Public resources are recklessly wasted in the enforcement of "marihuana" laws. Human potential is squandered as innocent consumers of an herb are marginalized, demonized, criminalized and discriminated against. The fascist that support enforcement of this prohibition are the beneficiaries of the petro-chemi-pharma-military-industrial-complex; a toxic paradigm of corporate greed that is enriched from our taxed labor. The ruling elitist, the corporate barons that feared hemp’s emerging agrarian potential to the proletariat manifested a propaganda program to preserve their violent unnatural economic control of the planets available resources. The economic threat hemp posed to these industries spawned a propaganda campaign to outlaw the "evil weed”. The prohibitionists played upon racism, and ignorance to fan the flames of the public's fear of cannabis. If you are not convinced that profiters are behind the prohibition of hemp/cannabis check out Jack Herer's book “ The Emperor Wears No Clothes". Now is the time to reverse government policy on the hemp/cannabis issue and allow the free market to determine the worth of this crop, this plant has an ancient history of benefiting mankind. The potential of organiclly grown cannabis to provide fiber, food, fuel and medicine to the masses far out weighs all other arguments. President Obama I urge you to be bold, be fearless and be true to those who supported you. Reverse federal cannabis laws, release and pardon non-violent victims of the war on drugs. One Love.
Thank you, thank you, Barack Obama! It has been four years and four months since I stood in my living room crying and shouting at the television set as you gave your keynote address at the 2004 DNC. Every secret hope has been answered - your announcement of your candidacy in January 2007 and your beautiful, brilliant, kind campaign. 2008 has been a blur of love, delight, fear, outrage, hope. In September we all walked through dark shadows and tonight, November 4th, here we are in the waning of the year - incandescent in the sweetness of winter twilight. Tonight is perfect. I know you will be an incredible President of the United States of America. Barack Obama! Michelle Obama! Americans! The world! The future! We will work for this movement in the coming four years just as we have during the recent 21 months.
With great respect and love -
Namaste -
Rebecca MacLeod Andrews
Joined a conference cal with CD1 coordinators and there is an update for travelling to NV. The NV folks are taking over, since there are so many groups going from CA, it has been getting unwieldy for them to coordinate through the local coordinators.
So now the procedure is to go to the Drive for Change site at http://my.barackobama.com/page/s/nvdfc and register there. Also, housing will no longer be arranged, unless you signed up for it already. So as I understand it you have to be able to pay for a hotel or stay with friends/family if you want to go.
That's the update. Keep making phone calls from home, attend a Debate Watch Party, or show up on Saturdays at Dem Headquarters at 2:30 pm to do phone banking or get new info.
Thanks, Jennifer
That was the way Ed Schultz contextualized the $700 billion bailout Paulson and Bernanke are trying to push down our throats - or throw onto our backs, depending on how you prefer to look at it. It is the equivalent of winning a $1 million daily for the past 2,000 years. Holy crap!
He also pointed out Section 8 of the bailout plan, which states uncategorically that there will be no accountability for what they want to do with $700 BILLION. So I came home and decided to read the whole thing. The first site I looked at, economicpopulist.org, I had never been to before. When I started reading, I thought maybe they were kidding. So I went to the NYT. Holy crap! I owe The Economic Populist an apology. I just couldn't believe what I was reading until I read it twice, and it said the same thing on both sites. See here: http://www.economicpopulist.org/?q=content/text-bail-out-act-congress-take-action-now.
We are about to get screwed like we never have in life. If you have children and/or grandchildren like I do, then you have to realize the type of future this means for them.It doesn't look good, whether this gets passed, with or without revisions, or not. The again, we've been here before. Read FDR's first inaugural address: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/fdrfirstinaugural.htm.Keep in mind that he took office during the Great Depression. It looks to me like the difference here is that we have media spin telling us this isn't a depression. We've got the latest buzzwords of "Wall Street vs. Main Street". I'm imagining a bunch of Conservatives across America have that "deer in the headlights'" look right now.
So, did everyone have fun spending their stimulus checks?
Hi all,
Just wanted to introduce myself, Jennifer Berman, new travel coordinator for Humboldt/Del Norte. Agreed to do it last week and am just familiar with what needs to be done.
