Soon as we got a Democrat in the White House, a bunch of Senators claiming to be Democrats rushed to show how independent they are, declaring they won’t necessarily vote in support of the President’s agenda that he was elected to enact. As a Hoosier, I’ll put Indiana’s Evan Bayh (pronounced “Bye” or “Buy”) at the top of the list.
Mr. Obama is right to allow politicians to vote their “consciences” (oxymoron is obvious). Where he’s wrong is in promising to raise money for them. I won’t give one penny to support ANY Senator who fails to toe the line and earnestly help the President do what he promised. Many promises were made. If they’re not kept because Democrats in the Senate support powerful banks and other lobbies against the people who support Mr. Obama’s agenda, then Bayh-Bayh to them come the primary.
If self-described Democrats in the Senate refuse to push through the President’s agenda, then it’s up to us to FIND SOMEONE WHO WILL. I won’t give money to or raise money for Evan Bayh or Arlen Spector or any of the approximately eight others who have declared themselves “independent” of this cause.
They want our money and votes only to betray us to the powerful lobbyists who own them. We need to start work right now finding better people to run against them in the primaries and start raising the money they’ll need to win.
We kept McCain and Palin out of the White House. We certain can put Bayh, Specter and those other eight “independent” Democrats OUT of the Senate. CHANGE is coming to America.
Rupert Murdoch and his Faux News netword have every right to refuse to air the president’s news conference touting his first 100 days in office.
The White House has every right to refuse to grant press credentials and access to the White House press area to “Fox News”, not out of any retaliation but ONLY because the company really does not meet the requirements to be defined or qualified and journalists.
Even now, when the president’s remarks haven’t been written, we all can predict the Fox News response and “analysis”. That’s not news, it certainly isn’t analysis, and it is even a response because it’s prepared BEFORE the statement it claims to be answering.
We have every right to boycott Murdoch's businesses and their subsidiaries and programs.
The Pickens Plan: For those who would like to become an active participant in a solution for our nations energy needs I urge you to join with T.Boone Pickens in his quest for a cleaner planet through alternative energy.
Also see Green Wave Energy: Green Wave was founded by Mark Holmes and was formulated for viable alternative energy solutions. Green Wave Energy is promoting state-of-the-art energy-saving products and services throughout the country.
Green Wave Energy understands alternative energy technology will become “main stream” when
Call 949.645.1701 for information on how Green Wave Energy can help you save the planet.
Alternative EnergySource: David Apperson
url: http://veterans.barackobama.com/page/community/tag/alternative-energy
Aberdeen * Alcester * Alexandria * Arlington * Armour * Ashton * Avon * Baltic * Belle Fourche * Beresford * Big Stone City * Blunt * Bonesteel * Bowdle * Box Elder * Brandon * Bridgewater * Bristol * Britton * Brookings * Bruce * Bryant * Burke * Canistota * Canton * Carthage * Castlewood * Centerville * Central City * Chamberlain * Clark * Clear Lake * Colman * Colome * Colton * Columbia * Conde * Corsica * Crooks * Custer * Deadwood * Dell Rapids * Delmont * De Smet * Doland * Dupree * Eagle Butte * Edgemont * Egan * Elk Point * Elkton * Emery * Estelline * Eureka * Faith * Faulkton * Flandreau * Fort Pierre * Frankfort * Freeman * Garretson * Gary * Geddes * Gettysburg * Gregory * Groton * Harrisburg * Hartford * Hecla * Herreid * Highmore * Hill City * Hitchcock * Hosmer * Hot Springs * Howard * Hurley * Huron * Ipswich * Irene * Iroquois * Jefferson * Kadoka * Kimball * Kosmos * Lake Andes * Lake Norden * Lake Preston * Lead * Lemmon * Lennox * Leola * McIntosh * McLaughlin * Madison * Marion * Martin * Mellette * Menno * Milbank * Miller * Mission * Mitchell * Mobridge * Montrose * Mount Vernon * Murdo * Newell * New Underwood * North Sioux City * Oldham * Onida * Parker * Parkston * Philip * Pierre * Plankinton * Platte * Presho * Rapid City * Redfield * Roscoe * Salem * Scotland * Selby * Sioux Falls * Sisseton * Spearfish * Spencer * Springfield * Sturgis * Tea * Timber Lake * Tripp * Tyndall * Valley Springs * Veblen * Vermillion * Viborg * Volga * Wagner * Watertown * Waubay * Webster * Wessington * Wessington Springs * White * White Lake * White River * Whitewood * Willow Lake * Wilmot
The first amendment"all men are created equal"
So to all those who think bigotry is over let me remind you, that if you voted in CA,FL or AZ and voted against gay rights YOU NEED TO CHECK YOUR CONSCIOUS....
