determined that he really will give smoking whatever the pressure of the campaign. That he has only recently attempted to give up smoking indicates that he is not a flawless individual.
The evening ended with fireworks and the appearance of all the families of the two candidates. I especially enjoyed the inclusion of Let the Sun Shine in from Hair and Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA. I understand now more clearly the choice of Joe Biden for the Vice Presidential position. The father figure he never hand and the father for the nation. It is good decision.
Sarah Palin is an amazing choice by any standards immediately reminding me of a young Margaret Thatcher who put the leaders of the Association of Directors of Social Services in their place when she first came as a Minister to an annual conference.
Sarah Palin was taken out as a child by her father to hunt Moose and Moose stew is said to be one of her favourite foods. She still shoots and has no problem with responsible personal gun use. She is full bloodedly pro life and anti abortion, a position where she is not too far away from the of Senator Obama who but whom also accepts the rights of women to choose. Governor Palin is a mother with five children one disabled and one about to serve in Iraq so she wins the family issue against Barack Obama. He husband was a fisherman who has moved into the oil industry and remains a trade unionist. She is more of an Washington outsider than Barack and in her position as governor she immediately sold off the former Governor's jet on E Bay for a profit and sacked people from party and other positions because of their involvement in corruption in a situation where Alaska had become notorious for its corruption, involvement with sectional and powerful interest groups and application of the old boy network, a phrase which she used to indicate her intention to have no truck with this at the White House. At times Senator McCain looked flabbergasted as she demonstrated she will be not just a strong supporter over the next 66 days but will expect him to deliver any promises when he gets into office. While her positioning will delight the individual conservative as he also came across as a dedicated feminist, praising Hilary Clinton for 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling but adding it was her intention now to break it. She is only 44 years of age while McCain is seventy two and may be considered too old to stand for a second term if he is successful which would then make her the front runner to become the first female President in 2012.just after the London Olympics.
And now I turn to what I believe is the major issue of this first half of the 21st century, energy resources and the impact on the environment. Senator Obama made it clear that he has no intention of allowing the oil companies to drill for off shore oil and that he will expect the oil companies to take their share of the funding of his programmes. I can see him increasing taxes on the oil companies while finding ways to off set the increased price at the petrol/gas pumps which has to be part of the strategy towards energy self sufficiency which is his aim to achieve over the next ten years. He wants to switch to safe nuclear power, and the development of other energy resources This was the point made strongly in a BBC programme about China in which one young Chinese Professor argued that unless there was a major switch in policy his country would destroy the world because they would use up natural resources with its negative impact upon the environment. The programme then concentrated on one test new building in Beijing where various government representative have come to check the instrumentation as they have found it difficult to accept the effectiveness in reduced running costs, energy use and environmental impact. The programme also featured a new apartment city using the latest technologies and where the flat roofs of buildings are to be areas not just of green but producing fruit and vegetables. It is also of great interest that Governor Palin does not support the Barack position arguing that action has to be taken into interim and that off shore drilling for oil should me approved until the long term strategy can be implemented. For me the issue is like smoking. I don't believe that scientists have not already come up with an alternative fuel to drive motor vehicles However it is not in the interests of governments or oil corporations to accept this development given the revenue and profits which the industry is now creating. For half a century we knew that smoked kills and yet pressure from the tobacco companies and the employment implications prevented effective action. It is a stain on all politicians who have been in government during this period. I do not understand why we do not ban the manufacturing and sale of tobacco except to provide supplies under licence for those presently addicted
An what of all this on the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, the Labour and the other parties in Great Britain. Where are the women leaders or those with non white ethnicity?
Tonight the news broke that Alasdair Darling. the Chancellor had warned in an interview with the Guardian newspaper made while still on holiday in Scotland that Britain was heading for the worst economic down turn in sixty years and that the Government was at fault for not explaining the situation to the British people. Who is expecting who to be dumped in the expected reshuffle before Parliament reassemble? Apparently he expressed the view that the public was " pissed off" with the Labour Party and that it was going to be difficult to win them back. Hopefully he watched, as have other Britain's, what is happening in the USA. My own view is that Gordon Brown and Alistair darling should consider giving whole hearted attention to furthering the aims of the majority of Scottish people who now seek independence.
Barack Hussein Obama and his Convention and campaign planner did all that they could to both exploit the significance of the day and to distance themselves from the racial aspects so that Martin Luther King III was asked to speak early on rather than prior to the nomination acceptance speech of Senator Obama who only referred to the American Icon on a par with Nelson Mandella, after he had explained himself, confronted Republication criticism outlined his programmed and ended with the revivalist fervour for which Luther King was noted. His message was clear, I am black, I am the dream, but this is today, with today's problems where the future of America is at stake and where racism, sexism and partisan politics will only handicap us and prevent our survival as a great economic and military power.
