After all these weeks, we have an event for everyone in MYBO to finally be able to meet and celebrate our victory together in Washington, DC during the inauguration -- the MYBO Grassroots Inaugural Ball 2009, the Social from 6 pm to 10 pm (might run later) at Universalist National Memorial Church near DuPont Circle.
We invite you to click on the link below to learn the details of this alternative ball morphed into a neighborhood social.
http://grassrootsball2009social.eventbrite.com
Tickets are on sale now for only $26.00, but the quantity available is limited, so we encourage you to act quickly to be sure to be able to join us the evening of January 19 for our pre-ball/party celebration.
We are also delighted to announce that we have been invited to join up with DC for Obama and Mayor Fenty's office for their Day of Service. Please join us at the MLK Memorial Library from 9 am to 4 pm for as long as you can. We will be distributing food to those in need throughout the day in response to President-elect Barack Obama's call to all of us to community service.
Then, join us for a chance to warm up and meet so many with whom we have exchanged over the months on MYBO and will at long last be able to meet face to face and we organize for our next "grassroots" effort -- supporting President Obama's and our legislative agenda.
We hope to see many of you there!
All our best wishes for the New Year 2009,
The Organizing Committee
Mary Ritter and Jacqueline Ashton de Floris
Can you attend this event? Respond Here
MYBO Grassroots Inaugural Ball 2009, the Social
WhenMonday, January 19, 2009 from 6:00 PM - 10:00 PM (ET) LocationUniversalist National Memorial Church1810 16th St NWWashington, DC 20009 Click for Details and Registration Information
Hello MYBO People,
The very first Grassroots Inaugural Ball 2009 -- originating right here in MYBO -- has a challenge for 40 people in our network of campaign volunteers.
We are trying to secure a venue in Washington that is convenient, on the Metro with space for more than 1000 people, and we are trying to do this for what is regarded as the inauguration that will be the most widely attended in our nation's history. Everybody wants to be there to witness this historic event and celebrate, and maybe nobody more so than those of us here on the MYBO listservs. Obama's Internet Army soldiers.
It's really, really hard to get space in Washington right now, and MYBO has done it. Almost.
So, The Challenge.
We are on the verge of signing a contract for a venue, and to do it we need 40 people to kick in $1,000 so that we can be ready with our check for the down payment before someone else beats us to it.
Your underwriting of the down payment not only assures us the space to hold our very own Grassroots Inaugural Ball 2009, it will cover $40,000 of our total budget. Think of yourselves as part of Barack's tax plan. That top 5% that will help to reduce ticket prices and make our ball more affordable for everyone--most especially for the 95% of MYBO who need a break after all the donating to the campaign!
What else will you get? You will receive:
What else, you ask?
The undying thanks and devotion of everyone who wants this ball to happen. You can also choose one of our sponsor gifts, once we figure out what they will be.
We need this as quickly as possible. Don't think it over. Reply right away to Russell Miller, our treasurer, at Russell@grassrootsballdc2009.com, and we go to contract to have a ball!
You don't have $1,000? That's okay.
If you have $500 to help us underwrite the ball, we can guarantee you:
And If you don't have five hundred dollars to get the ball rolling, don't worry. We'll be rolling out other sponsor levels, and tickets will be available shortly at a range of prices that make sense for every working American. (We revere the Constitution, but we're breaking the law of supply and demand.)
This ball is going to be for EVERYONE—or at least as many as the fire codes allow.
Thank you!
Jacqueline Ashton de Floris, Mary Ritter, Russell Miller
Members, Organizing Committee
PS: Money Where Our Mouth Is Department—All three of us are already in as sponsors. It's lonely out here, but we know it won't be for long. Join us!
PPS for shy folks: You can be anonymous sponsors if you like!