Especially after watching the people crying on TV saying I cant believe this finally happened about Barack being elected...HOW DID YOU VOTE IN CA OR FL... I guess gay people are not considered people to you.....
Religion is not part of the constitution and after 200 years of waiting for a black president its mind boggling how so many of you had no problem discriminating against another minority..
We are NOT one......yet .... as Barack has hoped .... it is truly staggering to me how one minority can discriminate against another as the vote showed in CA and FL..... when the black vote was 70-30 to take away gay rights on the props....
yep .... how soon people forget what they are voting for ..i guess they cant even remember after they voted for the president, in the election booth....
For all of you who feel gays are not people according to the first amendment....remember how you feel when you are discriminated against and the thoughts that ran through your own minds on why you weren't considered as good as anyone else....
Im white... alot of my friends are white and we all voted for Barack and never even considered race..... but after the election it really became evident amidst all the hoopla on TV that these same people I watched crying in happiness had no problem taking away the rights of another minority....
Its truly amazing....listening to all the people on TV so happy when there is another minority who was thrown under the bus without a second thought...
Originaly posted at http://www.clmitchell.net/main-weblogs32/ofthepeople65/276-art-colorissueusa.html
I am white. My mother's great grandfather (surname Cunningham) was Irish/Scottish. I am black. I have Americans of African descent on both sides of my family who suffered under slavery.I am Native-American. My great-great grandfather on my mother's side married a Native-American. My great-great grandmother on my father's side was also Native-American.These are my known heritages. If I were able to go back through my family tree far enough, I have no doubt that there would be some surprises waiting for me.Like most of you, I have experienced the insanity and seduction of prejudice and bigotry. In the Bible God Himself is quoted as saying "Man[kind] looks at the outward appearance" (1st Samuel 16:7). As a student of history I have read of the challenges and biases faced by all three of my bloodlines down through the halls of time.That is why, as I was driving to work 05-Nov-2008, after Barack Obama won the Presidential election of the United States, I found myself crying. After 400 years of waging war against the psychological stigma of being seen as second-class citizens, our perseverance as blacks has been vindicated.As whites we have finally stood up, and in one single event we have reached out our hands to our African-American citizens and said "You have a right to be here."And, though perhaps indirectly, we as Native-Americans have finally found the strength to once again begin to participate in and sew the seeds of ancient truth and wisdom in a society that had almost lost its way.It goes without saying that the struggle for equality is not yet over; but a major victory for peace and justice between our peoples has been won, and will be long-remembered by us and our descendants.
It is a one step process.
It has to be symbolic of everything Senator Obama has talked about from the beginning to the end of this fascinating campaign.
Starting immediately, we need to have the maps across America that shows blue states, changed to Red, White & blue.
Senator Obama has said, we are NOT red America, we are NOT Blue America, we are the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!
So, change the blue to red, white & blue!
Who would want to vote any other way?
Change
Forty-seven years ago, President John F. Kennedy said, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. Well, that was 47 years ago! Times have changed. America’s economy has changed from stable to be unstable.
It is time the words of our late President reflect the change urgency of now. I have revised the quote to reflect the changing times we live. It now reads:
Ask not what you can do for your country.
Ask your country what can it do for you?
America has changed from stable to hope
We need Congress to change
We need the Senate to change
We need the house on Capital Hill to change
Americas’ leaders must acknowledge that our nation has changed and does not reflect the vision of the real change America deserves.
We must take action to change the wrong we live today, right.
This is not the change Roosevelt imagined!
