I am proud to say that I have always worked in the service industry. I have washed other people's dishes, cared for adolescents who were homeless, educated children about their environment, and most recently encouraged college students to get involved in their community.
I am amazed by the impact that one person can have, and I hope that my efforts are creating ripples in the communities I have lived and worked in.
From the first - I knew that Obama was going to be my candidate. I had always loved Hilary for her intelligence and what she represented as a strong woman, but it was Barack's statements about national service that sealed the deal.
It has been so frustrating to try to explain to family members from another generation about what I do and why I do it. It paralleled my frustration at knowing that for at least 8 years, the administration in Washington had no idea either and could care less. Finally, I had found my champion. Someone who will uphold my values and speak out for what I believe in.
I know millions of other people in America right now are feeling the same way I do, for a variety of reasons, and I am so excited to meet with them to help President Elect Obama fulfill his mission to bring change to the people in this amazing country.
Let me know if you are excited too and let's start the movement right here in Boston!
Hey folks!
On Sunday, September 14, about a dozen Obama supporters marched in the Allston-Brighton Parade, showing Obama signs and banners and giving out pins, lapel stickers and Obama policy flyers.
It was a great event, and it got us some great press -- this story in the Allston-Brighton Tab:
http://www.wickedlocal.com/allston/news/x1077489979/Grassroots-Obama-organizers-join-A-B-parade
Share and enjoy!
Karl Rove was recently quoted as saying that McCain has gone too far in recent advertisements. Coming from Karl Rove, this is quite a criticism! But, of course, he tempered his criticism by claiming that Obama had also gone too far.
When the Obama campaign trumpeted Rove's criticism of McCain, McCain supporters angrily accused Obama of duplicity for not also disclosing that Rove had also criticized Obama.
The exact same scenario played out yesterday with Carly Fiorina, who declared, that McCain, Palin, Obama and Biden are all unqualified to run a major corporation, but it doesn't matter because that's not what they're running for.
The Obama campain, of course, trumpeted Fiorina's declaration that McCain and Palin were unqualified and ignored her statement that Obama and Biden are too. And, of course, McCain supporters once again lambasted the Obama campaign for supposedly only telling half the story.
Allow me to offer a little lesson in logic to those who have criticized the Obama campaign for supposedly only telling half the story.
When you praise your own candidate, it means nothing without proof to back it up. Of course you're going to speak well of the candidate you support.
Similarly, when you criticize your opponent, it means nothing without proof to back it up.
On the other hand, when you criticize your own candidate, or when you praise your opponent, the very fact of who the words are coming from lends them credence.
Therefore, when Karl Rove says that McCain has gone too far, it's legitimate to take that at face value, but when he says that Obama has also gone too far, it's legitimate to discount it when no proof is offered (which it wasn't).
Similarly, when Carly Fiorina says that McCain and Palin can't run a major corporation, it's legitimate to take that at face value, but when she makes the same claim about Obama and Biden, it's legitimate to ignore it.
Let me go one step further and point out that both Rove and Fiorina know this. Their statements are a calculated effort to negate the obvious advantages which Obama and Biden have over McCain and Palin, by claiming that equivalencies exist when in fact they do not, and getting the mainstream media to repeat those claims uncritically.
Write to your local newspapers! Tell them that Karl Rove is not an unbiased observer! When he says McCain goes to far, it means a lot, but when he says that Obama goes to far, it means nothing! Tell them the same thing about Fiorina! Don't let McCain surrogates get away with neutralizing Obama's advantages by claiming, falsely, that he's "just as bad" as McCain!
Sheila, on a politics mailing list I'm on, pointed out the following in the third paragraph of the Declaration of Independence:
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Carly Fiorina says that the SNL skit depicting Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton addressing America was "sexist." Here's her logic for this claim:
"The portrait was very dismissive of the substance of Sarah Palin, and so in that sense, they were defining Hillary Clinton as very substantive, and Sarah Palin as totally superficial," Fiorina told MSNBC earlier Monday. "I think that continues the line of argument that is disrespectful in the extreme, and yes, I would say, sexist in the sense that just because Sarah Palin has different views than Hillary Clinton does not mean that she lacks substance."
