Former chief of staff President Ronald Reagan, Ken Duberstein, told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria this week he intends to vote for Democrat Barack Obama on Tuesday.
Duberstein said he was influenced by another prominent Reagan official – Colin Powell – in his decision.
“Well let’s put it this way – I think Colin Powell’s decision is in fact the good housekeeping seal of approval on Barack Obama.”
WATCH VIDEO
Ginbot 7 Movement for Justice and Freedom issued a statement remembering the massacre of pro-democracy protesters in Addis Ababa and other cities through out Ethiopia.
Following the May 2005 elections, in which Meles Zenawi’s regime was defeated, Meles suspended the constitution and ordered his death squads (the Federal Police and Agazi Special Forces) to shoot and kill Ethiopians who protested the stealing of the election.
A report by an inquiry commission later accused the Meles regime of engaging in wholesale torture and murder of unarmed civilians. Hundreds of thousands of young Ethiopians were also rounded up and thrown in disease-infested concentration camps. All the top leaders of the opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy Party (Kinijit) were arrested.
Ginbot 7 dedicated its Nov. 1st radio program to the June and November 2005 massacres of Ethiopians who were gunned down for exercising their constitutional right to hold protest demonstrations. Click below to listen.[podcast]http://www.ginbot7.org/Audio/tdp1-081101-1700.mp3[/podcast]
How do racists, anti-Semites and all-purpose hate-mongers view the possibility of America’s first black president? Not necessarily the way you think they would.
By David Peisner, ESQUIRE
If recent polls are to be believed, white voters favor John McCain over Barack Obama by nearly ten percentage points, but the McCain and Obama camps probably haven’t factored in the following fact: In an informal Esquire survey, three out of four white supremacists prefer Obama, while McCain is the clear favorite among black nationalists. (Sure, our methodology suffered from an extraordinarily low sample size–limited to four white supremacists and one black nationalist–but just because it wouldn’t fly with Gallup doesn’t mean there ain’t a kernel of truth in there.) This is just one of many surprising views that emerged after we talked to extremists about this historic electoral showdown between a 46-year-old black man and a 71-year-old white man.
Who: Director, White Aryan Resistance
Likes: White people, karaoke, environmentalists
Dislikes: Race-mixing, Jews, the federal government, capitalism
Career Highlights: Was Grand Dragon of Ku Klux Klan in the 70s; won the Democratic primary during his bid for Congress in 1980; appeared on the episode of Geraldo Rivera’s show in 1988 when Rivera’s nose was broken in a brawl.
“The corporations are running things now, so it’s not going to make much difference who’s in there, but McCain would be much worse. He’s a warmonger. He’s a scary, scary person–more dangerous than Bush. Obama, according to his book, Dreams Of My Father, is a racist and I have no problem with black racists. I’ve got the quote right here: ‘I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother’s white race.’ The problem with Obama is he’s being dishonest about his racial views. I’d respect him if he’d just come out and say, ‘Yeah, I’m a black racist.’ I don’t hate black people. I just think it’s in the best interest of the races to be separated as much as possible. See, I’m a leftist. I’m not a rightist. I hate the transnational corporations far more than any black person.”
Who: Imperial Wizard, Imperial Klans of America
Likes: Guns, bed sheets, burning crosses
Dislikes: Black people, homosexuals, immigrants
Career Highlights: Sued in 2007 by the Southern Poverty Law Center for inciting the brutal beating of a Latino teenager; building the IKA into one of the nation’s largest Klan groups by allowing non-Christians to join.
“Obama, I think he’s a piece of shit. I don’t care that his mother was white. I don’t think he has enough brains to do anything good. All he’s living off of is the color of his skin to get elected. I don’t think America wants a black president. Most of them are too afraid to say that they believe the way I believe. They sit around their dinner table and talk the way I do, but when they get out in public, they have two faces and show the other face. When people are voting in the booth privately, they’ll vote Republican even if they’re a Democrat. If he wins, I’ll laugh. I don’t like McCain, but he’s the only one I can vote for. He’s against a lot of the things that I’m for. I’m afraid that he’s going to mess with gun laws. But I’m going Republican and I talked to my guys and most of them are voting for McCain too.”