This is not the change JFK imagined!
This is not the change Martin Luther King imagined!
This is not the change my grandfather, grandmother, mother, father, brother, sister, friend, and neighbor imagined!
This is not how I imagined change!
Martin Luther King, President Roosevelt, and Kennedy were great men all on the trails of great paths, and something went wrong, because they were all righteous men. I don’t think all of those people could have been wrong. And what you are thinking is right, they were not wrong!
What is wrong is the failed change of the Bush Presidency!
We are living the wrong change with the wrong leaders!
We are living for helping the rich change!
We are living for corrupt companies and unrighteous Ceo’s to live their change
We are living for change supporting a failed and squalling Presidency of a shameful George Bush, an administration that proud his change that destroyed the real change America deserves.
We are living a fail Bush Presidency that destroyed the changes and legacy of these great men! This was an awful pursuit, and embarrassment for America. What an awful change. What an ungrateful George Bush!
It is time for all that to change. It is time we lead Americans to live the change America deserves.
To start we will elect a righteous leader to lead our country in the right direction. It is time to elect a leader who believes in family values and principles. It is time to live the change you believe you want to live.
It is time to change America!
It is time to change.
Change!
America needs change more than ever!
And the leader that will help change America is Barack Obama!
He has proved his success as a United States Senator and he has called upon the wisdom of Joe Biden to help him address America’s problems. Together they will guide America and will help us achieve the real change Martin L. King envisioned.
They will help us achieve the real change President Roosevelt envisioned!
They will help us achieve the real change JFK envisioned!
But they cannot do it alone. Believe me, when I say your vote is needed to support the change we want, and the change we need to rebuild this country.
I am hearing people say: what about the smoker’s right? What about the non-smokers rights? What about the green party’s rights, what about the Republicans rights? What about the rights of democrats. We all have rights. That is not what it means to vote my fellow Americans.
Voting is not an instrument to justify personal habits and personal needs and addictions we inflict upon ourselves. Voting is for mature citizens of our great country. It is your mature, righteous vote that will determine the results of one nations effort to unite justice for all Americans. Just as the late, President Kennedy said: In your hands, my fellow citizen, more than in mine, will rest the final success or failure of our course.
On November 4, 2008, All Americans will be summoned to give testimony to its national loyalty! Your vote is more than just an action to elect our next President of the United States. It is packaged like the seed of the great Sequoia plus more. The moment you cast your vote, the package will sprout, root and grow, to change the course of your history, and will forever, exist, counted.
The change we seek will require all neighbors to join Democratic Party to oppose aggression or subversion anywhere in the Americas. Like Kennedy, Obama personifies humility, and the righteousness of a great leader. He has demonstrated he will not negotiate out of fear, and will not fear to negotiate for the change we need.
Martin Luther King reminded America of the fierce urgency of now, so I remind you. Now is the time to make real promises of democracy! Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice! Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children. Now is the time for change! It is your time, with your hands to vote for Barack Obama!
We should not allow racism to lead us to distrust of all people. The change we seek is self-evidence that all our presence here today gives proof we have come to realize that our destiny is their destiny and their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom
Now our dreams are their dreams!
Our hopes are their hopes!
This is the vision of the Martin Luther King I know!
This is Americas dream!
America is a great nation.
The change we seek will come true!
We will all sing the words of the great Martin Luther king!
Let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire!
Let freedom ring from the land of Lincoln
Let freedom ring from Minnesota
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi
From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, when we all allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men, and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:
Free at last! Free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!
Thank God Almighty, we are free to change!
I know this will be true for all Americans.
A few weeks ago, I was twigged between two stones. On my right a heavy stone sinking with a sadly call from the voice of my mother, asking me to persuade the white police office from harassing my sister, and the office claiming there was a warrant out for her arrest. The calls kept coming only this time with a shrieking voice of my mother just two hours before mid night, telling me a prejudice principle that was in charge of an elementary school which my niece attended called her home while the kids were sound a sleep.
