It is my distinct privilege to stand on the door step of an America that has the ability to overcome divisiveness and God willing tomorrow we shall overcome. Senator Obama you carry a heavy load on your shoulders. Please know that it is our duty, as United States Citizens, to help you with this burden of governing this Great Nation by standing up to be counted, by giving service to our communities and letting our hopes, dreams and concerns be heard in this Nation's Capital so that you may feel the hand of a free people guiding you in the decisions it looks like you will have to make.
- cw
And I end my blog with the words of one of America's greatest heroes - Martin Luther King:
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.
We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.
As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro's basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating "For Whites Only". We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.
Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."
And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!
But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
We have the duty and honor to get up tomorrow and exercise our Constitutional right to vote for the best candidate to lead our country through, not only our Nation’s current and seemingly systemic crises, but also through the better days that are sure to lie ahead if Senator Obama is elected to the Presidency of the United States of America.
God Speed and God Bless everyone who has worked so hard for this moment in history - Christopher W.
The end of a long fought campaign for the Presidency of the United States of America is here. The most productive act we, as supporters of Senator Obama, can do is reach deep, for we are all tired, and make 10, 15, 25 more calls to our fellow Americans and encourage them to vote for Senator Obama, but regardless of who they support ask them to embrace their right for change in America and vote on November 4th.
Peace & God Bless you all, Chris
The clear message in play here is that independent voters, those who have been sitting on the fence, are starting to commit publically to a Presidential candidate. Our job between now and election day is to get all citizens to examine their private and sacred right, that once they close the curtain behind them to vote, they can and should for the sake of this nation, their children and their families financial future select the best Presidential candidate on the ballot - Senator Obama for President. I expect this dynamic to add significant volatility to the pollsters results, but in the end all that matters is Americans go to the polls and vote, vote because our countries poor turnout in elections at all levels of government are part of the problem in our broken political process. Candidates that know they can get elected because no one shows up to vote and thereby win by a skewed minority sub group of special interests. No matter whom you support for the sake America show up and vote!
From Today's NYTimes:
McCain, who is no racist, turned to this desperate strategy only as Obama started to pull ahead. The tone was set at the Republican convention, with Rudy Giuliani’s mocking dismissal of Obama as an “only in America” affirmative-action baby. We also learned then that the McCain campaign had recruited as a Palin handler none other than Tucker Eskew, the South Carolina consultant who had worked for George W. Bush in the notorious 2000 G.O.P. primary battle where the McCains and their adopted Bangladeshi daughter were slimed by vicious racist rumors.
No less disconcerting was a still-unexplained passage of Palin’s convention speech: Her use of an unattributed quote praising small-town America (as opposed to, say, Chicago and its community organizers) from Westbrook Pegler, the mid-century Hearst columnist famous for his anti-Semitism, racism and violent rhetorical excess. After an assassin tried to kill F.D.R. at a Florida rally and murdered Chicago’s mayor instead in 1933, Pegler wrote that it was “regrettable that Giuseppe Zangara shot the wrong man.” In the ’60s, Pegler had a wish for Bobby Kennedy: “Some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow falls.”
This is the writer who found his way into a speech by a potential vice president at a national political convention. It’s astonishing there’s been no demand for a public accounting from the McCain campaign. Imagine if Obama had quoted a Black Panther or Louis Farrakhan — or William Ayers — in Denver.
The operatives who would have Palin quote Pegler have been at it ever since. A key indicator came two weeks after the convention, when the McCain campaign ran its first ad tying Obama to the mortgage giant Fannie Mae. Rather than make its case by using a legitimate link between Fannie and Obama (or other Democratic leaders), the McCain forces chose a former Fannie executive who had no real tie to Obama or his campaign but did have a black face that could dominate the ad’s visuals.
