The Secret Superdelegate War Revealed

The Huffington Post, 6-4-09

Now that President Obama has settled into the job enough to give Brian Williams a backstage pass to the West Wing, the heat of last year's campaign has faded. Especially with Secretary of State Clinton at his side as they tour Egypt to help repair U.S.-Arab relations, the significance of June 4th to Obama's rise may have diminished.



But it was one year ago today that Hillary Clinton announced plans to suspend her campaign for the Democratic nomination, and urged her supporters to unite behind Barack Obama. It was an overdue end to a seemingly endless primary campaign. And a surprising one, considering that until actual primary voters weighed in, the nomination had appeared to be Clinton's for the taking.


Bill and Hillary at New York rally, June 3, 2008

She had money, momentum, and crucial to the Democratic nominating process, Clinton had a big lead in superdelegate support. The rules said these Democratic elected officials and other party leaders could choose to back whomever they wanted, regardless of how their states or districts voted.

One of the unanswered questions from the primary campaign was why more superdelegates didn't endorse Clinton over Obama, even though they were party insiders, and she was the insider candidate. Plus, the conventional wisdom was that Hillary might be a stronger general election pick.

After Obama battled Clinton to a standstill on Super Tuesday, parts of the Democratic establishment were open-mouthed in disbelief. For the next three months, the Clinton campaign did its best to fan doubts about Obama's electability. They were helped as controversies involving the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Obama’s "bitter" comments swirled around his candidacy. Clinton won crucial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, largely by rebranding herself as a "fighter" and tailoring her message to older, white, working class Democrats.

(In hindsight of Obama's resounding victory over John McCain in the fall, the conventional wisdom was dead wrong. If Hillary had ended up as the nominee, many disillusioned Obama voters would have stayed home. McCain would never have picked Sarah Palin as his VP, instead going with his gut instinct to choose someone far less politically radioactive, like Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty or former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge.)

Yet Obama kept getting a steady trickle of superdelegate endorsements. In mid-February, Clinton was backed by 100 more supers than Obama, but her advantage gradually shrank. On May 9, various news organizations reported Obama had overtaken Clinton in the superdelegate chase. The final tally as of June 4 was 389 superdelegates for Obama versus 282 for Clinton.



Interviewed for the New York Times' official post-mortem on Hillary’s campaign, Pennsylvania superdelegate Jason Altmire explained the "frustration" within Hillaryland, since "they kept winning state after state and they expected others [superdelegates] to start turning their way and it just didn’t happen."

So what happened? Harold Ickes would surely like to know. In addition to being a divisive presence in Hillary's inner circle, the legendarily hot-tempered Democratic operative was in charge of the Clinton superdelegate operation.



Certainly, some superdelegates saw the writing on the wall. They recognized Barack Obama was both the Democratic Party's future and the strongest candidate against McCain, and endorsed accordingly. Some were reluctant to fight past battles and ready for the party to embrace new leadership. All had personal reasons for their choices.

As a blogger and activist who campaigned for superdelegates to support Obama over Clinton, I had a window on the behind-the-scenes maneuvering going on largely out of view of the press and the campaigns themselves. There was a secret war being waged by both Obama and Clinton supporters to convince individual superdelegates to endorse their preferred candidates.

The Clinton campaign, in an all-out struggle to prevent the nomination from slipping away, was very public about its strategy. They openly encouraged their supporters, particularly big money donors, to pester and cajole superdelegates on Clinton’s behalf, unconcerned that heavy-handed lobbying might turn off the very superdelegates they were trying to influence.

But they were beaten to the punch by Obama supporters, who organized spontaneously, and used the power of the internet to shine light on who the superdelegates were and how ordinary citizens could contact them. None of this was encouraged by the Obama campaign, who had their own, internal strategy to woo the supers. Barack and Michelle began personally calling superdelegates as early as March 2007, something Hillary agreed to do only after the Texas and Ohio contests on March 4. Although Team Obama eventually decided a little citizen lobbying might not be such a bad thing. Yet throughout the primaries, lobbying was happening fast and furiously at the grassroots and netroots levels.

