Bush will leave office ... god-willing America will be allowed to remember that it has minority populations who are not "illegal", that it has poor and disadvantaged populations (of all races) who have not only NOT made "progress" in the last decade, but have regressed.

I don't know how "we" well get beyond politicians' fears of entitlements, but No Child Left Behind is no answer to appalling high school drop out rates by young people who essentially "quit before they could be fired" -- at a time when COLLEGE, not high school, is considered ground floor necessity for any hope of economic opportunity.

The peculiar growth to the point of tacit acceptance of the blackmarket and underground economy -- including drug trade, but also mortgage scams, money transfer schemes, usery, etc. -- and the selective and unequal law enforcement response is racist. (I'm not talking just about African-Americans, many/most minority communities are plagued by gang and "tolerated" criminal enterprises that pray on that ethnic community -- It's Chinatown Jake -- perhaps the definition of colored people should be expanded beyond African-Americans, don't know)

Even within the staid, "limited", traditional mandate of the NAACP charter (which yes, was considered "old fogey" bordering on Tom-ish way back in the 60s -- I was there) there's plenty to do. Yes, there appears to be a void in "brother's keeper" consciousness raising -- I'd love to see a similar analysis of the influences of the black churches and the successful commuters congregation memebers ... The NAACP cannot be faulted to failing to evangelically revitalize black solidarity or black pride -- particularly without even public lip-service endorsements. That's not their job -- but their job is harder without that support.

My impression is that for almost 8 years we have all been living in George Bush's (upper) middle-class white america in which terrorists and pedophiles and identity theft and porn -- as in so much of bad television -- have dominated the airways and our concerns. This cannot continue.

You will notice I have not mentioned the prison industrial complex ... This cannot continue. Prior to 09/11, there actually were people working hard on these issues.

I am white and I care deeply. It began in earnest under Reagan ... the beginning of our own forgotten, disposable, untouchable populations. Children are being born and being raised ... I pray that simply the invaluable resource these populations represent will be rediscovered ... but it will take the courts ... I think reality will trump the nightmares and scarcity scenarios we have been fed for 10 years or more. There is a place for the traditional work for the NAACP -- when we wake up, we'll see it. The mandate may benefit from being broadened -- we'll see -- Colored can mean many things, particulary now that it has largely stopped being an alternative to the perjorative racial labelings of the past.

supremely misjudged the extent of the Sunni boycott (they said on Frontline that by post-election figuring only 10% of Sunni's voted) -- which not only fueled the "insurgency" -- but created this absurd parliament ....

and that disaster was followed by the folly of (again under pressure from us to show "progress") "ratifying" an unfinished and much disputed "constitution"... details to be determined ...

so, now, we have the admitted weak and marginally to unpopular Maliki being blamed for not getting things done -- when other reports inform us that it's damn near impossible to get a quorum with so many law makers residing elsewhere -- not just outside Baghdad -- outside Iraq.

Slate's Today's Papers indicates that a major complaint is the Maliki is trying to consolidate power for HIS particular party ... you need scorecard to keep track since intra-Shi'ia and intra-Sunni rivalries and conflicts are on the ascendent.

and then there's that the oil revenue sharing bill.... so eagerly awaited by the oilmen ... and quite possibly the reason WE were so bound and determined to have those absurd elections and that bizaare constitutional referendum in the first place ... iow, any legitimate Iraqi "democracy" was sacrificed to appease the oil industry ... (as I understand it - without the revenue sharing agreement, any contract would be illegitimate and any state-sponsored involvement would be in frank rogue-state breech of international law, amounting to colonialization-type seizure/exploitation)

gee, sometimes it really seems to be "all about oil"

we're destroying the village so that there's nothing for snipers to hide behind and no "civilian population" for them to disappear into ...

I reminds me too well of the late-Vietnam chorus that advocated "limited nukes" since all the kings horses and all the kings men were unable to bomb them far enough back to the stone age ...

thank god "the whole world is watching" because I shudder to think what Team Bush would do if it were 1969 and the jungles of Vietnam all over again .....

(if you haven't seen the Frontline segment ... catch it ... Condi is much more responsible for our never-say-day no-exit never-surrender stance than I realized ... )

ap headline -- 15 minutes ago .... oh, he means this August, not last or the year before or the year before that ....

i.e. pass that fucking oil revenue sharing bill and work on "reconciliation" .... the insurgency decides to raise hell all over -- elsewhere -- sigh -- tricky foreign devils.