I just set up a new event at my house this weekend - you should get a notification about it via the group listserves.
CAN ANYONE TRAVEL TO RENO THIS WEEKEND FOR CANVASSING? This is one of the weekends set aside for Northern California travelers.
You need to provide your own transportation and lodging, but I can help with coordination with folks in Reno.
Feel free to give folks you know my phone number/email and have them contact me.
I am excited to be in contact with all of you who have sustained this campaign until now - I am really feeling the urgency now!
Thanks, Jennifer 822-6171, casadelmar1234@sbcglobal.net
September 6, 2008
Dear Senator Barack Obama,
I believe down to my bones that it will take nothing less than every leader in the Democratic Party taking a commanding, relentless stand against the Republicans and for the people to send you and Joe Biden to the White House. And Senator Hillary Clinton, who earned 18 million votes in key states, who has exemplified strength, courage and grace to this nation, and who at the Democratic National Convention called on her supporters with the words “Did you do this just for me?”, – she is the one who can lead our party’s leaders into full battle.
As an educated, hardworking career woman in the rural northern Central Valley of California, I feel invalidated, fearful and frustrated by what I have seen at the past two Republican National Conventions and for what will happen to my family, neighbors and fellow citizens should the Republicans again take office in January 2009.
A decade ago, I watched the President of the United States and the First Lady stand against a vicious insurgency that sought to delegitimize Bill Clinton’s presidency and take back power for the Republicans. I thank them for fighting during those years because by doing so, they fought for the Constitution, for the soul of this nation, and for ordinary Americans.
Nevertheless, vengeance was swift. The results of the 2000 and 2004 elections, if allowed to be repeated in 2008 will permanently alter this country. We will turn such a sharp corner from the ideas and brilliance that poured from all of the candidates in the Democratic primaries that today’s hopes will be dimmed and scattered for a good long while.
Right now under the Bush administration, my partner and I cannot afford to start a family because his small equine veterinary practice is suffering along with the economic fortunes of this community. It is up to my income to run our household, pay off credit card debt and some day save for future retirement. We do not have a foundation of savings nor the income necessary to raise children to go to university and have proper healthcare. We have a wonderful life, but the clock is ticking and it feels like a sacrifice we should not have to make.
My anxiety only intensifies when I think about the stand taken and the stakes held by Senator McCain and the Republicans in the Iraq War and the global war on terror. I have no faith that McCain will be able to secure our future because of his record with Bush and the embrace he has given to those who control his party. And God forbid that his vice presidential candidate should EVER take the helm if something unthinkable were to happen to McCain, given his age and his four rounds with cancer. We are living in an age with nuclear proliferation, with Putin moving closer to dictatorship, and our isolation has tied our hands with Iran, North Korea, and now the Russian-Georgian conflict. And as you have repeatedly stated, al-Qaeda is still unbroken.
Senator Obama, you and Joe Biden are not just battling McCain-Palin – you are up against an ideologically driven movement with leaders who have been in and out of the White House for decades and with well organized grass roots support and a media base. They believe that nobody outside their numbers deserves to govern and their contempt extends beyond oppositional candidates to any citizen who raises their voice in disagreement. At the RNC last week, offering false promises but zero solutions, they once more drew an arbitrary line in the sand and dared any voting American to cross it. Reason is again off the table.
So why am I so hopeful about 2008?
I find myself reflecting on the power harnessed by the collective and individual genius and leadership of the founding fathers 232 years ago. So many different men, (with their wives building bridges behind the scenes), were able to overthrow an empire, ratify a constitution, and build a nation forged in equality for all and grounded in reason. And all this sprang forth from thirteen tiny colonies at the edge of the world.
Washington, Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, Revere, Henry, Hancock, Burr – the list of names we recognize two centuries later goes on. With unbreakable unity of purpose, they moved through dramas and disagreement, and won a hard fought Revolution that often divided families and neighbors. Their ambitions clashed in presidential elections and concepts like federalism, but despite that I think of Jefferson and Adams writing to each other for the rest of their lives and dying on the same day.
