Posts with the tag bitter

But We're Not Stupid

Anoka from Los Angeles, CA — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 11:48:56 EDT

Read my letter, stand with me, donate $5 or $10 to my Obama Fundraising page: http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/Anoka

Please forward.

Anoka

October 9, 2008

Quin Hillyer
Senior Editor
The American Spectator

But We're Not Stupid

Dear Mr. Hillyer,

I'd like to respectfully disagree with your article "It's the Culture, Stupid" not only because I think the tactics you are endorsing are ultimately destructive and divisive, but also because I see them as increasingly ineffective in a continually evolving United States of America. To put it bluntly, that is so 2004. It worked for "W": he was the guy Americans could relate to and wanted to sit down and have a beer with. Look where that got us.

Yesterday, the New York Times has pointed out how the country loses with each of these culturally laden attacks. Further, the Ayers attacks have led to angry partisan crowds, screaming "terrorist!" "treason!" and "kill him!"

Americans are smarter now and though I was also angered with Obama for his "bitter" comments, you seem to dwell on that instance and take other instances out of context. As David Brooks said it the other day, the culture war that Sarah Palin is reigniting ala George W. Bush "represents a fatal cancer to the Republican Party." If the Republican Party is to remain viable in this election and in coming years, it must adopt a more inclusive and less divisive strategy. Alienating everyone from newspaper readers to Ivy leaguers to Easterners to immigrants to thinkers, as the McCain-Palin cultural tactics are doing, simply will not and is not working.

You may say that I am not like you and therefore my point of view is "anathema". My Muslim parents immigrated from Bangladesh and I was born in Ann Arbor Michigan. I attended Yale and lived on the east coast, so maybe I am not "one of you." But I AM an American. I am a teacher dedicated to helping young people forge a future. I am committed to the honor, dignity, unity and promise this country represents. I have worked hard all my life to honor my parents' sacrifice: to leave their family, and yes a country they loved so we could live and prosper in another amazing country that welcomed us. And does calling ourselves "citizens of the world" disqualify us as Americans?

I married a man from the rural parts of eastern Ohio, near the Pennsylvania and West Virginia borders, where his family was insulted by Obama's "bitter" comments. But some of them came to forgive Obama because they still identify with his belief in a fair tax code, in the very Christian commitment to being your brother's keeper, and the basic promise of America: that it is a meritocracy, not an aristocracy. Obama and I are products of such a meritocracy; our parents came with every disadvantage and we work each day with their struggles in mind. So we continue to fight for this exceptional democracy, and I cannot imagine any more common ground that you and I share.

Anoka Faruqee
Los Angeles, CA
http://anokafaruqee.com/

McCain Mob Mentality

Jim — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 09:37:45 EDT

Like a member of a mob yelling "Jump" to a potential suicide jumper, McCain yelled "Fight" about 40 times in his closing speech at the Republican Convention.

Is "fighting" the way he intends to "reach across the isle?" McCain's angry, bitter nature is exposed once again. He is not fit to lead this country.

Word Associations

Bruce Moses — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 13:58:33 EDT

The key to any good advertising campaign is to keep the message simple and repeat key words that you want to be remembered. The Republican Party is a master of the concept of word associations - "...don't tell 'em anything that can't fit on a bumper sticker". McCain has aggressively adopted this technique, no doubt at the urging of his neo-Con advisors. Each time he mentions Barack these days, he attempts to link him with negatively associated words like “fail,” “defeat,” and “retreat”.

I believe Barack would be well advised to turn the tables and play the game a while. Here are just a few of the words I’d begin to associate with McCain – angry, desperate, outdated, inflexible, old, partisan.

A good start would be to include the following phrase so that it makes the evening news:

“…every American should be deeply concerned by John McCain’s willingness to participate in angry partisan rhetoric, even when the facts clearly do not support points he is so desperately trying to make.”

Taking Gramm out of context wasn't fair

Unknown user — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 23:10:43 EDT

When Obama got taken out of context about the "bitter" comment, I thought it sucked that his opponents were doing it.

Now Gramm (who may be an idiot, but that's not the point) makes an oral blunder, and here's Barrack to dish it out. And really, Gramm wasn't saying anything very different than Obama had expressed.

Complete hypocrisy! Isn't Obama supposed to be against this type of thing?

Obama should focus on the issues, and stay above the level that American presidential elections have sunk to.

Hello

gadgetfreak147 — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 16:37:58 EDT

Hello. This is my first post(obviously) and I'm not sure what to write. So, I will randomly comment on the campaign. First, about the "bitter" comments.(the following is a joke, so don't take this too seriously.) Everyone, including the poor people who he[Barack Obama] called bitter, freaked out. He was called an elitist. Do you know who was really being elitist? The poor people. You can't deal with being called bitter? You haven't heard what some extreme conservatives have called you? Worthless drains on society, stressing public systems and polluting the earth, contributing to global warming? "Oh no, he said we cling to guns and religion" Sorry, you do.

gadgetfreak147

Why is everyone so bitter?

Scott — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 08:12:34 EDT

Hillary: Stole my nomination
Bill: No do-over

Obama: Pretend to be a Christian for 20 years--and for what?
Michelle: Whitey's keeping me down.

John McCain: Cancelled "Murder she wrote"
Cindy McCain: Who's bitter? I'm filthy fuckin' rich!

Rudy Guilani: 9/11!
Judy Guilani: Rudy stopped answering my calls.

Fred Thompson: Still can't get back on nap schedule
Jeri Thompson: Prenup: stuck with old geezer, who's not even going to be President!

John Edwards: Reduced to $300 haircuts
Elizabeth Edwards: Catfights with Hillary highlight of her year.

Mitt Romney: Underwear not so magic.
Ann Romney: Five sons, all gay.

Mike Huckabee: AIDS patients still walk free, feminists still aborting babies.
Janet Huckabee: Husband porking out again

Bitter Sweets

Khaidji — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 18:29:53 EDT

This was a night that should have gone down in history differently. I believe too much bitter and too little sweet spoilt the significance of one of America’s biggest days. I was so displeased by it, I didn’t pen these thoughts until a day later for fear that I may be as bitte3r as those who pretend not to be.

