Hi everyone!
I have been up here at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota for almost three weeks now. I am campaigning for Barack, wearing his button and talking to a lot of people who truly seem to be very excited about his candidacy.
I have been watching McCain and I think he forgot that he said "He was not going to run a dirty campaign."
I have been staying in a Hotel when I am not in the hospital and they had a big Democratic event here last Friday. I got to talk to a lot of Obama supporters and also got to hear Al Frankin speak.
It was a really great feeling to be around so many Democrats who all want Bush out and Obama in!
Yes We Can and Yes We Will!
McCain is constantly running adds on TV here. I have not seen any Barack ones yet here, but I think he is pretty popular even without them!
I hope you are all safe from the flooding back in Indiana. I have seen it on the news. It just makes me feel so bad. I am praying for all of you Hoosier Obama friends!
LuAnn
Just to follow up on my last blog post, I went with my wife to see Barack at the local high school. It was great. We didn't get close enough to him to get a sense of his stature or anything we hadn't already perceived from viewing him on TV or YouTube videos. But the crowd was charged up, and it was great to be a part of the excitement and enthusiasm everyone expressed. It seemed like Barack mostly just stuck to his basic spiel. He mentioned how ridiculous it is that other candidates are saying that is "out of touch" with the people, and he talked about some of the ways that they have demonstrated that they are the ones that are really out of touch. No kidding! And another point he wanted to make was that "Washington doesn't care about you." I haven't heard him harping on that point too much, perhaps because it's a pretty negative view. It may be true that the system in Washington doesn't respond to or handle people's real needs and sentiments in a way that "cares," but I think it's a little too easy for people to interpret the slogan "Washington doesn't care about you" in a way that indicts specific individuals in Washington with "not caring" about people, and you've kind of got to give examples of those if you want to substantiate that claim-- the claim that that slogan makes. It may be true that the system creates conditions under which people become turned into commodities, thought of as simply inputs into the production process, or dehumanized in some other way, but it's pretty narrow-minded to say that some people don't care about other people, that rich people don't care about poor people, that whites don't care about blacks, etc. This leads to labeling and division; it becomes arbitrary and distracting... We are all sick of these kinds of disputes. Spending too much time embroiled in them makes us sick, sicker than we were, sicker all the time.
I'm waiting for the day when employers begin to apply the golden rule to their employees. It is almost impossible for some employers to offer health insurance and other benefits to employees because of the cost involved. But when an employer wants to just pay what the market will bear, the "going rate" for this or that type of occupational category, without regard to the employees' basic needs for what's required to live an organized and healthy life... that seems pretty evil. But again, employers are people, too. They may feel bad about what they've got to do to run a successful business in a competitive environment, cutting corners everywhere they can, but those are the conditions in which they have to operate.
That's one of the main reasons why I think a Universal Health Care Program for US Citizens that is not connected to their employment is so important. It would remove a major disincentive that employers have to hiring new employees, and it would enable them to pay them more. But that is not something that any candidate for president is going to be able to "propose" in the run up for his or her election to the office. Congress is going to have to be involved. And you can bet that the lawyers are going to test every bit of legislation working against the status quo in the courts. And it's going to take a lot of negotiating. It's like John Edwards was talking about: that it is going to be a fight; that these big insurance companies and drug manufacturers are not going to just come to the table and agree to lay down their power and give up their profits for any reason, much less some "liberal" notion of the common good (it would actually be a conservative notion, but we have completely lost track of the meaning of such terms). They've got us right where they wante us: distracted and divided. But we are going to have to work together to get that power out of their hands and into the hands of those who will use it to serve the common good, with a concern for justice and an eye to the future.
That's why Barack's the Real Deal.
He is the one candidate that can set the agenda and lead us through these battles for the kinds of change that will satisfy the systemic demands for reform. Big money has too much power! Corporations have too many rights, and they have been allowed to shirk their responsibilities for too long. It's time to start turning this big boat around. But it is going to be a long, drawn-out process, pregnant with constant change and compromise.
It doesn't make sense to demand all the answers from any candidate at once. What we are electing in this allegorical comparison is a Captain who will begin issuing commands for the planning and execution of actually turning the boat around. I believe Barack will do that. Not by force as much as by finesse, not through bitching and grandstanding, but through example and leadership. Changing our political system, a system that doesn't seem to work for anyone other than big money corporations, is going to require the kind of honesty and discipline that other candidates just don't have; they've demonstrated that they don't have it, and that's what this election run up is all about. That's what it is about Barack that's so inspiring. He's the Real Deal.
Just listen to the way that he talks to people. He is so Real. It's heartening, enlivening. He really does inspire hope. And he completely changed my attitude of anger toward non-thinkers.