While careful to remain neutral, Democratic Convention Watch was essential for anyone tracking superdelegates. A no frills, Blogger-hosted site run by two Denver political junkies, DemConWatch became the most trusted source for news about superdelegate endorsements, more accurate and up-to-date than any brand name media outlet.

The Superdelegate Transparency Project was another independent, neutral resource. A joint project of LiteraryOutpost, OpenLeft, DemConWatch, and HuffPo’s Off the Bus, organizer Jennifer Nix described the effort as a "collaborative project among all interested parties to bring transparency and accountability to the Democratic National Convention." They posted state-by-state breakdowns of which superdelegates had endorsed which candidates, what popular vote totals each had received, and whether the supers’ endorsements lined up with the votes in their respective districts.

Obama supporters on MyBarackObama.com and sites like DailyKos and Democratic Underground were constantly circulating lists of uncommitted superdelegates. In mid-February, MoveOn.org jumped into the fray when it began an online petition drive that 400,000 signed, calling for superdelegates to "let the voters decide between Clinton and Obama, then support the people’s choice." The San Francisco-based group Color Of Change delivered 25,000 e-mails urging Congressional Black Caucus members to follow their districts' votes.

In North Carolina, our congressional superdelegates originally backed former Sen. John Edwards. When Edwards exited the race in late January, most had yet to endorse another candidate.

So a few Obama supporters in N.C. decided to lobby them and organized Voters for Obama. Our website, votersforobama.org, launched on President's Day (Feb. 19). Using info gathered by DemConWatch and STP, we posted state-by-state lists of supers, their endorsements, and going a crucial step further, included contact info (work mailing addresses, e-mails, and phone numbers) for selected superdelegates. We provided simple instructions on how to make polite, respectful phone calls or send e-mails asking superdelegates to support Obama.



Over the next few months, 15,000 people visited our site, and we helped voters from around the country generate an estimated several thousand e-mails and phone calls to superdelegates. Volunteers gathered thousands more signatures on petitions in seven states including North Carolina.



And together with similar efforts by other Obama supporters, it made a difference. Most superdelegates are politicians, and they pay attention to the voters who elect them. Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory announced his support for Obama on Feb. 25 as a superdelegate from Ohio. Following a news story about his previous indecision, Mallory said he heard from many community members. "[I] got lots of calls and e-mails, mostly telling me to support Obama," he said. "I got three or four calls in support of Clinton, but it was very lopsided."

In mid-Feburary, approximately 400 superdelegates remained uncommitted. We targeted half of them, mostly elected officials and state Democratic party leaders, who we thought would be the most responsive to their constituents and rank-and-file Democrats in each state. Of the 205 superdelegates we posted contact info for, 130 of them (63%) endorsed Obama during the three and a half months leading up to June 4, when Hillary announced her intention to suspend campaigning. 56 superdelegates that we lobbied (27%) remained neutral, while only 19 (or 9%) came out for Hillary. Our target superdelegates delivered an 111-delegate net gain for Obama.


Superdelegate endorsement graph courtesy of DemConWatch

Belatedly, the Clinton campaign set up their own online lobbying operation, including slick, interactive websites. But whoever was running the show was decidedly not slick enough to realize the dangers of providing contact info for all the supers, including those who had already endorsed Hillary. Ditto for posting personal cell phone numbers and e-mail addresses.

NObama Democrats backing Hillary were late to the game, but they made up for it with frenzied enthusiasm once they got going. Taylor Marsh harangued her listeners to lobby superdelegates for Hillary, and sites like JustSayNoDeal.com and PUMAPAC.org (Party Unity My Ass) were hot on the bandwagon.

