And what would Africa have to offer? Please do tell, can you offer any tangible example? Well, besides colorful dashikis and hand-made crafts for sale in Cambridge. Well, and besides raw materials and natural resources, which have to be extracted by Western companies with heavy security to keep the natives from butchering or kidnapping the workers.

Satya, I am half-East African (like Obama!), and I too find that every single Kenyan and Tanzanian I've spoken with in the past five or six months has been super-excited about Obama. It says a lot that so many East Africans have said to me, "It's funny/sad that the United States will have a Luo president before Kenya does."

That being said, I suspect that most Americans couldn't care less what Africans think of them, or of America. Many Americans I know are just as uninformed (albeit much less hateful) about Africa as Milla the troll. But that doesn't matter for Obama's chances -- even apart from the symbolism his presidency would represent, Obama is incredibly powerful as an American candidate, on his merits. (Besides, even though America is a country of immigrants, I wouldn't really like him to be cast as the "foreigners' candidate.")

I am not denigrating his efforts. I would argue they are lackluster efforts to be sure. S2433 is a mom and apple pie bill destined not to do anything substantive. The Congo bill is nice(would notice one of the cosponsers of said bill) but really more of a band-aid than a real help. My point was that there is little or nothing done from our side to help Africa. As well, I am not saying that the Clinton record is that stellar(Rwanda). There has always been a lot of talk and popular slogans at certain times for the Continent but nothing driven and long term. No matter who wins this I am hopeful some real efforts will be made to help save Africa. Its on the brink now more than it has ever been and the world is happy to sit by and watch. Including us who'd rather argue over whether Wright said something wrong or Hillary lied about a 10 year old detail to Women, Men and chidren suffering.

I am not saying that we should bear the brunt of that effort as well. To the contrary, we need to be able to force the EU to step up and be responsible for the problems that they created in Africa.

Milla said: And what would Africa have to offer?

China and India are finding a lot to like about Africa. They are going into business there, and not just for the commodities like the oil, diamonds, copper, etc. They're starting businesses, building hotels and other infrastructure. While the U.S. is off tilting at windmills and letting its currency and economy collapse, Asia is positioning itself to lead the world in the 21st century.

Putting all the heavy comments aside for a moment - indeed Africa is tragically raped and shouldn't have to suffer like it does when it's such a rich place in terms of people and resources.

The original post topic makes me really happy. I started out with Edwards - I let him put his class ring around my neck, though I will admit I was somewhat faithless and still flirted with Obama. One of the first things I thought about Obama was the possibility that electing him could go a long way toward repairing some of the damage our image has suffered the last 8 years. Ok, it's superficial, Africa needs real help. But so does our image in the eyes of the rest of the world.

What finally made me fall head over heels with Obama was caucus night here in Dallas, Texas. I have never seen anything like it in my life. I have lived in a Democratic dead zone for years, knowing that Texas was a Democratic state a lot longer than it has been Republican, and knowing, too, that there are a lot of Democrats here. They are mostly in urban areas, but not all by any means. When no candidate bothered to so much as visit down here; when we couldn't even get campaigns to send enough yard signs to meet the demand - no wonder no one voted. The Southern Strategy didn't just start losing us elections, it has deepened the poverty down here, and stagnated our hopes of turning things around for years as the religious right tromped all over us and the Repugs stole as much as they could.

Until 2006, when Howard Dean finally broke through that stupid campaign style that started with Bill Clinton. And then suddenly, we started seeing Democrats elected again. WE threw out 49 Repug judges in Dallas Co. in '06. The whole state is in play this time. But if we go back to wooing the same old coalition, it will all just die.

So Obama is standing up to my expectations, and my hopes, and more, so far. Thanks for the post.

When will we see, Farrakan, Jackson, or Sharpton going to Africa to help their bros? They are not hurting for $$ and they have plenty of mouth.

Should BHO muddle thru and get elected, I bet they will on the first trip he takes.

There is obvious knock-on effects coming because of Global Warming(of course over 50% of this country doesn't think its a problem) with drought and lack of water becoming a major major issue. The US stands as one of the only countries with the engineeriing expertise to help Africa build the infrastructure needed to alleviate this problem. As well, many talented people from Africa are poring out of the Continent for Europe and the US in search of better opportunities. We ignore what is happening there at our peril.

And, to my way of thinking he can focus a lot of wasted effort in the AA community into helping out Africa.

Because, of course, things at home for the AA community are just so peachy keen. Your "wasted effort" formulation grates. Sorry.

Maybe I should stop fretting about the fate of my white trash/redneck kin stuck in the ditch here in the "homeland" and instead start worrying about how our Old World "relations" over there across the pond are doing?

We're all Americans now, you wanker.

Some of us are more "all Americans" than others. ... Obama thinks of himself as part of the black community, so it's fair to talk about what the black community is doing for the black community
I agree with Chino. Billy, I'm sure you don't mean to suggest this, but your argument implies that African-Americans are somehow less American than white Americans.

As Louisville pointed out (I never expected to agree with anything Louisville wrote, but I'm delighted to be surprised),
Real help. And not just our ideas of help. Listen, really listen to the people there and their ideas.
The same is true of African-Americans. It's safe to say that African-Americans, like any other citizens in a democracy, are entitled to decide what their own political priorities are.

Of course, you're free to disagree with any political priority an African-American might set, but as Chino says, if you think black Americans owe something to Africans that white Americans don't owe to Europeans, you might want to reassess what "American" means to you.