So many people don't want to vote for him, but in every case I've encountered, they are people who have not listened to him, have not paid attention to the information they've been offered. They listen to the sound bites, and talk about the sound bite of the day like it's the weather or something. You can't expect anyone to have an understanding of Barack Obama when they nourish their intellect with sound bite level information. To be truly informed, you have to listen to the whole speech and pay attention. You have to have an attention span of longer than a minute.
I think people ought to have to take a written test on candidates positions and the issues before they are authorized to vote.
And Barack Obama is the kind of guy I would trust to write the test.
I wonder how he will handle the power, or how it will handle him. Power has a tendency to operate in such a way that it maximizes and conserves itself. And it is a truly great man or woman that can lay down the reigns of power, turn them over, without becoming an instrument of that power in and of itself, that principle of the conservation of power. Look at Putin, now. He's inculcating followers in summer camps. It seems pretty plainly ideological inculcation structured to conserve his power; to enlarge and extend and strengthen his influence. Scary.
But from what I've seen of Barack Obama so far, I believe he is the master of himself. That is saying a lot (if you will remember from your Bible). I don't think I can say that about Clinton or McCain. They seem to have let the quest for power overrule them.
I won't give examples to substantiate this claim, because I have to go. It's late. I'm hungry. Nature calls.
Adios!
I stood in line for about 1-1/2 hours this morning, waiting to get tickets to see Senator Obama at a local high school tomorrow evening. I really don't feel like writing this.
OK. So if you are reading this blog, hopefully you will take a look at my profile. My answer to the question of why I support Barack Obama references his speech on race. It was that speech, given in Philadelphia on March 18th, that really got my attention and turned me into an Obama supporter.
That was the impetus of my new attitude about political activism-- or even just talking about anything political, which is pretty much all anyone can do. That's what it boils down to, anyway. Unless you want to start roughing up your neighbors, which you don't. At least I don't now.
It was just a couple of days later that I visited my.barackobaba.com and created my profile. Thinking and writing about why I wanted to support Barack Obama consumed more of my valuable couch potato time that I wanted it to, but eventually I settled on the few lines that I wrote for that.
Someone from Barack's campaign got my phone number from the profile I created on the website, and they called to let me know that I should show up for the grand opening of the local campaign office on Saturday (two Saturdays ago). I made plans to do that.
It was great. I met a lot of people and had a few interesting conversations. A lady handing out lapel stickers stuck one on my jacket and I left it there. When he saw it, my narrow-minded "Republican" buddy at work heckled me with delight-- a vibrant refreshing kind of delight, albeit. I had been trying a new approach in our daily banter-back-and-forth (the subject of which must be saved for another tedious blog entry). It will take a lot of explaining to describe the overall context of the situation and the characters involved, but for the moment it will have to suffice to say that I passed something of a milestone by becoming a Barack Obama supporter among my peers at work. My friend Jim makes sure that the banter is amply entertaining.
When it was announced on Wednesday evening that Barack was going to make an appearance at a local high school on Friday, I had no strong desire to attend the event. But this morning, when I went in to work, Jim asked me if I was going to try to get tickets to the event-- he was trying to characterize me as a fanboy, like I must think that seeing Barack Obama is the most important thing in the world, or something. Max, our supervisor was there listening to (and enjoying, I suppose) the morning banter, and by the time it concluded I was on my way out the door to try and get some tickets. Max wanted me to get one for him.
I spoke with a lot of people that I know from around town while waiting in line. It was great, as always, to see Todd Nation meeting and greeting the crowd. Ms. Luna, a high school English teacher who was in line behind me, made a certain impression on me that I'd like to talk about, but maybe in another post. Then there was the guy in front of me, Derick from Bloomington, and the guy in front of him, a retired firmware developer with an iPhone. I observed some interesting things about those guys. There were so many people ahead of us there that we started to worry that we might not get tickets.
I was delighted to see my dear friend & mentor, Tom "Dr. D" Derrick, and I spoke with him about why he was trying to get tickets. He said that he thought seeing Barack in person might give him an impression of his stature, that there was something of value to be gained by an "in-person" encounter which you couldn't get from the media. Dr. Derrick is teaching Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles, which is a good thing to know.
I spoke with a candidate for Judge who was canvassing the people standing in line. He was my Business contact for the morning, the one that justified my time being there. Howard Greneger said "Hi" and gave us the report that about 485 tickets had been distributed, and that he thought we were far enough ahead in the line that we would be OK.
We were, and I made it back to work with my two yellow tickets, which Jim couldn't wait to get his hands on. He wanted to feast his eyes on them, up close. I invited him to go along, but he declined, to preserve his notion of integrity, I suppose.
It's exciting.