A project called LobbyDelegates.com also launched, and although officially neutral, became the go-to site for disgruntled Clintonistas. Three of the top five URLs directing traffic to LobbyDelegates.com were official Clinton websites, and a fourth was a site affiliated with PUMA PAC.

By late May, Obama's high profile supporters were anxious to get the nomination fight settled. Perhaps fed up with the efforts of Hillary dead-enders to keep dividing the party, on May 22 Arianna Huffington called for superdelegates to endorse Obama, and encouraged her readers to contact and lobby them.

In the end, enough superdelegates swung behind Obama to allow pledged delegates from the final primaries to put him over the top. Obama reached a majority of 2,118 delegates on the night of June 3, after voters in Montana cast their ballots in the 54th nominating contest of the season. The next day, Democratic members of Congress who had remained Clinton supporters up until that point urged her to withdraw, and she announced she would. Hillary delivered her concession speech three days later on June 7th, at a final event packed with her supporters.



A year later, I would like to thank all our Voters for Obama coalition members, volunteers, and supporters. Special thanks go out to co-organizers Mani Dexter, who did most of the superdelegate research necessary to first set up our site, and Dana Lumsden, for his enthusiasm and unwavering support; SuperVoters Susan Baylies and Scott Priz, for being willing to put on capes for Obama and help deliver 2,000 signed petitions to N.C. Gov. Mike Easley; and local organizer Cristobal Palmer, whose tireless efforts helped make our N.C. petition drive a success.

And a big thanks to everyone who visited votersforobama.org and used its tools to call, e-mail, or sign a petition to superdelegates for Obama. We let our party leaders know their constituents wanted Obama to be the Democratic presidential nominee in 2008, and they listened.

Send Smithfield Foods the Bill for Swine Flu Outbreak?

You don't need to have read Stephen King's The Stand to be scared about the swine flu outbreak. Or, as the pork industry prefers, the H1N1 virus.



The wave of media hysteria that swept the nation this week put us all on edge. At a time when most people are already unnerved by the Great Recession, worried about losing their jobs, homes, and retirement savings, a scare like the Swine Flu Panic found fertile ground.



So how did this seemingly new mix of pig, bird, and human flu virus erupt? Since it first emerged in Mexico, xenophobic, anti-immigration racists were quick to label the strain "Mexican Flu" and use the crisis to attack President Obama's support for immigration reform.



But serious questions are being raised about whether a U.S.-owned factory farm is to blame for creating unsanitary conditions in which deadly viruses like the swine flu can incubate. Suspicion is swirling around a giant hog plant near the town of La Gloria, in Mexico’s Vera Cruz State.



La Gloria has been called the possible "ground zero" of the current epidemic. Starting in February, there was a widespread outbreak of a "powerful respiratory disease" in the town which sickened some 60% of its residents. Now, it's been revealed that one of the town’s children, 5-year old Edgar Hernandez, had contracted swine flu and was the earliest known case of this virus strain.



Health workers sealed off the town and sprayed chemicals to kill the flies from the plant's massive hog waste lagoons that reports claim were "swarming through people’s homes."



The hog plant is owned by Granjas Carroll, a subsidiary of Virginia-based Smithfield Foods, the largest pork producer in the United States. Smithfield Foods is also one of the nation's top polluters. The company's misdeeds have been well documented over the years, including by the Waterkeeper Alliance, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s environmental group. In 2006, Rolling Stone ran a stomach-churning report on the vast amounts of toxic fecal waste generated by the company's pigs each year, and the environmental destruction its factory farming causes.



Whether the swine flu outbreak mushrooms into a full-blown pandemic or not, it should be a wakeup call for us all about the unsustainable, potentially hazardous, environmentally devastating nature of industrial agriculture. It's time we stood up and just said no to factory farming.

