"Tell me how you keep this straight?"

Oh dear. Once again we in the Quad Cities are presenting ourselves to the whole world, which is closely following this presidential race, as ignorant bumpkins. Here is an actual letter to the editor published in today's Quad City Times:

I am confused how anyone could consider voting for president of the United States a man who has lived in Jakarta, Indonesia, had a Muslim stepfather and attended a Muslim school half a world away.

What we are taught as children during our formative years continues to influence us the rest of our lives. This effect troubles me. In fact, even his name confuses me at times. I have a difficult time remembering if his name is Obama or Osama?

Perhaps you could tell me how you keep this straight?

Michael Elmore

Bettendorf

Since you asked, Michael, my guess is that you have been listening to right-wing talk radio and that is the source of your confusion. It is quite simple, really. Barack Obama is a Harvard Law graduate, United States Senator, running for president who drew crowds of more than 100,000 people in recent rallies in St. Louis and Denver. He will be on your presidential ballot, listed as a Democrat. Osama bin Laden is a Saudi national, who at last report was living in a cave in or near Afghanistan. He will not be on the ballot. If someone tries to confuse you again on this matter, my advice is to stop listening to them.

Israeli checkpoints a modern Jim Crow?

There is a letter to the editor of the Quad-City Times by Art Pitz that takes issue with Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice’s recent comments comparing the Palestinians feelings about Israeli checkpoints with her feelings as a southern black under Jim Crow. He claimed that the Israeli policy is a justifiable response to terrorism while Jim Crow was simply a means to maintain white supremacy. link

I wrote the following response:

Mr. Pitz,
You admit that the Palestinians feel about the Israeli checkpoints and other restrictions the same way that African-Americans felt about Jim Crow. You seem to be claiming that there is a fundamental difference between the two situations in how the other side feels about the situation. The Israelis feel that their policies are justified by the threat of terrorism -- the actions of a minority of the Palestinians (the vast majority of Palestinians are just trying to survive in a difficult situation). You contrast this with the situation in the American south during Jim Crow, where you seem to think that the white power structure would have freely admitted that their actions had no justification other than maintaining white supremacy. (You do not state it that way but your argument makes no sense unless that is what you are claiming.)

You should watch the movie 'Birth of a Nation' again. The argument for the Klu Klux Klan and Jim Crow by the whites was EXACTLY the same as the Israeli argument for checkpoints, etc. -- acts of violence by a few blacks against whites.

Your argument seems to be that the feelings of the Palestinians are of no importance as long as they do not influence American support for Israeli policies. As long as Americans can be persuaded that the Israeli domination of the Palestinians can be justified then the feelings of the Palestinians can be ignored.

Secretary Rice is right to compare the Palestinians under Israeli occupation to African-Americans under Jim Crow. Jim Crow did not end until a majority of Americans saw television images of little black girls terrorized on their way to school and black teenagers blasted with fire hoses and started to empathize with the African-Americans. The situation for the Palestinians will not change until the majority of Americans start to see the situation through Palestinian eyes. Americans might want to keep that in mind when they think about how few images of Palestinians they see on television.