Not only words this year..........let's move to save the Economy, the Peace and the International Relations.
These are the main facts we should reach, asap.
Fast, please !
Simone
Scores have been killed during a campaign of terror unleashed by Zimbabwe's rulers against illegal diggers in the east of the country
The young miner already recognised the sound of dogs as a terrifying harbinger of death but the dull thud of the helicopter blades was something new.
Minutes later a Zimbabwean air force helicopter swept over the hundreds of fleeing illegal diamond miners and mowed down dozens with machine-gun fire. After that the police arrived and unleashed the dogs that tore into the diggers, killing some and mutilating others. The police fired teargas to drive the miners out of their shallow tunnels and shot them down as they emerged.
How many died in the assault two weeks ago is not clear but the miners say it was at least scores. Some bodies remain unclaimed and unidentified in Mutare hospital mortuary.
"First we heard the helicopter and we knew it wouldn't be good but I thought it would just deliver soldiers," said the young miner, a former student who gave his name only as Hopewell.
"Then it came over us and started shooting. There was a man next to me, he had been digging near me, and the bullet went right through his head. Everyone was in panic. People ran but they didn't want to leave their finds behind so they were stopping to grab them and getting shot ... The police were waiting for us with the dogs. I was lucky. A dog ran for me but there was this woman, she was slower than me and it attacked her. I don't know what happened to her. I went back to my diggings a few days later but she hasn't come back."
The police and military have for weeks been conducting a bloody campaign, which Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights has described as "resembling a war", to drive thousands of illegal miners out of a recently discovered diamond field that some in the industry believe might be the richest in years.
The miners say hundreds have died. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change says it has the names of 140 people killed although there is common agreement that many have been buried without a word.
Chris McGreal: 'Bodies have turned up riddled with bullets' Link to this audio
The diamond fields around Chiadzwa, about 20 miles north-west of the town of Mutare in Zimbabwe's eastern Manicaland province, are a collection of shallow tunnels and open gullies dug out after the discovery of gems close to the surface two years ago set off the rush.
Thousands of illegal diggers moved in - estimates run between 10,000 and 30,000 including foreigners from across southern Africa - spending days or even weeks to discover only tiny diamonds worth no more than a couple of hundred US dollars. But that is several months' pay for many Zimbabweans as their country collapses under the weight of hyperinflation.
Many of the miners are professionals, such as teachers and civil servants, who have abandoned jobs that do not pay enough to feed their families. Others are students who have dropped out of university in the hope of making a quick fortune and subsistence farmers whose land has not produced a crop in years. And some have got very rich.
Mutare, on the border with Mozambique, has taken on the air of a frontier town filled with brash young men touting US dollars and an air of menace. The hotels are filled with miners and dealers. Luxury cars prowl the streets. Shops have filled with imported goods sold for American dollars and South African rand. Spend any amount of time in a hotel bar and periodically someone will approach with diamonds for sale.
The governor of Zimbabwe's central bank, Gideon Gono, has estimated there are more than 500 syndicates handling more than $1bn a month in illegally dug diamonds that are swiftly smuggled out of the country.
Now Zimbabwe's government, or at least members of its discredited ruling elite, are apparently trying to take control. The military and police have moved in to try to drive the illegal diggers out of plots the miners say are claimed by Grace Mugabe, the president's wife, and Joice Mujuru, the vice-president. Both areas are now known by the women's names.
Legal and opposition political sources in Mutare say the prime mover behind the military assault is the Zimbabwean air force chief, Perence Shiri, the former commander of the notorious Fifth Brigade which massacred about 20,000 people in Matabeleland in the mid-80s.
Shiri oversaw the bloody military campaign of beatings and killings in Manicaland earlier this year that terrorised voters into supporting Robert Mugabe in June's presidential election.
He sent the helicopter gunships into the diamond fields three weeks ago. The police were already letting loose ferocious dogs, killing some miners and maiming others. One police tactic is to use teargas to drive them out of the tunnels, causing stampedes in which some have been crushed. The miners say that in some cases the police shoot down the men, blinded by teargas, as they flee.
One described how there is shooting nearly every day and particularly at night. "There were three of us mining together. In the night a policeman came and shot my friend, twice in the chest. We ran away but came back. He was still alive. We carried him to a hospital but he died," he said.
A policewoman working in Chiadzwa said she saw a pile of 50 bodies after one helicopter attack. "There were a lot of bodies. They were piled up. I don't know what happened to them. Some of the dead are just buried secretly," she said. "Miners are killed every day. The orders to the police are to shoot them if they find them digging but many of the police do not want to carry out those orders. These are ordinary people like us."
The situation has got so bad that some miners are now arming themselves and fighting back. The state-run press has reported that several police officers have been killed in shoot-outs.
But none of that deters the men who continue to work the diamond fields. "The risks are worth it," said Hopewell. "Some miners have run away but most of us don't leave for long. We hear stories of giant diamonds. I've already sold enough to make more money than I have made in five years. I have bought food for my mother and father. I have bought a television and a DVD from South Africa. Next I will buy a car. If they don't kill me," he says, and laughs.
