Monday June 22 from 7:00 P.M-8:00 P.M
235 HILL ST. SANTA MONICA, CA 90405 IT'S A CHURCH
AT THE CONER OF HILL AND 2ND PARKING THE CHURCH LOT ON HILL
COME OUT N JOIN ORGANIZING FOR AMERICA IN SHOWING SUPPORT FOR PRESIDENETS OBAMA HEALTH CARE PUBLIC OPTION
Madelyn Dunham, grandmother of Barack Obama, who raised him, and formed much of who he is, has just now passed on, promoted to glory. As they say in Morroco, allayrahemha- may God have mercy upon her. Obama met his father only once, and his mother was often gone when he was younger. His father, mother, and grandfather both passed away earlier, leaving only his grandmother remaining. For her efforts in raising Obama, she changed history, but did not live to see the fulfilment of it. Allayrahemik, Madelyn Dunham.
Just a quick note about earmarks. While John McCain spends a lot of time asserting he has never asked for an earmark, the National Journal just published an article titled "Discovering McCain's Inner Oink" (http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/nj_20081011_6155.php) that refers to correspondence from McCain requesting that "I would like to ask your help in the vital effort to restore San Xavier del Bac, by earmarking $500,000 for that purpose in the FY 1990 appropriations bill." The McCain letter is available at http://www.nationaljournal.com/img/pdfs/mccain_letter.pdf
MARKYOUR CALENDARS NOW! October 25,10:00 AM, Long Beach Convention Center.
Boomers for Obama RALLY plus FREE admission to the Baby Boomers Expo.How to be Healthier, Wealthier, Wiser...and Live It Up!
BABYBOOMERS come together - Stand up for CHANGE - NOW!
Wedid it in the '60s & '70s, we need CHANGE, NOW more than ever!
Obama-BidenNOW!
Planto attend the Rally. We can get the media to broadcast the rally tothe swing states. We needthe people. Count yourself in.
SIGNUP NOW. Visit www.BarackObama.comsearch Events,put in zip code 90802 and info will be displayed, Sign up for the RALLY.
WENEED HELP. TO ORGANIZE ANDCOORDINATE. CALL 310-271-2118 TOVOLUNTEER. EMAIL turnerbradshaw@yahoo.com
BabyBoomers Rally in Long Beach, CA, 10:00 A.M.
October25, 2008, to Kick-off 9 Day Countdown to
PresidentialElection and Go to the Boomers Show
LongBeach, CA, October 25, 2008 - Baby boomer, men and women – ages 42-62-who remember their significance in the 60’s and 70’s, and “change” as definedby JFK, Martin Luther King, and John Lennon - come together in the 2008election year to how their support for Barak Obama.
TheBoomers for Obama rally takesplace on Saturday, October 25 at 10:00 A.M. in Long Beach, CA in front of theLong Beach Convention Center. Celebrities are invited to participate, and will be introduced to themedia on the Green Carpet. Thedate of the Rally is just 9 days prior to the Presidential election, and providesthe opportunity for baby boomers to have your voices heard – as they wereduring the decades of “change” during your high school and college years.
Babyboomers, you are the nation’s hot topic. You represent the largest, wealthiest demographic. You are concerned about finances,Social Security,taxes,careers, health, aging, parents and children.
TheBoomers Show, How to be Healthier, Wealthier, Wiser…and Live it Up!”, is being independently produced atthe Long Beach Convention Center, featuring exhibits and seminars relevant tothe needs of baby boomers. AllRally participants will receive complimentary admission to the Boomers Show.
Therally and the Boomers Show mark activities that will take place in Long
BeachOctober 25–26, kicking-off” Boomer Days” in Long Beach.
Foradditional information on the Rally visit www.BarackObama.com search
Events,put in zip code 90802 and info will be displayed For information on the BoomersShow visit www.boomersshow.com.
