crossposted on OneMillionStrong
The United States should provide global leadership grounded in the understanding that the world shares a common security and common humanity. We must lead not in the spirit of a patron, but the spirit of a partner. Extending an outstretched hand to others must ultimately be more than just a matter of expedience or even charity. It must be about recognizing the inherent equality, dignity, and worth of all people. It will require American leadership that leverages engagement and resources from our traditional allies in the G-8 as well as new actors, including emerging economies (e.g. India, China, Brazil and South Africa), the private sector and global philanthropy. Yet, while America and our friends and allies can help developing countries build more secure and prosperous societies, we much never forget that only the citizens of these nations can sustain them.Barack Obama, “Strengthening Our Common Security by Investing in Our Common Humanity”, New Hampshire. November 2007.
The United States should provide global leadership grounded in the understanding that the world shares a common security and common humanity. We must lead not in the spirit of a patron, but the spirit of a partner. Extending an outstretched hand to others must ultimately be more than just a matter of expedience or even charity. It must be about recognizing the inherent equality, dignity, and worth of all people. It will require American leadership that leverages engagement and resources from our traditional allies in the G-8 as well as new actors, including emerging economies (e.g. India, China, Brazil and South Africa), the private sector and global philanthropy. Yet, while America and our friends and allies can help developing countries build more secure and prosperous societies, we much never forget that only the citizens of these nations can sustain them.
Barack Obama, “Strengthening Our Common Security by Investing in Our Common Humanity”, New Hampshire. November 2007.
Today's Center for Global Development blog has a wonderful posting on Obama's platform introduced last week at his Foreign Policy forum.
I post here the highlights of his position as laid out in this blog for reference.
This extraordinary example of Obama's 'out-of-the-box" evolved perceptions about recreating the role the US plays in the globalized world fell through the veritable cracks in MSM coverage, as did,for the most part, the magnfiicent forum itself.
Let's take a look at some global 'hot spots' and apply Obama-ology to them.
For starters, lets consider a few issues which are considered off limits or too hot to handle in today's political discourse; then note how Obama's GD plam(s) would address each issue.
Meanwhile, the Republicans fisticuff over Mitt's yard crew and Hillary harps on Obama's Kindergarten essay.
Why hasn't any other presidential candidate come up with such profoundly universally-relevant proposals? IMHO, this has everything to do with spending your formative years growing up in a distinctively un-American culture, coming from a family where some of your siblings and father reside in Kenya, and coupling financial aide with an innate intelligence to attend the finest American universities.
Obama is the essence of the American Dream. It is the the extensiveness and cohesion of his world view which affords him the unique ability to imagine an America big enough to export the dream in the process of restoring it.
Let's get moving now on the goal of drawing at least 25,000 to this rally. The Bill Graham Civic Auditorium is located just beside UN Plaza in front of SF's City Hall, the rallying point for the majority of major demonstrations, parades, etc. in the city. If they attracted 25k to Washington Square Park in NYC in 10 days, we can pull off a miracle in with 14 plus.I'm thinking Springfield 2 here! This is a major opportunity for the West Coast to proclaim to the rest of America that we are not ready to sit idly by as the corporations coronate Hillary Clinton as our choice for President of the United States! This event needs major advance work if we want to capitalize on this incredible opportunity. Posters everywhere. Notices in community newspapers, announcements on local radio and tv. We need volunteers handing out flyers at BART stations, on college campuses, in neighborhoods throughout the Bay Area and beyond. If the campaign isn't actively engaged in advance work, I''ll volunteer to work on a team to coordinate grassroots participation in publicity. So far, I've received great feedback on ORR.
Here are some of my suggestions
because it can't be business as usual if we are goig to take this counry back and as much as they say this campaing is about us, it is structgured just like any other god damned corporation where the people at the top are maaking all the decisons about how they are going to spend the money we contributed and I contributed a lot so far, like maybe $3000 and i'd spend more if they would just do SOMETHING OUT OF THE ORDINARY.