Bitter Sweets

Barrack wan the Nomination but there’s little victory

It seems defeating Hillary was devastating to the party

The loyal Hillary voters prefer to Vote McCain

They would defect and in 2012 come back again

Eager to see a woman gain the Presidency

Retired people and blue collared workers snuff the DNC

So now they are dangling the proverbial carrot

Want Hillary on the ticket or there’ll be a riot

Except Hillary comes out on Saturday

Endorses Obama in a convincing way

This division will hurt the DNC’s campaign

She needs to stop this exodus of voters to McCain

See other Acrostic Poetry here on Barack Obama
By Khaidji

Is This Bitter Now Sweetie

Khaidji — Wed, 21 May 2008 13:29:12 EDT

I was appalled by the exit polls from the Kentucky primary which disclosed that approximately 66% of Democrat voters who voted for Hillary were not likely to vote for Barack Obama should she not get the nomination. Conversely 71% of Obama votes will vote for Hillary’s should she get the nomination. This for me is bitter.

Is This Bitter Now Sweetie?

I checked the meanings of the word bitter

Some referred to taste and others demeanor

The latter ones are more pertinent for me

Highlighted by Hillary, O’Reilly and Hannity

In every reference for weeks on Barack

Spreading distasteful or bitterness by frivolous attack

Bitter sums up mentally painful or hard to accept

It describes unpleasantly cold and the best one yet

The word bitter speaks of resentful and angry

The people are not bitter but why would they be

Eager to give their votes to John McCain

Resenting Obama after Hillary’s campaign

Not willing to give their votes to the party they back

Only Hillary if she’s nominated but not Barack

When Barack’s voters were asked, over 71% will stay

Some 66% of Hillary’s will vote the other way

When all is said and done Barack on the trail

Ensures a more positive resort without detail

Especially now even when the math makes it clear

That he is the more likely Nominee this year

I hear harsh words from her supporters and Hillary

Engaging me to ask Is This Bitter Now Sweetie?

See other Acrostic Poetry here on Barack Obama
By Khaidji

Will we lose the faith-based vote?

smffy — Sat, 17 May 2008 14:25:03 EDT

The Washington Post offered an opinion stating democrats who have traditionaly voted on economic issues no longer vote a straight democratic ticket. As economic conditions they turn to their religion for comfort. Many of the faithful are strongly opposed to abortion and gay marriage rights. Perhaps it is because of this Obama said they are "bitter."

The Post claims they are bitter about how the party has changed. It is not the party it was many years ago when JFK was president. Different times, different issues. Things change and Obama has answers for our time.

However, even as a Utah resident, I find faith based organizations. I learned of a group called Catholics for Obama, and another faith based group - Mormons for Obama. I believe his position on other issues has swayed many voters and turned them in our direction. Toward doing just that, I email my friends and family who are republican articles, videos, and excerpts from blogs. I trust when they know where the candidates really stand, they will make the choice for change.

The republican campaign is already shaping up as a nasty, deceptive, attack strategy, McCain doesn't seem to be willing to focus on the issues and deliver "straight talk" as he said he would. What's new? He's changed his position on many things (but that's a subject for another post).

That's why it is important to inform our friends, family, and as many others as possible where the candidates stand on substantive issues. We can't afford to volly insults along with him. Those tactics have never been a part of this campaign (although Obama and campaign have had to defend against the deceptions republicans have hurled at him). He maintains the high road and it will affect voters, faith-based and otherwise, he is the candidate voters will decide should be in the White House.

Obama Sweetie

Khaidji — Sat, 17 May 2008 09:31:35 EDT

When we try to be polite and respond with affectionate names like sweetie and darling, there are a group of people out there that eager to label this as belittling. The fact is you can use a person’s true gender descript like Miss and be far insulting than sweetie. It is not in what you say but more in how you say it. Tones can mean everything and as I remember it, the entire Japanese language is based on tone and they recognize that one word can be used to mean so many different things once we change its sound. It is funny how this is so clear to my dogs who always understand which “come here” will result in food, hugs and affection or punishment.

Obama Sweetie

Obviously you meant no insult by what you said

But such words were toxic from the upheaval they led

And like an astute professional you must measure the lay

Make more careful checks with what you say

All the vultures are circling waiting to see

Stumbles and slips like bitter and sweetie

With their ears and eyes, camera and mic

Equipped and ready to land that critical byte

Even when apologies and corrections are made for slips

They peck and tear morality and the truth they eclipse

It’s hard to change a system that’s so contorted

Even harder when you words and efforts are being distorted

See other Acrostic Poetry here on Barack Obama
By Khaidji

Setting Our Sites on West Virginia

Hope for Change — Thu, 08 May 2008 09:16:00 EDT

I am niether bitter nor angry here in PA. The love and community that I have experienced on the road with the campaign have been amazing.

But just you wait, if 'Billary' tries to steal this election from us. . . . then, I'll show you angry :-)

Let's show the World what positive changes a little righteous indignation can accomplish! Senator Obama's 'peaceful revolution' has already changed America!

My Presidential Choice is a Black Man, whose boss is a Jewish Carpenter!

Obliterate - Pt.2

Khaidji — Tue, 06 May 2008 16:38:30 EDT

What kind of talk was that, tough talk? I don’t understand how Hillary can be comfortable with that kind of talk while at the same time promising to remove all the troops within 90 days of getting into office. Is she so cold blooded that she would be happy to obliterate a whole nation? A nation that has so many millions of people who have nothing to do with war and themselves may be under the martial control of the army should not be subjected to the same doomsday measures as their government. Is she just talking tough and not realizing what she is saying.

Obliterate

One use of the word bitter and he was crucified

But she wants to obliterate a nation and she’s glorified

Ladies applaud her and men think she’s got balls

Ideal to take those emergency 3:00 a.m calls

To think we’ve become a people with enough clout

Equipped with nuclear weapons to wipe other nations out

Ready to destroy the good with the bad

And to kill those nationals terrorized by Ahmadinejad

There is no doubt that under threat we should retaliate

Excessive though it would be if that nation we obliterate

See other Acrostic Poetry here on Barack Obama
By Khaidji

Obliterate

Khaidji — Mon, 05 May 2008 12:58:32 EDT

Senator Hillary Clinton does not withdraw her threat to obliterate Iran or any country that shows any aggression against the Iraqi allies of America. I saw the response of Americans to the bitter comment of Senator Barack Obama and was shocked at the comparatively low keyed attitude to a comment as strong as Hillary’s. Do we know the implication of the word obliterate? Does any nation have 100% evil that should be swatted like flies. It is disturbing to think of the election of a President who believes it is okay to take such measures against a whole nation for the terrorist attitudes of less than 20% of its people. What ever happen to war being like a game of chess, take out the King and you win. I am happy to support the kind of Presidency in Barack who recognizes the dangers of that kind of language.