A De Beers subsidiary held the exploitation rights to the fields but let them expire in 2006 because, according to industry sources, it believed the diamonds to be of poor quality. A British firm, African Consolidated Resources, bought the rights but it was ousted by the government when large quantities of high quality diamonds were discovered a short dig under the surface. Theoretically the diamond fields were then taken over by the state-owned Zimbabwe Mining Development Corporation but the illegal diggers moved in so fast it was unable to assert control.
Some economists speculate that Zimbabwe's rulers look on the diamond fields as a new source of US dollars now that the country's foreign reserves have largely been spent and the collapse of agriculture, industry and tourism means there is little new money coming in. But given the bitter experience of recent years Zimbabweans have little reason to believe that if the ruling elite gets control of the diamond fields, the revenues will be used to rescue the country.
My dear friend,
the adventure with Martin is finished....thanks for all the support. We finished strong...all we learned is in our background, now !
Be ready and fired, for next President !
Your italian friend,
My dear friends,
Happy Thanksgiving Day !
Please pass my cheers to all your freinds and families met in your reunions !!
Your friend from Italy,
Please join the Fulton County Team in order to support Jim Martin as next Us Senator, on behalf of President Obama !
SImone
Dear Friends,
Hope you will enjoy this picture, in a italian online newspaper...
http://www.cronachemaceratesi.it/galleria/?album=5&gallery=23&pid=558
And of course support Martin, in the upcoming run-off !
Is it closed for good or what?? It's been down since Friday..:(
My dear all,
after a week (of partial rest) it is time to move again.
So, Martin's time.
Please help his Team and share your effort in order to elect him next Dec. 2nd.
This run-off is very special, and our President Elected will surely join us in this, visiting Atlanta very soon.
Come on!
Your italian friend
Aided by a few hours sleep, energetic music, and my ever-present cup of coffee, I feel the need to commemorate this moment personally, beyond just tears or shouts of joy. Perhaps it will be a rough-draft manifesto of sorts, a kind of social New Year Resolution, a longer declaration of what this all means to me.
So what does this day mean to me? A lot of things, trivial and sublime. There’s having a young black man in the highest office, and I feel no shame in admitting my intense pride in that, but it’s more than that: it’s having a person of his caliber. In an age of culture wars, especially between populists and Ivory Tower types, we have a person who is intellectual, relatable, and empathetic. As I said before, Barack Obama is an American for all Americans. We’re talking about the man who gave the best assessments and reconciliation of the issues of faith and race in this nation; someone who can acknowledge the truths in different, and even inflammatory, perspectives without creating more division.
And when I say we can be example for the world, I don’t mean by strong-arming, covert ops, or unfair trade agreements. We can do it fairly.
I also believe American Christianity has a chance to be turned back to the light of peace and justice. I have watched as what began as a movement for the uplifting of all became the idolatry of a very narrow view of “Family Values”. I refuse to give back my baptism, because it is mine and under no one else’s oversight, but it has been most torturous to see the Pharisaical spectre raised as never before and have to wonder if even calling myself a Christian by the most liberal of definitions could be morally correct. As an American and a spiritual person, to say that my heart bled is an understatement.
Now, I will take a moment to mention abortion, since this is has been, and will continue to be, a divisive issue. I will state it plainly: I do not like abortion. No one does. I called my own children babies, not fetuses, from the moment the EPT stick had two lines. However, abortion is a desperate choice, and people will only be more desperate if more choices are taken away. I agree wholeheartedly with McCain’s concept of “a culture of life”, but you can’t say that you want to encourage adoption and then oppose same-sex couples adopting. You can’t pledge to support families after defining “family” in a very narrow way. This is what I want: Adoption to be normalized in our culture to the point that it is part of the family-planning discussion of most couples, for adoption to be normalized to the point that the process is quick, clean, inexpensive, and open for all sorts of alternative relationships for the birth parents. Remove the stigma, plain and simple. I want marriage and adoption equality. I want a basic, good, standard of living to be a human right. I want comprehensive sex education, and cheaper and safer birth control. I want unwed, poor, or young parents to be treated with respect and love. I want this culture to take a stand and assist against domestic violence. I can guarantee you, that if these things are fixed, abortion will take care of itself; it’ll become obsolete except for medical necessity. You give people better accessible choices, they will make better decisions. In fact, that to-do list will fix a great deal of social ills: they are all connected.
I am pro-choice because I am pro-life; All lives.
So many Obama supporters aren’t just walking with heads held high because “their candidate won”, but because those last shreds of fear are melting away. Yes, there is the social-psychological aspect of being on a “team” and winning. But look at the campaign, look at the people and their motivations, listen to their stories:
We didn’t wait for someone to come and unchain us; we unlocked the shackles with ourt voice and our vote.