We are still playing their game by their rules and that is how they win because they control everything and lie and own the message. I am sick of noone writing about the scandal of those fake polling results which are so powerful because of the air of inevitability.
I feel like a worhthless peon here. The structuring has been set up so that only the people at the top know what they are going to do and those people at the top have been playing in the same game for so long and Obama is listening to them. and they get away with spreading aggain the false rumor that he is a Musllim like that should even matter but they have so altered reality that it does matter now to a whole group of potentila voters whose heads have been literally stuck up their ass they are so damend bllind to what's been taken away from them and what's still to come. maybe america deserves what it gets anyway.
i just believed in the man Obama and the dream he offered and i feel like really sick about this whole thing right now because power games are the name of the campaign. All these cutesy community blogs they look so good but nobody has a say in anythng cause we are all so insignificnet
...so what the hell.
right now i feel like such a damned asshole, trying to make a difference here and feeling so committed down to my toenails about getting some momentum building and getting the word out there big time that this propoganda campaign which has Sen. Clinton running away with the nomination is just another example of corporate control of our minds, our lives, our decisons and the facts available to us. I am so keely aware of the falsity of the Clinton myth and the fact that America will not survive as a nation 4 more years under conventional leadership which more reflects ALL that has gone wrong in our country than offers any sliver of hope of any meaningful change to the destruction which has been wroght on us by what are little better than corporate mercenaries working within our borders.
this woman and those she reporestns and her husband and his nefarious connections, all hidden conveniently now under his Clinton Initiative which really should start focusing if it wants to do something in getting the god damned corporations out of Africa for good and letting the peopel solve their own problems for god's sake.
Bill and his wife should be excommunicated from this country along with the Bush Cartel, the oil companies, the pharmaceuticals, the insurance companies, the auto makers, the refineries, the computer and cell phone companies who are raping Sudan for raw materials and fostering what they refer to as genocides as a means of sustaining an emotional empoverished and brain dead western civiilzatin, all thanks to you guys who are running the show.
how anyone with half a working brain could contineu to feed into this policy or this lack of policy is beyond my ability to comprehend. I jsut cannot fathom how a person could even consider the option of chosing another Clinton for the white house.
there i have spoken out again in the vaccum world of the barack obama personal blog community. no one resides here. it is a pretty safe place to vent your venom. everybody is too busy out there on the listservs, pumping up the candidate but not really willilng to come up with some revolutionary thinking to get us out of this god forsaken mess!
In the past two days, I have run into at least 10 individuals who are not aware of the community and opportunities to hear about local events, connect with local supporters and contribute funds to the campaign.
A big wakeup call! the internet is not enough, progressive radio is not sufficient, and traditional methods of finding out information through out local newspapers is these days more often than not hit and miss. We wonder why more people don't show up to demonstrate, why millions took to the streets in the 60s and so few do today. THEY DON'T KNOW WHAT'S HAPPENING!
I'd like to put forth the idea that we consider utilizing Critical Mass events in cities throughout the US on the last Friday of every month to not only set up tables (do we have bike stickers for Obama) but to rally local Obama supporters to bike en mass through their cities streets decked out in Obama gear and carrying sachels of flyers about local happenings, how to contribute, etc. to distribute along the way.
A few years back there was a series of books FIND WALDO. This might be an excellent idea for national roll out. "FIND THE OBAMA SUPPORTER"
The campaign or if not them those of us here online could begin campains which we publcize locally via billboards, local radio, local press, word of mouth, asking our neighbors to Find THE OBAMA SUPPORTER in their communities. Then each of us start showing up in Obama t-shirts all over the place: in churches, at PTA meetings, on bikerides, at kids games, sitting in flower pots, roller blading or skateboarding somewhere unexpected. Then as the game grows we start really making the game a tad more different ...
Just a germ of an idea ....
Back to original message: maybe we can begin sharing ideas about how we are making the Obama campaign and Obama supporters more visibile in our communities.
Here in Marin County California, we need some ideas.
I for one would be up for meeting a bunch of Bay Arera for Obama people on the last Friday of August in SF at Justin Herman Plaza.
