Looking for Daddy

And now, something a little different.

I don't blog much about our family and children and relationships, an area I'm far less competent to discuss in comparison to my wife, who has spent her life writing about such things. But every once in a while, I have an insight.

I didn't grow up with my father, never even met him until I was 14. Mine was a single parent home. My mother raised me and my Dad simply wasn't in the picture. For the most part, I can only recall feeling sorry for myself about this once during childhood. It was a moment that passed quickly and I got on with life. Having no Dad was just the way it was and how it had always been. While it never really troubled me, paradoxically, I grew up resolving that I would have a whole family one day and that my children would know their father.

Even still, though I understand intellectually that my children love me and that my interaction and presence in their life is important and meaningful to them, I have to confess that more often than not it doesn't feel particularly real and present to me. But sometimes it gets brought home to me with great clarity.

Not long ago, my 6 year old son Noah (pictured top left), had a Daddy's Day at school. On this day, all the Dads were to come for lunch and eat with their kids and hang out with them. I was a few minutes late arriving at the school and when I got there, the children had already been seated in the cafeteria with their Dads at the tables. I walked in and began looking for my son. I spotted him before he spotted me. He was looking for me too. He was sitting at the table, scanning the room, on the lookout for me. It was the look on his face as he searched anxiously for sign of his Dad that I haven't forgotten since: a look of worry and concern, maybe even the beginnings of fear, that his Dad was not going to be there for him, that maybe he had been abandoned. It was a look that told me that while this was perhaps just an inconvenient interruption of my workday for me, that for him it was a big frikking deal. It mattered to him big time. It made a difference to him if I was there or not.

I waved to catch his attention as I strode forward to join him, like a giant through a crowd of elves. For a moment, all I thought was "let me banish that look from his eyes right now". When he saw me, his face lit up like the brightest strobe light you've ever seen (my son has a wonderful smile). He hollered "Daddy" as I came into his view and instantly his demeanor changed from fearful and worried to happy and carefree. We had a wonderful time. But in that moment before he knew I was there, when he was "looking for Daddy", I learned something about how very real and important my presence is to him. I grew up without Dad and its clear to me that I really missed something, though strangely enough, its hard to define what it was. But now and then, I gain glimpses of what I lost through my children, who have what I did not. I never knew a childhood with my father. My children will never know one without.

The Geopolitics of $130 Oil

By George Friedman (Honorary Political Season Contributor)

Oil prices have risen dramatically over the past year. When they passed $100 a barrel, they hit new heights, expressed in dollars adjusted for inflation. As they passed $120 a barrel, they clearly began to have global impact. Recently, we have seen startling rises in the price of food, particularly grains. Apart from higher prices, there have been disruptions in the availability of food as governments limit food exports and as hoarding increases in anticipation of even higher prices.

Oil and food differ from other commodities in that they are indispensable for the functioning of society. Food obviously is the more immediately essential. Food shortages can trigger social and political instability with startling swiftness. It does not take long to starve to death. Oil has a less-immediate — but perhaps broader — impact. Everything, including growing and marketing food, depends on energy; and oil is the world’s primary source of energy, particularly in transportation. Oil and grains — where the shortages hit hardest — are not merely strategic commodities. They are geopolitical commodities. All nations require them, and a shift in the price or availability of either triggers shifts in relationships within and among nations.

It is not altogether clear to us why oil and grains have behaved as they have. The question for us is what impact this generalized rise in commodity prices — particularly energy and food — will have on the international system. We understand that it is possible that the price of both will plunge. There is certainly a speculative element in both. Nevertheless, based on the realities of supply conditions, we do not expect the price of either to fall to levels that existed in 2003. We will proceed in this analysis on the assumption that these prices will fluctuate, but that they will remain dramatically higher than prices were from the 1980s to the mid-2000s.

If that assumption is true and we continue to see elevated commodity prices, perhaps rising substantially higher than they are now, then it seems to us that we have entered a new geopolitical era. Since the end of World War II, we have lived in three geopolitical regimes, broadly understood:

• The Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, in which the focus was on the military balance between those two countries, particularly on the nuclear balance. During this period, all countries, in some way or another, defined their behavior in terms of the U.S.-Soviet competition.
• The period from the fall of the Berlin Wall until 9/11, when the primary focus of the world was on economic development. This was the period in which former communist countries redefined themselves, East and Southeast Asian economies surged and collapsed, and China grew dramatically. It was a period in which politico-military power was secondary and economic power primary.
• The period from 9/11 until today that has been defined in terms of the increasing complexity of the U.S.-jihadist war — a reality that supplanted the second phase and redefined the international system dramatically.

With the U.S.-jihadist war in either a stalemate or a long-term evolution, its impact on the international system is diminishing. First, it has lost its dynamism. The conflict is no longer drawing other countries into it. Second, it is becoming an endemic reality rather than an urgent crisis. The international system has accommodated itself to the conflict, and its claims on that system are lessening.

The surge in commodity prices — particularly oil — has superseded the U.S.-jihadist war, much as the war superseded the period in which economic issues dominated the global system. This does not mean that the U.S.-jihadist war will not continue to rage, any more than 9/11 abolished economic issues. Rather, it means that a new dynamic has inserted itself into the international system and is in the process of transforming it.

It is a cliche that money and power are linked. It is nevertheless true. Economic power creates political and military power, just as political and military power can create economic power. The rise in the price of oil is triggering shifts in economic power that are in turn creating changes in the international order. This was not apparent until now because of three reasons. First, oil prices had not risen to the level where they had geopolitical impact. The system was ignoring higher prices. Second, they had not been joined in crisis condition by grain prices. Third, the permanence of higher prices had not been clear. When $70-a-barrel oil seemed impermanent, and likely to fall below $50, oil was viewed very differently than it was at $130, where a decline to $100 would be dramatic and a fall to $70 beyond the calculation of most. As oil passed $120 a barrel, the international system, in our view, started to reshape itself in what will be a long-term process.

Obviously, the winners in this game are those who export oil, and the losers are those who import it. The victory is not only economic but political as well. The ability to control where exports go and where they don’t go transforms into political power. The ability to export in a seller’s market not only increases wealth but also increases the ability to coerce, if that is desired.

The game is somewhat more complex than this. The real winners are countries that can export and generate cash in excess of what they need domestically. So countries such as Venezuela, Indonesia and Nigeria might benefit from higher prices, but they absorb all the wealth that is transferred to them. Countries such as Saudi Arabia do not need to use so much of their wealth for domestic needs. They control huge and increasing pools of cash that they can use for everything from achieving domestic political stability to influencing regional governments and the global economic system. Indeed, the entire Arabian Peninsula is in this position.

The big losers are countries that not only have to import oil but also are heavily industrialized relative to their economy. Countries in which service makes up a larger sector than manufacturing obviously use less oil for critical economic functions than do countries that are heavily manufacturing-oriented. Certainly, consumers in countries such as the United States are hurt by rising prices. And these countries’ economies might slow. But higher oil prices simply do not have the same impact that they do on countries that both are primarily manufacturing-oriented and have a consumer base driving cars.

East Asia has been most affected by the combination of sustained high oil prices and disruptions in the food supply. Japan, which imports all of its oil and remains heavily industrialized (along with South Korea), is obviously affected. But the most immediately affected is China, where shortages of diesel fuel have been reported. China’s miracle — rapid industrialization — has now met its Achilles’ heel: high energy prices.

China is facing higher energy prices at a time when the U.S. economy is weak and the ability to raise prices is limited. As oil prices increase costs, the Chinese continue to export and, with some exceptions, are holding prices. The reason is simple. The Chinese are aware that slowing exports could cause some businesses to fail. That would lead to unemployment, which in turn will lead to instability. The Chinese have their hands full between natural disasters, Tibet, terrorism and the Olympics. They do not need a wave of business failures.

Therefore, they are continuing to cap the domestic price of gasoline. This has caused tension between the government and Chinese oil companies, which have refused to distribute at capped prices. Behind this power struggle is this reality: The Chinese government can afford to subsidize oil prices to maintain social stability, but given the need to export, they are effectively squeezing profits out of exports. Between subsidies and no-profit exports, China’s reserves could shrink with remarkable speed, leaving their financial system — already overloaded with nonperforming loans — vulnerable. If they take the cap off, they face potential domestic unrest.

