Vision n Aspiration
* To live fully everyday
* To work towards a just society
* To be remembered as someone who tried to make a difference in a person's life
On privilege (benefited) a male first born college educated with an advance degree home owner/debtor possess a personal computer a cell phone, a land line, a DVD player a '95 Miata M edition (purchased use) have good credit rating and a choice of credit cards line of credit for both business and real property participate in retirement programs (ROTH, IRA, 403B, Simple) work with a financial adviser and an accountant traveled to at least 2o countries in Europe (Ireland, England, Belgium,Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Holland, Austria), Asia (Philippines, Thailand, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore), North America (Canada, Mexico), North Africa (Morocco), Near East (Turkey), Pacific (Palau, Guam) level of achievement and recognition in field of work network of friends spanning 3 continents, over one dozen states in the USA (MA, WA, HI, WDC, FL, NY, OR, CO, LA, MN, VA, GA) traveled to NYC, Paris, Munich, Florence, Madrid/Barcelona for art and artist (painters: Van Gogh, Renoir, Picasso, The Blue Rider Group, Velasquez, Raphael, Goya, Gaudi, Matisse, Rembrandt, Botticelli, Michelangelo) developed an educated palette (wine, fine food) listened to Maestro Leonard Bernstein conduct the Vienna Opera Symphony listened to a talk given by Noam Chomsky at MIT a Regents Scholar as an undergrad and had less than 10K in student loans attended catholic high school, working to pay for tuition passable language skills in Tagalog, Spanish parents have a college education maternal grandparents college educated in Seville
in a (personal) context of being an immigrant to the USA, unequivocally brown known homosexual an avowed socialist parents who worked and retired as clerk and janitor living in places I esteem as socially integrated abide to precepts of reduce, reuse, and recycle
occupy multiple social identities, undeniably perceived and categorized by assumptions held by those within the milieu (personal view: arm chair scholar, activist, loved with abandon and wisdom, perceptive)
modeled and continually exemplified/practice developing virtues of generosity (goodwill), faith in basic goodness of humankind, dignity, truthfulness, courtesy, duty, kindness, social responsibility, perseverance, openness, fairness, loyalty, thrift, nuturance, altruism
Experienced near death and lost a friend to poisoning during a vacation Lost 2 dear friends during the 2nd wave of the epidemic 4 years since fathers death, have a deeper understanding of who I am, my place in American society and a deeper abiding love of my brother, mother, sole blood nephew
What should my penance be Feel guilty and experience internal conflict Momentary joy filled daily life Free of desire and longing Free of illusions from what is possible and see what is at hand
Embrace personal frailty: anger, disappointments, want, limitations in the intellectual and creative realm, listlessness. A buddhist precept on suffering, acknowledging these traits as among the challenges in personal evolution.
Self knowing is parcel to intelligence. There is also responsibility shouldered by being more than adequate.
Readers, friends and colleagues. Shared in this article is the lack of discussion of privilege among the two leading Democratic candidates. Hazard to say, American dogma supports the silence on issues of inequity experience by women, or those who are not members of the dominant culture. It will be curious to see, whether the aspirations of these two candidates as potential "unifier's" or bridge makers across gender, class, religious, ideological rifts in national and global society will speak out on their role as a leader of one of the most powerful countries in the world.
This article can be found on the web at http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080310/ramdas
Leveraging the Power of Race and Gender
by KAVITANANDINIRAMDAS
[posted online on February 21, 2008]
As the contest for a Democratic presidential nominee enters its final stages, the feminist dilemma has become palpable and painful. My inbox has been filled with passionate and provocative pieces from Katha Pollitt, Frances Kissling, Caroline Kennedy and Feminists for Peace and BarackObama, all explaining why they are not supporting Hillary Clinton. Equally strong commentary in support of Clinton, and dismissing Obama, has arrived from Gloria Steinem, Robin Morgan, Ellie Smeal and Ellen Malcolm. All decry the misogyny evident in media coverage of the candidates and grapple--with varying degrees of success--with race and gender conflict. Clinton fans mention in passing that Hillary has been an international voice for women's rights.
As a feminist whose daily work focuses on the challenges facing women outside the United States--particularly those living in poverty, in war zones and under extreme patriarchal control--I think these conversations have a surreal quality. They are surreal because they are so perfectly American in their insularity. What is alarmingly absent from our conversations and arguments, even as they allude to race and gender, is any sense of how our decisions affect the well-being of people across the planet--not least the status of women, 51 percent of us, who are being treated with appalling brutality around the globe.