It looks like Proposition 8 passed in California. I would normally be very angry, and indeed I am irritated. It is in my nature to gripe and rail against injustice, I will admit it. I can be quite the curmudgeon. However, in this moment, I have achieved the state of soul that is perhaps the ideal for my type, which is a nose for injustices buttressed by motivation and hope. My real reaction: “Game On”. I’m not itching for a fight anymore; I’m itching to get to work. The work of healing, fixing, and reconciliation. Let’s face it, we can be as angry as we want, and we deserve to be, but we also need to be multi-lingual in Hope. People vote for things like Prop 8 out of fear, just read the stories. Never has it been appropriate, never more affordable, never more necessary, to be Peace-Mongers.
I won’t pretend that this is all going to get fixed in one term, or even two.
Barack Obama is not a Hero because he will save us; he is a Hero because he will inspire and represent us. It is a very meager sampling of people that cannot see themselves reflected to some degree in him, his family, or his campaign. The bonus is that he did it by appealing to our inner-angels, not our inner-demons. He decried policy without demonizing people. For me, Barack Obama represents even better something that I’ve been complimented on before and what I really want to be: he’s a True Liberal. I differentiate this because it means that a person will seek the path of the most responsible freedoms, without dismissing tradition just because it’s tradition. When I know that someone won’t be an ideological genuflector, my trust in their leadership increases exponentially.
This election season brought us to the social edge, and an Obama victory was our deliverance. What do I mean by this? I suppose the best example I can give is an anecdote that Mary gave about local commissioner Kathleen Hudson several years ago. She said things about Jews and the LGBT community that were so vile and inflammatory, it brought people “to the edge” and made them peer into the ideological abyss. People could no longer be neutral, and they saw the slippery slope of what they could become by allowing such bigotry to masquerade as normalcy. Maybe these were things people thought at one time or another, but when they saw it take shape in a public forum, they shuddered at the reflection. That’s what this election was like for me to watch: I saw some of the most bigoted, racist, xenophobic, homophobic (not just heterosexist), and anti-Muslim spectacles in my lifetime. On this precipice, I was angry, but I knew that these undercurrents needed full exposure, so that people could look over that edge before unwittingly falling into that abyss. Those were the birth pains for this part of our history. Barack Obama’s election is the midwife to a new age.
There will still be pains, but we can no longer go back. We not only saw a battle between base-minded fearful populism and the empathetic examination of justice and mercy, we saw the victory of the latter. This may not be THE Mountaintop, but it is one of them.
Look at the vista spread before us: this is America. My parents promised me this day would come. Someone told me that nothing would change except their taxes. If that becomes so, then I swear it will not be because of a lack of effort on my part.
I believe.
We will have justice.
We will have freedom.
We will have mercy.
For all.
Yes We Can.
It is fitting that we meet today on the mall of the American Legion, surrounded by monuments to our nation's heroes. Because on this day, 25 years ago, the Marine barracks in Beirut were bombed. 241 Americans laid down their lives for this country and for the peace they were there to protect. We revere their service. We honor their sacrifice. And we keep their families in our prayers.
We will never forget them.
Indiana, in just 12 days, you'll have the chance to elect your next President. And you'll have the chance to bring the change we need to Washington. That's the good news. But we're going to have to work, and struggle, and fight for every single one of those 12 days to move our country in a new direction.
I am hopeful about the outcome. We were thrilled this weekend when a great American statesman, General Colin Powell, joined our cause. But we cannot let up. And we won't.
Because one thing we know is that change never comes without a fight. In the final days of campaigns, the say-anything, do-anything politics too often takes over. We've seen it before. And we're seeing it again today. The ugly phone calls. The misleading mail and TV ads. The careless, outrageous comments. All aimed at keeping us from working together, all aimed at stopping change.
Well, what we need now is not misleading charges and divisive attacks. What we need is honest leadership and real change, and that's why I'm running for President of the United States.
Now, more than ever, this campaign has to be about the problems facing the American people - because this is a moment of great uncertainty for America.
We're facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The Dow plummeted again yesterday, threatening the job security, retirement security, and economic security of millions of ordinary Americans. Indiana lost 4,500 manufacturing jobs in September alone. And just today, we learned that more and more Americans are filing for unemployment. Home values are falling. Foreclosures are rising. Wages are shrinking. And the cost of health care and college tuition has never been higher.
And that's what this election is all about - because John McCain and I have real differences about how to get us out of this economic mess. You see, Senator McCain thinks the economic policies of George W. Bush are just right for America. In the Senate, he's voted with George Bush 90 percent of the time. Said earlier this year that we've made "great progress" over the last eight years. And while Senator McCain says now that he's different from President Bush, you sure couldn't tell by the policies he's proposing.
Just yesterday, Senator McCain strongly defended the Bush policy of lavishing tax cuts on corporations that ship American jobs overseas. He made the peculiar argument that the best way to stop companies from shipping jobs overseas is to give more tax cuts to companies that ship jobs overseas. More tax cuts for job outsourcers. That's what Senator McCain proposed as his answer to outsourcing.
He said that's - quote - "simple fundamental economics."
