Our weekly edition is a nationally syndicated one-hour digest of the best of our daily coverage.

Audio Stream | Podcast | Mp3 Download

This week on Uprising:

* The Final Analysis – Obama and McCain Debate
* Empire Notes on the Absurdity of the McCain-Palin Ad Campaign
* Gustavo Arellano on Orange County: The Most Republican County in America
* Black Agenda Report called The Presidency on Sale
* Seyed Mousavi: The Latest post-9/11 Muslim Scapegoat

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The Final Analysis – Obama and McCain Debate

Wednesday night’s final debate between the two major party candidates did not change the poll numbers despite being the most “spirited and combative” (NY Times) of all their encounters. Most viewers concluded that Barack Obama managed to keep his cool in the face of a belligerent John McCain. Early in the debate, McCain introduced a running theme of “Joe the Plumber” and how he believed Obama’s policies would hurt him. Joe the Plumber is Joe Wurzelbacher, a plumber who met Obama in Ohio recently. Under Obama’s tax plan, small-business owners and individuals earning more than $250,000 a year, like Joe, could see an increase in taxes. A yearly salary of a quarter million dollars is no small amount but McCain pressed the point repeatedly using the term “Joe the plumber.” Moderated by Bob Schieffer of CBS news, the debate also focused on the current economic crisis, health care, negative campaigning, Vice Presidential candidates, Supreme court appointments and women’s reproductive rights. At one point during the debate, McCain lashed out saying that he was not George W Bush, and that if Obama wanted to run against Bush, he should have done so 4 years ago.

GUEST: John Nichols is a writer for the Nation Magazine, is a contributing writer for The Progressive and In These Times and the associate editor of the Capital Times in Madison, Wisconsin, and the co-founder of Free Press

Empire Notes on the Absurdity of the McCain-Palin Ad Campaign

Empire Notes are weekly commentaries filed by Rahul Mahajan, author of Full Spectrum Dominance and The New Crusade. Today’s commentary is about the Absurdity of the McCain-Palin Ad Campaign

GUEST: Rahul Mahajan, author of Full Spectrum Dominance and The New Crusade.

Visit www.empirenotes.org for more information.

Gustavo Arellano on Orange County: The Most Republican County in America

While the two major party candidates ended their series of debates earlier this week, may recall their first meeting on a national forum was at Saddleback Church in Orange County. Barack Obama was criticized for accepting the invitation in America’s most Republican county. We’ll focus now on the significance of Orange County and it’s place in the national political discourse with life long OC resident and columnist of Ask a Mexican, Gustavo Arellano. Gustavo is a staff writer with OC Weekly, and his first book was based on his column, “¡Ask a Mexican!” His second book, which was just published is called Orange County: A Personal History. In it, he chronicles the story of his family’s assimilation into American culture, while also recounting a historical narrative of OC.

GUEST: Gustavo Arellano, author of “Orange County: A Personal History” and “Ask a Mexican,” columnist with the OC Weekly

Black Agenda Report called The Presidency on Sale

Glen Ford is a writer and radio commentator and the Executive Editor of The Black Agenda Report. This week’s commentary is called The Presidency on Sale.

Visit www.blackagendareport.com for more information.

Seyed Mousavi: The Latest post-9/11 Muslim Scapegoat

Since September 11th 2001, government targeting of Muslim community leaders has increased dramatically. Many of us recall the cases of Sami Al Arian and James Yee. Now, in Los Angeles, the family and friends of a prominent Iranian American community leader, are calling attention to the persecution of yet another Muslim man. Seyed Mousavi is the founder of Al-Nabi Mosque and a non-profit organization that aims to build bridges across religious divides. Under Mousavi’s leadership, Al-Nabi Mosque has developed an English curriculum for recent immigrants, worked on the unique issues facing American-Muslim youth, and preached the virtues of inclusion and acceptance. Two years ago Mousavi’s home was raided by the FBI, members of his family were interrogated and documents confiscated. This April Mousavi was accused of filing false tax returns, omitting group membership on naturalization forms, and violating the U.S.’s economic embargo against Iran. He is being cast as a member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and could face a stripping of his citizenship and up to nine years in prison. He has been held for the past 14 months in detention. His trial was seen as highly politicized – at Mousavi’s sentencing hearing earlier this week, he received a 33 month sentence which his current detention applies toward.

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day

“Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.” — Frederick Douglass