Who: Chairman, National Alliance
Likes: Third Reich, the movie Rocky
Dislikes: Integration, Jewish-controlled media
Career Highlights: Turning white-power record label, Resistance Records, into a million-dollar-a-year business juggernaut; an 8-0 record as a professional boxer under the nickname, “The Aryan Barbarian.”
“Obama might be a better candidate for our cause because he’s racially conscious. One of our big things in the National Alliance is to raise the racial consciousness of our people. Young whites in universities, they’ve been stripped of any kind of racial identity. Obama may be a racist in a positive sense for his people–that will awaken a lot of the whites, knock some sense into them. They’ll see that non-white Americans are allowed to be proud of who they are, to be racially conscious, to talk about their people or their community without being attacked as being racist. Let’s face it, white people aren’t going to fight for their causes, for their kind with a white president. I don’t think McCain even acknowledges that a white race exists. He’s all about granting amnesty to illegal aliens. The fact he wants to keep us in wars in the Middle East for 100 years, that’s not a good thing. I give Obama credit, he seems to have stuck to his guns as far as pulling the troops out of Iraq. He’s a very intelligent man, an excellent speaker and has charisma. John McCain offers none of that. Perhaps the best thing for the white race is to have a black president. My only problem with Obama is perhaps he’s not black enough.”
Who: Chairman, American Nazi Party
Likes: Hitler, white people
Dislikes: Jews, immigrants, multinational corporations
Career highlights: Being widely quoted bemoaning in the fact that so few Aryan-Americans had the cojones of the 9/11 hijackers: “If we were one-tenth as serious, we might start getting somewhere.”
“White people are faced with either a negro or a total nutter who happens to have a pale face. Personally I’d prefer the negro. National Socialists are not mindless haters. Here, I see a white man, who is almost dead, who declares he wants to fight endless wars around the globe to make the world safe for Judeo-capitalist exploitation, who supports the invasion of America by illegals–basically a continuation of the last eight years of Emperor Bush. Then, we have a black man, who loves his own kind, belongs to a Black-Nationalist religion, is married to a black women–when usually negroes who have ‘made it’ immediately land a white spouse as a kind of prize–that’s the kind of negro that I can respect. Any time that a prominent person embraces their racial heritage in a positive manner, it’s good for all racially minded folks. Besides, America cares nothing for the interests of the white American worker, while having a love affair with just about every non-white on planet Earth. It’d be poetic justice to have a non-white as titular chief over this decaying modern Sodom and Gomorrah.”
Who: General, Israelite School Of Universal Practical Knowledge
Likes: Segregation
Dislikes: White oppressors, black women, American culture, Muslims, Christians, Martin Luther King Jr.
Career Highlights: Featured in 1999 BBC program about black supremacists; his street corner rants in Washington D.C. spurred changes in the local noise ordinance.
“Finding out Barack Obama is the Democratic nominee for president was one of the saddest days in black history. Another legacy of black death is about to begin, just like it began back in the ’60s with probably the greatest traitor to black people in modern-day history, Martin Luther King. Every black leader that has some form of power has given black people false hope, when in fact, the closer they get to the white establishment, the more they become an actual enemy to black people. Black people need to move away from the establishment and towards a moral change. As for Obama, first of all, he’s not even a black man in the terms of what real black people consider a black man. He’s of African and white descent. How easily he dismissed his affiliation with Reverend Wright, was a clear indication that this is a politician, not a man of any real conviction. The same way he threw away that Reverend, once he becomes president, he must throw away black people. He’s going to have to harm black people to make white people satisfied that he’s not Reverend Wright’s boy. The disappointment we’re going to suffer from him is going to set us back another fifty years. McCain is definitely the better shot for black people.”
By Haile Gebreselassie
NEWSWEEK
I came of age under a communist military regime in Ethiopia. I could have become a farmer like my father or a soldier like many of my friends. Instead, I became a long-distance runner. And on Sept. 28 in Berlin, I broke my previous marathon record, finishing in 2:03:59—the fastest time in history.
