Michael Carmichael2013-05-23T07:42:14-04:00Michael Carmichaelhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=michael-carmichaelCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Michael CarmichaelGood old fashioned elbow grease.David Parker Resignation: N.C. Democrats Reject Chair's Decision To Step Downtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.15165722012-05-15T10:49:06-04:002012-07-15T05:12:09-04:00Michael Carmichaelhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-carmichael/define North Carolina as the most important battleground state. Some describe the political fault line in North Carolina as the political equator of the United States. In 2008, Obama carried North Carolina by the thinnest plurality in the nation, a margin of victory that was much smaller than those margins in much smaller states. The bold decision to situate the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte sets up the most important battle in the presidential campaign of 2012.
Inside North Carolina, a political storm of hurricane proportions has been brewing since Friday the 13th of April that involved allegations of sexual harassment and a cover up within the staff of the Democratic Party.
Under siege and a pledge to resign his office as Chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party (NCDP), David Parker is now being hailed as the "Democratic Lazarus." At a special meeting of the State Executive Committee (SEC) Parker's fellow Democrats affirmed and re-affirmed their confidence in his leadership by repeatedly rejecting his resignation during a tedious sequence of parliamentary maneuvers.
The meeting to oust Parker took place in Greensboro on the same day that First Lady Michelle Obama delivered the commencement address at North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University. Unsurprisingly, the first lady did not make an appearance at the crisis meeting of the SEC.
The backstory explains the dramatic tension that propelled the crisis. On Friday the 13th of April, Sallie Leslie, a former administrator at NCDP headquarters, blew the whistle about an alleged sexual harassment scandal that she said had been deliberately covered up by Party officials.
Mrs. Leslie, a senior administrator of the NCDP, told reporters that senior staff members covered up a sex scandal that involved one of the top officials of the NCDP. Claiming that the NCDP was "an organization that protected a predator," Mrs. Leslie stunned North Carolina only a few short weeks before the statewide vote on Amendment One, the right-wing Republican law to ban marriage rights for the LGBT community. To the regret of all but the most conservative Democrats, Amendment One was approved at the polls last Tuesday only a few days before the SEC meeting.
Shocked by Sallie Leslie's April revelations, a media feeding frenzy ensued while shrill voices called for the immediate resignations of David Parker and Executive Director Jay Parmley.
That weekend Parmley resigned, stating, "Even though I have done nothing wrong, I need to move on. I refuse to become a distraction." Explaining that right-wing political enemies framed him as the aggressor in the bogus sexual harassment allegations, Parmley said they were "spreading a false and misleading story."
Parmley's resignation did not satisfy a group of Democrats surrounding the Council of State (COS). Citing the 'handling' of the case, members of the COS -- Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, Treasurer Janet Cowell, Auditor Beth Woods, Insurance Commissioner Wayne Goodwin and Superintendent of Public Instruction June Atkinson -- signed an open letter that called for the resignation of Chairman David Parker.
In his initial response, Parker refused to resign, explaining that there was insufficient evidence against Parmley for termination with cause. While a confidential payment had been made to Parmley's accuser, Adriadn Ortega, Parker explained it had been part of a routine severance agreement and not "hush money." Further explanation established that current case law prohibits the public discussion of unsubstantiated claims of sexual harassment, thus requiring organizations to maintain privacy of the parties involved.
Amidst the media feeding frenzy Governor Beverly Perdue joined the call for Parker's resignation, soon followed by similar calls from leading Democratic candidates for the gubernatorial nomination, Walter Dalton and Bob Etheridge. At that point a mild statement from an official at the Democratic National Committee suggested that Parker should not seek re-election at a hastily called meeting of the SEC scheduled for May 12th to deal with the crisis.
At a lengthy press conference, Parker stood before a gaggle of television cameras and reporters as he presented a detailed legal explanation of the case. Responding to questions from the press and media, Parker clarified the situation and argued that the NCDP attorney, John Wallace, handled the complaint within the limits of the current law.
About two weeks later at the special meeting of the SEC, nearly five hundred members showed up on Mother's Day weekend that is traditionally filled with graduation and commencement ceremonies.
Parker convened the meeting and introduced the victor in the Democratic primary for governor, the incumbent Lieutenant Governor Walter Dalton, who made a fine speech that only fleetingly referred to Parker's resignation.
After Dalton finished and made his exit, ostensibly to meet with Michelle Obama, according to rumors on the floor of the meeting, Parker delivered a dramatic speech calling for Party unity that soared to oratorical heights far above that of Dalton. From the outset, Parker struck a resonant chord with the SEC by referring to the loss of a battle he led to defeat Amendment One to grant marriage rights to gays.
Parker said, "Our hearts are heavy with the disappointment that this great State chose to single out a group of us for special discrimination and a return to Jim Crow style policies that stigmatize, intimidate and challenge the pride of many of our brothers and sisters."
Turning to the Democratic ticket, Parker celebrated, "President Barack Obama who has more courage in his little finger than Mitt Romney, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and all the other 'Etch-a-Sketch' pandering pachyderms of the Tea Party Republicans and their mealy mouthed consultants and greedy puppet 'one per-center' masters combined. Whether it is affordable health care, saving American pride at GM, or standing for marriage equality -- this is an American President who believes in the politics of conviction rather than the mere politics of convenience."
Citing Dr. Martin Luther King, Parker's stentorian tone gripped the audience and commanded their rapt attention. Every eye steadily gazed on Parker. Every ear harkened to his message. You could have heard a pin drop.
On the day when he faced his darkest hour, David Parker delivered one of the classical political speeches in North Carolina history. (For the complete text click here)
When he departed the auditorium, a palpable frisson swept through the chamber as Vice Chair Gwen Wilkins handled the gavel during the vote required by Robert's Rules of Order to accept or reject Parker's resignation. A melee ensued to grasp one of the four microphones, as speaker after speaker moved and seconded and called for the question to reject Parker's resignation.
After a voice vote that sounded as though it went in Parker's favor, the Chair called for a hand vote that led to the appearance of a majority of support for Parker. Then someone from the floor called for 'division' -- ie. ballots to be cast and counted. After two rounds of voice votes, hand votes and balloting the majority of the SEC consistently voted each and every time to reject Parker's resignation.
The dismay and disgruntlement of Parker's accusers were plain to see. Elaine Marshall, Janet Cowell and Beth Woods seemed thunderstruck. Hopefuls to replace Parker who had waged campaigns via telephone and internet were crestfallen. Confusion and chagrin coursed through a now swiftly dwindling minority who backed Parker's replacement. When it was announced that Parker would return to the hall, some of his opponents hopefully anticipated a second resignation speech, while the majority expected him to do as Gwen Wilkins said he would do and formally accept the rejection of his resignation and return to his office as Chair.
It emerged that Parker and his wife, Sally, actually left the hotel and drove down the highway toward the beach for a well-deserved holiday. However, the turn of events surprised him and compelled Parker to return to the chamber and preside over the remaining order of business.
Dewey Sheffield, a Democratic grandee from Wilson, North Carolina, made some interesting observations. "I have been to every Democratic National Convention since 1956, and I have never seen anything like this. I have never before heard such a speech except from a governor. David Parker is the Democratic Lazarus."
At the end of the meeting, most of the Democrats departed to their homes, their mountains and their beaches refreshed and reunited for the battle ahead.]]>Nagi Musa and the Sudan Tentag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.12404342012-01-31T14:15:53-05:002012-04-01T05:12:01-04:00Michael Carmichaelhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-carmichael/arrested Nagi Musa and nine other leaders of Girifna, the nonviolent people's resistance movement in Eastern Sudan.
On Wednesday the 25th of January, Nagi Musa was leading a conference titled: "The Massacre in Port Sudan and the Crisis in East Sudan." Nagi Musa's conference commemorated the seventh anniversary of the massacre.
Conference participants discussed human rights and the political situation in Sudan. The primary focus of the group centered on the Massacre in Port Sudan when 22 Beja people were executed on the spot by Sudanese National Forces in a massive outbreak of ultra-violent police brutality. In the melee, 400 other Bejas were severely injured.
The massacre occured while the Bejas were participating in a nonviolent protest in Port Sudan. The Bejas were demanding: peace, democracy, economic development and the end of racial persecution. In the course of the peaceful demonstration, heavily armed Sudanese police forces opened fire killing, maiming and wounding hundreds of unarmed Bejas, who have long been the objects of repeated attempts at ethnic cleansing as well as genocidal acts of racial violence.
Under domestic and international pressure from human rights organizations, the government agreed to set up a commission to investigate the Port Sudan atrocity. However, the commission has operated in total secrecy refusing to publish their findings for seven years.
The Bejas and human rights campaigners accuse the Sudanese Ministry of the Interior, the Commissioner of Police and the Chief of Police of Port Sudan with the perpetration of crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide and a broad spectrum of violent atrocities.
Mounting public outrage following the arrest and isolated detention of Nagi Musa and his associates are leading to demands for the release of all prisoners now held by the Sudanese National Security Forces.
Those arrested along with Nagi Musa include: Amar Dirar, Gazi Altayeb, Mohamad Mahjoub and Shareef Kamal. All are members of Girifna. Two youth leaders who attended the event have been declared missing since Wednesday night. Their families have released information to Girifna concerning the disappearance of the two prominent youth: Omar Ahmad Hamid, a senior student at Khartoum University and Mohamed Omer Al Amin, a recent graduate of the College of Law at Nillen University.
Several Sudanese citizens engaged in the human rights conference and Girifna have complained of intrusive police surveillance. Fearing arrest, torture and possible summary executions, several people have gone into seclusion.
On the 28th of January, Sudanese National Security Forces arrested four leaders of the non-violent pro-democracy movement organization, Sharara: Youth for Change. At a regular meeting of Sharara, Sudanese police took four human rights activists into custody. Khalef Saeed, a human rights campaigner based in the United Arab Emirates who was visiting Sudan to consult with Sharara was arrested along with three more organizers of the nonviolent Sharara movement: Magdi Akasa; Hatim Shinab and Yasin.
Further information about the recent spate of arrests and detentions is scarce, but eyewitness accounts do include descriptions of police brutality and torture.
Western observers working for non-governmental organizations are asking for international protection and humanitarian intervention to preserve and defend the nonviolent movement now emerging in Sudan.