Well, Indiana, my opponent may call that "fundamental economics," but we know that's just another name for the Wall Street first, Main Street last economic philosophy we've had for the past eight years - and that's fundamentally wrong.
If Senator McCain wants to defend tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas, that's his choice. But I say, let's end tax cuts for companies that ship American jobs overseas, and give them to companies that create good jobs right here in Indiana - in the United States of America.
If he wants to defend free trade agreements designed to protect the profits of multinational corporations and a trade policy that lets countries like China tilt the playing field against our workers, that's up to him. But I say, we need a trade policy that protects the dreams of hardworking Americans.
If he wants to defend a tax code that's more than 10,000 pages long and filled with loopholes written in by corporate lobbyists like the ones running his campaign, he's got every right. He has every right to defend offshore tax havens that let companies avoid paying taxes here in America. But I say, it's time to close corporate loopholes, shut offshore tax havens, and restore balance and fairness to our tax code.
By the way, did you know that there's a building in the Cayman Islands that supposedly houses 18,000 corporations. That's either the biggest building or the biggest tax scam on record. And I think we know which one it is.
That's the system my opponent defends. That's the system he wants to preserve. Well, Indiana, we've tried it John McCain's way. We've tried it George Bush's way. And we're here today to say enough is enough. We can't afford four more years of their "fundamental economics." That's why I'm running for President of the United States of America.
You see, I have a different notion of fundamental economics than my opponent. Because where I come from, there's nothing more fundamental than a good-paying job. There's nothing more fundamental than being able to pay your health care bills, put your kids through college, or retire with dignity and security. There's nothing more fundamental than the American dream - and that's the dream we can reclaim if you stand with me on November 4.
I know we can do this. I know we can steer ourselves out of this crisis. Because I believe in you. I believe in the American people.
We are the United States of America. We are a nation that's faced down war and depression; great challenges and great threats. And at each and every moment, we have risen to meet these challenges - not as Democrats, not as Republicans, but as Americans. With resolve. With confidence. With that fundamental belief that here in America, our destiny is not written for us; it's written by us. That's who we are, and that's the country we need to be right now.
But Indiana, I know this. It will take a new direction. It will take new leadership in Washington. It will take a real change in the policies and politics of the last eight years. And that's why I'm running for President of the United States.
It's time to turn the page on eight years of economic policies that put Wall Street before Main Street but ended up hurting both. We need policies that grow our economy from the bottom-up, so that every American, everywhere, has the chance to get ahead. Not just the person who owns the factory, but the men and women who work on its floor. Because if we've learned anything from this economic crisis, it's that we're all connected; we're all in this together; and we will rise or fall as one nation - as one people.
The rescue plan that passed the Congress was a necessary first step to easing this credit crisis, but if we're going to rebuild this economy from the bottom up, we need an immediate rescue plan for the middle-class - and that's what I will do as President of the United States.
Nine months ago, I called for a stimulus plan to provide immediate relief for states, along with tax rebates to get money directly to middle class families and a foreclosure prevention fund to help people keep their homes. Senator McCain's advisors openly mocked the stimulus plan before Congress - one referred to it, and I quote, as "borrowing money from the Chinese and dropping it from helicopters." Another dismissed it as "junk."
Just this week, after nine straight months of job losses, when our Federal Reserve Chairman supports another stimulus to get our economy moving, Senator McCain said he doesn't think we need to pass this stimulus immediately. Well, the working families who've been hard hit by this economic crisis - folks who can't pay their mortgages or their medical bills or send their kids to college - they can't afford to go to the back of the line behind CEOs and Wall Street banks. They need help right here, right now - and that's why I'm running for President of the United States.
I've proposed a new American jobs tax credit for each new employee that companies hire here in the United States over the next two years. And I'll help make sure the fuel-efficient cars of tomorrow are built not just in South Korea or Japan, but right here in Indiana.
Few have been harder hit by our credit crisis than the workers who make our cars and the companies that supply their parts. Now, when it came to rescuing Wall Street, Washington didn't waste a minute. But now that auto-workers are suffering, Washington's put on the breaks. It turns out it could take a year for the auto industry to get the loan guarantees we passed a few weeks ago.
Well, the workers who are being laid off and the companies that are seeing their sales drop - they can't afford to wait a year, they need help right now. That's why I've called on Washington to fast-track those loan guarantees and provide more as needed - because that's how we'll secure our auto jobs and save our auto industry.
I'll also help small businesses by eliminating capital gains taxes and giving them emergency loans to keep their doors open and hire workers. I'll put a three-month moratorium on foreclosures so that we can give homeowners the breathing room they need to get back on their feet. And I will create a Jobs and Growth fund to help states and local governments save one million jobs and pay for health care and education without having to raise your taxes.
These are the steps that we must take - right now - to start getting our economy back on track. But we also need a new set of priorities to grow our economy and create jobs over the long-term.
