We arrived in LA around 3:50 pm not sure exactly where the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion was but it was easy to figure out when I saw protesters and police everywhere. We pulled into Valet Parking got out of the car and immediately were being yelled at by Prolife people holding huge signs of awful pictures. We had to walk past all of them and one guy was using the bullhorn near my ear and I flipped him off (not very nice of me, I know). Made it past the gauntlet and went to the registration table gave our names got our bracelets and went through security. My shoes beeped each time I went outside to smoke so by the end I and the Secret Service guy had made nice. The venue was gorgeous, tall glass windows. There was a booth where you could get a free picture behind a bunch of microphones with hope bannered across the top. Tables selling T-Shirts and buttons. I got the square one with a picture of Barack & Michelle doing the fist bump with Yes We Can on it. They directed us upstairs one floor where at the top of the stairs was a small stage and a piano set up. There were people hanging out there and a security guy told me that it was where BO would speak. We walked around the corner and there was a bar with water, beer and wine. We both had a glass of chardonnay. They had nice overstuffed chairs to sit and waiters walking around with Horderves. Tami from this site called my phone and we went back downstairs to meet her. She is really nice. 5:30pm - Back upstairs and hanging out with our wine near the small stage and piano. We met some really nice people during our wait. 3 ladies and 1 guy who have never donated to a campaign before like us. Met two doctors who were originally from Iran, they were both great and we talked about Real Estate (my business). While we talking I realized that the floor above us was filling up and when I looked up I saw Sugar Ray Leonard, Samuel L Jackson & his wife. Then I saw Marg Helgenburger from CSI standing behind me. She was friendly and took a picture with my Mom. It must have been an hour before the first speaker took the stage. Kal Penn (Kumar) talked about his reasons for volunteering in Iowa and said that because of the writers strike he got to stay there for two months. He talked about the change we need in our country and how young people can make the difference. Don Cheadle (Hotel Rwanda) got up and read a statement he had prepared and I am sorry I can not remember much of what he said except he was fired up and his wife was too. Dennis Quaid then came on and told everyone he had not been to a democratic fundraiser before and that he was a Republican but was now a Obama Supporter. He talked about his reasons (like all of ours) he is supporting Barack and said his twin babies were doing well. I do not remember how long he talked but it was at least 10-15 mins. Then Kal Penn came back up and helped kill the time a little longer. He then introduced Seal who came out and spoke so well about his support of Barack and that he had been in the US for 18 years and was losing hope about the system here. He talked for a while and then introduced David Foster who came out and sat at the piano. Seal sang Kiss from a rose and then he said he was singing this song because it was true then he sang the best version of "Change is gonna come". It was so awesome and he and David hugged at the end and David introduced the CA speaker democrat, I am sorry I did not catch her name by this time I had two and a half glasses of wine and was very excited just to be where I was in the front waiting for Barack. She talked for a few minutes and then she introduced the Man!. It all seems a little blurry to me (I could not believe I was right there so close to him as he was talking) I took a lot of pictures and remember every-time he said something good my mom would loudly say Yes! One time as he was looking at her talking she started to cry. He was genuine. After a few loud Yes's or amens from my mom someone near us told her Shhh.. twice. She reminded me of the lady in church who says amen the loudest, lol. My mom has never been a voter or even liked a candidate enough pay attention to what they were saying longer than a few minutes, this year is so different and she was fired up. Barack pretty much gave his standard stump speech about the economy and the environment talked about women and was fantastic. I was in awe the whole time. When he was done speaking he went down the line to say hello to everyone. I took pictures up until he came near me. I put my hand out he looked at me and all I could think of to say was "I put my life on hold this year to work to get you elected". He said Thank you and then my Mom told him she had never voted before and he thanked her and said he was happy she decided to vote for him. Then he was on to the next person. Reggie came over and I told him he had a lot of women in love with him and he held my Mom's hand smiled at her and then he too was off to the next person. Before we knew it Barack was gone and it was over. When we were leaving a photog took our pictures and we were given a large Hope/Barack poster. All the abortion protesters were gone but there were some people polarizing 9/11 and asking for Barack to tell us the real truth. I ignored them we got our car from the valet and were off to my Mom's friends house in the Valley. We ended up at their favorite watering hole where I sang Karaoke and had a great time talking to people about attending the fundraiser. Link to pictures
http://s278.photobucket.com/albums/kk81/lifesabeach100/?action=view¤t=italyBarack201.jpg
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=30065244&id=1163835033
Seal Singing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxS5ZCg4Ql0
I am a lifelong Democrat, the mother of 5 sons and two granddaughters. I do not have a college degree but IMHO I am very intelligent and have learned a lot along the way. This is the movement I have waited for my whole life. I remember being very young and watching my immigrant Scottish Grandfather yell at the TV cheering on RFK and cussing at Nixon. I spent a lot of time with him and he was the best Grandpa a girl could have. He taught me that you needed an education not only in school but in the real world. He showed me that you had to be ready and able to handle the adversity that comes your way. He was one of the strong few men who started the Longshoremen’s Union in the LA harbor long before I was born. As I grew up I paid attention to the candidates who were running for office, I heard their promises and became so disillusioned with the whole process all I ever did was vote and hope for the best. I used to wonder if there would ever come a time when I would find a higher purpose and think about the greater good instead of my own self interests, or be inspired the way my Grandfather was in the 60’s.