Obliterate

Once said, a person is entitled to misspeak

But to defend it is wrong and worse to reuse this week

Lots can be determined from the language we use

It can show the type of leader who will abuse

The authority and power to wipe another nation out

Eliminate, demolish, destroy them with their clout

Regardless to the country, many innocents live there

Annihilation means babies, moms, animals all life will share

The same punishment as their military, the people they dread

Eradicate or obliterate means all life is made dead

See other Acrostic Poetry here on Barack Obama
By Khaidji

Bitter! Who's Bitter?

Khaidji — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 12:00:18 EDT

Recently the term bitter has brought about much conversation in America and as expected, nobody wants to see American as being bitter. The opposite of bitter for me has always been sweet. If I’m not sweet on a thing then I must be bitter about it or some where in between. Given that in between often means a position of indecisiveness, lets assume that people are either for or against, sweet or bitter. If we are not bitter about the things that are going on in America does this therefore mean that we are sweet on the suffering that we now endure?

Bitter, Who’s Bitter?

Bitter, Who’s Bitter? Not me the great U.S.A

I may be frustrated, disturbed and somewhat dismay

Though I’ve been slow to react, I know that there is

Too many guns and shootings in malls and colleges

Economy is bad and now out of sync

Rising food cost seems faster than I could blink

War seems endless and now trillions of money

Health care as disastrous as homeland insecurity

Oil hikes threaten the very things we use

Soaring gasoline prices now determine the trips we choose

Battered civil liberties stops our charity to give

Infrastructural failings destroy where we live

Torture is questionable and many say go ahead

Terrorists deserve inhumanity and are better dead

Even though my actions are rebellious and may sometimes be

Repulsive in conduct, I’m never bitter to anybody

See other Acrostic Poetry here on Barack Obama
By Khaidji

Race for The Bottom

Roger from Bellevue, WA — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 11:30:35 EDT

First, this is to confess the use of "expletive deleted" in an email to David Gregory over his April 24, 2008 "Race for the White House" show. Second, it just occurred to me. Is that a subliminal pun? But after a google of - David Gregory Wright Race, it does appear that he or MSNBC are just attempting to foment the bottom line or a lame sense of humor. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23725023/ tops the search and I did not read past the "panel that comes to play" point, but its search teased with a closing quip:

GREGORY: I do want one of those Reverend Wright tunics, by the way. .....

GREGORY: I‘m David Gregory. That does it for us on RACE FOR THE ...

But my original point was my email to David Gregory at MSNBC, I will paraphrase: You are an "expletive deleted" host for taking what Reverand Wright said about Obama being "a politician" and making something so negative about it. If being "political" is wrong, what is being a member of the media, formerly called journalism, and so highly regarded in the Bill of Rights as the press.

Of course "talking head" is probably a better name for what passes for thinking these days, not to mention what I only heard second hand about Rush Limbaugh which apparently merits protest to the FCC if not investigation for fomenting "civil" unrest which is really a euphemism for what some would label "terrorism."

But I would like to make a serious suggestion for Reverand Wright when he addresses the press. Bring Donuts! Or maybe even they would not be insulted by something BBQ. The first was a serious suggestion to bring out the McCain relationship with the press. But the second is a serious comment that "plays" upon the so-called issues that the media likes to deal in, and I leave it to the Reverend to do a distinguished job relative to the so-called humor that some use to bury their own potential underlying issues.

What they need to hear

Elizabeth from Montgomery Village, MD — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 00:58:42 EDT

My husband is from Allentown, PA. Most of his family still lives between there and Reading. They wanted to believe in you. They wanted vote for you. But in the end, they didn't.

Barack, you lost them and their neighbors, not because of Rev. Wright or the word "bitter," but because when you labeled their concerns "mere distractions," you were being dismissive to the very people you were asking to vote for you. They wanted the truth, not bobbing and weaving and searching for words that didn't even answer the question.

These folks have been receiving piles of negative emails every day for months (Lee, please stop passing them on to me. Please!). All they wanted was straight, clear answers that showed real strength of character and wisdom.

I'm hoping that the experience in PA will bring back the Obama that our family would have voted for. I know today's Washington Post predicted more dirt and slugging from you. Really, how dirty do you have to get to point out that the best person to lead us through an economic crisis might not be the one whose campaign is constantly broke and can't seem to pay its bills?

I'm BITTER and clinging to my keyboard!

Darren who will not be distracted — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 10:01:23 EDT

Wow... The results from last night's voting were a real disappointment to me. I can't understand why so many people can't see through her "I will say anything to win" style of politics. I thought deeper about it. Yes, Clinton's and Obama's policies are very similiar so (stay with me) if she really wanted the policies to survive and be implemented and was not just in it for personal power, she would back Obama and unite the party. This she will not do. What does that say about her?

Another thought... the exit polls in PA show that Hillary voters would abandon Barack in the fall and vote for McCain in the general. That is insane. If they really believed in her platform why on earth would they vote for McCain's War, Abortion, and Economic policies etc. I can't believe it. I refuse to believe that in November they could vote to continue the Iraq war with a clear consience. Hillary's brand of politics have infested her supporters. What does that say about her?

Need I say more...

Bittersweet Choices

TJFischer — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 01:44:07 EDT

Yep, that's me; white female baby boomer (WFBB) having raised my daughter as a single mom now hoping to earn enough to retire before my bones give out.

But hear this, Mrs. Clinton: You may have built your reputation as a fighter, but you ain't the only WFBB who knows how to get down and dirty. So I will dip yet again into my retirement fund, go out to www.barackobama.com and hit the donate button one more time, as will over a million others—not to beat the Republicans, but to make you go away.

Not that it is of any consequence to you if we are tapped out by the time convention rolls around. In fact many are starting to speculate on your reasoning which most figure goes something like this: Your best case scenario is successfully managing to strong arm enough Super Delegates into throwing you the nomination by using your formidable lawyer skills to make the "he can't win" argument having smeared, undermined, and attacked your opponent w/relentless innuendo, fabrications, and outright lies, pushing all the right buttons.

Unsettling though your best case scenario may be to consider, the alternative provides us (your would be constituents) w/an alarming insight into the jaded character that has become Hillary Clinton: Your campaign tactics all point to the inevitable conclusion that your worst case scenario is to disable your same party opponent in the primary, paving the way to four more years of a Republican White House where upon you regroup and have at it again, as the "I told you so" candidate in four years, while still in your early sixties.

Clearly, all those years of experience have rendered you hardened to old school politics where you felt compelled to adopt the tried and true "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" means to survival.