Operation Chaos II: Get Rush

NewsOne, 3-3-09

By CASEY GANE-MCCALLA

Last year, Rush Limbaugh attempted to divide the Democratic party between supporters of Hillary Clinton and those for Barack Obama. Calling it "Operation Chaos," he urged his listeners to temporarily switch their party registrations to the Democratic Party in order to vote in the Democratic primaries. Limbaugh then prayed for riots in the streets of Denver during the 2008 Democratic National Convention.



As much as I wished that the recent Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) would turn into a riot between racist Rush supporters and decent Republicans who are not racist but believe in conservative principles and values, there weren't enough of the latter to start a confrontation.

After the Barack the Magic Negro controversy, I wrote about why The GOP Must Denounce Limbaugh and why we should all boycott his parent companies.

Now, it is time for further action. The Republican party must choose whether its principles are fiscal responsibility and family values, or racism, sexism, and a desire to see our country fail.



Here are some ways we can help take out Rush the evil bigot:

1. Get him off Armed Forces Radio.

Not only does Limbaugh have the support of hundreds of GOP politicians, but he is also one of the voices of Armed Services radio. That means all soldiers, including all women, blacks, and Latinos, three groups who Limbaugh continually offends, are a captive audience at times for Rush's propaganda. Everybody should write to their elected officials and demand that Limbaugh be taken off Armed Forces Radio. There is no reason taxpayer money should go to Limbaugh while minority and female U.S. soldiers are forced to listen to that bigot.

2. Force the GOP to address him.

The media has been doing a good job asking Republican officials to address Rush Limbaugh and let the country know where they stand on his influence within the party. We as citizen journalists can do the same thing. Elected officials are public servants and must listen to the concerns of the public. Republican office holders must be asked the question Pete Seeger posed, "Which side are you on?" Seek out opportunities to question GOP officials in public forums. Here is an example of how we can act locally to take down Rush.



3. Boycott Clear Channel.

Clear Channel is Rush Limbaugh’s parent company. Not only do they distribute Rush Limbaugh but they also own many urban radio stations which play corporate-backed, negative hip hop. If the black community were to boycott these stations (I assume they are already boycotting Rush), it would force Clear Channel to address Limbaugh as we would hit them in the pocket.

Here is a list of Rush's sponsors.

4. Boycott CPAC sponsors.

CPAC chose to back Limbaugh and make him their keynote speaker, legitimizing his political beliefs. We should also try and boycott or bring pressure on their sponsors as well. Some of them include AT&T and Google. These sponsors must address why they are sponsoring a neo-conservative conference that uses a bigot as its spokesman.

Here is a list of CPAC's sponsors for 2009.



5. Protest stations that carry Limbaugh.

Rush must be given the same treatment as the New York Post's Sean Delonas. The center of Rush’s power is WABC 770 AM in liberal New York City. 770 AM not only carries Rush but also other right wing bigots like Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham. A nice protest outside 770's studios would call attention to the hate and bigotry the station spews daily.

We proved how successful protests can be with the recent action taken against the New York Post cartoon. Now we must take out Limbaugh. If Black people can unite with Latino and women's groups, both of whom Limbaugh has offended in the past, we could make the Post protest look miniscule.



Here's a list of Republicans who are on Rush's side:

George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Sarah Palin, Condoleezza Rice, Clarence Thomas, Tony Snow, and Matt Drudge. All of these people have either appeared on Rush's show or hosted his show for him.

Here's a list of Republicans who are scared of Rush:

John McCain (despite the fact that Limbaugh bashed him in the '08 primaries, he has never uttered a disparaging word about the evil bigot), Michael Steele (criticized Limbaugh and then apologized), Phil Ginney (same as Steele), Bobby Jindal (called Limbaugh a conservative leader).

Here's a list of Republicans who stand up for their conservative principles and reject Limbaugh's bigotry and negativity:

None so far.

(Casey Gane-McCalla is a writer, rapper, producer and actor, and the assistant editor for NewsOne.)

Why Did the BBC Censor a Cry to Help Gaza Victims?