There is something profoundly wrong when a conversation about qualifications to be President of the most powerful nation in the world ignores the reality facing most of that world's inhabitants. While American pundits debate whether Clinton is being targeted unfairly, for example, thousands of women and children in Gaza are being collectively punished as Israel, a neighboring state and former occupying power, withholds food, fuel and electricity. Yet who is talking about that? In the face of such a travesty of human rights and international law, not one of the presidential candidates, regardless of race or gender, has the gumption to speak out and say this is wrong. Not one has said that he or she will not tolerate such behavior by any ally of the United States.
We live in a world where women are facing an epidemic of rape in conflicts from Nepal to Chiapas to the Democratic Republic of Congo, yet neither Clinton nor Obama has seen fit to mention it. Recent reports of the widespread murder of educated women in Iraq by religious extremists are adding new horror to an already horrifying situation but are going almost unreported. Women and children today form the bulk of the world's refugees and make up the majority of the world's poor. Despite doing more than two-thirds of the world's labor, women own only 1 percent of the world's assets. Yet not one presidential candidate has chosen to highlight the profound threat that gender inequality is posing to the development, economic stability and future peace of our world.
At times like these, the practical politics of US elections are staggeringly oppressive. We are told by the experts that Americans do not care about, or vote on the basis of, what happens in the rest of the world. We hear claims that presidential candidates cannot raise these issues during the race: we just have to trust that they will do better once they are in office.
That is not good enough. I want to hear from the woman running for President why being a woman and a mother matters to her and how it will inform her leadership. I want her to stand up for the millions of women who are not heard here or around the world. I want her to chart her course as the wisest, most humane President this country has ever seen, not to show us how much more macho she can be as our next Commander in Chief.
Women in the developing world are not reassured when they see Madeleine Albright standing next to Hillary Clinton. They have not forgotten that this former Secretary of State, when questioned about the death of more than 500,000 children as a result of sanctions against Iraq, responded that the price had been worth it. Most would prefer a President tough enough to say that Iraqi children matter to her as much as American children and that she would use the awesome power of the presidency to ensure the safety and well-being of all the world's children. Hillary Clinton would not be alone if she chose to own her power as a skilled and qualified politician and as a woman.
There is a rising number of fiercely feminine and feminist leaders around the globe--people like Michelle Bachelet of Chile, who is unafraid to be an agnostic single mother in a deeply Catholic country, and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, whose first act as president was passing legislation against sexual violence. Hillary has a unique chance to stand alongside them. For her to dance so gingerly around the question of gender in international affairs is to miss an extraordinary opportunity to use gender as a platform for healing the deep wounds left by the previous presidency.
But my high expectations are not limited to Hillary. I have equally high goals for the man who says he will unite us. Obama has his own powerful but underutilized tool: race. What prevents him, for example, from drawing analogies between the plight facing women--many of whom live in subjugation simply by virtue of their gender--and the experience of slavery? And why stop there? By owning the question of race on an international stage, Obama would have an amazing opportunity to reach out to people worldwide--who are in more need of hope than most Americans could imagine. Regardless of whether there are votes in it, this is of profound relevance to all of us in this country.
Yet Obama is also missing this chance. What is happening when a truly multiracial candidate, whose first name means "blessing" in Hebrew and Arabic and whose middle name is Hussein, feels he must spend his moral capital proving his Christian credentials? What I want is for Obama to stand with my husband, a man born and raised in Pakistan, who now is asked to step aside for a random search each time we board an airplane. He needs to tell us that he knows only too well that if he were not a US senator but an ordinary man with a foreign name going on vacation with his family, this could happen to him. I'd like to hear from him that when he looks at the United States or the world, what he sees are not Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Jews or atheists but simply human beings desperate to be treated with dignity and respect.
Like Clinton, Obama, too, can find inspiration and solidarity with a new generation of global leaders emerging from the shackles of their minority status. For the first time in Latin American history, for example, indigenous leaders are holding power as the heads of state in Venezuela and Bolivia. Obama has an unparalleled opportunity to speak to them from an empathetic perspective. And as September 11 showed us, our foreign policy is only a short step from our domestic concerns.
The next President needs the ability to demonstrate the inner courage and conviction that comes from owning his or her "otherness." As a woman and a mother, Hillary Clinton could bring insights and perspectives no other President in US history could have brought to the negotiating table of war and peace. As the stepson of an Indonesian Muslim and the son of a Kenyan and a white woman from Kansas, BarackObama manifests what it means to be a global citizen. What is at stake in this election is not merely the historic first that would be accomplished if either a black man or a woman became the next US President. What is at stake is the fragile future of our shared world.
