On March 11, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright sent this letter to New York Times journalist Jodi Kantor. We’ve heard little from the reverend since the taped sermons began circulating. This offers a glimpse inside his head.

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Dear Jodi:

Thank you for engaging in one of the biggest misrepresentations of the truth I have ever seen in 65 years. You sat and shared with me for two hours. You told me you were doing a “Spiritual Biography” of Senator Barack Obama. For two hours, I shared with you how I thought he was the most principled individual in public service that I have ever met.

For two hours, I talked with you about how idealistic he was. For two hours I shared with you what a genuine human being he was. I told you how incredible he was as a man who was an African American in public service, and as a man who refused to announce his candidacy for President until Carol Moseley Braun indicated one way or the other whether or not she was going to run.

I told you what a dreamer he was. I told you how idealistic he was. We talked about how refreshing it would be for someone who knew about Islam to be in the Oval Office. Your own question to me was, Didn’t I think it would be incredible to have somebody in the Oval Office who not only knew about Muslims, but had living and breathing Muslims in his own family? I told you how important it would be to have a man who not only knew the difference between Shiites and Sunnis prior to 9/11/01 in the Oval Office, but also how important it would be to have a man who knew what Sufism was; a man who understood that there were different branches of Judaism; a man who knew the difference between Hasidic Jews, Orthodox Jews, Conservative Jews and Reformed Jews; and a man who was a devout Christian, but who did not prejudge others because they believed something other than what he believed.

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It would have to happen on Easter Sunday, wouldn’t it, that the 4,000th American soldier would die in Iraq. Play me that crazy preacher again, will you, about how maybe God, in all his infinite wisdom, may not exactly be blessing America these days. Is anyone surprised?

4,000 dead. Unofficial estimates are that there may be up to 100,000 wounded, injured, or mentally ruined by this war. And there could be up to a million Iraqi dead. We will pay the consequences of this for a long, long time. God will keep blessing America.

And where is Darth Vader in all this? A reporter from ABC News this week told Dick Cheney, in regards to Iraq, “two-thirds of Americans say it’s not worth fighting.” Cheney cut her off with a one word answer: “So?”

“So?” As in, “So what?” As in, “F*** you. I could care less.”

I would like every American to see Cheney flip the virtual bird at the them, the American people. Click here and pass it around. Then ask yourself why we haven’t risen up and thrown him and his puppet out of the White House.

The Democrats have had the power to literally pull the plug on this war for the past 15 months — and they have refused to do so. What are we to do about that? Continue to sink into our despair? Or get creative? Real creative. I know there are many of you reading this who have the chutzpah and ingenuity to confront your local congressperson. Will you? For me?

Cheney spent Wednesday, the 5th anniversary of the war, not mourning the dead he killed, but fishing off the Sultan of Oman’s royal yacht. So? Ask your favorite Republican what they think of that.

The Founding Fathers would never have uttered the presumptuous words, “God Bless America.” That, to them, sounded like a command instead of a request, and one doesn’t command God, even if they are America. In fact, they were worried God would punish America. During the Revolutionary War, George Washington feared that God would react unfavorably against his soldiers for the way they were behaving. John Adams wondered if God might punish America and cause it to lose the war, just to prove His point that America was not worthy. They and the others believed it would be arrogant on their part to assume that God would single out America for a blessing. What a long road we have traveled since then.

I see that Frontline on PBS this week has a documentary called “Bush’s War.” That’s what I’ve been calling it for a long time. It’s not the “Iraq War.” Iraq did nothing. Iraq didn’t plan 9/11. It didn’t have weapons of mass destruction. It DID have movie theaters and bars and women wearing what they wanted and a significant Christian population and one of the few Arab capitals with an open synagogue.

But that’s all gone now. Show a movie and you’ll be shot in the head. Over a hundred women have been randomly executed for not wearing a scarf. I’m happy, as a blessed American, that I had a hand in all this. I just paid my taxes, so that means I helped to pay for this freedom we’ve brought to Baghdad. So? Will God bless me?

God bless all of you in this Easter Week as we begin the 6th year of Bush’s War.

God help America. Please.

Michael Moore

Democrats now have the advantage in “swing” states
Pew Research Center for the People and the Press

The balance of party identification in the American electorate now favors the Democratic Party by a decidedly larger margin than in either of the two previous presidential election cycles.

In 5,566 interviews with registered voters conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press during the first two months of 2008, 36% identify themselves as Democrats, and just 27% as Republicans.

The share of voters who call themselves Republicans has declined by six points since 2004, and represents, on an annualized basis, the lowest percentage of self-identified Republican voters in 16 years of polling by the Center.

The Democratic Party has also built a substantial edge among independent voters. Of the 37% who claim no party identification, 15% lean Democratic, 10% lean Republican, and 12% have no leaning either way.

