Fellow President Obama Supporters and Former Ones"
AS the founder of the Obama Group named YESWECANSOLVEIT...
I have taken the liberty of forming still another group called
AmericaNOchange. I doubt this one gets approved.
Thought I'd better hurry and write this and send it to all groups that
I am still a member of before I am banned here forever. Why would
that happen? you ask. Because I just formed a new group with a little
kid yelling "Hey You" while flipping off the viewer. Hope the president
and his staff gets the message.
The esculation of the war in Afghanistan is the last straw. Three strikes
your out!
First, he keeps the same people on the payroll that got us into this
financial disaster. He let's Bush and Cheney walk scot-free. He continues
to bail out the banks, "all too big to fail" why they screw us in every way.
And tonight on national tv he will try to convience us all that the way to
end the war in Aftganistan is to exculate it. This did not work in Vietnam,
I know, because I volunteered to go there, and it will not work in Aftganistan.
To add insult to injury. The powers that be, the ones backing McCain in
my city in Northern California, are all meeting to determine what the same
good ole boys get to do with local stimulus funds...So my question is?
WHAT THE HELL HAS CHANGED IN AMERICAN PRESIDENT OBAMA?
I am so damned mad right now, I swear, if I could afford it, I'd trade in
my next presidential ballot for a passport.
Al Boek, Ex-Supporter of a One-Term President
earlallenboek@yahoo.com
530-549-4315
Redding, California
In Praise of a Rocky Transition
by Naomi Klein - Nov 13 2008
..Despite all of this potential lawlessness, the Democrats are either openly defending the administration or refusing to intervene....I suspect that the real reason the Democrats are so far failing to act has less to do with presidential protocol than with fear: fear that the stock market, which has the temperament of an overindulged 2-year-old, will throw one of its world-shaking tantrums...."The Street" would cheer a Summers appointment for exactly the same reason the rest of us should fear it: because traders will assume that Summers, champion of financial deregulation under Clinton, will offer a transition from Henry Paulson so smooth we will barely know it happened. Someone like FDIC chair Sheila Bair, on the other hand, would spark fear on the Street--for all the right reasons....There is no way to reconcile the public's vote for change with the market's foot-stomping for more of the same. Any and all moves to change course will be met with short-term market shocks....When transferring power from a functional, trustworthy regime, everyone favors a smooth transition. When exiting an era marked by criminality and bankrupt ideology, a little rockiness at the start would be a very good sign.
..Despite all of this potential lawlessness, the Democrats are either openly defending the administration or refusing to intervene..
..I suspect that the real reason the Democrats are so far failing to act has less to do with presidential protocol than with fear: fear that the stock market, which has the temperament of an overindulged 2-year-old, will throw one of its world-shaking tantrums..
.."The Street" would cheer a Summers appointment for exactly the same reason the rest of us should fear it: because traders will assume that Summers, champion of financial deregulation under Clinton, will offer a transition from Henry Paulson so smooth we will barely know it happened. Someone like FDIC chair Sheila Bair, on the other hand, would spark fear on the Street--for all the right reasons..
..There is no way to reconcile the public's vote for change with the market's foot-stomping for more of the same. Any and all moves to change course will be met with short-term market shocks..
..When transferring power from a functional, trustworthy regime, everyone favors a smooth transition. When exiting an era marked by criminality and bankrupt ideology, a little rockiness at the start would be a very good sign.
I don't think Obama by himself can keep his promise of an open government. Are the people ready to step up to their non-election citizen responsibilities, demand stuff, and keep pushing him in the right direction so his job gets easier?
Barack on the future of this movement
April 30 2008
"One of the things that I'm really proud about this campaign, is that we've built a structure that can sustain itself after the campaign. It was because of volunteers, they built the campaign. We didn't originally have big plans for Idaho, but people made this structure.. ..I want to open up transparency in government, so that you guys know what is happening. I want to revamp our White House website.. I want people to be able to know, ..today President Obama talked about his proposal for $4000 student college tuition credits, it's going to be going into this congressional committee, these are the key leaders in the House and Senate that are going to be deciding on the bill, here are the groups that are involved that are supporting it, you should contact your Congressman. Just creating the situation that if people want to get involved, it's easy..That's how we are going to counteract the special interests."
