People of the world togetherJoin to serve the common causeSo it feeds us all foreverSee to it that it's now yoursForward without forgettingWhere our strength can be seen now to beWhen starving or when eatingIt's forward not forgetting our solidarityBlack or white or brown or yellowLeave your old disputes behindOnce you start talking to your fellow menYou'll soon be of one mindIf we want to make this certainWe'll need you and your supportIt's yourselves you'll be desertingIf you rat on your own sortForward without forgettingWhere our strenght can be seen now to beWhen starving or when eatingIt's forward not forgetting our solidarityAll the gang of those who rule usHope our quarrels never stopHelping them to split and fool usJust so they can remain on topForward without forgettingTill the concrete question is hurledWhen Starving or when eatingWhose tomorrowIs tomorrowAnd whose worldIs the worldSolidarity
Well the dreaded FISA bill has passed. Early on, during the begining of the FISA hysteria, I kept posting to call, email, write your STATE Senators if you really wanted FISA stopped. Barack Obama was only one vote for the bill. Instead everybody whipped themselves into a frenzy. While I share the disappointment many have that he voted "yay" for the bill, and initially felt a little betrayed for not putting up more of a fight to protect the 4th Ammendment, I didn't get as upset as many on this blog for the primary reason that he's not the Senator representing my state. It was up to the people of Illinois to change his mind. To voice my disapproval of FISA, I called, wrote, emailed, petitioned my local representatives. My 2 State Senators are Clinton and Schumer. Both voted "Nay." Maybe if people had contacted their own Senators the FISA vote would've reflected their wishes. Here's how your Senators voted: http://cryptome.org/hr6304-sen-vote.htm
No bill is ever going to be perfect. All bills are the result of compromise. The real power is not the President. It's who is representing you in the House and the Senate. In order for Barack Obama to get his platform implemented he's going to need like-minded people in the Congress and the Senate. Without, despite all the promises and campaign slogans, government will grind to a halt. For example, same day that the FISA hysteria was going on, without all the sturm und drang, there was an important vote on Medicare that was important enough to get Ted Kennedy out of his sick bed to cast the deciding vote. Barack Obama supported this bill. No endless MSM sound blips on the subject. No breast beating hysteria. It was only a bill that could've cut Medicare off at the knee caps endangering 39 million seniors of having to find new medical practitioners, and millions of doctors losing the little compensation Medicare provides. It was enough to get Ted Kennedy, facing terminal cancer, out of bed in Massachusetts and into Washington so he could vote. McCain, by the way, "no showed" for both FISA and Medicare.
And the bill Obama sponsored for Housing for Homeless Veterans passed the House overwhelmingly yesterday, and is on its way to the Senate. It means he puts his support of our troops where his mouth is. If this bill is going to move on to become a law your state Senator has to vote for it. You can help Barack out, not to mention our forgotten veterans, by calling, writing, emailing your Senators to vote "yay" on the bill.
Of course, Bush threatens to veto. The House can overturn a veto, but it needs 2/3rds approval. It can only be accomplished if your LOCAL representation feels their constituents want the bill passed. When this bill reaches the Senate, anyone want to place a bet that McCain "no shows" again? Where are the people of Arizona telling McCain to do his job? THIS job. Not the NEXT job. If Obama can get to Washington to vote, running this hot a campaign, why can't McCain? If Ted Kennedy can interrupt his medical treatments for terminal cancer to show up, why can't McCain? Time to speak up, Arizona!Until Barack Obama wins the Presidency, he is a Senator for the state of Illinois. Everyday there are important bills in either the House or the Senate that will either pass or fail based on your LOCAL REPRESENTATION. It's not enough to elect Barack Obama. You must elect LOCAL Congressional and Senatorial representation if you REALLY want CHANGE!
It's great everyone's excited. Everyone's donating. But Barack is going to need more than a Citizen's Brigade behind him. He's going to need councilmen, governors, Congress people, Senators, and an educated Cabinet. Think global. But act local!