Barack Morning Buzz - 9-20-08
On to Victory in November(1) Obama Looks to Regain Momentum in Debate SeriesCharles Babington-Associated Presshttp://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080920/ap_on_el_pr/debates_stakes_2(2) Obama Says If He Wins Florida, He Wins the White HouseMaria Gavrilovic-CBS News-From The Roadhttp://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/09/20/politics/fromtheroad/entry4462359.shtml(3) Obama Remarks on the EconomyWashington Post-CQ Transcripts Wirehttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/19/AR2008091901960.html(4) On Economy, Obama Offers Ideas and McCain Blames RivalDan Balz and Robert Barnes-Washington Posthttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/19/AR2008091903823.html(5) Obama and McCain Weigh in on Financial CrisisCarolyn Lochhead-San Francisco Chroniclehttp://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/20/MNPS131AMB.DTL(6) Obama Seizes the Moment by Detailing His Strategy for Restoring Confidence in MarketsDavid Usborne-The Independent-UKhttp://www.independent.co.uk/news/race-for-whitehouse/obama-seizes-the-moment-by-detailing-his-strategy-for-restoring-confidence-in-markets-936173.html(7) It's Still the Economy Stupid!-Obama Goes on the AttackMichael Tomasky-Guardian-UKhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/sep/20/uselections2008.barackobama(8) Obama Toys with Economic Recovery PlanJitendra Joshi-Agence France Presse-AFPhttp://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080920/ts_alt_afp/usvote_080920122209(9) Campaigns Have to Face Financial MessTodd Spangler-Detroit Free Presshttp://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080919/NEWS15/80919057/1215/NEWS15(10) Obama and McCain Campaign Turning PointPaul West-Chicago Tribune-The Swamphttp://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/09/campaign_turning_point.html(11) Financial Meltdown Reshapes RaceTim Harper-Toronto Star-Canadahttp://www.thestar.com/News/USElection/article/502841(12) Obama and McCain Wary of Fueling Gay Marriage DebateAssociated Presshttp://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20080920/pl_politico/13660_1(13) Obama Ahead in Michigan-Race Closer in Pennsylvania and OhioAssociated Presshttp://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5g8WvoRnUTs6fEo8Os3k4YlshdOvQD939VPNG0(14) Obama Now Better than 2 to 1 FavoriteThe New Republic-The Plankhttp://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_plank/archive/2008/09/19/today-s-polls-obama-now-better-than-2-1-favorite.aspx(15) Why the Polls Drive Us Crazy (and Shouldn't)Joshua Holland-AlterNethttp://www.alternet.org/election08/99586/why_the_polls_drive_us_crazy_(and_shouldn%27t)/(16) Clinton Unveils New Pro-Obama EffortFoon Rhee-Boston Globe-Political Intelligencehttp://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/09/clinton_unveils_1.html(17) Women Set to Blitz for ObamaKathleen Gray-Detroit Free Presshttp://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080920/NEWS15/809200315/1008/NEWS06(18) McCain Feeds America a Junk Food Diet with Palin ChoiceSteven L. Katz-Seattle Post-Intelligencerhttp://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/379833_palinonline21.html(19) Linking Obama to Ex-Fannie Mae Chief is a StretchWashington Posthttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/19/AR2008091903604.html(20) Racial Views Steer Some Away from ObamaRon Fournier-Associated Presshttp://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20080920/pl_politico/13658_1
Hi all-- It's energizing to see the great new ad the Obama campaign is putting out to attack McCain's gutter tactics. Well written, well put together... I fear it might be dismissed as more liberal media pandering since they don't have a quote in there from more conservative media, but nonetheless, I think he's striking back well.
I also think it's pretty fascinating that Karl Rove is even speaking out against McCain's tactics: Karl Rove: McCain's Ads Have Gone Too Far
Mitt Romney also had some harsh words for the Senator.
Colin Powell, while still playing coy on the candidate he's backing, is calling for the campaigns -- cough, McCain, cough-- to return to the issues.
So.. What does this mean?
Dunno. I'm happy that there seems to be some pushback on the dumbing down and trivializing of this campaign so hopefully we can get back to the issues, an area where Obama/Biden seem to really have some strength and can finally undo this co-opting of the message of change and unseat these mavericks from their Ivorique tower-- I presume one of the late night shopping channels has some kind of weird Ivory substitute with an equally "my stripper name" nomenclature.
While all this news is coming in, I did have one additional thought. I know that our man, Barack, seems to have been rocked a bit by the inane yet damaging squeelings and rantings the McCain camp has presented as their campaign platform. Could be that since Obama (wisely) freed himself from the public campaign financing, he might just be biding his time, letting McCain's tantrums (and finances) dwindle. Like in boxing, letting your opponent tire themselves out with superficial blows before you wade in and finish them. Or like letting a 4 year old tire themselves out in a tantrum before you come in and explain things.
I don't know that it's a proven strategy. I don't know if it's actually Barack's strategy. But it certainly does kinda feel that way and explain why he's been so disciplined about dismissing these stupid attacks and pressing on the issues. He's given himself a lot of ammo for the debates. And hopefully it's this last sprint that's really going to seal the deal for him and get him into the White House.
Am I wrong? Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee... anyone.... Bueller?
Even the Bush-friendly AP admitted "In some cases, the reproach and the praise stretched the truth."
Like Tonya Harding's posse wacking rival Nancy Kerrigan, Palin gleefully kneecapped Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama again and again and again.
Palin was clearly energized as she wielded the powerful hockey stick of words, attempting to bloody her opponent to an uncompetitive pulp. Sarah Barracuda, indeed. A vicious pitbull with lipstick, absolutely.
But will Sarah Palin's over-the-top, sarcastic performance be effective in drawing new voters to the Republican ticket in November? And is Palin's angry, judgmental demeanor what Americans want in this already bitterly divisive time?
I can't, and won't try to, predict Palin's impact on voters two months from now on election day, except to say that Obama and Biden need to tiptoe carefully around this fire-breathing, high-heeled, ultra-conservative ideologue.
