Weeks are passing like days for folks with recurring more months than money. At the same time for those of us who have worked many years for real political, social and economic change it seems as if the first Tuesday of Novenber 2008 will never come. With each nasty, negative and childish attack on Barack and Michelle Obama the wheels of time seem to grind slower. And we remind ourselves anew that we are experiencing the norm of big goal reality. We are in the interim problem period between the promise and the provision. Between Yes We Can and Yes We Did small people are always allowed to show how small they really are. It's like the annoying insects that accompany the warmth and heat of the faithful springs and summers that thaw us out of winter's bone chilling grip.
As I have seriously accessed what's making this present season so uncomfortable I was reminded of a well taught lesson from a line of one of the Apostle Paul's letters to his young mentee, Timothy. After laying out defenseive postures and proper responsive attitudes and behavior for dealing with potential problem people, in preparing Timothy to stick and stay, Paul throws in for good measure, "Sometime some folks will hate you just because you're good." (better than they)
So is the case of Barack and Michelle Obama. And lest anyone take any thing for granted everything from overt racist measures like stamping "Let's Keep The White House White" on the back of U.S. paper money to all out verbal war on Michelle Obama on the internet, right wing talk radio and Fox TV. One of the most shrill and vicious vocies is that of Dinesh D'souza, an Indian immigrant, Dartmouth College grad, prolific author of eleven books and baptized in ultra conservative ideology. The first of his works that got my attentions was titled "The End Of Racism." Conservative White America loved it.
In his "What's So Great About" series, when pointing out what's so great about America, comparing and contrasting his life here and his native restrictions in India, D'souza says: "By coming to America , I have seen my life break free of these traditional confines. At Dartmouth College, I became interested in literature, and switched my major to the humanities. Soon I developed a fascination with politics, and resolved to become a writer, which is something you can make a living doing in America, and which is not easy to do in India . I married a woman of English, Scotch-Irish, French, and German ancestry. Eventually I found myself working in the White House, even though I was not an American citizen. I cannot imagine any other country allowing a non-citizen to work in its inner citadel of government."
Why then must it be so hard for Barack and Michelle?
