Now that my vote and money helped get you elected, I must share some thoughts that have been bubbling in my brain since you've started vetting folks for cabinet positions. I'll make a list of things that I think you should do.
1. Watch the film "Who Killed The Electric Car"? Before anyone thinks about bailing out the auto indistry, some hardcore challenges must be issued to them. I don't think we should bail them out. Congress didn't bail out Americans with that ridiculous $700 billion dollar package, but gave in to corporations (idiots!), so if you guys in power (you included) decide to give up tax payer dollars, then you should DEMAND that part of any package deal comes concessions to building fuel effiecient cars that get 50+ miles per gallon, and drop the price on the availability of regular working class folks to buy those types of eco-friendly cars. Especially here in California, the car driving capital of the planet. More....
SO my sister calls me to tell me Joe Biden is Obama's VP. I signed up for the text with my email and phone number and haven't heard a thing. WHat gives.
Also Adrienne Cooper called me a few weeks ago telling me my Obama T-shirt was mailed on a tuesday weeks ago.....still haven't got it. Maybe she should be fired. I mean the election is in November and here it's already nearing the end of August and I ordered the shirt in June. I'll writre another complaint letter.
On June 27, 2008, I get excited because I make a $30 donation to Obama's campaign and in exchange I'm supposed to receive a limited edition T-shirt. It is now July 18th and no T-shirt. I call the headquarters and they give me three different numbers to call, ending with the name ADRIENNE COOPER. So I leave a message (i think) with the complicated prompt buttons. I google her name to see if I can track this chick down, and I come across a blog on this site that has a supporter complaining that he ordered a DVD and never got it. Another supporter complained that they too ordered the same T-shirt I want and never got it. He left too messages for her (she NEVER called back), but then he posted a week later that he finally got his shirt. WTF?
So I will wait to see if the shirt comes in, ANDwaste money on my phone tokeep calling to get my shirt. On the one hand, it is a donation to BArack. I have made SEVERAL donations already, but I really wanted to rock his T-shirt for next weeks San Diego Comic Convention. So I'm shouting out to ADREINNE COOOPER to get my shirt to me.
Anyone else have issues with the online store or ADRIENNE COPPER? I'd hate to have a sour taste in my mouth over this.
Two weeks ago, my former boss came to visit my work site. I'll call her Ann for her privacy. This is woman i respect because she and I both graduated from the same university, she wrote her masters thesis on women in the suffrage movement and she is a liberal feminist. She 's also a retired educator. I've house/dog/plant sat for her over the years.
We chatted and she asked me who i supported for President. i knew she was for Hillary. I didn't want to hurt her feelings by telling her why I couldn't support Clinton. I told her I supported Obama. I also told her why i thought Clinton lost the nomination. Our conversation ended with Ann telling me that "It was our turn." I knew that she meant that women needed to take over politics. But I also understood that her feelings were tied into the idea that Clinton had been fighting for women's rights, universal health care etc. She, like many women from her generation had suffred sexism, illegal abortions, unequal pay and the universal/global disrespect of women. There was pain, disappointment, and sense of profound loss from her. Clinton's loss and Obama's victory was very personal. I have ranted about Clinton and her baggage on my blog. I said some mean things about her that I felt were true to my core. In my mind, Clinton disrespected and belittled Obama when she didn't have to. She played dirty, no different than the men before her and with her now.
However, I din't have the perspective of what she meant to older white women. I was angry from the rumored reports from white women, upset with Clinton's loss that they would support McCAin. I did see a news story with crying older white women, angry and defiant telling reporters they would turn against the Democratic Party. How disingenous is that? They were repeating history like the suffrage women who vowed that white woman should get the vote before black men (and black people period).
I was torn with my feelings about Ann's belief that it was a woman's turn. More later.
As a conscious black woman born after the civil rights era, I am not enaamored by the Clinton regime of the 90's. I know most black people I talk to act as if Bill Clinton was some knight who saved America. As if his love for Jazz, Walter Mosley, and a good plate of soul food made him an honorary black man. There's the old joke that Bill Clinton was the first black President.
Hillary Clinton was always seen as the woman who kept Bill in check. She didn't seem to share his comfort with Southern ways. To me, she always seemed stiff, the typicall uptight, overly educated white woman with a family name. A woman with ambitions. She broke the mold for First Lady's. She was not the wifey who held tea parties for dignitaries wives. This was a woman with some substance. At first I was impressed. Anyone was better than Nancy Reagan's pinched face. I'd read about LAdy Bird Johnson as a kid, and thought Hillary was progressive.
I was wrong.
Lately, Hillary has been playing dirty politics. The same BS used against her and Bill back in the day. I don't like her. And to think I was actually going to donate to her campaign just like I did for Obama in the beginning. Something held me back from clicking on her "donate" banner on her website. Thank God I waited to see her true colors come out.
She puts out an ad that shows Osama bin Laden, Pearl Harbor and all the other Boogey Man icons to make people believe that only she could handle the job? She tells the world that she would annihilate Iran? She plays up the controversey of Rev. Wright who speaks for a segment of the black population who expect more from America, including me. I curse my country too at times, because we have the potential to be the best country in the history of the planet, and yet we continue to let idiots run it, so hell yeah, God-Damn America! Get your shit together! Too many people have paid a high price to build this country (not just black people) and we can't create the best lives for every American in this country? Yeah, I understand the anger in the context of the history of this nation. Yet Hillary just plays up white fears. She played the white woman card, the same BS used during the suffrage movement by Susan B. Anthony and her crew when they felt that white women should get the vote before any black man (or woman). It seems that Hillary and her white female supporters are under that same yoke. The idea that a white woman should be President before anyone else has the opportunity.