I'm intrigued, though, by the interesting comments left at Focus Group: Palin Was (Alarmingly) Strong , a blog post at The New Republic. Here are a few:
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/08/AR2008090802436.htmlQualifications and Qualities on Both TicketsI was always taught that education matters. Indeed, each political party (and every parent) has stressed the importance of a good education and the virtues of higher education. Yet, somehow, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's academic background is sufficient for the second-highest job in the land.Columnist Charles Krauthammer ["Palin's Problem," op-ed, Sept. 5] wrote that Republican nominee John McCain picked Ms. Palin to be a "game-changer" who would fill the campaign with magic. And I wanted Sarah Palin to be a hidden gem, too. But she attended six colleges in six years before receiving her undergraduate journalism degree from the University of Idaho. One of those schools was the obscure North Idaho College. No graduate degrees on her résumé.Former president Bill Clinton, on the other hand, attended Georgetown University, received a Rhodes Scholarship to University College at Oxford and earned a law degree from Yale. Hillary Rodham Clinton graduated from Wellesley and then Yale Law School. Democratic nominee Barack Obama went to Columbia University and Harvard Law School; his running mate,Joseph R. Biden Jr., also has a law degree. Republican Mitt Romney was valedictorian at Brigham Young University and received a joint law degree and MBA from Harvard.In a country with more than 300 million people, with plenty of accomplished men and women, why would we settle for Ms. Palin's mediocre credentials? Most companies would place her résumé in the reject pile for far lesser jobs.
LISA ORENSTEIN
Baltimore
VIDEO, WHICH SOMETIMES WORKS: http://www.boston.com/news/politics/2008/articles/2008/08/25/small_college_awakened_future_senator_to_service/?p1=Well_MostPop_Emailed3
When Barack Obama ’83 became the Democratic presidential nominee in Denver, it was the latest step in a historic career of public service that began almost 30 years ago on the Occidental College campus.
“Much has been made in this presidential campaign, both good and bad, of Obama’s Ivy League pedigree, his bachelor's degree from Columbia University, and his law degree from Harvard,” the Boston Globe reported Aug. 25. “But it is during the two years Obama spent at Occidental, a small liberal arts school in Los Angeles, that he started on the path that has led to the Democratic presidential nomination.”
“Oxy, as it is affectionately known, nurtured his transformation,” said the Globe. “By the end of his sophomore year, he was on his way to becoming a self-assured, purpose-driven scholar plotting a career in public service.”
The significance of the two years the Illinois senator spent at Occidental before transferring to Columbia has become a theme in much of the reporting about Obama. “What seems clear is that Mr. Obama’s time at Occidental from 1979 to 1981 -- where he describes himself arriving as ‘alienated’ -- would ultimately set him on a course to public service,” the New York Times reported earlier this year.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Obama described Occidental as “a wonderful, small liberal arts college. The professors were diverse and inspiring. I ended up making some lifelong friendships there, and those first two years really helped me grow up.” It was a theme he revisited in his May 18 commencement speech at Wesleyan University.
“During my first two years of college, perhaps because of the values my mother had taught me – values of hard work, honesty, empathy and compassion – finally resurfaced after a long hibernation; or perhaps because of the example of wonderful teachers and lasting friends, I began to notice a world beyond myself,” he said.
“I became active in the movement to oppose the apartheid regime of South Africa. I began following the debates in this country about poverty and health care. So that by the time I graduated from college, I was possessed with this crazy idea that I was going to work at the grassroots level to bring about change.”
It was at Occidental where he stopped being called “Barry” and became Barack Obama, Newsweek pointed out in its March 31 account of Obama’s formative years that featured his black-and-white freshman photo on the cover. “It was when I made a conscious decision: I want to grow up,” he told the magazine.
In a recent commentary aimed at overseas readers, journalist Tom Plate cited Occidental as an "iconic exemplar of the American search for the leadership ideal in education ... because it regularly shows up in the top small-college rating lists and because among its most prominent former students is Barack Obama." After two years "in the cauldron of change marked by intense courses in lierature, arts, philosophy and social science, the student found himself as Barack, with all its implications, not as Barry."It was a policy class that got Sara El Amine ’07 “to thinking where I could intersect with policy on the highest level” – a thought process that eventually led her to become one of several Occidental students and alumni working for the Obama campaign. “Making sure the right person gets elected as the next president of the United States is the highest calling right now,” El Amine said. Fellow campaign staffer Brian McGrane ’06 agrees: “It’s about time we had an Occidental alum in the White House.”
It’s not the first time an Occidental graduate has run for the country’s highest office. Former Congressman and NFL quarterback Jack Kemp ’57 ran in the 1988 Republican presidential primaries and was the Republican vice presidential nominee in 1996. “I got a good education: history, the sciences,” Kemp said at the time. “You just can’t get out of Oxy without learning something. It’s just a very good school.”
By Scott Helman, Globe Staff | August 25, 2008
First of two articles on critical periods in the lives of the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates.
LOS ANGELES - When a reserved Hawaiian prep school graduate named Barry Obama arrived on the well-manicured campus of Occidental College in the fall of 1979, sophomore Mark Parsons gained more than a new dorm mate. He gained a smoking buddy.
Parsons, who hailed from white, working-class Philadelphia, and Obama, from a multicultural childhood in Honolulu and Indonesia, forged a bond over those stolen interludes that only cigarette smokers know.
"I smoke like this because I want to keep my weight down," Obama once confided, Parsons recalled. "After I get married, I'll stop and just get real fat."