She said the principle told her my niece of age eleven threatens to bring a gun to school to harm other students. My mother knew this could not be true because my mother does not own a gun and my niece has never seen a weapon that would deliver such a destruction. A third call, all with in one week after moving to Lino Lakes Minnesota. My mother’s voice filled with no hope tells me that my younger brother was pulled over by the police, they suspended his license.
Now it is very difficult for him to get to work. Public transportation does not operate hours convenient for him.
Later that week I found out, they were subjects of authorities loyal to racism, born of darkness, haters of right, relentless haters in their efforts to destroy a changing America.
On the other side swells a stone so great, breathing is complicated for me, because on this side presses against me calls from every direction of our nation, Americans calling upon me to fight for their Civil Liberties, Black, White, Latino, Italian, Russian, Polish, and so on and on, and on. The cries are endless. I feel mangled, broken, torn.
I felt it would be easier for me to die than to decide. I could only think about how many sons and daughter are challenged with similar decisions. I thought, God, why have you given me these burdens. What have I not done to please you? I thought; Lord, you can’t be serious to expect me to challenge this path of anger, prejudice, hateful taunts, and Civil Liberties of an entire nation.
The burdens were so heavy I fell asleep just thinking about it. When I woke up, I called the school and the words just flowed. Then I realized while I was asleep the lord made his words mine. He made the most difficult decision of my life courage! I realized what just happened. I was changed. Now I believe change is the will of God. And that was all the courage I needed. That is all the courage you need to vote righteously. Pray to your God and he will inspire you to make the right choice.
Meanwhile, find your way to www.obama.com. Explore the wealth of information to learn more than you need to know about your candidate Barack Obama and the hopeful new vice President Joe Biden. Learn about them as much as you can, just as I have done. You will learn just as I have learned, their voices are real and their actions are inspiring.
Their will is Gods’ will. They seek change for righteousness to rain upon all of Gods’ children. They have summoned God Almighty to share the wealth with all of Gods’ children and not just a few. Their prayers are righteous prayers.
Although I have never met Obama, he is my mentor, my inspiration, and my political advisor. Obama is real to me. He will be forever welcomed in my home. He is my friend; he is my brother’s keeper.
Thank you Barack for awakening my sleep. Thank you for motivating me to respond to Gods voice. For he has inspired me to help you, help America live the right change.
Sincerely,
Marcail Parker
Gocachi LLC
This is one of the best speeches made by anyone on the delicate subject of race and racism in this current presidential campaign. Below is the transcript of AFL-CIO's Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka. Enjoy the piece.
Peace,
Leslye J Allen
There's only one really bad reason to vote against him: because he's not white.
And I want to talk about that because I saw that for myself during the Pennsylvania primary.
I went back home to vote in Nemacolin and I ran into a woman I'd known for years. She was active in Democratic politics when I was still in grade school.
We got to talking and I asked if she'd made up her mind who she was supporting and she said: 'Oh absolutely, I'm voting for Hillary, there's no way I'd ever vote for Obama.'
Well, why's that? 'Because he's a Muslim.'
I told her, 'That's not true -- he's as much a Christian as you and me, so what if he's muslim.'
Then she shook her head and said, 'He won't wear an American flag pin.'
I don't have one on and neither do you.
But, 'C'mon, he wears one plenty of times. He just says it takes more than wearing a flag pin to be patriotic.'
'Well, I just don't trust him.'
Why is that?
Her voice dropped just a bit: 'Because he's black.'
I said, 'Look around. Nemacolin's a dying town. There're no jobs here. Kids are moving away because there's no future here. And here's a man, Barack Obama, who's going to fight for people like us and you won't vote for him because of the color of his skin.'
Brothers and sisters, we can't tap dance around the fact that there are a lot of folks out there just like that woman.
A lot of them are good union people; they just can't get past this idea that there's something wrong with voting for a black man. Well, those of us who know better can't afford to look the other way.
I'm not one for quoting dead philosophers, but back in the 1700s, Edmund Burke said: 'All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.' Well, there's no evil that's inflicted more pain and more suffering than racism -- and it's something we in the labor movement have a special responsibility to challenge.
It's our special responsibility because we know, better than anyone else, how racism is used to divide working people.
We've seen how companies set worker against worker -- how they throw whites a few extra crumbs off the table and how we all end up losing.
