03-18-2008, 05:08 PM
from above link by BV:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The PHS did not accept the media's comparison of Tuskegee with the appalling experiments performed by Nazi doctors on their Jewish victims during World War II. Yet in addition to the medical and racist parallels, the PHS offered the same morally bankrupt defense offered at the Nuremberg trials: they claimed they were just carrying out orders, mere cogs in the wheel of the PHS bureaucracy, exempt from personal responsibility. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
and:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->A race that's all about race
Sandhya Jain
In a fundamental sense, the Democratic Party's dilemma between race and gender has been settled firmly in favour of race. It no longer matters whether it is Mr Barack Obama or Ms Hillary Clinton who secures the Democratic presidential nomination for the November 2008 election. Thanks to tactless shoving by the Clinton co-presidency aspirants, Democrats will have to consciously decide if they want to help a Black man win a job coveted by a White woman. It's as basic as that.
This was partly inevitable because gender is too artificial to sustain; you can't delink a woman (or man) from family and social group identity. But race is intrinsically segregationist; indeed, White colonialists and slave traders in Europe and America devised the concept of race precisely because of its potently divisive appeal. Colour may be only skin-deep, but it's too in-your-face to be missed.
That is why former President Bill Clinton could effortlessly suggest to a public fed on the clash of civilisations and apprehensive of creeping Islamic influence among Afro-Americans that the Illinois Senator play second fiddle to his wife. He sugar coated the insulting suggestion that Mr Obama was not good enough to be President by calling the Hillary-Barack team "an unstoppable force," adding that Ms Clinton could win rural voters and Reagan Democrats, while Mr Obama could attract urban and upscale voters.
The New York Senator was quick to second the motion. Unacknowledged 'friends' had already released a photograph of Mr Obama in traditional African gear while on a trip to Kenya, and made much of his middle name 'Hussein' to raise the 'Muslim' bogey. So much for American pluralism and 'melting pot' culture; the message of the Clinton campaign clearly states that Blacks can become Christians, but they can never become White. Sadly, Hindu Americans of African origin have failed to speak for racial equality and dignity.
Mr Obama has done well to dodge the deadly race trap and resist the urge to prove pure Black or half-White credentials. The studied silence of his wife shows this is deliberate. Concentrating on charm and rhetoric, Mr Obama has deftly put the Clinton campaign on the back foot by pointing out: "I don't know how somebody who's in second place (in delegates and popular votes) is offering the vice-presidency to somebody who's in first place." He underlined his resentment to this unsolicited patronage by declaring: "I am running for President of the United States of America, I am not running for Vice-President." This is wise, for as David Broder has warned in The Washington Post, coping with Mr Clinton's ego in the event of his wife's victory "would truly be (a) cruel and unusual punishment for Obama".
Ironically, the running-mate issue has created confusion in the Clinton camp as well. While military supporters attest to Ms Clinton's ability to be commander-in-chief, an aide has questioned the sagacity of projecting Mr Obama as Vice-President while claiming he was unqualified to be the commander-in-chief. American Vice-Presidents are expected to have the ability to be C-in-C of the US armed forces in case circumstances propel them to the Oval Office, a la Gerald Ford. The Clinton campaign made things worse with the 3 am telephone advertisement, which many saw as naked racism and hate-mongering.
Then, as public opinion began to get edgy, the Clinton camp had a fit of verbal diarrhoea. America was treated to the spectacle of Ms Geraldine Ferraro giving an interview suggesting Mr Obama was successful only because of his ethnicity. Previously also, Ms Clinton's friends had complained that the media was kind to Mr Obama because of his colour, but this was a little too stark for American public discourse. Ms Ferraro had to quit in the furore that followed, though she tried to hang on; Ms Clinton tried to suggest both sides has made such mistakes, which is simply untrue.
As Democrats spar, Republican candidate John McCain is trying to consolidate his position with a visit to Israel later this month to firm up his American-Jewish support base. The Arizona Senator is reputed to be popular in Israel and with the Jewish Diaspora for his hard-line foreign policy. An unwritten rule of American foreign policy is that support to Israel helps and opposition hurts.