Obama ultimately chose another course. He began, in his first two years of college from 1979 to 1981, to overcome a sense of aimlessness that was pointing toward just such a flabby, undisciplined future. By the end of his sophomore year, he was on his way to becoming a self-assured, purpose-driven scholar plotting a career in public service.
Much has been made in this presidential campaign, both good and bad, of Obama's Ivy League pedigree - his bachelor's degree from Columbia University, and his law degree from Harvard, where he led the prestigious Law Review. But it is during the two years Obama spent at Occidental, a small liberal arts school in Los Angeles, that he started on the path that has led to the Democratic presidential nomination.
Oxy, as it is affectionately known, nurtured his transformation. He started playing basketball less so he could read and study more. After shying away from activism early in his college career, he joined an antiapartheid campaign. He came to terms with his identity, eventually ditching his nickname, Barry, and embracing Barack. And then, yearning for a bigger stage, he engineered a transfer to Columbia.
"The sort of talk was, you know, 'What made him get so serious all the sudden?' " said Kent Goss, an Occidental classmate who played basketball with him.
Partly it was the sobering state of the world and the nation - the Iran hostage crisis and Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the grave concerns over energy and inflation, and the wave of antigovernment conservatism that swept through California in 1978 as the precursor to the Reagan revolution. Partly it was a pivotal professor who helped tease out his potential. And partly it was a desire to assert more control over the arc of his life.
Internally, as Obama writes in his 1995 memoir, "Dreams from My Father," he was searching for a foothold - alienated, struggling to understand his biracial identity, fearful of fulfilling a stereotype. "Junkie. Pothead. That's where I'd been headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man," he writes.
Obama was at Occidental when the solidarity of the civil-rights era was breaking down and more complicated issues such as affirmative action and South African divestment had replaced the themes of voting rights and desegregation. Friends wonder whether the racial polarization of the era only stoked Obama's fears for his future.
With all of this churning in his head, Obama made a conscious decision while at Occidental to accelerate his maturation. And with laser-like focus, he set out to do it.
"He was in a hurry," Parsons said.
Obama's high school diploma, from the prestigious Punahou School in Honolulu, belied his lower-middle-class upbringing. He attended Occidental on scholarship.
But to college friends, he was just another preppy freshman wearing trendy Ocean Pacific apparel.
"When he surfaced as this national figure, I can only remember him wearing O.P. shorts and flip-flops," said Simeon Heninger, who lived near Obama in the dorm.
His preppy visage was a liability on the basketball court. Obama had played forward on Punahou's 1979 state championship team but that held little currency in Los Angeles, where his new friends committed hard fouls in pickup games and ribbed him with quips such as "Welcome to LA," Goss recalled.
"We were giving him a lot of grief about being from Hawaii and being from Punahou, and he was giving it back," Goss said.
Obama was comforted to find Hawaiian pizza (with pineapple and ham) at an off-campus joint called Casa Bianca. Like many of his friends, he smoked a lot of cigarettes, sometimes pot. He was, friends and classmates say, interested in forming genuine relationships, someone "skilled at finding a connection and making that an initial foundation of friendship," said John Boyer, who lived across the hall.
He became a frequent participant in bull sessions on politics, life, and culture that took place in the hallways, alcoves, and on the stoops of his dorm, Haines Hall. He was self-confident but rarely sought the soapbox.
"He was not a philosopher king sitting there opining on the world for the rest of us as we sat there open-mouthed," said Ken Sulzer, another friend from Haines.
Boyer added, "Barry would kind of hang back, and there would be some less sophisticated people who would be yelling their point of view or argument. And Barry would kind of come in and just kind of part the waters. He would bring clarity that would address both sides of the argument and substantiate his point."
Friends' and classmates' memories of Obama as an 18- and 19-year-old at times differ in tone from the self-portrait he renders in "Dreams from My Father," in which he recounts a corrosive apathy. He writes of one late, booze-fueled night: "Upstairs, I could hear someone flushing a toilet, walking across the room. Another insomniac, probably, listening to his life tick away." He felt, he says, "as indifferent about college as toward most everything else."
While Obama was experiencing these self-doubts, they weren't always evident to his fellow students, many of whom remember him as, if not the hardest worker, a serious person with an intellectual curiosity and maturity beyond his years.
"I didn't see him ever being on the fringe. He seemed very centered and settled," said Eric Moore, a close college friend.
Obama had a diverse peer group and moved easily among students of all backgrounds - a vestige, perhaps, of his multicultural upbringing in Hawaii. He hung out with black friends, but not exclusively, as other African-American students did, according to classmates. Moore, who is black, recalled going to jazz shows and to the beach in Santa Monica with Obama. Parsons and Boyer, who are white, shared fond memories of trips with him to Casa Bianca, if not the Hawaiian pizza.
"He had friends on both sides of the ledger," said Louis Hook, an upperclassman who ran in the same black social circles.
Obama's determination to bridge that divide caused him some friction with some blacks and whites, Hook said. "You find people on both sides who don't appreciate it," he said.
That may be partly because Obama was not always willing to accept social orthodoxies. Parsons said Obama was troubled, for example, by the way black students clung together.
"I remember talking about the vicious circle between self-segregation and segregation imposed upon you," Parsons said. "I could tell that bothered him."