As I said, I believe down to my bones that it will take nothing less than every leader in the Democratic Party taking a commanding, relentless stand against the Republicans and for the people to send you and Joe Biden to the White House. And Senator Hillary Clinton, who earned 18 million votes in battleground states, who exemplified strength, courage and grace to this nation, and who called on her supporters with “Did you do this just for me?”, – she is the one who can lead our party’s leaders into full battle. I ask you, Senator Obama, to offer Senator Clinton this unique role in your campaign. 2012 will be too late – something will be too broken by then.
No more will presidencies be won by campaigns primarily led by those on the ticket. In fact the Republicans gave up that strategy two elections ago. And nor was it that strategy that carried the day in 1776 – each of those revolutionaries were giants with a single minded, collective purpose.
And so you are such giants, Senators Obama, Biden and Clinton, and so will be that core of individual Democratic leaders that were assembled at the convention if she undertakes this extraordinary call of leadership on behalf of your presidential campaign, – and for me, for my Republican voting partner who won’t vote for McCain, for my aunt with Multiple Sclerosis, for my Jewish aunt, for my African-American cousins, for my uncle with HIV, for my uncle who taught in Los Angeles County schools, for my grandparents who helped get this nation through the Depression and World War II, for my parents who listened to John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King and were transformed, and for all of us Americans who are looking to our leaders to seize this moment on our behalf. And we will never forget it.
In gratitude and wholehearted support,
Rebecca M. Andrews
Redding, California
I just used the calling tool on my Obama site. It was great! It is fun now because it is just Democrats, getting them involved. I was able to contact about 5 people who wanted to get involved, travel etc. I did phone calling through MoveOn in 06 and was impressed with their calling tools. This is just as good, if not better.
I feel good knowing that the Obama campaign is this organized. It is really easy to do this phone calling from home. It will get harder as time goes on because they will probably have us calling undecided voters and there are more rejections with that. We have to remember it is a numbers game and a ground game at this point - just have to sift through millions of people to get those thousands out to mobilize others and vote the right way.
I am up for hosting a house party to show people how to do it from home - anyone else think that's a good idea?
Dear Senator Obama,
I am a Democrat living in the northern reaches of California's conservative backbone - the Central Valley. I have supported you ardently since your keynote address in 2004. My partner is registered as a Republican, voted for Ron Paul (who is still in the race) in the primary, and supports Dennis Kucinich enough to search all over the internet to watch his DNC speech. He used to like McCain. He sees weakness in the Democratic party and Congress and is as yet undecided on which way he'll vote this year. So it is from such a perspective that I write this message to you and your campaign about Senator McCain, the RNC and Hurricane Gustav.
Do not allow Mr. McCain to steal the moral high ground from you on Hurricane Gustav. If this happens, the American people will lose their chance for a great leader even as we emerge from these eight harrowing years under President Bush.
Go to the Gulf Coast. Do it during the GOP convention. Take the spotlight off McCain even as he tried to do it to you throughout the DNC and especially on your night, by tantalizing the press with a potential announcement of his VP choice.
McCain made inroads against you with Georgia and the attack ads all month. His choice of Palin is both heartfelt and the riskiest of political calculations. As a woman voter, I am frankly insulted, but his choice will only work against him in the next eight weeks if the Democratic campaign plays their hand correctly and with no gaffes like "God is on our side" as regarding the timing of the RNC.
But IF McCain succeeds in redeeming his candidacy by means of Gustav with the klieg lights on St. Paul this week, the chips he has made into your candidacy will turn your moment of history into another lost hope for ordinary and extraordinary people on November 4th.
We cannot once more allow the Republicans to co-opt a national disaster as they did with September 11th and with every anniversary of that terrible, woeful day. How many times did I hear during September 2006 my co-workers, family and friends asking "Why is the White House focusing exclusively on the fifth anniversary of 9/11 and once more ignoring Katrina during the first anniversary and ongoing aftermath? How can they politicize 9/11 during the darkest days of the Iraq War and continue to ignore their own citizens struggling in the Gulf region?"