It starts with tax relief. There's been a lot of talk about taxes in this campaign. And the truth is, my opponent and I are both proposing tax cuts. The difference is, he wants to give a $700,000 tax cut to the average Fortune 500 CEO. I want to put a middle class tax cut in the pockets of 95% of workers and their families. My opponent doesn't want you to know this, but under my plan, tax rates for middle class families will actually be less than they were under Ronald Reagan.
It's true that I want to roll back the Bush tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans and go back to the rate they paid under Bill Clinton. John McCain calls that socialism. What he forgets is that just a few years ago, he himself said those Bush tax cuts were irresponsible. He said he couldn't "in good conscience" support a tax cut where the benefits went to the wealthy at the expense of "middle class Americans who most need tax relief." Well, he was right then, and I am right now.
Let me be crystal clear: If you make less than a quarter of a million dollars a year - which includes 98% of small business owners - you won't see your taxes increase one single dime. Not your payroll taxes, not your income taxes, not your capital gains taxes - nothing. That is my commitment to you.
For the last eight years, we've given more and more to those with the most and hoped that prosperity would trickle down to everyone else. And guess what? It didn't. So it's time to try something new. It's time to grow this economy from the bottom-up. It's time to invest in the middle-class again.
If I am President, I will invest $15 billion a year in renewable sources of energy to create five million new, green jobs over the next decade - jobs that pay well and can't be outsourced; jobs building solar panels and wind turbines and fuel-efficient cars; jobs that will help us end our dependence on oil from Middle East dictators.
I'll also put two million more Americans to work rebuilding our crumbling roads, schools, and bridges - because it is time to build an American infrastructure for the 21st century. And if people ask how we're going to pay for this, you tell them that if we can spend $10 billion a month in Iraq, we can spend some money to rebuild America.
If I am President, I will finally fix the problems in our health care system that we've been talking about for too long. This issue is personal for me. My mother died of ovarian cancer at the age of 53, and I'll never forget how she spent the final months of her life lying in a hospital bed, fighting with her insurance company because they claimed that her cancer was a pre-existing condition and didn't want to pay for treatment. If I am President, I will make sure those insurance companies can never do that again.
My health care plan will make sure insurance companies can't discriminate against those who are sick and need care most. If you have health insurance, the only thing that will change under my plan is that we will lower premiums. If you don't have health insurance, you'll be able to get the same kind of health insurance that Members of Congress get for themselves. And we'll invest in preventative care and new technology to finally lower the cost of health care for families, businesses, and the entire economy. That's the change we need.
And if I'm President, we'll give every child, everywhere the skills and the knowledge they need to compete with any worker, anywhere in the world. I will not allow countries to out-teach us today so they can out-compete us tomorrow. It is time to provide every American with a world-class education. That means investing in early childhood education. That means recruiting an army of new teachers, and paying them better, and giving them more support in exchange for higher standards and more accountability.
And it means investing in agricultural education. From seeing all those blue corduroy jackets in the crowd, I know there's a Future Farmers of America convention here in Indianapolis. And I want you to know that if I'm elected President, I will fight for you - because America's farmers are America's future. And it's time we had a President who understood that.
We need to make sure every American who has the drive and the will but not the money can go to college. My opponent's top economic advisor actually said that they have no plan to invest in college affordability because we can't have a giveaway to every special interest. Well I don't think the young people of America are a special interest - they are the future of this country. That's why I'll make this deal with you: if you commit to serving your community or your country, we will make sure you can afford your tuition. No ifs, ands or buts. You invest in America, America will invest in you, and together, we will move this country forward.
Now, make no mistake: the change we need won't come easy or without cost. We will all need to tighten our belts, we will all need to sacrifice and we will all need to pull our weight because now more than ever, we are all in this together.
At a defining moment like this, we don't have the luxury of relying on the same political games and the same political tactics that are used every election to divide us from one another and make us afraid of one another. With the challenges and crises we face right now, we cannot afford to divide this country by class or region; by who we are or what policies we support.
There are no real or fake parts of this country. We are not separated by the pro-America and anti-America parts of this nation - we all love this country, no matter where we live or where we come from. There are patriots who supported this war in Iraq and patriots who opposed it; patriots who believe in Democratic policies and those who believe in Republican policies. The men and women from Indiana and all across America who serve on our battlefields may be Democrats and Republicans and Independents, but they have fought together and bled together and some died together under the same proud flag. They have not served a Red America or a Blue America - they have served the United States of America.
We have always been at our best when we've had leadership that called us to look past our differences and come together as one nation, as one people; leadership that rallied this entire country to a common purpose - to a higher purpose. And I am running for President of the United States of America because that is the country we need to be right now.
This country and the dream it represents are being tested in a way that we haven't seen in nearly a century. And future generations will judge ours by how we respond to this test. Will they say that this was a time when America lost its way and its purpose? When we allowed the same divisions and fear tactics and our own petty differences to plunge this country into a dark and painful recession?
Or will they say that this was another one of those moments when America overcame? When we battled back from adversity by recognizing that common stake that we have in each other's success?
