win with grace obama
its not a victory
unless you both win
and
also remind us all
that we have to love each other
not just when this is all thru
but always
here is what you make of it
right now
now
it has never been more important for us to unite
never
erase the lines
live with grace
live peace
Pull 'em out and put 'em on the table boyz!!!!
Meet with Ahmadinejad and CHANGE THE GAME. He's said he's willing to talk to you on Larry King. WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR? MAKE CHANGE NOW. SHOW LEADERSHIP NOW. ALL IT TAKES IS 5 MINUTES OF INSIGHT AND ENLIGHTENMENT TO CHANGE THE WORLD.
They sent Silly Sarah to the UN for a playdate. DO SOMETHING OF UTMOST SUBSTANCE AND MAKE THE REPUBLICANS LOOK FOOLISH FOR THEIR EMPTY GAMES AND GIVE THEM THE ROPE TO HANG THEMSELVES WHEN THEY ATTACK IT WITH LIES.
STAND BY YOUR MESSAGE AND BRING CHANGE...BRING IT RIGHT NOW.
Betcha these never leave "moderation" on CNN.com:
Here's how it works:
1. Register to vote.
2. Suffer foreclosure.
3. Fail to update your voter registration so it still lists the foreclosed address.
4. Go to the booth.
5. Get told you can't vote because they claim you are faking it and nobody canlive at a foreclosed address, so your residency is questionable.
ORGANIZE THE COMMUNITY OBAMA. GET THEM OUT AND GET THEM UPDATING THEIR REGISTRATIONS. BEAT THEM AT THEIR OWN GAME WHILE FIGHTING THE GOOD FIGHT IN THE COURTS.
Keep in mind: This is the same republican MI legislature that scheduled the Democratic primaries when they weren't supposed to be scheduled.
The wheels of justice are square!
Fight the good fight in the courts, but do what you do best Obama: ORGANIZE AND MOTIVATE THE COMMUNITY. The best way to fight the attempt to foreclose the peoples' right to vote based on mortgage foreclosures is to foreclose the possibility. This is an issue solved with hard work, footwork and grass roots mobilization. Local politicians MUST get involved and help protect their constituents' rights. This is not a cerebral court battle at heart, it is one solved by making sure everyone's papers are in order. Beat the Republicans at their own game. Make sure that they cannot question voters' residency based on a foreclosure at a particular address by making sure the voters have registered and it is a true and accurate registration based on their CURRENT address. Get them up, stand them up, hold them up, explain the issue, get them to the local voter registration office, create lines out the door. GET IT DONE. Don't let Republican gamesmanship oppress the people. Don't forget that this campaign is bottom-up, not top-down.
STRATEGIZE. ORGANIZE. MOBILIZE. REALIZE. SIEZE THE PRIZE.
IF YOU LIVE IN MI AND HAVE SUFFERED FORECLOSURE, MAKE ABSOLUTELY SURE YOUR VOTER REGISTRATION IS UPDATED TO REFLECT YOUR CURRENT ADDRESS.
DON'T LET THEM FORECLOSE YOUR RIGHT TO VOTE.
It's decidedly NOT 20% of the energy in the US:
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/energetically_wrong.html
As someone who is himself an attorney, these are my loose thoughts, stream of consciousness, on the issue of abortion as presented by this election. I haven't teased them out completely, but I figured blogging might help me do so a bit, and I would love commentary from the informed community to help add to and crystallize them, so here goes...
McCain and Palin claim that the states should decide whether to allow abortions. That is their explcitly stated position. The fact is though, nobody has asked them to address the issue in a practical manner and, as we know, pragmatics rule at the end of the day, be it decisions like whether to buy Jiffy or store brand or which octane gas you can afford. What must be done when addressing any issue and developing a policy position is to contemplate the natural fallout thereof. As a result, the final arbiter of justice must be the effect our chosen governmental policies have on the manner in which we are able (at the end of that day) to live our lives, enjoy our freedoms and rest free from oppression. The key in that analysis is following a line of reasoning that attempts to integrate reality with reasonable predictions in order to foresee the natural progression of human behavior in response to the policy. So, I am attempting to do so here by simply jumping in the imagination toboggan and taking a ride down the slippery slope.
Constitutionality arguments aside, let's assume for a minute that McCain and Palin get what they want and the states are allowed to decide whether to allow abortions. Where does this policy decision or "reform"ation of the law lead us? What problems might arise? What new Constitutional concerns will rear their ugly heads when we attempt to change an existing Constitutional principle with which we have decided to disagree and, despite the intended insulation of the Supreme Court from popular opinion, we actively alter those principles because as a society (or a controlling segment thereof) we have decided that the fundamental, inalienable rights the Constitution was established to sanctify should be re-tooled...that historical precedent was either somehow wrong or has grown stale and must now adapt to our contemporary understandings, circumstances and societal mores?