Indeed, despite his soul-searching, Obama seems to have had an easier time assimilating than other black students.
Earl Chew, who is the basis, at least in part, for the character "Marcus" in Obama's memoir - a close friend and black student leader - was quoted in the college paper in January 1981 as saying, "Coming here was hard for me. A lot of things that I knew as a black student - that I knew as a black, period - weren't accepted on this campus."
Because Obama uses pseudonyms and composite characters in his book, it is difficult to identify and locate people, such as Chew, whom he portrays as central figures in this chapter of his life. His campaign does not disclose the students' identities and declined a request to interview Obama.
Despite its cloistered setting on a hilltop in north Los Angeles, Occidental was abuzz with political and social activism. Protesters held candlelight walks against nuclear arms proliferation and railed against President Carter's reinstitution of draft registration. There were speeches by everyone from conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly to women's rights advocate Gloria Steinem. In the 1980 presidential race, students formed coalitions for Carter, Edward Kennedy, independent John Anderson, and Ronald Reagan.
Students also pushed for more diversity at the college, which at the time was overwhelmingly white. Leaders of a black student group are quoted in a 1980 story in the college newspaper as saying there were just 71 African-Americans out of 1,600 students, and just two black professors.
In his sophomore year, Obama joined a leading cause on campus, an antiapartheid campaign to get Occidental to divest from companies that did business in white-ruled South Africa. The culmination of his involvement was a speech he delivered at a campus protest, pegged to a meeting of the college trustees.
In his memoir, Obama says he spoke from the heart but quickly concluded afterward that the whole thing had been a "farce" play-acted by "amateurs." He said he reacted cynically when a friend, a woman he calls "Regina," praised his speech.
But Rebecca Rivera, a classmate and college activist who was also at the rally, remembers Obama having a markedly different reaction.
"The audience was rapt when he spoke. I remember telling him after, 'You are a really good speaker - obviously you have a lot to say. I wish you would get more involved,' " Rivera recalled. She said Obama's response was essentially, "When it's important, I do get involved." The implication, she said, was that a lot of what passed for campus activism he considered mere "Mickey Mouse stuff."
In the classroom, former professors and classmates said, Obama found a niche - as a student whose analytical ability, as expressed in classroom participation and writing assignments more than rigorous study, made him someone to be listened to.
"What I remember is all the number of questions he would ask - and they were all good questions," said Kathy Cooper-Ledesma, who, like Obama, concentrated in political science.
Anne Howells, a former English professor at Occidental, taught him in a literary analysis class, which dissected works such as "We Real Cool," Gwendolyn Brooks's scolding poem on the aimlessness of black youth.
"He was the kind of student that comes along and you say, 'Oh, I wish I had written that or thought of that,' " Howells said.
Obama's most influential professor was Roger Boesche, a political scientist who had Obama in two classes, one on American political thought, another on European political philosophy. Boesche remembers Obama as quiet and absorbed, not destined to be a "charismatic and brilliant orator."
"I didn't say, 'Oh, I knew he'd do that,' " said Boesche, contrasting him with more driven students he has taught. "They've got this powerful personality, they're interested in all the courses and ideas, and you start realizing they're going to do something special. He was gestating a little more slowly."
It surprises Boesche that Obama cites him as a mentor, but he figures Obama must have been soaking up much more than he let on. Boesche said he wonders, watching his former student on the campaign trail, whether he absorbed from his class the tenets of the American Populist movement of the 19th century, a bottom-up campaign for economic justice that brought whites and blacks together.
"Obama as an undergraduate, in my mind, demonstrated that he was a serious, talented, thoughtful person who had concerns beyond himself," said Eric Newhall, a humanities professor involved in the divestment campaign who also played basketball with Obama during "noon ball," lunchtime pickup games among faculty and students.
Until he arrived at Occidental, Obama's script had been largely written by others.
The unlikely union of his parents - his mother was a white Kansan, his father a black Kenyan - left him with a confused identity. Stereotypes defined him, or threatened to, in ways he never sought. His father, by leaving his family, left Obama to be brought up by a single mom. He said he was drawn to Occidental in the first place mainly by a girl he met in Hawaii who lived near the campus.
Obama's decision to leave Oxy after two years was a way of putting his hand on the wheel, a chance for reinvention. "There was a lot of stuff going on in me," he told Newsweek earlier this year. "By the end of that year at Occidental, I think I was starting to work it through, and I think part of the attraction of transferring was, it's hard to remake yourself around people who have known you for a long time."
When Obama was leaving Occidental, Parsons said, he was originally interested in doing a combined bachelor's degree-law degree program at Columbia, a fast-track option that suited his new sense of urgency. Ultimately, he picked a more conventional undergraduate degree program in political science.
Given how well Obama straddled the black and white worlds, Hook said, it came as a surprise that he was among the African-American students leaving Occidental. "That didn't make sense to me, because the other black students who were leaving were leaving because it wasn't black enough," Hook said. "He was comfortable with it."
But Obama was not comfortable with the future he envisioned for himself there. His appetite for knowledge of the wider world, expanded by Occidental's vibrant intellectual and political environment, grew so big the college could not longer sate it. "I sort of felt that he felt part of the program and part of the school his freshman year," Goss said. "I think he felt less that way as a sophomore."