A total of ten human rights leaders now in isolation at the infamous Kober Prison in Khartoum comprise the Sudan Ten. ]]>A Winter Journey to Poverty in North Carolinatag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.11823342012-01-04T11:11:08-05:002012-03-05T05:12:02-05:00Michael Carmichaelhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-carmichael/Truth and Hope Tour of Poverty in North Carolina this winter.
The backdrop was stark. One in five North Carolinians live in poverty. In the minority community, the situation is far worse. 40 percent of African American children and 42 percent of Latino children suffer the constant pain of poverty. Since the onset of the Great Recession in 2007, North Carolina's poverty and unemployment have surged out of control while income has fallen off a cliff. North Carolina faces a harrowing job deficit of 500,000 unemployed that hits the African American community the hardest where 17.4 percent are now unemployed.
Promising to shine a powerful searchlight onto the multitudinous faces of poverty in the Old North State, Rev. William Barber of the NAACP invoked Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who led the Poor People's Campaign to address the problems of economic justice, inadequate housing and hunger in America. Emphasizing the glaring fact that Dr. King was brutally killed because of his simple and legitimate quest for economic justice, Rev. Barber called for serious, systemic, structural changes.
In moving terms, Rev. Barber recalled the harsh bone-crushing journey of an impoverished teenage woman great with child and very late in her third-trimester forced by tax collectors to cross rugged mountain ravines in the dead of winter to bear her first baby in the stench of a stable and then to place him into a humble manger, a crude, uncomfortable, unhygienic and rough-hewn feeding trough fit only for barnyard animals.
Expanding his religious theme, Rev. Barber pointed out that the Bible is rippling with prolific references to the poor. Citing the Prophet Isaiah, Rev. Barber excoriated the systematic plunder of the poor that deprives the neediest people of their rights and withholds justice from the economically repressed.
Remarking that our society speaks freely of the wealthy and the middle class, Rev. Barber zeroed in on the mysterious silence enshrouding the growing presence of poverty he defined as "attention violence," the deliberate exclusion from public discourse of the rapidly advancing plague of pauperization spreading like an anesthetic across the cities, plains and mountains of the United States.
Rev. Barber repeatedly emphasized that individual charity alone will not address the wildly mushrooming problem of poverty.
The winter journey in search of the deepest depths of poverty will involve a tour of North Carolina's black belt in her northeastern counties of Beaufort, Edgecombe, Halifax, Hertford, Washington and Pasquotank. These counties constitute an arc of chronically entrenched black poverty from slavery unto the present. North Carolina's black economic backwater suffers from systemic economic exclusion characterized by the lowest rates of education in North Carolina, pitifully low levels of investment, deepening indebtedness and acute never-ending unemployment.
Organized by the highly acclaimed jurist and liberal firebrand, Professor Gene Nichol who serves as the head of the Center for Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina, the Truth and Hope Tour will tightly focus on the explosion of impoverishment and child poverty that is swiftly setting the United States apart from other industrialized democracies.
Prof. Nichols explained:
In the richest nation on earth, the richest nation in human history, we countenance stunningly high levels of poverty -- especially child poverty - among our sisters and brothers. Poverty at rates far beyond other advanced western democracies. Nations that brag less about their commitment to equality. Brag less but do more.
The Winter Truth and Hope Tour begins on Jan. 19 with a journey by bus from the bustling state capital of Raleigh into the northeastern economic wilderness of broken dreams, shattered lives, dashed hopes, embittered psyches, haunted children and the invisible people who have and have not living on the violent fringes of their internal oceans of doubt.]]>Occupy the Dreamtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.11523292011-12-16T09:03:20-05:002012-02-15T05:12:01-05:00Michael Carmichaelhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-carmichael/
Yesterday was the day the American Civil Rights Movement merged their hopes and dreams with Occupy Wall Street.
Led by Dr. Ben Chavis, civil rights leaders announced the formation of Occupy the Dream, an organization to mobilize Americans around the vision of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who sought to wage war on poverty, unemployment and economic injustice. Dr. Chavis announced that the first major march of Occupy the Dream will take place on Martin Luther King Day, January 16, 2012 in Washington, D.C.
Dr. Jamal Bryant, pastor of Empowerment Temple in Baltimore with 10,000 members, joined Dr. Chavis at the National Press Club where they rallied their followers together with leading advocates of Occupy Wall Street.
Launching their movement, Dr. Bryant explained the crisis now facing many Americans in stark but eloquent terms:
Ladies and Gentlemen, in just a few days, about 200,000 of our sons and daughters will be returning back to the United States in a large way indicating the end of the war in the Middle East. Regrettably they are going to be coming to another war. It's not going to be a War on Terror as indicated by then-President Bush. It's not even going to be a War on Drugs implemented by Nancy Reagan or a War on Obesity by Michelle Obama - but they're going to be coming into a war on poverty - a war on poverty, unemployment and economic inequality and greed has in fact ravaged our nation down to its core.
Defining the merger of the movements explicitly, Dr. Chavis announced the historic coalition:
When Dr. King articulated the dream, it was inclusive. It is in our interests to build coalitions beyond ourselves. In fact, that is what the beauty of today represents. We are not trying to achieve economic equality and leave others in economic inequality. If you want justice, you've got to have justice for everybody. If you are for economic equality, you've got to have economic equality for everybody.
Kevin Zeese of Occupy Wall Street/Washington DC affirmed his enthusiasm for the expansion of the OWS movement:
"I think this is a very important step toward the American Spring. . . . This American Spring is going to be a historic, transformative movement. It's going to be a moment in history that's going to change things in ways that they can't imagine. It's going to be a moment in history that dominates the year more than the presidential campaign does."
Although he was not present at the National Press Club, Russell Simmons has been instrumental in promoting the expansion of the Occupy Wall Street movement. From his offices in New York, Simmons issued the following statement:
It was Dr. King's dream that the civil rights community would come together with the unions and cultural icons, and they would produce a revolution that would promote economic equality in this country. I have been there to witness the energy and the courage and have been inspired by these young creative people who have a high aspiration for our country, who are politically astute and who are themselves inspired to make this country greater.
Dr. Benjamin Chavis is a veteran civil rights icon who served as an aide and acolyte to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. While working with the Commission for Racial Justice of the United Church of Christ, Dr. Chavis came into direct conflict with highly organized racists who opposed the desegregation of public schools in Wilmington, North Carolina. The clash resulted in the Wilmington Ten trial and imprisonment of ten civil rights workers who served substantial time in prison before they were exonerated in federal court.
Rising through the ranks of the civil rights movement to become Vice President of the National Council of Churches, Dr. Chavis went on to serve as Executive Director of the NAACP. In 1995, Dr. Chavis was appointed to the post of Executive Director of the Million Man March.
In recent years, Dr. Chavis has worked with hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons to energize and activate the music industry and its huge audience around the cause of civil rights and economic justice.
An important episode in Dr. Chavis' life as a civil rights leader was novelized by the acclaimed author, Timothy Tyson, in his bestselling book, Blood Done Sign My Name. The movie starred Nate Parker in the role of the young Benjamin Chavis. Dr. Chavis has appeared in the film Belly, and in Spike Lee's, Get on the Bus, a fictional but compelling account of the Million Man March.
At the press conference, David Degraw of OWS, said, "Dr. Chavis, of course, his entire life has been a battle. He's led the way. . . . Are you ready to go another couple of rounds?"
To that question, Dr. Chavis responded, "Absolutely."
Somehow, very tangibly, Occupy the Dream seems like a gigantic and brilliantly wrapped Christmas present to the 99%.]]>Battleground North Carolina - Democrats Sweep Local Electionstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.10832272011-11-09T10:56:34-05:002012-01-09T05:12:02-05:00Michael Carmichaelhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-carmichael/ David Parker, Chair of the North Carolina Democratic Party, proclaimed victory: "All across the state, the voters in North Carolina's counties and municipalities rejected the Tea Party and its extremist views."
Voters repudiated the Tea Party agenda backed by North Carolina's notorious political boss, Art Pope. A billionaire and staunch ally of the Koch brothers, Art Pope is the local face of a multi-tentacled political machine. Working hand-in-glove as a dynamic duo of the political right, Pope is grooming his well-heeled acolyte, Pat McCrory, to run for governor in 2012. But, at the crucial hurdle, they stumbled.
Across this most politically embattled state in the nation, Democrats mobilized and routed Republicans. Parker zeroed in on McCrory's ignominious role in the Republican rout, "Pat McCrory's hand-picked candidates in Charlotte's City Council and Wake County's School Board race were soundly defeated in spite of his annoying robo-calls and the strenuous machinations of his well-oiled political machine."
Two years ago, Tea Party-backed Republican candidates won many local elections in North Carolina. Bankrolled by Boss Pope and rallied by 'Me-Too' McCrory, the Republican onslaught swept to a majority in Wake County's School Board elections. The Republican tide led to the return of Jim Crow Era policies of racial segregation under the guise of "neighborhood schools."
In 2010, Republicans continued their ominous sweep winning major victories in the US Senate race and control of the state legislature, while re-electing Senator Richard Burr, the arch-conservative acolyte of the late Jesse Helms. For the first time in more than a century, Republicans gained a majority of the North Carolina General Assembly.
The ensuing avalanche of reactionary Republican legislation was deliberately designed to turn the clock back to the bad old days of school segregation with hefty grants for Charter Schools. Under the banner of "fiscal conservatism" and the ideal of smaller government, Republicans backed the wholesale sacking of state employees. To ensure unfair elections and political inequality at the polls, Republicans brazenly attempted to legislate the suppression of black and minority voters via Voter ID bills. Governor Beverly Perdue's string of impressive vetoes of preposterous Tea Party legislation proved to be the only counterforce to the reactionary Republican cataract.
Art Pope and Pat McCrory masterminded the ultra-conservative Republican agenda, but they went too far, too fast. This year, North Carolina voters turned out to deliver a stunning backlash to the Pope-McCrory Machine in local elections all across the nation's tenth largest state.
The popular Democratic Mayor of Charlotte, Anthony Foxx, easily won re-election with a smashing two-to-one victory in the Queen City of the South. Mayor Foxx led an across-the-board Democratic sweep with massive pluralities in local elections in the state's largest county, Mecklenburg. Riding Mayor Foxx's strong coattails, Democrats swept all eight contested seats for Charlotte City Council. For Mayor Foxx, this was a timely tour de force. Next year, Mayor Foxx will be the primary host of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, a task that will elevate him to national prominence.
