Moolies

Good luck, America

McK still believes that McCain could win. He may be right. I fear the hidden racists, because there are. there are in the UK, there must be in the US.

McK is also cynical with regard to what Obama might actually do once elected and I have to say, I'm not cynical exactly but I shrug my shoulders. There is no consistent history of Democratic presidents bringing whirlwinds of change, or making moral stands to be decent on foreign policy (that one in particular).

My explanation to him with regard to how people have talked about Obama - in almost spiritual terms is that it is not him they talk about specifically, it is what he embodies. Unfortunately, that bears a slightly uncomfortable resemblance to Tony Blair and New Labour  but we'll leave that comparison for now, and hope that Obama's folk do not fall prey to the same mistakes that Blair and his inept liars did.

Because he represents hope. Hope and the will to change. To be better. To throw off the shackles of a dirty, meaningless, self serving past and celebrate the Martin Sheen-like idealism in intelligent, thoughtful caring, and decency. The things that decent American people would probably say are the best part of themselves.

Gavin Hewitt has been writing some very thoughtful blog posts on the eve of the election, and it would be ridiculous to ignore the black perspective on this. Tony Blair once pointed out to a sceptical UK left wing audience that it was in America that Colin Powell had risen from his birth in Harlem to becoming Secretary of State. Ignoring his misguided attempts to help to control the extent of the Iraq war, instead of condemning it, Blair's point was - where are the black leaders in the UK? Our famously tolerant nation? Could

Well. Maybe Obama will win, and his will be the job to look after the interests of the pensioner, Charles (watch and wait for the tears to spring to your eyes like the big empathetic wuss you are!), who remembered segregation and the Great Depression, as well as the interests of the woman who explains patiently that he is a Muslim, and if you leave the Muslim faith you are automatically killed, so how come he's still alive? Ergo, he is a terrorist. If he can even slightly win over those people, enough that maybe his security detail doesn't have to worry quite so much about lunatic white faces in crowds then imagine what a role model he will also be to young black kids, from Harlem, from Washington, from LA and from London.

GOOD LUCK YOU FUCKERS. Wish I could vote too. xxx

Unacceptable

Unacceptable.

Unacceptable.

"Rape victim, 13, stoned to death in Somalia".

How. How do we reach civilisation as a race?

I was watching women and children struggling away from refugee camps in the DR Congo on the news yesterday and was struck once again by the powerful clarity that those women are me. Their children are my children. The woman walking back in to the arms of potential rape, murder and abuse not just of her but of her kids, doing that, because her children were dying and it was a better alternative... the worldwide shame that any of this should be happening at all should be visible, and attackable. Instead, the indifference seems to spread as a silent oily evil, allowing these, and so many other abuses which particularly affect women and children, but ultimately are a stain on all of us.

We, in our respective countries are subject to a twist of extraordinary luck that we are not subject to the horrors of bullying, of religious intolerance, of power over women that dominate the lives of people just like us, a mere plane ride away.

It's beyond my level of articulacy to adequately explain the anger I feel.

I will stay angry but I wish I knew what the hell I could do to make it stop. On both counts.