We've prayed for you and your family since you announced your candidacy. We, of course, prayed your Grandmother would live to see you elected President. But as our family believes GOD will not give you anymore than you can handle, we know this is GOD's will.
Remember this from the Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Philippians:
"If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the spirit, if any bowels and mercies, fulfil ye my joy, that ye be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves, look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.
"For it is GOD which worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.
"I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." Philippians 2: 1-5, 13; 4: 12-13
I lost my Mother 10 years ago and even though it still saddens me as if it were today, I'm comforted in the fact I believe she's looking down on us and her beautiful, talented 1st Grade Granddaughter. My wife found the passage from Philippians in my Mother's Bible. My Mother's bookmarks in her Bible are where she left them and there was a bookmark at Philippians.
My Mother's Bible was autographed by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Houston, Texas shortly before he was assassinated. Dr. King's sermon was "The Time is Midnight". Ironically Dr. King's powerful message in that sermon mirrors the state of America where we now find ourselves. Like yourself, he believed that America could do much better. And with you within reach of the Presidency of the United States during this historic time, a major belief in the goodness of America is about to be reached.
When you said, "I am not a perfect vessel." we knew we were right to support you. If we had asked God to mold America a President, he would've molded you. We need someone strong, yet humble; someone intelligent but not judgmental; someone who is as comfortable with the homeless as with heroes. And let that person be bi-racial and have a frame of reference of other cultures so as not to be condescending. The facts that you are of African descent; that your Father came to America because of his intelligence by choice and not in chains as most African American ancestors; that you were raised by a loving Mother and Grandparents in one of the most beautiful states in this Nation among mostly People of Color, attributes greatly to your strength and your success.
Please accept our sincere sympathy and prayers and know that your Grandmother is now free from pain and suffering and looking down at you and your beautiful family with pride.
Our little 1st Grader and junior Obama supporter tells how her class is voting...Also, she does a tribute song to BO (“Agent of Change”), a letter to Obama, and a Hannah Montana song with BO t-shirt at the recent Bayfest...We got such such great response, we uploaded to YOUTube...
"Agents of Change" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJNsYaBqv-8&feature=channel
1st Graders are voting for Obamahttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sciRxKy4XhM&feature=channelLetter to Obama from a 1st Grader. She said, "When McCain sees this he's going to FREAK OUT!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxt5TAZkgg0&feature=channel
If the links don't work go to YouTube and enter "1st Grader" in the search bar, then sort by Date. The videos were uploaded on Nov. 2. Click on "More From: ronbluvsmusic for all of the videos.
PS: and a child shall lead them...
I put an Obama/ Biden sign in my yard a few days ago.This morning I was doing yard work when a fellow stopped and asked where he could get one so I directed him to the Baldwin County Democratic head quarters.I suspect that people often look for signs (excuse the pun) of encouragement from like minded people when they think they are entertaining ideas that are not common place among their neighbors. Worse many people who feel outnumbered won't exercise their right to vote..We need to change that by making our support for Democratic candidates ...especially Obama, higly visible.We can in fact encourage people to vote and feel empowered.I think about the evolution of social ideas and I am confident that we here in the deep south will eventually find that our communities reflect diverse views and political ideas. The meek and resigned will speak out locally and vote. Won't it be grand to know we all have a real voice?
Oh I wrote a short little note on an index card and attached it to my sign with a clothes pin.... It stated that MCCain fought for our freedom of expression.
I am amazed at the capacity of human beings to see what they expect to see ,and to let perception cloud their judgement. I have been reading about race and the election.It just plain baffles me that prejudice can inject itself into a situation where the evidence is so clearly indicative that it is not rational to discount a person's ability ,skills ,or intent based on a lack of connection with culture and skin color.Barak Obama is a man who can move comfortably between many of our ethnic and cultural divides because his life has made it imperative that he love and respect people from many different cultural backgrounds. He has not let racial considerations limit his life so why should we limit his opportunity to serve us and use his gifts for the common good? It just seems like if we do that we sell ourselves short.
I am delighted to see some events that look promising being scheduled on the eastern shore. Check out my neighborhood and you will see what I mean. Unfortunately I must cancel the pot luck I was going to host, but knowing that there are ways we can get involved at the ready takes some of the sting out of that. The truth is there is more at stake then what is on our plates..:) .and now is the time to get involved as efficiently as possible and these events I see scheduled look like a great starting place. Also please note that there is a voter registration drive being sponsored by the Eastern Shore Democrats which is not listed as an event..... It will be held over successive days at both the USA campus and the Fairhope campus of Faulkner State Junior College. You can call:John Raby at 928-0911 hm, or 623-2707 for information about volunteering.