This is one of those moments. I realize you're cynical and fed up with politics. I understand that you're disappointed and even angry with your leaders. You have every right to be. But despite all of this, I ask of you what's been asked of the American people in times of trial and turmoil throughout our history. I ask you to believe - to believe in yourselves, in each other, and in the future we can build together.
Together, we cannot fail. Not now. Not when we have a crisis to solve and an economy to save. Not when there are so many Americans without jobs and without homes. Not when there are families who can't afford to see a doctor, or send their child to college, or pay their bills at the end of the month. Not when there is a generation that is counting on us to give them the same opportunities and the same chances that we had for ourselves.
We can do this. Americans have done this before. Some of us had grandparents or parents who said maybe I can't go to college but my child can; maybe I can't have my own business but my child can. I may have to rent, but maybe my children will have a home they can call their own. I may not have a lot of money but maybe my child will run for Senate. I might live in a small village but maybe someday my son can be president of the United States of America.
Now it falls to us. Together, we cannot fail. And I need you to make it happen. If you want the next four years looking like the last eight, then I am not your candidate. But if you want real change - if you want an economy that rewards work, and that works for Main Street and Wall Street; if you want tax relief for the middle class and millions of new jobs; if you want health care you can afford and education that helps your kids compete; then I ask you to knock on some doors, make some calls, talk to your neighbors, and give me your vote.
In Indiana, you can vote early right here, and right now. To find out how, just go to voteforchange.com. And if you stand with me, I promise you - we will win Indiana, we will win this election, and then you and I - together - will change this country and change this world. Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless America.
In the third presidentail debate, John McCain said that he's not President Bush. Apparently this is shocking news for the Obama campaign. A campaign representative made the following statement: "We had based our whole campaign on the premise that John McCain is actually the same person as George W Bush. Now that he said this isn't the case, we have no idea what to do. We are at a complete loss."
Obama supporters are not the only ones caught off guard by the news. John Doodie, a republican from Ohio said: "I thought John McCain was a second coming of George W Bush, our greatest president ever. I am really disappointed." Virginia republican Jane Bling also expressed her concern: "I was hoping for a third Bush term, now there is nothing for me to look forward to. I am not sure if I'll be able to bring myself to vote for someone who is not President Bush."
Of course now the real question is this: If McCain is in fact not Bush, then who is he? Vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin was quick to address the issue: "I think it is really important for American people to know who the real John McCain is", she said on Thursday. The question remains to be answered.
By Alexander LanePublished on Friday, October 10th, 2008 at 05:29 p.m.
SUMMARY: The McCain campaign ratchets up its attempt to connect Barack Obama to former '60s radical William Ayers.
For most of the election, Sen. John McCain's campaign has been somewhat subtle about trying to tie Sen. Barack Obama to the former '60s radical William Ayers.
No longer. A 90-second Web ad released Oct. 8, 2008, features sinister music, side-by-side photographs of Obama and Ayers, and a series of dubious allegations about their past connections, including this one:
"Ayers and Obama ran a radical education foundation together."
Ayers was a founding member of the militant Vietnam-era anti-war group the Weathermen. He was investigated for his role in a series of domestic bombings, but the charges were dropped in 1974 due to prosecutorial misconduct. He is now an education professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and actively engaged in the city's civic life.
The McCain campaign said the "radical education foundation" to which they were referring is the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a charity endowed by publishing magnate Walter Annenberg that funded public-school programs in Chicago from 1995 to 2001.
We'll look at whether the foundation was radical. But first we have to grapple with whether Obama and Ayers ran it.
Obama served on the foundation's volunteer board from its inception in 1995 through its dissolution in 2001, and was chair for the first four years. So an argument can be made that he ran it, though an executive director handled day-to-day operations.
Ayers, who received his doctorate in education from Columbia University in 1987 and is now a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, was active in getting the foundation up and running. He and two other activists led the effort to secure the grant from Annenberg, and he worked without pay in the early months of 1995, prior to the board's hiring of an executive director, to help the foundation get incorporated and formulate its bylaws, said Ken Rolling, who was the foundation's only executive director. Ayers went on to become a member of the "collaborative," an advisory group that advised the board of directors and the staff.
However, Ayers "was never on the board of the Chicago Annenberg Challenge," and he "never made a decision programmatically or had a vote," Rolling said.
"He (Ayers) was at board meetings — which, by the way, were open — as a guest," Rolling said. "That is not anything near Bill Ayers and Barack Obama running the Chicago Annenberg Challenge."
Now, was the foundation radical?
The McCain campaign cited several pieces of evidence for that allegation, including a 1995 invitation from the foundation for applications from schools "that want to make radical changes in the way teachers teach and students learn." The campaign appears to have confused two different definitions of the word "radical." Clearly the invitation referred to "a considerable departure from the usual or traditional," rather than "advocating extreme measures to retain or restore a political state of affairs."
The campaign also cited two projects the foundation funded, one having to do with a United Nations-themed Peace School and another that focused on African-American studies.