My Blog Photo is a gift from the first person to befriend me here on the Obama website - Jolly Northrop.
It was June 4th or 5th - seems like I've been here forever - and I had fully digested the fact that Hillary Clinton wasn't going to crash the highest of high glass ceilings. The time had come to work my butt off to elect Barack Obama. I wandered into the web site and declared who I was & why I was here, cringing, waiting for an assault of anti-Hillary vitriolic rhetoric. (Afterall, I had already been on Hillary's site so I knew what the other side was saying. In early June, it wasn't pretty.) The acid test never came. Only friends. Occasionally agreeing to disagree. But friends nontheless.
Jolly has kept checking in, periodically. She was the first person to donate to my lofty goal. Always being a cheerleader, a cautionary peer when she sees that my passion may have gotten the better part of my brain, always 200% committed to electing Barack Obama. I now have almost 60 friends, from all walks of life, from all parts of the country. Some, politically, I never would have spoken with, now united on behalf of electing Barack Obama. Who'da thunk it?
It's tough to see the actual picture, but it's special to me. It's actually a photo of a wallscape on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, NY. That's a place I used to live for about 20 years before moving back to Queens, NY where I grew up. Back in the day, the LES was frontier town. It was not gentrified. You made alliances with junkies, dealers, squatters, artists, poets, musicians, and the original poor working class people who lived there, in order to not become a statistic. I used my High School Spanish daily, to the amusement of the original settlers of Loisada, who helped me conjegate my verbs and roll my "r's". Back in the '70's and early '80's living on Avenue B, C, or D, or Pitt Street, or Eldridge, or Rivington, or off the Bowery, you were a pioneer. All that was missing was the wagon train.
Now it's all high rises and high priced condos. I was on Houston the other day and it took me a minute to realize that I was standing on the Bowery. I didn't recognize my former home turf. The picture Jolly sent of this wallscape still has the essence of the LES - copy it to Adobe Photoshop & look closely: you'll see a poster of Barack peeling away to the building beneath. Alongside of him, smaller, is Hillary now wearing an Obama Hat. Up above her head, remnants of hand scrawled graffiti. It's street art - of the people, by the people, & for the people.
To me it's beautiful. Urban decadence only a New Yorker native can love. Symbolically it's Barack leading us - through mean streets, rural valleys, the rust belt - to a new future. Hillary now along for the ride into history, along with so many others. Unity!
From John McCain: "Two of our greatest statesmen, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, took their last breaths on July 4, 1826, exactly 50 years after they presented America with our Declaration of Independence. They had been fellow revolutionaries, the closest of comrades, who went on to become bitter political rivals. Then, as the new era of the 1800s dawned, they reconciled, reminded of their old friendship and the momentous history they had made together. "Who shall write the history of the American revolution?" Adams asked Jefferson in one of the 158 letters they exchanged after they'd rediscovered their bonds. "Nobody," responded Jefferson."
Jefferson would've responded "Nobody" because he never expected the American Revolution to end. In fact, his advice was for every 20 years or so the American People should revolt against their government in order to feed "the Tree of Liberty." What would he think of fat, lazy, complacent Americans who let a tyrant strip away our liberty, kill our children in needless wars, and will not answer to Congress, the Senate, or the People? Perhaps Jefferson might view this year's election, and the direction of Barack Obama for uniting the country as a bloodless revolution. He certainly would welcome the return to liberty, fraternity, and equality that has been slipping away in our government.
My Mother's grandparents are like most of yours - diverse. My mother's family came to Connecticut in the 1600's. German. High Episcoplian. Daughters of the American Revolutition Yankees. Where her family tree went astray was of my grandfather. He lied and joined the submarine corp in WWI. Afterwards flew the first airmail routes with Wiley Post. Married his sweetheart and opened a gas station in the Bronx who hired blacks as machanics. He also invented air suspension brakes for trucks & runway lights but sold both patterns when my grandmother needed a surgery. Oh, he lied again and served in WWII. Let McCain beat that!
