I attended a Platform meeting at Waikele Starbucks where 5 including myself reported.  I was impressed with the energy of those that took part.  Unfortunately the organizer did not show , but we were able to have a lively discussion and come up with a few Idea's.  A solid platform was not decided upon but we talked about the imminent 'change' that is about to happen.  Fred, Lanny, Lester, CC and myself pondered candidate McCain and found him to be following Barack Obama's lead.  It is hard to give up old habits, as they say.  America's dependence on oil HAS TO "CHANGE"!!  We would like to propose an even more expedited plan to switch to GREEN energy alternatives ASAP!  The governmental LEED(Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design)program should start building 90% efficient housing developments by next year!  We've had the technology for years!  Let's implement this "Change' NOW!

Posted on: 6/20/2008

A response to Peter Mandelson’s recent pro-globalisation article in the Guardian from Kamran Mofid, founder of Globalisation for the Common Good Initiative.

18th June 08 -  Kamran Mofid ~ STWR

Perhaps EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson lives in another century. Writing in the Guardian on 9th June 2008 he proclaimed that “Globalisation is good ”, as though globalisation were all about trade, production, consumption, labour market flexibility, open markets, and financial integration, with the likes of the WTO and the IMF helping to make globalisation ever more globalised!

...in our intense focus upon the "by the people" part of the formula, we forget that what we said was:

"...government of the people, by the people and, for the people..."

 

The ONLY way of guaranteeing ALL three is by voting for Barack Hussein Obama!

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow, this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.

The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

A major portion of America's problems stems from its inability, unwillingness(?) to keep in step with the rest of the world where updating/instituting laws governing social behavior is concerned. This reluctance, perhaps, springs from the widely-held notion that American values of today are/ought to be no different from those held by the Founding Fathers. They established America, having fled from the tyranny of medieval England. However, America, today, is not the America of the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries: she is now a cosmopolitan country, in a modern world, a world where, for her to survive, she needs must interact with the rest of the rapidly-shrinking global village.

How long, then, will she continue to insist that her constituional provisions must not/cannot be touched/revisited to make it an offence for some of her citizens to offend the sensibilities of some others and, by extension, the countries and cultures from which those others came, such as an unfettered First Amendment permits?

Yes, I agree that there are laws which designated certain actions to be "hate crimes", yet, none can doubt that there's a lot more, legislatively, that has to be done to permit multi-ethnic America to feel comfortable with itself.

Barack Hussein Obama's epic odyssey has emphasized the urgency of such need, for we still see him having bristingly to  defend himself against persistent inuendos that he is a Muslim, a reality which, I'm afraid, highlights the derision with which Islam, by and large, is held in this potentially-again great nation, though it be a religion practiced by over 1.5 billion people all over the world.

It's my take, then, that some tweaking of the First Amendment is long overdue and that, in the instant such is done, America would have taken the first step towards [re]gaining the world's respect, which, unfortunately, presently, she does not have.

Our group had 9 today and we spread over New Albany, Gahanna, and Columbus today registering people.  My wife and I started the day at the North Market in the Short North at 9am-11:00am. We registered around 4 people and we probably around $100 in donations in exchange for buttons and more volunteers.  Two others in our group were at a farmers market in Jefferson township and I think they got 8 registrations.  We went to apartments in Gahanna around the Morse area, where the 8 of us with our great Obama rep Dan collected around 20 registrations along with more than a few new volunteer signups. We were down around 3pm and it was in the 90s and sunny here in Columbus, OH.

 On a sad note, we were very quickly kicked out of the main apartment we wanted to go to: The Vista at Rocky Fork. We actually lived there for a year last year and we knew it well.  It was perfect grounds for registering voters since it is a HUGE apartment complex and it was one of the least expensive in the area with a lot of young people.  We had two start while the rest of us walked back to find our starting locations, when a car pulled off and yelled at us.  It was the maintenance guy and he said we had to get off their land.  They said we were solicating but we said we were not and registering (it is not soliciting at least in Ohio).  He told us " WE CAN DO IT THE EASY WAY OR THE HARD WAY" and we were only trying to ask questions.  We said we were registering all people not just Dems and we said he won't advocate a candidate.  We talked to the manager and he was rude to Dan (our Obama leader).  The manager would not listen to any reasoning and told us we were going to be ARRESTED if we didn't leave right away.  We of course left, but we were upset since I had lived there and we had countless people come to our doors and they never told them.  It was even worse since we actually got 2 new voters in the first 5 minutes and there are probably a 1000 people in that apartment complex

Hey everyone! You probably have seen this before, but I will post it anyways for those who don't know :D The Obama site has a pretty nifty "Fight the Smear" page you should check out. I always consult it to dispell the latest Rebublican-spun smear fresh off the Rush Limbaugh rumor mill.

 Happy Obama supporting everyone and don't forget to BARACK THE VOTE!!

 GO-BAMA!!!

 http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/fightthesmearshome

Obama made this 3-point basket while visiting with troops in Kuwait.  He is too cool.  Watch video here.

These recent changes of course in US foreign policy are more than welcomed because it is the right thing to do.  However, it politically kills John McCain because he has slammed Barack Obama for proposing these exact measures on all three issues.  

TO APPEASE OR NOT TO APPEASE…UMM, WHAT IS THE QUESTION?

McCain has repeatedly slammed Obama for his willingness to open up diplomatic channels with antagonistic regimes.  McCain was assisted by Bush in May when the President spoke before the Israeli Congress (Knesset).  Bush stated:

“Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history." 