In Greensboro, progressives, Democrats and independent voters ousted the Pope-McCrory ticket of 'fiscal conservatives.' Robbie Perkins captured 56% of the vote and knocked out incumbent Mayor, Bill Knight, the city's ranking 'fiscal conservative.' Former Mayor Knight led the conservative bloc of candidates for City Council to resounding defeat.
But, the coup de grace took place in Boss Pope's backyard. Voters in Raleigh, North Carolina dealt Boss Pope, a major embarrassment in his hometown.
In the run-off for the controlling seat on the Wake County School Board, progressive Democrat Kevin Hill defeated Pope's Tea Party Republican candidate, Heather Losurdo. Hill stalwartly opposed the Pope-orchestrated re-segregation of Wake County Schools, while Losurdo supported the return to "neighborhood schools," a code for the end of cultural, racial and ethnic diversity.
Kevin Hill won his key race in a middle-class rural and suburban school district by garnering 52% of the vote against Losurdo's well-financed campaign. Wake County is one of North Carolina's largest and most urban counties. Hill's victory suggests that the mood of the county has crystalized against Boss Pope's radical agenda.
In Raleigh, Douglas Johnston, a retired state employee, observed, "In Northern Wake County, the Republicans turned out, but the independents voted against them. This election proves that the independent voters never had any genuine enthusiasm for the Tea Party."
In 2008, Obama carried North Carolina by the slenderest of margins, winning with the razor-thin margin of 14,177 votes out of four million cast. Nowhere else in America did Obama have a tighter margin than North Carolina.
To fortify their inroad into the Solid Republican South, Democrats selected Charlotte to be the site for the 2012 Democratic National Convention. The latest election results confirm the sagacity of the Southern strategy, but David Parker exemplifies keen-sighted vigilance at the helm, "This election bodes well for 2012, but it will take even harder work next year to be successful."
]]>Battleground North Carolina: Democratic Women Fired Up!tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.10271612011-10-23T20:08:42-04:002011-12-23T05:12:02-05:00Michael Carmichaelhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-carmichael/Chapel Hill, North Carolina - Recognizing that women's rights will take a devastating hit if Republicans return to power in 2012, Democratic women are rising to face the challenge.
Meeting in the capital of the progressive heartland of the South, the Orange County Democratic Women heard a rising crescendo of vibrant voices calling for political action against the surge of repression now coursing through the arteries of the nation's most embattled battleground state -- North Carolina.
Their annual Legislative Brunch in Chapel Hill sold out in record time. The lucky one hundred and fifty ticket-holders passed by the Occupy Chapel Hill demonstration now in its second week on their way to a bruncheon that none of them will never forget. Organizers said they could have sold two or three times the number of tickets in the supercharged political climate amid vast political preparations for an epic 'Battle of the South' next year.
President of Orange County Democratic Women, Renee Price, called the meeting to order and exhorted her audience of progressive women to stand up and fight for public offices once held exclusively by men.
To prepare the audience for the forthcoming keynote address by the liberal firebrand Professor Gene Nichol, Congressman David Price called attention to the class warfare waged by the richest one percent against the poorest: "America's richest four-hundred own more than the bottom one-hundred and fifty million Americans. The top one percent own sixty percent of our national wealth."
Describing North Carolina as a "swing state," Congressman Price declared that North Carolina was definitely in play for 2012 where Democrats are staging an aggressive campaign in the state that delivered their most tenuous of victories in the last presidential cycle. Obama became the first Democrat to carry North Carolina since 1976 when Jimmy Carter won the presidency. Obama won North Carolina with a razor thin margin of only 14,177 votes out of more than four million cast. "Just look at Wake County!" Price exclaimed, where Democrats turned out en masse less than two weeks ago and soundly defeated the Republican slate backed by Art Pope, North Carolina's billionaire henchman for the right-wing ideology of Charles and David Koch.
Brandishing a handmade sign proclaiming, "99%," the next speaker, popular State Senator Ellie Kinnaird, arrived at the bruncheon shortly after making her appearance before Occupy Chapel Hill at the Franklin Street Post Office. Articulating demands for economic justice and bank reform, Kinnaird raised the specter of Bush's wars and the explosive growth of America's national debt to define the current financial crisis as, "Trillions wasted on war!"
State Representative Alice Bordsen called for the syncopation of national and local messaging, while Democratic Women of North Carolina's Vice President, Joan Dressler, announced active organizations in sixty-one counties plus a strong alliance with Lillian's List, North Carolina's powerful and impressive stand-alone pro-choice committee dedicated to electing progressive pro-choice women to the General Assembly. In recent days, Lillian's List rallied five-hundred strong in Raleigh to hear a powerful message from Donna Brazile.
But, the day would belong to Gene Nichol, the outspoken professor of law at UNC, who delivered a riveting Jeremiad rippling with penetrating punchlines orchestrated against a leitmotif of bitterly incisive invective skewering the Republican radicalism now infecting the American electorate.
Gauging his audience like a shrewd football coach in a pre-game locker room, Nichol broke the emotional ice with a joke, "I saw Mary Chapin Carpenter at Memorial Hall the other night. She reported her favorite bumper-sticker: 'Palin-Bachmann 2012 - It's a No-Brainer!'" The crowd burst into peals of laughter.
Ripping right into the heart of the matter of Republican radicalism, Nichol sallied forth into oratorical battle:
And when they come together, for their version of debate and discourse; the crowd boos a soldier returning from Iraq because he's gay; they applaud the idea of letting Americans die unattended in hospital emergency rooms; and they cheer the efficiency of Texas' express lane for executions - a lane open only to the poor and marginalized.
Nichol's audience broke into applause; then he darkened his oratorical tone to lament the moral corruption of Wall Street and the current Republican front-runner, Herman Cain:
And despite clear proof that thievery, criminality and unyielding greed on Wall Street have directly caused the loss of at least eight million jobs in the last three years - for which we've bailed them out, and they've used the money to pay themselves obscene bonuses - a debate crowd this week cheered the declaration that fourteen million unemployed Americans 'should blame themselves, not Wall Street.' I'm not making this up!
Striking a chord with the audience of progressive Democratic women, Nichol zeroed in on the specter of Republican prejudice:
In the Congress, Republicans are so completely and unalterably focused on assuring that a brilliant young black man NOT be re-elected president, that they would say, over and over again, to millions and millions of uninsured, unemployed, uncompensated, unfed, un-housed, uneducated, unsafe, and now unbelieving Americans: 'Too bad,' your desperation is not as important as our intransigence, our pretend ideology; our belief that the only thing wrong with America is those at the bottom have too much and those at the top don't have enough. We've planted our flag. There we'll stand.
Nichol launched into a passionate excoriation of the Republican social agenda that targets: gays; women; students; middle class families; teachers; professors and Medicaid recipients while, "denying thousands of others the right to vote."
Nichol ridiculed the Republican domination of the North Carolina General Assembly as a confederacy of dunces:
Dominated by twin beacons - the Evangelical Right and the Tea Party. A Christian Right whose political agenda cannot be squared with - and is a formal rejection of - the Sermon on the Mount, and a Tea Party calling itself 'constitutionalist' - whose agenda cannot be squared, no matter how many tri-cornered hats they wear - with the Constitution of the United States."
Baring his oratorical knuckles, Nichol went after North Carolina's Speaker of the House, Tom Tillis, who recently enflamed every sector of the state when he attempted to foment strife between the sick and the impoverished. Nichol defined Tillis in chilling chiaroscuro:
But it should come as no great surprise from a gang led by a Speaker of the House who would say, and I want to be fair, get the words exactly right, Speaker Tillis, would say this: 'What we have to do is find a way to divide and conquer the people who are on assistance. We have to show respect for that woman who has cerebral palsy and had no choice in her condition. And we need to get those folks to look down on these people who choose to get into a condition that makes them dependent on the government.' I always have to stop for a minute and let that sink in. 'We have to get cerebral palsy victims to look down on the unemployed and destitute of North Carolina to treat them with appropriate disdain.'"
Then, Nichol took aim at the arch-villain of North Carolina politics, Senator Richard Burr:
Like Richard Burr's claim, on the floor of the United States Senate, a couple of years ago, that poor parents trying to secure Medicaid coverage for their children were 'pigs at the trough.' Pigs at the trough! On the floor of the Senate. Standing where Frank Porter Graham represented North Carolina! He should have been forced to resign!
The Democratic women burst into spontaneous applause. Now turning to his broader theme of the malignant Republican menace, Nichol stalked Republican prejudice against gays and schoolchildren.
Will we allow, for example, our government to say to our gay and lesbian sisters and brothers that we're so dead set committed to treating you with derision and disdain that we'll write into our constitution 'Thou shalt never have full dignity, full membership, full equality?'
And for Republican attacks on children:
Nor can we permit North Carolina to say to her children: 'We're too selfish, too greedy, too self-absorbed, too attached to our own tax breaks, to educate you to the best of our ability and your own! So we're going to descend to 50th place in funding for K-12, and demolish early childhood programs like Smart Start and More at Four. See kids, you came along at the wrong time. We're not like our parents. We won't do whatever it takes to give you the best chance in life. Our folks sacrificed to give us the richest opportunity they could muster. But we're not like them. It's more important to save a penny in sales tax. We have our priorities.
At this point, Nichol addressed the key issue in the minds of progressive American women - abortion rights:
Nor can we sit back and say we'll abide an abortion law that says to women, in their most vulnerable and intimate moment, 'We're going to make you undergo a sonogram procedure that has nothing to do with medicine. But that conscripts you, and your body, and your doctor into a state-mandated propaganda regimen to coerce and intimidate you out of exercising your constitutional rights. No step, no matter how intrusive, no matter how totalitarian, is beyond us. So certain are we of our religion and our politics. We demand them for you, too. We force them on you no matter how you might protest. God is on our side.
Turning to the most insidious threat to American democracy concealed in the Republican agenda, voter suppression, Nichol invoked the specter of the Jim Crow Era.