Still, though Obama's official biographies have long skipped over his Occidental years, it is clear the college played an important role in his development.
He told a Wesleyan University commencement audience earlier this year that the values he learned from his mother - hard work, honesty, and empathy - resurfaced at Occidental "after a long hibernation," and he told the Occidental alumni magazine in 2004 that he became interested in politics and public policy while on campus.
"He wasn't talking about becoming the leader of the free world," said Heninger, Obama's friend from the dorm. "He was talking about, I felt, being a responsible citizen. A lot of us were like that at Oxy. You were kind of turned on to doing something with your life."
Scott Helman can be reached at shelman@globe.com.
HI EVERYONE,
TELL EVERYONE YOU KNOW THEY CAN REGISTER TO VOTE ONLINE AT: http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/elections_vr.htm
THEY CAN SIGN UP TO VOTE BY MAIL AT THE SAME TIME. IT COULDN'T BE EASIER. HAVE REGISTRATION PARTIES....BRING YOUR LAPTOPS EVERYWHERE...AND ENCOURAGE EVERYONE YOU SEE TO VOTE.
THIS IS YOUR ELECTION AND IT COULD BE THE MOST IMPORTANT ONE OF YOUR LIFE. LETS GET THE VOTES
GO BARACK!!!!
Sarah Palin is pleasant-looking and has a compelling backstory. In her first prime-time speech, she described herself as a pitbull with lipstick and I agree with her. Look, she did a great job in rallying support from her party, but the real issues have yet to be tackled. All I heard last night was the typical wrap-yourself-in-the-flag and paint-the-other-side-as-scary-and-dangerous talking points that these folks have been peddling for years. The Republican partisans are eating it up, but it remains to be seen if the general public will. My hope is that people will be smart enough to see through the personalities and the rhetoric. Even McCain's campaign manager has said that this race is about personality, not the issues. All the ridicule and personal attacks are designed to deflect and distract Americans from the economy, our two wars, and health care. Hey, it worked in 2004...It's the Repblican's only hope this election year as well.
We've got work to do...Sarah Palin is no wilting flower. She and McCain will do anything to win this election. I just can't sit on the sidelines without personally doing all that I can to rescue my country from these false patriots. Jon Stewart on the Daily Show said something so funny and sadly true the other night...Republicans love the USA, they just hate half the people living here.
A federal judge on Tuesday criticized government lawyers for their "weak" argument in urging the court to stay an order that compels two former White House aides to appear under subpoena before the House Judiciary Committee.
U.S. District Judge John Bates of the District of Columbia said Tuesday he will not stay his July 31 order that requires Harriet Miers and Joshua Bolten to appear before the committee, which is investigating the U.S. Attorney firings. Justice Department lawyers had asked for a stay to allow an appeal of the order to run its course in the D.C. Circuit.
Bush administration lawyers contend that former White House counsel Miers and former White House chief of staff Bolten are immune from congressional subpoenas.
The chairman of the Judiciary Committee, responding to the judge's ruling Tuesday, says the committee plans to "promptly" hold a hearing in which Miers and Bolten will be asked to answer questions under oath. Bates' order also requires the White House to produce unprivileged documents on the U.S. Attorney firings.
"Today's ruling clearly rejects the White House's efforts to run out the clock on the Committee's investigation of DOJ politicization this Congress," Chairman John Conyers Jr. said in a statement.
Bates found that the government has failed to demonstrate that it has "a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of the absolute immunity issue" or that it has even raised a serious, substantial question to warrant suspending the order.
"The Executive's argument boils down to a claim that a stay is appropriate because the underlying issue is important," Bates wrote. "But that is beside the point and does not demonstrate a likelihood of success on the merits. Simply calling an issue important -- primarily because it involves the relationship of the political branches -- does not transform the Executive's weak arguments into a likelihood of success or a substantial appellate issue."
First reported in The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times
The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) human rights team was sent to the western province of Herat after local claims that scores of civilians were killed in Friday's strikes.
"Investigations by UNAMA found convincing evidence, based on the testimony of eyewitnesses and others, that some 90 civilians were killed, including 60 children, 15 women and 15 men," special representative Kai Eide said.
Also see below: Chris Hedges | Pouring Gas on the Afghanistan Bonfire •
"Fifteen other villagers were wounded or otherwise injured," he said in a statement.
A separate investigation appointed by President Hamid Karzai said at the weekend that more than 90 civilians were killed in the strikes.
The toll is one of the highest for civilians killed in military action since international troops started deploying to Afghanistan in 2001 to topple the hardline Taliban regime and root out other extremists.
The US-led coalition had initially said only 30 Taliban had died but acknowledged on Tuesday that five civilians - two women and three children - were also dead in the strikes which had killed a Taliban target.
"We believe those to be family members of the targeted militant, Mullah Sadiq. He was important for us to target," US Lieutenant Nathan Perry told AFP from the main US military base at Bagram north of Kabul.
The UN special representative said his team had met with the district governor and local elders on Monday and interviewed people from the affected areas.
The villagers said foreign and Afghan military personnel had entered the village on the night of August 21.
"Military operations lasted several hours during which air strikes were called in," his statement said.