The Huffington Post, 1-28-09

Gaza is recovering from Israel's latest assault, which ended in a cease-fire earlier this month. In the UK, the British Broadcasting Corporation has let down its worldwide viewership by refusing to broadcast this charity appeal to help Palestinian victims of the violence:



The appeal was produced by the Disaster Emergency Committee (DEC), a consortium of charities including the Red Cross, Oxfam and Save the Children. What is so inflammatory about this humanitarian plea, which doesn't blame Israel or any other party for the plight of Gaza?



Why did the BBC hide behind a statement that "the debate about who is responsible for causing (suffering and distress in Gaza) and what should be done about it...is contentious?"



The Corporation joined Rupert Murdoch's Sky News as the only two major UK broadcasters not to air the charity appeal, a decision which has caused a huge uproar in the UK.


Demonstrators march to BBC Headquarters in London

In years past, the BBC regularly aired similar charity appeals:

The BBC broadcast DEC appeals after the 1999 Kosovo war and 1990 Gulf conflict. In 1968 it broadcast an appeal for victims of the Vietnam war. Over the last two years it has broadcast appeals for aid for crises in Burma, Bangladesh, Sudan, Chad and the Congo. Neither has it previously shunned humanitarian appeals in the Middle East. The second DEC appeal ever to be broadcast on the BBC, in June 1967, was a film seeking help for Palestinian and Syrian refugees displaced by the Six Day War. In 1982, the BBC helped raise £1m by broadcasting a DEC appeal for victims of Israel's invasion of Lebanon.

But now, things have changed. Blame is being laid at the feet of the BBC's Director General, Mark Thompson.



Since his arrival at the BBC in 2004, according to senior sources within DEC charities, the BBC has grown cautious and worried about compromising its impartiality. In 2006, the BBC similarly rejected a DEC appeal for victims of Israel's month-long war against Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon.

This episode is revealing interesting things about the factors that guide the BBC's coverage of the endless Israeli-Palestinian conflict, coverage which helps shape worldwide opinion. These include a set of reporting rules that BBC journalists must follow in their dispatches:

"The 24 words and phrases from the reporting rules the BBC has agreed to make public appear innocuous enough, but even here some might discern a sense of paranoia. Journalists are instructed to avoid using 'assassination' in favour of 'killing' and in discussing Gaza, the word "occupation" is to be avoided in favour of 'permanent military presence'."

Palestinian children in Gaza

Ironically, the resulting controversy over the BBC's censorship has resulted in a doubling of donations to the DEC’s emergency fund for Gaza, with over one million pounds raised since the appeal was aired by other UK broadcasters on Monday night. Shame on Mark Thompson, and shame on the BBC. It's a sad day if this once-venerable news organization can't be counted on to honestly and accurately inform the public.

An Entirely Different Inauguration Day

The Huffington Post, 1-20-09

Earlier today, as President Obama was sworn in, everything about the event heralded change. From Aretha Franklin singing My Country, 'Tis of Thee, to the Rev. Joseph Lowery using his benediction to invoke a coming day when "black will not be asked to give back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, and when white will embrace what is right."



Instead of the Supreme Court selecting the President, Chief Justice John Roberts was reduced to mischief-making as he tried to trip Obama up with a bungled, mis-worded oath of office. Or perhaps Roberts was simply displaying his arrogance by attempting to administer the oath sans notes.



President Obama used his inaugural address to draw a line separating the past eight years and what the nation should expect to come next. In an obvious rebuke to George W. Bush's decision to institutionalize torture of U.S. detainees, he made it clear "we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." He renounced Bush's orgy of deregulation and giveaways to the rich by reminding us that "without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control - and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous."

Eight years ago, the country was experiencing an entirely different sort of Inauguration Day. On January 20, 2001, people were outraged that George W. Bush had stolen the 2000 election. The largest number of protesters since the Nixon era came to Washington, D.C. and staged a counter-Inaugural, vowing to resist the fraudulent Bush Administration.