Dear MYBO volunteers, This is to let you know that a core organizing committee has formed and has been working round the clock since Friday to get our Grassroots Ball 2009 off the ground . We have chosen a URL for the event, the website is being developed and will be ready to go soon, we are negotiating with venues and are working to solicit sponsors and underwriters to help keep the ticket price as low as we can make it. This last is an urgent need, and anyone interested in sponsoring, purchasing advertising in the program, underwriting, or investing to help us raise the down payment on the venue should get in touch with one of us right away.
We need to rasie $40,000 before the end of next week to secure our venue big enough for a couple of thousand Obama-supporter volunteers to celebrate the fruits of our hard work, and, for many, finally meet face to face. That may sond like a lot, but remember, it was all our little donations that put Barack over the top!
If you are a fundraiser or have experience as a volunteer doing fundraising for a charitable organization, have the time right now and want to take this on, please let us hear from you! We can help put together a team to assist you.
Once the website is up, we will put the word out so you can check it for information and the announce date for ticket sales. We can no longer accept any requests for reservations by email.
Please contact one of us if you are a volunteer field organizer for the campaign.
We've been out of town on a vacation, and wow how things have changed. Spent the week during the GOP convention in SW Colorado, watching it with many pretty right wing folks. INteresting to listen to their point of view, but they had no desire to debagte, just to ridicule any one who thought differently. Same old same old.
I am personally very sick of all the PALIN fixation by OBAMA supporters. Its time to get back to work, maybe past time.
I yearn for an OBAMA speech that will truely inspire me, and make me get all emotional and fired up to work. The magic seems to be gone. But then again, there haven't been any of the speeches of old. since last spring. Still and all, there is no choice here and OBAMA has to win or we are all doomed.
Well well, imagine my surprise as I saw the front page of the Sun Times today, being held up in the air by a women selling them in te middle of a busy street, me on my way to my Thursday nanny job.
For ever the Sun Times has been the voice of the Deocratic Party in Illinois, while the Tribune was the GOP voice. Gosh with headlines like these, who needs friends any longer.
Not a thoughtfu & sensitivel piece written about the extended Obama family in Kenya, but rather SENSATIONALISM at its worst.
But this is Chicago folks...
The paper is going under..anything to sell a few more. They cannot disappear quick enoough for my tastes.
http://www.suntimes.com/index.html
Obama is beginning his travels to the Democratic National Convention this Saturday in Srpingfield Illinois. He will hold a rally at 1pm, in front of the Old State Capitol Building, exactly where be started this historic run for the Presidency.
Go to Barackobama.com/Springfield for additional details.
We all need to support our Senator and attend this happy event! Maybe he'll even announce his Veep choice there as well. Or at the least, bring him along.
I have started a new group:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/group/LakeForestersforOBAMA
The purpose is to find felow residents in Lake Forest and Laek Bluff who support OBAMA and Dan Seals, and to plan a few events for LF and LB for the fall.
Mary Ritter
I'm wondering what's happened to the ddaily digests? I am no longer receeving them not in 4 days, and for the two weeks prior only off and on.
Has HQ changed this feature? Just wondering?
What is "the race card" anyway? It appeared in the context of the O.J. Simpson trial when Robert Shapiro, O.J.'s lawyer, worried that by doing his job as O.J. Simpson's attorney had lost his whiteness card. Shapiro said, "'Not only did we play the race card, we dealt it from the bottom of the deck.'" That phrase was echoed as a defense by McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis, in justifying the McCain's campaign likening Barack Obama -- a former state senator, editor of the Harvard Law Review, community organizer and sitting U.S. Senator -- to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears. The two, of course, are most known for partying, sex tapes, eschewing underwear, and flights of fancy with drunk driving, drug use, jail and child neglect. The New York Times has accurately pointed out the connection with the Simpson trial and the irony of McCain's use of it. Now we have pundits arguing whether the "race card" was played or not, without anyone have a clear idea of what a "race card" is -- if it exists at all. But I think I can help here.