The Chinese dilemma is present throughout Asia. But just as Asia is the big loser because of long-term high oil prices coupled with food disruptions, Russia is the big winner. Russia is an exporter of natural gas and oil. It also could be a massive exporter of grains if prices were attractive enough and if it had the infrastructure (crop failures in Russia are a thing of the past). Russia has been very careful, under Vladimir Putin, not to assume that energy prices will remain high and has taken advantage of high prices to accumulate substantial foreign currency reserves. That puts them in a doubly-strong position. Economically, they are becoming major players in global acquisitions. Politically, countries that have become dependent on Russian energy exports — and this includes a good part of Europe — are vulnerable, precisely because the Russians are in a surplus-cash position. They could tweak energy availability, hurting the Europeans badly, if they chose. T hey will not need to. The Europeans, aware of what could happen, will tread lightly in order to ensure that it doesn’t happen.

As we have already said, the biggest winners are the countries of the Arabian Peninsula. Although somewhat strained, these countries never really suffered during the period of low oil prices. They have now more than rebalanced their financial system and are making the most of it. This is a time when they absolutely do not want anything disrupting the flow of oil from their region. Closing the Strait of Hormuz, for example, would be disastrous to them. We therefore see the Saudis, in particular, taking steps to stabilize the region. This includes supporting Israeli-Syrian peace talks, using influence with Sunnis in Iraq to confront al Qaeda, making certain that Shiites in Saudi Arabia profit from the boom. (Other Gulf countries are doing the same with their Shiites. This is designed to remove one of Iran’s levers in the region: a rising of Shiites in the Arabian Peninsula.) In addition, the Saudis are using their economic power to re-establish the relationship they ha d with the United States before 9/11. With the financial institutions in the United States in disarray, the Arabian Peninsula can be very helpful.

China is in an increasingly insular and defensive position. The tension is palpable, particularly in Central Asia, which Russia has traditionally dominated and where China is becoming increasingly active in making energy investments. The Russians are becoming more assertive, using their economic position to improve their geopolitical position in the region. The Saudis are using their money to try to stabilize the region. With oil above $120 a barrel, the last thing they need is a war disrupting their ability to sell. They do not want to see the Iranians mining the Strait of Hormuz or the Americans trying to blockade Iran.

The Iranians themselves are facing problems. Despite being the world’s fifth-largest oil exporter, Iran also is the world’s second-largest gasoline importer, taking in roughly 40 percent of its annual demand. Because of the type of oil they have, and because they have neglected their oil industry over the last 30 years, their ability to participate in the bonanza is severely limited. It is obvious that there is now internal political tension between the president and the religious leadership over the status of the economy. Put differently, Iranians are asking how they got into this situation.

Suddenly, the regional dynamics have changed. The Saudi royal family is secure against any threats. They can buy peace on the Peninsula. The high price of oil makes even Iraqis think that it might be time to pump more oil rather than fight. Certainly the Iranians, Saudis and Kuwaitis are thinking of ways of getting into the action, and all have the means and geography to benefit from an Iraqi oil renaissance. The war in Iraq did not begin over oil — a point we have made many times — but it might well be brought under control because of oil.

For the United States, the situation is largely a push. The United States is an oil importer, but its relative vulnerability to high energy prices is nothing like it was in 1973, during the Arab oil embargo. De-industrialization has clearly had its upside. At the same time, the United States is a food exporter, along with Canada, Australia, Argentina and others. Higher grain prices help the United States. The shifts will not change the status of the United States, but they might create a new dynamic in the Gulf region that could change the framework of the Iraqi war.

This is far from an exhaustive examination of the global shifts caused by rising oil and grain prices. Our point is this: High oil prices can increase as well as decrease stability. In Iraq — but not in Afghanistan — the war has already been regionally overshadowed by high oil prices. Oil-exporting countries are in a moneymaking mode, and even the Iranians are trying to figure out how to get into the action; it’s hard to see how they can without the participation of the Western oil majors — and this requires burying the hatchet with the United States. Groups such as al Qaeda and Hezbollah are decidedly secondary to these considerations.

We are very early in this process, and these are just our opening thoughts. But in our view, a wire has been tripped, and the world is refocusing on high commodity prices. As always in geopolitics, issues from the last generation linger, but they are no longer the focus. Last week there was talk of Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) talks between the United States and Russia — a fossil from the Cold War. These things never go away. But history moves on. It seems to us that history is moving.

Assassination Gaffe?

"My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right?" she said. "We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California."

The assassination references by Hillary Clinton in South Dakota are pretty well trodden ground at this point and it seems to me that the storm is passing over for her because the majority of the MSM is lacking in the stones to really press the point. Most of the commentators and pundits are giving Hillary a pass and pretty much refusing to really assert that her comments were intended to be suggestive of the assassination of Obama as a potential event justifying her remaining in the race. Hell, Kennedy family members and Obama himself have extended her grace (which they would never have gotten were the roles reversed) I might agree if this were the only time she has made such reference. However, as Olberman points out in his rant (see our featured video), this is not the only time she has referenced that event. At least twice before she had done so. She referenced the assassination explicitly in comments to Time magazine on March 6th for example. Each time she has made this purportedly "timeline" reference, she has pointedly alluded to the assassination event, sometimes using the word, sometimes not, as was the case with her remarks at a Washington fundraiser on May 7th and again later the same day at an event in Shepherdstown West Virginia (see Olbermans video for the quotes). Pundits and others have said its clearly an allusion to timeline, which is true, but all of the prior comments have also clearly alluded to the assassination as well. Every time. She has pointedly made the allusion in a very similar way each time, which says to me its a talking point and suggests that she is intentionally trying to allude to this, to suggest obliquely that such an outcome could befall Obama and that is a rationale for her continued campaigning for the nomination. Because of the other times noted above when she has made these allusions and they way they are artfully constructed to suggest both the timeline issue and remind the listener of the assassination event at the same time, I do not regard the reference as benign. I believe she WAS engaging in this sort of subliminal messaging.

What is perhaps the bigger issue here is that whether or not you think she was actually doing such a thing intentionally, I think there are few people that don't believe she is perfectly capable of doing it. Either way you slice it, it does not say anything good about her character, her candidacy or her campaign tactics.

Free At Last

Flanked by a family member on the left and Innocence Project attorney Barry Scheck on the right, Walter Swift looks out at the world from the steps of the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice in Detroit on Wednesday, May 21, 2008 as a free man. Swift was freed after spending 26 years in jail for a rape he didn't commit.

I'm interested in solutions for black America. Clearly, reform of the justice system in this country is needful, because Walter's story occurs too often. And for every Swift that the Innocence Project frees, there are another 20 or more that never get the light of justice shined on their situation. The Innocence Project worked for 11 years to free Swift. 11 damn years. The man languished in prison for a decade before someone began to look into his case, and another decade of his life came and went in prison while the battle was fought. Its a terrible injustice. The Innocence Project isn't just working on the cases of the wrongly convicted, they have also assembled information about the kinds of policy reforms which would reduce the number of people who are wrongly convicted in the first place.

The reforms that can address and prevent wrongful convictions include:

• Eyewitness Identification Reform
• False Confessions
• Access to Post-Conviction DNA Testing
• Evidence Preservation
• Crime Lab Oversight
• Criminal Justice Reform Commissions ('Innocence Commissions')
• Exoneree Compensation

As always, when I look at whats needed to bring about real, lasting changes on substantive issues, I'm struck by the fact that the work that must be done is tedious, costly and decidedly unsexy. Its not marches or protests (they have their place), its organization, fund raising and long term activism to marshal people power and deploy human and political capital. The issues above don't get solved or fixed without hard, dogged effort over time.

Walter Swift hugs his daughter Audrey Kelly Mills, 27. She was an infant when Walter went to prison. He has not seen or touched her during her life until the day this picture was taken.

Visit the Innocence Project. Learn more about the issues and get involved. Because God forbid that you or I or someone we love should ever need an Innocence Project in the first place.

Obama: The New Gold Standard for Black Leadership

While Obama is no savior and certainly does not want for critics on the right or the left, both black and white, I believe there is no denying that his nomination run has and is setting the new standard by which the success of current and future black leadership will be measured. That is a desirable and satisfactory result.

