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“City Democrats To Attend McCain Fund-Raiser” —By MARK GIANNOTTO, Special to the Sun | July 29, 2008
With recent polls showing a growing gap between Senator McCain and the surging Democratic rival, Senator Obama, the presumptive Republican nominee is looking for additional support from an unlikely source: New York City Democrats.
“…think about the fact that just a week or two before September 11th, you had this major conference on global racism and intolerance happening in Durban, South Africa. How many Americans knew 1) That is was going on? or 2) That the American delegation walked out of the country when the thorny issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was brought up, from the perspective of people of color?”—Kevin Powell
Today came “news” that Congressional candidate and Hip-Hop Philosopher Kevin Powell would be meeting with 200 Hasidic leaders in Williamsburg and accepting their endorsement for Congress.
In Starrett City, Brooklyn, and in front of a few hundred adoring residents, Hillary Clinton was in fine form today. She was at a rally, to support the passing of a bill by Democrats in both the Senate and the House of Representatives, which seeks to preserve affordable housing initiatives in the country. Congressman Ed Towns, who has introduced legislation that specifically deals with saving the affordability standards of the Starrett City housing development, was also on hand to speak to the concerned residents. Starrett City is the largest development of its kind in the nation. For the past two years or so, the residents have been embroiled in a battle with the old-owners, who were intent on selling the complex to a group of speculators.
In describing his history of violence, especially, but not exclusively against women, Congressional candidate and Hip-Hop Philosopher Kevin Powell has called himself a “recovering misogynist” and compares himself to "a recovering alcoholic or a crack fiend who has righted her or his ways," warning that "I can lapse at any time."
But Powell also notes his efforts to cure himself of this illness, citing 20 years of therapy. In a recent open letter to his opponent, Congressman Ed Towns, Powell notes:
“I was born and raised in Jersey City, New Jersey, to a young single Black mother, who was never married to my father. Indeed, my father so emotionally devastated my mother by his irresponsibility, absence, and neglect, that my mother turned that hurt on me, her only child. Yes, like many young people in your district, Mr. Towns, I was a victim of all manner of violence as a child, including physical and mental abuse. I strongly recommend that you Google my poem 'Son2Mother’ to get the full picture of what an inner city child like me, born on the heels of the Civil Rights Movement, had to live through in terms of violence and low self-esteem, and feelings of worthlessness.“
I wonder if anyone besides myself reading about John McCain’s meeting with the Dalai Lama was remaindered of the following quote from Bill Murray’s in “Caddyshack”?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080487/quotes
Carl Spackler: So I jump ship in Hong Kong and make my way over to Tibet, and I get on as a looper at a course over in the Himalayas. A looper, you know, a caddy, a looper, a jock. So, I tell them I'm a pro jock, and who do you think they give me? The Dalai Lama, himself. Twelfth son of the Lama. The flowing robes, the grace, bald… striking. So, I'm on the first tee with him. I give him the driver. He hauls off and whacks one – big hitter, the Lama – long, into a ten-thousand foot crevasse, right at the base of this glacier. Do you know what the Lama says? Gunga galunga… gunga, gunga-galunga. So we finish the eighteenth and he's gonna stiff me. And I say, "Hey, Lama, hey, how about a little something, you know, for the effort, you know." And he says, "Oh, uh, there won't be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness." So I got that goin' for me, which is nice.
Hillary Clinton has been somewhat scarce since the end of the democratic presidential primary, and that’s expected, I guess. After all, she had a hard fought primary and a tough and emotional loss. As an ex-candidate who lost, I can vouch for the sense of let down and failure after a political race. It“aint” easy folks. It can be very deflating. It’s like “Preparation-H” for one’s ego and self esteem. People who are courageous enough to run for public office need to be commended and applauded, more so than ridiculed. Most people underestimate how tough it is to run for public office.
Each quarter I have the depressing task of writing a report on the regional economy and real estate market of Detroit, Michigan. While people elsewhere continue to debate whether or not we are in a new recession and how bad it will be, in Detroit one could argue that the old recession that began in late 2000 never ended. Detroit is paying the price for being a backward looking place where lots of people had lots of unearned advantages and sought to stop the future in order to lock them in. A center of innovation at the dawn of the automobile industry, the city and state’s key industry evolved into a Big Three oligopoly that paid big bucks to hordes of executives and provided rich pensions after short careers for unionized employees. All while producing inefficient motor vehicles that at one time, a time the Big Three have yet to live down, had lousy quality. Many of my relatives of my grandparents’ generation worked on the assembly line at the GM Fischer Body plant in Tarrytown NY, yet I may be the only member of my extended family that owns a GM automobile. All of this is a massive warning to New York City, because our financial sector, like Detroit’s automobile industry, has become increasingly concentrated in just a few companies, even as no new ones open here. Why?
During the past week, Kevin Powell’s supporters have been up on the blogs trying to discredit me, after I publicly and openly announced that I was an advisor to the Ed Towns re-election campaign. And believe me when I say that I am playing a minor role in this regard. Bill Lynch and Associates are running this campaign folks; all the congressman did was ask me as an old political acquaintance/friend to help out a lil bit. I consented for many reasons that I may eventually share. As I have said many times before: I like Ed on a personal level; he has always treated me well. We kid around a lot but it’s with respect and camaraderie.
“I also want to say very directly for the British people why this matters so much directly to Britain.
First, let us not forget that the attacks of September 11 represented the worst terrorist outrage against British citizens in our history. The murder of British citizens, whether it happens overseas or not, is an attack upon Britain.
As I said in a recent column, I am leaning towards supporting Comptroller Bill Thompson in next year’s mayoral race; but until I fully make that decision I will write some more speculative columns on who will be our next mayor. Some of these columns may even piss off one or two of my political friends; so what’s new/lol.
At this point in time -and with a little over a year to go before the mayoral primary- there are six significant potential candidates for the democratic primary. These are: Congressman Anthony Weiner, City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Councilmember Tony Avella, Public Advocate Betsy Gautbaum, City Comptroller Bill Thompson, and Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz. Although I think this group is a decent one -as developing fields go- I think there is one person not on this list, who could win the primary, or at least get into a runoff. That person is our Attorney General: Andrew Cuomo.