Ostensibly "the race card" is some proverbial "get out of jail free card" in the context of O.J. -- or in the minds of some whites now -- extended to the point of any charge of racism, which places African Americans, or in this case an African-American candidate, beyond reproach, outside of legitimate criticism. It is like the Joker in a game of Joker's Wild or a trump card that solves all black problems and blunts legitimate criticism. It is supposedly a cross and garlic that Obama, and perhaps all African Americans, carry to ward of not evil white vampires but reasonable white people and criticism. The fact is there is no such thing as a race card in the sense men tioned above in political campaigns. Whenever race is a topic of debate in the campaign it is almost always a net negative for Obama, no matter how gracefully he handles it. His statement was, in fact, carefully worded to try to inoculate himself from being pounded by coded racial language and not so coded racial language on Fox News and the Internet (we have all seen the Obama family tree e-mails, etc.). Obama said, "Nobody thinks that Bush and McCain have a real answer to the challenges we face. So what they're going to try to do is make you scared of me. ... You know, he's not patriotic enough, he's got a funny name, you know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills." Obama, in this statement, is gingerly trying to point out that his different appearance and the fact he is "different" in terms of his name and his racial background may make some uneasy and they may trade on it. But political scien tists who follow black politicians have long talked about what some call a "de-racialized campaign." The idea is simply this: If black candidates need to get white voters, explicitly appealing to race is a losing strategy for a black candidate period, full stop. Even talking about race in the campaign is generally a net negative for the black candidate. We saw this with Clinton. But how can we understand McCain's strategy? Well, there is some research by political scientist Tali Mendelberg in her book titled, The Race Card: Campaign Strategy, Implicit Messages and the Norm of Equality. Mendelberg reveals that when white candidates explicitly refer to race in campaigns and make explicit appeals they lose support because there is ostensibly a norm of following some notion of racial equality. However, Mendelberg also shows that implicit messages have a real effect. Using subtle language that c ues race in the minds voters can be quite effective. Pictures of black criminals, Clinton's 3AM commercial advertisement, the arrogance attack, questioning patriotism, and from Karl Rover 'trash talking,' followed by fears of miscegenation (Paris and Britney) are all implicit appeals. They conjure images of either African-American stereotypes or fears about African Americans. This week, McCain also came out against affirmative action, an issue which though it has substantial gender content is entirely understood as a race issue and generally in black/white terms. Thus, the "race card" reference is also a way to sneak an explicit appeal and to also suggest and implicit appeal. It reminds voters of O.J. Simpson, racism, and the fact that Barack Obama is black. It also suggests that McCain is somehow the unfair victim of an "explicit" racial appeal by Barack Obama. It is a completely dishonest but a master pivot. Bar ack Obama has difficulty defending himself from racial attacks because as long as they are either subtle or come from the nether reaches of the Internet or from Fox News but far from McCain himself, McCain pays no price for these attacks. McCain himself becomes the "victim" of the race card and simultaneously injects race into the campaign without ostensibly having to pay the cost of doing so. Thus, the fact is, if there is a race card, and it in the context of political campaigns works against black candidates and John McCain's campaign is playing it -- affirmative action, "Pop-tarts," arrogant, unpatriotic (code for un-American) and then the 'race card' accusation. Everyone knows that part of both Barack Obama's handicap and appeal is that he is the first African American candidate. He has to address that gingerly and defend from all manner of attacks, which allows for a skillful distraction by the McCain campaign. The trut h is, of course, race still matters for some voters and in different and complicated ways. The even sadder truth is, that following the Clinton campaign, McCain is turning Obama's need to craft a defense against racial attacks into an offense. McCain has to keep the discussion in the campaign on issues that are "wins" for him -- national security, terrorism, and of course, race. Following Obama's attempt to inoculate himself from the national security charge during his trip abroad and pivot toward his winning issue, the economy, McCain has used race to distract attention and make the debate one he may not be able to win morally but that he will win the deep recesses in the minds of many voters. Obama was spot on, and if he had not tried to defend himself in this fashion they would have used some other means of injecting it. The question is will the voters facing a flagging economy be distracted by these appeals to the deep an d dark mostly unconscious fears as Obama said? Or will McCain have to find answers for real problems Americans face? -- Mark Q. Sawyer
An article from the NYT today 8-8-08 describes McCain's giving back money collected via shady means. Opps I cannot paste in in here not sure why. Its in the NYT right now this am, hidden away.