Audacity is not always a valued trait in the Ethiopian countryside where I grew up. You cannot afford to take risks when you are feeding 10 children from a 12-acre plot of land as my father did. And when you live in a dictatorship, any disdain for authority can be taken as a sign of treasonous intent. Yet in spite of my father’s and the regime’s best efforts to subdue me, I remained headstrong, which is why as a young man I ran two races I never should have.
When I was 15, my high school needed a runner for the 1,500-meter race at a county track meet, so I volunteered—and was ridiculed. At that time, I was smaller than most kids my own age, and the older boys towered above me. The spectators laughed when I burst onto the sand track in a sprint. I could hear them jeering from the metal bleachers, saying, “You’ll never make it like that!” They stopped laughing when I pulled farther and farther ahead, however. And they cheered and lifted me in the air when I won.
At 16, I was invited to represent my county in the nationals in Addis Ababa. I’d never even seen a multistory building before. I was still staring at the skyline when my coach returned from the stadium’s office, frowning. It turned out my race had been canceled. They’d tried to call ahead to warn us, but back then the only reliable form of communication was face-to-face. I decided that I could not return to my village without competing, however, so I asked my coach if I could enter the marathon. He refused. I was too young, he said, and I had not trained for it. He only changed his mind when I began to cry.
As the race began, I could not see past the runners in front of me. I had no clue how to pace myself and I ran in spurts. By the last five miles, my locally made shoes, made of flimsy rubber and canvas, were coming apart. The fabric between the soles and my feet had worn away and the heat from the sun-baked pavement was beginning to burn. An older, more experienced runner from my village sailed past me on the final stretch, whispering encouragement; as he disappeared into the pack, I understood the importance of leaving something for last.
I would have quit—I wanted to quit—but I kept thinking of my classmates who had joined the Army, their grueling training and their willingness to die. Under such a regime, everything, even homework or plowing a field, became part of an ongoing war—even in a time of peace. I too would make a sacrifice, I thought, though not for the tyrants that ran the country, but for my community.
And I made it. Though just 16, I finished the race in 2 hours and 48 minutes, putting me among the top 100 runners. Crossing the finish line, someone steadied me before I collapsed. As I drank some water, I noticed the blood. The exposed rubber soles had torn through the blisters on my feet. I stayed an extra day in Addis Ababa because the pain was too excruciating to walk to the bus stop.
I swore I would never run again, but a week later I was standing in front of the regional president and an Army colonel who were reminding the athletes of our patriotic obligation to persevere. Though perhaps not in the intended way, the meeting inspired me to keep running. Sometimes we persevere in spite of what we’re made to suffer and sometimes because of it.
That first marathon was the most painful competition of my career, and I often think back to it as I run today. Since then I have been world champion four times and have twice won the Olympic 10,000-meter race. In the past four years I have focused my energy increasingly on the marathon, a race that often goes to the mature athlete. Looking back at my fortunate career, I hope I have saved the best for last.
By Antony Sguazzin and Nicky Smith, Bloomberg
Dissident members of South Africa’s African National Congress decided to form a new party and fight next year’s elections after they were angered by the ruling party’s ouster of Thabo Mbeki as national president.
“Not only do we intend to tackle it, we intend to win the next election,” Mbhazima Shilowa, the ex-premier of Gauteng province, told a gathering of 6,300 people in Johannesburg today. “There is no more debate whether or not there will be a new political party. The decision has been taken.”
The convention was called to discuss whether to form a new party to rival the ANC, which has run Africa’s biggest economy since Nelson Mandela led it to victory in the first democratic elections in 1994 after the end of apartheid. Former ANC stalwarts including the one-time party Chairman, Mosioua Lekota, have pressed for a new party after Mbeki’s Sept. 21 resignation.
While a new party would be unlikely to defeat the ANC, which took almost 70 percent of the vote in 2004, it may win enough support to block the two-thirds majority needed to amend the constitution.
