NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

Thought I'd post this today, since it relates to a longer post I'm writing today about race and gender, that I'll put up tomorrow. ************************************ Racism and the Race The New York Times By CHARLES M. BLOW Published: August 8, 2008 This is supposed to be the Democrats’ year of destiny. Bush is hobbling out of office, the economy is in the toilet, voters are sick of the war and the party’s wunderkind candidate is raking in money hand over fist. So why is the presidential race a statistical dead heat? The pundits have offered a host of reasons, but one in particular deserves more exploration: racism. Barack Obama’s candidacy has shed some light on the extremes of racism in America — how much has dissipated (especially among younger people) and how much remains. According to a July New York Times/CBS News poll, when whites were asked whether they would be willing to vote for a black candidate, 5 percent confessed that they would not. That’s not so bad, righ...

Below is a letter I was forwarded by Michael Leon Guerrero from the Global Grassroots Justice . I've been waiting weeks for something like this to emerge, a Native Alaskan perspective on Republican VP choice Sarah Palin's record in Alaska. I'm glad that its finally here, because the lack of this perspective has been horrifying, especially amidst all the pro-Palin exuberant coverage. Although the erasure of the indigenous people of the United States is the norm (as they represent histories, legacies and contemporary realities that your "average" American citizen or politician refuses to deal with), I've been surprised at the lack of coverage of Native American opinions on the Republican Presidential and VP candidates. For McCain, coming from Arizona and being for several years the chair of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs has a long relationship with Native American tribes, and has helped write numerous laws regulating their gaming industries and their ...

People often ask me how I became "political" or how I became "radical." There are a number of points in my life that I point to, each of which in some way contributed to the development of the consciousness that I use to write this blog. One faint event is the time that my family spent in Africa when I was a small child, and the experiences we felt there as a mixed family with a white father and a brown mother and two brown children. Another is a variety of experiences as a undergraduate at the University of Guam, and finding myself entangled in numerous forms of faculty racism and apathy. One whose seventh anniversary just passed today is the 9/11 attacks. I had always been a more liberal and Democratic person, but it was the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent run up to war against Afghanistan and Iraq that pushed me to become a more mature anti-war or peace activist. It was also interestingly enough, 9/11 that helped propel me into becoming a far more intelligent and...

Lipstick on a Wing Nut by Katha Pollitt from The Nation September 10, 2008 John McCain chose the supremely under-qualified Sarah Palin as his running mate partly because she is a woman. If you have a problem with that, you're a sexist. She talks incessantly about being a mother of five and uses her newborn, Trig, who has Down syndrome, as a campaign prop. If you wonder how she'll handle all those kids and the Veep job too, you're a super-sexist. "When do they ever ask a man that question?" charges that fiery feminist Rudy Giuliani. Indeed, Palin, who went back to work when Trig was three days old, gets nothing but praise from Phyllis Schlafly, James Dobson and the folks at National Review, who usually blame all the ills of modern America on those neurotic, harried, selfish, frustrated, child-neglecting, husband-castrating working mothers. Even stranger, her five-months-pregnant 17-year-old, Bristol, gets nothing but compassion and respect from Bill O'Reilly, R...

The Tetset Konfrensian Chamorro is coming up next month in Saipan, September 26th and 27th. Para hamyo ni' ti en tingo', este i mina'tres na dinana' taiguini. Mandana' para i fine'nina giya Guahan gi 2006. Para i mina'dos giya Luta gi 2007. I tema, para este na sakkan, "Fana'gue, Na'metgot, Na'famta." Pat gi fino' Ingles, " Teach, Strengthen and Share (Sow)." Mampos magof yu' put i dinana' gi este na sakkan, sa' bai hu gaige giya Guahan gi i otro na mes, pues sina sumaonao yu'! Here is the information and application forms for those interested in knowing more or attending: FORM 1 - Front FORM 1 - Back FORM 2 - Front FORM 2 - Back

I'm leaving for Guam today, and so I can only post something real quick. The race for President has changed since the Democratic National Convention. The pick of the Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin has energized everybody out there, even those who didn't really need it. Republicans are rabid, foaming at the mouth, since they no longer are stuck with guarding the legacy of a terrible President, but can now this year make their own sort of "history" and to steal a line from Obama's stump speech, "change America, and change the world" by helping Sarah Palin become the first white woman Vice President. The media is almost as rabid, but not unified in its energy, but divided. First there are those who feel compelled to take Palin down and do the vetting the Republicans obviously didn't do, and fight against that ridiculous Republican expectation that if we say Palin is a reformer, no one should look into her past or her record, but they should just accep...

