“Too often the American people don’t know who Washington is working for, and whenthey find out, they don’t like what they hear. . . . We’re not going to be able to changeAmerica unless we challenge the culture that has dominated Washington for far toolong. And that means shining a bright light on how Washington works.”[Speech in New Hampshire, 9/4/2007]
Do we need to wait for an election to change this, or are citizens willing to accept losses of both personal wealth and opportunity on a daily basis to go on?
For what it is truly worth, statements such as the one Sen. Obama has made require us to pause, take inventory, and create in ourselves the light needed to see our paths to salvation. Strong invective, for sure. Do we need to know how laws are made? Not exactly, but it helps to know who's handing you the hot dog at the ball park.
It is difficult to write this for I can not change my gender. People would, on a social scale, rather like to categorize me more accurately to serve my needs in this regard, however, the truth is we remain products of the collective factors present at our inception.
Politics offers us a chance to see ourselves and show others how we may overcome this myriad confluence of factors driving our decision making.
For all involved, there should be no shame in the decisions made. This extends beyond party affiliation, beyond gender identification and provides us all ultimately with the comfort however fleeting that the truth may hold.
Is there a science to politics? Perhaps the answer is more aligned with where we place our conflict rather than with whom we identify.
In the past, we have all been made aware of the front-running candidates and their respective abilities to unite their immediate constituents. What will propel a party whose very philosophy is that of progress for the greater union is a candidate who is capable of maintaining a message based in hope.
When I was growing up, the hope I was taught that served all included everyone's best interests. I was educated to the continued constructive activities that, while not everyone could see their plans immediately brought to fruition, could lead everyone somewhere better.
In my observations of the political race for the presidency, it is difficult for me to recognize any better candidate to handle this condition than Sen. Barack Obama.
The opportunity exists in the final days of the Democratic Party's race for a candidate to reconcile with this country's unspoken mitigator of the process known as Democracy: The Press.
Never has the voting populace been faced more directly with the facts about how the process allows us all to see a candidate being selected in real time. The unfortunate result of the current administration's actions has led the Democratic Party, as well as the Republican Party, to deal with a power that is normally regulated on its own merits. Instead, because the stakes have been so high, the temptation for some has been to extend their reach beyond what is appropriate and to take more than is truly there.
My hope and sincere vote of support for the campaign to elect Barack Obama is that this temptation be passed over for the constancy of wisdom and the clarity of vision: something which has continued to convince me that there has always been one choice, one vote, and one true hope for this country.
I have tried to absorb the importance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day my entire life. I am sure that is the purpose of any holiday celebrating a person of such great importance to the fabric of our society. The point of these holidays is also greater than that in relation to how we can continue support of the candidates who have gained our support. Sen. Barack Obama earned my respect and my vote in my state's primary, but he continues to remind me where we are and what we can do.
On the subject of civic responsibility: a simple commitment to vote is overlooked as an exercise in group decision making. Change can only happen with this commitment. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. knew of the commitment to the discipline of creating better people through tolerance. Our civic responsibility today is similar. It is in creating better decisions by seeing the truth through vast seas of information that pour over us and through our waking (and sleeping) minds. Change can happen if we all decide to vote with as much education and thought as possible.
On the subject of family: if there is a singular unit that can be defined, we as Americans are forever redefining what we call our friends and family. However, there is one unity in our country that can be defined and that unity is ours to see. And we describe it not with riches, or style or image. We know our family by the actions they take to show who matters most. And the ones we live with as our families, either biological or adopted, are the ones who we should value most. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr talked about a greater definition of family so that we could continue to allow for the peace that is needed to keep families together. This is not change unless you consider perspective a change. The subtle difference in how we perceive others can make enormous differences. That is a commitment to change.
On the subject of trust: trust is only earned. Repeating this as mantra will only strengthen the veracity of its statement. And if we return to this commitment by looing to the leaders who, by way of our path to educate ourselves; by way of our ability to see the strength of our family; by continuing to ask those who are qualified to receive our trust: we will see leadership emerge that is worthy of our effort and our historical efforts to build a free country.