Around twelve hours later the Republican Party attempted to upstage the Democratic Party by appointing a woman unknown outside of Alaska as the Vice Presidential candidate, albeit a right wing woman whose first speech indicated Margaret Thatcher, Mark Two. So what will Americans and the rest of us make of all this and in reality does it really matter which Party holds the Presidency and which individual it does not.
All the candidates are referring to the need for change and what the main problems confronting the USA and the rest of capitalism are- the economic down turn and credit crunch, resulting is loss of jobs and jobs insecurity and lowering wages, the escalation in house prices brought to a dramatic halt, with repossessions and difficulties raising the finance to enter into the market or move homes to get work or improve employment positions. There is concern about no having enough energy to sustain the existing general standards of livings and concern about the thereat from international terrorism. Then there are the secondary issues concerning the need for good child rearing and good education and appropriate health services when we get sick and become old. Only when the problems facing the majority are effectively tackled do we want to allocate more resources to dealing with the underclass of those who do not want to work, are unable to work regardless of job availability and who are unrepentant and persistent criminals. Yes we should do all we can to prevent their children from continuing anti social behaviour but finding solutions to help the majority has to be our priority, and this applies especially to the problems and needs of other nations unless it is clearly in our direct interests to help them.
The problem is not Russia or the Middle East conflict between Muslim and Jew and Muslim and Christian, the problem is that of the one thousand three hundred million population of China in the midst of quadrupling its economy within the next twenty five years, building four hundred million new homes and one thousand new cities as it transforms from an agricultural peasant economy into a USA type industrial one and does so without the limitations and constraints of the democratic process. In the short term this provides great additional profits for international corporations and, international fixers and financiers because the costs of energy and food will escalate but in the medium term it will destroy the planet if the present use of natural resource energy continues, because all available supplies will be used up and level of pollution and climate change will also escalate. China has the intention to only double its energy use instead of quadrupling as would be normal in terms of its economic expansion but there is little evidence that this will be so. In the land of the free and the democratic if you put up a building which does not confirm to the last environmental energy requirements you will not be able to use it. In the Communist dictatorship of Russia you put up the building, contaminate the air and the water supply and no one takes action, except during eh couple of weeks of the Olympic games.
The acceptance speech of Barack Hussein Obama was set on a special stage built within the stadium of the Denver Broncos - the Mile High stadium and over 70000 people responded positively to the programme of endorsement intermingled with music from established performers. The grand daughter of Dwight Eisenhower introduced a collection of US Admirals and Generals, several black and several women. There was also endorsement from a representative group of hard working men and women all middle aged who had seen jobs disappears overseas or because of other policies of the Bush administration. The highlight speech during the evening before Senator Obama came from Al Gore who has devoted himself to the issue of Global warning and sustainable energy, an issue which clearly divides the two parties and will be discussed further later. He rarely makes Party political speeches these days.
It was during the warm up that I came across the China Today interview with former Prime Minister Tony Blair in which he was full of praise for what the Chinese had achieved through the Olympic Games and how London and the UK hopes to respond in 2012 . He had come to China on a private holiday for the games and to deliver a lecture to the University of Beijing, he appeared very relaxed. He has lost nothing of his charm and natural diplomacy.
And then it was time for Barack Hussein Obama, a serious contender for the Presidency of the second most important nation on the planet. You have got to stop claiming you are the most important and worse still the best.
I was even more impressed with the Barack acceptance speech than I had been with Hilary Clinton. It was brilliantly crafted, talking first of his background, his mother who would wake him up with the dawn to go over his school work. This aspect of hard work and committed fatherhood was evident in the part of his speech about political intentions and programmes. The emphasise was on a political system which protected and rewarded those who worked and contributed to society. Similarly father's had to play their part, sentiments usually defined with the conservative, religious right and no different from the declared position of Governor Palin but who came across as far more of a feminist.
A great chunk of his approach is based on giving the political system back to the ordinary working class people, which is a preposterous proposition if anyone took the gesture seriously. If you are part of a Party Machine then the Party machine rules and the last thing you want is to have share power with the people. The millions spent supporting candidates by sectional interests is not donated out of charity. Everyone expects a return for their investment. Ok so Barack had a difficult childhood and worked hard to get himself through college and started of working to help the underclass but now he lives with his family in a million and a half dollar home and has a million dollar annual income and does not feel uncomfortable socialising with the mega rich and mega powerful. After all that is what he aspires to become. For the moment there is much to commend him.
I particularly liked the way he rounded on the issues which the Republicans are exploiting in relation to nationalism, the armed forces and his inexperience especially what could happen in the middle of the night when called upon to act the Commander and Chief. He commented that he got the message and told Senator McCain that if that is the way he wanted to play the game then bring it on. His best jibe was in terms of the failure of the Bush administration to capture Ben Laden and although he promised to bring the troops back in a responsible way as quickly as possible he indicated there would be a switch of attention to Afghanistan and Pakistan. However it is evident this does not mean flooding Afghanistan with American forces
He saved the revivalist part of his speech to the end reminding us that the question is not what can America, the Government or its President do for you but what can you do for yourself and you community. One of big pitches was support for families and children with a massive input into pre school care reminiscent of the emphasis of the Blair and Brown administrations at home and the emphasis on universal health care telling us of the concern of his mother about costs in relation to her health insurance when she got the cancer which caused her death. There was a moral anger just beneath surface on many issues raised during the evening which I found worrying.