The fact that President Bush misunderstands what appeasement means is no real surprise- he is, in fact, a complete dipshit.  The reality is that negotiations and diplomacy are not appeasement as insinuated by Bush.  To appease you must give something away, ie the Sudetenland to those naughty Germans.  Diplomacy on the other hand is the employment of tact to gain strategic advantage.  It allows civilizations to avoid open conflict and serves as the framework by which all nations can negotiate with one another.  Following the two great world wars it became apparent that if international diplomacy was not the guiding force in international relations then another world conflict could not be avoided.  The utilization of diplomatic channels since the Second World War has served as the core element in what has been the most peaceful era in world history amongst major world powers.    

McCain probably spilled his prune juice when he heard Bush was sending a high level US diplomat to sit down with the Iranians, something Obama has been espousing all along.  In fact, this is the second time the Bush Administration has used negotiations to deal with one of the Axis of Evil- the North Koreans demolished their nuclear facility this year after negotiations with the United States.  The Bush Administration deserves credit for these two moves, however late in the game they may be, and I hope we can finally bury the hawkish attitude that diplomacy is bad policy.

IRAQ

Barack Obama has stated for years that we should have never went into Iraq and has repeatedly commented that once President he will find a way to dislodge us from that expensive exercise in nation building.  Obama has also repeatedly stated that our withdrawal from Iraq must be orderly and responsible and that we would reserve the right to defend ourselves with military might if evidence appeared that terrorists were plotting against the United States from within Mesopotamia.  In 2007 Obama proposed a plan to withdrawal one to two brigades a month once he was in office.  Both George Bush and John McCain have repeatedly attacked Obama for this position.  McCain stated, “We must…reject the calls for a reckless and irresponsible withdrawal of our forces just at the moment they are succeeding.”

McCain’s zealous commitment to this failed Iraq policy might leave in the desert for one hundred years but Bush has already started to draw down troops due to pressure from Congress, the Pentagon and Afghanistan.  In fact, Admiral Mike Mullen, the Pentagon’s top military officer said this past Wednesday that he is likely to recommend further troop reductions in Iraq this fall.  So will McCain now come out and bash the leading military man at the Pentagon for wanting to recklessly and irresponsibly withdrawal our forces?  Nah, McCain will just change positions on yet another issue and hope no one is paying attention- unfortunately for him we are!

AFGHANISTAN: LET’S FINISH THE JOB

As far back as August 2007 Barack Obama has been calling for more troops in Afghanistan.  Obama then stated in a speech before the Wilson Center, “As President, I would deploy at least two additional brigades to Afghanistan to re-enforce our counter-terrorism operations . . ."   Obama reiterated that point this June when he said, “If we're going to catch bin Laden or most importantly break down al Qaeda, which have reconstituted itself as stronger now than anytime since 2001, we've got to have the capacity to put more troops in Afghanistan."  Obama’s assessment of Afghanistan has been absolutely right over the past few years while the likes of George W Bush and John McCain have only paid lip service to our accomplishments there.  

This is where the terror plots to strike the Pentagon and the World Trade Center were organized and this is where Osama Bin Laden set up base camp for his terrorist network.  Obama has been right to criticize Bush for allowing the Iraqi distraction to take our eyes off the true threat to the United States and you would think the supposed foreign policy expert, John McCain, would have seen the writing on the wall.  McCain was wrong yet again but never fail, there is always the opportunity to flip-flop, which McCain has yet again exercised.  Two years after Obama stated that we need more US troops in Afghanistan, McCain has now called for the same policy.  Check out this ABC News link for more on the McCain flop:   http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/07/mccain-shifts-p.html

What kind of world do we live in where the Bush Administration is starting to incorporate the policy proposals outlined by Barack Obama?  I’ll tell you what world- one where John McCain’s last thread of credibility is snapped and Barack Obama becomes the next President of the United States.

Essex County Kids for Obama presents the Bottle Cap Drive. When recycled, bottle caps are thrown in the ocean and sea creatures choke and die because of them. So the members of this successfull group have decided to collect caps. I think everyone, Obama supporters or not, should participate in this program. Please everybody: COLLECT THOSE BOTTLE CAPS!!

Thanks

Picture from: http://images.cafepress.com/image/26273671_400x400.jpg

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I've come across a couple of informative posts about platform meetings so I am going to post a couple of links on my blog to those.  The first is an outcome of a California meeting.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/michaelmckinsey/gGx7Ys

The next is a link to Women for Obama which has addresses to plug into your browser for 1992 and 2004 Democrat Party Platforms 

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/marianne%20in%20massachusetts/gGx79n

John McCain was asked, hypothetically, what we should do if a sovereign Iraqi governement asks us to leave, even if we are unhappy about the security situation there.  His answer?  "I think it's obvious that we would have to leave because— if it was an elected government of Iraq— and we've been asked to leave other places in the world. If it were an extremist government, then I think we would have other challenges, but I don't see how we could stay when our whole emphasis and policy has been based on turning the Iraqi government over to the Iraqi people."

His caveat:  "if it was an elected governement"

It is (in case anyone was wondering).

Also, from that same interview (but not quite to the point), John McCain says that "if we do it right, that's not going to happen,"   I'm pretty sure he's talking about the Iraqi government asking us to leave and I have to wonder, why wouldn't they?  However, this particular point is moot since, according to  Mr. Maliki, the prime minister of Iraq, they want us to start withdrawing--and sooner rather than later. 

 “Those who operate on the premise of short time periods in Iraq today are being more realistic," he is quoted as saying.  "Artificially prolonging the tenure of U.S. troops in Iraq would cause problems.”

I don't hear any more talk from McCain about a "hundred years" in Iraq or that "we will be there militarily for a long, long, long time."  Instead, he's defining his victory by "our commitment to making sure we withdraw according to conditions on the ground.”

Nice flip-flop (Reality bites doesn't it John?)