Our legislature has shown, we'll even go after people's right to vote. I would have thought given our history, given our premises of government, given the wars we've fought, given the civil rights struggles we've endured, and given the things we repeatedly pledge allegiance to, the one thing that would be agreed upon by all - the uncontestable in America - was the sanctity of the right to vote. . . . But our adversaries have pressed disenfranchisement into their agenda as well. Even racial disenfranchisement. Moving purposefully, knowingly, intentionally, strategically, cynically, to make it harder for persons of color to vote. Forgetting our past. Or maybe, in this case, embracing it. There are some sins against American democracy not meant to be forgiven.
Now modulating the tempo and impact of his delivery, Nichol attacked the power elite and broadened the vision of the economic justice movement to extend the limited focus on Wall Street to the entire corporate, legal, business and commercial network of American financial power.
But most of all, most profoundly, our challengers ask whether we'll continue to accept instead of vibrant democracy a government of wealth, by wealth, for wealth, through wealth. Whether we're untroubled, in the richest nation on earth, the richest nation in human history, with the highest levels of poverty, especially child poverty, in the advanced industrial world. The greatest gaps between rich and poor, by far, among the major nations, not only peers like Europe and the Commonwealth, but worse than China, India, Uganda and Bosnia. The greatest concentration of wealth in the top five per cent in a hundred years! A feudal regime of unemployment and stagnation for the rest! Cash register government! A politics of the Koch brothers, and Art Pope, and Wall Street, and John Roberts, and Nino Scalia, and Citizens United, and the Chamber of Commerce, and Bank of America - the malefactors of great wealth. Say, we're not going to have it - whether we'll occupy not only Wall Street, but - America. We are heirs to the greatest democracy on earth. We won't have it bought or stolen out from under us!
Preparing the Democratic women for momentous battle, Nichol reminded them of the origins of the United States.
This Party started over two-hundred years ago. And it STARTED in a fight. A fight between Jefferson and Hamilton. Jefferson stood strong for the future. Committed to democratic decision-making, citizen participation and humane ideals. Hamilton represented a gaggle of moneyed interests, happy enough to leave the rest of us out.
Bracing the audience for the titanic struggle of 2012, Nichol argued against defeatism, skepticism and cynicism.
And I know that some have grown cynical, and given up hope and they don't believe we can win these daunting battles. But imagine saying that to Harry Truman or Robert Kennedy or Cesar Chavez or Barbara Jordan or Paul Wellstone or Molly Ivins. Or think of saying it to John Lewis. Cynicism has no more place in the Democratic Party than privilege does.
In a thunderous voice Nichol released a cascade of riveting images and extolled his audience to action with a stirring litany that reverberated in the inner ears of every American heart.
So we ask you, again, ever more powerfully, to enroll your spirits, to enlist your hearts. To make this defining cause your own. To enlist your all! To enlist because . . .
Somewhere we read, and we believed it that, "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all are created equal.'
And somewhere we read, that we are, 'One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.'
And somewhere we read that, 'History will judge us on the extent to which we have used our gifts to lighten and enrich the lives of our fellows.'
And somewhere we read that, 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.'
And somewhere we read, 'We have to believe the things we teach our children.' Believe them and make them real.
And somewhere we read that ,'The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.'
And somewhere we read that, 'Whenever you did these things for the least of these, you did them for me.'
And somewhere we read, 'You reap what you sow.'
And somewhere we read that the pursuit of justice and the pursuit of happiness can be as one. They march not in opposite directions, but hand in hand.
And somewhere we read, 'No, we are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.'
Harkening to his clarion call, every person in the audience rose to their feet applauding and cheering and calling for Nichol to address the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte next year.
Urging her forces forward into the battle for the future, Renee Price adjourned the meeting, and the most progressive Democrats in the South poured out into the autumn sunlight.
Some made their way to Occupy Chapel Hill, while others went to their homes and neighborhoods to spread the word.
The Battle of North Carolina is now rising into a solid wall of surging political frenzy in the elections for Mayor and Town Council in Chapel Hill, as well as for crucial School Boards all across the state with key contests in Wake and Mecklenburg counties.
Democratic women are now leading the battle for their rights and the rights of others to live in the America they inherited, the America that is now threatened with imminent dissolution by Wall Street and its insidious Reaganite creed: 'Greed is Good.'
]]>Populist Backlash Crushes Art Pope's Forces in North Carolinatag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.10063072011-10-12T12:36:55-04:002011-12-12T05:12:02-05:00Michael Carmichaelhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-carmichael/
One week after a searing profile appeared in the New Yorker, Pope's ultra-conservative ticket fell under the crushing weight of a populist uprising merged with a Democratic steamroller in the highly anticipated elections for Wake County School Board.
Running in a heavily Republican district, Democrat Susan Evans beat Pope's handpicked Republican ringleader, Ray Margiotta, in what is being described as a "stunning upset."
In 2009, Pope's band of radical Republicans seized control of Wake County Schools and launched a reactionary reorganization of the system. Under the mantra of "neighborhood schools," Margiotta and his Republican radicals set about the deliberate deconstruction of the longstanding policy of cultural and racial diversity and began rolling back decades of desegregation. The president of the NAACP in North Carolina, the Rev. William Barber told the New Yorker, "the first thing the school board did was start putting black children back into their so-called neighborhoods."
Prior to Pope's Republican takeover, the Wake County school system was celebrated as a model of racial diversity.
With five seats up for grabs this year, Democrats won four seats outright with massive pluralities in three districts:
District 4 - Keith Sutton - 84%
District 5 - Jim Martin - 67%
District 6 - Christine Kushner - 59%
Upsetting the political odds-makers, Ray Margiotta went down to defeat in District 8 where Susan Evans received 52% of the vote.
In one district, there will be a runoff. Democratic incumbent, Kevin Hill, received 49.7% of the vote against his Republican challenger, Heather Losurdo, who polled 40%. Against the odds, Losurdo has called for a runoff even though Hill is now the heavy favorite.
All in all, Wake County dealt a decisive blow against the well-financed Pope political machine that Jane Mayer recently placed under the microscope in a probing feature that appeared in the New Yorker.
Now ranked as New Yorker's ace political reporter, Jane Mayer dissected Pope's political machine in "State for Sale." Mayer detailed the Machiavellian political maneuverings, chicanery and crass manipulations of the North Carolina electorate by billionaire retailer, Art Pope.
Mayer described Pope as the fortunate scion of an established retailing dynasty who morphed into an arrogant arch-conservative. Pope's billions stem from his inheritance of a string of tacky discount warehouses where he sells shoddy sweatshop merchandise imported from mainland China to low-income consumers in North Carolina, many of whom are African-Americans. To relieve the tedious boredom of operating his chain of dingy discount warehouses, Pope funds a cluster of right-wing organizations that back the state's most radical and reactionary Republicans who zealously support segregation, homophobia, creationism and the entire gamut of radical dogma.
Knowledgeable political observers in Wake County believe that the majority of the school board will return to Democratic control when Kevin Hill's runoff is held on November 8th. If those predictions prove correct, Hill's election will bring to an end two harrowing years of reactionary radicalism and re-segregation led by Pope and his now defeated henchman, Ray Margiotta.
For many empirical reasons, North Carolina is deemed to be the central battleground state in the 2012 election cycle. Next year, the Democratic National Convention will be held in Charlotte, the state's most populous city. The home of the troubled Bank of America, Charlotte is second only to New York as America's largest center of banking and finance.
The popular at-large candidate for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School Board, Lloyd Scher observed, "The school board election in Wake County is a huge win for the teachers and students. This shows that the voters are listening. The people are rejecting the ultra-right, and this is really a positive sign."
The Raleigh school board elections are already being read as a harbinger of a populist surge that appears to be building through numerous local Occupy Wall Street demonstrations now proliferating across the face of North Carolina's cities: Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Asheville, Fayetteville and Charlotte.
The significance of the backlash in Wake County's school board elections is clear and ominous for Art Pope and his allies, the Koch brothers and their Tea Party movement. North Carolina has just provided the first tangible evidence of the political merger between the growing populist protests against Wall Street excesses and the progressive wing of the Democratic Party in a new kinetic political coalition aimed at the heart of Art Pope's radical agenda in the South.
]]>The Innovator: Steve Jobstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9982272011-10-06T11:56:37-04:002011-12-06T05:12:02-05:00Michael Carmichaelhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-carmichael/
Clashes and collisions catapulted him in different directions. Twists and turns did not faze him. When fortune smote him in different directions, he morphed the future into a fantastic utopia. He challenged the world and reinvented moving pictures. In years of isolation, his dreams, his hopes, his visions inspired him. His visions endured while others expired. He found himself at a point of clarity where he could materialize his dreams and forge a new channel bursting forward into time. Dazzling gifts from gods of technology glittered with the energy of comets, meteors and flares of the sun.
Human intelligence required information; his dream of information for people; the imperative of education; the availability of entertainment; instantaneous communication; mastery of technology and over and above all and everything: the freedom of information. In the valley of silicon, he experienced visions and transformed them into tools. He hammered them; he forged them, and he shaped them into uncommon objects that are omnipresent to this day. Visions captivated him. Visions unfolded before him. Visions propelled him. Visions surrounded him. Visions engulfed him and transformed him into the most powerful innovator that the world had ever seen. He invoked his visions and shared his gifts with the people of his planet.
Riveted to innovation, he knew that time was surging through him. He grasped the wheel of his Mercedes and drove into the darkness, inspiring generations to vitalize the flame of their visions. Innovation and technology whispered into his inner ear a rhapsody of tools to liberate the freedom of the mind. The music in his mind became an opera that he sang of powerful tools to expand the mind of mankind.
These facts are well known. In his final moments, he raced outward and grasped the ungraspable, in his infinite quest for a superior future as his mind exploded in an infinite vision, and he became infinity.
]]>Obama Fights Backtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9633912011-09-14T23:05:08-04:002011-11-14T05:12:01-05:00Michael Carmichaelhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-carmichael/
At North Carolina State University, Obama electrified a massive crowd at Reynolds Coliseum with a powerful comeback performance that transformed the arena into a sea of political electricity.
The crowd of 10,000 Southern students and locals chanted: "Oh-Ba-Mah! Oh-Ba-Mah! Oh-Ba-Ma!" and "Four More Years!, Four More Years!, Four-More-Years!"