Future black political leaders, indeed political leaders from other communities of color, can be expected to model on Obama, who is poised to potentially become the first African American to hold the office of the president. I would submit that its not a bad model at all. Lets tick off what works: A first rate education, outstanding fundraising and money management skills, a powerful communicator, a culturally congruent life partner, clear ability to lead a team with integrity, transparency and effectiveness. Obama's continued success is raising the bar for what black America will consider acceptable, successful and effective leadership. This is perhaps his single greatest contribution to Black America

What Does Not Kill You Makes You Stronger

Rush Limbaugh opined at one point that "we need Obama bloodied up". He and the republicans gleefully watched the struggle for nomination domination between Obama and Clinton, seeing it as an on the cheap dissection of Obama for the republicans. Clinton has certainly given it her all. However, Obama has weathered the storm. The bitter gaffe, the Wright mess, the PA loss, the massive defeats in KY and VA, yet Obama is still standing, attracting superdelegates daily with the gravitational pull of a new sun. He has been bloodied, but is unbowed and even now trains his sights on his ultimate opponent, McCain. Unlike his primary battle with Clinton where he has labored under the handicap of highly measured response, he is free to unleash the full ferocity and power of his oratory. Its quite possible that this will go down in history as a singular example of "be careful what you wish for, you might get it.

Sweetie? Obama, You Know Better - Act LIke It

Obama got himself in a little hot water and rightly so for calling Peggy Agar, a local reporter in Detroit "sweetie" when she shouted a question his way during a tour of a stamping plant. The social no no was caught on tape. Obama later called Peggy Agar to apologize both for not answering her question and for calling her "sweetie". I watched the clip of the tour where he said it and all I got to say is O baby, thats a silly rookie mistake. Don't do it again. It looked and sounded condescending and had she been a male reporter, you might have still blown her off, but you would not have used any such terminology. I do not believe you meant to be condescending or offensive, but you were in actuality and you were perceived to be so as well. So to the extent that you have this as a bad habit, you better break it right here, right now. You cannot afford any continued tone deafness on this score.

You're married to a strong black woman, so I know you know the problem entailed in using that kind of nomenclature on a woman you don't know. I'm sure you would not appreciate somebody rolling on Michelle like that. Hopefully, Michelle whapped you upside the back of your neck when you got home. You're fighting to be POTUS. You are a balling, shotcalling Harvard educated grown ass black man. That is beneath you. Here endeth the lesson.

McCain's Future

John McCain gave a speech laying out his vision for the future, and he approached it in a way different from your typical speech. He essentially gave a vision statement speech by talking about what the world would look life after his first term. In part, the speech was intended to lay out the "specifics" that supposedly Obama is lacking in. I listened to most of it live and I can't say I was terribly impressed with its content nor the conceptual delivery. If you came in on the speech after he had started, you would have wondered what the hell he was talking about the way he was couching it in the future tense. If this was supposed to be about the "specifics" of a McCain presidency, it was way light. Lets take a look at some of the geopolitical issues in the speech and see if we can find any specifics.

“The Iraq war has been won. Iraq is a functioning democracy, although still suffering from the lingering effects of decades of tyranny and centuries of sectarian tension. Violence still occurs, but it is spasmodic and much reduced.”

Where are the specifics in the above? This is a goal statement, not a policy position. Here's what really bothers me, and its a failing of the current administration that McCain appears ready to replicate, which is what is the definition of victory? Is that even the appropriate characterization for how we resolve our Iraq presence? When you say the war is won, we think all the enemy is dead or has surrendered and we're running the joint. Oh, hey, that was supposed to have happened already right? Isn't that what that "mission accomplished" moment on the carrier was all about? Here's the problem. This Iraq deal can't be won militarily. If that were true it would have been over 5 years ago. Its far more complex and because of that, bringing it to a conclusion does not fall into a simple victory/defeat equation. Iraq as a functioning democracy? If thats the goal, it would require an American presence for the next 100 years, but when did nation building in Iraq become the goal? How do we measure that? The republican definition of victory in Iraq keeps shifting and McCain isn't bringing any clarity to it either. That strategic blurriness is one reason American's don't support this conflict. Oh yeah, and McCain has now issued a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.

The Taliban threat in Afghanistan has been greatly reduced.

Little straight talk here. Afghanistan is geopolitically irrelevant to the United States. Nation building there is no more needful than it is in Iraq and its a damn sight more difficult, if not impossible, to accomplish. The Soviets couldn't pacify the country with three times the manpower on the ground we have committed. A walking relic and war college graduate like McCain ought to be taking that little lesson from history. Beyond making sure that its not a staging ground for terrorist networks, there is no strategic value or reason to engage in nation building there for the United States. The Taliban, while clearly a nasty bunch, pose no strategic threat to the United States, sans their Al Queda connection, so who gives a flying rip about them?

There is not a single policy specific in the whole damn speech. There is maybe the suggestion of a policy here and there. But if this weirdly constructed speech was intended to show the wisdom of McCain contrasted to the inexperience of Obama, he didn't demonstrate superior policy chops in my boook.

Look Ma, No Hoses or Dogs: Voter Suppression Watch

The Supreme Court recently upheld Indiana's voter ID law against a challenge to its constitutionality and in so doing, enabled an entire category of low intensity voter suppression tactics. I said then that what we would now see is a succession of republican led voter ID legislation efforts copying the Indiana approach by passing voter ID laws to address so called voter impersonation fraud. These laws will be pressed forward on the grounds of protecting the integrity of voting. However, these laws will have the effect of suppressing a portion of the voting public, by making it more inconvenient to become qualified to vote. There is a segment of the population that will be deterred from voting by this inconvenience factor. Republicans will be the only ones pressing for these laws because they believe that the people who are deterred are people likely to vote democratic. Its voter suppression without the hoses and dogs tactics of the old days. More like voter suppression by a million cuts.

As predicted, the first wave of voter id legislation is upon us. In Missouri, legislators emboldened by the Indiana decision are forging ahead with their own plans to enact the same law and once again, cannot produce a single example of voter impersonation fraud. Once again, it is being pursued by republicans and it is simply a way to rig the system by imposing inconvenience on low income and elderly voters presumed to vote democratic.

This kind of legislation must be fought state to state. Where it is enacted, efforts should be undertaken to overturn the law or to liberalize other elements of the voting process such as longer polling hours and voting by mail. More defensive response measures include grassroots drives to ensure that every person in our community has valid photo ID using community institutions like the church, community centers and schools. These laws are being pushed and passed for their voter suppression effects, Period. Full Stop, not to prevent voter impersonation fraud. Any supporter of them who says different is woefully uninformed or quite simply is a liar.

Today its voter ID. Tomorrow it will be some other type of reasonable inconvenience imposed on the franchise. Impose enough of these things and you will begin to get significant voter suppression effects in my view. We're the party of better ideas, but we purposely suppress the franchise to shield ourselves from the competition of ideas. It is the gaming of democracy under the guise of law and order and as a republican, it makes me sick.

Mexico: On the Road to a Failed State?

By George Friedman

Edgar Millan Gomez was shot dead in his own home in Mexico City on May 8. Millan Gomez was the highest-ranking law enforcement officer in Mexico, responsible for overseeing most of Mexico’s counternarcotics efforts. He orchestrated the January arrest of one of the leaders of the Sinaloa cartel, Alfredo Beltran Leyva. (Several Sinaloa members have been arrested in Mexico City since the beginning of the year.) The week before, Roberto Velasco Bravo died when he was shot in the head at close range by two armed men near his home in Mexico City. He was the director of organized criminal investigations in a tactical analysis unit of the federal police. The Mexican government believes the Sinaloa drug cartel ordered the assassinations of Velasco Bravo and Millan Gomez. Combined with the assassination of other federal police officials in Mexico City, we now see a pattern of intensifying warfare in Mexico City.

The fighting also extended to the killing of the son of the Sinaloa cartel leader, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera, who was killed outside a shopping center in Culiacan, the capital of Sinaloa state. Also killed was the son of reputed top Sinaloa money launderer Blanca Margarita Cazares Salazar in an attack carried out by 40 gunmen. According to sources, Los Zetas, the enforcement arm of the rival Gulf cartel, carried out the attack. Reports also indicate a split between Sinaloa and a resurgent Juarez cartel, which also could have been behind the Millan Gomez killing.

