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var sbtitle3260=encodeURIComponent(THURSDAY TH...Read the full article.

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Good article...

Obama is for real and I must confess I have been converted a supporter. I did not renounce my Republican part registration but I found myself drawn to him.

I have donated money and time to his campaign effort here in California. We were not able to deliver California for Obama but I was overwhelmed by the out pouring of support for him in Los Angeles county.

If you discount absentee ballots Obama would have carried California.

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Thanks Prof. This thing is becoming real every minute. It would have become real, if you remove the prejudice of those wanna be Latinos who rode on blacks back for all their gains, but refuse to accept blacks when it really counts. Even if he does not win, he has raised the profile; he has given hope to children of immigrants. I pray he wins. More so, like somebody said: "America has proven its creed." I mean white America. God bless America.

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Obama was bound to happen sooner or later, especially since the demographics of the USA have been "browning" over the years - making the situation of only WASP Male Americans as President less and less a "sure-banker". So whatever it takes to make a "good" thing to happen in one's lifetime that encourages the reality of the EQUALITY of all mankind should be celebrated, encouraged, embraced, promoted, speeded along. Nothing is implied that the candidate must not be competent, just that it must be the content of his character and the competence in his deeds that must count, and not the color of his skin or the carvings on his America-bound travel-boat.

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I am sure it is not only the diversity that is making this happen, but rather it is the higher level of education and enlightnment of Americans. Gradually, we are witnessing people that have been socialised in a university environment thinking in a more rational fashion and with limited emotional cleavage to race or ethnicity. (Clinton's less educated army of voters confirms theory).

Yet, diversity is also education. The more you meet people of different cultures that are exceptional in social life, whether at work or in the classroom, it becomes easier for ideological constructs about race types to collapse. And the more you doubt your beliefs, especially those inherited from your parents or cultural environment, the more you are willing to take that leap of faith.

Nonetheless, I think America should continue opening doors that enables each child acquire the necessary education possible. It pays on the long run for its democracy since we now see that people are starting to vote based on values and on issues than it obtains in most other countries. It is amazing that the whites that live in gated communities , or in suburban communities that were created to keep the blacks out are the same communities endorsing Barack Obama .

It speaks to the issue that Obama 's rise in politics is not really about race per se, but more about self interest. It is about who can create the better society for me and my children.

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Dear Prof,
I don't live in America one thing for the Obama or Clinton group/party to win.
Are Americans ready for a Female or Black President?

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Barak, Clinton, McCain ?
Republican or Democrate?

I think the Presidency is overated

I don't really think in terms of overall U.S policy direction, it matters that much who emerges as the next American President. The American system is now structured such that the impact of any one man, no matter what office that person occupies is minimal. So those who are hoping for radical change by Obama emerging as president will most likely be dissapointed.

For example, President Kennedy, idealistic and different as he was, and embodying change as he did, still had no choice but to continue with things like the Vietnam war he inherited, rattled the American sabre over the Cuban missle crisis. So here we are, 40 or so more years after the election of a maverick Kennedy, America is still doing what it did then.
Thus, Obama, regardless of what anyone who is hoping for immediate change will see, Obama, will have little choice but to continue with theIraqi occupation, America will still continue to violate SALT agreements, militarize space, will still recklessly stick its fingers in the affairs of any country it deems not in line with its interests ( provided that country is not China or Russia ) and continue to do all those things that damages its reputation in various parts of the world.

Thus , U.S policies will likely , for now and for the immediate future continue more or less as it has over the last 50 years regardless of Obama, Clinton or McCain.

The aforementioned not withstanding, in terms of domestic socio-cultural perceptions, if Obama is or was seen as the "other" in America, more so than a Kennedy, an Obama emerging as president does matters a lot and I think it would be a very , very good thing.

The election of an Obama may indeed open up and hasten even more positive possibilities. It will signify some change, especially a change in how American will begin to see themselves

However, greater possibility which this opens up, the more meaningful change which it will bring is in not just in how America sees itself but more importantly, B>in how American sees others,

Then and only then will the most important change of all occur and that is
How America is seen by others. But this is predicated and must be preceeded on how America sees others. Does America want to continue to operate in the old, ossified paradigms of the cold war, 18th Century ideologies of imperialism and exploitation? The "them" vs "us" mentality which has brough so much misery to mankind?
Or is it possible to transcend these old ideas and usher in a more egalitarian world view and eventually build bold new policies which fulfills the original lofty mandates of the UN which has now been perverted beyond recognition?

The sooner the Americans understand this, the better.

Then and only then will America truely become much more than it is now, And that would be a good thing.

If American policies , (which won't change right away, but which could, )in the long term change to one that is more friendly, more robust and matured to "others", perhaps, we will be able to look back to this moment and identify it as the time the foundation was laid when America truely began to identify with the rest of humanity and the whole world as one with itself?

Then and only then will the world be truely at peace and perhaps, then and only then will we truely have a unanimous and welcomed leader of the whole World and not the caricature of tyranny we have for now; a self proclaimed, self crowned leader of the boffonery acronym - "free" world.

Of course, that is assuming the world wants or cries out for a leader.

Opps, this is not the place or thread for the above!!!!