Freedom is for everyone. Exclusion is not an option if we are to heal and continue. Positive reaffirming principles can be carried only by those committed to the family unit of our country that creates the greater fabric of our society. If there is a leader who is capable of this, I have yet to see one surpass Barack Obama in their integrity and whole-hearted commitment to the political process and our American condition.
From New Hampshire, the road has just begun and our support is with you still. We can do what a dream only allows our imagination. We are where we wish to be.
To Barack Obama and the field of Presidential Candidates:
How integral is our continental (i.e., North and to a lesser but equally important degree South American) education system with the desires and needs of the common voter? Are voters who have unmet needs being left behind by apathy towards this message of integrity?
Example: A person who is unwilling or unable to afford to send their child to a United States school may choose to send them to a foreign, intercontinentally based university. How does that affect the way our childrens' education can be accounted for through the spectrum of education? Are we as a nation in debt over our heads to countries, not only to our north and south, but globally because we are making the system an automatic situation of debt upon "completion", or whatever a person deems as completion?
Homelessness is beyond contempt in a Democratic society: the responsibility lies on us all to ensure NONE of us are shut out of our homes.In a digital age, our homes are our computers. Our jobs constitute the homes we make for our labor. Our cars are the homes for our spirits (if not our church or our places where we find solace in recreation...)Homelessness is a complete destruction of a person's ability to see humanity and in turn they are given only the view from the animal aspect of being.Homelessness is not just the trite "survival instinct" brought out in people: homelessness is the devaluing of a human soul to the point where their lives are rendered nearly meaningless.The irony in this is we can see some of the greatest strength from the homeless, if only we offer them our humility and charity.
This post is in reponse to an inspiring published story by a woman named Alyce Rocco of Long Beach, CA. Her article appears on http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/314309/what_is_it_like_to_be_homeless.html.
Thank you, Alyce!
Be it said succinctly: if life were a bowl of cherries, then theatre people would probably dress them up and make them sing. Or attempt to interpret the works of other great produce on a bed of lettuce.
Politics, as a conveyance of how people understand each other through the social medium, is another matter because it is, regardless of the influence that the Arts holds on our society, the superset in which theatre is held.
To that end, the politics of friendship can be denied by no one. Our unity, under any aegis or entity, is only defined by our goodwill. Let the involvement in or our choice to abstain from the Arts be ultimately done in good conscience. Let the American people accept dance, theatre, visual arts, music and the broader spectrum of communicative expressive modalities as much as they do other expressive forms.
Please be so kind as to visit the good people at Swivel.com:
http://www.swivel.com/graphs/show/23088938?graph%5Blimit%5D=30&limit_modifier=all&graph%5Blimit%5D=38&commit=%3E
This link, if you would be so bold as to cut and paste in your browser, is a bar chart. It shows how much we pay for our healthcare comparitively to other nations. If you can't figure out how to see this hideous graphic of fact, then go to the website anyway.
I gotta go check on my homemade casserole before it burns...it's vegetarian.
Sigh.
By way of legal extrapolation, under the laws of the United States of America, any connection may be implied. Perhaps this is why we are all bound to each other, for better or worse, in the United States. Our Constitution and subsequent State laws show us all toward the eventual realization that through freedom we may become at one with our own - our own dreams, our own hopes, our own ability to make the best of what has been given us beside our neighbors.
An example that comes to mind is the example of family can be reinvented through creative interpreation of the law. Minding the fact that we can't rely on this sort of thing to bring to a court of law, but the spirit is there in the example nonetheless:
The president of the United States of America is our stepfather. To every citizen in the country, and this is how I see it: a step-father is in effect a father-in-law by way of our mother's "remarrying." The Founding Mothers of this country were married to the Founding Fathers when they got here, but they weren't re-married until the Constitution was formed. Under the Constitution, the president is given the power to preside over the country by the people (electoral college aside). After being given that power, the president and two other legal entities (who can't collectively be a parent, unless they have to) are responsible for upholding the law under the constitution and the laws as they are ratified by the individual states. It's long math, but if it doesn't check out, somebody show me a corrected proof.
When going to the poles in coming months, remember to ask, "Who's Your Daddy?" and not just "Who's Your Buddy?"