"That is radical in the eye of this campaign and we imagine in the eyes of most Americans," said Michael Goldfarb, a spokesman for McCain. "It is a subjective thing, and there are going to be people in Berkeley and Chicago who think that is totally legitimate."
Teaching about the United Nations and African-American studies may not be everyone's cup of tea, but it's hardly "radical" in the same way Ayers' Vietnam-era activities were. Moreover, most of the projects the foundation funded (more on that below) were not remotely controversial.
The McCain campaign also cited an opinion piece by conservative commentator Stanley Kurtz in the Sept. 23, 2008, Wall Street Journal as evidence of the foundation's radicalism. Kurtz wrote that Ayers was the "guiding spirit" of the foundation, and it "translated Mr. Ayers's radicalism into practice."
But Ayers' views on education, though certainly reform-oriented and left-of-center, are not considered anywhere near as radical as his Vietnam-era views on war. And even if they were, there was a long list of individuals involved with the Chicago Annenberg Challenge whose positions provided them far more authority over its direction than Ayers' advisory role gave him.
Let's look at a few, starting with the funder. Annenberg was a lifelong Republican and former ambassador to the United Kingdom under President Richard Nixon. His widow, Leonore, has endorsed McCain. Kurtz might just as plausibly have accused Obama and the foundation of "translating Annenberg's conservatism into practice."
Among the other board members who served with Obama were: Stanley Ikenberry, former president of the University of Illinois; Arnold Weber, former president of Northwestern University and assistant secretary of labor in the Nixon administration; Scott Smith, then publisher of the Chicago Tribune; venture capitalist Edward Bottum; John McCarter, president of the Field Museum; Patricia Albjerg Graham, former dean of the Harvard University Graduate School of Journalism, and a host of other mainstream folks.
"The whole idea of it being radical when it was this tie of blue-chip, white-collar, CEOs and civic leaders is just ridiculous," said the foundation's former development director, Marianne Philbin.
The foundation gave money to groups of public schools – usually three to 10 – who partnered with some sort of outside organization to improve their students' achievement.
In his opinion piece, Kurtz puts a sinister spin on this: "Instead of funding schools directly, it required schools to affiliate with 'external partners,' which actually got the money...CAC disbursed money through various far-left community organizers, such as the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (or ACORN)."
Rollings said the foundation tried to fund the schools directly, but doing so proved to be a "bureaucratic nightmare." But any external group that received money had to have created a program in partnership with a network of public schools.
And though ACORN is considered a liberal organization, the vast majority of the foundation's external partners were not remotely controversial. Here are a few examples: the Chicago Symphony, the University of Chicago, Loyola University, Northwestern University, the Chicago Children's Museum, the Museum of Science and Industry, the Field Museum, the Commercial Club of Chicago, the Garfield Park Conservatory Alliance and the Logan Square Neighborhood Association.
Had Kurtz chosen to accuse Obama of carrying water for the conservative Annenberg, he might have written: "CAC disbursed money to various business-friendly entities, such as the Museum of Science and Industry and the Commercial Club of Chicago."
See how easy it is?
The programs the foundation funded were designed to allow individuals from the "external partners" – whether the musicians in the symphony or the business leaders in the commercial club – to help improve student achievement. They were along the lines of mentoring by artists, literacy instruction, professional development for teachers and administrators, and training for parents in everything from computer skills to helping their children with homework to advocating for their children at school.
This last activity – something suburban parents practice with zeal – is also suspect in Kurtz's view: "CAC records show that board member Arnold Weber was concerned that parents 'organized' by community groups might be viewed by school principals 'as a political threat.'" That is typical of Kurtz's essay – relatively innocuous facts cast in the worst possible light. That's appropriate for an opinion piece, perhaps, but hardly grounds for a purportedly factual political ad accusing the group of radicalism.
We could go on and on with evidence that the Chicago Annenberg Challenger was a rather vanilla charitable group. For example, under the deal with Annenberg every dollar from him had to be matched by two from elsewhere. The co-funders were a host of respected, mainstream institutions, such as the National Science Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Chicago Public Schools.
In short, this was a mainstream foundation funded by a mainstream, Republican business leader and led by an overwhelmingly mainstream, civic-minded group of individuals. Ayers' involvement in its inception and on an advisory committee do not make it radical – nor does the funding of programs involving the United Nations and African-American studies.
This attack is false, but it's more than that – it's malicious. It unfairly tars not just Obama, but all the other prominent, well-respected Chicagoans who also volunteered their time to the foundation. They came from all walks of life and all political backgrounds, and there's ample evidence their mission was nothing more than improving ailing public schools in Chicago. Yet in the heat of a political campaign they have been accused of financing radicalism. That's Pants on Fire wrong.
-----------------
Thank You Politifact!