Under the baton of Dr. Paul Garcia, the Director of Music at NCSU, the famous Power Sound of the South Marching Band with over 300 members warmed up Reynolds Coliseum with supercharged renditions of popular hits: "Also Sprach Zarathustra," "Apache" and "Hungry Like the Wolf" for the massive audience assembled in the lair of the legendary NCSU Wolf Pack.
With a flurry of energy, Obama arrived on the platform and brought every member of the massive audience to their feet.
In his shirtsleeves, Obama recognized Governor Beverly Perdue and former Governor Jim Hunt, then he delivered a compelling appeal for his American Jobs Bill.
Pleading that the bill would employ NCSU graduates in his grand scheme to rebuild the crumbling infrastructure of America -- including four bridges in Raleigh alone -- Obama was frequently interrupted by thunderous applause.
In this rock concert, there was no distance between the rock star and his audience. At one point, while Obama was in full flow explaining his plan to create jobs, a lone male voice rang out: "I love you Barack!" Obama responded immediately: "I love you back!"
From the moment he mounted the podium, Obama was out front, hitting his audience with a steadily ascending crescendo of political riffs that struck all the right chords.
The excitement of the audience welled up inside the massive auditorium. Every person inside Reynolds Coliseum stood up and lifted the energy level. This was political Woodstock. Obama introduced a brilliant version of that classical American theme: "Jobs, Jobs, Jobs" to rebuild America and keep her where she belongs.
"I don't want the fastest trains and the biggest airports to be built in China. We should build them right here in America!" Obama thundered. This number was literally music to the ears of the enthralled throng.
Obama's driving message encapsulates the most powerful political comeback surge in many long years of presidential mediocrity -- and worse.
Invoking his mantra: "Yes, we can!" Obama brought his concert to its climax.
While Obama shook hands along the rope-line -- every mind and heart in Reynolds realized that the president was back in the race.
Obama's Maximum Mojo tour careens onward through the heartlands of America. Don't miss it.
]]>North Carolina Republicans Launch Sneak Attack on Gaystag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9572862011-09-12T16:00:58-04:002011-11-12T05:12:02-05:00Michael Carmichaelhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-carmichael/stealth attack on the labor movement in Wisconsin, the GOP has launched a sneak attack on the LGBT community of gays, lesbians, transgendered and bisexual citizens in North Carolina -- the nation's most embattled battleground state.
According to news reports stemming from WRAL-TV in Raleigh, the Republican covert operation to attack gay rights has been blown wide open.
According to reports broadcast by Laura Leslie of WRAL, here is the scenario:
The North Carolina General Assembly will be the field of battle;
The Republican Senate Caucus has launched a nefarious plan;
Under the guise of a debate on term limits, the Republicans will strip out the language of the bill and substitute a ban on gay marriage;
The same covert plan is operative in the NC House of Representatives and will run concurrently.
The Republicans' covert plan was leaked to WRAL by an anonymous whistleblower, who explained the extremist rationale behind the covert legislative strategy:
"We need to reach out to them and get them (gays) to change their lifestyle back to the one we accept."
The deliberate and stealthy Republican moves began to unfold on Friday. Senate staff attorney, Susan Sitze sent the new amendment against gay marriage to members of the Senate Judiciary I Committee. Approximately 40 minutes later, the Senate Calendar was posted for the public proclaiming that the topic under discussion on Monday by Senate Judiciary I Committee would be: "Speaker/Pro Tem Term Limits."
When word began to seep out that something intriguing was afoot, the office of Senate leader Phil Berger responded. Berger's Chief of Staff, Jim Blaine, defended the public posting of one bill, when the members will actually be discussing another: "Under Senate rules, we don't have to notice meetings until midnight the day of the meeting, and at the same time send out a PCS (Proposed Committee Substitute)."
When Laura Leslie challenged Blaine about switching the topic of the meeting from term limits to marriage rights, Blaine responded with the obtuse comment,
"Well, that's the name of the bill. We are in no way, shape or form trying to hide this. If we wanted to sneak this through, we'd put it out Monday at noon. If you notice the members of the committee on Friday, it's public domain."
After the news media sniffed the odor of a sneak attack on gay rights, the Republicans began to buckle. On Saturday afternoon, the Senate staff corrected the public notice of the meeting in a thinly disguised ploy to coverup the now open secret that their cover had been blown by the astute reporter for WRAL, Laura Leslie.
The legal implications of the Republican sneak attack on gays would have been in violation of North Carolina's Open Meetings Law that mandates adequate public notice of meetings and debates over proposed legislation.
Rumors now coursing through Raleigh's political establishment suggest that the Republican National Committee ordered the clumsy sneak attack. Some are zeroing in on the Chairman of the RNC, Reince Preibus, who hails from Wisconsin, a state now riven by extremist carnage and Ground Zero in the stealthy Republican assault on organized labor. Because of Republican moves to advance their anti-gay marriage amendment, North Carolina is now Ground Zero in their national campaign against gays.
One senior political observer based in Raleigh said, "This sneaky ploy has Reince Preibus's fingerprints all over it."
While attending a meeting of the Democratic National Committee in Chicago, the Chairman of the North Carolina Democratic Party, David Parker was swift to respond. Parker issued a hard-hitting statement comparing this political ploy to recent Republican attempts to resegregate schools in North Carolina and to limit voting rights by requiring Photo IDs at polling places.
Regardless of how you feel about the North Carolina law that already makes gay marriage illegal, it is simply un-American to single out any group of law-abiding citizens to harass and torment. Every time we select a set of folks to exclude from America's dream of a better life, we lose. The Founding Fathers did not let women vote. They counted African Americans as three fifths of a person. They required voters to own land. Most were fine with education being private. But times have changed. Strong women of both political parties serve us all in the US Senate, the Governor's office, the General Assembly and in countless local offices. But the Republicans in the General Assembly want to reduce the impact of strong women. The Republicans in the General Assembly and Pat McCrory want to confuse folks with legalese on this issue. And for what reason? North Carolinians know the ban on gay marriage will not create any jobs or make their lives any better. We are tired of distractions. The Republicans in the legislature and Pat McCrory have done nothing to help the middle class in North Carolina. They're just trying to tap dance their way through the year, distract us with their footwork, and avoid fixing our economy. Enough is enough. Grow up, Pat, and take some responsibility. If you really want to be Governor, you're going to have focus on things other than who can vote and who can get married.
A long-serving member of the North Carolina Democratic State Executive Committee, Vinod Thomas of Cornelius reacted, "What makes it so insidious is they are not debating in the open by disguising the meeting as term limits instead of gay marriage."
Thomas sees the Republican Party flip-flopping for purely political purposes.
"When I spoke Thom Tillis, the Speaker of the House, I asked why he flip-flopped on issues that he supported when Republicans were in the minority. For example, Tillis supported non-partisan redistricting when he was in the minority, but now that he is in the majority, he opposes it. Tillis's claim was that states faced with high unemployment and a large budget shortfall need to concentrate on those issues and simply do not have time to discuss the matters that they previously championed. I find this explanation to be disingenuous because discussing same-sex marriage will do nothing to create any jobs or alleviate the budget shortfall. I feel confident in saying that the vast majority of North Carolinians place a higher emphasis on helping our economy and aiding our public schools rather than bashing our friends and neighbors in the LGBT community."
In North Carolina, the LGBT community was swift to respond. Equality NC set up an informative page on its website calling for immediate action. Telephone calls to legislators are now hammering Republicans for this attempt to abuse the open meetings law in order to launch a new wave of repression against gays.
One of the founders of Facebook, Chris Hughes, hails from North Carolina. Hughes set up a Facebook page backing Equality NC and pledged to contribute $10,000 to support the LGBT rights organization. In an open letter to the North Carolina General Assembly, Hughes argues that anti-gay legislation is very bad for the business climate while it deprives gay families of respect and equality and subjects them to "derogatory and harmful anti-gay rhetoric."
The Republican anti-gay amendment is designed to ostracize and suppress the entire LGBT community by stigmatizing homosexuality. The intention of the legislation is to deny LGBT couples the most fundamental legal protections by emphasizing that they are only second-class citizens undeserving of respect and equal treatment under the law. This legal stigma fans the flames of the pandemic of suicide sweeping through the youngest generation of the LGBT community. Actually, it's perfectly despicable.]]>Plug-In 2011: Rising Tide for Electric Carstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.9057912011-07-21T14:00:59-04:002011-09-20T05:12:01-04:00Michael Carmichaelhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-carmichael/
Worried about environmental pollution?
Even in these days of global economic recession, billions of people still care deeply about the environment. Millions of people want to do something tangible -- right now -- to preserve the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, the land we cultivate and the natural world that restores and replenishes our fragile biosphere.
The electrification of the car and the transportation system provides an intelligent technological response to environmental degradation and global warming. Even in the midst of the worst recession since the 1930s, the trend to electric cars and plug-in hybrids (cars with both electric and small conventional motors) is growing stronger. While the market is not yet flooded with plug-in electric cars, manufacturers are accelerating their design, development and production. A new group of consumers, the Early Adopters, are plunking down substantial sums to lead the green revolution by driving plug-in hybrids and electric cars. The cutting edge of the clean technology movement spearheads this burgeoning trend toward the plug-in electric car.
At the Raleigh Convention Center, Plug-In 2011 brought together hundreds of manufacturers, engineers, vendors, media and the general public to see many of the leading plug-in hybrids and pure electric cars. The day of plugging in your car instead of filling it was gasoline seems to be rapidly approaching. Organized by the Electric Power Research Institute, (EPRI) the annual Plug-In conference is one of the industry's major exhibitions that indicates the progress rapidly unfurling in the realm of the electric car.
The market leaders of plug-in hybrids, cars with both electric and conventional motors, are the highly successful Toyota Prius and its major US competitor, the Chevrolet Volt.
Both the Prius and the Volt combine electric motors with conventional engines to deliver seamless long-range capabilities for their owners. At forty miles on its electric motors alone, the Volt has a longer range than the Prius that has a pure electric range of thirteen miles. While both cars appear to be similar, they are actually quite different. The Prius uses a conventional engine to drive its front wheels just like the majority of cars in production today, but the Volt's wheels are constantly driven by electric motors. When the Volt's batteries need recharging, the conventional engine starts to charge the batteries while the car is on the go providing for journeys as long as 300 miles.