I had turned completely off for the last eight years when it came to politics, I even changed my party to become Independent after Kerry lost in 2004. I had lost all faith and hope for anything to change in our political system so I just tuned it out. I worked hard, traveled outside of the USA as much as I could and worried our country was going to hell in a hand basket.
I got sick 4 years ago without health insurance, oh boy what a nightmare my life became, the doctors said I had Crohns disease, but could not help me because it was to expensive due to being noninsured. I had to refinance my home to pay off a E/R bill that almost ruined me. I healed myself by changing my diet and using probiotics.
I voted for Bill Clinton twice, the first time I was hoping Hillary was going to bring a healthcare system to our nation. It never came to pass. I defended them for years to so many. My hope was just about gone when it came to being a citizen of this country when Gore lost in 2000 and later even more, especially when I was in Europe and had to try to defend my country to the people I met.
All that changed in late November 2007. I started listening to the news about the upcoming election hearing about this guy named Barack Obama. My first thought when I heard his name was “are you kidding me? A black man named Barack Obama is running for President, that is too funny.
I started to pay attention and pretty soon I knew that this was the ONE leader I had been waiting for my whole life. He spoke to everything inside me that made sense. He talked like a Kennedy, he was putting himself out there in a way no other candidate had done in my adult life. The more I listened to him the more I became convinced he was the only hope I had for myself and my offspring‘s future. He is honest, I can tell I am a great judge of character. He is humble and that is so important. He is intelligent and thinks so much like me about the issues facing our world. I feel like I have come of age this last 7 months.
I have donated to a campaign for the first time in my life. I have spent days on end before the TX & OH primaries calling voters and telling them about Barack Obama. I flew to PA from CA and spent two weeks volunteering 12 hours a day while my husband was threatening to divorce me the entire time I was there. The threats didn't work and I finished it out there although I was devastated at the results in that behind the times state (sorry PA residents). I have wrote letters to my representatives and supers in other states. I am a real life amateur blogger who spends most of my time on the internet. I am boycotting many products and television channels.
My husband got over it, he no longer gets mad because he knows I am on a mission greater than me or him or Barack Obama. I am on a mission to change our county and the world. I am fired up & ready to go wherever Barack or his campaign tells me I am needed.
I am not a writer, I am a talker. I love people and I love to do good things for special ones I meet along the way of life. Please forgive my bad grammer or spelling mistakes I am a work in progress.
Asked if her continuing fight for the nomination against Senator Obama hurts the Democratic party, Sen. Hillary Clinton replied, "I don't. Because again, I've been around long enough. You know, my husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. You know, I just don't understand it. You know, there's lots of speculation about why it is. “ The comments were recorded and we showed them to you earlier and they are online as we speak. She actually said those words. Those words, Senator? You actually invoked the nightmare of political assassination.You actually invoked the specter of an inspirational leader, at the seeming moment of triumph, for himself and a battered nation yearning to breathe free, silenced forever.You actually used the word "assassination" in the middle of a campaign with a loud undertone of racial hatred - and gender hatred - and political hatred.You actually used the word "assassination" in a time when there is a fear, unspoken but vivid and terrible, that our again-troubled land and fractured political landscape might target a black man running for president. Or a white man. Or a white woman!