What I Learned from the DNC #5: Tokenism (this is the fifth in a series of concluding thoughts on my time as the blogger from Guam at the 2008 DNC) ************************** The presence of Guam and other territories at the DNC is a form of tokenism, it is not a gesture of respect or recognition based on necessity or power, but a gesture made to exude the benevolence and grandness of the one making the gesture. In times past the presence or inclusion of certain ethnic groups could be construed as tokenism, empty gestures to include you, which do not recognize you as having any power or standing. Nowadays, especially in this election where “white” people are showing continued quiet, but nonetheless present resistance to voting for a black man, the patchwork of ethnic groups that make up the Democratic party have to be respected and have to be recognized. With Asian American, Native American, Latino American and African American populations playing key roles in whether swing states go b...

What I Learned from the DNC #4: The Insular Empire (this is the fourth in a series of concluding thoughts on my time as the blogger from Guam at the 2008 DNC) *************************** My time at the convention was incredibly frustrating, but it was made easier by the fact that the territories stick together, at least as far as they are aware of each other. I received no access to the DNC, the Democratic officials, or the Obama campaign, despite numerous promises and attempts through multiple channels. The only elected officials who I was provided access to, or were gracious enough to provide me with time for interviews were from the US territories.

I wasn't planning on writing much on my blog this week because I'm putting everything in boxes right now, preparing to head back to Guam in a few days. But, I feel like I have to after hearing the bewildering attack that Republican Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin made on "community organizers" tonight. The attacks on the media and the Washington elite in her speech were expected. Pure hypocrisy, but completely anticipated. President George H.W. Bush ranted and ran against the media in his re-election big in 1992, pleading with voters to "annoy the media" by voting for him. McCain's campaign in this cycle has regularly complained about the darling treatment that Senator Obama receives from the press. A shameless complaint since if there has been any politician in recent times who has received a bulk sale on "free passes" from the media its Senator John McCain. His gaffes, his inconsistencies, his absolute pandering and flip flopping, are...

What I Learned from the DNC #3: Ocean of Excited Amnesia (this is the third in a series of concluding thoughts on my time as the blogger from Guam at the 2008 DNC) ***************************** To the world outside of the convention the purpose of this massive complicated event is to be a show of force, an articulation of their purpose and destiny to lead the country. Inside the convention, on the one hand, the purpose might seem to be about excitement and “revving up the base.” The convention is where the party gets “fired up and ready to go.” But during my time in Denver, talking to Hillary Clinton supporters, and also interacting with the Guam delegation, the other purpose of the convention, on the other hand appears to be the creation of a mass outbreak of amnesia. The media coverage leading up to Clinton’s speech was obsessed with whether or not the party could “heal,” whether or not the factions could come together for the good of their party. This coverage was naturally irritat...

What I Learned from the DNC #2 Ideology (this is the first in a series of concluding thoughts on my time as the blogger from Guam at the 2008 DNC) *********************** The spirit of the two main American political parties right now are very distinct. Both claim to represent the future of the United States, be the proper, capable, just heirs to this august responsibility. You achieve this feat, this Master Signification by accomplishing the proto-ideological gesture, the naming of who is responsible for the problems of the world. Life is inconsistent, unfair, violent, confusing and ideology is the glue that holds it together in a meaningful way by assigning the blame for its problems to certain figures, groups, events. People or groups attain power not by the solving of problems or the resolving of conflicts, but by being the ones who name those responsible. For the Democrats their task is easy and obvious. Everything is Bush’s fault. It is the fault of those who have been in power ...

From The Up Take

What I Learned from the DNC #1: Democrats vs. Republicans (this is the first in a series of concluding thoughts on my time as the blogger from Guam at the 2008 DNC) **************************** For the territories the differences between Democrats and Republicans can be negligible and often boils down to simple politeness or rudeness. If Guam was to seek to become the 51st or 52nd state of the United States, then you would find the foundations of both parties be the same “NO!” but the rhetoric lain atop that foundation very different. One friendly, nicer, more willing to listen, open to nuance, while the other a clear, direct rebuke, like “You are not Americans!” Depending on your perspective this could be something or nothing. It could mean that engaging at the level of national American politics is either pointless or important, or some mixture of the two. For me, it creates the appearance of a far better possibility of working with Democrats instead of Republicans, and this “appeara...

Right now, I'm working my final thoughts post on the DNC last week, but at the same time trying to pick up and get ready to leave for Guam next week. In the meantime, there is still plenty of discussion keeping me distracted about John McCain's VP choice Sarah Palin.

"When I first sat in the Armed Services Committee, my first meeting. They said now, the question you ask, I was on the lower tier, the first row, now I'm on the second row. They said the question should be kind of generic and not too specific. So I had this question written out.Then I heard the rest of them, "my base" and "my state." I says, "Hey!" So when it came down to me, I said, "I want a carrier sent to Guam." Guam Congresswoman Madeleine Bordallo in an interview on the Convention Floor, Wednesday "John McCain may pay hundred of dollars for his shoes, but we're the ones who will pay for his flip-flops." New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson during his speech on Thursday. "We can't simply drill our way to energy independence if you drilled everywhere, if you drilled in all of John McCain's backyards, even the ones he doesn't know he has." Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer from his speech on energy independe...