OK "my friends",
It's been a long and wonderous year. I went to my local caucuses. I was a precinct delegate. I donated. I got people to donate. I attended meetings. I hosted meetings. I canvassed. I emailed. I blogged. I phonebanked, locally and out of state. I called my state representatives. I talked with my friends. I talked with my family. I gave out stickers. I attended rallies. I voted.
And you? There's still time to help bring CHANGE: http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/actioncenter
We're almost there - YES WE CAN!
P.S. For all you've done, THANK YOU.
There are still LARGE numbers of people who have not yet turned in their vote by mail ballots. It's not too late to benefit from this.
Watch the video that shows how to vote by mail. http://wa-democrats.org/vote
or for the same video on vimeo:
http://www.kingcounty.gov/elections/voting/absentee/howtoabsentee.aspx
Chinese: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yF1M2Mn75nE&fmt=18
Hearing impaired: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JnFoeZgwOA
Why wait for change?
Voters can stop by the King County Elections office at 919 S.W. Grady Way in Renton from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. to cast ballots.
Contact the elections office at 206-296-8683 or elections@kingcounty.gov for more information. Information also can be found at http://www.kingcounty.gov/elections/voting/earlyvoting.aspx
GOBAMA!
Senator Obama,
Former treasury secretary Robert E. Rubin is one of the most prominent contributors to the deregulation causing the current economic crisis. When you talk about getting to the root of the problem, you have a responsibility not to depend on the extreme ideologues who brought this on us in the first place. Please fire him from your campaign, and pledge to exclude corporate lobbyists from the federal intervention in the markets, and all other government business.
Taking Hard New Look at a Greenspan LegacyPeter S Goodman Oct 8 2008"..Ms. Born’s views incited fierce opposition from Mr. Greenspan and Robert E. Rubin, the Treasury secretary then. Treasury lawyers concluded that merely discussing new rules threatened the derivatives market. Mr. Greenspan warned that too many rules would damage Wall Street, prompting traders to take their business overseas.." "..On June 5, 1998, Mr. Greenspan, Mr. Rubin and Mr. Levitt called on Congress to prevent Ms. Born from acting until more senior regulators developed their own recommendations. Mr. Levitt says he now regrets that decision. Mr. Greenspan and Mr. Rubin were “joined at the hip on this,” he said. “They were certainly very fiercely opposed to this and persuaded me that this would cause chaos.”Ms. Born soon gained a potent example. In the fall of 1998, the hedge fund Long Term Capital Management nearly collapsed, dragged down by disastrous bets on, among other things, derivatives. More than a dozen banks pooled $3.6 billion for a private rescue to prevent the fund from slipping into bankruptcy and endangering other firms. Despite that event, Congress froze the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s regulatory authority for six months. The following year, Ms. Born departed.."
Taking Hard New Look at a Greenspan Legacy
Peter S Goodman Oct 8 2008
"..Ms. Born’s views incited fierce opposition from Mr. Greenspan and Robert E. Rubin, the Treasury secretary then. Treasury lawyers concluded that merely discussing new rules threatened the derivatives market. Mr. Greenspan warned that too many rules would damage Wall Street, prompting traders to take their business overseas.."
"..On June 5, 1998, Mr. Greenspan, Mr. Rubin and Mr. Levitt called on Congress to prevent Ms. Born from acting until more senior regulators developed their own recommendations. Mr. Levitt says he now regrets that decision. Mr. Greenspan and Mr. Rubin were “joined at the hip on this,” he said. “They were certainly very fiercely opposed to this and persuaded me that this would cause chaos.”
Ms. Born soon gained a potent example. In the fall of 1998, the hedge fund Long Term Capital Management nearly collapsed, dragged down by disastrous bets on, among other things, derivatives. More than a dozen banks pooled $3.6 billion for a private rescue to prevent the fund from slipping into bankruptcy and endangering other firms. Despite that event, Congress froze the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s regulatory authority for six months. The following year, Ms. Born departed.."