Draft
<a href="http://www.landmarkcases.org/">Landmark Cases of The United States Supreme Court</a><p>Why are checks and balances, and the idea of limited government, essential to constitutional government? How can, and why should, a country commit itself to constitutional rule and the rule of law? Landmark Suprme Court Cases Brown v. The Board of Education or Roe v. Wade? Details on these exceptional cases, and an introduction to such judicial concepts as due process, equal protection under the law, Federalism, iand sepration of powers.Marbury v Madison (1803),described by former Supreme Court Chief Justice William Reinquist as "the most famous case ever decided by the United States Supreme Court" represented a battle between the outgoing Federalists and President James Madison and the incoming Presidentt Thomas Jefferson. Marbury established the basis for the exercise of judicial review of Federal statutes by the Supreme Court of the United States under Article Three of the United States Constitution.Chief Justice John Marshall ruled that the Supreme Court was not bound by an act of Congress that was "repugnant to the Constitution," thereby establishing the constitution as the ultimate law of the land.An OverviewMarbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803) is a landmark case in United States law and the basis for the exercise of judicial review of Federal statutes by the Supreme Court of the United States under Article Three of the United States Constitution.The case resulted from a petition to the Court by William Marbury, who had been appointed as Justice of the Peace in the District of Columbia by President John Adams shortly before leaving office, but whose commission was not delivered as required by John Marshall, Adams's Secretary of State. When Thomas Jefferson assumed office, he ordered the new Secretary of State, James Madison, to withhold Marbury's and several other men's commissions. Marbury and three others petitioned the Court to force Madison to deliver the commission to Marbury. The case was ultimately unsuccessful for Marbury, who never became a Justice of the Peace in the District of Columbia.interestingly enough dealth with the power of the President to appoint five-year-term justices immediately preceding the swearing in of a new President (Thomas Jefferson)Marbury v. Madison. There, the Court - in an opinion authored by http://www.landmarkcases.org/marbury/home.htmlThe issueThere are three ways a case can be heard in the Supreme Court: (1) filing directly in the Supreme Court; (2) filing in a lower federal court, such as a district court, and appealing all the way up to the Supreme Court; (3) filing in a state court, appealing all the way up through the state's highest courts, and then appealing to the Supreme Court on an issue of federal law. The first is an exercise of the Court's original jurisdiction; the second and third are exercises of the Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction.
Because Marbury filed his petition for the writ of mandamus directly in the Supreme Court, the Court needed to be able to exercise original jurisdiction over the case in order to have the power to hear it.Marshall argued that the Judiciary Act of 1789 granted the Supreme Court original jurisdiction over petitions for writs of mandamus. * Does Article III of the Constitution create a "floor" for original jurisdiction, which Congress can add to, or does it create an exhaustive list that Congress can't modify at all? * If Article III's original jurisdiction is an exhaustive list, but Congress tries to modify it anyway, who wins that conflict, Congress or the Constitution? And, more importantly, who is supposed to decide who wins? In his answer to this last question, Marshall formalizes the notion of judicial review.In short, the constitutional issue on which Marbury v. Madison was decided was whether Congress could expand the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marbury_v._MadisonThe Supreme Court has deferred to the President in reviewing his authority, particularly in times of war and emergency. Marshall let Jefferson off the hook; to hold him to strict accounts would have been too risky, both for Marshall himself (he regarded contemporary efforts to impeach him as serious), and for the Court itself. The Warren Court refused to confront Presidents Johnson and Nixon on the legality of the war in Vietnam. Will the Supreme Court, when asked to make a constitutional assessment of the "war on terrorism," do the same for George W. Bush? Maybe granted the Supreme Court several powers, perhaps the most significant being the authority to rule as unconstituional acts of Congres and of the President if they exceeded powers granted bgy the CDonstitution. The Court became the arbiter of the Constitution, the final authority on what the document meant. As such, the Supreme Court became in fact as well as in theory an equal partner in government, and it has played that role ever sinceSources:
<a href="http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/democrac/9.htm/">Maybery v. Madison</a>
<a href="http://writ.news.findlaw.com/commentary/20030224_grossman.html/"> The 200 Anniversary of Marbury v Madison</a>
History of
Why its important
What are PACs
PACs in 2004: Case Study: Swiftboat and Kerry
History of business impacting legislation, corporate control of goverment.