You actually used those words, in this America, Senator, while running against an African-American against whom the death threats started the moment he declared his campaign? You actually used those words, in this America, Senator, while running to break your "greatest glass ceiling" and claiming there are people who would do anything to stop you? You! Senator - never mind the implications of using the word "assassination" in any connection to Senator Obama... What about you? You cannot say this! The references, said her spokesperson, were not, in any way, weighted. The allusions, said Mo Uh-leathee, are, "...historical examples of the nominating process going well into the summer and any reading into it beyond that would be inaccurate and outrageous." I'm sorry. There is no inaccuracy. Not for a moment does any rational person believe Senator Clinton is actually hoping for the worst of all political calamities. Yet the outrage belongs, not to Senator Clinton or her supporters, but to every other American. Firstly, she has previously bordered on the remarks she made today...Then swerved back from them and the awful skid they represented.She said, in an off-camera interview with Time on March 6, "Primary contests used to last a lot longer. We all remember the great tragedy of Bobby Kennedy being assassinated in June in L.A. My husband didn't wrap up the nomination in 1992 until June, also in California. Having a primary contest go through June is nothing particularly unusual. We will see how it unfolds as we go forward over the next three to four months."
In retrospect, we failed her when we did not call her out, for that remark, dry and only disturbing, in a magazine's pages. But somebody obviously warned her of the danger of that rhetoric: After the Indiana primary, on May 7, she told supporters at a Washington hotel: "Sometimes you gotta calm people down a little bit. But if you look at successful presidential campaigns, my husband did not get the nomination until June of 1992. I remember tragically when Senator Kennedy won California near the end of that process." And at Shepherdstown, West Virginia, on the same day, she referenced it again: "You know, I remember very well what happened in the California primary in 1968 as, you know, Senator Kennedy won that primary." On March 6th she had said "assassinated." By May 7 she had avoided it. Today... she went back to an awful well. There is no good time to recall the awful events of June 5th, 1968, of Senator Bobby Kennedy, happy and alive - perhaps, for the first time since his own brother's death in Dallas in 1963... Galvanized to try to lead this nation back from one of its darkest eras... Only to fall victim to the same surge that took that brother, and Martin Luther King... There is no good time to recall this. But certainly to invoke it, two weeks before the exact 40th anniversary of the assassination, is an insensitive and heartless thing. And certainly to invoke it, three days after the awful diagnosis, and heart-breaking prognosis, for Senator Ted Kennedy, is just as insensitive, and just as heartless. And both actions, open a door wide into the soul of somebody who seeks the highest office in this country, and through that door shows something not merely troubling, but frightening. And politically inexplicable. What, Senator, do you suppose would happen if you withdrew from the campaign, and Senator Obama formally became the presumptive nominee, and then suddenly left the scene? It doesn't even have to be the “dark curse upon the land” you mentioned today, Senator. Nor even an issue of health. He could simply change his mind... Or there could unfold that perfect-storm scandal your people have often referenced, even predicted. Maybe he could get a better offer from some other, wiser, country. What happens then, Senator? You are not allowed back into the race? Your delegates and your support vanish? The Democrats don't run anybody for President? What happens, of course, is what happened when the Democrats' vice presidential choice, Senator Thomas Eagleton of Missouri, had to withdraw from the ticket, in 1972 after it proved he had not been forthcoming about previous mental health treatments. George McGovern simply got another vice president. Senator, as late as the late summer of 1864 the Republicans were talking about having a second convention, to withdraw Abraham Lincoln's re-nomination and choose somebody else because until Sherman took Atlanta in September it looked like Lincoln was going to lose to George McClellan.You could theoretically suspend your campaign, Senator. There's plenty of time and plenty of historical precedent, Senator, in case you want to come back in, if something bad should happen to Senator Obama. Nothing serious, mind you. It's just like you said, "We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California." Since those awful words in Sioux Falls, and after the condescending, buck-passing statement from her spokesperson, Senator Clinton has made something akin to an apology, without any evident recognition of the true trauma she has inflicted.