Woman, for love of country, get a grip! Here's a thought: If you care so much about getting those great solutions of yours implemented why not become a team player and pass the puck to the guy standing in front of the net! Your secret's safe w/me: By and large, we white girls coming of age in the sixties were not exactly encouraged to play team sports. In fact we were much more likely to write that term paper for our guy--as he trotted off to practice learning the art/value of being a team player--thus ensuring his availability for a date on Friday night. It sucks; but the good news is we taught our daughters how to be team players by getting them into the game early.

Ever consider it's just not meant to be, Hillary? Can't you take comfort in knowing you had eight years to make a difference as First Lady and now as Senator? When you think about it you've had more shots on goal than most of us will ever realize, not least of which represents your health care plan, which failed because you didn't know how and/or were not willing to be a team player. Just think if you had been successful, all those people who's tragic stories of strife for lack of health care would have had better lives. But then again, where would you get all those heart wrenching stories your campaign is so eager to exploit?

Maybe you feel it is "your turn" having paid your dues. Here's another view: Maybe you are being tested and given one more chance to make the right choice to stay true to yourself.

Speaking in terms of self-worth, I may not have made $20 million dollars last year, but every single penny of what I did earn was made standing on my own two feet—after putting my ex husband thru college and then forfeiting any benefit (financial, social, professional, or otherwise) to divorce in the face of his betrayal. That was my choice, and does not in any way reflect on your choice presented w/the same dilemma. In fact, I supported your choice passionately to the people in my circles—effectively making the impressive argument you had every right to stay married for your own reasons.

But whatever those reasons may be, we are defined by our choices. As every parent knows, kids—being smarter than we give them credit for—listen to what we do, more than what we say. My choice resulted in a smaller house, downscaled social circle, more bills and…a sense of peace. The point is that it came at a cost—as all choices do; I was prepared to pay the price for my regaining sense of self, because the pain in my jaw from grinding my teeth was debilitating and I would’ve done almost anything to relieve it. Your choice to do whatever it takes to advance yourself as the first woman to win the White House, I suspect, has also cost you dearly.

Which, again, is all well and fine: as long as you pay your own bills. Your duplicity, however, as you stand in judgment of Senator Obama’s deeply personal choice to maintain a relationship w/his minister even as you declare your own right to “choose one’s family” in the face of your husband’s blatant self indulgence at the country’s expense begs to be called out for its barefaced hypocrisy. I, for one, intend to do my level best to see that every single voter from here to Denver understands the price this country has paid for electing un-trustworthy leadership of narcissistic character to represent the United States in the international arena.

This fight has been yours to define dear sister of the sixties—in as much as it was initiated on your behalf at your insistence—and the country’s to lose.

So know this, Mrs. Clinton: You may have persevered in Pennsylvania, but you lost all credibility and any moral authority you had left by making false accusations, playing w/words in a transparent attempt to confuse the issues, obscure the truth, and demonstrate your adeptness at that indispensible Washington insider skill: doublespeak.

And Mrs. Clinton: We the people/super delegates, et al are on to the disingenuous arguments you spent the last three decades working to perfect, presumably because you concluded—during the six formative years of your early career sitting on the Wal-Mart board—that’s what it takes. Perhaps you were right, in the past; which makes your thirty eight years of experience a liability this country will not tolerate.

Not This Time.

As the math in the eye of the spin clearly illustrates, Americans understand we can no longer afford to look the other way and/or derive public governance from corporate etiquette. We will find a way to force this fight into the light and win: Because we know we must to regain our promise as Americans in the eyes of the world--and for all that is just.

Barack's Promise of Honesty

Nickie — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 00:23:18 EDT

A previous poster said we should find links to Clinton's many statements that are contradictory. We should also find statements that Obama made where he told us the truth and Hillary told us lies.

I'm thinking of spinning the Bitter comment for a video...The video where that old guy say's he is bitter in PA, and Barack explains his bitter comment to PA in a great speech, and Hillary panders to voters saying you aren't bitter. And then getting her most ugly comments about the bitter remarks, and then the medias worst bitter remarks, and splicing all that with Obama's positive message of why people are bitter. Even using sections of Bills speech about voting for the person who is getting you to hope and think.

Also we could use other famous speeches that say essentially the same thing that Obama said. Like finding JFK or Truman quotes that say the same thing that Obama said. I know that Senator Webb has a pretty good quote.

Senator Jim Webb Said This in 2006

"Working Americans have been repeatedly seduced at the polls by emotional issues such as the predictable mantra of "God, guns, gays, abortion and the flag" while their way of life shifted ineluctably beneath their feet."

jabberwocky about elitism

Joe Garcia — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 20:22:01 EDT

All this campaign jabberwocky about elitism bothers me. Anyway, I went to college with the help of grants, loans, and scholarships. In the late-60s early 70s based on need the Feds had two programs Basic and Supplemental Opportunity Grants. The State of New York gave me a Regents Scholarship. The rest was covered by $25,000 in student loans. I know that is a paltry sum now but then it was at least three or four year’s salary. Making the payments was still a hardship for a young law school graduate. But I paid them off, unlike the Clinton’s who waited until they were 60-years old and had assets of $109 million.

Funny New Parody Ad.

Chris Comninel — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 19:06:30 EDT

I found this funny parody ad about Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen. It's pretty funny. Take a look... Funny Ad

The Rantings of an 87-Year-Old Life-Long Republican

ObamaMama Kris — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 17:03:39 EDT

I got this e-mail today from my father, an 87-year-old life-long conservative Republican. He is so angry about everything that George Bush has done to our country and will be voting for a Democrat for the first time in his life this November.

- - - - - - - - - -

I had mentioned before that I couldn't see anything wrong with Obama's 'bitter' remarks. I got a back-up to my feelings in today's St. Pete Times opinion page. A portion of a letter follows; I feel like it could have been written by me :-)

<< Barack Obama may have been a little too blunt in his now infamous 'bitter quip', but it firmly sums up my feelings. I've watched my country get hijacked by a group of self-serving incompetents who have little consceience about sending young men and women to die in an unnecessary war, while putting the bill on a credit card for the next generation --- You bet I'm bitter! I've watched our nation get less secure thanks to the counterproductive policies of the neocons in charge. I've seen the populations of otherwise friendly nations turn against the United States, seeing us as the world's biggest bully and hypocrite rather than its greatest beacon of liberty, justice and opportunity, You bet I'm bitter! >>

Love, Dad

What Obama really said about PA

jp — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 14:42:15 EDT

This is thanks to Janice:

I Was There: What Obama Really Said About Pennsylvania

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-coleman/i-was-there-what-obama-re_b_96553.html

'Far More Than "Bitter": ' by Marylee Smithwick

natalie gould — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 02:25:33 EDT

Yes, we're "bitter". We've been lied to over and over for the last 8+ years while the rich get richer off of this war that should never have been waged. The pundits and MSM, they want to talk about capital gains taxes - WHAT? Gas in California is now over $4 a gallon and crude oil is over $115 per barrel. My health insurance has gone up 15+ % EACH of the last 3 years. All of my basic living expenses keep going up but I'm "lucky" to still have my job which is code for there is no way in hell you're getting a raise, let alone a cost of living increase. I'm trying to raise my 4 year old son on top of all of this. I fear for the economic future of my family. Yeah, "bitter" is being NICE! Obama is our ONLY chance this year: The time is NOW and Barack is the ONE!