Spiraling Violence

Violence along the U.S.-Mexican border has been intensifying for several years, and there have been attacks in Mexico City. But last week was noteworthy not so much for the body count, but for the type of people being killed. Very senior government police officials in Mexico City were killed along with senior Sinaloa cartel operatives in Sinaloa state. In other words, the killings are extending from low-level operatives to higher-ranking ones, and the attacks are reaching into enemy territory, so to speak. Mexican government officials are being killed in Mexico City, Sinaloan operatives in Sinaloa. The conflict is becoming more intense and placing senior officials at risk.

The killings pose a strategic problem for the Mexican government. The bulk of its effective troops are deployed along the U.S. border, attempting to suppress violence and smuggling among the grunts along the border, as well as the well-known smuggling routes elsewhere in the country. The attacks in Mexico raise the question of whether forces should be shifted from these assignments to Mexico City to protect officials and break up the infrastructure of the Sinaloa and other cartels there. The government also faces the secondary task of suppressing violence between cartels. The Sinaloa cartel struck in Mexico City not only to kill troublesome officials and intimidate others, but also to pose a problem for the Mexican government by increasing areas requiring forces, thereby requiring the government to consider splitting its forces — thus reducing the government presence along the border. It was a strategically smart move by Sinaloa, but no one has accused the cartels of being stupid.

Mexico now faces a classic problem. Multiple, well-armed organized groups have emerged. They are fighting among themselves while simultaneously fighting the government. The groups are fueled by vast amounts of money earned via drug smuggling to the United States. The amount of money involved — estimated at some $40 billion a year — is sufficient to increase tension between these criminal groups and give them the resources to conduct wars against each other. It also provides them with resources to bribe and intimidate government officials. The resources they deploy in some ways are superior to the resources the government employs.

Given the amount of money they have, the organized criminal groups can be very effective in bribing government officials at all levels, from squad leaders patrolling the border to high-ranking state and federal officials. Given the resources they have, they can reach out and kill government officials at all levels as well. Government officials are human; and faced with the carrot of bribes and the stick of death, even the most incorruptible is going to be cautious in executing operations against the cartels.

Toward a Failed State?

There comes a moment when the imbalance in resources reverses the relationship between government and cartels. Government officials, seeing the futility of resistance, effectively become tools of the cartels. Since there are multiple cartels, the area of competition ceases to be solely the border towns, shifting to the corridors of power in Mexico City. Government officials begin giving their primary loyalty not to the government but to one of the cartels. The government thus becomes both an arena for competition among the cartels and an instrument used by one cartel against another. That is the prescription for what is called a “failed state” — a state that no longer can function as a state. Lebanon in the 1980s is one such example.

There are examples in American history as well. Chicago in the 1920s was overwhelmed by a similar process. Smuggling alcohol created huge pools of money on the U.S. side of the border, controlled by criminals both by definition (bootlegging was illegal) and by inclination (people who engage in one sort of illegality are prepared to be criminals, more broadly understood). The smuggling laws gave these criminals huge amounts of power, which they used to intimidate and effectively absorb the city government. Facing a choice between being killed or being enriched, city officials chose the latter. City government shifted from controlling the criminals to being an arm of criminal power. In the meantime, various criminal gangs competed with each other for power.

Chicago had a failed city government. The resources available to the Chicago gangs were limited, however, and it was not possible for them to carry out the same function in Washington. Ultimately, Washington deployed resources in Chicago and destroyed one of the main gangs. But if Al Capone had been able to carry out the same operation in Washington as he did in Chicago, the United States could have become a failed state.

It is important to point out that we are not speaking here of corruption, which exists in all governments everywhere. Instead, we are talking about a systematic breakdown of the state, in which government is not simply influenced by criminals, but becomes an instrument of criminals — either simply an arena for battling among groups or under the control of a particular group. The state no longer can carry out its primary function of imposing peace, and it becomes helpless, or itself a direct perpetrator of crime. Corruption has been seen in Washington — some triggered by organized crime, but never state failure.

The Mexican state has not yet failed. If the activities of the last week have become a pattern, however, we must begin thinking about the potential for state failure. The killing of Millan Gomez transmitted a critical message: No one is safe, no matter how high his rank or how well protected, if he works against cartel interests. The killing of El Chapo’s son transmitted the message that no one in the leading cartel is safe from competing gangs, no matter how high his rank or how well protected.

The killing of senior state police officials causes other officials to recalculate their attitudes. The state is no longer seen as a competent protector, and being a state official is seen as a liability — potentially a fatal liability — unless protection is sought from a cartel, a protection that can be very lucrative indeed for the protector. The killing of senior cartel members intensifies conflict among cartels, making it even more difficult for the government to control the situation and intensifying the movement toward failure.

It is important to remember that Mexico has a tradition of failed governments, particularly in the 19th and early 20th century. In those periods, Mexico City became an arena for struggle among army officers and regional groups straddling the line between criminal and political. The Mexican army became an instrument in this struggle and its control a prize. The one thing missing was the vast amounts of money at stake. So there is a tradition of state failure in Mexico, and there are higher stakes today than before.

The Drug Trade’s High Stakes

To benchmark the amount at stake, assume that the total amount of drug trafficking is $40 billion, a frequently used figure, but hardly an exact one by any means. In 2007, Mexico exported about $210 billion worth of goods to the United States and imported about $136 billion from the United States. If the drug trade is $40 billion dollars, it represents about 25 percent of all exports to the United States. That in itself is huge, but what makes it more important is that while the $210 billion is divided among many businesses and individuals, the $40 billion is concentrated in the hands of a few, fairly tightly controlled cartels. Sinaloa and Gulf, currently the strongest, have vast resources at their disposal; a substantial part of the economy can be controlled through this money. This creates tremendous instability as other cartels vie for the top spot, with the state lacking the resources to control the situation and having its officials seduced and intimidated by the car tels.

We have seen failed states elsewhere. Colombia in the 1980s failed over the same issue — drug money. Lebanon failed in the 1970s and 1980s. The Democratic Republic of the Congo was a failed state.

Mexico’s potential failure is important for three reasons. First, Mexico is a huge country, with a population of more than 100 million. Second, it has a large economy — the 14th-largest in the world. And third, it shares an extended border with the world’s only global power, one that has assumed for most of the 20th century that its domination of North America and control of its borders is a foregone conclusion. If Mexico fails, there are serious geopolitical repercussions. This is not simply a criminal matter.

The amount of money accumulated in Mexico derives from smuggling operations in the United States. Drugs go one way, money another. But all the money doesn’t have to return to Mexico or to third-party countries. If Mexico fails, the leading cartels will compete in the United States, and that competition will extend to the source of the money as well. We have already seen cartel violence in the border areas of the United States, but this risk is not limited to that. The same process that we see under way in Mexico could extend to the United States; logic dictates that it would.

The current issue is control of the source of drugs and of the supply chain that delivers drugs to retail customers in the United States. The struggle for control of the source and the supply chain also will involve a struggle for control of markets. The process of intimidation of government and police officials, as well as bribing them, can take place in market towns such as Los Angeles or Chicago, as well as production centers or transshipment points.

Cartel Incentives for U.S. Expansion

That means there are economic incentives for the cartels to extend their operations into the United States. With those incentives comes intercartel competition, and with that competition comes pressure on U.S. local, state and, ultimately, federal government and police functions. Were that to happen, the global implications obviously would be stunning. Imagine an extreme case in which the Mexican scenario is acted out in the United States. The effect on the global system economically and politically would be astounding, since U.S. failure would see the world reshaping itself in startling ways.

Failure for the United States is much harder than for Mexico, however. The United States has a gross domestic product of about $14 trillion, while Mexico’s economy is about $900 billion. The impact of the cartels’ money is vastly greater in Mexico than in the United States, where it would be dwarfed by other pools of money with a powerful interest in maintaining U.S. stability. The idea of a failed American state is therefore far-fetched.

Less far-fetched is the extension of a Mexican failure into the borderlands of the United States. Street-level violence already has crossed the border. But a deeper, more-systemic corruption — particularly on the local level — could easily extend into the United States, along with paramilitary operations between cartels and between the Mexican government and cartels.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently visited Mexico, and there are potential plans for U.S. aid in support of Mexican government operations. But if the Mexican government became paralyzed and couldn’t carry out these operations, the U.S. government would face a stark and unpleasant choice. It could attempt to protect the United States from the violence defensively by sealing off Mexico or controlling the area north of the border more effectively. Or, as it did in the early 20th century, the United States could adopt a forward defense by sending U.S. troops south of the border to fight the battle in Mexico.