My Father's grandparents fell in love in Ireland. Only 1 problem - grandpa was Scottish Presbyterian and grandma was Irish Catholic. A "mixed" marriage wasn't going to work where they came from in 1905. Only one place to go - America. Every Sunday, his only day off, my grandfather took my dad and my uncles to every house of worship in New York City. They thought a religious prejudice was the DUMBEST of all bigotry. There is only one creator, but with many names.
Mom & Dad met at a dance in a Catholic Church. They fell in love. Despite the class differences, the religious differences, the whatevers, they married. My mother asked my dad to go to a speech therapist to lose his "Dese, Dems, and Doze" NYC accent. He asked for the kids to be baptized. Twenty years later - my brother married a Jamaican woman. Our "mixed" family lives on!
Finishing with Obama: "In the end, it may be this quality that best describes patriotism in my mind — not just a love of America in the abstract, but a very particular love for, and faith in, one another as Americans. The greatness of our country — its victories in war, its enormous wealth, its scientific and cultural achievements — have resulted from the toil, drive, struggle, restlessness, humor, and quiet heroism of the American people. That is the liberty we defend — the liberty of each of us to follow our dreams. That is the equality we seek — not an equality of results but the chance of every single one of us to make it if we try. That is the community we strive to build — one in which we recognize we share common hopes and dreams, one in which we continue to insist that there is nothing we cannot do when we put our minds to it, and one in which we see ourselves as part of a larger story, our own fates wrapped up in the fates of all who share allegiance to America's singular creed."
It's a country worth fighting for. Not just with guns but with how we live our lives and treat one another each and every day. This is a country that awards life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness to all its citizens - at least that was the Founding Fathers' goal. In a dangerous world, as dangerous in 1776 as it is in 2008, we need to be prepared, vigilant, and ready. Ruled, not by fear, but by intelligent patriotic leaders willing to serve and defend our Constitution. To finish with Ben Franklin: "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Happy 4th of July!
This is for all the former Hillary supporters wandering in the desert questioning why they need to support Barack Obama. I know how you feel. I am a former Hillary supporter who made the switch on Wednesday June 4th to start working to elect Barack Obama. I stayed loyal to Hillary until Michigan & Florida were settled; waited until South Dakota and Montana officially closed the primary season. I, too, had the same fleeting thoughts you did about staying home. I never considered John McCain. He's sold his soul to the devil. He's not the McCain of 2000. BUT...Truthfully, the differences in policies between Barack & Hillary have always been minimal. Both are extremely talented and committed candidates. But Barack won. Why vote for him? He's smart; committed; collaborative; creative; Gen X & Y focused; charismatic; visionary; forward thinking; and he can speech-make like I've haven't seen in decades. If he runs the country like he ran his campaign we're in good shape. What an executive! None of this diminishes Hillary or her accomplishments. To elect him doesn't diminish HER. It was the heat of the campaign. Now it's OVER!
We can't roll the dice that without our support and unity Obama will get elected. This election is too important. To quote the great Satchel Paige, "Don't look back (somebody might be gaining on you)" What if McCain got elected? Remember 2000? Look at the last 8 years. Can you gamble on more of the same? Iraq war and occupation for 100 years? No healthcare? Jobs? Infrastructure? Economy? Environment? Continued foreign oil dependence? Roe vs. Wade? The Supreme Court appointments (a very real possibility for the next President. Check out the ages of the moderate Jurists to send a shudder down your spine. That's a LIFETIME appointment!)Email me. I will talk you down off the ledge as a former Hillary supporter. Watch her speech yesterday again. Better yet, read the full text of what she said. I re-read it this morning and cried. Not for "woulda, shoulda, coulda" but for the future. And for what she accomplished. What we need for America. Both Hillary & Barack love this country. Their differences are minimal.Think of it - 36 million united, passionate, committed Democrats, AMERICANS!, moving in one stream, in one mind, taking back the country. A voting tsunami! YES, WE CAN! Kathy
Hillary Clinton stopped speaking a little while ago. I watched her give the speech I hoped she would give - acknowledging with love the hard work and passion of her supporters; the day to day grind of the working class people; the hopes and dreams of ordinary Americans; the struggle and frustrations of women. She had to show the troops her love and yes, I did cry a little bit for the 18 million cracks to the glass ceiling.
