Organizing for America | My Own Personal Audacity: Lighten Up!

Lighten Up!

By Brian S. - Mar 16th, 2007 at 3:27 am EDT

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Tags: barack obama, current events, humor, news, politics

In a campaign, passions run high and principles are important. I understand that. I feel that. But sometimes we need to step back a little, take a deep breath and keep the finish line in sight. Visualize Victory!

Sometimes our passion about specific principles can be so intense that we shoot ourselves in the foot and defeat our own purpose. A perfect example is Ralph Nader. He claims to be so "principled" about the environment and consumers, but ALL he ended up doing by running for President in 2000 was get George Bush elected!! ...the exact OPPOSITE of what would have furthered his "causes." Rather than support Gore, who was obviously most aligned with his own positions, he decided to fight "the good fight" and handed us Bush on an oil-soaked styrofoam platter - thanks a lot, Ralph!

That's why I sometimes get frustrated with gay & lesbian activists who INSIST that every Democratic candidate clearly articulate exactly where they stand on "gay issues." Now, I'm certainly not putting down gay activists. They do a lot of important work and I admire and commend them. But I also feel that sometimes it's important to leave well enough alone and accept the country we live in ~ at least for a moment. I know where Barack stands on gay issues and how hard he would work for our community; most importantly in NOT working AGAINST our community. I've read, listened to, and watched his speeches and I know his voting record. I don't think he HAD to say that he believes that homosexuality is not immoral in response to General Pace's comments (although he since HAS). We really don't NEED to get that specific all the time. We don't NEED to hand the opposition every piece of ammunition. He's on our side - give him a break!

So before we force every candidate to watch gay porn and then declare how beautiful it is, let's be grateful that we have such an extraordinary candidate to rally behind! I am gay, but that's not ALL I am. I'm also a Christian, a consumer, an environmentalist, a ONE campaign supporter (www.one.org), and a person who wants healthcare for everyone, better education for ALL our children, more respect for our nation around the world, and an end to this STUPID WAR! I KNOW that Obama is the best man to do ALL these things, so I'm not going to force him to articulate every minute detail if it might POSSIBLY lead to another four tortuous years of a Republican President. I can't take that - I'll move to Europe, I swear!

And one more thing...what is up Al Sharpton's crawl? Yes, he needs to scrutinize each candidate, and, no, we don't expect him to support someone JUST because they're black, blah blah blah...but does he have to have such an EDGE in his voice when he discusses Barack? Does he really need to use that TONE? He really sounds like the Oscar-loser talking about how wonderful it is just to be nominated. It sounds reasonable, but you can tell they just don't MEAN it. Not REALLY...They're really just pissed off and jealous and want to scratch the winner's eyes out but they have to smile and sound magnanimous! There, I said it...

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By Billy RENObama! Mar 16th 2007 at 5:12 am EDT

Great post, Brian,

It is important to understand that Nader did not take away the votes from Gore. Gore won the popular vote. And if the Supreme Court hadn't intervened in a state's sovereign right to recount its votes by its own law, Gore would have won the electorate. The counties that were denied a recount were solidly black, solidly Democratic. Estimates show Gore's win in Florida would have been significant.

This is also not a supposed to be a two-party system. The best democracies in the world have all of the people represented in some measure. When Greens win 15% of the vote, 15% of the legislature is then made up of Greens. Not in the US where the winner takes all. And sadly, the winner these days is $$.

Al Gore has gone very green since 2000. Much greener than he was under Clinton which is why a lot of us went green. Clinton-Gore had the chance to offer legislation on the environment, and the truth is, sadly, Bush has done more for the environment in many ways--though really screwing things up in other ways. And certainly he has done more for AIDS world-wide than Clinton-Gore.

We may have been in a similar situation in Iraq if Gore were Pres. Bosh, you say? Read Scott Ritter's letter. Link He was there. It was the Clinton administration that began the war on Iraq. It was the Clinton administration that began telling lies about Saddam. And it is Lieberman, Gore's running mate, who is the war's biggest Democrat supporter in the Senate, to this day being the swing vote in favor of it.