There have been suggestions that the border be sealed. But Mexico is the United States’ third-largest customer, and the United States is Mexico’s largest customer. This was the case well before NAFTA, and has nothing to do with treaties and everything to do with economics and geography. Cutting that trade would have catastrophic effects on both sides of the border, and would guarantee the failure of the Mexican state. It isn’t going to happen.

The Impossibility of Sealing the Border

So long as vast quantities of goods flow across the border, the border cannot be sealed. Immigration might be limited by a wall, but the goods that cross the border do so at roads and bridges, and the sheer amount of goods crossing the border makes careful inspection impossible. The drugs will come across the border embedded in this trade as well as by other routes. So will gunmen from the cartel and anything else needed to take control of Los Angeles’ drug market.

A purely passive defense won’t work unless the economic cost of blockade is absorbed. The choices are a defensive posture to deal with the battle on American soil if it spills over, or an offensive posture to suppress the battle on the other side of the border. Bearing in mind that Mexico is not a small country and that counterinsurgency is not the United States’ strong suit, the latter is a dangerous game. But the first option isn’t likely to work either.

One way to deal with the problem would be ending the artificial price of drugs by legalizing them. This would rapidly lower the price of drugs and vastly reduce the money to be made in smuggling them. Nothing hurt the American cartels more than the repeal of Prohibition, and nothing helped them more than Prohibition itself. Nevertheless, from an objective point of view, drug legalization isn’t going to happen. There is no visible political coalition of substantial size advocating this solution. Therefore, U.S. drug policy will continue to raise the price of drugs artificially, effective interdiction will be impossible, and the Mexican cartels will prosper and make war on each other and on the Mexican state.

We are not yet at the worst-case scenario, and we may never get there. Mexican President Felipe Calderon, perhaps with assistance from the United States, may devise a strategy to immunize his government from intimidation and corruption and take the war home to the cartels. This is a serious possibility that should not be ruled out. Nevertheless, the events of last week raise the serious possibility of a failed state in Mexico. That should not be taken lightly, as it could change far more than Mexico.

Petraeus, Afghanistan and the Lessons of Iraq

By George Friedman

Gen. David Petraeus, who commanded the surge in Iraq, was recommended April 23 by U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to be the next head of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM). If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, this means Petraeus would remain in ultimate command of the war in Iraq while also taking command in Afghanistan. Days after the recommendation, there was yet another unsuccessful attempt on the life of Afghan President Hamid Karzai on April 27. Then, media reports May 3 maintained the United States might strengthen its forces in Afghanistan to make up for shortfalls in NATO commitments. Across the border in Pakistan, Islamabad and the Taliban neared a peace deal April 25, the first fruits of the Pakistani government’s efforts to increase its dialogue with the Taliban — though these talks appeared to collapse April 28. Clearly, there appears to be movement with regard to Afghanistan. The question is whether this movement is an illusion — and if it is not an illusion, where is the movement going?

Petraeus’ probable command in Afghanistan appears to be the most important of these developments. In Iraq, Petraeus changed the nature of the war. The change he brought to bear there was not so much military as political. Certainly, he deployed his forces differently than his predecessors, dispersing some of them in small units based in villages and neighborhoods contested by insurgents. That was not a trivial change, but it was not as important as the process of political discussions he began with local leaders.

The first phase of the U.S. counterinsurgency, which lasted from the beginning of the Iraqi insurgency in mid-2003 until the U.S. surge in early 2007, essentially consisted of a three-way civil war, in which the United States, the Sunni insurgents and the Shiite militias fought each other. The American strategic goal appears to have been to defeat both the insurgents and the militias, while allowing them to attrit each other and civilian communities.

Reshaping the Struggle in Iraq

Petraeus reshaped the battle by observing that the civil war was much more than a three-way struggle. Tensions also existed within both the Iraqi Sunni and the Shiite communities. Petraeus’ strategy was to exploit those tensions, splitting both his opponents and forming alliances with some of them. Petraeus recognized that political power in the Sunni community rested with the traditional tribal leaders — the sheikhs — and that these sheikhs were both divided among themselves, and most important, extremely worried about the foreign jihadist fighters from al Qaeda.

Al Qaeda ultimately wanted to replace the sheikhs as leaders of their respective communities. It used its influence with younger, more radical Sunnis to create a new cadre of leaders. The more U.S. pressure on the Sunni community as a whole, the less room for maneuver the sheikhs had. U.S. policy was inadvertently strengthening al Qaeda by making the sheikhs dependent on its force against the United States. Similarly, the Shiite community was split along multiple lines, with Iran deeply involved with multiple factions.

Petraeus changed U.S. policy from what was essentially warfare against the Sunnis in particular, but also the Shia, as undifferentiated entities. He sought to recruit elements previously regarded as irredeemable, and with threats, bribes and other inducements, forced open splits among Sunnis and Shia. In doing so, Petraeus also opened lines to the Iranians, who used their fear of a civil war among the Shia — and a disastrous loss of influence by Iran — to suppress both intra-Shiite violence and Shiite violence against Sunnis.

The result of this complex political maneuvering coupled with the judicious use of military force was a decline in casualties not only among American forces, but also among Iraqis from intercommunal warfare. The situation has not by any means resolved itself, but Petraeus’ strategy expanded splits in the Sunni and Shiite communities that he tried to exploit. The most important thing Petraeus did was to reduce the cohesion of U.S. enemies by recognizing they were not in fact a cohesive entity, and moving forward on that basis.

The verdict is far from in on the success of Petraeus’ strategy in Iraq. The conflict has subsided, but certainly has not concluded. Indeed, we have seen increased attacks in Sunni regions recently, while conflict with radical Shiite leader Muqtada al-Sadr’s forces in Baghdad is increasing. In many ways, the success of Petraeus’ strategy depends on Iran continuing to perceive the United States as a long-term presence in Iraq, and continuing to regard suppressing conflict among Shia important so the Iraqi Shia can constitute a united bloc in the government of Iraq. But the strategy is not foolproof; should the jihadists and some of the Sunni sheikhs decide to stage a countersurge in the months ahead of the U.S. election, the fabric of political relations would unravel with startling speed, and the military situation would change dramatically. Petraeus certainly has improved the situation. He has not won the war.

The Afghan Challenge

Applying Petraeus’ politico-military strategy to Afghanistan will be difficult. First, the ratio of forces to population there is even worse than in Iraq, making the application of decisive military force even more difficult. But even more important, unlike in Iraq — where the U.S. effort began purely on a military track — U.S. involvement in Afghanistan began on a political track much like Petraeus brought to bear in Iraq in 2007.

As we have pointed out many times, the United States did not actually invade Afghanistan in October 2001. That would have been impossible 30 days after 9/11. Instead, the United States made political arrangements with anti-Taliban factions and tribes to use their force in conjunction with U.S. airpower. The payoff for these factions and tribes was freedom from the Taliban and domination of the national government of Afghanistan, or at least their respective regions.

The first level of force the U.S. introduced into Afghanistan was a handful of CIA operatives followed by a small number of U.S. Army Special Forces teams and other special operations forces units. Their mission was to coordinate operations of new U.S. allies among the Northern Alliance — which had been under Russian influence — and among the Afghan Shia and Tajiks, who had been under Iranian influence. The solution ran through Moscow and Tehran on the strategic level, and then to these local forces on the tactical level.

Less than an invasion, it was a political operation backed up with airpower and a small number of U.S. ground forces. In other words, it looked very much like the strategy that Petraeus implemented in Iraq in 2007. This strategy was followed from the beginning in Afghanistan. Having forced the Taliban to retreat and disperse, the United States failed to prevent the Taliban from regrouping for two reasons. First, the political alliances it tried to create were too unstable and backed by too little U.S. force. Second, the Taliban enjoyed sanctuary in Pakistan, which Islamabad was unable or unwilling to deny them. As a result, the Taliban regrouped and re-emerged as a capable force, challenging insufficient U.S. and NATO forces on the ground.