My friends and I were among them. The three of us were too worked up over Bush’s electoral shenanigans to let the day pass within raising a ruckus. It was a bitterly cold morning, and we got up early to walk a few miles from where we were staying to the Capitol. Our plan was a simple one – get as close as we could to the swearing-in ceremony and make as much noise as possible denouncing it.

To these ends, I borrowed a bullhorn for the occasion, the biggest, most powerful one I could find. I was carrying it in a large black messenger's bag. Security seemed tight, with cops and security personnel everywhere, although nowhere near post-9/11 levels.

It was 11:45 am as we walked down Independence Avenue, past the Capitol steps where the reviewing stands were set up. The first entrance we came to for VIP ticketholders was on the corner of 1st Street S.W. and Independence, next to the U.S. Botanic Garden. I walked right through the security line, blending in with the stream of well-heeled GOP donors and activists, despite toting a bulky black bag nearly capable of holding a suitcase nuclear bomb.

My friends weren't as lucky. What made them stand out in the otherwise lily-white crowd was their skin color – both were black. Somehow, even to the incompetent Republican party functionaries doubling as ticket takers, they didn't look like George W. Bush supporters.

So we retreated across the street, and made our stand at the entrance to Bartholdi Park. At the stroke of 12 noon, we whipped out the bullhorn and began delivering our own counter-Inaugural address. Enraged GOP attendees rushed over, trying to intimidate us into shutting up. But just as quickly, other protesters carrying banners and signs swarmed to our streetcorner, yelling their own slogans, and swelling our numbers to more than 100.



The three of us took turns leading chants of anti-Bush, pro-democracy slogans for the next half-hour, like WHAT IF THEY HELD AN ELECTION...AND NOBODY COUNTED THE VOTES?, BUSH WAS SELECTED, NOT ELECTED, and YOUR VOTE ONLY COUNTS...IF YOUR CANDIDATE'S DADDY ALREADY PACKED THE SUPREME COURT.

That bullhorn was loud, and it's safe to say audible to most of the VIP guests gathered to watch their illegitimate hero take the oath of office. FBI agents hovered around us, videotaping our activities. But we didn't stop until we felt we'd made our point. Then we packed up and moved on down the street to the Justice Department to protest John Ashcroft's impending confirmation as Attorney General.



What a difference eight years made. Today, on January 20, 2009, a sea of Americans of all colors stretched for two miles from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial. Far from being out of place, revelers who look like my friends were well represented among the 240,000 who received tickets to view the ceremonies from designated viewing areas near the front of the Mall.



Only the weather remained the same. It was a frigid, cold day, but millions braved the elements to be there, their hearts warm and full of joy, witness to a proud day in our nation's history. And there was nary a protester in sight.

George W. Bush's Legacy of Shame

This look back at the long national nightmare we endured during George W. Bush's presidency comes courtesy of Omid Malekan at Visual Stories.

MLK’s Words Changed Our World

NewsOne, 1-14-09

By CASEY GANE-MCCALLA

(Editor's note - Today, January 15, would have MLK's 80th birthday.)

Martin Luther King, Jr. might be the greatest orator in American history. His words and speeches changed America forever. Not only did his speeches address integration, but King also gave powerful calls to action on poverty and the war in Vietnam. Here are MLK's Top 5 Speeches.

1. I Have A Dream.

This is one of the most well known and referred to speeches in modern American history.

2. Why I Am Opposed To The War In Vietnam.

Many people forget about King's strong anti-war stance. Many of the reasons he opposed the war in Vietnam relate to the current conflicts in Gaza and Iraq.

3. I've Been To The Mountain Top.



King's last speech was prophetic. He would die the next day but his words would live on and inspire people forever.

4. The Urgency of Now.

In a theme later used by Barack Obama, King showed why integration couldn't wait.

5. A Time to Break Silence.

In this speech, Martin Luther King again outlined his opposition to the war in Vietnam.