By comparison, in 2004 about equal numbers of independents leaned toward both parties. When “leaners” are combined with partisans, however, the Democratic Party now holds a 14-point advantage among voters nationwide (51% Dem/lean-Dem to 37% Rep/lean-Rep), up from a three-point advantage four years ago.

Despite these trends, the proportion of voters who identify with the Democratic Party outright has not increased in recent years. Currently, 36% say they think of themselves as a Democrat, virtually unchanged from 2004 (35%) and 2000 (35%). Instead, as the proportion of self-identified Republicans has decreased, the percentage of independents has grown substantially, from 32% in 2004 to 37% today.

The Electoral Landscape

The decline in the number of self-identified Republicans is evident in all parts of the country, but is perhaps most significant in the politically important “swing” states that were closely contested in the 2004 presidential election (see “How the States are Analyzed” below).

Four years ago there were about as many Democrats (35%) as Republicans (33%) in the 12 states where the voting was closest in 2004, and the balance was similar in the 2000 election cycle. But so far in 2008, Democrats hold a substantial 38% to 27% identification advantage in these states.

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By 11 BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board Members

Senator Barack Obama’s speech on race in Philadelphia on March 18 was notworthy. What follows is the commentary and analysis of members of the BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board.

Bill Fletcher, Jr.

Senator Obama offered a brilliant and inspiring address which was, nevertheless, a bit problematic. On the one hand, he spoke to the people of the United States about race in a manner that has only occasionally taken place (such as during the Jesse Jackson campaigns). He spoke as someone from both inside and outside the African American experience and was completely unapologetic about the rage that we feel, as a people, for the injustices that we have suffered over the centuries.

Yet Senator Obama, at one and the same time, attributes much of the anger of Rev. Wright to the past, as if Rev. Wright is stuck in a time warp, rather than the fact that Rev. Wright’s anger about the domestic and foreign policies of the USA are well rooted–and documented–in the current reality of the USA.

Senator Obama’s address offers the vision of hope and change, which are critical for all those engaged in the struggle for social justice. He correctly identifies that this is not the same country that it was 50 or 100 years ago. He also correctly identifies that race still matters in the conditions of African Americans. He also insists that the issues facing African Americans must be joined with the issues facing other oppressed people, including but not limited to white working people, and not reserved for us alone. In that sense he suggests the importance of the links among those who have found themselves under the heal of this system.

For a mainstream politician running for the Presidency, and particularly for an African American running for the Presidency, this was a critical speech to give. It was essential that he not walk away from, or disown Rev. Wright. At the same time, when we live in a society that is so much in denial of the actual conditions of the oppressed both inside and outside our borders; that has come to accept torture; that often cannot comprehend the tragedy facing the Palestinians; that was angry about, yet threw up its hands in the face of the Katrina disaster (and the government’s lack of response); that witnesses major banks and corporations disembowel communities and face few consequences, the anger that was displayed by Rev. Wright should not have surprised anyone. It is both anger AND hope that are critical for a genuine movement that wishes to transform this country. The anger of a Rev. Wright is not a throw-back, but is a reality check.

BlackCommentator Editorial Board Member Bill Fletcher, Jr. is Executive Editor of The Black Commentator. He is also a Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies and the immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum.

William L. (Bill) Strickland

My first reaction to the smear campaign against Barack Obama kicked off by Fox News’s guilt-by-association tarring of Obama’s pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, was smugly racial. After all, they had attacked Reverend Wright for being “unpatriotic” and “un-American,” but they had not dared to say that what Wright had said was untrue, that America is run by rich white people, that Hillary Clinton didn’t know what it meant to be black and that America was founded on racism.

But after reading Obama’s speech, two time-distant recollections triggered another thought about America’s problem which goes far deeper than right-wing race-mongering.

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By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Columnist

Five years in Iraq.

That’s 1,825 days since “Shock and Awe” lit up the skies above Baghdad, all of which was captured live and in living color by unblinking CNN cameras with unobstructed views of the carnage.

3,991 United States soldiers have died in Iraq since then. That’s a little more than two United States soldiers killed per day. Every day. For five years.

More than 40,000 United States soldiers have been wounded in Iraq since then. That’s more than twenty-one United States soldiers wounded per day. Every day. For five years.

The last Congressional Budget Office report on the monetary cost for Iraq dates back to October of last year, and tabulates that cost at $421 billion. The CBO cannot be censured should that number prove lower than what has actually been spent, as it is understood that all the other millions pilfered by profiteers and passed on in bribes were not duly recorded in the books, and thus cannot be accounted for.

The CBO’s number must be considered inaccurately low on spec, thanks in part to a nifty little cash-and-carry hootenanny from three years ago in July of 2005. A report from the UK Guardian tells the tale: “The auditors have so far referred more than a hundred contracts, involving billions of dollars paid to American personnel and corporations, for investigation and possible criminal prosecution. They have also discovered that $8.8 billion that passed through the new Iraqi government ministries in Baghdad while Bremer was in charge is unaccounted for, with little prospect of finding out where it has gone. A further $3.4 billion appropriated by Congress for Iraqi development has since been siphoned off to finance ‘security’.”