In the pure electric car category, the Mitsubishi I and the Nissan Leaf have more limited ranges of circa 60-100 miles before they need battery charges that can take four to eight hours. Ford exhibited their Focus Electric, but the packaging of the car on display at Plug-In 2011 made it clear that it was still a pre-production/prototype. Ford does produce a range of hybrids similar in engineering to the Toyota Prius, but none were on display at Plug-In 2011.
At Plug-In 2011, charging stations became the rage. The electric car industry is now experiencing a massive surge of growth in manufacturers of plug-in charging stations. Many manufacturers from GE to Siemans to Eaton exhibited convenient plug-in charging stations for the home, the office or the general public demonstrating just how swiftly the electric car is moving toward majority acceptance.
In fact, many attending Plug-In 2011 were impressed with the latest development of the plug-in concept: hands free charging by wireless connection. Plugless Power is a start-up firm that featured an exhibit with a Chevrolet Volt poised over a wireless charging station that permits drivers to park their cars over the charge point and walk away without dealing with heavy cables and multi-pronged plugs. One passerby muttered, "What will they think of next?"
The stand where the Chevrolet Volt was displayed was constantly over-run with people attracted to the car and its smart custom carport with solar panels in the roof and plug-in charging station. It struck me that manufacturers were not only selling cars -- but also the charging stations to go with them. This development seems like the beginning of the end for the now outmoded gas station.
Oddly, two American manufacturers who have received massive federal financial support: Tesla and Fisker did not exhibit their wares at Plug-In 2011. Tesla sent executives to serve as spokesmen, but Fisker was either totally absent or operating in full stealth mode. Tesla manufacturers a range of pure electric cars, while Fisker will manufacture luxurious plug-in hybrids led by the Fisker Karma.
The US market awareness of electric cars definitely seems to be crystallizing. While Tesla executives said that their initial high-end two-seat sports car sold, "500-600 units per year," their next model -- the Model S -- will be built in far higher quantities of 20,000 units beginning in early 2012.
Both the pure electric Nissan Leaf and the hybrid Chevrolet Volt have sold 15-20,000 units in their first year of commercial operations, and both manufacturers plan to expand production to more than 50,000 units in calendar 2012.
Driving the electric car is a totally new automotive experience. Turn the key, push the button or move the lever into position and depress the accelerator to produce a silent and seamless surge of forward propulsion -- just like the Starship Enterprise. All the cars that I drove at Plug-In 2011 were competent in urban traffic around the Raleigh Convention Center. The Nissan Leaf is the clear leader in the pure electric category. The car is light, nimble and fun to drive on city streets.
Mitsubishi and Nissan executives told me that they are developing more electric cars and plug-in hybrids. I am looking forward to the plug-in electric equivalents of the Mitsubishi Evo and the sumptuous Infiniti said to be rapidly approaching the horizon.
The Chevrolet Volt is a larger vehicle than the pure electrics with a longer range thanks to its on-board conventional power plant that serves as a generator to keep the batteries charged for 300-mile journeys.
Now in its fourteenth year of production, the Toyota Prius has sold amazingly well. Over one million Priuses have been sold globally with circa five hundred thousand in the US market alone.
Everywhere you turned at Plug-In 2011, someone was talking about the, "Ten Millionth Electric Car" -- a metaphor for the general acceptance of the electric car by the majority of consumers. Judging from the range of interest from the general public in Raleigh, North Carolina, the tide lifting the electric car is rolling in, and the surf is definitely rising.]]>Comeback Surge of the Psychedelic Furstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8954572011-07-15T08:44:59-04:002011-09-14T05:12:01-04:00Michael Carmichaelhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-carmichael/Psychedelic Furs' stirring "Talk, Talk, Talk" tour.
Born in Britain, Richard and Tim Butler founded the Psychedelic Furs before, during and after the Punk revolution swept across the music industry with the force of a sonic tsunami.
Inspired by the energy of the new musical movements crashing against the backdrop of fervent artistic creativity churning out of Andy Warhol's Factory, where the founder of Pop Art incubated the mysterious and unforgettable Velvet Underground, the Furs produced a stunning series of albums that have stood the test of time to define the Anglo-American birth of the Modern Rock movement.
Upon their arrival in New York, Andy Warhol proclaimed the Psychedelic Furs, "The greatest band in the world." With a driving bass line and eloquent guitar riffs, Richard Butler's inimitable voice catapulted the band to stardom and captivated the momentous artistic transition from classical stadium rock to Punk to the New Wave and beyond to Modern Rock. Fulfilling Warhol's prophecy, the Furs would make a commanding impact on many rock musicians who came after them from Nirvana to the Arctic Monkeys.
In a steadily accelerating progression, the Furs released their stream of classical Modern Rock albums: The Psychedelic Furs; Talk, Talk, Talk and Forever Now - three albums that firmly established their creative credentials with audiences from Europe to America and even unto the Pacific fastnesses of New Zealand. Talk, Talk, Talk featured heavy artistic influences from Andy Warhol whose phantom has hovered over the Furs like a guardian archangel even inspiring Richard Butler's student days at the Epsom School of Art in England.
On their fourth album, Mirror Moves, the Furs boldly ventured into the political sphere and composed the most powerful attack on Ronald Reagan in the history of music: "President Gas" an anthem warning of the dangers of propaganda-fueled tyranny that is still a heavy favorite with the crowds attending their concerts today. Butler's lyrics for "President Gas" reveal a grim truth: "It's sick the price of medicine," a truism that became a mantra that led to Michael Moore's, Sicko in 2007.
Over the years, the personnel have changed behind the dynamic duo of Richard and Tim Butler.
On the keyboards, Amanda Kramer provides vibrant technical virtuosity with a scintillating spectrum of compelling electronic arpeggios.
On the drums, Paul Garisto lays down one of the most formal and striking beats in world music.
On saxophone, Mars Williams growls with an incandescent fury mesmerizing audiences everywhere.
Echoing the ghosts of guitar geniuses of the past, Rich Good is an amazing original talent launching riffs that soar upwards to create towering arches of phantasmagoric mystery.
Richard Butler's rasping voice cuts through the surface tension shielding the psyche, while his shamanic delivery of the lyrics pierces the psychic matrix and transforms the mind.
At the Cat's Cradle in Carrboro/Chapel Hill, North Carolina the packed house moshed, swayed and sang along to every word of the now classic album, Talk, Talk, Talk. The crowd transformed into a sea of electricity surging backward and forward to the incessant onslaught of the driving beat. The Furs sent wave after wave of sonic energy rolling through space and jolting the minds of the crowd.
"Pretty in Pink," the theme of the John Hughes brat pack movie excited the audience. The song reached number five in the U.S. charts and remains the band's top selling single.
When Richard Butler extended his arm in a fascist salute and launched into "President Gas," many in the audience were struck by the political immediacy of the lyrics. It seemed as though the shade of Ronald Reagan still inhabits and inhibits American society through some sort of evil and demented form of supernatural power.
Many in the audience were veterans of Furs concerts. Some camp followers have seen them perform over one hundred times.
Relaxing in their luxurious tour coach after the show, Richard and Tim expressed their concerns for America and the world.
"It seems like everything is spinning out of control from the weather to the economy to the way people expect everything to happen over night." Richard reflected.
Deeply concerned about the self-destructive attitudes of the middle class who robotically respond to the incessant Reaganite mantras of the right-wing media, Tim Butler emphatically insisted that, "There is nobody who can beat Obama, because he's delivered across the board and even killed Osama Bin Laden."
While Tim lives with his American family in Kentucky, Richard Butler lives in upstate New York where he paints portraits that are now transforming the fundamental ideas at the basis of representational iconography.
Richard Butler's voice has often been compared to David Bowie, one of his major inspirations and an old friend of the Furs. At the same time, Bowie is one of rock's most accomplished artists with a growing catalogue of triumphant paintings that easily eclipses the artistic efforts of other rock musicians who paint seriously: Ron Wood; Grace Slick; Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney and Iggy Pop.
I vividly recall Bowie's inaugural exhibition on Cork Street in London in the 1990s. David Bowie has inspired Richard Butler in more ways than one, but in many respects it might be said that the apprentice has finally surpassed his master. Infused with magical sigils and exquisite infinity enigmas, Richard Butler's haunting portraits of his daughter, Maggie, definitely place him near the pinnacle of post-modern painters demonstrating a technical mastery and an artistic originality that no other artist-musician has ever achieved.
The sell-out audiences on the Talk Talk Talk Tour prove that the Psychedelic Furs are just as relevant today as they were when Andy Warhol presided over their first concerts in New York. Warhol conferred major artistic recognition on the Psychedelic Furs, a formal transcendence that other bands can only dream about with wishful thinking. Warhol handed the Furs a hand-signed and gilt-edged proclamation of their ascension to the throne of Modern Rock, a great gift from the multifaceted master of modern art.
Empowered by the indecipherable but unmistakable aura of artistic and musical authenticity, the Psychedelic Furs are on a cosmic roll. After all the years of ascent, stasis, setbacks and resurgence, the intriguing excitement of the Psychedelic Furs is still totally intact.
The Furs' musical momentum is surging through America like a thunderbolt in a long hot summer. Unmissable.
]]>Battleground North Carolina: Midnight Madness & the Southern Backlashtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8776522011-06-16T11:50:30-04:002011-08-16T05:12:02-04:00Michael Carmichaelhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-carmichael/
The first midnight madness vote approved a radical stripping and lashing of public education in a draconian budget. The second seizure of midnight madness saw the Republicans override Governor Beverly Perdue's historic veto of the deeply unpopular budget by one paltry vote aided and abetted by their tiny coterie of five Democratic collaborators.
In North Carolina, Bev Perdue is becoming a progressive political phenomenon. With her numbers sagging badly in the aftermath of the 2010 election cycle, the coal miner's daughter shot back to political viability with a string of vetoes targeting radical Tea Party-Republican attempts to destroy public education; devastate social services and demolish voting rights.
In the South, North Carolina has a strong reputation for progressive educational and social policies established by her iconic governors: Terry Sanford and Jim Hunt -- a tradition that is now being upheld by Beverly Perdue.
The election of Barack Obama as America's first black president triggered an especially strong backlash in the South, where blacks, progressives and moderates recognize the familiar politics of race in the Tea Party as well as the primary driver of the acute radicalization of the Republican and segregationist right.
