Prologue to Obama Rocks:

Prologue to Obama Rocks: The Healing of America and the Planet by the Principal Author.

 This interactive e-book is based primarily on two sources, first and foremost of which is Obama’s own writings. It is novel—like Obama—insofar as the other major 

sources are the contributions of readers from all over the world, sharing their feelings and concerns about Obama as President of the United States. In other words, this  book is being written, at least in part, by the world, everyone who is interested in the next president of the United States, Barack Obama. Within time, we envision building  an Online Obama Library and Resource Center. Especially for this reason, we ask you to make a few comments either before or after reading what we have begun,  contribute to it, become a part of it and share the joy! We will take your comments very seriously, and we often incorporate them into the book, while, of course, we  reserve the right not to do so. Our supporters are generally very excited about seeing themselves published as contributors to our book and listed as such on our list of  contributors (it looks nice on a resume under the title ‘Publications’ where many people have nothing else to list). Come seize the high moral ground along with us, with  Obama, and let us set about together healing a very sick world and a dying planet! Peace with justice, to the extent to which it can be attained in the near future: is Obama.

Perhaps the biggest attraction of ObamaBook.org, however, is the way that our work is based on Obama’s own words. Many people come to our web site in search of  ‘quotes’ or ‘excerpts’ of Obama’s work, and we do indeed provide them, along with commentary. Our first chapter, for example, is based largely on Dreams From My  Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. The second chapter is based on Obama’s book The Audacity of Hope and our third chapter on Obama’s speeches, with ample  quotations of his work throughout. Here at ObamaBook.org, we are clearly unabashedly pro-Obama. But that does not mean that we do not want you to tell us negative or  critical things about Obama that are on your mind. Our best case scenario will be to help Obama govern by providing feedback to his administration about the concerns of  both American’s and the world.

A common theme that is traced throughout this work is Obama’s own struggle to make sense of who he is as an American of mixed race, with a father from Africa that  he barely new, and the challenges that he had to overcome to become what he is, and how these challenges have shaped his mindset, ultimately determining how he will  shape our country, from our perspective here, helping to heal America’s divisions, especially between race and class but perhaps even gender, in some special ways, most  notably through his most exemplary marriage to Michelle, “my rock,” he calls her. Obama’s struggle is indeed poignant and key to both his greatness and his popularity,  poised to win a landslide election victory. A black man winning the state of Virginia—the old Confederate capital—and threatening to win North Carolina as well? As his  rival John McCain suggested with respect to the pro-American president of France, “It proves that if you live long enough you will see everything.”

…some people have a hard time taking me at face value. When people who don’t know me well, black or white, discover my background (and it is usually a discovery, for  I ceased to advertise my mother’s race at the age of twelve or thirteen, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites), I see the split- second adjustments they have to make, the searching of my eyes for some telltale sign. They no longer know who I am. Privately, they guess at my troubled heart, I  suppose-the mixed blood, the divided soul, the ghostly image of the tragic mulatto trapped between two worlds; the tragedy is not mine alone, it is yours, sons and  daughters of Plymouth Rock and Ellis Island; it is yours children of Africa (Obama, Dreams, p. xv).

It is the discovery that Obama has a white mother that causes them to no longer know him. If his mother is white is not he white as well? But he is black, as much his  Kenyan father—also noted for his oratory—transcending race, mocking the limits of race, celebrating the beauty of racial diversity, as well as the great freedom of  America which has made such a thing possible. Obama’s presence in the oval office is itself a healing force in American politics. Thanks to Obama, pundits now speak of  a post-racial era in American politics. While we see this as perhaps a bit overly optimistic, it speaks to the power of the moment in America, as the nation comes to grips  with its racist past in the celebration—and resistance to—Obama’s presence in the Oval Office.

Barack Obama became the nominee of the Democratic Party because he has the best ideas and he simply won the most hearts. Politics is a dirty business and no one can  do it without making hard sacrifices and difficult compromises, and Obama will be no exception. But to the extent to which a president can make progressive changes for  America and the world, in Obama we have new and genuine hope in our hearts now and we invite you to become part of it. Participating in historical change provides you  with the unique opportunity to make life real and help you better understand it. One common thread that runs throughout this book is the principle that Obama is honest, at  least as honest as he can be and still become president, and be a good president. To what extent, in your opinion, has Obama’s honesty been a critical factor?