"I was discussing the Democratic primary history, and in the course of that discussion mentioned the campaigns both my husband and Senator Kennedy waged California in June in 1992 and 1968," she said in Brandon, South Dakota. "I was referencing those to make the point that we have had nomination primary contests that go into June. That's a historic fact. "The Kennedys have been much on my mind the last days because of Senator Kennedy. I regret that if my referencing that moment of trauma for our entire nation, particularly for the Kennedy family was in any way offensive, I certainly had no intention of that whatsoever." "My view is that we have to look to the past and to our leaders who have inspired us and give us a lot to live up to and I'm honored to hold Senator Kennedy's seat in the United States Senate in the state of New York and have the highest regard for the entire Kennedy family. Thanks.
Not a word about the inappropriateness of referencing assassination. Not a word about the inappropriateness of implying - whether it was intended or not - that she was hanging around waiting for somebody to try something terrible. Not a word about Senator Obama. Not a word about Senator McCain. Not: I'm sorry... Not: I apologize... Not: I blew it... Not: please forgive me. God knows, Senator, in this campaign, this nation has had to forgive you, early and often...And despite your now traditional position of the offended victim, the nation has forgiven you.
We have forgiven you your insistence that there have been widespread calls for you to end your campaign, when such calls had been few. We have forgiven you your misspeaking about Martin Luther King's relative importance to the Civil Rights movement. We have forgiven you your misspeaking about your under-fire landing in Bosnia. We have forgiven you insisting Michigan's vote wouldn't count and then claiming those who would not count it were Un-Democratic. We have forgiven you pledging to not campaign in Florida and thus disenfranchise voters there, and then claim those who stuck to those rules were as wrong as those who defended slavery or denied women the vote. We have forgiven you the photos of Osama Bin Laden in an anti-Obama ad...We have forgiven you fawning over the fairness of Fox News while they were still calling you a murderer. We have forgiven you accepting Richard Mellon Scaife's endorsement and then laughing as you described his "deathbed conversion." We have forgiven you quoting the electoral predictions of Boss Karl Rove. We have forgiven you the 3 a.m. Phone Call commercial. We have forgiven you President Clinton's disparaging comparison of the Obama candidacy to Jesse Jackson's. We have forgiven you Geraldine Ferraro's national radio interview suggesting Obama would not still be in the race had he been a white man. We have forgiven you the dozen changing metrics and the endless self-contradictions of your insistence that your nomination is mathematically probable rather than a statistical impossibility. We have forgiven you your declaration of some primary states as counting and some as not. We have forgiven you exploiting William Ayers in front of the debate on ABC. We have forgiven you exploiting Jeremiah Wright in front of the editorial board of the lunatic-fringe Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. We have forgiven you for boasting of your "support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans"... We have even forgiven you repeatedly praising Senator McCain at Senator Obama's expense, and your own expense, and the Democratic ticket's expense.
But Senator, we cannot forgive you this.
"You know, my husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California."
We cannot forgive you this -- not because it is crass and low and unfeeling and brutal.
This is unforgivable, because this nation's deepest shame, its most enduring horror, its most terrifying legacy, is political assassination.
Lincoln.
Garfield.
McKinley.
Kennedy.
Martin Luther King.
Robert Kennedy.
And, but for the grace of the universe or the luck of the draw, Reagan, Ford, Truman, Nixon, Andrew Jackson, both Roosevelts, even George Wallace.
The politics of this nation is steeped enough in blood, Senator Clinton, you cannot and must not invoke that imagery! Anywhere! At any time!
And to not appreciate, immediately - to still not appreciate tonight - just what you have done... is to reveal an incomprehension of the America you seek to lead.
This, Senator, is too much. Because a senator - a politician - a person - who can let hang in mid-air the prospect that she might just be sticking around in part, just in case the other guy gets shot - has no business being, and no capacity to be, the President of the United States.
Good night and good luck.
Anyone who has read my many pro-Obama essays on the Huffington Post knows that I believe that Senator Obama will make a great president. They also know that I've been less than kind to Senator Clinton. Clinton's supporters have responded with their comments.