Finally, Nader not only claims to be principled on consumer issues, his entire life has been devoted to it. In the 1960s it was proven that seatbelts saved lives by an astounding percentage. When the information came out in study after study, the country expected the auto industry to implement seatbelts in every car. They did not. They cried like they are crying now: "We can't do that. That would cost us too much money. That's too hard to do. We'd have to retool all of our factories. Our profits would fall. Our investors will be mad. We don't want to. We aren't going to."

Thanks to Ralph's tireless efforts with the Congress which took years, we have seatbelts in every car mandated by the Congress simply because it was not only the right thing to do, it was the ONLY thing to do. The lives of hundreds of thousands of people have been saved. If it weren't for Ralph, there STILL wouldn't be seatbelts in cars. And your drinking water would be far worse than it is.

I would far rather have had Nader in office than either Bush or Gore. I heard Ralph speak in Oakland in 2000. I am tellling you the thousands of people there were very charged up. All that he had to say was intelligent for the US and for the world. With him there would have been no 9/11 I am near certain, because he would have immediatley started to withdraw the troops from Saudi Arabia, the stated reason Al Qaeda hit the US. He would have immediately put a Middle East plan on the map that would have resulted in a two-state peaceful solution with Syria, Saudia, Iran and Iraq, Egypt Israel and Turkey working together on solutions.

I have only once in my life voted for the lesser of two evils. I will never do it again. I will always vote for the person I think would best lead the country.

Luckily the excitement Nander instilled for many of us is back. Barack Obama is the most exciting thing to happen to politics since Kennedy. He MUST become President. And isn't interesting that Ralph feels the same way? He has declared that if Hillary gets the Dem nom he will run. And rightly he should, I say. She is not a friend of Democrats. I believe Hillary would be a HUGE mistake for this country. But when Barack gets the nomination you will see Ralph on the floor looking up and applauding.

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By Brian S. Mar 16th 2007 at 11:27 am EDT

I hope you're right about Nader not running if Obama wins the nomination, but that remains to be seen. I completely agree with what you say about Obama, however, I don't see how anyone can deny that if Nader hadn't run, Florida wouldn't have even been close, and the Supreme Court and all the re-counts wouldn't have even been necessary. Of course Nader took most of his votes from Gore. You really think Republicans voted for him?! or all his votes were people who wouldn't have otherwise voted? That sounds like a very convenient rationalization Nader came up with so he doesn't have to feel guilty. The inconvenient truth IS that he gave us Bush. Period...

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By Richard4Obama Mar 17th 2007 at 9:26 am EDT

I enjoyed your blog ... and appreciate your take on the ascendency of Barack Obama. I can honestly say that, although I am a political junkie from way back, I have never been this excited about a candidate this early in the game. Barack is a sensation, yes ... but he is much, much more as those of us who follow his campaign and know is record are aware. I don't blog much, but let me use this opportunity to strongly recommend Obama's second book, The Audacity of Hope. If every American read that book, he would be elected by near acclamation! (Well, save for those folks adhered by the glue of righteousness to their right-wing church pews.)

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By Rev Bry Feb 17th 2008 at 10:00 pm EST

amen.

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By Rev Bry Mar 10th 2008 at 4:24 am EDT

Why I won’t vote for hillary:
WASHINGTON (CNN) – Three times may make a trend: for the third primary/caucus night in a row, Hillary Clinton has taken the stage at a post-election rally and failed to mention her losses, or congratulate her winning opponent, Barack Obama.
She spent Tuesday night at a rally in Youngstown, Ohio, looking ahead to the primary there on March 4. She made no mention of Wisconsin.
Last Tuesday in El Paso, Texas, hours after getting swept in the Potomac primaries that night, she didn’t acknowledge her rival’s big day. The Saturday before that in Richmond, Virginia, she spoke at the state’s Jefferson-Jackson Dinner and ignored Obama’s string of four primary and caucus wins that day.
It’s one thing to be a sore loser, it’s quite another not to thank those who have worked so hard for you.

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