Whoo, feeling much better now - Please read and DIGG below :)

Peace,

Natalie in Seal Beach, CA

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marylee-smithwick/far-more-than-bitter-mess_b_97494.html

DIGG: http://digg.com/political_opinion/Marylee_Smithwick_Far_More_Than_Bitter

Far More Than "Bitter": Message from a Small Town Pennsylvanian

I am one of the "bitter" people living in a small steel town in Pennsylvania. My father passed away from the silt that he swallowed for forty years. My husband is withering away from the same cancer-causing dust he swallowed for nearly forty years too. The bills are mounting and our income decreasing. The blood, sweat and tears were not counted when they sent our small town livelihood over seas.

STEPHANOPOULOS:You have a very cool style. And I wonder, how much of that is tied to your race?

KravitzKravitz — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 20:57:20 EDT

Yes folks. Stephanopoulos actually asked if being cool is an inherently black trait. In May 2007.

But make sure you also see the second article in this post, "The Conciliator." And remember it too is from May 2007.

     SENATOR BARACK OBAMA ON “THIS WEEK WITH GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS” from ABC News... MAY 13, 2007

    ...

    STEPHANOPOULOS: When we sat down in Des Moines, I asked Obama where he got that confidence.

    ...

    OBAMA: Well, you know, I think it comes from the set of experiences that I brought with me to this race.

    As somebody who worked as a community organizer in Chicago, not knowing anybody when I arrived and being able to pull people together around the issues that folks were facing after they'd gotten laid off of work; the work that I've done as a civil rights lawyer and a constitutional law professor.

    And then in the state senate, being able to get Democrats and Republicans together around tough issues like reforming the death penalty or expanding health insurance for kids -- those skills seem to have translated in Washington.

    ...Did Someone Say 3AM?...

    STEPHANOPOULOS: What's the most difficult crisis you've had to manage in your public life?

    OBAMA: Well, you know, the truth is, in my public life as a legislator, most of the difficult tasks have been to build consensus around hard problems.

    And what I think the country needs more than anything right now is somebody who has the capacity to identify areas of common interest, common good, build a consensus around it and get things done.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: That is part of the job. There's no question about it.

    OBAMA: Yes.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: But you know a big part of the job of a president is what you do in a crisis...

    OBAMA: Right.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: ... the crisis you didn't expect.

    OBAMA: Right.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: And you never really ever had to deal with something like that, right?

    OBAMA: Well, what I think is absolutely legitimate is that my political career has been on the legislative side and not in the executive branch.

    Now, that's true for a lot of my colleagues, you know, who aren't governors.

    And one of the things that I hope over the course of this campaign I show, is the capacity to manage this pretty unwieldy process of a political race. And one of the great things about the press is that they're going to be watching very carefully...

    STEPHANOPOULOS: Every move you make.

    OBAMA: ... every move you make, and to make sure that people have a sense of how I deal with adversity, how I deal with mistakes, who do I have around me to make sure that we're executing on the things that need to get done.

    ....

    STEPHANOPOULOS: One of your heroes is Abe Lincoln. He was ruthless when he had to be. Can you be ruthless?

    OBAMA: You know, I think that somebody who has arrived where I am out of Chicago politics has to have a little bit of steel in him.

    I have not made a promise -- and I won't make a promise -- that I'm going to be able to perfectly balance the budget immediately.

    What I can say is that we're going to pay as you go; that if I start a new program, I'll find a way to pay for it; if I want tax cuts, then I'm going to find a way to pay for them; and that, over the long term, we get a stable budget that is not simply running up the credit card on our children.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: You've also said that with Social Security, everything should be on the table.

    OBAMA: Yes.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: Raising the retirement age?

    OBAMA: Everything should be on the table.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: Raising payroll taxes?

    OBAMA: Everything should be on the table. I think we should approach it the same way Tip O'Neill and Ronald Reagan did back in 1983. They came together. I don't want to lay out my preferences beforehand, but what I know is that Social Security is solvable. It is not as difficult a problem as we're going to have with Medicaid and Medicare.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: Partial privatization?

    OBAMA: Privatization is not something that I would consider, and the reason is this: Social Security, I think, is -- that's the floor. That's the baseline. Social Security is that safety net that can't be frayed, and we shouldn't put at risk.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: Your candidacy brings the issue of race right to the top...

    OBAMA: Right.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: ... of the national conversation. You've been a strong supporter of affirmative action...

    OBAMA: Yes.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: ... and you're a constitutional law professor, so let's go back in the classroom. I'm your student, I say, "Professor, you and your wife went to Harvard Law School. You've got plenty of money. You're running for president. Why should your daughters, when they go to college, get affirmative action?"

    OBAMA: Well, first of all, I think that my daughters should probably be treated by any admissions officer as folks who are pretty advantaged, and I think that there's nothing wrong with us taking that into account as we consider admissions policies at universities.

    I think that we should take into account white kids who have been disadvantaged and have grown up in poverty and shown themselves to have what it takes to succeed.

    So I don't think those concepts are mutually exclusive. I think what we can say is that in our society, race and class still intersect, that there are a lot of African-American kids who are still struggling, that even those who are in the middle class may be first generation as opposed to fifth or sixth generation college attendees, and that we all have an interest in bringing as many people together to help build this country.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: Sandra Day O'Connor wrote that in 25 years, affirmative action may no longer be necessary. Is she right?

    OBAMA: I would like to think that if we make good decisions and we invest in early childhood education, improve K-12, if we have done what needs to be done to ensure that kids who are qualified to go to college can afford it, that affirmative action becomes a diminishing tool for us to achieve racial equality in this society.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: You have a very cool style when you're doing those town meetings, when you're out on the campaign trail. And I wonder, how much of that is tied to your race?

    OBAMA: That's interesting.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: One of your friends told the New Yorker Magazine that "the mainstream is just not ready for a fire-breathing black man." Did you turn down the temperature on purpose?