Those of us who voted for Obama and who are still working hard to get him nominated, have done so because we believe in the truthfulness and decency of his character, the sincerity of his words, the power of his compassion and intellect and have been inspired by his call to move beyond politics-as-usual in order to save our country from the aftermath of Bush, war, greed and stupidity.
Now--and I'm including myself here--it's time to act as if we actually believe in what Senator Obama has been saying and act upon his inspiring vision. As the nominating process plays out it's time to stop vilifying Senator Clinton. America needs her. America needs her supporters. We Obama and Clinton supporters are like kid brothers squabbling in the living room over the TV remote while a predator is breaking into the house. The squabble is petty compared to the real fight ahead. Let all sane Americans concentrate on saving our country from the looming disaster of a Bush/McCain presidency.Note: I say this as a former lifelong Republican and someone who, in 2000, worked hard for McCain when he was running against Bush. I went on numerous conservative talk stations--at the request of Religious Right activist Gary Bauer--to argue for McCain. And McCain later wrote a glowing endorsement of one of my books on the military.
The once "straight talking" McCain that I did my bit for in 2000, has become a mere shadow of his former self, and has tragically (and bizarrely) morphed into a semi-coherent Bush clone trying to force a third--make war, cut taxes, pander to the religious nuts--Bush term down our throats. To do anything to jeopardize a Democratic Party win in November isn't just bad politics--it's bad citizenship.
McCain knows that Al Qaeda wasn't in Iraq until we opened the door to them. He knows that we'll lose in Afghanistan, if we stay in Iraq. He knows Bush has severely damaged our military, not to mention our standing in the world, thus endangering our country. But McCain is now so bent on ill-defined post Vietnam-syndrome "victory with honor" that he's even agitating against Senator James Webb's new GI Bill, which would (at long last!) improve college benefits for soldiers.
McCain parrots the Pentagon's dishonorable and silly claim that the terms are too generous and that the new GI Bill would make it hard to "retain troops" for Bush's never-ending war that McCain now proposes to keep fighting. (Speaking as the proud father of a United States Marine who fought in Bush's wars, McCain and the Pentagon brass have it wrong. A good educational benefits incentive would be a great recruiting tool. It also is the right thing to do for our troops.)
The confused and calcifying McCain is also kissing up to the lunatic fringe of the lunatic fringe--the far right of the Far Right. He's in bed with the charlatan TV preacher vermin he once called "agents of intolerance." And these agents of intolerance are about to launch a disgusting lies-driven campaign against Obama (they would have done even worse to Clinton) the likes of which hasn't been seen in America since the fascist leader, priest and radio personality, Charles Coughlin, went on a 1930s pro-Nazi smear tirade against FDR and the New Deal.
A "vote" for McCain--by fomenting and continuing disunity in the Democratic Party--is also a vote against a viable and sane Republican Party. It's a vote for the poisonous lunatic fringe that's taken over the heart of the Republican Party, and driven people like me--and tens of thousands more--out. (Of course the inspirational attractiveness of Senator Obama has also inspired we former and/or dismayed, Republicans to vote for a Democrat this year.)
This Republican fringe--the unholy alliance of warmonger neoconservatives, fundamentalists, and other ignorant haters, has made the Republican Party into a reactionary, know-nothing habitat for an odd collection of racists, pro-torture sadists, advocates of eternal war, rubes persuaded Jesus is about to show up and/or making lots of money selling books and TV programs claiming same, and the instigators of a skyrocketing national debt exacerbated by a failed imperial dream of Middle East "democratization."
Both Republicans and Democrats have a stake in working to make sure the Republicans lose this year. They need to rid themselves of some very nasty folks then rejoin diverse, tolerant, compassionate and vibrant America.
We Obama supporters don't like the way Senator Clinton conducted parts of her campaign. Clinton's supporters don't like us either. Get over it! And if Obama is the Democratic Party nominee we Obama supporters and Clinton's supporters alike must swallow our pride, swallow our temptation to gloat and/or our temptation to sulk, that or learn to love a Bush/McCain presidency.
Frank Schaeffer is a writer and author of CRAZY FOR GOD-How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back.