Why is it all we hear about on the MSM's is misrepresentataions of BO rather than real hard news and real hard questions? What has happened to the Fourth Estate? Have they sold out? There would be no more Deep Throat I fear with journalists (and i say say that with a thumb in my cheeck) caring more about THEIR ratings and themselves rather than about the good of the country. Oh I forgot, pundits are NOT journalists. Just more of the ME generation but these guys and gals are old enough to know better. Follow their money too, pundits I mean.
McCain is returning $50,000-under scrunity- in campagin donations that were collected supposedly from families who have no money..from the Abdullah family... but collected by an associate of a Mr. Sargent who is finance chairman of the Florida GOP and also has ties to big oil. I haven't heard a word about this on TV. Only more about Paris and Brittany and Buffalo Chips and oh did BO eat pancakes or eggs, he is just too skinny and in shape to be President.
I fear for our future without the investigative reporting of old.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/21670
These are excellent! .she comments on our foreign policy and natinal security through her reviews of these books. They help delinate how OBAMA's policies have evolved. She is brilliant. While these a longish, they are worth the read. Nothing is simple.
For about the 8th time in 2 weeks, nothing is cming through the listservs, I keep wondering if these are tech problems, or some other problem?
Thanks for any response. Mary
July 23, 2008—Republicans are sending around the Internet a photo of a cute little boy whose T-shirt reads: "The mess in my pants is nothing compared to the mess Democrats will make of this country if they win Nov. 2nd."
One can only wonder at the insouciance of this message. Are Republicans unaware of the amazing mess the Bush regime has made? It is impossible to imagine a bigger mess. Republicans have us at war in two countries as a result of Republican lies and deceptions, and we might be in two more wars – Iran and Pakistan – by November. We have alienated the entire Muslim world and most of the rest.
The dollar has lost 60% of its value against the euro, and the once mighty dollar is losing its reserve currency role.
The Republicans’ policies have driven up the price of both oil and gold by 400%.
Inflation is in double digits. Employment is falling.
The Republican economy in the 21st century has been unable to create net new jobs for Americans except for low-wage domestic services such as waitresses, bartenders, retail clerks and hospital orderlies. Republican deregulation brought about fraud in mortgage lending and dangerous financial instruments which have collapsed the housing market, leaving a million or more homeowners facing foreclosure. The financial system is in disarray and might collapse from insolvency. The trade and budget deficits have exploded. The US trade deficit is larger than the combined trade deficits of every deficit country in the world.
The US can no longer finance its wars or its own government and relies on foreign loans to function day to day. To pay for its consumption, the US sells its existing assets – companies, real estate, toll roads, whatever it can offer – to foreigners.
Republicans have run roughshod over the US Constitution, Congress, the courts and civil liberties. Republicans have made it perfectly clear that they believe that our civil liberties make us unsafe – precisely the opposite view of our Founding Fathers. Yet, Republicans regard themselves as the Patriotic Party.
The Republicans have violated the Nuremberg prohibitions against war crimes, and they have violated the Geneva Conventions against torture and abuse of prisoners. Republican disregard for human rights ranks with that of history’s great tyrants.
The Republicans have put in place the foundation for a police state. I am confident that the Democrats, too, will make a mess. But can they beat this record?
We must get the Republicans totally out of power, or we will have no country left for the Democrats to mess up.