There are no black faces high in the McCain hierarchy to object to these tactics. There hasn’t been a single black Republican governor, senator or House member in six years. This is a campaign where Palin can repeatedly declare that Alaska is “a microcosm of America” without anyone even wondering how that might be so for a state whose tiny black and Hispanic populations are each roughly one-third the national average. There are indeed so few people of color at McCain events that a black senior writer from The Tallahassee Democrat was mistakenly ejected by the Secret Service from a campaign rally in Panama City in August, even though he was standing with other reporters and showed his credentials. His only apparent infraction was to look glaringly out of place.
Let us pray for those who still live lives of hate in divisive poverty. - cw
For all who are working so hard to elect Senator Obama President of the United States of America I thank you from the bottom of my heart. Your support and your vote counts more than you know. These clearly are dangerous times. We are under siege both at home and abroad. Your financial support will help Senator Obama reach out to voters across the country and God willing send him to the White House with a clear mandate for change that our country so desperately needs. Senator Obama can and will create, once again, a resurgent America with respect to the pressing domestic issues we currently face as well as our ongoing international interests.
All my Love – Chris
Senator McCain exhibits the facial components of a man on steroids ... for such an important election we should require our candidates to undergo drug tests. Our friends and allies over centuries, France, should create a politically neutral drug test for the candidates for the Presidency of the United States of America as they do for the Tour de France ... or perhaps the IOC should recommend a separate and politically neutral organization that tests the Presidential candidates for performance enhancing drugs. Senator McCain has mobility that has not been evident in any of his significant public addresses to date. As an American voter his behavior is alarming.
So McCain who went to congress and killed the negotiations now expects Senator Obama to make Presidential decrees? Senator Obama has consistently and rightfully stated that there is only one President of the United States of America and he will not make Presidential decrees until, God willing, he is President of the United States of America. McCain sounds like a scared dog wailing at the thunder on the horizon and barking at shadows. Is he truly the best candidate the Republicans can muster as their Presidential Candidate Elect? No wonder so many Republicans of all stripes shapes and ages are voting Democratic for the first time in their lives. The Republican Party once again shows its true agenda, if there’s not any pork for large corporate entities in the bill, then they will vote no. I think the Republican Party is giving a mandate to the American People – vote for the Democrats.
From Forbes:
The bill had majority support from House Democrats, at around 140-95. It was killed by staunch opposition from House Republicans, 65-133. The voting was left open for several minutes, while congressional leaders tried to get members to change nay votes, and the tallies shifted slightly but not enough to pass.
http://www.forbes.com/home/2008/09/29/bailout-congress-credit-biz-beltway_cx_bw_jz_0929vote2.html
From the San Fransisco Chronicle:
McCain, who has been known to carry good-luck talismans - a pair of L.L. Bean shoes, a feather, a flattened penny - has had fortune smile on him now and again. The New York Times handed the senator from Arizona a public relations gift this week by rejecting an article he had submitted to the editorial page to counter one the paper ran from Obama last week, making it easy to bash the liberal media.
Pasted from <http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/07/23/MN2411TVFS.DTL>
So now he is hiding behind the curtains hoping that if people can't see him and his failed policies he will somehow gain our trust? Win our votes? I am alarmed at his position that somehow acting like a Senator is more important than a Presidential Debate. This man still thinks he is qualified to be president? I think not. Now is the time to galvanize our contacts and reach out to all of our fellow American's who are losing sleep every night over, as a colleague of mine stated, her fears of the money in the college fund for her daughter is in deep peril. I think Obama should move ahead with the debate and if McCain fails to show up let all of America see that he is not fit for the Presidency of the United States of America for he answers their concerns with the stony silence of another absentee empty suit.