In September 2004 at the RNC, McCain plainly and ardently committed to the Bush Administration and the Iraq War. In September 2005, he as the arguable vocal and moral leader of his party in Congress, sat silent as the Bush White House left Americans and the city of New Orleans to drown after the levees broke, while our National Guard was and continues to be occupied in Iraq. And in September 2006, where was McCain as the reform voice for the GOP during the one year anniversaries of Katrina and Rita and our national shame?
Only now in September 2008 at the RNC with Gustav overflowing the levees and with our National Guard still in Iraq does McCain make a national case to the American people on behalf of the American victims in the entire Gulf region. He will offer himself as the lone heroic reformer of a failed party and the lone soldier that will save America. He will try to throw the Bush Administration under a bus, but still keep Bush funders, and he will re-energize Bush's base with Governer Palin's down home social conservatism.
Please, Senator Obama, do not underestimate this strategy nor how many people want to hear this from McCain. Senator Obama, you must passionately and visibly take the high ground for New Orleans and Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, Texas and Florida during this crisis.
You HAVE the sensitivity, capacity and morality to make a stand for change against McCain and the RNC in the Gulf without seeming purely political to the people you have stood by since 2005. The GOP may scream foul, but you will be supported by footage of your speeches and work in 2005 in the aftermath of Hurricanes Rita and Katrina. You will be standing on your own record. Never let the American citizens ever forget that.
Thank you for your candidacy and your fight for us,
Rebecca M. Andrews,
Please read and circulate widely. This is information that we need to be using as we go about canvassing and tabling. If Politico is questioning McCain's pick, we know something's up.
http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/Scholars_question_Palin_credentials
He's busy pandering to Hillary supporters, as if they are too ignorant to see what he is trying to pull. They should be made aware of this: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/29/palin-hillary-clintons-wh_n_122504.html
"Worst VO Pick in U. S. History": http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-j-elisberg/the-worst-vice-presidenti_b_122491.html
Ted Stevens promoted her during her gubernatorial run http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/08/palin_ad_starring_ted_stevens.php
He knew nothing about her before putting her within rech of the presidency: http://www.jedreport.com/2008/08/mccain-didnt-know-palin-before.html
There's plenty more where this came from, but you get the idea. She makes Barack look like Thomas Jefferson in the experience realm!
He made a GREAT choice, click for a poster you can print:
Obama Biden Poster
I'm new to this site and groups, but even if I'm a little late to the "party" I want to participate as much as possible. My first action is hosting a viewing party when Obama accepts the Democratic Nomination. I have a very small apartment and can't have too many people over, but would love to meet new people that share my views.
Check out my invitation site: http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/detail/gpg9xg
Samantha
I finally listened to the Berlin speech this morning and it was so moving (like that's a big shock). I am so excited by the fact that he may be (very likely) the next president of the United States. Furthermore, I watched Michelle Obama's speech at the Women for Obama Luncheon. I absolutely love that woman! She is going to make a wonderful role model for women everywhere. I am just filled with enthusiasm to think that these two intelligent, inspiring, insightful people could be our president and first lady in a few months. Anything else would be a letdown. Whatever happens we need to stay energized and involved in improving our world through improving our communities. It will be an easier job if we have a president and other leadership that listens to the will of the people. Let's keep working to get Barack and Michelle into the White House!
I was inspired by Obama back in January to get back into political action after 25 years of disappointment and discouragement about our political process. As a young person, I believed that we could change our world with traditional political involvement. I volunteered for McCarthy before I was old enough to vote. Then, the era of Reagan thru Bush2 discouraged my exuberance. I heard the 2004 speech by Obama and as my goosebumps were raised I thought there might be hope for us again.
We won the nomination and I felt like it was time to get involved at the local level and try to spread the Change all through our governments. In Eureka, we had no one to challange the conservative candidate for my City Council seat, so I have decided to join a progressive coalition to make a run at getting a majority on the Council. As we take back our country, it's all possible.
After I saw this AP story at Yahoo, I decided to take a quick look at the delegates.http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/campaign_delegates;_ylt=Apo5gJ6l1LlSUsiv85lNtd6s0NUEhttp://digg.com/2008_us_elections/Obama_takes_early_lead_in_race_for_delegates