I say this as a person who has done as much for the Republican Party as anyone. I helped to devise and to get implemented an economic policy that cured stagflation and that brought Republicans back into political competition after Watergate. If I could have looked into a crystal ball and seen that under a free trade banner, Republicans would enable corporate executives to pay themselves millions of dollars in "performance pay" for deserting their American work forces and hiring foreigners in their place, thus destroying the aspirations and careers of millions of Americans, I never would have helped the Republicans. If a crystal ball had revealed that a neoconned Republican Party would launch wars of naked aggression against countries that posed no threat to the United States, I would have shouted my warnings even earlier.
The neoconned Republican Party is the greatest threat America has ever faced. Let me tell you why.
How many Republicans can you name who respect and honor the Constitution? There are Ron Paul, Bob Barr, and who? The ranks of Republican constitutional supporters quickly grow thin.
The reason is that Republicans view the Constitution as a coddling device for criminals and terrorists. Republicans think the Constitution can be set aside for evil-doers and kept in place for everyone else. But without the Constitution we only have the government’s word as to who is an evil-doer.
This would be the word of the same infallible government that told us that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction that were on the verge of being used against America, the same infallible government that told us that Guantanamo prison held "770 of the most dangerous persons alive" and then, after stealing 5 years of their lives, quietly released 500 of them as mistaken identities.
Republicans think the United States is the salt of the earth and that American hegemony over the rest of the world is not only justified by our great virtue but necessary to our safety. People this full of hubris are incapable of judgment. People incapable of judgment should never be given power.
Republicans have no sympathy for anyone but their own kind. How many Republicans do you know who care a hoot about the plight of the poor, the jobless, the medically uninsured? The government programs that Republicans are always adamant to cut are the ones that help people who need help.
I have yet to hear any of my Republican friends express any concern whatsoever for the 1.2 million Iraqis who have died, and the 4 million who have been displaced, as a result of Bush’s gratuitous invasion. Many tell me that the five- and six-year-long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are due to wimpy Americans "who don’t have the balls it takes" to win. Killing and displacing a quarter of the Iraqi population is just a wimpy result of a population that lacks testosterone. Real Americans would have killed them all by now. Macho patriotic Republicans are perfectly content for US foreign policy to be controlled by Israel. Republican evangelical "christian" churches teach their congregations that America’s purpose in the world is to serve Israel. And these are the flag-wavers.
Those of us who think America is the Constitution, and that loyalty means loyalty to the Constitution, not to office holders or to a political party or to a foreign country, are regarded by Republicans as "anti-American."
Neoconservatives, such as Billy Kristol, insist that loyalty to the country means loyalty to the government. Thus, criticizing the government for launching wars of aggression and for violating constitutionally protected civil liberties is, according to neoconservatives, a disloyal act.
In the neoconservative view, there is no place for the voices of citizens: the government makes the decisions, and loyal citizens support the government’s decisions.
In the neocon political system there is no liberty, no democracy, no debate. Dissenters are traitors.
The neoconservative magazine, Commentary, wants the New York Times indicted for telling Americans that the Bush regime was caught violating US law, specifically the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, by spying on Americans without obtaining warrants as required by law. Note that neoconservatives think it is a criminal act for a newspaper to tell its readers that their government is spying on them illegally.
Judging by their behavior, a number of Democrats go along with the neocon view. Thus, the Democrats don’t offer a greatly different profile. They went along with the views that corporate profits and the war on terror take precedence over everything else. They have not used the congressional power that the electorate gave them in the 2006 elections.
However, Democrats, or at least some of them, do care about the Constitution. If it were not for Democratic appointees to the federal courts and the ACLU (essentially a Democratic organization), the Bush regime would have completely destroyed our civil liberties. Some Democrats are "bleeding hearts," who actually care about suffering people they don’t know, and who think that we have obligations to others. Have you ever heard of a bleeding heart Republican?
Traditionally, Democrats objected whenever policies resulted in a handful of rich people capturing all of the income gains from the economy. There might still be a few such Democrats left. Looking at the Republican mess, I doubt that Democrats, try as they may, can equal it.
This article is published in the Baltimore Chronicle with permission of the author.