    OBAMA: You know, I don't think it has to do with race. I think it has to do with when I'm campaigning, I'm in a conversation. And what I don't do when I'm campaigning is to try to press a lot of hot buttons and use a lot of cheap applause lines, because I want people to get a sense of how I think about this process.

    OBAMA: I want them to have some ability to walk through with me the difficult choices that we face.

    (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

    OBAMA: We're spending $275 million a day, a day, in Iraq.

    (END VIDEO CLIP)

    OBAMA: And I think that one of the problems with political speeches is that we all know what folks want to hear. We know who the conventional, stereotypical enemies are on any given issue, and we have a tendency, I think, to play up to that. And I actually think that we're in this moment in history right now where honesty, admitting complexity is a good thing.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: How about passion? How about anger? I mean, you've written about how you dealt with issues of anger. Don't you think sometimes voters need to see that too?

    OBAMA: Oh, absolutely, and I think they do see it. Listen, the one thing that I don't think people are going to be able to accuse me of is not being able to give a fiery speech. I came onto the national scene after getting folks fired up pretty good.

    (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

    OBAMA: There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America. There's the United States of America.

    (END VIDEO CLIP)

    OBAMA: But keep in mind, I'm not interested in bringing people together just for the sake of bringing people together. I'm not naive enough to think that if we all hold hands and sing "Kumbaya" that somehow health care gets solved or, you know, education gets solved. Right now, what we need to make significant progress on these problems is to be able to build enough bridges to get things done.

    So, I'm furious about the young men that I see standing on corners on the South Side of Chicago without hope, without opportunity, without prospects for the future. I am furious about the mothers I meet here in Iowa who are giving me hugs and telling me about their son who died in a war and asking, did their son die for a mistake? It breaks my heart. But what I know is that the only way we're going to solve the problem is not to assign blame. It's to say, "Here's a vision for the future that we can do something about."

    STEPHANOPOULOS: You've had to ask for Secret Service protection awful early in this campaign. Were you reluctant?

    OBAMA: Yes.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: Why?

    OBAMA: I'm not an entourage guy. You know, up until recently, I was still, you know, taking my wife Michelle's grocery list and going
    to the grocery store once in awhile. And so obviously it's constrained, but I'm obviously appreciate of their efforts. They're extraordinarily professional.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Durbin, your friend, who talked to the review board, said a lot of the threats that were coming in are racially motivated. How serious are they? How much are you told? How much do you worry about it?

    OBAMA: You know, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it or considering the details of this. But just to broaden the issue, are there people who would be troubled with an African-American president? Yes. Are there folks who might not vote for me because I'm African-American? No doubt.

    What I'm confident about, though, as I travel around the country, is that people are decent at their core in America. The vast majority of folks want to do the right thing.

    If I don't win, it's not going to be because of my race. It's going to be because I didn't project a vision of leadership that gave people confidence. It's going to be because of something I didn't do as opposed to because I'm African-American.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: You've been thinking about running for president a long time. Your brother-in-law says he talked to you about it in the early '90s.

    OBAMA: He might have brought it up. I'm not sure.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: So you dispute that?

    (LAUGHTER)

    OBAMA: You know, what's wonderful about this whole process is that everybody has -- everybody looks at me now through the lens of where I am now. You know, I had my high school teacher saying what a wonderful, studious guy he was. And I was goofing off the whole time, and they were calling up the principal. I think there's a lot of self-correction that takes place (inaudible).

    STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, but there's one more. Valerie Jarrett, a good friend of the family says, you told her in your Senate race, "I just think I have some special qualities, and wouldn't it be a shame to waste them."

    OBAMA: That, I think I probably did say.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: What are they?

    OBAMA: I think that I have the capacity to get people to recognize themselves in each other. I think that I have the ability to make people get beyond some of the divisions that plague our society and to focus on common sense and reason.

    OBAMA: And that's been in short supply over the last several years.

    You know, I'm not an ideologue. Never have been. Even during my younger days when I was tempted by sort of more radical or left-wing politics, there was a part of me that always was a little bit conservative in that sense, that believes that you make progress by sitting down, listening to people, recognizing everybody's concerns, seeing other people's points of views, and them making decisions.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: One final question. Everyone is going to be watching this on Mother's Day, and a lot of America is going to get to know a lot about you over the next year, but they're never going to know your mom. She passed away a little more than 10 years ago. What's the most important lesson she taught you?

    OBAMA: She was the sweetest soul I've ever known, and I think that quality that I just talked about, the capacity to see the world through somebody else's eyes or to stand in their shoes, is what she gave to me in great abundance. And I think that capacity is what's needed right now in this moment.

    There have been other moments in history where maybe some other skills were needed, but I think bringing the country together -- and, by the way, bringing the world together -- so that there's that sense of mutual recognition is something that I get directly from my mother. And I think her spirit acts powerfully on me throughout the course of this campaign.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator, thanks very much.

    OBAMA: Thank you so much, George. I appreciate it.

    STEPHANOPOULOS: The roundtable is next with George Will, Cokie Roberts and Sam Donaldson. And later, Brooke Shields.

Transcript exerpts from - Lynn Sweet, Chicago Sun-Times. The scoop from Washington May 31, 2007

Steph also refers to this article, from The New Yorker.

The Conciliator
Where is Barack Obama coming from?
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/05/07/070507fa_fact_macfarquhar?printable=true

He's talking to farmers about ethanol.

Interesting point about when he gets into detail as opposed to rousing rhetoric.

"This mode of his is often called professorial, and Obama himself likens these forums to the constitutional-law classes that he taught at the University of Chicago. But “professorial” implies that he seems cerebral or didactic, and he doesn’t. Despite the criticism he has received for being all inspiration and no policy, Obama has so far stuck to what appears to be an instinct that white papers belong on Web sites, not in speeches."

"Obama’s calm is also a matter of temperament. The first thing almost everybody who knows Obama says about him is how extremely comfortable he is with himself. “He was almost freakishly self-possessed and centered,” Christopher Edley, Jr., one of Obama’s professors at Harvard Law School, who is now a dean at Berkeley, says. There is something freakish about Obama’s self-possession—it’s conspicuous, it draws attention to itself, like the unnatural stillness of someone able to lower his blood pressure at will. He doesn’t strive for an Everyman quality: he is relaxed but never chummy, gracious rather than familiar. His surface is so smooth, his movements so easy and fluid, his voice so consistent and well-pitched that he can seem like an actor playing a politician, too implausibly effortless to be doing it for real. "

"“When I read the book,(Dreams Of My Father) I was surprised—the confusion and the anger that he described, maybe they were there below the surface, but they were not manifest at all.” Asked about this, Obama says, “You know, what puzzles me is why people are puzzled by that. That angry character lasts from the time I was fifteen to the time I was twenty-one or so. I guess my explanation is I was an adolescent male with a lot of hormones and an admittedly complicated upbringing. But that wasn’t my natural temperament. And the book doesn’t describe my entire life. I could have written an entirely different book, about the joys of basketball and what it’s like to bodysurf as the sun’s going down on a sandy beach.”