In 2008, North Carolina elected Perdue as the first woman governor, and for the first time since 1976 the state voted for the Democratic nominee for president, Barack Hussein Obama. The historic coalition of blacks, women and minorities set off a wave of alarm bells yelping inside the brains of Republicans, Christian Conservatives, racists and the broad spectrum of prejudice and bigotry on the political right.
At the same time, the Democratic National Committee correctly identified the center of the American political cyclone as North Carolina and sited the 2012 National Convention in Charlotte, the second largest banking center in the USA and the Queen City of the South.
The election cycle of 2010, saw the right-wing backlash to Obama that struck down 52% of the Blue Dog Caucus in one fell swoop nationwide removing 28 of the 54 members in their Populist caucus. It is instructive that the backlash against Blue Dogs was deepest in the South, where 57% of the caucus (13 losses out of 24 seats) fell to Republican radicals. In a year that saw a heavy turnout of the political right, the right-leaning Blue Dog Democrats fell in droves while Progressives remained strong and retained almost all of their seats. At the same time, a new crop of Democrats arrived in the Capital, and the Progressive caucus is now stronger than ever and it reigns supreme as the largest ideological organization in Congress.
Today, there is compelling evidence that the progressive trend is gaining momentum for a backlash of its own in 2012 -- including the South. In 2010, Cedric Richmond won in Louisiana, and Terri Sewell won in Alabama to become the first black woman to enter Congress from the Deep South state of George Wallace and Bull Connor and, yes, that progressive icon and liberal savant, Forrest Gump.
While there is a growing progressive trend supporting vetoes of radical right-wing legislation, there is a definite backlash against centrist, populist, Blue Dog-style Democrats in North Carolina and all across the South.
In the past few weeks, the so-called "Party of Five" Populist Democrats emerged in the North Carolina House of Representatives to support the disastrous Tea Party Republican budget. The extremists' budget ripped $900 million out of the heart of public education. The Teapublicans slashed funds for Planned Parenthood and devastated a host of essential services -- all to prevent the dreaded restoration of a one-cent sales tax in the low tax state.
The ringleader masterminding the Party of Five Democratic turncoats at the center of the plot was one, James W. Crawford, a rich legislator from Oxford in Granville County, North Carolina. Crawford is an iconic throwback to the Dixiecrats of the Jim Crow Era, and his story reveals a dark and foreboding flood of truth about the political dynamics of the South.
Crawford gained his wealth by marrying a rich heir of the Cannon textile fortune, and he describes himself as a 'developer' who practices politics. In the 1980s, Crawford inherited the political mantle of the late "Billy" Watkins, a local Dixiecrat who defended the Teel brothers against the charge of racial homicide in the riveting murder case of Henry Marrow, a historic hate crime that inspired Tim Tyson to write his autobiographical bestseller, Blood Done Sign My Name.
Henry Marrow was killed by the Teels in Oxford, a racial murder that set off a stunning backlash in the black community. The upsurge of grief at the murder of Marrow catapulted twenty-two-year-old Ben Chavis into the public arena as a bold civil rights leader in the mold of Dr. King and Golden Frinks. Last year, Tyson's book became a popular film starring Nate Parker in the heroic role of Ben Chavis, reminding the current generation of Oxford residents of their moments of crisis during the Civil Rights Era.
Oxford is an iconic town of the Old South. While haughty Victorian mansions line the affluent society on both sides of lily-white College Street, all any observer has to do is move across Main Street, and the impoverished black neighborhoods reveal the strikingly unjust economic realities that were commonplace from Reconstruction through the Jim Crow Era to our increasingly hot summer in 2011.
From his pristine Victorian palace on College Street, James Crawford lords it over his subjects and plies them with money at election time to buy political backing for his diehard Dixiecrat agenda. Professional educators in Oxford tell of Crawford's backing for conservative school policies that favor "private" and "charter" and "neighborhood" schools as segregationist devices to circumvent Brown versus the Board of Education.
While satisfying the atavistic demands of the segregationists, Crawford presides over a court of characters straight out of the pages of William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams. Crawford's wife is a cousin of one Robin Hayes, the Chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party. To rub his outmoded ideology in the faces of the locals, Crawford sent out invitations to lavish fundraisers held at his stately home for Republican Senators: Elizabeth Dole and Richard Burr. Knowlegeable sources in Oxford say that Crawford was doing favors for none other than Jesse Helms when he helped raise money for Republicans.
Crawford arrived in his minor legislative office in 1982, during the era of the Reagan Democrats that was the high-water mark for Jesse Helms, the late racist who served four disgraceful terms in the US Senate. Described by members of his home community as a Jessecrat, Crawford personifies more than one critically endangered political species: Dixiecrats, Reagan Democrats and Jessecrats.
On the eve of the vote to override Governor Perdue's veto, a special meeting was convened in Oxford's First Baptist Church that was keynoted by Rev. William J. Barber, the President of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in North Carolina. With many leading members of the North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE) in attendance, Rev. Barber launched into a riveting demolition of Crawford, the Tea Party, Republicans and the radical extremism that has gripped the North Carolina General Assembly.
Proclaiming, "Extremists have taken over the General Assembly," Rev. Barber intoned a powerful and rhapsodic message charging that the Republicans and Crawford's now infamous Party of Five are, "not working for the public good... they are working to disenfranchise people." Stating that the extremists are, "afraid of the future," and, "afraid of demographics," Barber informed his rapt audience that:
Politics is an illusion that knows it won't work. That's why they pass laws in the midnight hour. They are angry over the election of President Obama. The election of someone who feels the future is a dangerous thing. This crowd is afraid of the future.
Barber rose to the momentous occasion afforded by the treachery of Crawford and his coterie of five turncoats. Demonstrating oratorical skills at the level of Dr. King, Rev. Barber excoriated the Kochs, Art Pope and James Crawford as plutocratic manipulators with a racist agenda. At the same time, Rev. Barber extolled the courage of Governor Beverly Perdue to stand up and fight against this virulent surge of extremism by vetoing their radical budget, a first in North Carolina history.
While the Faulknerian dramas of North Carolina reshape the political geography of the most turbulent battleground state, several Democratic operatives in Washington are urging the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) to perform a resurgence of Blue Dog-style Populism in the South.
Josh Miller of Roll Callpublished a story featuring comments from Southern pollsters calling for a highly refined strategy of fitting candidates to districts -- ie. providing right-leaning Dixiecrats re-branded as Populists in the South to contest the Tea Party and Republican right. But, that ploy is likely to fail. With the massive destruction suffered by the Blue Dog Caucus across the South last year, it would make no sense to replicate a game plan that has already failed in that political marketplace.
Someone once said, "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting it to come out different."
Writing in the immediate aftermath of the Tea Party wave of 2010, David Dayen wrote:
Note that the only Democrat endorsed by the Tea Party Express, Walt Minnick, who used the endorsement to engage in basically racist tactics, lost too. The tea party imprimatur didn't matter. A better gauge of all this is how Blue Dog tactics undermine Democrats everywhere. They destroy the Democratic brand and give the impression that Democrats either stand for nothing or deserve scorn. They hurt progressives, moderates and even the Blue Dogs in their own caucus who align with them for various reasons but don't hurt the party in any major way. A better road would be to stop neglecting the base and (stop) lavishing attention on people who are ashamed of you.
Today, 16 months from election day in 2012, Dayen is dead right.]]>Phil Noble Stands Up for Reform in South Carolinatag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8549122011-04-28T11:53:27-04:002011-06-28T05:12:01-04:00Michael Carmichaelhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-carmichael/Phil Noble and Dick Harpootlian pits politics-as-usual against a surging pro-democracy reform movement.
Phil Noble is the President of the South Carolina New Democrats, but he is much more than a noble reformer. Noble is the son of a civil rights saint, J. Phillips Noble, a Presbyterian minister who was deeply involved in the movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. While George Wallace was the arch-segregationist governor of Alabama, J. Phillips Noble led the civil rights movement in Anniston, one of Alabama's hottest spots during the freedom rides.
On Mother's Day 1961, Anniston was literally the center of a firestorm that pitted racism against reform and left a searing impression on the mind of seven-year-old Phil Noble. An integrated busload of Freedom Riders were on their way to protest the Jim Crow laws, but they were intercepted by an angry and belligerent mob consisting of some of the most brutal members of the Alabama KKK who firebombed their bus on the outskirts of Anniston. While the bus was burning, the racist mob held the doors shut in a savage and cowardly attempt to incinerate the entire busload of Freedom Riders. When the Freedom Riders attempted to escape from the blazing bus, they were viciously beaten with baseball bats, axe handles, cudgels and truncheons. Then, the KKK seized the brutalized Freedom Riders and were just beginning to lynch all of the survivors of the burning bus, when the Highway Patrol arrived on the scene in the nick of time and fired warning shots to dispel the racist mobsters.
In the aftermath, J. Phillips Noble led the local biracial crusade to integrate the public library and prevent the KKK mobsters from dominating the city. Perturbed by Noble's campaign for racial justice, the KKK now turned to terrorizing the black community with vicious beatings of black ministers and bombings of the black churches. In a powerful gesture of federal support, JFK telephoned J. Phillips Noble to announce that he had ordered federal troops to occupy Fort McClellan situated on the edge of Anniston. On the September 16, only two months before JFK's tragic assassination, J. Phillips Noble led a delegation of black ministers into the Anniston library. There would be more racial violence in Anniston that led to the first conviction of a member of the KKK by an all white jury for the murder of a black foundry worker, Willie Brewster. These searing events shaped the mind of young Phil Noble.
Transformed by the violent racial clashes of his childhood in Alabama, Phil Noble emerged from the crucible of the civil rights movement to become one of the most dedicated reformers in Democratic politics. Forging a career as a political consultant backing reform and reformers, Phil Noble worked against the arch-segregationist, Jesse Helms, in North Carolina, and he traveled to 40 foreign nations to consult with reform candidates in dozens of major elections.
In 1995, Noble founded PoliticsOnline in Charleston, and he has been hailed as an internet political guru. An advisor to Barack Obama during his presidential campaign, Noble is now backing long overdue reform for the South Carolina Democratic Party.