It's that type of thinking that divides the Democratic Party.
I originally thought that I would support either candidate that got the nomination. If it was Obama, then my vote would go to him. If it was Clinton, I'd throw my support to her. This was back when her campaign was still civil. Back when I believed in the "Anyone But a Republican" strategy. But now, if Clinton takes the nomination, I will not vote. Or I'll throw my vote to the Green Party, or write in Obama's name.
We don't need a President who tries to talk like a Republican, who uses divisive images to destroy an opponent, who lies about her credentials (since when did being a First Lady automatically make you better prepared to run the White House? She's been a Senator for as long as Obama, so who is a mor experienced politician?), and who hides behind the facade of a past Clinton Presidency?
You make me sick, Clinton.
Our country deserves better.
It's time to clean house.
Last Friday I was saying goodbye to co-workers as we prepared for our summer break. I was looking forward to writing, reading, and traveling over the next 3 months. We were in Redlands ,Ca , hanging out at a local bar. Leaving together we stopped at the main intersection in the tiny little town of Redlands, waiting for the light to turn green. On one side of the street, a small group of folks had gathered to protest the war, asking for peace and urging our President to bring the troops home. There was a war veterean, young peace activists and some older, retirement age people holding up signs and asking folks driving to "Honk for Peace".
Diagonally across the street from them was a handful of people (six at the most) with their signs urging folks to support the troops. The implicaton being, right or wrong, these folks were going to support the troops no matter how erroneous the gig was. As I passed by the pro-war camp, I couldn't help but notice how indignant they were towards the pro-peace camp . There were no signs being waved across the street that were anti-troops, but staring at these people, their lips curled back in snarls of disgust, I couldn't help but wonder if they understood that the opposing tribe on the other side of the crosswalk, supported the safety and well-being of the troops, but wanted them home.
I really don't think they did. Car horns honked for both sides, and I commented to a co-worker that it seemed like most of the cars that honked for pro-war drove huge trucks and SUV's, and smaller cars seemed to honk for the pro-peace group. We laughed at the irony.
One of the pro-peace demonstrators had a sign that said "Impeachment is Patriotic". I agreed. Nixon had the decency to resign when he knew that the people were on to him. But the Bush Administration seems to thumb their nose at Americans. As more tales of corruption and scandal color his cronies, I can't believe that impeachment is not on the table. If Bill Clinton can be impeached by the Republicans for having a blow job in the White House, why are the Democrats and (other Republicans with common sense) afraid to take Bush down?
As I watched the two groups in the middle of Redlands face off, I wondered if the pro-war faction could understand the pro-peace groups ability to support the troops safety, but not support the reason for them being there. I do not support war. Period. I do not support the troops being in Iraq. I'm not anti-troops. I have two cousins in the Army now. One finished his second tour of duty, and my youngest one, barely in his 20's finished a TD in Afghanistan, and is being sent to Iraq. So clearly, I don't want anything to happen to our people. But they shouldn't be there. And my not wanting them there doesn't make me anti-American, or anti-troops.
But I don't think the pro-war faction could accept that. It would require them to understand that the world is not black and white. There are a lot of gray folks like me running around.
Now I know that there are many in the black community who loved, I mean LOVED Bill Clinton when he was in office. And so naturally, there seems to be an assumption of automatic loyalty towards his wife, Hilary Clinton. But I'm here to say that Mrs. Clinton will not get my vote. We need realness in the White House. There are those who would argue that Senator Clinton is the best equipped person to step into the Oval office, and I would agree that she knows her way around the place.
But I feel deep in my heart that we need serious change, and a new voice and ideology that really represents what Americans are about. We want peace, we want to stand for real democracy across the globe (not special interests to profit a few), and we want to be that shining example to other cultures who struggle to accomodate diverse ethnic, religious, and political ideologies in one country. Where else in the world is there a country like America? We damn near have every race, creed and culture within our borders. We owe it to the rest of the world to choose leadership that will represent us in the highest light possible.
Perhaps if Mr. Obama were not running, I would consider Senator Clinton. A few years back I was even thinking of Senator John Edwards. But Mr. Obama is my man. My mother told me last week that she will probably vote for Hilary Clinton because she is afraid that if Obama won, he might be assassinated. My mother is from the generation who witnessed the public executions of Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, John and Bobby Kennedy. There is an undercurrent among some black Americans that a black President would be killed for simply being black. I refuse to allow that thinking into my psyche. I would hope that Americans of color will vote for Obama because of his character and what he stands for, and not just for the color of his skin. Just as I believe that women shouldn't just vote for Clinton simply because she is a woman. We need a new America, and we won't get it if we still hold onto color lines, feminist lines and any other lines.
This is my first bloggging adventure. I saw a TV show on KCET dealing with women's issues and learned about "Women for Obama". I live in Los Angeles and donated money for the first time to get Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa elected. I've decided to do the same for Mr. Obama, aka Mr. President ;>. I'm new to becoming politically active. I vote and try too keep abrest of the issues, but honestly, since the bloodless coup/hijacking of the Presidency by the Bush tribe, I have viewed politics as a rich, white man's game.
I am a black woman living in America, a citizen, and a writer. And I want serious change in this country. I have always believed this country has the potential to be the best in human history. But racism, sexism, and a whole host of ism's keep it from being so. I don't want to appear Pollyanna-ish, but Mr. Obama seems so fresh, so new and vibrant. He deserves a chance to lead us. I'm going to do my small part to see that he gets to do that.
