| "No taxation without representation!" the | | | | war and who is now engineering the trillion dollar |
| American forefathers in 1776 declared to the | | | | bailout for the financial institutions he let run wild |
| British royals in response to the Stamp Act after | | | | through decontrols. That President has claimed |
| tea had already been dumped into the sea during | | | | executive privilege to deprive Americans of |
| the Boston Tea Party. With that declaration | | | | constitutional rights throughout his eight-year |
| backed by elaboration of the American | | | | term, the same way Sarah Palin and her husband |
| Constitution, the American founders set off an | | | | are avoiding an honest inquiry into her actions as |
| unprecedented revolution toward freedom and | | | | governor of Alaska. |
| equality that was echoed a dozen years later by | | | | A laundry list of presidential power abuses are |
| the French in their revolution to send monarchic | | | | just a Google away. The offer of another four |
| structures tumbling from Russia to the Austrian | | | | years of such an assault on the American public is |
| Hapsburgs over the next century. | | | | beyond insult of the intelligence. It is a viral reliance |
| Two hundred-odd years after that first American | | | | on either the good will or the dupability of the |
| revolt against unfairness, a new revolution in global | | | | American public. The upshot, however, is that the |
| racial openness is being set off by a nation of | | | | next shot from America to be heard round the |
| Americans declaring the same statement their | | | | world will come on election day, November 4, |
| forefathers made. They are taking their stand | | | | when Barack Obama, Joe Biden, the Democratic |
| against the conservative Party in power that has | | | | party, the American people and the entire world |
| enriched the privileged white elite while bankrupting | | | | win the 2008 US election by a landslide. |
| the country's financial institutions. | | | | For that shot to be heard, America must give |
| The American people, in 2008, on being told to | | | | itself a crash course in coming clean about racial |
| finance a trillion dollars worth of corporate bailouts | | | | bias. Racial-bias-cure 101 starts with admitting that |
| with their tax money, are rising up in true | | | | every race has biases against others, that groups |
| revolutionary fashion by admitting to deep-seated, | | | | of people have biases against other groups, and |
| historically based myths about racial differences | | | | that individuals have biases galore. |
| that never made any more sense than the | | | | The second step in getting beyond racial bias, or |
| long-debunked global social lie that entitlement by | | | | any other bias, is to accept the fact that a bias is |
| virtue of privileged birth predicated the financing | | | | neither a sin nor a crime. It simply exists as part |
| of an elevated social position by "lowers" for the | | | | of perception. The important element is to not let |
| sake of a secure social order. | | | | it limit interaction and discourse so as to have it |
| In the weeks leading up to the 2008 American | | | | interfere as little as possible with making right |
| presidential election, Americans are mounting | | | | choices. |
| moral armaments to confront deep-rooted | | | | The final step in relegating racial bias to the |
| personal conflicts about racial issues. Those | | | | garbage bin of history where it belongs, is to |
| admissions are showing up in polls such as one in | | | | recognize and admit that white privilege exists at |
| an AP-Yahoo News story published on September | | | | the present time and inequities of its historical |
| 20, the week of the Wall Street meltdown. The | | | | effects also exist. A vigorous and open debate |
| extreme moral exercise of admitting to bias may | | | | about those matters will not bring about instant |
| be linked to the realization that the time has | | | | remedies. It will, however, lead to perceptual |
| come, that the state of the nation makes a | | | | change. |
| revolution against the old order just as essential | | | | In the end, as election day nears and life gets |
| to personal and national dignity as the first one in | | | | better for the American people after the |
| 1776. | | | | revolution regardless of new struggles, it may |
| The "shot heard round the world" in 2008 | | | | turn out that racial bias is not so much a matter |
| America, as it was in 1775 Concord, was the | | | | of judgment about others as it is simple human |
| announcement by Republican presidential candidate | | | | discomfort at unfamiliarity. |
| John McCain that he had chosen Sarah Palin to be | | | | Centuries of social and economic segregation have |
| his vice-presidential running mate. | | | | kept the world's people apart. America, in its |
| The arch-conservative Alaskan woman who | | | | 200-odd years as a country, has brought them all |
| would take America back to the cave has been | | | | together with its Constitutional freedoms and |
| dubbed by Bill Maher as "Bush in drag." The Bush | | | | safeguards. The revolution now is all about the |
| to whom reference was made is the current US | | | | American people getting comfortable with each |
| President who treasonably led the country into a | | | | other at lightning speed. |