There are many reasons why you are reading a prologue rather than an introduction to this book, foremost among them is the ugly and more-naked-than-ever capitalist fact  that even under Obama, money still rules the world, and the prologue is the only part of our book that we are going to continue to be able to make available free online  without a small donation to our work (of only $9.95). While this prologue is free to read online, we ask you for this small donation to read on, to help us further our  Obama Research Center, continuing to read each of the first two chapters that are available as outlined at the end of this prologue.

This book struggle’s to confront very difficult issues directly, candidly, and we strive to touch upon ‘dark’ subjects and issues as well as what we struggle to define as the  proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. Occasionally there is some mild sarcasm, and the writer often strives to be funny throughout, perhaps sometimes at odd moments.  We hope, however, that if the prologue is all of our work that you read, that it have been an enjoyable experience for you.

Another major factor behind the fact that we offer this large section of our work completely free of charge is the fact that we are struggling to get people to read our book  and collaborate with our project. For those of our readers who are themselves writing about Obama, we would like to publish your work free of charge, here at  ObamaBook.org. So, if you would like to publish what you are writing about Obama, just send it to us and we will put it up and send you the link where your work is  published. This will help ObamaBook grow. For those of you that have not yet written anything about Obama, please share your ideas, sentiments, feelings and concerns  with us by filling out our Interview Form either with your real name or an alias. Please share any ideas that you might have with us.

The text that follows is based on or somehow relevant to the written work of Barack Obama himself, his books and speeches. Thus, ObamaBook is intentionally dedicated  to the propagation, first and foremost, of Obama’s own wisdom, not ours. We struggle to set Obama’s wisdom into our own historical and activist frameworks as  developed in what follows below, celebrating Obama, helping us grow through and as part of Obama’s own growth. This is one of several especially lovely things about  Obama, his youth, and his message gives us hope that is somehow akin to that special energetic passion which is most generally noted in one’s youth. And the fact that the  principal writer will soon be approaching the first stages of geriatric writing, he wants to extend a special invitation to young people as well as old, to put your feelings  down, commit them to writing, and paste it into our Interview Form. What the very young and the very old have to say about Obama is of critical importance to our  project. Please help us!

Barack Obama is a young new president for a brave new age of reconciliation and healing—the thesis of this book. Obamabook.org, is here for the long term and,  hopefully, with your support, will also become an Obama Resource Center. We want to have a share in promoting, defending, and preserving him for history. This book,  Obama Rocks: The Healing of America and the Planet, is written primarily by Obama supporters and sympathizers; nevertheless, those who offer critical opinions are also  greatly appreciated and fully taken into account to the extent to which their criticism is seen as constructive and relevant; and they are often cited as well, by their name or  alias, whichever they provide. This book is about hope, in Obama’s words, the audacity of hope. We are proud to promote Obama’s own writings, speeches, videos, and  recordings here on our web site. We are a new, interactive space for people to become recognized on the Internet as Obama supporters, and for people who are concerned  with something of critical importance, the direction of the United States and the world.

Our planet and our species are bleeding in so many different ways, from unjust economic structures, health care and security, to rampant injustices in a number of areas  that go unchecked by judicial systems. There is a desperate need to address these critical issues, the preservation of our environment, literally, in so many ways. The first  contributor to this project, Melody Martinez from Nicaragua, questions the extent to which any U.S. president might actually be able to make deep and profound changes  for social justice and saving the planet. Many share her lack of faith, seeing the pollution of our planet and the exploitation of billions of impoverished workers with little-to- no health care as a result of economic and human greed that no president could change regardless of his/her intentions. And to some extent this is true and important to  recognize. Indeed, there is a vast gap between a President’s will and his capacity to implement change. Our thesis here, of course, is that what modest change is possible,  it is most likely to come as a result of an Obama Presidency.