Mr McCain has already hinted he will favour continuity in the White House. Thus, despite his record of hostility to torture in military camps, he supported President George W Bush's recent veto of legislation prohibiting the CIA from using physical force in interrogations, particularly the gruesome technique of water-boarding and other inhumane and degrading methods of extracting confessions from prisoners.
It bears stating that the near-invisible men who actually control both political parties, work to ensure the continuity of respective party administrations and policies. Although Mr McCain's staff would not release the names of his advisers, a list compiled by The Washington Post last year included two former Secretaries of State, Mr George Shultz and Mr Colin Powell; retired Lt Gen Brent Scowcroft (National Security Adviser to Presidents Gerald Ford and George HW Bush); Mr James Woolsey (former CIA director), and Mr Richard Armitage (Mr Bush's former Deputy Secretary of State, famous for leaking the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame and causing the imprisonment of Scooter Libby, Vice-President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff).
The Democratic Party has been equally coy with names. Press reports suggest Ms Clinton's advisers are mostly the old boys and girls of Mr Clinton's White House years. They include former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright; Mr Samuel Berger (Mr Clinton's National Security Adviser); Gen Wesley Clark (NATO commander in Yugoslavia); Mr Richard Holbrooke (Mr Clinton's envoy to the UN); Mr Martin Indyk (former envoy to Israel); former Ambassador Joseph Wilson (Ms Plame's husband), and Representative Joseph Sestak (a retired Vice-Admiral).
Mr Barack Obama has also received a share of Clinton Administration veterans, namely Ms Susan Rice (Mr Clinton's Africa specialist at the State Department); Mr Anthony Lake (National Security Adviser); Mr Dennis Ross (chief West Asia negotiator); and Mr Robert Malley (West Asia envoy).
Obviously the more things change in Washington, the more they remain the same. Mr Clinton began the unjustified NATO bombing of Yugoslavia; Mr George W Bush initiated the ugly war in Iraq and upped the ante on Iran's nuclear programme. He has also recognised the 'independence' of Kosovo. Whoever succeeds him at the White House this winter is sure to maintain the continuity of America's imperial quest for world dominion.
http://dailypioneer.com/indexn12.asp?main_...t&counter_img=3
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The PHS did not accept the media's comparison of Tuskegee with the appalling experiments performed by Nazi doctors on their Jewish victims during World War II. Yet in addition to the medical and racist parallels, the PHS offered the same morally bankrupt defense offered at the Nuremberg trials: they claimed they were just carrying out orders, mere cogs in the wheel of the PHS bureaucracy, exempt from personal responsibility. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
and:
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->A race that's all about race
Sandhya Jain
In a fundamental sense, the Democratic Party's dilemma between race and gender has been settled firmly in favour of race. It no longer matters whether it is Mr Barack Obama or Ms Hillary Clinton who secures the Democratic presidential nomination for the November 2008 election. Thanks to tactless shoving by the Clinton co-presidency aspirants, Democrats will have to consciously decide if they want to help a Black man win a job coveted by a White woman. It's as basic as that.
This was partly inevitable because gender is too artificial to sustain; you can't delink a woman (or man) from family and social group identity. But race is intrinsically segregationist; indeed, White colonialists and slave traders in Europe and America devised the concept of race precisely because of its potently divisive appeal. Colour may be only skin-deep, but it's too in-your-face to be missed.
That is why former President Bill Clinton could effortlessly suggest to a public fed on the clash of civilisations and apprehensive of creeping Islamic influence among Afro-Americans that the Illinois Senator play second fiddle to his wife. He sugar coated the insulting suggestion that Mr Obama was not good enough to be President by calling the Hillary-Barack team "an unstoppable force," adding that Ms Clinton could win rural voters and Reagan Democrats, while Mr Obama could attract urban and upscale voters.
The New York Senator was quick to second the motion. Unacknowledged 'friends' had already released a photograph of Mr Obama in traditional African gear while on a trip to Kenya, and made much of his middle name 'Hussein' to raise the 'Muslim' bogey. So much for American pluralism and 'melting pot' culture; the message of the Clinton campaign clearly states that Blacks can become Christians, but they can never become White. Sadly, Hindu Americans of African origin have failed to speak for racial equality and dignity.