I am having some problems with mail delivery when I email folks in my Obama group and because of this I have no way to know if emails are received .I get delayed mail delivery messages days after emails are sent so please note the date of this post and if you do get an email about a pot luck it has been canceled.
Heres to a good debate
I am now going to go get some coffee....I really need some coffee.....
Here is to excellent debates and Barak Obama communicating powerfully what the public needs to know to help the undecided have confidence in him and our platform.
Time(even the little bit of it we have )is on our side and truth too.Consider the very short time since Sarah Palin changed the dynamic of the race and how carefully she has been protected from too much upset, or the chance to upset their apple cart ..... This and human nature suggests people are making decisions about her based on wishful thinking and first impressions since thats about all they have had a chance to get.The public has had nineteen months to learn about Barak Obama and for millions of us he has passed the test ,,,we found a voice who represented what we hope will be our future.Had ,in all those months some scandal broke that would suggest he was an out and out liar , or had views too extreme for the mainstream he would not have made it out of the primaries. Now the woman chosen as the McCain's running mate and hailed the new face of the Republican party is given this honor without the process of challenge that comes from an extended campaign .Joe Biden has had to win elections many ,many times to remain in the Senate. She has won one major election in a conservative state,where moose hunting may be a major plus.I for one find it not.There are plenty of red flags (excuse the pun) to urge caution , to learn more , for questions to be answered about her behavior in public office ,her ability to work with people who disagree with her ,and looking way back to her school years her ability to tolerate that which does not completely suit her. At any rate people may feel quite committed but many moderates and independents- given what is at stake know they still have time to listen and learn.Moderate Republicans especially have good reason to worry that she will eventually do even more damage to their party then Bush did by moving it too far right and think twice.Most Americans do not like extreme ideology .either on the left or the right.It scares them as it should given that we are a multi plural society and we all should feel we have some representation.I am betting that they will indeed use reason to some extent. and given the privacy of the votimg boothe vote the way they feel they need to.I am an optimist and think that once the luster starts to tarnish when real questions are asked of Sarah Palin people who might be leaning her way will hesitate and even change their minds.They can also wonder why John McCain could be so eager as to put blinders on.She is President Bush on steroids.
In the meantime I am going to work on some letters to the editor ,and attempt to be heard beyond the cozy comfort of this site.I have a local group Alabamians for Obama in Fairhope and Along the Eastern Shore of Mobile bay which will be meeting in a matter of weeks ( more on that later if you are in the group ) to plan a local event of some kind.I will not get discouraged . or strident , but I will actively and publically support my candidate.
Meantime I live on the Gulf Coast ,and will probably be in Ike's cone and an of course a little distracted.I hear Mrs.Paliin will be giving an interview late next week about the time the storm makes landfall and grabs a lot of air time ,and in some cases cuts the electricity off (sigh ) a lot of news I sure wish she could muster an interview before then so we could all hear it...hmmmm? (Fat chance..her people are not stupid )
" We "in this instance refers to people who support Barak Obama (like myself ) and who live in places notable for being solidly,and I might add robustly conservative We know we are not,at this point in time going to change the way our state votes , so why get involved? why vote? why spit in the wind?
My answer is simple ,because I can think back ,and read history and consider how much has changed in society over time. Baby steps are better then standing still and inert.The progressive changesin history have always involved people willing to risk challenging the status quo around them. I firmly believe that in time regional differences may be mitigated as the internet exposes more people to a broader array of ideas.Look at the young among us and you will see people who do not follow the idealogy they grew up in blindly because for better or worse (and I think better ) the net has made the world they know expand beyond their own corner of it.The thing about living where I live is that in fact I blend right in. I am an ordinary woman living a simple life ,long married ,hard working ,mother worthy of the title and so on.... nothing about me should suggest i want to turn society on its head. Thats why when people who know me and like me discover I am a liberal Democrat it rarely costs me their friendship if indeed I have it.To listen to people here liberals are hedonistic ,self serving and without spiritual awareness....and I am actually none of that . I am always respectful ,and I never get strident when I do get into a political conversation because I know the minute I raise my voice I signal more then anger ,I signal that you are concerned that I can't communicate with words alone..Since I know better it is easy for me to talk calmly about Barak Obama and my ideals.I am quite clear about what I think justice looks like and what kind of leadership we need.It looks like Barak Obama.My hope is that if nothing else every once in awhile I give someone who diasagrees with me pause to think.