It may just save us all a messy divorce from the process and the American people may end up again, rightfully, with the kind of leader who will maintain the national family in a healthy way.
When I first moved to this house, very soon afterwards I was confronted with the possibility that a neighboring town, right over the border, would be increasing its water draw from our aquifer. For anyone who is not familiar with living in a semi-rural or completely rural area, if you have a home that requires water, you get it from the ground. A neighbor who was elderly and walking her dog told me that they were going to possibly make things difficult for us to have water if development were to increase on the other side of the border. I panicked. Immediately, I began to look up laws about the water usage through websites and even visted the neighboring town's water authority and requested a map of the elevation where the aquifer was. They supplied me the information.
The point of this story is several fold: how do neighbors share resources that were there when they got there? how do municipalities across state borders communicate in ways other than purely antagonistic exchanges? how can the environment be put first when progress is inevitable?
I want my kids to live in a rich environment. However, I know that for their social health, this also means living with neighbors so they can be adaptive citizens in a world where a population is growing at a dizzying pace. I also want a candidate to take in the issue of water conservation in a circumspective manner that is forward thinking and constructive.
Sen. Obama is available to provide this treatment to an issue that is not only local but global. Lend your support and hope that his efforts are singular in mission regarding the water supply for our country. It is critical and essential.
The change of seasons in New England brings tourists to visit and residents to reflect. Perhaps this is the single greatest reason to observe the Granite State as the first in primary voting. Perhaps it is merely a good excuse to wax poetic upon trees, family and life.
No matter what state you believe should be first, there is great resonance in tradition beyond being the default state of affairs. More to the point, I am commenting on the ongoing feud amongst states to redefine the process by which we begin to select a president. It seems the political parties have become rather massively powerful tails wagging the dog of the state houses across the nation. Frankly, we are all right in voicing our opinion to change things if they are not working, which leads me to my next question: what was not working with the prior arrangement? If anything, the electoral college is in need of greater overhaul than the primary process. If the roof leaks, do you go out and buy new drapes for the kitchen? If the car won't start, do you go out and buy a new rear spoiler?
The dotted line is that line on every map that shows the borders between states. I live along one of them and am acutely aware of interstate politics and the dynamics that result from decisions made in either state house.
This blog entry is a request for clarity on this issue by a voter, albeit a rather short-time resident, but a voice in a state that up until recently has always begun the race.
If anyone can provide rationale besides "people will be people", I'd love it.
If there is a silver lining to the invasion of Iraq and occupation of the Middle East, there is a monument of grandeur being built to offer hope to the people living there. The money used to build this tower is likely that of resources belonging to the people of that land, either directly or indirectly. And most importantly of all, it's singular and currently tallest-building-in-the-world status can give each person who would otherwise see themselves as belonging to a third-world country a sense of pride. These positive aspects to this massive effort of industry should not be overlooked.
Likewise, as the vision for the United States recovery from and progression beyond the engagement of war continues to form, let us remember where our towers stand. They are in our cities. They are in our backyards. They are in our schools. They are within us here.
Let us all continue to provide support and hope to those who would hear it across the globe and next door.
The trend I see where I live, which is an increasingly disturbing one, is to make education so lean and so mean that it marginalizes or eliminates the Arts. Perhaps in other parts of the country this can be seen to a greater or lesser degree in various forms with atheletics taking a primary role in offering students a chance to excel and find outlet.
In a changing world that includes products based upon digitally produced ideas and businesses that are entirely web based, it is difficult to imagine a new world that does not embrace changing skills to accept and to cope with the chaos that is our Internet.
To this quandary, educators today are seeing the difficulty in appeasing and assuring parents and grandparents (who in a public school setting are both voters and contributors to the process) while simultaneously trying to meet the needs of growing minds. Does growth of a mind mean teaching the precepts of an eventual 'win' or 'loss'. Sports may be adapting allowing a greater number of ways to participate, but although younger participants may learn the advantages of physical activity through scoreless play, the form remains the same. The lesson for the most achieved can be seen in our professional sports which is win at all costs. Any headline about scandals seen in professional sports seems so commonplace as to be acceptable.