I flew into Pittsburgh on April 10th for what was supposed to be 6 days of volunteering for the campaign. I met with Adam Delahanty the out of state volunteer coordinator who was so nice and accomodating. The first day I spent making calls to Allegheny county voters. The next day was spent helping imput data and making volunteer recruitment calls. Saturday & Sunday I canvassed McKeesport suburb a depressed area. Adam then asked me to go to Westmoreland County and work as office manager for the Greensurg Hq office. I then decided to stay unitl after the 22nd. Living in California and the west most of my life, western PA was like walking back in time for me. I encountered many nice people but also many mean people who threw things at me, chased me and yelled obscenities. I stayed with the nicest couple in their 50's who treated me like family, he's a doctor and she's a Realtor. It was perfect fit for me as I am a Realtor too. I worked for the next 10 days with the greatist team of Organizers headed by Joe Boswell. Joe was so easy to work for and he is incredibly good with people. He worked tirelessly for 16-20 hours a day to help Barack do well in PA.
Westmoreland PA is a very conservative small town area, the people were mostly friendly but not very worldly or open to change. I heard the some of the dumbest statements from people there about why they could not vote for Barack Obama. When I would tell them the facts surrounding the dumb statement it fell on deaf ears. The supporters were educated, worldly, intellegent and commited to Obama and his message. We tried hard to show people that this campaign was in the best interests of PA and we closed the gap. We did not win or even come close in Westmoreland, but it was a first step in opening the eyes of the state. I will always cherish this incredible experience and can not wait until I get to work hard in my own town for the general election.
Only one candidate offers the radical departure for the 21st century the US needs, for its own sake and the rest of the world's
I have come home from a long stay in Mexico to find - because of the presidential campaign, and especially because of the Obama-Clinton race for the Democratic nomination - a new country existing alongside the old. On any given day we, collectively, become the goddess of the three directions and can look back into the past, look at ourselves just where we are, and take a glance, as well, into the future. It is a space with which I am familiar.
When I joined the freedom movement in Mississippi in my early 20s, it was to come to the aid of sharecroppers, like my parents, who had been thrown off the land they'd always known - the plantations - because they attempted to exercise their "democratic" right to vote. I wish I could say white women treated me and other black people a lot better than the men did, but I cannot. It seemed to me then, and it seems to me now, that white women have copied all too often the behaviour of their fathers and their brothers. In the south, especially in Mississippi, and before that, when I worked to register voters in Georgia, the broken bottles thrown at my head were gender-free.
I made my first white women friends in college; they loved me and were loyal to our friendship, but I understood, as they did, that they were white women and that whiteness mattered.
I am a supporter of Barack Obama because I believe he is the right person to lead the United States at this time. He offers a rare opportunity for the country and the world to do better. It is a deep sadness to me that many of my feminist white women friends cannot see him, cannot hear the fresh choices toward movement he offers. That they can believe that millions of Americans choose Obama over Clinton only because he is a man, and black, feels tragic to me.
When I have supported white people, it was because I thought them the best to do the job. If Obama were in any sense mediocre, he would be forgotten by now. He is, in fact, a remarkable human being, not perfect but humanly stunning, like King was and like Mandela is. He is the change America has been trying desperately and for centuries to hide, ignore, kill. The change it must have if we are to convince the rest of the world that we care about people other than our (white) selves.
True to my inner goddess of the three directions, however, this does not mean I agree with everything Obama stands for. We differ on important points, probably because I am older; I am a woman and person of three colours (African, Native American, European); I was raised in the south; and, when I look at the world after 64 years of life, there is not one person I wish to see suffer.
I want a grown-up attitude to Cuba, for instance, a country and people I love. I want an end to the war immediately, and I want the soldiers to be encouraged to destroy their weapons and drive themselves out of Iraq. I want the Israeli government to be made accountable for its behaviour to the Palestinians, and I want the people of the US to cease acting as if they don't understand what is going on. But most of all I want someone with the confidence to talk to anyone, "enemy" or "friend", and this Obama has shown he can do.
It is hard to relate what it feels like to see Mrs Clinton (I wish she felt self-assured enough to use her own name) referred to as "a woman" while Barack Obama is always referred to as "a black man". One would think she is just any woman, but she is not. She carries all the history of white womanhood in the US in her person; it would be a miracle if we, and the world, did not react to this fact. How dishonest it is, to try to make her innocent of her racial inheritance.