My immediate reaction is that he is a much more formidable man and candidate that I had realised and he has also to judge with having a wife who gave the impression in speech the previous evening being as strong and determined a woman as his mother. She is determined that he really will give smoking whatever the pressure of the campaign. That he has only recently attempted to give up smoking indicates that he is not a flawless individual.
The evening ended with fireworks and the appearance of all the families of the two candidates. I especially enjoyed the inclusion of Let the Sun Shine in from Hair and Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA. I understand now more clearly the choice of Joe Biden for the Vice Presidential position. The father figure he never hand and the father for the nation. It is good decision.
Sarah Palin is an amazing choice by any standards immediately reminding me of a young Margaret Thatcher who put the leaders of the Association of Directors of Social Services in their place when she first came as a Minister to an annual conference.
Sarah Palin was taken out as a child by her father to hunt Moose and Moose stew is said to be one of her favourite foods. She still shoots and has no problem with responsible personal gun use. She is full bloodedly pro life and anti abortion, a position where she is not too far away from the of Senator Obama who but whom also accepts the rights of women to choose. Governor Palin is a mother with five children one disabled and one about to serve in Iraq so she wins the family issue against Barack Obama. He husband was a fisherman who has moved into the oil industry and remains a trade unionist. She is more of an Washington outsider than Barack and in her position as governor she immediately sold off the former Governor's jet on E Bay for a profit and sacked people from party and other positions because of their involvement in corruption in a situation where Alaska had become notorious for its corruption, involvement with sectional and powerful interest groups and application of the old boy network, a phrase which she used to indicate her intention to have no truck with this at the White House. At times Senator McCain looked flabbergasted as she demonstrated she will be not just a strong supporter over the next 66 days but will expect him to deliver any promises when he gets into office. While her positioning will delight the individual conservative as he also came across as a dedicated feminist, praising Hilary Clinton for 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling but adding it was her intention now to break it. She is only 44 years of age while McCain is seventy two and may be considered too old to stand for a second term if he is successful which would then make her the front runner to become the first female President in 2012.just after the London Olympics.
And now I turn to what I believe is the major issue of this first half of the 21st century, energy resources and the impact on the environment. Senator Obama made it clear that he has no intention of allowing the oil companies to drill for off shore oil and that he will expect the oil companies to take their share of the funding of his programmes. I can see him increasing taxes on the oil companies while finding ways to off set the increased price at the petrol/gas pumps which has to be part of the strategy towards energy self sufficiency which is his aim to achieve over the next ten years. He wants to switch to safe nuclear power, and the development of other energy resources This was the point made strongly in a BBC programme about China in which one young Chinese Professor argued that unless there was a major switch in policy his country would destroy the world because they would use up natural resources with its negative impact upon the environment. The programme then concentrated on one test new building in Beijing where various government representative have come to check the instrumentation as they have found it difficult to accept the effectiveness in reduced running costs, energy use and environmental impact. The programme also featured a new apartment city using the latest technologies and where the flat roofs of buildings are to be areas not just of green but producing fruit and vegetables. It is also of great interest that Governor Palin does not support the Barack position arguing that action has to be taken into interim and that off shore drilling for oil should me approved until the long term strategy can be implemented. For me the issue is like smoking. I don't believe that scientists have not already come up with an alternative fuel to drive motor vehicles However it is not in the interests of governments or oil corporations to accept this development given the revenue and profits which the industry is now creating. For half a century we knew that smoked kills and yet pressure from the tobacco companies and the employment implications prevented effective action. It is a stain on all politicians who have been in government during this period. I do not understand why we do not ban the manufacturing and sale of tobacco except to provide supplies under licence for those presently addicted
An what of all this on the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, the Labour and the other parties in Great Britain. Where are the women leaders or those with non white ethnicity?
Tonight the news broke that Alasdair Darling. the Chancellor had warned in an interview with the Guardian newspaper made while still on holiday in Scotland that Britain was heading for the worst economic down turn in sixty years and that the Government was at fault for not explaining the situation to the British people. Who is expecting who to be dumped in the expected reshuffle before Parliament reassemble? Apparently he expressed the view that the public was " pissed off" with the Labour Party and that it was going to be difficult to win them back. Hopefully he watched, as have other Britain's, what is happening in the USA. My own view is that Gordon Brown and Alistair darling should consider giving whole hearted attention to furthering the aims of the majority of Scottish people who now seek independence.
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