But we've seen something else, too. We've seen that when we cross that color line and stand together no one can keep us down.
That's why the CIO was created. That's why industrial unions were the first to stand up against lynching and segregation. People need to know that it was the Steel Workers Organizing Committee -- this union -- that was founded on the principal of organizing all workers without regard to race. That's why the labor movement -- imperfect as we are -- is the most integrated institution in American life.
I don't think we should be out there pointing fingers in peoples' faces and calling them racist; instead we need to educate them that if they care about holding on to their jobs, their health care, their pensions, and their homes -- if they care about creating good jobs with clean energy, child care, pay equity for women workers -- there's only going to be one candidate on the ballot this fall who's on their side... only one candidate who's going to stand up for their families... only one candidate who's earned their votes... and his name is Barack Obama!
And come November we are going to elect him president.
And after he's elected we are going to hit the ground running so that, years from now, we're going to be able to tell our grandchildren that 2008 was the year this country finally turned its back on men like George Bush and Dick Cheney and John McCain.
We're going to be able to say that 2008 was the year we started ending the war in Iraq so we could use that money to create new jobs building wind generators, solar collectors, clean coal technology and retrofitting millions of buildings all across this country
We're going to be able to look back and say that 2008 was the year the tide began to turn against the Rush Limbaughs, the Bill O'Reillys, the Ann Coulters and the right wing hate machine."
Watch him at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QIGJTHdH50&eurl=http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/10/1/22234/6599/102/617219
The white working-class has arguably been the most powerful political and social force in America for the last sixty years. The last forty years of American history reflect, to a great extent, the social and political evolution of the white working-class. During this period, the government of the United States has been patently responsive to their sensibilities and to their needs. In this, as in past election cycles, the white working-class has the power to shape America ’s future. So why is this powerful demographic suffering with increasing unemployment and underemployment, vanishing pensions, foreclosures, bankruptcies from medical costs and spiraling debt, and a host of other social problems?
On the domestic front, the white working-class is a powerful voting bloc capable of determining electoral outcomes and shaping social policy. They have delivered seven of the last ten Presidential elections to the Republican Party. In the 1990s, the white working-class decried affirmative action and welfare (as we knew it), and both policies were radically reformed or eviscerated. They initially supported the war in Iraq , and President Bush used their support to entrench the United States military in that troubled country. So why does this powerful voting bloc feel so vulnerable?
The issues and rallying cries du-jour have come and gone, but the most enduring and prickliest issue for a large cross-section of white working-class Americans has been the assimilation of minorities into the fabric of America . For the last forty years, working-class whites from certain regions of the country have resisted the assimilation of minorities in ever subtler ways. Enmity and resentment of minorities have nonetheless dissociated many working-class whites from their core economic, political, and social interests. Politically, they have consistently been on the winning side, but they have conversely lost almost everything they have inherited from their New Deal era precursors.
Though this phenomenon has been recast by pundits and politicians as fundamentally an issue of values or as the “culture war,” the issue is fundamentally an issue of race. The issue has, and may continue to reflect, a struggle over what it means to be an American and who the “real” Americans are. That is why, in this election cycle, as decades of de-regulation have the U.S. economy on the brink of disaster, and with the first non-white male candidate running for the Presidency promising change, talk about patriotism, flag pins, who would be the “real American President,” and “country first,” dominate the political conversation.
Meanwhile, working Americans of every color are watching the American dream slip through their fingers. Why? Americans are better off when government promotes economic expansion for working Americans as well as for business and industry. America is stronger and more prosperous when the country has robust social programs, strong unions, federal and state support for public education and innovation in art and industry, and careful regulation of the country’s business and financial sectors.
After the New Deal era, unions were strong, educational and economic opportunities abounded, business and industry flourished under a balanced regulatory scheme, and working Americans prospered. But the specter of race and an amorphous sense of separateness duped many whites into thinking they could flourish without the socioeconomic context that sustained their forebears. In the sixties and seventies, growing unrest among Blacks and Hispanics clashed against the sensibilities of an increasingly arrogant and intolerant white working-class. Many from the south who had been Democrats rejected the Democratic Party’s desegregation, anti-discrimination, and equal opportunity platform, and bolted to the Republican Party. Later, busing led to white working-class antipathy for public education and soon this powerful voting bloc became hopelessly entrenched in so-called conservative orthodoxy.
