Although a world apart from the civil rights issues that plagued us in the 20th century, Obama is in touch with the not-so-obvious civil rights issues facing us today. Look closely, and you will see how with Obama America can take the next "giant leap" in the direction of being a nation where all men are truly created equal and are given the chance to uphold our rights for life, liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
*** after ever numbered point below i provide my opinion for support to each point. You may skip over that and understand just fine the main 5 points to his civil rights policies.
CIVIL RIGHTS POLICIES
1. Pass Mathew Shephard Act (H.R. 1592) - This bill if passed into law makes the consequences of hate crimes much more serious in nature. This is America, we are all equal, and a crime based on discrimination is not just a crime. It is an attack on the very foundation of American ideals.
2. Pass Fair Pay Act - This bill if passed will make it a law that equal pay must be given for equal work, for all Americans (male or female). This bill was introduced and dismissed in April 2008 by a minority of senators. Republican senator Kay Hutchison, a staunch supporter of McCain, has tried to pass a similar bill that adds unfair hurdles (bureaucracy for you) before vindication of equal pay by victims. DID YOU KNOW THE AVERAGE WOMAN MAKES 77 CENTS TO THE AVERAGE MANS DOLLAR? (AFRICAN/AMERICAN WOMEN 63 CENTS, AND LATINAS 52 CENTS)
3. Pass D.P.&V.I.P. Act - Full name is below. This is a law that will ban politicians from misleading information during elections (such as the strategies being used in this election). Controlled by your Attorney General (main legal advisor to your state), this would give them the authority to investigate such incidents and take appropriate action. (Deceptive Practices and Voter Intimidation Prevention Act)
4. Help ex-offenders re-integrate into society - Obama will create a "Prison-to-Work" program to give ex offenders the second chance that they are denied. Not all Americans that come out of prison get a fair second chance at life again. Prison is meant to teach you how to rectify your errors. How can we expect people to learn from their mistakes if they continue to pay for them after their punishment is over?
5. Support, not punish, our misguided citizens - Obama wants to support Americans who have fallen victim to drug addictions by giving FIRST time NON VIOLENT offenders a chance to serve their sentence in drug rehab centers instead of prisons. Some Americans fall victim to the pressure of substance abuse. Normally as a result of depressing life conditions, these souls should not be punished on their first offense. Instead we should all take responsibility and try to help them with rehab so that they can fight their addiction with their courage and perseverance.
For those of you who aren’t clear on the details, heres a "dumb down" explanation of the fannie mae and freddie mac takeover explanation. Its pretty straightforward, and before reading you should read up on what a bond is if you don’t already know.
Bond Definition: (read the first paragraph alone and you’ll understand.)
In a nutshell, the “real estate bubble" burst and the value of homes plummeted. This caused interest rates for loans from banks to soar, and those families that barely made payments were now facing mortgage defaults. Millions of people couldn’t afford the new mortgage payments, which *had* the cost of essential commodities not soared along with the cost of gasoline AND healthcare, millions of people would have had a few more dollars to pull out of their pockets for their homes. This rule is applied across the board to millions of homeowners. Well we all know that when you buy a home it’s a mutual risk between you and the bank. However all the risks the bank takes with millions of people is indirectly propagated to financial institutions like Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. They in turn will go out and sell bonds to raise the money for those loans to overseas and domestic investors.
Problem is that banks took in way too much risk, which indirectly eroded fannie and freddie with concerns over its financial integrity. Can a single company take in 5 trillion dollars of debt? This makes foreign and domestic investors alike think twice about buying bonds from fannie and Freddie. These concerns together with the 5 trillion dollars in debt started to slowly affect the influx of investors buying bonds from fannie and Freddie. This in turn forced fannie and Freddie to raise interest rates on the banks loans to still be able to raise money for future loans, which then in turn forced banks to raise interest rates on homeowner’s loans to still make a profit. That means they began pinching the people whom were already suffering from financial instability caused by the rising cost of living (gas, food, healthcare to name a few). End result, fannie and Freddie would have gone down the drain and the cost of living would have soared over night even further because banks would not have had a stream of cash flow to pay for the crucial roles they fill in our economy. Could this have been avoided? Sure, if we had someone who knows how to run the economy leading us.