(Casey Gane-McCalla is a writer, rapper, producer and actor, and the assistant editor for NewsOne.)

Israel vs. Gaza: 985 to 13 and Counting

NewsOne, 1-12-09

By CASEY GANE-MCCALLA

As Israel continues its re-invasion of Gaza, all this talk of a proportionate response and Israel defending itself seems to be off the mark, judging by the numbers. If a man hits you and you beat up his whole family, is that a proportionate response? Is shooting a man for throwing a rock at your window defending yourself?



The Associated Press reports that as of January 14th, more than 985 Palestinians have been killed, including more than 400 civilians. This is in comparison to 13 Israelis who have been killed, including three civilians. It is estimated that 40% of all the Gaza casualties have been civilians.



Last weekend, Barack Obama was on ABC's This Week and reiterated his statement, "If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I'm going to do everything in my power to stop that. I would expect Israelis to do the same thing."

Palestinians are seeing bombs dropped on their houses at a much more frequent rate than Israelis have had rockets shot at them, so shouldn't they have the right to defend themselves, too? Far more Palestinian daughters have died because of this conflict than Israelis.



We've all heard the saying that an eye for an eye leaves us all blind. What about 200 eyes for an eye?

Does Israel expect to be greeted as liberators in Gaza? Every Palestinian family member they kill just fuels the desperation and hatred of Israel that creates the rocket launchers and the suicide bombers that they are trying to stop.



From 2005 through 2007 in Israel and the Palestinian territories, there were 86 Israelis killed, eight of which were civilians, meaning less than 10% of all Israelis killed during that time were civilians. There were 1290 Palestinian casualties during that same period, of which 222 were civilians.

So in the last two and a half weeks, Israel has killed as many Palestinians as they have during the past four years.

An unequal death toll has marked this conflict for years. From 1987 through 2005, there were 3196 Palestinian casualties, including 620 civilians; and 946 Israeli casualties, including 112 civilians.

In the face of the murder, terror and dead children, U.S. politicians are not condemning the violence or the war, but defending Israel's right to defend themselves. N.Y. Gov. David Paterson said, "I believe the Israeli people, under constant attack from the Palestinian territories, have a right to protect themselves and I stand with them as they fight to defend the basic rights of humanity."

Is Hamas not under attack by Israel as well? Given the disproportionate amount of casualties, isn't it the Palestinians who have more of a need to defend their basic human rights?

New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg said there is no measured response to terrorism, essentially saying that Israel has carte blanche to use what ever force it wants, regardless of civilian casualties.

I worked for many years as a teacher and had to break up several fights. If a 100 pound kid kicks a 300 pound kid in the shins, and the 300 pound kid begins pummeling the 100 pound kid, I wouldn't say that the 300 kid had a right to defend himself. I would tell them both to stop fighting and try and break it up.



Maybe one of the reasons the US has been slow to criticize Israel is the Iraq war. 100,000 Iraqi civilians (some have estimated it in the millions) have been killed vs. 4,000 U.S. soldiers.

If the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were a boxing match it would have been declared a TKO a long time ago. If it were a football game, Israel would have put in their second string. Without a referee, the game has gotten far out of hand.

In war there is rarely a right side and wrong side. If Hamas was wrong for breaking the previous ceasefire, that does not mean Israel is right for killing more than 400 civilians.

The current war on Gaza is doing very little to improve Israel's relations with both the Palestinians and their Middle East neighbors. It is only fueling hatred for Israel in the Arab world.



While I've heard several good arguments justifying Israel's actions, I've always been told that number and pictures don't lie. Given the lopsided score on the casualty count and gruesome pictures of the casualties, it is very clear that Israel is in the wrong along with Hamas.

For more evidence of Israel's brutality in Gaza check out this gallery of Palestinian casualties.

(Casey Gane-McCalla is a writer, rapper, producer and actor, and the assistant editor for NewsOne.)