But what did the deregulating and pro-business Grand Old Party have in common with working-class whites, whose parents owed their ascent to the middle class as much to government regulations and social programs as to hard work? Very little – yet with astonishing efficiency and effectiveness, the Republican Party assimilated their laissez-faire (less or no regulation) philosophy with their new southern white brethren’s platform of resistance to federal intervention to end segregation and ensure equal opportunity. Both constituents wanted less government, but for different reasons. Notwithstanding, a new era of white custodial Americanism was born. The Republican Party got the southern “Bible Belt” states for 40-years and running, and southern whites got a sense that the GOP would protect them against the assimilation of minorities into the fabric of America .
This interpretation of the last forty years of American History is typically glossed over or ignored by pundits and the media. Why? Working-class whites do not want to be told that they are driven, to a great extent, in their political decisions, by racial pride, enmity, and resentment. They do not want to accept that white privilege is growing increasingly illusory, and that in spite of their skin color, they are in the same predicament as other working-class Americans. More importantly, pundits and politicians do not want to risk white working-class ire by offering this incriminating but crucial construction of historical facts. Remember the reaction to the “bitter” and “cling” controversy.
Working class whites continue to get a pass from the pundits on their resistance to progressive change in domestic policy. Even now, while facing increasing job losses, foreclosures, bankruptcies, an under-funded and floundering educational system, and a future without pensions and retirement because of corporate greed and deregulation, they are drawn to a candidate who promises more of the same. Even now they struggle with a clear choice between the failed policies of the past and a future with universal health care, better funding for education, higher wages and better jobs, secure pensions, safer products, and a host of other incidents of modern citizenship, Europeans take for granted.
In this election cycle the white working-class again holds the future of the nation in their hands. Will they cling to the past… “Yes, cling.” Or will they embark on a bold new future and create a unified bloc of working Americans committed to reclaiming the American dream? The 2008 Presidential election will be decided on this issue.
We are facing a greater challenge this election because of many people's views on race - we cannot forget this because it means WE MUST WORK HARDER THAN EVER BEFORE to get out the vote!
See the story below:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/13658.html
Original article is posted here:
http://www.opednews.com/articles/This-is-Your-Nation-on-Whi-by-Tim-Wise-080916-307.html
For those who still can't grasp the concept of white privilege, or whoare looking for some easy-to-understand examples of it, perhaps thislist will help.
I now know why Obama struggles to cross the 50 percent threshold in this country. I used to think it was about race, and then I thought it was about elitism, but now I know what it is, Obama is a wimp. Or at least, that is the actual narrative that is being created around him. The lies, about his faith, his stance, his views, his family and his patriotism are part of a brilliant construct to brand him as a wimp, a nerd, a dork.
Think about it. Obama struggles with white working class people who did not graduate college. I am willing to bet that this group of Americans has closer identity ties with high school than the populous that goes to college. In fact, a good number of them remember high school as some of the fondest memories of their lives. I am willing to bet that they also value the same rules that apply to high school. So to understand how they look at politicians, it might be valuable to analyze the high school election environment.
There are usually three to four types of students that run for student government president. Most of them can easily catalogued in the following categories.
When I watched the Republican Convention I was struck by the fact that everyone in the audience was white. How could this be, I wondered. When I look around my neighborhood, when I go to my office, when I go to the movies, out to dinner, read the paper, I see a wide range of colors. The America I see is not white. The America I want is not white.
The world has changed and the Republicans refuse to admit it.
Obama is the realization of the change - not just in his platform, but in who he is.
On behalf of the Obama campaign, I marched with my family in the Buffalo Grove Days parade and felt a mixture of racism, hatred and inspired support from the crowd. As we shouted “Obama” many people applauded with that glint in their eye, giving us a thumbs up, proud that they were part of something greater then themselves, an amazing, historic movement for true change. But there were others (fewer in numbers) who were down right hostile. They would yell out after we said “Obama”…..“liar, “stupid” and “Muslim." Slurs that made me feel like Rosa Parks, simply wanting a seat in the front of the bus but being beaten down by hatred and fear.