McCain and Palin need to be cross-examined on this point, and cross-examined MERCILESSLY, and here's the string of (partially coherent) hypotheticals I would want them to address:
Let's assume for a second that the decision IS given to the states and that State A and State B, which abut one another, decide differently. State A has chosen to ban abortions, whether by threatening to prosecute doctors who choose to perform the procedure and/or the women who choose to obtain one. State B allows them...persumably accepting the existing situation, honoring Roe v. Wade within the state and seeing no need to change a good thing (wink). Now, we're a mobile society. The infrastructure isn't perfect and in some ways obsolete, but a person from State A can usually make their way to State B to obtain the locally forbidden abortion. What happens when that person returns to State A? Does State A suddenly possess the authority to prosecute that person? Presumably not, because the activity did not occur within the boundaries of State A. But can the federal government then step in and create a crime where a person domiciled in one state has bucked the laws of that home state by traveling across state lines? Does the law "follow" them in such a manner? And where does the privacy of the woman's medical records stand in relation to the criminal law of State A? Furthermore, insurance is generally regulated by the individual states, so what happens to that woman's insurance coverage for the procedure (or, in fact, everyone's insurance coverage as insurance companies will no doubt take the opportunity to rid themselves of another potential charge)? Has her choice of geographic homeland and the sudden phase shift in public policy combined to exclude her or all women from insurance coverage for the procedure? Will we see a mass exodus of women who believe in the right to choose leaving states that have chosen to take the opportunity to legislate their version of morality as secular law? If so, what is the potential affect of such displacement on this most "perfect union" and our families? As you can see, just in this simplistic version of the situation and the act of getting around the home state's ban, there exists a plethora of potential Constitutional pitfalls.
But there's more. Think about the entirety of the situation. The vast majority of abortions are performed for women in lower income brackets, inner cities, of races historically considered "minority." We must admit that the situation created here is not so simple as "what if she crosses state lines to do it"? Such a paradigm shift as that suggested by McCain and Palin touches on all Constitutionally recognized class separations...geographic, economic, gender, race. Equal protection enters stage left to dance with the penumbra of rights we call "privacy". Obviously, even where an abutting state offers the promise of freedom of choice, there will be those who cannot avail themselves of that choice, trapped as they are by the inability to travel for economic or other reasons, the ability to get to that hallowed ground where freedom of choice still exists, for whom the burden of an unaffordable, unwanted, forced or life-threatening pregnancy has been legislated as unavoidable. What then? Can we go one step further and mandate adoption in order to reduce the additional burden on the state of supporting the family so burdened? Is there hypocrisy inherent in the position, in having removed choice such that the bogeyman of a "welfare state" has been given a prominent place at the dinner table instead of being relegated to the bedroom closet?
Going even further, one must presume that, given our occassional pentient for social conscience, community organizations would likely arise to assist those unfortunate women trapped in State A to make it across the state line to exercise their once inalienable right to choose. Do we suddenly find ourselves prosecuting those community-minded individuals as well, punishing the very communal spirit and willingness to care for one another that we should instead be fostering and relying upon as we always have in order to push this nation forward, to progress, to shine as an example for those not yet free in their own nations and provide them with the proof that they too can move towards democracy, choice and opportunity?
And of course, isn't the final practicality, the question that cuts to the heart of it all, that in addressing the above issues and nuances, are we really avoiding the proclaimed evil of "big government" or simply creating an opportunity for government to invade our lives and choices and remove our freedoms further than the threshhold decision of whether to have the abortion in the first place? Is it not the invitation, the first step into a brave new world in which we have glibly offered our wrists, ankles and minds and the proverbial strings to our own government as the parochial, paternal puppetmaster? One in which the cost of healthcare and the whim of the moral majority might eventually decide who deserves healthcare and treatment of what ails them, be it pregnancy, cancer, disease, addiction, etc., in light of some contrived test of worthiness couched in transparent language relating to the "public good"?
And so on and so forth...etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. The toboggan hits a snowman, we get in our Escalade and sing carols on the way back to one of our ten homes for cocoa?
I must admit, there's a certain feeling of helplessness in blogging here. There's little interaction and little hope the right eyes will peruse your thoughts, that they somehow might trickle uphill to find their way to someone who has the opportunity to pose these questions...one who might drill McCain and Palin on whether they have thought beyond the political expedience of their position on this issue and can test whether any substance underlies the opportunism inherent in knowing that, if elected, they can pack the Supreme Court with persons sympathetic to their leanings and that eventually, the next conservative Congress will have license to legislate based on religious tenets and mandate the social mores they wish us all to follow...with the Court's agressive blessing.
BUt here it is anyway. $0.02 in the well, freely given. There's always hope, no matter how small.
Fight them on the battlegrounds of your choosing. They want to co-opt the message of change? So be it. Co-opt their nonsense about Palin opposing the bridge to nowhere:
OBAMA/BIDEN: THE BRIDGE TO NO WAR.
Gibson: "….the Bush Doctrine?"
Palin: "Ummmmm, I dunno, always go Brazilian?"
OBAMA/BIDEN: THE BRIDGE TO NO WAR
While watching the interview, you must:
Take a sip of your beer every time she regurgitates a Republican talking point (or a portion of her RNC speach); Chug half a beer any time she's shown with her baby or her daughter's baby; and
Take a shot every time she's shown with a gun.
You win if you can keep from passing out before the first commercial break.
http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/school_funding_misleads.html
Please cut it out. Our best defense against their continuing campaign of misinformation is to be able to honestly claim we aren't doing the same...that we stand by our principles and used FACTS and EVIDENCE and didn't play games. That we took our positions and supported them with reality and never attempted to rewrite or invent our own reality. That we speak the TRUTH.
You want to beat the Republicans at their own game?
1. Open up a second browser while surfing and go to this website.
2. Frolick amongst the blogs in the other browser.
3. Every time someone posts a claim that there is no substance to Obama's positions or plans on a particular issue, copy (Ctrl-C) the relevant description from the "Issues" section on this website and paste (Ctrl-V) it into a post in response.
4. Challenge that indivdual to argue the issue and support their position with FACTS.
5. Giggle.
Fascism requires an uneducated populace to flourish. Prove to them that they've allowed themselves to become fertile soil.