I am of course donating and to the national campaign, but Iwant to do more then vote with my dollar.
I have decided to put an Obama sticker on my car and it it gets abused I will think of that as a small price to pay to have freedom of expression and to encourage other like minded people to publically support their candidate. I will write letters to the editor of my local paper and if I meet with scorn or as is more likely to happen here am simply ignored or pitied as an ignorant fool I will remember that I know who I am and while I can sometimes make a fool of myself I can't see myself as ignorant.I will also put a sign in my yard ,defended by an ant bed ,and assume that most people here are too busy and tolerant to bother it.Hopefully too other Obama supporters here will do the same thing. The more people understand that good people can disagree ,and the more we actually talk and listen to each other the more quickly we will become a country in which sharp regional differences are not so firmly established ,and instead (even without electoral reform) more of us will be able to saythat our individual votes count.
I don't think enough can be said about the sheer boneheadedness, arrogance, and, yes, elitism of this statement from McCain advisor, John Goodman.
But the numbers are misleading, said John Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis, a right-leaning Dallas-based think tank. Mr. Goodman, who helped craft Sen. John McCain's health care policy, said anyone with access to an emergency room effectively has insurance, albeit the government acts as the payer of last resort.
What Mr. Goodman (and every other person who decries universal health care as socialized or government-sponsored medicine that the U.S. cannot afford) fails to recognize is that we already have government sponsored "health care" in the form of Emergency Rooms across the country. The problem is that this government sponsored health care happening in the most expensive, least effective way possible.
I can understand that distraction is the name of the game and that under that heading comes the onslaught of imagery and innuendo that seeks to devalue, de-claw , and decieve even as it distracts.I get that , but when it is done in as clumsy a manner as the McCain campaign did in their recent " celebrity "ad it becomes less effective then ads that exxagerate an unsavory fact.It requires that people suspend logic even as it presents itself as a caricature of everything that is wrong with politics gone negative. It takes a sleazy character we have all heard in every campaign , the nay sayer, the finger pointer , the often disgusted and indigent, sometimes cooly smug voice over and draws attention with such exaggerated features that one might find it laughable if it were not so ill formed as to inspire pity as well as derision. It reminds me a bit if a small dog barking at an individual from behind the safety of a screen doors.One knows that even if it managed to bite ,which is improbable, the bite will carry no long term consequences because in the case of the ad a think through finds it lacking muscle and its teeth entirely too small to do any damage.The argument that leaders must be nondescript and possess only modest charismafails to take into account that when mixed with good judgment the ability to inspire is e catalyst that empowers a leader to do just that ,and the answer to the question becomes of course- Obama can lead and well. This ad is a sad commentary about how poorly the people who wrote it and produced it understand nuance and how much they underestimate the ability of the American people to focus and see it for what it is which is something like a poorly worded sentences that fails to speak clearly and leaves one thinking the speaker may be confused.
Why are so many people angry about Obama? He talks to the many issues we all face, and even tries to find common ground. He tries to respect his opponent while Mc Cain tries to demonize Obama.
I have had replies to some of my post that seem racial, and bigoted. I do not understand it, why do these people even care what I have to say here at BarackObama.com, if they know already that they aren't going to be civilized in their responses. If you don't like obama, don't visit the site!!!
It's not rocket science!!!
Listen, I'm not trying to offend McCain or anyone. He does desreve a lot of respect for the many services he has given to this country. But when I hear him talk about the economy, Iknow he's not talking to me, or anyone in a similar situation. He's talking to business' that wouldn't give me ajob if I paid them too.
These are both passionate men, but one is passionate about everyone, and McBush is passionate about getting elected. One speaks to the secular origins of this country, and McBush thinks that I am not even a citizen, simply becuz' I choose not allow religion to decide for me.
I have no doubt that he is a good man at heart, but to say that my voice should not be heard simply becuz' I cannot agree with him about religion, is dangerous to me, and many other Americans. He does not speak to the issues that matter to the little people, only those with enough money to put him in the White House.