“We are absolutely not concerned,” Jessie Duarte, a spokeswoman for the ANC, said in an interview. The dissidents are entitled to form a party, she said, adding that the party will respond to the announcement at a rally tomorrow in Soweto near Johannesburg.
Party Name
The dissidents will choose a name tomorrow for their new party, which will be launched in Free State Province on Dec. 16, Shilowa said.
The new movement would consider forming a coalition with other opposition parties after the elections, Lekota said earlier today.
‘We shall be open to consider, beyond the elections, a coalition,” Lekota told journalists. “I don’t see why we should not consider it.”
An alliance with opposition parties, whose leaders spoke at today’s meeting, may give the new party more weight in parliament.
“Coalitions can work,” Helen Zille, the leader of the Democratic Alliance, South Africa’s biggest opposition party, said after standing up in front of people chanting her name. They “can work for everybody.” The DA won 12 percent of the vote in 2004.
Leaders of other parties who attended the convention included Patricia De Lille of the Independent Democrats, Bantu Holomisa of the United Democratic Movement and Kenneth Meshoe of the African Christian Democratic Party.
‘Viable Challenger’
“The combination of movements is the beginning of the formation of a viable challenger,” said Alistair Sparks, the author of three books on South African politics, in an interview at the convention. “The ANC has a serious challenge on their hands.”
The dissidents say Mbeki’s forced removal, criticism of judges who considered fraud charges against ANC President Jacob Zuma, and pledges by some ANC members to “kill” on his behalf threaten the nation’s political system.
“There is real panic in the ANC,” said Susan Booysen, a political science professor at Johannesburg’s University of the Witwatersrand. “If they had known that Mbeki’s ousting would be the final trigger that fired the split, they may well have reconsidered.”
Delegates expressed support for Lekota, better known by his nickname “Terror” for his exploits on the soccer field during the apartheid era.
Lekota Support
“Whose Business Is It? We Want Terror,” delegates sang, carrying signs denouncing the ANC’s leadership.
Others chanted Mbeki’s name and carried signs denouncing Zuma and Julius Malema, the leader of the ANC Youth League who called for Mbeki to be ousted ahead of his removal by the ANC.
“I believe South Africa deserves change. That’s why I’m here,” Joseph Maluleke, a 25-year-old delegate, said, wearing a Barack Obama `Vote For Change’ T-shirt. “We deserve better.”
Zuma, who is backed by labor unions and the South African Communist Party, has said he won’t alter the policies of the Mbeki administration.
The dissidents said they will call for direct elections for the presidency an provincial leadership posts and will safeguard the constitution. Now, parliament appoints the president.
Mbeki was replaced as South African president by deputy ANC leader Kgalema Motlanthe after a High Court judge said he may have pressured prosecutors to charge Zuma. Because he isn’t a member of parliament, Zuma couldn’t take over until after elections.
Abuse of Power
“The dominant political forces are determined to abuse their power to advance their personal interests,” Lekota said in a speech to the convention. “They even engineered the dismissal of the president of the Republic.”
Mbeki doesn’t want his name used to promote either movement, according to a letter he wrote to Zuma that was printed by Johannesburg’s Star newspaper yesterday.
“The difference between the parties will boil down to what is happening to our democracy,” Booysen said. “There really is no real policy difference at the moment.”
The ANC began to fracture in 2005 when Mbeki dismissed Zuma, then his deputy, amid allegations of corruption. It widened last December when Zuma defeated Mbeki at an ANC congress to become head of Africa’s oldest political movement. That automatically won him nomination as the ANC’s presidential candidate for the 2009 elections.
By BETH FOUHY and DAVID ESPO
SPRINGFIELD, VIRGINIA (AP) — Warmed by the cheers of thousands, John McCain and Barack Obama plunged through the final weekend of their marathon race for the White House, the Republican digging for an upset while his confident-sounding rival told supporters, “We can change this country.”
“Yes we can,” he added, his slogan across 21 months of campaigning.