It must be remembered that the Taliban took control of most of Afghanistan in the first place because they were militarily capable and because they recruited a powerful coalition on their side. And there was another reason: The Pakistani government, worried about excessive Russian or Iranian influence in Pakistan and interested in a relatively stable Afghanistan, supported the Taliban. That support proved decisive. Various tribal and factional leaders calculated that given Pakistani support, the Taliban would be the most capable military force — and that therefore resisting the Taliban made no sense.

Petraeus faces a similar situation now. The amount of force the United States has placed in Afghanistan is not impressive. The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force has just 47,000 troops deployed in a country of 31 million with a challenging geography. That 31 million has lived with war for generations, and has both adapted to war and is capable of fielding forces appropriate to the environment. Most tribes in Afghanistan calculate that the Americans do not have the ability to remain in Afghanistan for an extended period of time — as measured in generations. In due course, the Americans will leave.

The forces that had rallied to the U.S. standard in the first instance were those that had been defeated by the Taliban and forced to the margins. The majority of the country remained neutral on seeing the American entry or, at most, entered into tentative agreements with the Americans. Given their perceptions of U.S. staying power, the most rational thing for most of them to do is to pay lip service to the Karzai government — simply because it is there — while simultaneously either staying out of the fight or quietly aiding the Taliban. After all, the Taliban won before. If the Americans leave, there is no reason for them not to win again, at least in eastern and southern Afghanistan.

The Pakistani government also has paid lip service to fighting the Taliban, but clearly has not been effective in this fight. Moreover, the attempt of the new Pakistani government to negotiate with the Taliban signals that Pakistan’s old policy of accommodation toward the Taliban has not ended. While the Americans may go away, the Pakistanis are going nowhere. Standing with the Americans against a force that took Afghanistan once before — and still has not incurred the true enmity of Pakistan — is, put simply, a chump’s game.

Divide and Conquer?

Petraeus’ goal should be dividing the various factions of the Taliban as he did with the Sunni insurgents in Iraq. Attempting this very thing in Afghanistan has gone on for quite some time, but like trying to divide water, the Taliban flows back together remarkably quickly. The United States can always bribe the Taliban leaders, but it has been bribing them for years. They don’t stay bought.

In the meantime, the Afghan government remains in Kabul, ultimately dependent on the United States for its physical survival and infrastructure. Threats to Karzai and others are constant. Attempts are made to build national institutions, including military forces. But in the end, Afghan loyalty has never been to the nation, but to the tribe and the clan. So Karzai can rally the country only by building a coalition of tribes and clans. He has failed to do this.

In Iraq, the key was to supplement the military track with a political one. In Afghanistan, the problem is that there has always been a political track. And while pursuing this track worked at first, it has proven an unstable foundation for anything else. Its instability shook the Taliban out of power. And now the United States is facing this constant shifting.

If the problem in Iraq was introducing political suppleness, the problem in Afghanistan is the opposite: It is reducing the political suppleness. The way to do that is to introduce military force, to change the psychology of the region by convincing it that the United States is prepared to remain indefinitely and to bring overwhelming force to bear. That was the point of the U.S. announcement that it would take over the burden dropped by NATO.

The problem is that this is a bluff. The United States doesn’t have overwhelming force to bring to bear. The Soviets had 300,000 troops in Afghanistan. They held the cities, but the countryside was as treacherous for them as it is for the Americans. The force the United States can bring to bear is insufficient to overawe the tribes and cause them to break with the Taliban. And therefore, the United States is in a holding pattern, hoping that something will turn up.

That something is Pakistan. If Petraeus follows true to his Iraqi form — where he engaged the Iranians based on their own self-interest, inducing Tehran to rein in al-Sadr — then his key move must be to engage the Pakistanis in the fight against the Taliban. The problem is that it is not clearly in Pakistan’s self-interest to create a civil war in Pakistan with the Taliban, and the new government in Islamabad does not appear to have the appetite for such a struggle. And the Pakistani army continues to have elements sympathetic to the Taliban. If the army is not prepared to put up much of a fight in Pakistan’s northern tribal areas, it certainly is not looking for armed conflict with the Taliban — many of whose members are in fact Pakistani guerrillas — in Pakistan’s nontribal areas.

In sum, Petraeus improved the situation in Iraq, but he hasn’t won the war there. And applying those lessons to Afghanistan is simply repeating what has happened since 2001. Petraeus is a good general, so it is unlikely he will continue that same course. But it is also unlikely that he will be in a position to force the Pakistanis to deny Taliban sanctuary. We therefore don’t know what he will do in Afghanistan. But, as we have said before, it is a deteriorating situation, and he will be forced to act on it. That’s why he was placed at the helm of CENTCOM.

Message Delivered

North Carolina Black Vote
Obama - 91%
Clinton - 6%

Indiana Black Vote
Obama - 92%
Clinton - 8%


The Clinton campaign has persistently argued that Obama is not electable because he cannot win with blue collar white voters. Consistently and deliberately ignored in this discussion amongst the pundits, many bloggers and the Taylor Marsh Obama Haters faction is a simple fact: Democrats don't win national elections without the black vote. Period. Full Stop. Everyone has been focusing on the Wright distraction and how Obama supposedly can't get white voter support, while explicitly avoiding a serious discussion of the reverse problem for Clinton, who is losing the black vote by increasingly larger margins. Even tonight, the talking heads are still avoiding a serious discussion of the implication of this fact for Clinton and for the Democratic Party. Clinton supporters and surrogates and the Obama haters like Taylor Marsh are wont to say that Obama has a question mark with the democratic party's base of white lunchbucket voters, as though black voters are not one of THE most critical and reliable elements of the democratic base. As though our participation is incidental, inconsequential in comparison to the lunch bucket white voter, and it is not. Unlike these blue collar white voters, who might abandon the party for McCain if they are discomfited by the racialized attack themes against Obama, black voters have loyally voted with the democratic party at a high percentage. Mishandling such a loyal voting bloc would be a fatal mistake.

Tonight, black voters delivered a very clear message to the Democratic Party about Hillary Clinton's electability and the electability of democratic candidates around the country potentially sharing a ticket with her. She can't win in November without the black vote and she doesn't have it. I blogged earlier today about Black America's nuclear option, the withholding of our vote. The black vote performance for Obama in Indiana and North Carolina put that deterrent on full display for the super delegates. They ignore it at their peril.

Black America's Nuclear Option

The Clinton campaign has signaled that they intend to use the so-called nuclear option:

"With at least 50 percent of the Democratic Party’s 30-member Rules and Bylaws Committee committed to Clinton, her backers could — when the committee meets at the end of this month — try to ram through a decision to seat the disputed 210-member Florida and 156-member Michigan delegations. Such a decision would give Clinton an estimated 55 or more delegates than Obama, according to Clinton campaign operatives"

This would fall into the category of activity that charlatan Sharpton effectively labeled "stacking the deck" during the SOBU. If they are successful in winning Indiana, they will no doubt feel emboldened to forge ahead with this contentious move.

The Clinton campaign's MAD strategy to win the nomination has relied on attack themes fueled by racial innuendo and stereotyping for their potency and a triangulation tactic that positions her politically between McCain and Obama, enabling her to attack Obama as the republicans would. Given that Clinton's standing with black voters has plummeted and remains in free fall since South Carolina, where they successfully tagged Obama as the "black candidate" in the minds of the electorate, the logic behind this approach is crystal clear. They will racially swiftboat Obama, and push to seat Florida and Michigan. The working assumption is that they will restore their standing with black voters in time for the general election, despite his lead in every primary metric.