Why is early voting opportunity in king county not publicized? I just drove down to election office in Renton and voted - the place is empty because - nobody knows you can vote now.http://www.kingcounty.gov/elections/voting/earlyvoting.aspx
Vote now - and do something better on November 4th - "Get Out The Vote"
The Idiots Who Rule America
By Chris Hedges - Oct 20 2008
Our oligarchic class is incompetent at governing, managing the economy, coping with natural disasters, educating our young, handling foreign affairs, providing basic services like health care and safeguarding individual rights. That it is still in power, and will remain in power after this election, is a testament to our inability to separate illusion from reality. We still believe in “the experts.” They still believe in themselves. They are clustered like flies swarming around John McCain and Barack Obama. It is only when these elites are exposed as incompetent parasites and dethroned that we will have any hope of restoring social, economic and political order....Our elites—the ones in Congress, the ones on Wall Street and the ones being produced at prestigious universities and business schools—do not have the capacity to fix our financial mess. Indeed, they will make it worse. They have no concept, thanks to the educations they have received, of the common good. They are stunted, timid and uncreative bureaucrats who are trained to carry out systems management. They see only piecemeal solutions which will satisfy the corporate structure. They are about numbers, profits and personal advancement. They are as able to deny gravely ill people medical coverage to increase company profits as they are able to use taxpayer dollars to peddle costly weapons systems to blood-soaked dictatorships. The human consequences never figure into their balance sheets. The democratic system, they think, is a secondary product of the free market. And they slavishly serve the market....We may elect representatives to Congress to end the war in Iraq, but the war goes on. We may plead with these representatives to halt Bush’s illegal wiretapping but the telecommunications lobbyists make sure it remains in place. We may beg them not to pass the bailout but 850 billion taxpayer dollars are funneled upward to the elites on Wall Street. We may want single-payer, not-for-profit health care but it is not even discussed as a possibility in presidential debates. We, as individuals in this system, are irrelevant....I do not think George W. Bush or Barack Obama or John McCain or Henry Paulson are fascists. Rather, they are part of a cabal of naive, mediocre and self-deluded capitalists who are steadily weakening political and economic structures to a point where our democracy will become so impotent that it can be blown aside, probably with broad popular support. The only question is how this will happen. Will there be a steady and slow decline as in the late Roman Empire when the Senate ended as a farce? Will we see a powerful right-wing backlash from those outside the mainstream political system, as we did in Yugoslavia, and the rise of a militant Christian fascism? Will there be a national crisis that allows those in power to instantly sweep away all constitutional rights in the name of national security?
Our oligarchic class is incompetent at governing, managing the economy, coping with natural disasters, educating our young, handling foreign affairs, providing basic services like health care and safeguarding individual rights. That it is still in power, and will remain in power after this election, is a testament to our inability to separate illusion from reality. We still believe in “the experts.” They still believe in themselves. They are clustered like flies swarming around John McCain and Barack Obama. It is only when these elites are exposed as incompetent parasites and dethroned that we will have any hope of restoring social, economic and political order..
..Our elites—the ones in Congress, the ones on Wall Street and the ones being produced at prestigious universities and business schools—do not have the capacity to fix our financial mess. Indeed, they will make it worse. They have no concept, thanks to the educations they have received, of the common good. They are stunted, timid and uncreative bureaucrats who are trained to carry out systems management. They see only piecemeal solutions which will satisfy the corporate structure. They are about numbers, profits and personal advancement. They are as able to deny gravely ill people medical coverage to increase company profits as they are able to use taxpayer dollars to peddle costly weapons systems to blood-soaked dictatorships. The human consequences never figure into their balance sheets. The democratic system, they think, is a secondary product of the free market. And they slavishly serve the market..
..We may elect representatives to Congress to end the war in Iraq, but the war goes on. We may plead with these representatives to halt Bush’s illegal wiretapping but the telecommunications lobbyists make sure it remains in place. We may beg them not to pass the bailout but 850 billion taxpayer dollars are funneled upward to the elites on Wall Street. We may want single-payer, not-for-profit health care but it is not even discussed as a possibility in presidential debates. We, as individuals in this system, are irrelevant..