How did this happen?
Changing nature off business
Laws which adversely impacted, anti-trust, Taft-Hartley, FCC,
Unions
The role of media in government.
Free speech, media monopolies
Net neutrality
Polls conducted by corporate controlled media
Identifying bias in your news sources
Activism
American government is founded on the principle that the people are in charge. Elected officials work FOR you.
What does it mean to be an active citizen and why is it so important?
A history of the right to vote
Electing a president: controversies
Voting Patterns
Districting
Voter Fraud and Election Fraud: What's the Difference
Why vote?
Which judicial appointments are made by the President?
Why is Congress' role in confirming the president's appointments to the Supreme Court so important?
How could your life be impacted by Supreme Court decisions?
What is the US Attorneys case now being investigated by Congress about?
What is precedent?
Most important Supreme Court Decisions
A definition of the term and the reasoning behind it. How this is relevant historically and today. The role of impeachment.
Impeachment Trials
An examination "We, the People" and of the Legislative, Judicial and Executive Branches of government as outlined in the Constitution.
The Preamble the unique status of the American people in creating their new government: It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political institutions on accident and force.
Article I; The Legislative BranchCongress is the only branch of the U.S. government that existed prior to the Constitution, although it took a different form. The framers of the Constitution expected that Congress would overshadow the newly created executive and judicial branches, and they spelled out its powers in considerable detail. They also placed explicit limits on the powers of Congress, to balance its weight against the other branches. Thus, Article I is the longest part of the Constitution—longer than Articles II and III combined, which cover both the executive and the judiciary.Article I contains the laundry list of federal powers—among them to collect taxes, borrow money, regulate commerce, establish post offices, and declare war. It also allows Congress to make all laws “necessary and proper” for carrying out the powers specifically granted, a broad source of authority in the modern regulatory state. Article I holds two compromises that were essential to the formation of the Union: equal representation of the states in the Senate, and the valuation of a slave as three-fifths of a person.Article 2: The Executive BranchThe duty of the executive branch is to enforce the laws. As a result of increasing federal regulation, the executive is by far the largest branch of government. It consists not only of the president, the vice president, and the cabinet officers, but also more than three million civilian and military employees. The primary responsibility of the president, and the entire executive branch, is best expressed in Section 3 of Article II: “He shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”Article II focuses almost exclusively on the president. It sets forth how the president is to be selected, through the electoral college. Article II also describes presidential powers—among them commanding the armed forces, negotiating treaties, and nominating justices of the Supreme Court. And, if the president has committed “high crimes and misdemeanors,” Article II allows him or her to be impeached and removed from office.Article 3: The Judiciaryhe duty of the judicial branch is to interpret the laws. Or, in the words of Chief Justice John Marshall, “to say what the law is.” Article III has been interpreted by the Supreme Court to give the judiciary the power to declare acts of the president or Congress unconstitutional. This power, known as judicial review, gives American courts much more influence than in other countries.Article III is the shortest, and least specific, of the constitutional provisions establishing the three branches of government. The framers of the Constitution spent far less time—and debate—on the judiciary than Congress or the president. Yet the power of unelected judges to overturn laws in a democracy has become one of the most controversial issues in American government.
Documents: An Extended View
Digital History
Scroll through the first printed draft of the Constitution, complete with comments widely presumed to be written by George Washington.
The National Archives Building website
Links to images of the original Constitution and Bill of Rights.
Just what does it mean to be an American? What is that “American dream” that inspired more than 20 million immigrants to pass through Ellis Island between 1892-1924? The run up to the 2008 election is an ideal time to participate in a mini-refresher course, perhaps for some an exercise in discovery learning about the uniqueness of the United States of America.