Obama is unparalleled, novel; in the words of New Mexico’s Governor Bill Richardson (U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations under Bill Clinton) “this kind of leader only  comes once in a generation.” And Obama is growing on people very quickly. Obama rocks, dances; he is one of us. Very human, compassionate, and honest, Obama’s  election to the White House is reshaping the very way that we think about politics in America and the world. When he danced with America’s favorite lesbian Ellen  DeGeneres on her show, “my poll ratings just shot straight up,” he told America. And he keeps on rocking. Obama is breathing new life into the political arena and  providing democracy with a long-awaited fresh jolt to get us moving again in the right direction, moving towards peace through greater economic justice, especially for the  weakest and most vulnerable among us, towards verifiable, multi-lateral disarmament, and energy policies for a new era to wean us off of big oil and to help us all to sleep  better at night knowing that our children’s tomorrow is safe, at least that we did what we could by helping Obama to win in November of 2008 and supporting him as  President.

Obama is a deeply Christian man and this is often misunderstood. The extent to which Christians will have the time and receptivity to listen to Obama remains to be seen,  but we are very optimistic that the profound impact of the teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ on Obama and his worldview and sense of justice—will become better  known over time. In our first chapter based on Obama’s Dreams, we discuss the beginnings of Obama’s acceptance of Christianity, the message of Jesus. As an  adolescent and young adult, Obama was interested primarily in issues involving local politics and race, finding his own identity. It was not until his early 20s, working in  Chicago as a community organizer, that he began having a deep and abiding personal relationship with Jesus Christ. And this interest in Christianity took place, in the  beginning, in the black church, a natural starting point for Obama, establishing who he is on his own terms. Obama has never been Muslim, although his grandfather  elected to convert to Islam in Africa, for political reasons, which appears to have resulted in some confusion on this point. This is also discussed at length in Chapter One  of ObamaBook.org. The Obama Book Project hopes to make a special contribution in this area the relevancy of religion to Obama’s ideology, as well as his appeal. On this  point, in particular, we ask for your faith-based contributions in our Interview Form.

Again, in response to Melody’s excellent question about the very possibility of progressive change, we have one answer, hope; and our hope often has a religious  character, zeal, excitement, optimism, much of it resting on Obama’s shoulders. Irrespective of what religion one calls home, there is profound consensus in religious  circles—across the vast majority of faiths—that we need to come together through respectful dialogue, in order to harness to power of religion to the service of humanity,  peace, and the preservation of our planetary home. It is a profound pleasure of the most spiritual nature to support Obama and his policies of hope, in terms of a more  just—and efficient—distribution of resources at home as well as abroad, to the extent to which this can become politically feasible. No one cares more for the weakest and  most vulnerable among us than Obama, at least in politically realistic ways, and he is one of the first Presidents in U.S. History to display a genuine preferential love for the  poor (at least since Kennedy, FDR, and Lincoln).

For Obama, old people, for example, are not potential voters; they are human beings who deserve to spend the last years of their life basking in the glory of being  Americans, as a result of the reasonableness of justice and generosity that America will show to the rest of the world in the Obama administration, as well as not having to  worry all day long about how they are going to pay for their medication, or preserve something to leave to their children. With President Obama, older people may be able  to die with a sense of patriotic dignity that they were never able to even imagine heretofore. This is especially true of old folks of color, and they deserve it.

With President Obama, our material lives will be made more secure, to such an extent that this is possible given the cataclysmic economic mess that he has inherited. And  for many, their spiritual lives will be more fulfilling as well. Religion and politics walk hand-in-hand in America and no one is better prepared than Barack Obama to  resurrect the true spirit of our Lord Christ Jesus in his preferential option for the poor, orphans, fatherless children with no childcare, adolescents in jail for non-violent  crimes because they have no decent employment opportunities, those who are downtrodden and miserable in a country where the richest 20% of the population control the  economy. Yet, it is precisely the rich who gave Obama the edge over Hillary, and they remained a solid block of political support in the general election, why? Among other  reasons, here, we explore the way in which those who are wealthy and successful among us have faith and long for redemption, sharing, and the sound economic  management of our country. We thank you for your contribution to waking America up to its moment in history by reading and contributing your ideas to our project.