Good lord, does this woman listen to herself when she talks, or is that just too much trouble?
Hey, Carly, here's a clue, free of charge: If two women are contrasted with each other, and one of them is portrayed as being substantive and the other not, then the fact that they are both women sort of rules out sexism as the reason why they are portrayed differently, eh?
The SNL skit portrayed Sarah Palin as lacking in substance because the authors of the skit believe she is lacking in substance, not because she is a woman.
Oh, and by the way, here's another clue, concerning your claim that "Sarah Palin has made more executive decisions as a Mayor and Governor than Barack Obama has made in his life." Has it occurred to you that according to the definition you appear to be using for "executive decisions," Sarah Palin has made more of them than John McCain? Does that mean she should be at the top of the Republican ticket instead of at the bottom?
In any case, it's false to claim that Obama has no executive experience and false to claim that executive experience is a good determiner of who will make a good president.
Barack Obama recently acknowledged, in an interview with Bill O'Reilly, that the surge in Iraq "has succeeded in ways that nobody anticipated."
The surge has succeeded in one and only one way: violence is down. Measured in that way, the surge was a success. The problem is that it's not the way we should be measuring anything.
The surge was the right solution to the wrong problem.
Quelling violence with overwhelming American military force did nothing to ensure the long-term security of Iraq, nor did it bring us any closer to addressing the divisions within the country, nor did it do anything to ensure that the civil rights of Iraqis are protected by the Iraqi government. What it did, instead, was to reinforce among Iraqis the idea that we are an occupying rather than a liberating force, as evidenced by the fact that the Iraqi government is now asking us rather forcefully to get out of their country.
Where violence has been gone down, it is for one of two reasons: (a) overwhelming American military force, force which will soon be gone; (b) elimination of the targets of the violence in each region through exile, forced displacement and, essentially, ethnic cleansing.
Read http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33936.pdf. Refer people to it when they claim that the surge has worked, and ask them what, exactly, the surge has done to return the 2 million Iraqi refugees and 2.2 million displaced persons safely to their homes.
The longer we wait, the harder and more expensive it is going to be to solve this problem (if, indeed, it can be solved at all). And yet, while our government has been “surging” in Iraq for the past year and a half, we have done nothing, nothing, about this crisis.
See, also, http://www.worldpress.org/Mideast/3239.cfm. And you can google for “Iraq displaced persons” to find more.
In response to http://bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view/2008_08_23_Only_gullible_go_by_book:_Candidate_biographies_rarely_give_balanced_look:
I know that I am not the only one who is fed up with an inward-looking, crony-driven policy shop taking over the west wing of the White House.
Let's get Barak in there so we can have an executive branch that cares more about regular people than the obesely rich, more about the environment than polluters, more about health than pharamceutical companies and more about intellectual freedom than in surveillance.
Breaking news from the conference call with Campaign Manager David Plouffe: A new online fundraising contest is being launched that will grant the members of the My.BarackObama.com groups that raise the most money through the end of the week the opportunity to participate in a personal conference call with Senator Barack Obama and Campaign Manager David Plouffe. Be on the lookout for more information from the My.BarackObama.com team.
State of the Campaign
Barack Obama's Schedule: On Monday, Barack Obama received the endorsement of the New York City Correction Officers’ Benevolent Association. Tuesday, he’s speaking at Change to Win in Chicago. Wednesday, he can be seen live on the NBC/NECN/New Hampshire Public Radio/New Hampshire Democratic Party debate, which will be broadcast live on MSNBC at 9pm EST. Following the debate he’ll head to New York, where he’ll participate in a live interview on ABC’s The View at 11am EST on Thursday before leading a major rally in Washington Square Park. On Friday, he speaks at Howard University’s Convocation and participates in the CBC Issues Forum in Washington, DC.