"The destruction from aerial bombardment was clearly evident with some 78 houses having been totally destroyed and serious damage to many others," he said.
The matter was of "grave concern" to the United Nations, Eide said.
"I have repeatedly made clear that the safety and welfare of civilians must be considered above all else during the planning and conduct of all military operations," he said.
"The impact of such operations undermines the trust and confidence of the Afghan people in efforts to build a just, peaceful, and law-abiding state."
Eide called on Afghan and international troops to thoroughly review the operation to avoid a repeat of the incident.
The Afghan government Monday demanded a review of all rules regulating the international military presence in Afghanistan.
"Air strikes on civilian targets, uncoordinated house searches and illegal detention of Afghan civilians must be stopped," a cabinet statement said.
Afghanistan had made significant progress since 2001, when the Taliban regime was toppled, Karzai's spokesman Homayun Hamidzada told reporters Tuesday, explaining the cabinet decision.
The extremists left behind them a country ruined by decades of war and mismanagement.
"Today we have structure, government, parliament, legal authorities and our national institutions have reached strength, our police and army are growing," Hamidzada said.
"The requirement of time - as well as painful incidents of civilian casualties - compelled the Afghan government to demand talks on regulating the presence of international forces in Afghanistan," he said.
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Monday 25 August 2008
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by: Chris Hedges, Truthdig
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan grind forward with their terrible human toll, even as the press and many Americans play who gets thrown off the island with Barack Obama. Coalition forces carried out an airstrike that killed up to 95 Afghan civilians in western Afghanistan on Friday, 50 of them children, President Hamid Karzai said. And the mounting bombing raids and widespread detentions of Afghans are rapidly turning Afghanistan into the mirror image of Iraq. But these very real events, which will have devastating consequences over the next few months and years, are largely ignored by us. We prefer to waste our time on the trivia and gossip that swallow up air time and do nothing to advance our understanding of either the campaign or the wars fought in our name.
As the conflict in Afghanistan has intensified, so has the indiscriminate use of airstrikes, including Friday's, which took place in the Azizabad area of Shindand district in Herat province. The airstrike was carried out after Afghan and coalition soldiers were ambushed by insurgents while on a patrol targeting a known Taliban commander in Herat, the U.S. military said. Hundreds of Afghans, shouting anti-U.S. slogans, staged angry street protests on Saturday in Azizabad to protest the killings, and Karzai condemned the airstrike.
The United Nations estimates that 255 of the almost 700 civilian deaths in fighting in Afghanistan this year have been caused by Afghan and international troops. The number of civilians killed in fighting between insurgents and security forces in Afghanistan has soared by two-thirds in the first half of this year.
Ghulam Azrat, the director of the middle school in Azizabad, said he collected 60 bodies after the bombing.
"We put the bodies in the main mosque,'' he told the Associated Press by phone, sometimes pausing to collect himself as he wept. "Most of these dead bodies were children and women. It took all morning to collect them."
Azrat said villagers on Saturday threw stones at Afghan soldiers who arrived and tried to give out food and clothes. He said the soldiers fired into the crowd and wounded eight people, including one child.
"The people were very angry," he said. "They told the soldiers, 'We don't need your food, we don't need your clothes. We want our children. We want our relatives. Can you give [them] to us? You cannot, so go away.' "
We are in trouble in Afghanistan. Sending more soldiers and Marines to fight the Taliban is only dumping gasoline on the bonfire. The Taliban assaults, funded largely by the expanded opium trade, are increasingly sophisticated and well coordinated. And the Taliban is exacting a rising toll on coalition troops. Soldiers and Marines are now dying at a faster rate in Afghanistan than Iraq. In an Aug. 18 attack, only 30 miles from the capital, Kabul, the French army lost 10 and had 21 wounded. The next day, hundreds of militants, aided by six suicide bombers, attacked one of the largest U.S. bases in the country. A week before that, insurgents killed three foreign aid workers and their Afghan driver, prompting international aid missions to talk about withdrawing from a country where they already have very limited access.
Barack Obama, like John McCain, speaks about Afghanistan in words that look as if they were penned by the Bush White House. Obama may call for withdrawing some U.S. troops from Iraq, but he does not want to send them all home. He wants to send them to Afghanistan, or to what he obliquely terms "the right battlefield." Obama said he would deploy an additional 10,000 troops to Afghanistan once he took office.
The seven-year war in Afghanistan has not gone well. An additional 3,200 Marines were deployed there in January. Karzai's puppet government in Kabul controls little territory outside the capital. And our attempt to buy off tribes with money and even weapons has collapsed, with most tribal groups slipping back into the arms of the Taliban insurgents.
Do the cheerleaders for an expanded war in Afghanistan know any history? Have they studied what happened to the Soviets, who lost 15,000 Red Army soldiers between 1979 and 1988, or even the British in the 19th century? Do they remember why we went into Afghanistan? It was, we were told, to hunt down Osama bin Laden, who is now apparently in Pakistan. Has anyone asked what our end goal is in Afghanistan? Is it nation-building? Or is this simply the forever war on terror?