This article can be found on the web at http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080225/howl2 by Nicholas von Hoffman
Vice President Rice? [posted online on February 13, 2008]
Who's John McCain's scariest running mate? Take your pick on the Nation Poll.
Democrats who think it's going to be a cakewalk into the White House next November had best remember one name: Condoleezza Rice.
John McCain is a formidable candidate in his own right, but if he has the political imagination to do it, he can cause the party of Jefferson and Jackson indescribable angst with Rice as his vice-presidential pick.
Besides being the greatest two-for in GOP history, Rice brings other huge pluses to the decorated Vietnam hero. Indeed, she may be enough to elect the venerable hero/naval aviator.
McCain's troubles with the religious wing of his party could well evaporate with the churchgoing Rice at his side. She solidifies that part of his base overnight.
With Rice on the ticket, the GOP would have somebody to get enthusiastic about. The Secretary of State is immensely popular with Republicans. For a party that up to now has been clueless about how to run against either a woman or a person of color, Condoleezza Rice is pure political gold.
Woe to any Democrat who thinks taking her on in a debate is a sure thing. The woman is tough, fast on her feet and able to give better than she gets. Anyone who has seen her in action testifying in front of a hostile House or Senate committee knows that she will be able to wipe up the floor with a plodding, ordinary pol of a Democratic vice-presidential candidate. Take Rice lightly at your peril.
In the ordinary course of things the ideal vice-presidential candidate is relied upon to carry his or her home state and keep out of trouble. With Condi the GOP gets a lot more. It gets a superstar to match the Democrats' superstars. If it comes to name recognition, glamour and magnetism for conservatives, Condi is dandy. Also, it is a plus for the GOP team that she is a snappy dresser.
Rice's presence on the ticket deprives the Democrats of the we-are-more-diverse-than-thou argument. It makes McCain--whose ethnically diverse family includes an adopted daughter from Bangladesh--an even more attractive candidate for a certain kind of independent voter.
Rice can rightly be attacked for serving Bush and backing an unpopular and disastrous war. But McCain, who is extremely pro-war himself, is not going to select a running mate who is wishy-washy on Iraq. Rice is also said to have done a poor job running the State Department, where morale is supposed to have dropped faster than a subprime mortgage. However, you can put the number of voters who give a rodent's behind about the care and feeding of cookie-pushing diplomats in a phone booth, if phone booths still existed.
With Rice on the ticket the Republicans are freed up to run a much stronger negative campaign against either Clinton or Obama because the Secretary of State provides them with cover against charges of sexism or racism. They would be able to go after Obama's membership in Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ. Its minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., with whom Obama is close, has won himself the militant tag from conservatives because of his association with Nation of Islam leader the Rev. Louis Farrakhan.
They can attack Hillary's experience claims as consisting of her being Bill's wife. They can challenge her boast that she is a strong, independent woman and paint her as a weak, hopelessly-in-love woman under the spell of a man subject not only to "bimbo eruptions" but also eruptions of smarmy deals with shady business figures.
Lastly, Rice is a notorious sports fan with excruciatingly detailed knowledge of much of its arcana. She's often said that her dream job is commissioner of the National Football League; however, in a pinch she would probably settle for Vice President of the United States.
Whew!!! now the first of many political election rushes has passed, it is post Super Tuesday. Who came out ahead will be debatable till the next sets of primaries and caucuses. North Americans, the USA and voting varieties, can stand proud in their interest and in exercising a basic right. Arguably one can say, more young people came out to vote, more African Americans, more Latinos, more bible belt conservatives -- spin it anyway it seems factual for the area from whence you speak.
In discussions, let us remain open to an exchange, shy away from polemics, cliche's and poorly reasoned statements that can only be fodder for increasing the perceived attack.
It is quite clear, where I stand politically and ethically. Earlier posts have indicated my leanings. I understand SF County came out strong for Senator Obama. Not surprising, one can say. This in the midst of a minor slight from the Mayor of the City by the Bay. It was claimed, the Senator did not allow for photo opportunities with the Mayor of a town long identified as a beacon of progressives and radicals. In this case an allusion to the Valentine Mass Wedding, ha can you imagine associating a more positive act than the original Valentine Day Massacre. Are we becoming more humane as a society? Or are we pushing an agenda for cultural separatism.
Bet many secretly wanted a rendering of post-coital regret or bliss. Well dream on, its good for your libido.