Heres a great CNN money article that explains how we got to where we are regarding Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.
For your convenience, you may skip over the BOLD AND ITALIC AND UNDERLINED material (can i get a highlighter tool in this HTML editor PLEASEEEEE pretty please). It is redundant to the points on his education policy, and serve as just reinforcement to those points. I do encourage you to read them though, they are written with my own personal real life experience.
OBAMAS EDUCATION PLAN
TOTAL ESTIMATED COST: $18 billion per year.
TOTAL ACTUAL COST OF IRAQ WAR TODAY: $5.1 billion per month, and a staggering $61.2 billion per year.
Some would say that Obama makes outlandish promises. Well i think if we can spend $61.2 billion a year in iraq sitting in a desert fueling extremism, we certainly can spend $18 billion a year on our future; the youth of the united states.
Recruit, Prepare, Retain, and Reward America's teachers
5) Obama will create new Teacher Service Scholarships that will cover four years of undergraduate or two years of graduate teacher education in exchange for teaching for at least four years in a high-need field or location. We pay your school, you then come teach our kids that most need it. If you want to teach, and in all honesty only teachers that love their jobs should be teachers, then under obama believe me youll get what you want.
6) Obama will also create Teacher Residency Programs that will supply 30,000 exceptionally well-prepared recruits to high-need schools. He will require all schools to be accredited, which means no more "hawk academy" or a christian charter school that mails you a high school diploma test for 200 bucks.Accreditation is the process of reviewing a school's programs and policies to see if its meets the criteria set by outside agencies like the US department of education. When a school is found to meet the minimum criteria set by an outside agency, it is granted accreditation. If not accredited your high school diploma wont allow you to get into college, or get the same paying jobs as other hard working graduates. THERE IS NO SHORTCUT TO THAT DIPLOMA.
HIGHER EDUCATION
7) American Opportunity Tax Credit - This will help ME get back into college. This will cover in full the average community college (like miami dade community college) and almost 2/3rds of the average public university with a 4k tax credit. This will be in addition to the grants and aide available already through FAFSA.
8) Simplifying the financial aide process - LOL wow do i love this one, its just a no brainer. Obama will streamline the financial aid process by eliminating the current federal financial aid application and enabling families to apply simply by checking a box on their tax form, authorizing their tax information to be used, and eliminating the need for a separate application. in the words of my wonderful baby niece DUH!!! anyone who reads this and has applied for financial aide will love this idea.
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/education/ - This is his detailed written policy on education
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGcr1UZpBfA - Great speech where obama lays out his entire education plan in 36 minutes today (september 9th).
