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This week on Uprising:

* Obama Poised to Win With More than 350 Electoral Votes
* Cornel West on Obama, Elections, Race, and Democracy
* Black Agenda Report on the Coming Post-Election Struggle
* Conversation with Robert Jensen: Elections Don’t Matter

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Obama Poised to Win With More than 350 Electoral Votes

With dozens of polls released each week about the chances of the two major party presidential candidates, it’s not easy to disentangle reality from statistics. While most polls agree that Senator Obama …

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As the presidential election is commanding most people’s political attentions, representatives of President Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister al-Maliki continue to negotiate a so-called troop agreement. With a December 31st, 2008 expiration date looming for the current United Nations mandate on the U.S. led occupation, the Iraqi government has requested a number of amendments to the original text of the bilateral agreement. Among the changes the Iraqis would like to see on the so-called Status of Forces Agreement are the banning of the US from using Iraq as a base for attacking neighboring countries, inspections on U.S. arms shipments, and the removal of language that would allow for troops to stay beyond the agreed upon date of December 31st 2011. President Bush expressed confidence that the two …

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With John McCain holding steady in the polls at 7-10 percentage points behind Barack Obama nationwide, theories abound as to why his candidacy has trailed so far behind the Democrat. Aside from the obvious reasons such as the failing economy and popular disillusionment with the GOP, McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as Vice President may have something to do with it. A Washington Post ABC poll earlier in the month showed that 60% of voters feel she is too inexperienced, and less than half think she has a grasp of complex issues. Thirty-two percent of registered voters said her selection made them less likely to support John McCain for president, up from 19 percent the month before. But those numbers have not deterred Palin – she has continued …

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While polls indicate a lead for Democratic candidate Barack Obama going into the presidential election, they are also suggesting that his party stands poised to make significant gains in Congress. Seeking to capitalize on gains made in the 2006 congressional elections, the Democrats are hoping to add as many as thirty seats in the House, and as many as nine seats in the Senate. A sixty seat majority within in the Senate would be sufficient to break Republican filibusters. Central to this possible realignment in Washington is the fact that just as in the Obama campaign, Democratic candidates are posing challenges in traditional GOP strongholds. One such stronghold is Ventura County here in California where a retired nurse, onetime ESL teacher is challenging a long time Republican incumbent …

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Glen Ford is a writer and radio commentator and the Executive Editor of The Black Agenda Report. This week’s commentary is on the post-Election Struggle to Come.

Visit www.blackagendareport.com for more information.

Listen to today’s Subversive Historian

The Invasion of Waikato by Subversive Historian Gabriel San Roman

Exactly one-hundred and forty-five years ago on this day in people’s history, the New Zealand Land Wars were reignited. On October 31st, 1863, British military forces under the command of General Duncan Cameron led an invasion into Waikato. In what became the largest in a series of conflicts that framed the land wars, the invasion stemmed from the colonial government’s desire to confiscate the fertile lands of the indigenous population. The King Movement comprising of a federation of Maori tribes, resisted against the British colonial incursions and defended their right to land. Devastating confiscations did indeed take place immediately after the British claimed a relative victory confirming one of the main motivations for the invasion in the first place.

This Halloween there are sure …

“A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” — Mark Twain

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More than 35,000 people attended a late night Florida rally to see Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton. Millions of people are estimated to have already voted early in states across the nation and turnout is already breaking previous records, especially among African Americans and young people. It is these demographics that Barack Obama’s campaign has especially reached out to, hoping to elect the nation’s first Black president. Yesterday, the Obama campaign aired a 30 minute paid advertisement on 7 major TV networks simultaneously in a final push to make his case for presidency. This presidential race has been the most expensive in the nation’s history. Meanwhile, the McCain-Palin camp has also been furiously getting their message out to voters, denouncing a new Obama ad …

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With the nomination of Sarah Palin as the Republican Vice Presidential candidate, a significant surge of activity on the internet focusing on sexist male fantasies of the Alaska governor has appeared. Hustler’s Larry Flynt is already peddling a new porn video about Palin. And, no one in the news media seems concerned enough to cover it. Even McCain’s own camp has not seen fit to denounce it. Pornography, once relegated to the margins of society, is now accepted as mainstream. It is estimated that the pornography industry’s annual revenue has reached $13 billion. At the same time, according to the film makers of a new documentary, The Price of Pleasure: Pornography, Sexuality, and Relationships, the content of pornography has become more aggressive, more overtly …

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As we head closer to the elections, Proposition 8, the same-sex marriage ban hovers on the brink of passing. Massive amounts of money have been poured into passing the measure, particularly by the the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Thousands of gay couples who tied the knot after the state Supreme Court decision early this summer to allow same-sex marriage, are now apprehensive of the legal limbo they could be in if the measure passes. The scare tactics from the Yes on 8 campaign have continued in the form of political ads declaring that gay marriage will be taught in schools if the proposition fails. But rarely do we hear the personal stories of families in this ideological battle. Today we’ll meet a young woman who …