“Barack used to say that one of his favorite sayings of the civil-rights movement was ‘If you cannot bear the cross, you can’t wear the crown.’ ”

He married Michelle Robinson, a woman who already owned the memories and the roots, who was by birth the person he was trying to become: the child of an intact, religious black family from the South Side. He took a job organizing a South Side community that was disintegrating but that he hoped, through work and inspiration, to revive. Later, rejecting the agnosticism of his parents and his own skeptical instincts, he became a Christian and joined a church. “I came to realize,” he wrote in his second book, “The Audacity of Hope,” that “without an unequivocal commitment to a particular community of faith, I would be consigned at some level to always remain apart, free in the way that my mother was free, but also alone in the same ways that she was ultimately alone.”

(a/k/a in difficult times, one clings to...see where that comes from?)

"Obama’s voting record is one of the most liberal in the Senate, but he has always appealed to Republicans, perhaps because he speaks about liberal goals in conservative language. When he talks about poverty, he tends not to talk about gorging plutocrats and unjust tax breaks; he says that we are our brother’s keeper, that caring for the poor is one of our traditions. Asked whether he has changed his mind about anything in the past twenty years, he says, “I’m probably more humble now about the speed with which government programs can solve every problem. For example, I think the impact of parents and communities is at least as significant as the amount of money that’s put into education.”

"After Obama’s Convention speech, Republican bloggers rushed to claim him, under headings such as “Right Speech, Wrong Convention” and “Barack Obama: A Republican Soul Trapped Inside a Democrat’s Body.” The Convention speech was uncharacteristically Reaganesque for Obama, being almost uniformly sunny about America, which he called a “magical place”; these days, he tends to be more sombre. Even so, Republicans continue to find him congenial, especially those who opposed the war on much the same conservative grounds that he did."

“The issue of the Second Amendment came up and Fried is pretty much a Second Amendment absolutist. One of our classmates was in favor of gun control—he’d come from an urban environment where guns were a big issue. And, while Barack agreed with our classmate, he was much more willing to hear Fried out—he was very moved by the fact that Fried grew up in the Soviet bloc, where they didn’t have those freedoms. After the class, our classmate was still challenging Fried and Barack was just not as passionate and I didn’t understand that.”

Obama is, in fact, committed to respecting the opinions or cultures of others even when religious beliefs aren’t involved. “There are universal values that I will fight for,” he says.

When I saw you at the Convention what really struck me was that you told a story from the beginning to the end of that speech—a story about your life, about how it fit in with the larger American story—and it built to a point where people wanted to applaud, rather than using forced applause lines. Democrats just haven’t done that. And Barack said, That’s exactly what I try to do.” That is Obama’s theory of speeches, and it seems, also, to be his theory of campaigning: don’t try to score huge points at every moment, don’t kill yourself for every vote—a campaign is a long, slow story, and you don’t want to exhaust your audience or yourself. “One weekend I was with him they were making a big deal about his school in Indonesia being a madrassa,” Valerie Jarrett says. “I said, ‘How could they have even run with this story? It’s so completely inaccurate!’ He said, ‘You know, we’ve contacted the school and the principal’s gonna explain what kind of a school it is and we’re gonna refute it all. You need to just calm down. This is gonna be fun! Valerie, you’re not a guy but let me explain it to you in sport terms. It’s like we’re in a basketball game, and I’m gonna fumble the ball, and someone’s gonna steal the ball, and I’m gonna miss a free throw, but we’re gonna win the game. You can’t get yourself worked up over every little thing that somebody says about me or you’re gonna go crazy.’ ”

Washington “held out an offer of collective redemption.”

But redemption is brittle. ... charisma is misleading, that revolutions are illusory, that real change is slow...

It's not the media. It's us. We are the problem.

Wayne — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 19:57:49 EDT

How many words has Barack Obama spoken during this campaign? Hundreds of thousands? Yet we obsess over 25 words that he recently uttered about Americans’ bitterness with the way their government has let them down. And we act as if his entire essence is determined by these 25 words alone.

WHAT BOTHERS ME ABOUT THE NEGATIVE HILLARY

Mary — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 10:09:53 EDT

One of the greatest errors that the Clinton campaign has used is it's negative attacks. Why, because it deminishes debate and assumes that American's are all stupid idiots who will be led by the nose with finger pointing and negative bs to vote for her. In truth, the reason I channeled my efforts in supporting Obama was because he has tried repeatedly to get to the heart of the issue and seriously debate, seriously lay out plans and discuss what his intentions are in helping the economy, fixing the mess that the Bush administration has taken America to. Meanwhile Hillary's campaign has consisted of "nanny nanny boo boo" children's playground insults and sand throwing. It was a "Bitter" disappointment to say the least to se an adult woman who is supposed to lead the generation of empowered women fall back to using childlike, uneducated behaviors and not seriously getting down to business and debating serious issues. We've all had to endure hours and hours of being drawn into petty meaningless word battles while the War in Iraq continues on, while people are losing their homes and jobs, while our oil goes up, and every other thing is falling around our ears. Yet Hillary want's to bicker over insignificant word play and treats American citizens as if we are too stupid to catch on to the truth which is that she has lost control. For those who honestly believe that she will represent them I can't say that they are stupid, I can say that they are familiar with her and that has been the popular concensus as to why people originally chose her. Instead of just accepting someone because you are familiar it is important to look at the issues, their ability to constructively debate, their record in managing stress. Currently Hillary's ability to do crisis management is showing in this campaign. She is out of control, loses focus on issues and uses militaristic tactics of gunning down her opponent with insults rather than addressing the more important issues, much the same way George Bush has done during his Presidency.

Great read on Obama, Rev. Wright, and America

Haven — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 09:18:05 EDT

Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama and the Unacceptability of TruthOf National Lies and Racial America

By TIM WISE

For most white folks, indignation just doesn't wear well. Once affected or conjured up, it reminds one of a pudgy man, wearing a tie that may well have fit him when he was fifty pounds lighter, but which now cuts off somewhere above his navel and makes him look like an idiot.