Mr Obama has done well to dodge the deadly race trap and resist the urge to prove pure Black or half-White credentials. The studied silence of his wife shows this is deliberate. Concentrating on charm and rhetoric, Mr Obama has deftly put the Clinton campaign on the back foot by pointing out: "I don't know how somebody who's in second place (in delegates and popular votes) is offering the vice-presidency to somebody who's in first place." He underlined his resentment to this unsolicited patronage by declaring: "I am running for President of the United States of America, I am not running for Vice-President." This is wise, for as David Broder has warned in The Washington Post, coping with Mr Clinton's ego in the event of his wife's victory "would truly be (a) cruel and unusual punishment for Obama".
Ironically, the running-mate issue has created confusion in the Clinton camp as well. While military supporters attest to Ms Clinton's ability to be commander-in-chief, an aide has questioned the sagacity of projecting Mr Obama as Vice-President while claiming he was unqualified to be the commander-in-chief. American Vice-Presidents are expected to have the ability to be C-in-C of the US armed forces in case circumstances propel them to the Oval Office, a la Gerald Ford. The Clinton campaign made things worse with the 3 am telephone advertisement, which many saw as naked racism and hate-mongering.
Then, as public opinion began to get edgy, the Clinton camp had a fit of verbal diarrhoea. America was treated to the spectacle of Ms Geraldine Ferraro giving an interview suggesting Mr Obama was successful only because of his ethnicity. Previously also, Ms Clinton's friends had complained that the media was kind to Mr Obama because of his colour, but this was a little too stark for American public discourse. Ms Ferraro had to quit in the furore that followed, though she tried to hang on; Ms Clinton tried to suggest both sides has made such mistakes, which is simply untrue.
As Democrats spar, Republican candidate John McCain is trying to consolidate his position with a visit to Israel later this month to firm up his American-Jewish support base. The Arizona Senator is reputed to be popular in Israel and with the Jewish Diaspora for his hard-line foreign policy. An unwritten rule of American foreign policy is that support to Israel helps and opposition hurts.
Mr McCain has already hinted he will favour continuity in the White House. Thus, despite his record of hostility to torture in military camps, he supported President George W Bush's recent veto of legislation prohibiting the CIA from using physical force in interrogations, particularly the gruesome technique of water-boarding and other inhumane and degrading methods of extracting confessions from prisoners.
It bears stating that the near-invisible men who actually control both political parties, work to ensure the continuity of respective party administrations and policies. Although Mr McCain's staff would not release the names of his advisers, a list compiled by The Washington Post last year included two former Secretaries of State, Mr George Shultz and Mr Colin Powell; retired Lt Gen Brent Scowcroft (National Security Adviser to Presidents Gerald Ford and George HW Bush); Mr James Woolsey (former CIA director), and Mr Richard Armitage (Mr Bush's former Deputy Secretary of State, famous for leaking the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame and causing the imprisonment of Scooter Libby, Vice-President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff).
The Democratic Party has been equally coy with names. Press reports suggest Ms Clinton's advisers are mostly the old boys and girls of Mr Clinton's White House years. They include former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright; Mr Samuel Berger (Mr Clinton's National Security Adviser); Gen Wesley Clark (NATO commander in Yugoslavia); Mr Richard Holbrooke (Mr Clinton's envoy to the UN); Mr Martin Indyk (former envoy to Israel); former Ambassador Joseph Wilson (Ms Plame's husband), and Representative Joseph Sestak (a retired Vice-Admiral).
Mr Barack Obama has also received a share of Clinton Administration veterans, namely Ms Susan Rice (Mr Clinton's Africa specialist at the State Department); Mr Anthony Lake (National Security Adviser); Mr Dennis Ross (chief West Asia negotiator); and Mr Robert Malley (West Asia envoy).
Obviously the more things change in Washington, the more they remain the same. Mr Clinton began the unjustified NATO bombing of Yugoslavia; Mr George W Bush initiated the ugly war in Iraq and upped the ante on Iran's nuclear programme. He has also recognised the 'independence' of Kosovo. Whoever succeeds him at the White House this winter is sure to maintain the continuity of America's imperial quest for world dominion.
http://dailypioneer.com/indexn12.asp?main_...t&counter_img=3
<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->