In recent years, the South Carolina Democratic Party has dissolved into a quagmire funneling into a vortex of politics-as-usual characterized by the you-scratch-my-back-and-I'll-scratch-your's school of thought. But, it gets worse. The traditional Southern style of political bossism is still dominated by pay-to-play politicians wandering around Columbia with fat wads of cash and checks handing out bribes disguised as campaign contributions to members of both parties at the same time. Frequently, bribes went to African-Americans in a cynical and essentially segregationist form of political corruption. White politicians paid for the black vote, but not too much, only enough to, "rent it for one day."
Scarred by the culture of slavery that was predicated on racism, segregation, misogyny and the clandestine miscegenation of the Strom Thurmonds, the South is a political cauldron that has putrefied into a cesspit populated by cancerous crocodiles who champion radical Republican and reactionary Tea Party policies to punish the minorities, the poor, the downtrodden, the women, the gays, the mentally challenged and the disabled.
While the rich and well-connected dominate the political culture with their backroom deals in smoke-filled rooms, the internet has led to a new dawning of a genuine pro-democracy political movement and the rise of the grassroots who yearn for the end of elite domination and a new era of social, political and economic justice.
The race between Phil Noble and Dick Harpootlian should not even be close. South Carolina's reputation is on the line. The election takes place in Columbia on Saturday. While Phil Noble's reform movement surges, all South Carolinians can breathe in hope.]]>What's Right with America: Imam Rauf in Chapel Hilltag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8378822011-03-22T11:28:44-04:002011-06-15T15:30:32-04:00Michael Carmichaelhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-carmichael/
Robert Taft, Eleanor Roosevelt, J. William Fulbright and Jimmy Carter are merely a few of many Weil lecturers who have appeared at the ancient venue, Hill Hall.
This year, Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf of the Cordoba Initiative in Manhattan joined the long and distinguished list of Weil speakers at Hill Hall.
Security was tight at this year's Weil lecture, because the Imam shot to fame last year as the protagonist in the controversy over the establishment of an Islamic community center in Lower Manhattan. In the elegant and stately auditorium of Hill Hall, every seat was occupied, and the sophisticated audience of six hundred academics and intellectuals was expectant and rippling with anticipation.
Since 1983, Imam Rauf served as the leader of a mosque in Lower Manhattan. On 9/11, Rauf was in Denver for the marriage of his daughter, but he swiftly returned to New York where he became the primary Islamic consultant for the FBI on the subject of Islamist terrorism. In the tragic weeks following 9/11, the Imam lectured more than 1000 FBI agents on the culture of mainstream Islam and the radical distortions of the terrorists.
In the intervening years, Imam Rauf has become one of the world's leading interfaith advocates of peace, love and understanding between all faith traditions. Through his work for interfaith dialogue, the Imam became a recipient of the annual Alliance Peacebuilder Award from the Alliance for International Conflict Prevention and Resolution, and he was the major speaker at the Parliament of the World's Religions when it convened in Melbourne, Australia in 2009.
Adopting a conversational format for the Weil Lecture, Professor Hodding Carter served as the Moderator and asked the Imam a series of questions that permitted him to address his subject, "Unfinished Dreams: America, Religion and Citizenship."
During the evening, Imam Rauf assured the audience in Hill Hall, "The American Muslim community is to play an important role in mediating between America and the Muslim world."
Explaining that America's involvement with the Muslim World metamorphosed dramatically after WWII when the USA adopted, "A colonialistic type approach evolving into the Cold War dynamic and how the Muslim World in large part was the chessboard on which the Cold War was played."
Presenting his analysis, Imam Rauf used elegant and diplomatic language to describe the phenomenon of postwar colonialism against the stark backdrop of the Cold War:
How the relationships between the United States and the Soviet Union and their desire to have certain types of leadership in much of the world including the Muslim World that would be advantageous to the pursuit of their policy, rather than pursuing policies that engendered the rise of democracies in much of these countries.
Turning to the current tide of popular pro-democracy revolutions sweeping across the Middle East, Imam Rauf drew his audience back to his theme of American Islam:
And now we see a new chapter which is the post-Cold War chapter, in which the ongoing desires of people to have what we have here; to enjoy the freedoms we have here; to enjoy democracy which means among other things -- a government which is for the people, as Abraham Lincoln said of being, 'of the people, by the people, but for the people.' A government that sees itself at the service of its constituents; not a government that regards the assets of the country and its people as belonging to themselves is the paradigm shift which people in the Arab and Muslim world have been longing for for a long time and want to see. And to the extent that our policies can further that objective, it will no doubt enhance relationships between America and much of the world, the Arab and Muslim World and play an extremely important role in reducing acts of terrorism against the United States of America.
In addressing the long and savage history of the horrors of religion and war, Imam Rauf stated bluntly, "Every regime which tried to destroy religion has been destroyed."
Vividly recalling cases from history, Imam Rauf cited:
"The Roman Empire that tried to destroy Christianity and failed;
"The Soviet Communists that tried to eliminate all religion and failed, and
"The Nazis who tried to destroy Judaism and exterminate a horrible genocide against Jews and failed."
In reflecting on the extravagant brutality of violent religious confrontation, Imam Rauf observed, "The notion that you can wage a war against a religion is something that is really dangerous and has never historically succeeded and should not ever be sought."
Returning to his leitmotif of American citizenship and Islam, Imam Rauf frequently emphasized his central thesis that Islamic values resonate strongly with American values.
The Imam stated: "I believe that our Founding Fathers established a country based upon the concept of religious freedom which is something that Islam fundamentally demands -- although not all Muslims do that -- they are violating their own religion."
Driving his point home Imam Rauf defined the origins of modern notions of democracy in the moral dimension of monotheism stating, "The notion of the equality of human beings is something that emerged from the Abrahamic faith traditions."
While describing the ideals of equality and justice that are at the heart of the ideal Islamic society, Imam Rauf surprised many in the audience when he explained, "Many Muslims believe that America is more of an Islamic state than their own countries."
A short distance away from the Imam's address at Hill Hall, the Christian Action Network staged what they hoped would be a huge anti-Muslim rally. Several speakers arrived from New York to upstage Imam Rauf. Led by Tim Brown, a 9/11 responder who has become a professional and peripatetic Islamophobe, a small crowd of around three to five dozen people gathered in a hotel conference room to see a highly publicized free movie and to decry Imam Rauf and his religion.
Tim Brown denounced Imam Rauf as, "an imposter Imam" with a secret agenda to, "victimize the families of 9/11" by building a Muslim "victory tower" near Ground Zero. Expecting a much larger audience in what they had presumed to be the backwoods of the Bible Belt, Tim Brown was visibly disappointed by the paltry turnout and the sparse and intermittent applause. Brown praised the controversial Congressional hearings into Islamist radicalism of Rep. Peter King (R-NY), and his thin audience obediently demonstrated their approval.
One of America's most prominent self-proclaimed Islamophobes, Ilario Pantano, enthusiastically joined Brown to excoriate Imam Rauf. Pantano is a failed Republican politician who got the backing of the Tea Party. However, the voters of North Carolina rejected Pantano's candidacy when they learned about his troubling military record and his extremist Islamophobic ideology. Pantano gained his notoriety as an ex-Marine discharged from the USMC after he was accused of the premeditated murder of two unarmed Iraqi Muslims in his custody. The charges were eventually dropped, but Pantano soon thereafter resigned from the military, claiming terrorist threats to his family.
According to the Raleigh News & Observer, the Christian Action Network, "follows Abdul Rauf to many of his speaking events, often lining up to counter his (appearances)." In effect, the Christian Action Network is now functioning as an Islamophobic posse modeled on the notorious Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas. While the Christian Action Network's original mission was a campaign against the rights of gay Americans, today they stalk their opponents via a national campaign of defamation, slander, libel and disingenuous distortions of facts aimed at demonizing Muslims strictly because of their religion.
It is inescapable, that the Christian Action Network is fueling hatred of Muslims during a period of rising Islamophobia in the United States. The Southern Poverty Law Center lists the Christian Action Network along with hate groups, and the state of Maine has banned them for their "inflammatory anti-Muslim message." The Christian Action Network was founded by Martin Mawyer in Virginia as a political offshoot inspired by the radical religious fundamentalism of the late Rev. Jerry Falwell.
Returning to the Imam's penetrating discourse during the question and answer session in Hill Hall, Imam Rauf explained his new vision of a Muslim community center that would replicate the functions of the YMCA and Jewish community centers as an institution that will be free and open for all members of the increasingly diverse American community: Muslims; Christians and Jews. Imam Rauf's community center will provide services and facilities where people from all walks of life can share a gymnasium, meeting rooms, restaurants, accommodation and classes in physical fitness along with cultural programs and exhibition spaces for art, music, drama and film. For those who attended Imam Rauf's lecture, Brown and Pantano's protestations seem both extremist and ill-informed.
In Hill Hall, Imam Rauf described the personal mystical experience that led him on his spiritual journey as:
A moment where the boundaries of myself dissolved ... I felt that I was at one with the universe. Poets have written about this. Mystics have written about this. So did Blake when you see eternity in a speck of sand. I felt that moment where I never forget: the yellowness of the sun; the greenness of the green; the sound of the bus; a complete sense of oneness and in that moment a direct and absolute knowledge and conviction that god was there. I was confronted by the awesome omnipotent power of: absolute being; absolute love; absolute knowledge and wisdom that embraced me and embraced everything in creation. To experience that reality in that moment was what our Indian friends call satchitananda, absolute being-consciousness-awareness. Absolute mercy and love and compassion propelled me along to my readings of the Sufis and the mystics and the writers of religious philosophy, and I tried to pull it all together, but -- at every moment in the recognition that it is not about being a Muslim or being a Jew. It's not about being labeled. It's about your personal relationship with the creator.
In closing his comments at Hill Hall, Imam Rauf reassured his audience, "The real battle today is between the moderates of all faith traditions and the radical extremists of all faiths."
In defining faith, Imam Rauf put it succinctly, "True faith is always following your inner conscience."
Imam Rauf received a tumultuous standing ovation from the six hundred North Carolinians in Hill Hall, who moved to the reception where they bought dozens of copies of his book: What's Right with Islam is What's Right with America
Correction: This wording in this post has been changed to more accurately reflect the nature of Mr. Pantano's military discharge.