In our view, the Clintons have used racial themes to power their effort to destroy Obama's electability. Their methodology, born of desperation as they struggled to beat back Obama's challenge is now clearly revealed; appeal to the so-called Reagan Democrats. The demographic of that voting bloc are blue collar white voters. The democratic party coalition has for years tenuously held together a coalition that included these lunch bucket democrats and minorities, a demographic coalition within which economic competition creates an ongoing tension, which Hillary has clearly pivoted to exploit. As the Nation noted in a recent article,

"In the name of demonstrating her superior "electability," she and her surrogates have invoked the racist and sexist playbook of the right--in which swaggering macho cowboys are entrusted to defend the country--seeking to define Obama as too black, too foreign, too different to be President at a moment of high anxiety about national security. This subtly but distinctly racialized political strategy did not create the media feeding frenzy around the Rev. Jeremiah Wright that is now weighing Obama down, but it has positioned Clinton to take advantage of the opportunities the controversy has presented. "

If Clinton is permitted to secure the nomination in this manner by the superdelegates and the party leadership, Black America must be prepared to use its own nuclear option, namely the withholding of the black vote in the general election from Hillary Clinton. The rationale for doing so is compelling and simple; a price must be paid for using race baiting tactics in order to derail a viable black candidate; if not, any future democratic black candidates can expect to have the same tactics trained on them from within the democratic party, a party, and pointedly, a candidate, that has received the consistent and overwhelming support of black voters. Democrats do not win national elections without the support of the black vote. Period. Full Stop. To reward the Clintons or any democratic candidate with our general election votes after such cynical exploitation of racial bias and prejudice is to reveal ourselves as a voting bloc of fools who's sensibilities need not be respected nor deferred to.

Get Your Obama On!

The Field Blog contributes and we adapt the following from their Boot Camp for Chicken Littles

There is the psychology of the winner and the syndrome of the loser. Rules for engaging in political struggle.

1. Any time you cite a “national tracking poll” as supposed evidence of your candidate’s chances of victory disappearing, you must make 25 get-out-the-vote phone calls on that candidate’s behalf. (Don’t ask me how to do that: consult the web page of your candidate for instructions!)

2. Any time you fret aloud about your candidate losing an upcoming primary or caucus, and worry about alleged grave consequences (in the face of the facts that all remaining candidates have lost some contests and yet they march on), you must make 50 calls to voters in every state you mention.

3. Any time you complain aloud about what your candidate’s campaign or staff is not doing you must give at least $10 to that candidate, to make it possible for them to do more.

4. Any time you ask me what you ought to be doing you must give $10 to support the work of The Political Season.

5. If I take the time to provide you with an answer, you must raise $100 from your friends and neighbors to support this blog!

Operation Anti-Chaos: The Narrative on “White Voters” Is Fiction

Hat Tip to Prometheus6,

By Al Giordano

I turn on the TV, read the political columnists (and a significant number of analytically-challenged bloggers, too) and all I hear is a bunch of white folk prattling on about their favorite narrative: “Obama’s losing white voters!”

They’ve swallowed the Clinton racially-obsessed spin, hook, line and sinker. Some, because they are gullible, haven’t an original idea in their little pea brains, and follow the pack of what everybody else is talking about. Others, because they like to toss around knowing falsehoods. Nary a superdelegate can go on Fox News without being berated by an anchorperson screeching (this is pretty close to an exact quote): “But your duty as a superdelegate is to select the most electable and that’s Hillary Clinton!” That these anchorpersons are Republican partisans openly cheering for Senator Clinton is our first clue of the game afoot. One of the major successes of Rush Limbaugh’s Operation Chaos is that it has got all the right-wing pundits and reporters marching lockstep behind the effort to give Clinton enough oxygen to keep slashing away at Senator Obama, who remains the prohibitive likely Democratic nominee.

And when Clinton wins state primaries that, because of demographics, she was always going to win - last week, Pennsylvania and next week, Indiana - they then wave that event up like a blood-soaked flag as proof of their narrative: See? See? We told you so! White people won’t vote for Obama!

So imagine my pleasant surprise this morning to see a New York Times columnist, Charles Blow, who did what none of these chattering lunkheads have done. He looked at the hard data of how voters, white and black, view the two Democratic candidates - favorably or negatively? - and how those views have progressed over time. The data is based on multiple CBS-New York Times polls (among the most respected survey outfits among competing pollsters) over two years and more. Check it out:

Nobody - not blogger, nor superdelegate, nor cable news anchor - should open their mouths with another word about this contest until they’ve studied those graphs and the numbers upon which they are based. Blow explains:

Since January, the Clintons have pummeled Barack Obama with racially tinged comments and questions about his character…

The question is this: Have white Democrats soured on Obama? Apparently not. Although his unfavorable rating from the group is up five percentage points since last summer in polls conducted by The New York Times and CBS News, his favorable rating is up just as much.

Wait. The numbers show that the cynical effort to turn the 2008 campaign into a race riot has hurt the popularity of one candidate among an important demographic, and it’s not Barack Obama:

On the other hand, black Democrats’ opinion of Hillary Clinton has deteriorated substantially (her favorable rating among them is down 36 percentage points over the same period).

So, to sum up: Look at the damn graphs. You can see that Clinton is in a staggering free-fall among African-American voters, her favorability is down 36 points while 17 percent view her more negatively than before, while Obama’s favorable and negative ratings among whites have paired at five point increases. You can even see the small dip - about two percentage points - in his popularity among whites that can be attributed to the news cycles about his ex-pastor, and see that it has leveled out and is now on a straight horizontal line (meanwhile, Clinton’s numbers among blacks continue on an extreme downward precipice). The greater context is that even including Obama’s slight dip, he’s more popular today among white voters than he ever was prior to February.

Not since Ronald Reagan has an American presidential candidate withstood such an assault in the media and seen his popularity not hurt by it, but, rather, galvanized by it. That’s what is meant, in politics, by the term “Teflon.”

Those facts won’t stop many media (and Internet) talking heads from continuing - whether out of gullibility or intentional dishonesty - to prop up the “white voters” narrative, but it ought to inoculate you, kind reader, from believing it.

Don’t let yourself get upset when some idiot repeats the false media narrative. Don’t plead with them to tell the truth (they won’t; remember, they’re either stupid or dishonest). Mock them. Ridicule them. Expose them as the lightweights they are showing themselves to be, with all the confidence that understanding the hard data ought to provide you.

Let Operation Anti-Chaos begin!

The Betrayal of Black America by Jeremiah Wright

I observed with anger and sadness the spectacle of Jeremiah Wrights comments in the question and answer session at the National Press Club and the subsequent repudiation of those comments by Obama in a press conference that clearly marked the end of a 20 year relationship between these two men.

I was angered by the reckless, flippant and self indulgent manner in which Wright responded to questions at the National Press Club. He treated the opportunity to speak on the world stage as though he were in the pulpit before a friendly crowd of Christian congregants who would understand his antics. After weeks of being vilified as a racist, small minded preacher trapped in the past, Wright proceeds to confirm the hyperbole with his comments. He was the perfect illustration of the adage, better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt. I heard one commentator describe his performance as vaudevillian. Throwing up the Q sign, tossing out nonsensical opinionated quips like the government creating AIDs in the black community and in general making an ass of himself. It was a very self indulgent performance and now we learn that he has a book coming out later this summer in which no doubt he will liberally bash Obama with unflattering stories from their 20 year association. It promises to be a traitorous hit job. I'm angered by a man of God who now stoops to vapid self aggrandizement in order to wreak what history will regard as a small revenge on the senator for the vilification he endured for Obama's sake, though not at Obama's hand. Black America will not reward him for his actions. Indeed even his own former church members are expressing disappointment at his antics. As I seek to put Wright into some perspective, to understand the basis of his behavior at the Press Club, I can't help but think he suffered from a deficiency of vision. Had he only been able to endure, to hold his peace, come November he might have looked up and found himself the friend of the leader of the free world.

Watching Barack's press conference to respond to Wright, I felt sadness to be witness to what was clearly the end of a 20 year friendship. I was sad for Barack that once again he was being forced, pushed and compelled not only by events but by Wright himself to create distance, to disown this time not only his comments but indeed the man himself. It is a measure of Barack Obama the man that he did not disown Wright initially and even now, has been measured in his response. He did not vilify Wright as others have done. He was specific in singling out Wrights comments and how they were not consonant with his views. Even as he separated from Wright, he did so with grace and with restraint, remarking that perhaps he did not know Rev. Wright as well as he thought, that the man who performed at the Press Club was not the man he met 20 years ago. I imagine that as he watched the replay of the Press Club comments, he may very well have thought to himself that he was watching a stranger, this supposed friend of his now knowingly savaging his campaign without any regard. It was evident that he didn't want to cast his friend away, but also equally evident that Wright had already thrown Obama overboard.