<img src=”http://www.barackobama.com/images/email/08/oct/debatewatch3_e.jpg”>
The final presidential debate is this Wednesday, October 15th, at 9:00 p.m. Eastern. It's the last chance for undecided voters to see Barack and John McCain side-by-side and determine who will bring the change this country needs. You can make the most of this opportunity by bringing your friends, family, and fellow supporters together to watch. Sign up to host a Debate Watch Party. We'll make sure you have everything you need to make the event a success. If you've hosted an event before, you know how powerful they can be to help grow our movement. If you haven't, it's a terrific way to show your support, and we'll be with you every step of the way to help. We're having a special conference call for Debate Watch Party hosts next week. We'll give you ideas for how to get your guests involved in the rest of the campaign. In these final weeks, each of us needs to do whatever we can to keep growing our movement and encourage undecided voters to cast their vote for change. Sign up to host a Debate Watch Party now: http://my.barackobama.com/debate-watch-party Thanks, Jon Jon Carson National Field Director Obama for America
Am I glad I signed up for barackobama.com! I got an e-mail invitation for the rally, RSVP'd for Dante and myself, and waited excitedly for morning to come. I happened to not have class at all, and the 12:00 start time was ideal since the baby doesn't have to be picked up from daycare until 6pm, so plenty of travel time. Dante was excused from school, and he found out he wasn't the only one!
I don't think I've left the house early or on time since I became a mom, and Wednesday was no exception. However, we did arrive in the area of the Fairgrounds at 10:20, and the doors opened at 10, so we weren't doing badly. I had to park on the street a few blocks away, and there were lots of sidewalk booths selling Obama merchandise. Dante got a lot of compliments on his shirt as we walked.
This line stretched around the arena but moved quickly. Everyone there was very excited, and it was easy to chat up people in the line. Lots of kids.
We didn't get very "good" seats, all the way in the back of the bleachers, but I'm still glad we went. The place was absolutely packed. The Star said there were over 12,000 people. Evan Bayh gave a wonderful introductory speech and got more than few standing ovations.
Finally, the police escort with Barack Obama arrived (just on time) and he took the stage. I knew I wasn't going to hear too much more than what's already being said on the stump, but it we were excited anyway, and it was important to me that Dante have this opportunity to see Sen. Obama in person, even at a distance. More important that the speech perhaps was the comaraderie of the crowd. Everyone was happy. During the music that played before and after, people danced in the stadium. I know that I was not the only one sans dry eyes when Barack took the stage and then again during the wrap-up.
And that was the thing: the joy. It was palpable. At least in my section, there was no anger. A couple mentions of McCain or Bush got the collective boo, but nothing got nasty. Everyone was just happy to be there. I think it was important that Dante saw that, even if he didn't understand everything being said or if his attention wandered; here was someone that wasn't just unique in the history of the presidency because of their ethnicity or policies, but because of the kind of crowd he drew, the quality of the people supporting him, and his ability to be pragmatic and inspiring at the same time.
Everyone took note when he said "if" he got to be President, and a few contested this loudly. He laughed, saying he was "superstitious".
I saw every kind of person there, from every class, heritage, and religion. Sikh men walking unbothered with dignity, and women in beautiful hijab in a crowd of size and demographic that could have made them nervous. WASP professors clasping arms with young guys in baggy pants and do' rags. I only know those details because like I said, we were all friends there.
The presence and ideas of Sen. Obama don't toss the meat of contention to the mob. He shows hope and empowerment. I will say, personally, that he lends some dignity to those years when I was on one sort of public assistance or another, either being called white trash directly, or having someone who didn't know better talking to me about "lazy people sponging off the system" (and the look of shock when I showed them my Food Stamp card).
Obama speaks of everyone's struggles. He highlights problems that sociologists have been writing about for decades, but that until now have been ignored by what I consider the politicizing of humanity. People are not policy and sound bites. They are people, and they all have potential. Sometimes they need help and hope. Everyone does at one time or another.
I like a person that can talk about class problems without inciting class warfare. At one point Barack Obama pointed out that McCain was a man who stood against government-sponsored health insurance when he himself receives his insurance from the government! His point that helping people financially and educationally, trying to level the playing field, wasn't about "redistribution"; it's about fairness.
The immense diversity of the crowd jumping, clapping, and cheering for this man, as well as the mood of joy and hope, makes Obama's quality as a human being and as a leader apparent. Well, at least to me, the 12,000 people in attendance, and everyone across America that are ready to, and already are, fighting for change and dignity.
Carissimi amici,
Oggi e' l'ultimo giorno per la registrazione del 'voto anticipato' in tutti gli Stati Uniti.
Tantissimi volontari sono fuori per le strade di Atlanta alla ricerca di coloro che ancora non sono registrati....ultime ore decisive ai fini di questo scopo !
Ieri ho fatto parte del gruppo di 7 volontari diretti a East Lake (Sud Atlanta), vicino al Campo di Golf degli Us Tournaments.
Abbiamo ottenuto fantastici risultati !
Forza...ultime ore per il Vote Registration Drive !!!
Ciao da Atlanta, GA
we are ready to depart, right now, to start the Voter Registration Drive !
Our 'captain', Dwayne, is teaching all necessary tips for a fast start!
We all are firing, now!
Go on, GO OBAMA !
Your italian friend, in Atlanta