She pivoted to where I wanted her to go & pounded it home. In a litany of reasons why we need to unify and elect Barack Obama for President, ending with "Yes, we can!" In no uncertain terms she made it perfectly clear that everyone needs to return the Democratic Party to the White House. She made it clear that our very lives depend on it. Democrats are a family. It's like the old saying: "I can talk about my brother, but YOU better not talk about my brother!" When she started there was a smattering of "boos!" but by the time she built to a crescendo of "Yes, we can!" the crowd was cheering. I guess Hillary must have been taking notes every time Barack spoke. She's never been as forceful a speech maker as she was today. Maybe it was the comforting thought that there was nothing left to lose and everything (and I mean, everything to gain.)
She continued interweaving the struggles of both the women's movement and the civil rights movement and declaring that there is no room for prejudice and bigotry in 21st century America. She ended with an appeal, practically a plea, to her supporters, especially women, to realize that you can't wait another 4 or 8 years to make wait for change. Immediately the pundits on MSN tried to minimize this, but it's important to remember, for some of us women in our 50's+ she was our Barack Obama. We lived in a different world than younger women. Personally, I was told in my working career that a woman couldn't be a manager. When I was a free lance journalist I was told that if I wanted a plum writing assignment I would need to give the publisher a b**w job. I said no thanks and left but I still remember riding home to Queens with my blush so deep my earlobes burned. Some of Hillary's supporters remember when women couldn't vote. Period. She beautifully wove the two histories together and pounded home civil rights, womens rights, gay rights, labor rights.
In 40 years there have only been 3 elections where Democrats won. Once with Carter, twice with her husband Bill. From 1992 - 2000 Bill Clinton did an outstanding job. He delivered not only a balanced budget but a budget surplus to W. When the WTC was bombed, we caught the Blind Sheik, now sitting in a Federal prison in North Carolina. Where have the last 8 years gotten us?
Hillary, great job. I'm sure the MSN, CNN, Fox & MSM pundits with nitpick & undermine to keep the feud going. I hope eveyone is on to their game. An Obama/Clinton feud brings in more viewers and helps elect McCain, which is what Corporate Media wants. Remembering the Who: "Won't get fooled again! Oh no!"
Hi everybody! I have a couple of questions regarding how to best use the web site. My questions -
Let me first start off by congratulating Barack Obama and his hardworking staff and fervent supporters. You have won gracefully and decisively. You have shown true grit and class throughout. I will support and work my b*** off to elect Barack Obama as the next President of the United States. His nomination is truly historic and electrifying. I hope he and his family take at least a weekend off to let the full impact set in, and so he can buy his girls a puppy.
I was an ardent supporter of Hillary Clinton. Her candidacy was also historic. She fought hard. But at the end of the day, this is Barack's time. I hope she will concede gracefully and fight just as hard for him to win the Presidency. Love her or hate her. She's showed that she doesn't give up. I'd like to see her do likewise for Mr. Obama. I know she has it in her. She can go a long way in convincing her 17+ million voters to go his way. At 35 million voters, that's practically enough to win the General Election all by itself.
Effective immediately, Barack Obama has my full support. I will make my first contribution today. I hope I will be welcomed here, but if people can's resist a Hillary bash I understand. Feelings are running hot on both sides.
To quote Pete Seeger: "To everything (turn, turn, turn) there is a season (turn, turn, turn) and a time to every purpose under heaven... A time to gain, a time to lose, a time to rend, a time to sew, a time for love, a time for hate, a time for peace. I swear it's not too late."
Thank you for reading, Kathy