On the eve of the South Carolina primary, we predicted that the destruction of Obama's campaign had begun by the purposeful tagging of him in the mind of the white electorate by the Clintons as the black candidate. The judgment of history, certainly of black history, will regard Wright as the primary enabler of Obama's defeat. With his ill considered remarks and reckless antics, he has provided an easy excuse and rationale to the white working class electorate to withhold their support from Obama. A once sympathetic black America will not reward Wright for his role in that.

Rush Limbaugh on the SuperDelegates Dillemma

Rush articulates a position on the black response to a stolen nomination that black America dares not permit the Democratic party to fool itself about. May 1, 2008 BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, for those of you who are Democrat superdelegates; may I have your attention, please? As you know, I addressed your fear yesterday, and I know how you people are thinking. You're in the depths of fear over what to do now, because it's clear that you, the superdelegates, are going to decide who is your party's nominee; and in the process, you are going to be committing political murder against one of these candidates. You alone are going to decide, and it used to be six months ago you were proud to be able to do this because you were operating from the context of confidence and inevitability. It was like a slam dunk. Now you're operating from fear, and incorrect decisions are made during times of crisis and fear. And the greatest fear that you superdelegates have... I mean, you can see the trend lines here. You know what's happening. The bloom is off the rose. The messiah, it has turned out, cannot walk on water. Mrs. Clinton's been hanging in there. She has got the testicle lockbox, and it's opening and shutting on schedule. You can see the trend lines, but you're scared to death to take this away from Obama because he leads in delegates; and you're really frightened that you are going to lose the black vote, perhaps permanently, if you take away the nomination. It must be apparent to you that Senator Obama will not lead you to victory. You have to know this. But you fear that denying him support will create a permanent fissure between black voters and Democrats. No Democrat has the courage to examine this flawed premise. It is up to me to advise and address you superdelegates to consider some facts. President John Kennedy and his brother Robert Kennedy wiretapped Dr. King. Black voters stayed with Democrats. Democrats stood in the schoolhouse doors vowing, "Segregation forever!" Democrats voted against landmark civil rights legislation; Republicans passed it. Blacks stayed with Democrats. Bull Connor was a Democrat. Blacks stayed with Democrats. Democrats created the welfare state, destroying millions of black families. Blacks stayed with Democrats. Democrats bent over forward for the teachers unions, ruining public education for generations of black kids; leaving them unequipped to participate as equals in American society. Yet! Black voters stayed with Democrats. Democrats urged the early release of criminals to further prey on law-abiding black citizens. Blacks stayed with Democrats. Democrats threw blacks under the bus during the immigration debate. After Rosa Parks finally moved to the front of the bus, Democrats threw blacks under it during the immigration debate because Hispanics are now the largest minority voting bloc. Blacks stayed with Democrats. Democrats have not supported blacks achieving power. Carl McCall was running for governor of New York, and was denied funds from Terry McAuliffe at the Democrat National Committee. This audience contributed to McCall's campaign. Civil rights icon Maynard Jackson wanted to be head honcho of the Democrat National Convention. He was denied. Blacks stayed with Democrats. Earlier this year in Selma, Alabama, Mrs. Clinton shows up; mocks the way black people speak. Her husband, Bill Clinton, the reputed "first black president," shows up in South Carolina and plays not the race card, but a whole deck of race cards! (doing Clinton impression) "Obama? Ha! Of course he gonna win. I mean, it's like Jesse Jackson. I mean, he's the black guy." Blacks stayed with Democrats. You superdelegates in the Democrat Party, you're worried about denying Obama the nomination because you fear that your black voters will abandon you permanently? Come, come! Review your history with me once again. You Democrats have already done far worse to black voters than yanking the nomination away from Barack Obama. Have no fear, superdelegates. Be confident. Blacks will stay with you. So will Jesse Jackson, so will Al Sharpton, and you can have them.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT RUSH: We'll start in Canoga Park, California. Hi Fred. It's great to have you with us, sir. CALLER: Hi, Rush. I think you're a racist. RUSH: Well, that's refreshing. Why, Fred? CALLER: Well, I -- I think you're insinuating that blacks are too stupid to have a learning curve. RUSH: No, I think you're inferring that. CALLER: No, I think you're saying it. RUSH: I'm not. You're inferring it. I'm not implying anything. I stated facts. CALLER: You're saying that -- RUSH: All these things happened, and Democrats continued to get the votes of the majority of black voters. It's just their political allegiance. It's not a comment on race or intelligence. CALLER: Well, you're saying there's nothing the Democrats can do that -- that'll stop the -- the blacks from voting for them, that the blacks are too stupid to even vote in their own best interests. RUSH: No, no, no, no. I didn't say that! You're putting words in my mouth. CALLER: Oh, you didn't say that? You didn't say that blacks keep voting for stuff that's not in their own best interests and that they can't learn? RUSH: I didn't say that. I did not say that. This is a classic illustration. You heard what you wanted to hear based on your own biases and prejudices. I simply recited some facts for you. These are not arguable. These things I said are not arguable. Now, you want to talk about why blacks continue to vote for Democrats despite this? I'll be glad to tell you about that. CALLER: Yes, let's -- let's hear the Rush psychology. RUSH: For 50 years, black people in this country have been told by elected Democrats that Republicans and conservatives are racists, sexists, bigots, and homophobes; that they have no desire for them to become equal or progress economically -- and then you couple that with ministers like Farrakhan and Jeremiah Wright reinforcing what other black leaders like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson do, and it all becomes very simple. They have been scared to death. Black voters have been told for 50 years that their lives will be ruined if they vote for Republicans, because Republicans don't care about them. When you vote out of fear, it's the same thing the Democrats have done with elderly people, our seasoned citizens and Social Security. It's almost predictable that every election cycle, the Democrats, somebody, will predict or tell old people -- with phone calls, robophone calls, push polling or even blatantly out in the open -- senior citizens that Republicans want to take back their Social Security. I remember in 1988. I was in Sacramento, California, and Alan Cranston (the Senator from California then) was telling people on television out there, Republicans wanted to kick senior citizens out of their homes if Reagan was reelected. Now, if you're a senior citizen and you don't pay a whole lot of attention and you hear that and you're a Democrat and you have party loyalty going into this and you hear Cranston say that, and all you have is your Social Security; you're not going to take the chance that Cranston's wrong, because if he's telling you, "He's in the Senate. Why, he's a powerful man. He's a United States senator!" If he's telling you that Republicans will kick you out of your house or take your Social Security away, you're not going to take the chance that he's wrong. It's the same thing with the black population here. For 50 years they have been lied to. They have been made to live in fear of Republicans. It's gotten to the point here, Fred -- this is undeniable. Black people in this country who have achieved great things without going through the Democrat Party civil rights prescriptions to do so -- and I can give you a host of names if you want -- are routinely savaged and destroyed or at least attempts are made to destroy them, as Uncle Toms. For example, Clarence Thomas, Shelby Steele. There are a number of highly accomplished black people who have become Republicans, and they are held out as traitors. How can you explain it otherwise when young black kids are told in school if they learn to do well on tests, they're being "too white"? Who's telling them this? It isn't us. It's the Democrat Party and its agents. All I'm trying to do is make it easy for the superdelegates, here. They know they got a problem. The problem is that Obama cannot win. But they are afraid to pull the nomination from him because he's getting 80% of the black vote; and they think the black vote will not show up in November and vote Democrat, and I'm simply trying to tell them that there's a 50-year history of showing that they have done far worse. I mean, what worse can you do than destroy the black family with welfare, that didn't work, and took the place of the father and the husband? What more can you do to black people than destroy their family? And Democrats still vote for them. I have said on this program for countless years, countless times: If it were me, and I've been holding out hope and listening to the promises of a political party for 50 years -- and after all those 50 years I'm still complaining and whining about same circumstances I was in 50 years ago -- I'd begin to question my vote. "Wait a minute. You know, you guys keep promising these things, and nothing ever happens. You keep blaming the Republicans for my problems. You promise you're going to fix 'em, and then you forget us after the election. I think you're taking us for granted." I would start to question it. But that hasn't happened. It has not happened. The Democrat Party is perceived in the minds of 80 to 90% of the black population, as its only hope. This is the result of fear that's been instilled. So, this little litany of things I said to try to assure the superdelegates that they could do what they want without any fear whatsoever, blacks will leave them; is unarguable. It's pure, 100% fact.