Let's get started.
The BeginningsIn a series of 16 ‘webisodes, PBS Series on Freedom, A History of the United States provides a concise overview of US history from the Boston Tea Party through the Civil Rights movements in the 1960s. The series, designed for students and families, is highly interactive, featuring scavenger hunts, games, audio clips, and links to museums and organizations in local regions throughout the US. Complete with links to primary source documents and a formidable art gallery.
Field independence and field dependence
FI hinges on the perceptual skill of "seeing the forest for the trees." A person who can easily recognize the hidden castle or human face in 3-D posters and a child who can spot the monkeys camouflaged within the trees and leaves of an exotic forest in coloring books tend toward a field independent style. The "field" may be perceptual or it may be abstract, such as a set of ideas, thoughts, or feelings from which the task is to perceive specific subsets. Field dependence is, conversely, the tendency to be "dependent" on the total field so that the parts embedded within the field are not easily perceived, though that total field is perceived most clearly as a unified whole (Brown: 1994). from Link />
from a comment I posted re myspace controversy on Community blog:
I feel there is a flagrant disconnect between the stated philosophy of this campaign and how it is being managed. Agreed, that the public response both on and off line has been unprecedented (and probably totallly unexpected) .... however, the total disconnect I experience (and hear vented elsewhere in these pages) between the true candidate and his roots is disturbing and disillusioning. We have rallied to support Obama financially and if the figures are correct and the majority of contributions are from small donators, then these are the people who should have a voice in this campaign. They are not supporting a candidate who ismanaged by 'old school' handlers who represent the type of Washington business Obama wants to change. They don't want a candidate who does not have the courage to speak his real opinions in debates, in interviews, in public appearances. It would be nice if the candidate actually participated, read, answered some posts in his own voice. If he is actually doing this,I guess I am just not in that loop, so please accept my apology. I suggest that Obama make a "real" green statement and spent a weekend or two home with his family, where he set aside a few hours to communicate openly sans MSM mediation with his netroots on policy issues and concerns. Nobody except Michele and the girls around to preapprove what he says based upon 'polling ' AND cutting back on his carbon footprint by not jetting across the country and driving around in SUVs from one engagement to another. A+ on authenticy and setting an example on sacrifices we are going to have to make to reverse global warming. A word about polling? Noone has EVER polled me... any of you ever participated in a poll about any of the issues America faces today? I'd like to see some actual polling take place on talkbarackobama08.com (we have one up there now on impeachment under Domestic issues); Obama can look at the results of these polls and use them to inform his decisons and opinions. (And if this isn't the place where dicussion boards are residing, how about some consolidation...) This is not a business as usual campaign and we need some highly creative thinkers onboard. Some authenticy and 'audacity' and courage! Don't really know if my voice is all that welcome here. or ever read. I tend to have very high expectations but frankly, And maybe the problem is that I don't think they are that unreaslistic. I truly believe (as Obama stated at the onset) that this IS the moment! America has to change dramatically, aggressively, innately. We need a powerful, inciteful and honest leader, someone who has the integrity and the faith in human nature to speak truth. There ARE millions of Americans who are aching for this. They are the audience. Dance with them, not for them. This is the passion which fueled the original myspace obama effort. In the end, only the parties involved know what actually came down. But it is this passion which must at all costs be nurtured, supported .... and never manipulated. My suggestion to this campaign? Take the pulse of your enormous and growing base. Seek concensus. Don't make the news, Be the news, A word on Audacity from wikipedia: "Audacity is a free/open source, cross platform digital audio editor. The source code for Audacity is released under the GNU General Public License. The graphical user interface for the editor has been produced using the wxWidgets library" and from Roget's: Bold, fearless daring, intrepid That's what I signed up for! If you got here,thanks for reading.
To all 100,000 of us, the first to contribute to One Million Strong:
Rise like Lionsafter slumberIn unvanquishable number -Shake your chainsto earth like dewWhich in sleephad fallen on you -Ye are many -they are few." ~Percy Bysshe Shelley