But wait, there’s more: “Pilfering was rife,” continues the Guardian report. “Millions of dollars in cash went missing from the Iraqi Central Bank. Between $11 million and $26 million worth of Iraqi property sequestered by the Coalition Provisional Authority was unaccounted for. The payroll was padded with hundreds of ghost employees. Millions of dollars were paid to contractors for phantom work. Some $3,379,505 was billed, for example, for ‘personnel not in the field performing work’ and ‘other improper charges’ on just one oil pipeline repair contract.”

This one example, just one among the multitudes, makes the existence of significant gaps in the accuracy of the information supporting the CBO’s conclusions a safe assumption. As for the money not present on the official balance sheets, well … to paraphrase John Kenneth Galbraith, that cash went to the same place your lap goes when you stand up. Even the guys who stole it probably don’t know what happened to it all, not completely, not for certain. If the Federal Reserve had stuffed those bills into the belly of a ballistic missile and launched the thing into deep space, they’d know exactly as much about where it is as they now know about what happened to the cash literally dumped into Iraq. It’s somewhere, and nowhere, and all the way gone.

$421 billion spent over 1,825 days in Iraq comes to $230,684,931 plus change per day. Every day. For five years.

And that number is low.

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Andre Latallade, hip-hop artist and prison rights activist also known as Capital-“X”, will walk from New Jersey to Texas to advocate for the abolishment of capital punishment in the United States.
Latallade will begin his “Walk 4 Life” on March 31, 2008 at 5AM at the state house in Trenton, NJ, the first state to abolish the death penalty in the last 40 years. He will walk 1700 miles through 10 of the highest executing states and arrive at Governors mansion in Austin, Texas, “the busiest killing state in the country,” to await the Supreme Courts’ ruling on the constitutionality of capital punishment.

Latallade estimates it will take 54 days walking eight hours a day at 3.5 mph. He will take a break to participate on a panel at the Hip Hop Association’s HHEAL Festival in the Bronx, New York April 18-20.

Latallade wants to “build bridges between two groups; the families of murder victims and the families of the condemned. Separated we call for life or death, I say we unite and call for resolution.” Latallade promotes life sentences without parole as opposed to death sentences. Currently there is a moratorium on state-sanctioned executions while the Supreme Court rules whether lethal injection is cruel and unusual punishment.

“I want to unite everybody fighting injustice and mobilize the international community to put pressure on the USA to abolish the death penalty. I have Italy, England, France, Denmark and Croatia behind me and am also reaching out to Puerto Rico.” Non-profit organizations, human rights groups, and abolitionists from around the world are supportive of Andre on his “Walk 4 Life.”

Anyone interested in supporting “X” can e-mail him at projectrevolution2010@gmail.com. Donate online here. Funds raised during the walk will go to victims’ families and abolitionist groups.

View X’s “Walk 4 Life” promotional clip and daily video blog documenting his journey at www.ONLOQ.com, a hip hop network that will be covering his expedition. There you can also view his profile and online show, “From the Frontlines.”

By Eric Lotke
Campaign for America’s Future

Modern conservatism is dying. There’s still an election to be held, but conservatism as we’ve known it since Ronald Reagan is failing – ground down in the desert of Iraq, drowned in the floods of Hurricane Katrina, foreclosed by the housing crisis and poisoned by toys imported from China.

The American people are figuring this out. While conservatives repeat their time-worn slogans – “small government, low taxes, high security” – the American people are living the consequences.

We’ve seen eight years of a conservative presidency, six years overlapping with a conservative Congress, and 30 years of broadly conservative ideology. Now reality is showing how the values embodied in those slogans have been betrayed.

Conservatives say “shrink government.” We get inadequate levees, exploding steam pipes and schools without textbooks. Conservatives say “deregulate,” and now Thomas the Tank Engine is painted with toxic lead. Conservatives say “low taxes,” but it primarily applies to millionaires, billionaires and crony corporations.

What follows is a history of these problems, and the direction people want to go instead.

Appealing Slogans, Disastrous Results

The conservative shibboleth – “small government, low taxes, high security” – has timeless appeal, founded on genuine moral and constitutional values. But the application of those values by today’s conservatives is frightening.

Shrinking Government

“Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”
– Ronald Reagan, First inaugural address, January 1981.

“My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”
– Grover Norquist, Executive Director, Americans for Tax Reform.

The modern conservative movement is united less by belief in small government – a traditional constitutional value – than by disdain for government. They don’t just want to shrink it. They want to drown it in a bathtub. Such disdain courts exactly the kind of disasters we got.

Hurricane Katrina. A shrunken government failed in fundamental responsibilities when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. Crucial levees had been left to rot and the Federal Emergency Management Agency had been “systematically downgraded and all but dismantled.” Reconstruction remains a forgotten promise.

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