Though the Arts has its darker side as well for those professionals who become obsessed by its trappings, as with all professions, I believe that the model that is being ignored to best suit our youth for coping and finding happiness is a creative curriculum. In schools currently the arts can often be dismissed with words like "artsy" or "showy". Quite the opposite, they provide many of the same team building and physical skills that sports can and an even broader spectrum of emotional and intellectual coping skills through the understanding of literature, people, history, science, physics...
As many doors as the conflict of sports may close by showing a student how to compete, the arts opens by offering a chance to collaborate. Where the most popular team atheletics offer the discipline to suceed amongst many, the Arts is not true expression without the discipline of the one. People watch their children closely. It is important to ask them to understand them just as well as they observe them.
This post is a request and hope for Sen. Obama to make it a priority to investigate how communities can appropriately fund cultural education that is constructive rather than simply entertaining across the United States. His list is long, and though my blog is small, my words may hopefully ring amongst the carillon. Thank you for this forum.
What is most destructive for Americans that may not be readily evident to most is the underlying feelings of guilt, apathy and confusion.
As a person who has lived like every American with these feelings as well as many others evolved since the tragic attack on our soil on September 11, 2001, it has become obvious to me that the toll is sublime on my life. I am not amongst the population of people in Iraq who must constantly fear death from any direction and at any time. I am amongst the population of people, whether I support the decision to be engaged in that conflict or not, who must shoulder the responsibility for Iraqi conflict. This affects my life and it affects every single one of the citizens of this country. This underlying effect on how we live, on how we relate to our family and friends and how we conduct our daily business leads us to disconnect. Collectively, it is American because the war, regardless of how unfounded it may have been in its justice towards the people of Iraq or how unsupported it may have been by our populace, is ours.
This is now our battle. It is a battle of self-control and it is a time to lay down the weapon of ignorance many have used to perpetuate this conflict. We need the leadership of acceptance, the leadership of healing and the leadership of mediation -- not just of statesmanship, but that of a person who will be the rock behind the movement to bring peace. This person will be the cornerstone of efforts to move forward.
I speak for the supporters of Barack Obama in supporting his forthcoming statement to remove our military involvement in Iraq. I speak for myself in praying for his continued effort, as well as the efforts of the members of the Democratic party and other sympathetic public servants, to bring the Iraq war and war against terrorism to a meaningful resolution.
Many thanks to the campaign for Barack Obama for president as it continues its mission to remove the disconnect amongst Americans and our friends around the globe who must come together to bring peace.
Whereas I agree with Barack Obama's overall policy on education - strengthing the function by rewarding the form (i.e., its people), I do not necessarily believe paying educators more, per se, is a good broad sweeping correction.
"Pay Teachers More: Barack Obama wants to make a promise to educators -- if you're a teacher or a principal doing the hard work of educating our children, we will reward that work with the salary increase that you deserve. If you're willing to take on more responsibilities like mentoring, we'll pay you more. And if you excel at helping your students achieve success, your success will be valued and rewarded as well. Obama believes the key is finding new ways to increase pay that are developed with teachers, not imposed on them and not based on some arbitrary test score. Obama will start treating teachers like the professionals they are."
Pro-union is an excellent tool to resolve the state of inbalance in our system of how we pay our educators. On the other hand, if we do not find community mediated methods and standards of discussing how teachers are paid both with teachers and the parents of their students, then neither side will be left feeling well served by the process.
Process is key, which is what Barack Obama points out here, and this is probably the most important focus of his plan. The biggest difficulty in affording him the chance to obtain office for this purpose is that nationally there is a disparity that still makes it difficult for teachers to find permanence in a community from coast to coast. I believe that if we make teacher pay equitable to other professions, we must also take into account that effect on the overall education system that allows teachers' "clients" to become teachers in the future.
What must we do as his supporters to show the nation that he represents the future of how education must be viewed? Do we follow the public school model of the past where citizens may view education as a right and not a privilege? As a father of two school-aged children, I am left with far too many questions to feel comfortable right now about what kind of diploma or degree they will be holding when the time comes for commencement.