Why don’t people who are racists own up to their own feelings and just simply admit that they hate Barck because he’s black? Why do they have to hide behind saying they think he's "a liar" or a "secret Muslim" or "stupid." It seems clear to me that they are simply bigoted. Why doesn't the media report and poll on the discrimination against Barack to try to uncover this terrible cancer that still brews in America?
We must get the word out that Barack Obama is as American as one can be, a true melting pot of a man, a microcosm of America, both black and white, living in the big city of Chicago yet born in the serene environment of Hawaii. He represents the breadth and depth of this land, many disparate elements that make up the man who he is today. He embodies everything America stands for. And he is a great man, who needs our vote as much as we need him to win, to help shape our country and save our world.
From walking that parade, I sense, though, that we are going to have a huge fight ahead of us. We have to get EVERY voter motivated to canvas, volunteer and of course, vote. We only had a couple of dozen people marching for Obama today in the parade. We should have had hundreds, maybe a thousand from a community our size in Illinois. We all need to fight for the best man (and the most qualified in my opinion) to ever run for President. Get involved or Sarah Palin could be our next President, not a scare tactic, but a reality that personally concerns me greatly and is among one of many elements of this campaign that caused me, after 53 years, to finally get involved in politics. It's about time YOU do too.
My sister is exactly the working class woman who supported Hillary, but hasn't shifted her support to Mr. Obama. I want to tell you about her because she and others who are like her will influence this election.She is 39, the mother of two daughters and works at a minimum wage job as a housekeeper in a hotel in Pocatello, Idaho. She barely makes enough money to cover her bills, and the rising energy and food prices are sending her into debt just to buy gas and groceries. She doesn't have time for much of anything after working a 10-hour shift, except for dinner with the kids and some urgent prayers. She hears news only from the local TV stations, which in her area are owned largely by the Mormon Church and reflect a strong Republican bias. She leans Democratic, but sees both parties as corrupt and uninterested in struggling people like her.I called her a few days ago to see how she and the girls are doing, and the subject of politics came up. She's feeling the economic pinch so hard that she vented about why such an expensive war in Iraq is allowed to continue when poor people like her are too rich for food stamps but too poor to buy food. I asked her if she supports Mr. Obama. She said, "No, sis, what I've heard on the news about him is that he is a rag head that won't salute the flag. I supported Hillary, but now I don't know what to do. Our country is all f-ed up." I did my best to persuade her those things are simply untrue and that Barack will be a great leader for our country.
But our conversation left me wondering about all the other hard working, poor women in this country and why Mr. Obama's campaign isn't reaching them. I realized that they are beyond the reach of a modern, tech-savy campaign: these women don't read, surf the net or text--no money for any of that. If a volunteer knocked on the door, she wouldn't be home to answer it. After a long day of working for a pittance, she watches TV to relax in a run down neighborhood far from ideological cities. Mr. Obama's message of hope isn't getting through.
"I think the black people would say he [Obama] don't talk, act or carry himself as a black person.""What does that even mean?" the audibly shocked Beck replied."Well, I don't know what that means," Keith drawled, "but I think that that's what they would say. Even though the black society would pull for him I still think that they think in the back of their mind that the only reason he is in [the general election] is because he talks, acts and carries himself as a Caucasian."
Now, I don’t even want to comment on this nonsense. Besides, I’m sure you guys already know how I feel about this idiot (see: http://leaveyours.blogspot.com/2008/07/lynch-please.html). I want to hear from you. Tell me what you think about Keith’s comments. Is Barack Obama acting white? Is that the only reason he’s the Democratic Party nominee? Or is Toby Keith just a racist hillbilly who has no business engaging in intellectual discourse? Is Barack Obama’s appeal just way over Toby Keith’s head?Talk to me.Peace,J.W.
Download my new FREE McCain Fact Check Flyer http://www.freewebs.com/supersonic94/5%20things%20about%20mccain.rtf