President Obama will reinvest the trillions of dollars that we are spending in Iraq—to pump oil that spills onto the ground because Iraqi fighters will always blow those  pipelines—who could not have foreseen this other than George W. Bush. Trillions of dollars of oil is soaking into the desert soil and ruining what was once the Garden of  Eden. Let us stop this mismanagement of our money, the slaughter of innocent Iraqis, and save the lives of our own sons and daughters, many maimed, destroyed inside,  and their families! Would it not be better to spend the money drilling for oil in the highly profitable arctic zone of Canada, our neighbor to the north, where pipelines are not  sabotaged? Sinister forces have been at work in America and we are now generally seen by the world as weak, confused, even pathetic. Obama will stop this movement  towards self destruction, not overnight, it will be a long and mighty battle against special interest; yet, in the end, here at ObamaBook.org, we have faith that Obama will  indeed clean things up, at least he will have the opportunity to change the directions in which America is moving towards darkness, and steer a course less concerned with  power and more concerned with the people, especially innocent children, and planet friendly policies. Black people, young people, well educated people, and rich people  alone did not elect Obama. This is a ‘youth’ revolution very different from what occurred in the 1960s and while young people have indeed been very attracted to Obama,  he was elected by a broad spectrum of our society, now enjoying the support of older Americans of all colors and even political stripes. Yet, these older Obama supporters  are clearly young at heart, able to overcome bitterness and disappointment and to see hope in the future for a world with less human suffering and devastation. Many older  Obama supporters are Republicans looking for redemption and peace in a cruel dog-eat-dog world where hope has lain dormant throughout their lives, while they have  watched how power has bled us all.

Please help us with this book so that we can fight for a new world for all of us; Obama is wielding the sword and you are standing behind him. Our interview form is open  to the public and we depend on your support to help us to develop our project and build our Obama Resource Center. Especially if Obama does two terms, it is hoped that  this website will last for centuries, perhaps forever. We will have a highly qualified team that not only researches and writes Obama’s history for decades to come, but  library collections, videos, articles, reviews and chat rooms. If you help us we can become a prominent and most useful Obama library as well as campaign machine. We  need your support for The Obama Book so please read on.

Before moving directly into our material based on Obama’s own text, we wish to mention three issues of desperate importance to the Obama Presidency. It is hoped that  some of you might contribute to the buzz in these following areas, choosing one of these areas to write about for an article or a term paper, and we invite you to publish it  for free here on ObamaBook.org. We are trying to generate interest in and drum up support among our readers for research in the following areas.

In order of importance:

Obama security
The Airplane Factor (The National Association of Scientists suggests that one’s chances of dying in a plane crash are 3 times greater for Democratic as opposed to  Republican politicians). We need to know why this is through our research of past cases of possible political assassination, especially the case of Senator Paul Wellston.  And we all need to stay vigilant to keep Obama safe from those who wish to do him violence.


Who is a terrorist (and who is not).
America and the world are in desperate need of a definition of the words ‘terrorist’ and ‘terrorists’. Especially in response to Governor Sarah Palin’s suggestion that  Obama “pals around with terrorists,” we are making a call for further research into the political motivations of this label, the way that it is selectively used, and in the most  basic sense, what the terms really mean according to the context in which they are employed.

Over time, we will struggle to make ObamaBook.org a document of peace and reconciliation between America’s major political parties, and especially between Americans  themselves, on the one hand, and America and the world on the other, contributing to and preserving Obama’s legacy, and helping to fortify his mandate as a world leader.

We are awaiting additional coauthors from all over the world for this ongoing project to preserve Obama for history. Subsequently, those contributors whose commentary  or general ideas are used in this book will be recognized and listed by country, either their country of residency or their country of origin, or both. Take the chance to  come on board now and be one of the first on the list for your country or state, for history! Help us by filling out our free Online Interview Form Today! Right Now!