Both candidates were backed by legions of surrogate campaigners, door to door canvassers and volunteers at phone banks scattered across the country as they made their final rounds Saturday in a race that carried a price tag estimated at $2 billion.
Obama, ahead in the polls, maintained stride despite news that an aunt from Kenya, Zeituni Onyango, lives in the country illegally. The Democratic candidate “has no knowledge of her status but obviously believes that any and all appropriate laws be followed,” said a written statement given to The Associated Press, which reported the story.
Campaign strategist David Axelrod added, “I think people are suspicious about stories that surface in the last 72 hours of a national campaign.”
McCain made no mention of Obama’s relative, but he worried aloud about the consequences of Democrats winning the White House while maintaining control of Congress. He warned of an agenda that “apparently … starts with lowering our defenses and raising our taxes.”
He contended that Obama was “running for redistributor in chief, I’m running for commander in chief.”
The Republican spent much of the day in Virginia, trying to make up ground in a state that has not voted Democratic since 1964 but leans that way now. “We’re a few points down but we’re coming back,” he said. “I’m not afraid of the fight, I’m ready for it and you’re going to fight with me.”
Obama was in Nevada, then Colorado and Missouri, all states that voted for President Bush four years ago.
“We have a righteous wind at our back,” he told one audience.
Obama, bidding to become the nation’s first black president, led in national polls as well as surveys in several battleground states. McCain’s hopes of an upset hinged on winning all or nearly all the states that carried Bush to victory in 2004, and possibly carrying Pennsylvania to give him a margin for error.
Apart from the presidential campaign, Democrats confidently predicted they would add to their majorities in the House and Senate.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was in a close and costly battle for re-election.
But so was Democratic Rep. John Murtha, several days after describing his southwestern Pennsylvania constituents as racists. Democrats arranged for former President Clinton to campaign for the anti-war lawmaker in hopes of saving his seat.
Bush was nowhere near the campaign crowds as the election neared, and McCain wouldn’t have it any other way, given low presidential approval ratings.
But Vice President Dick Cheney went home to Wyoming, where Democrats were making a spirited bid for the state’s single House seat. “Our country cannot afford the high tax liberalism of Barack Obama and Joe Biden,” he said.
The Democrats jumped on that.
In remarks drafted for delivery in Colorado, Obama sarcastically congratulated McCain for the endorsement. “He really earned it. … Sen. McCain had to vote 90 percent of the time with George Bush and Dick Cheney to get it,” he said.
Like Obama and McCain, the vice presidential running mates campaigned toward the finish line.
Sen. Joe Biden was in Indiana, another traditionally Republican state where Democrats are running hard. He accused Republicans of “trying to take the low road to the highest office in the land. They are calling Barack Obama every name in the book.”
Republican Sarah Palin, in New Port Richey, Fla., said Biden had it backwards — it was the Democrats who were resorting to unseemly tactics.
“Barack Obama goes around promising a new kind of politics, then he comes here to Florida and tries to exploit the fears and worries about Social Security and Medicare for retirees, and that’s the oldest and cheapest kind of politics there is,” she said.
The rhetorical flourishes were merely the most visible aspect of the late-campaign effort.
McCain’s campaign said it was reaching more voters than Bush’s re-election campaign did at this point four years ago, more than one million a day. Volunteers in reliably Republican states like Utah were bused to nearby battlegrounds like Nevada.
Democrats had a similar plan. Volunteers in Maryland were told they were needed in Virginia.
Early voting statistics were large, and tilted Democratic. In North Carolina, officials said 2.3 million ballots had been cast as of Saturday morning, 52 percent of them by Democrats and 30 percent by Republicans.
In Missouri, spokesman Justin Hamilton said Obama’s campaign had agreements with cab companies across the state to provide Election Day rides to the polls for any voter who wanted one.
He said the callers would not be asked how they intended to vote.
(David Espo reported from Washington. AP’s Ben Feller contributed from Nevada, Nedra Pickler from Chicago, Rodrique Ngowi and Jay Lindsay from Boston and Joan Lowy and Liz Sidoti from Washington.)