.. Because I am not laughing. The financial market is messes being managed buy people who are throwing crap against the wall to see if it sticks. What does a ban on short selling accomplish? Where is the body of economic theory in academics or actual financial practice that supports such a ban? WAMU still is out of business. All it does is eliminate the sole purpose of liquid markets; aka Price Discovery. This is the crux of FED Chairman Bernanke's testimony today: that throwing 8% ish of the national debt at the problem will promote price discovery in the seized up financial markets. Simple math here, 700bln divided by 21 cents on the dollar for distressed debt equals over three trillion in face amount. Three Trillion! I ask you is Goldman Sacks going to "lend" their distressed debt trading desk to the USA treasury department for federal pay scales to manage positions they can’t trade at Goldman Sacks for 1mm dollar a year plus in compensation? Who is going to manage this portfolio being thrust upon the American people? Senator Obama I as an active participant in the US and larger Global economy am filled with disgust and quite frankly dismay at this unfortunate breakdown in accountability.
I would think that one skill set required of any presidential candidate is the ability to access not only the internet but secure intranet systems that are made available to the Commander and Chief of the United States of America. Relying on staff to manage mission critical information sources and services could potentially compromise the objectivity of the President as well as create an situation where important information may be 'filtered' by powerful members of the government with an agenda that runs counter to the President's policy agenda.
From the New York Times:
'He said, ruefully, that he had not mastered how to use the Internet and relied on his wife and aides like Mark Salter, a senior adviser, and Brooke Buchanan, his press secretary, to get him online to read newspapers (though he prefers reading those the old-fashioned way) and political Web sites and blogs.
“They go on for me,” he said. “I am learning to get online myself, and I will have that down fairly soon, getting on myself. I don’t expect to be a great communicator, I don’t expect to set up my own blog, but I am becoming computer literate to the point where I can get the information that I need.” '
From Reuters:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Presidential candidate Barack Obama's campaign declined on Friday to comment on whether it would favor a bailout for mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Although the campaign said it was committed to ensuring that the two companies continue their "essential role" in providing housing affordability, it would not comment on what specific steps it would take to shore them up.
"Senator Obama is clear that he would take all necessary steps to ensure affordable home ownership for more than two million American families, and that includes an essential role for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac," said Obama campaign spokesman Nick Shapiro.
I believe Senator Obama has said enough regarding the perilous condition of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In the current financial turmoil commenting on policy decisions would run counter to maintaining an objective view as well as potentially create points of attack from the McCain camp. There are larger more important policy issues that need to be addressed by Senator Obama and he is doing so very well at this stage of the Presidential campaign.
This is an example of a personal fund raising email letter I have sent. Please modify it and make it your own:
Dear Friends and Family, Thank you for recognizing that Senator Obama is the one hope we have to truly impact the economic and social health of our nation. In addition, we can heal America’s divisive political process by supporting the one candidate that finally, after decades of waiting, is not a choice for President that represents 'best of the worst' but truly represents a sea of change of all that is and should be good in The United States of America. As President, Senator Obama will continue to be inclusive in his approach to solving problem sets contained in the many facets of opportunity and challenge that we currently face and that will give rise over the next decade. With gratitude and joy I send you all my blessings and ask that you give generously. I ask this because I too have believed and continue to give generously to the Candidacy of Democratic Presidential Elect Senator Obama. Let us take ourselves into a good fight for the future of our Nation with the conviction that if we do what is right things can be set right.
With Love and Sincerity, Christopher
From today’s Financial Times:
The Clinton campaign, which plans to amass hundreds of supporters on Saturday to demonstrate for her cause in Washington DC, has come under increasing pressure to bow to what most Democratic leaders say is the inevitable given Mr Obama’s lead with elected delegates. "
If she wants a do over in Florida and Michigan ... then let us do a do over in all 50 states and see how she does in the delegate and popular vote. Senator Obama has gained so much personal and political currency in the hard fought primary process. Today he would easily trounce the Senator from New York in many of the states she holds up as a reason to remain in the primary race. I must assert: Senator Clinton this is not politics as usual and the back room negotiating space is very small. Do not expect the next president of the United States of America, Barack Obama, to bail you out of your dire financial straits. You spent the money and made your promises and lost; now you stand up and, as you so often espouse, show leadership in solving your personal campaign mess.