..I do not think George W. Bush or Barack Obama or John McCain or Henry Paulson are fascists. Rather, they are part of a cabal of naive, mediocre and self-deluded capitalists who are steadily weakening political and economic structures to a point where our democracy will become so impotent that it can be blown aside, probably with broad popular support. The only question is how this will happen. Will there be a steady and slow decline as in the late Roman Empire when the Senate ended as a farce? Will we see a powerful right-wing backlash from those outside the mainstream political system, as we did in Yugoslavia, and the rise of a militant Christian fascism? Will there be a national crisis that allows those in power to instantly sweep away all constitutional rights in the name of national security?
Please take these simple precautions to make sure your vote is counted.
DO NOT USE PENCIL Use blue or black ink.
DO NOT SIGN YOUR BALLOT. Sign the outer envelope under the security flap.
VOTE BOTH SIDES OF THE BALLOT
USE THE CORRECT POSTAGE. 42¢ONE BALLOT PER ENVELOPE. Your signature must be matched to a ballot. If there are multiple ballots in an envelope, then only one ballot (chosen randomly) will be counted.
MAIL YOUR BALLOT ON TIME. Thousands of votes each election don’t get counted because the postmark is later than election day. If you’re going to mail your ballot, it must be postmarked by November 4th.
I received this email and thought people could benefit from it:
Dear Citizens, Volunteers and Organizers,
Pundits side with Wall Street over Main StreetRobert Scheer - October 1, 2008
"..Those Republicans who dared to vote, this time, against the demands of the Wall Street power brokers were derided by New York Times conservative columnist David Brooks as the "Revolt of the Nihilists." While suddenly embracing President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal as the positive alternative to nihilist behavior, Brooks ignored Roosevelt's main achievement, which was to put the public interest before that of the Wall Street titans.Wasn't it nihilistic when Congress, led by Republicans but supported by key Democrats, including then-President Bill Clinton, shredded the protections put into place by Roosevelt to control an ever-avaricious banking industry?....Obama should stick with the wisdom of a community organizer from the tough side of Chicago: fight the bankers who swindle unsuspecting homeowners, and restore the bailout provision that Democratic leaders had proposed but then abandoned - stop the home foreclosures by empowering bankruptcy court judges to force a renegotiation of terms. Any bailout worthy of support should put the endangered homeowner first, not the bankers who swindled them.
"..Those Republicans who dared to vote, this time, against the demands of the Wall Street power brokers were derided by New York Times conservative columnist David Brooks as the "Revolt of the Nihilists." While suddenly embracing President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal as the positive alternative to nihilist behavior, Brooks ignored Roosevelt's main achievement, which was to put the public interest before that of the Wall Street titans.
Wasn't it nihilistic when Congress, led by Republicans but supported by key Democrats, including then-President Bill Clinton, shredded the protections put into place by Roosevelt to control an ever-avaricious banking industry?..
..Obama should stick with the wisdom of a community organizer from the tough side of Chicago: fight the bankers who swindle unsuspecting homeowners, and restore the bailout provision that Democratic leaders had proposed but then abandoned - stop the home foreclosures by empowering bankruptcy court judges to force a renegotiation of terms.
Any bailout worthy of support should put the endangered homeowner first, not the bankers who swindled them.
Katie Couric Interviews Sarah Palin About Watching Russia, Her New Passport And Her Opinion Of Obama
Sep 25 2008
..On whether the $700 billion bailout of the U.S. financial sector is a good idea.
.."That’s why I say I, like every American I’m speaking with, we’re ill about this position that we have been put in where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the healthcare reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Helping the—it’s got to be all about job creation too, shoring up our economy and putting it back on the right track. So health care reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions and tax relief for Americans and trade—we’ve got to see trade as opportunity, not as competitive, scary thing, but one in five jobs being created in the trade sector today—we’ve got to look at that as more opportunity.."
Remember these legendary words on maps & education?