Obama lays out a well known fact that the world as it exists today has never encountered the challenges we are facing. 18 years ago (when i was 2 years old) the internet was just a small local network in a university laboratory. It has changed the world by creating a global economy, because now a business can operate from anywhere there is an internet connection. This means that where in the last half of the 20th century wealth was the real way to ascertain power, in the 21st century its all about information.To survive in this new world we need to be the worlds leader in education. In miami springs senior high school and in every single public school PERIOD in florida, schools are given a grade on performance. Based on that grade in performance, the schools budget is allocated by the superintendent. The lower the grade, the lower the budget. The performance is measured, and this is a fact, by 2 factors. first factor is the schools overall test results for ONE SINGLE test called the CAT test; FCAT here in florida. Second factor is overall student attendance. *!!!WARNING; JOSE'S FACT ALERT !!!the important stuff was up there numbered. Reading further exposes you to REAL facts. Conservatives, beware. LOL What happens as a result of the failed "no child left behind act", which is what happen to me during my high school years, is that instead of focusing on class subject matter, schools FORCE you in french class, in arts, in computer class, in history class to take constantly 5 or 6 Practice fcats a week, your writing a weekly 3 paragraph composition (usually with the same topics lol) and the teachers are STRICTLY forbidden to veer off those topics. You go to high school for four years to learn how to take an fcat pretty much. If your peers in high school dont give a rats ass about the test and they do bad, and we know that kind of attitude in a high school is very contagious, then you will be affected, because your schools budget will be decreased and you will have more bitter teachers who didnt get a raise, Old locker rooms to put stuff in, DISGUSTING bathrooms to do your business in, 8 to 10 year old math books (can you believe that my algebra 2 book in 2003 was the SAME EXACT book my older brother used in springs when he took the class in 96-97?). None of you know this unless ofcourse you went to high school during the bush administration, and got to witness this whole CRAZY plan to give schools their ever so necessary budgets based on ONE stupid test. Best part, the test only counts for 12th graders and 10th graders, so you waste your entire freshman and junior year preparing for a test that over the summer you forget all about. WTF IS WRONG WITH THIS SYSTEM CAN ANYONE GUESS? Did you guys know that McCain at one point supported ABOLISHING the department of education. "I would certainly favor doing away with the Department of Energy and I think that given the origins of the Department of Education," the Senator (McCain) said on CNN's Late Edition in December 1994. "I would favor doing away with it as well." for full article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/09/mccain-backed-abolishing_n_125096.html .
Obama lays out a well known fact that the world as it exists today has never encountered the challenges we are facing. 18 years ago (when i was 2 years old) the internet was just a small local network in a university laboratory. It has changed the world by creating a global economy, because now a business can operate from anywhere there is an internet connection. This means that where in the last half of the 20th century wealth was the real way to ascertain power, in the 21st century its all about information.To survive in this new world we need to be the worlds leader in education.
In miami springs senior high school and in every single public school PERIOD in florida, schools are given a grade on performance. Based on that grade in performance, the schools budget is allocated by the superintendent. The lower the grade, the lower the budget. The performance is measured, and this is a fact, by 2 factors. first factor is the schools overall test results for ONE SINGLE test called the CAT test; FCAT here in florida. Second factor is overall student attendance.
*!!!WARNING; JOSE'S FACT ALERT !!!the important stuff was up there numbered. Reading further exposes you to REAL facts. Conservatives, beware. LOL
What happens as a result of the failed "no child left behind act", which is what happen to me during my high school years, is that instead of focusing on class subject matter, schools FORCE you in french class, in arts, in computer class, in history class to take constantly 5 or 6 Practice fcats a week, your writing a weekly 3 paragraph composition (usually with the same topics lol) and the teachers are STRICTLY forbidden to veer off those topics. You go to high school for four years to learn how to take an fcat pretty much. If your peers in high school dont give a rats ass about the test and they do bad, and we know that kind of attitude in a high school is very contagious, then you will be affected, because your schools budget will be decreased and you will have more bitter teachers who didnt get a raise, Old locker rooms to put stuff in, DISGUSTING bathrooms to do your business in, 8 to 10 year old math books (can you believe that my algebra 2 book in 2003 was the SAME EXACT book my older brother used in springs when he took the class in 96-97?). None of you know this unless ofcourse you went to high school during the bush administration, and got to witness this whole CRAZY plan to give schools their ever so necessary budgets based on ONE stupid test. Best part, the test only counts for 12th graders and 10th graders, so you waste your entire freshman and junior year preparing for a test that over the summer you forget all about. WTF IS WRONG WITH THIS SYSTEM CAN ANYONE GUESS?
Did you guys know that McCain at one point supported ABOLISHING the department of education. "I would certainly favor doing away with the Department of Energy and I think that given the origins of the Department of Education," the Senator (McCain) said on CNN's Late Edition in December 1994. "I would favor doing away with it as well." for full article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/09/mccain-backed-abolishing_n_125096.html .
