Exquisite! Can it be added it to the site, like YesWeCan was?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1KFsR4huV4
Background: predictably, I am very much pro-choice. So is Obama. He has always voted to support Planned Parenthood and the right to choice (although for a while Hillary tried to say otherwise; one of NOW’s leaders actually came out and condemned Hillary for misprepresenting him as a result). It’s fair to say that as a default, democrats tend to be pro-choice.
Now, debates about abortion have been savagely acrimonious ever since Roe vs Wade (and indeed, before then). It’s one of the things that divides the parties, although Obama himself rightly notes that not all Republicans condemn abortion and not all Democrats relish choice. Nonetheles,s since the partisan split is so ferocious, the language used to talk about this issue is often really savage, nasty, counterproduictive. One of the first things that wion me over to Obama was the way that he admitted he felt SHAME at sliding into the easy language of condemning pro-lifers.
bama is absolutely pro-choice - but what he says here is that we can be pro-choice and yet not slide into lazily caricaturing the opposition. We can be pro-choice and yet recognise that the pro-life crowd are often good-hearted, conflicted just as we are, trying their best to do the right thing, just as we are. We can disagree, but we can disagree in _good faith_. Trusting that our interlocutors are not demons but are just, like us, humans trying to make sense of the world and trying to do the right thing, exactly like we are.
Obama talks about this brilliantly in his second book, too: he is passionately keen on gun control (the NRA hate him), but he says that the anti-gun crowd (like me!) really need to recognise that to a weekend hunter, for example, a gun may be a precious, empowering, personal artifact. I still think we need ferocious gun control laws, but it's true that we need to recognise that just because we might not be able to see the value of a thing, it may still have real value for someone else, and we need to talk about these issues with respect, reaching out in good faith, even while we hold to our principles. As Obama says, we can disagree without being disagreeable.
Obama talks about this issue brilliantly in a June 2006 speech (and the chapter 'Faith' in his second book). This is what he says:
“A few days after I won the Democratic nomination in my U.S. Senate race, I received an email from a doctor at the University of Chicago Medical School that said the following:
"’Congratulations on your overwhelming and inspiring primary win. I was happy to vote for you, and I will tell you that I am seriously considering voting for you in the general election. I write to express my concerns that may, in the end, prevent me from supporting you."
“The doctor described himself as a Christian who understood his commitments to be "totalizing." His faith led him to a strong opposition to abortion and gay marriage, although he said that his faith also led him to question the idolatry of the free market and quick resort to militarism that seemed to characterize much of the Republican agenda.
“But the reason the doctor was considering not voting for me was not simply my position on abortion. Rather, he had read an entry that my campaign had posted on my website, which suggested that I would fight "right-wing ideologues who want to take away a woman's right to choose." The doctor went on to write:
“"I sense that you have a strong sense of justice...and I also sense that you are a fair minded person with a high regard for reason...Whatever your convictions, if you truly believe that those who oppose abortion are all ideologues driven by perverse desires to inflict suffering on women, then you, in my judgment, are not fair-minded....You know that we enter times that are fraught with possibilities for good and for harm, times when we are struggling to make sense of a common polity in the context of plurality, when we are unsure of what grounds we have for making any claims that involve others...I do not ask at this point that you oppose abortion, only that you speak about this issue in fair-minded words."
“Fair-minded words.
“So I looked at my website and found the offending words. In fairness to them, my staff had written them using standard Democratic boilerplate language to summarize my pro-choice position during the Democratic primary, at a time when some of my opponents were questioning my commitment to protect Roe v. Wade.
“Re-reading the doctor's letter, though, I felt a pang of shame. It is people like him who are looking for a deeper, fuller conversation about religion in this country. They may not change their positions, but they are willing to listen and learn from those who are willing to speak in fair-minded words. Those who know of the central and awesome place that God holds in the lives of so many, and who refuse to treat faith as simply another political issue with which to score points.
“So I wrote back to the doctor, and I thanked him for his advice. The next day, I circulated the email to my staff and changed the language on my website to state in clear but simple terms my pro-choice position. And that night, before I went to bed, I said a prayer of my own - a prayer that I might extend the same presumption of good faith to others that the doctor had extended to me.” (Obama’s Call to Renewal speech, June 2006)
Please please add factcheck clarification and correct the misconception that Obama has no experience. He has lots!
it is really getting the campaign weakened unnecessarily.
Here's another article appealing for it:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections08/story/0,,2239408,00.html
Obama has done brilliant, amazing things, e.g. his interrogation-related laws in Illinois, and his community organising even way back in 1995. Can't we get these facts out there?
I'm a universisity teacher in the UK, and today a few of our students were taljking about the presidential primaries - even over here in the UK.
And guess what? They were really enthusiastic about Obama. He's setting the world alight. He really matters to people already, and not just in the States.
Please, please, let us quench Hillary's 'more experience' claims. Let's do what Obama says, and 'respond directly and forcefully with the truth.'
Go Obama!
Senator Obama has held elected office for 9 years. Hillary has only held hers for seven. She speaks all the time of her "35 years of experience," but she was NOT an elected official. For those years she was a qualified lawyer, doing good things to help America - and Obama was doing exactly the same thing, in even more difficult contexts, and requiring even more bilateral connection and community-building.
Obama's experience bioth as an elected official AD as a community organiser are more than equal to Hillary's 'experience' claims.
We know now that Hillary's experience claim won over some voters in New Hampshire. Please, please, can Obama set the public record straight on the fact he has copious experience, certainly equivalent to Hillary's, and indeed oustripping hers in crucial ways?
This article from 1995</a> is crucial, I think, in showing tha t Obama's experience is copious, and that he has been dedicated to public service for 12 years and more:
http://www.chicagoreader.com/features/stories/archive/barackobama/
ANd this article from Charles Peters in the Washington Post makes it clear that Obama has HUUUGE experince of buildingcross-party coalitions in the toughest of circumstances:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/03/AR2008010303303.html
I can't vote, but over here in the UK I am enthusiastically supporting Obama nonetheless. America is frankly luck to have such a fabulous potential leader.
Why I support Obama:
I support Obama because I know that the American president has huge influence and ability and can really make a beneficial difference to world politics and the lives of millions of non-Americans too. The world would benefit from a strong, positive, ethical America.
I support Obama because of his thoughtful approach to international politics. His policies and plans, detailed on this site's 'Answer Centre,' are thoughtful and visionary.
I support Obama because of his nuanced, original insights into how religion and progressive politics don't have to be in conflict - that 'Call for Renewal' speech was incredibly original and thought-provoking. I wish all Christians and indeed members of any religion could read it.
I support Obama because of his persuasive vision of a united America not divided by traditional stereotypical two-party politics.
I am envious of you Americans - vote for him, vote for him! I'm cheering all the way.