Al-Qaida, which we have also inadvertently resurrected, is alive and well. It still finds plenty of recruits. It still runs training facilities. It still caries out attacks in London, Madrid, Iraq and now Afghanistan, which did not experience suicide bombings until December 2005. Al-Qaida has moved on. But we remain stuck, confused and lashing about wildly like a wounded and lumbering beast.
We do not have the power or the knowledge, nor do we have the right under international law, to occupy Iraq and Afghanistan. We are vainly trying to transplant to these countries a modern system of politics invented in Europe. This system is characterized by, among other things, the division of the Earth into independent secular states based on national citizenship. The belief in a secular civil government is to most Afghans and Iraqis an alien creed. It will never work.
We have blundered into nations we know little about. We are caught between bitter rivalries among competing ethnic and religious groups. We have embarked on an occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan that is as damaging to our souls as it is to our prestige and power and security. And we believe, falsely, that because we have the capacity to wage war we have the right to wage war.
We divert ourselves in our dotage and decline with images and slogans that perpetuate fantasies about our own invulnerability, our own might, our own goodness. We are preoccupied by national trivia games that pass for news, even as the wolf pants at our door. These illusions blind us. We cannot see ourselves as others see us. We do not know who we are.
"We had fed the heart on fantasies," William Butler Yeats wrote, "the heart's grown brutal from the fare."
We are propelled forward not by logic or compassion or understanding but by fear. We have created and live in a world where violence is the primary form of communication. We have become the company we keep. Much of the world-certainly the Muslim world, one-fifth of the world's population, most of whom are not Arab-sees us through the prism of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine. We are igniting the dispossessed, the majority of humanity who live on less than two dollars a day. And whoever takes the White House next January seems hellbent on fueling our self-immolation!
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Comments:
If 90 people, including 60 Tue, 08/26/2008 - 20:53 — Anonymous (not verified) If 90 people, including 60 children were killed in the US at a school, mall or gathering, what kind of crazy would the news services go? But when this happens in Afghanistan there are no apologies, just excuses or worse - denials, from US leaders who say they are just "spreading democracy" and it's like Oh well golly gee some civilians and kids were killed - too bad. Reality check Bush, Cheney and Condi ! This is why we are so hated there and everywhere else in the world.. They don't like the corrupt Afghan government they have now and don't like the Taliban either, but we're no better. All that collateral damage are thousands of people with relatives who never forget. We need to get the hell out of there and Iraq. Right now we're Osama's dream come true - there to kill and there to bankrupt our treasury. He predicted this.
Can someone help me track Tue, 08/26/2008 - 20:39 — Virginia Hammon (not verified) Can someone help me track down a reference. I remember watching a TV show or video about Iraq. The Commander of the force that sits at consoles and determines where to drop bombs was interviewed. He said that their Rules of Engagement had been that it was OK to drop a bomb to get one enemy/ insurgent as long as it did not kill more than 30 civilians, in which case someone higher up had to make the call. He said that these Rules had recently been tightened. I saw this sometime in the past two years..Can anyone remember seeing this and point me toward a clip of his comments. I would like to reference it.
Thanks Chris Hedges for the Tue, 08/26/2008 - 20:34 — Michael (not verified) Thanks Chris Hedges for the clear-eyed analysis of America in the 21st century. And what a disappointment it is. That the front running candidate for President is a Democrat and also in favor of continuing the carnage in the Middle East SHOULD BE a wake-up call to Americans about how far afield our government has become. But little if any press is devoted to that subject, because the press has become an advertising medium that requires an atmosphere of detachment and self-c0ntained bliss in order to maximize sales. It is the press, and mainstream media, who must be held accountable for this awful vacuum of compassion and sanity created in our name. The real wake-up call will come when the American people are held accountable by those whom our self-absorbed neglect has brought to our doorstep.
The reason we invadedTue, 08/26/2008 - 20:08 — radline9 (not verified) The reason we invaded Afghanistan was to stop the Taliban from giving sanctuary to Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaida. That was accomplished in the first month of the war. Now we are there because as soon as we leave, the Taliban will take over again. Al Qaida has fled to lawless regions in Pakistan along the Afghan border. President Bush signed a treaty with Pakistan that essentially makes it impossible for us to capture Al Qaida in Pakistan. We might as well withdraw our troops because like in Iraq, they are sitting ducks and all we can accomplish has been accomplished. The current administration seem to be fine with having ongoing endless meaningless war.
Make no mistake this is a vote about America and the world view of America.
This is not a vote about John McCain. This is not a vote about Barack Obama. This is a vote about America. This is a vote about whether America is ready. Make no mistake this is a vote about the world’s view
of America. Is our freedom a lie? Or, do you mean, and are you about what you say you believe.
The world has lived through so many instances of America saying one thing and doing the opposite. You all know what I am talking about.
A lot of people are going to leave.
All you so-called liberals. All you so-called “I am not a racist”. Let me tell you this election is about RACE. It is not so because anyone injected race (or played the race card). It’s about race because Barack Obama is Black and John McCain is White.
So when you go into that voting booth, and your hand starts shaking, and you get all nervous and confused; you must ignore any programming that prevents you from voting for Barack Obama. Well yes, do the opposite. Vote for Barack Obama as the first openly elected and known African-American President of the United States.