I can easily imagine Obama sitting down and talking to any leader - or any person - in the world, with no baggage of past servitude or race supremacy to mar their talks. I cannot see the same scenario with Clinton, who would drag into 21st-century US leadership the same image of white privilege and distance from others' lives that has so marred the country's contacts with the rest of the world. But because Clinton is a woman and may be very good at what she does, many people (some in my own family) originally favoured her. I understand this, almost. It is because there is little memory, apparently, of the foundational inequities that still plague people of colour and poor whites.
When I offered the word "womanism" many years ago, it was to give us a tool to use, as feminist women of colour, in times like these. These are the moments we can see clearly, and must honour devotedly, our singular path as women of colour in the US. We are not white women, and this truth has been ground into us for centuries. But neither are we inclined to follow a black person, man or woman, unless they demonstrate considerable courage, intelligence, compassion and substance.
We have come a long way, sisters, and we are up to the challenges of our time, one of which is to build alliances based not on race, ethnicity, colour, nationality, sexual preference or gender, but on truth. Even if Obama becomes president, our country is in such ruin it may be beyond his power to lead us to rehabilitation. If he is elected, however, we must, as citizens of the planet, insist on helping him do the best job that can be done; more, we must insist that he demand this of us. And remember, as poet June Jordan and Sweet Honey in the Rock never tired of telling us: We are the ones we have been waiting for.
© 2008, Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive and TheRoot.com. All rights reserved. A longer version of this article can be found at theroot.com/id/45469
Fox News is fix news. They lie and decieve the american public in a brainwashing way. It is horrible that this country can have a network like Fox News and it is allowed to say "Fair and Balanced". I am asking all Obama supporters to Boycott Fox news sponsors. Here is a link to help you do that.
http://www.debone.com/boycottFoxNewsSponsors.html
This has been an interesting 4 weeks in my life. I have never felt so strong politically before. I think I have made around 1200 phone calls in the last few weeks and plan on at least 100 tomarrow (Sunday). I have put up with my husband and mother who think I have lost my mind. That is because I am not the one who usually puts my interests aside for something bigger than me. That is OK, I have worked hard and my Republican Husband has changed his mind and will vote for Obama in November, WooHoo!
Now is the time for me and all of us to make a difference. I pledge to call and donate until we win this nomination. Care to match me?
Barack Obama is my hope for a better World, a better planet, not just the US or my state.
I see what good can and will happen if we elect Barack Obama for President of the USA.
Go Obama!
I & MILLIONS OF OTHERS ARE WITH YOU!
A rough morning indeed. I wake to the fact that the scum of earth Rush Limbaugh was able to manipulate our hard work in Texas; but I will not fear evil. I belive we can truimph if we stick together and stay strong. Do not give today. It will get better again.
I just finished my goal of 800 calls to texas this week. I voted for BO in California and when we lost, I went online, for the first time in my 47 years I donated to a Presidential campaign.
I travel frequently and was out of the country for most of February. While traveling out of the country many local people asked me who I thought would win in November. My answer; I hope Obama! People in other countries are watching this election very closely.
I returned home with determination that it was time for me to make a difference in this great country of ours. I feel that I have. I just recieved a call from someone who saw my number from yesterday and called me back. I told him why I called and asked to immediately go vote for BO and then return for the caucus tonight. He said he was leaving now and promised to retun tonight. How Rewarding!
My husband is a Republican who supports McCain and knows Obama can beat him. He is not speaking to me today. He left and say's he can not stand to listen to me call Texas any longer.
Well, it is a good thing for my marriage that the election is today. He say's I am obessed. I say I think this is the most important work I have ever done.
I have faith and hope that my calls have made a difference.
Please help me get a donation on my page. I have $0.0 as of now. I do not know how to put the link here but you can click on my name.
I have never been politically invoved before and my husband has convinced me that my friends and family will be upset if I solicit them. I did send out 10 emails but have not yet got a dollar.
Yes we can and I need to believe a little more today. Donate to my page if you can.
Let's make this country strong and proud again!
Thank you everyone for your hard work!