Indignation doesn't work for most whites, because having remained sanguine about, silent during, indeed often supportive of so much injustice over the years in this country--the theft of native land and genocide of indigenous persons, and the enslavement of Africans being only two of the best examples--we are just a bit late to get into the game of moral rectitude. And once we enter it, our efforts at righteousness tend to fail the test of sincerity.

But here we are, in 2008, fuming at the words of Pastor Jeremiah Wright, of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago--occasionally Barack Obama's pastor, and the man whom Obama credits with having brought him to Christianity--for merely reminding us of those evils about which we have remained so quiet, so dismissive, so unconcerned. It is not the crime that bothers us, but the remembrance of it, the unwillingness to let it go--these last words being the first ones uttered by most whites it seems whenever anyone, least of all an "angry black man" like Jeremiah Wright, foists upon us the bill of particulars for several centuries of white supremacy.

But our collective indignation, no matter how loudly we announce it, cannot drown out the truth. And as much as white America may not be able to hear it (and as much as politics may require Obama to condemn it) let us be clear, Jeremiah Wright fundamentally told the truth.

Oh I know that for some such a comment will seem shocking. After all, didn't he say that America "got what it deserved" on 9/11? And didn't he say that black people should be singing "God Damn America" because of its treatment of the African American community throughout the years?

Well actually, no he didn't.

Wright said not that the attacks of September 11th were justified, but that they were, in effect, predictable. Deploying the imagery of chickens coming home to roost is not to give thanks for the return of the poultry or to endorse such feathered homecoming as a positive good; rather, it is merely to note two things: first, that what goes around, indeed, comes around--a notion with longstanding theological grounding--and secondly, that the U.S. has indeed engaged in more than enough violence against innocent people to make it just a tad bit hypocritical for us to then evince shock and outrage about an attack on ourselves, as if the latter were unprecedented.

He noted that we killed far more people, far more innocent civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki than were killed on 9/11 and "never batted an eye." That this statement is true is inarguable, at least amongst sane people. He is correct on the math, he is correct on the innocence of the dead (neither city was a military target), and he is most definitely correct on the lack of remorse or even self-doubt about the act: sixty-plus years later most Americans still believe those attacks were justified, that they were needed to end the war and "save American lives."

But not only does such a calculus suggest that American lives are inherently worth more than the lives of Japanese civilians (or, one supposes, Vietnamese, Iraqi or Afghan civilians too), but it also ignores the long-declassified documents, and President Truman's own war diaries, all of which indicate clearly that Japan had already signaled its desire to end the war, and that we knew they were going to surrender, even without the dropping of atomic weapons. The conclusion to which these truths then attest is simple, both in its basic veracity and it monstrousness: namely, that in those places we committed premeditated and deliberate mass murder, with no justification whatsoever; and yet for saying that I will receive more hate mail, more hostility, more dismissive and contemptuous responses than will those who suggest that no body count is too high when we're the ones doing the killing. Jeremiah Wright becomes a pariah, because, you see, we much prefer the logic of George Bush the First, who once said that as President he would "never apologize for the United States of America. I don't care what the facts are."

And Wright didn't say blacks should be singing "God Damn America." He was suggesting that blacks owe little moral allegiance to a nation that has treated so many of them for so long as animals, as persons undeserving of dignity and respect, and which even now locks up hundreds of thousands of non-violent offenders (especially for drug possession), even while whites who do the same crimes (and according to the data, when it comes to drugs, more often in fact), are walking around free. His reference to God in that sermon was more about what God will do to such a nation, than it was about what should or shouldn't happen. It was a comment derived from, and fully in keeping with, the black prophetic tradition, and although one can surely disagree with the theology (I do, actually, and don't believe that any God either blesses or condemns nation states for their actions), the statement itself was no call for blacks to turn on America. If anything, it was a demand that America earn the respect of black people, something the evidence and history suggests it has yet to do.

Finally, although one can certainly disagree with Wright about his suggestion that the government created AIDS to get rid of black folks--and I do, for instance--it is worth pointing out that Wright isn't the only one who has said this. In fact, none other than Bill Cosby (oh yes, that Bill Cosby, the one white folks love because of his recent moral crusade against the black poor) proffered his belief in the very same thing back in the early '90s in an interview on CNN, when he said that AIDS may well have been created to get rid of people whom the government deemed "undesirable" including gays and racial minorities.

So that's the truth of the matter: Wright made one comment that is highly arguable, but which has also been voiced by white America's favorite black man, another that was horribly misinterpreted and stripped of all context, and then another that was demonstrably accurate. And for this, he is pilloried and made into a virtual enemy of the state; for this, Barack Obama may lose the support of just enough white folks to cost him the Democratic nomination, and/or the Presidency; all of it, because Jeremiah Wright, unlike most preachers opted for truth. If he had been one of those "prosperity ministers" who says Jesus wants nothing so much as for you to be rich, like Joel Osteen, that would have been fine. Had he been a retread bigot like Falwell was, or Pat Robertson is, he might have been criticized, but he would have remained in good standing and surely not have damaged a Presidential candidate in this way. But unlike Osteen, and Falwell, and Robertson, Jeremiah Wright refused to feed his parishioners lies.

What Jeremiah Wright knows, and told his flock--though make no mistake, they already knew it--is that 9/11 was neither the first, nor worst act of terrorism on American soil. The history of this nation for folks of color, was for generations, nothing less than an intergenerational hate crime, one in which 9/11s were woven into the fabric of everyday life: hundreds of thousands of the enslaved who died from the conditions of their bondage; thousands more who were lynched (as many as 10,000 in the first few years after the Civil War, according to testimony in the Congressional Record at the time); millions of indigenous persons wiped off the face of the Earth. No, to some, the horror of 9/11 was not new. To some it was not on that day that "everything changed." To some, everything changed four hundred years ago, when that first ship landed at what would become Jamestown. To some, everything changed when their ancestors were forced into the hulls of slave ships at Goree Island and brought to a strange land as chattel. To some, everything changed when they were run out of Northern Mexico, only to watch it become the Southwest United States, thanks to a war of annihilation initiated by the U.S. government. To some, being on the receiving end of terrorism has been a way of life. Until recently it was absolutely normal in fact.

But white folks have a hard time hearing these simple truths. We find it almost impossible to listen to an alternative version of reality. Indeed, what seems to bother white people more than anything, whether in the recent episode, or at any other time, is being confronted with the recognition that black people do not, by and large, see the world like we do; that black people, by and large, do not view America as white people view it. We are, in fact, shocked that this should be so, having come to believe, apparently, that the falsehoods to which we cling like a kidney patient clings to a dialysis machine, are equally shared by our darker-skinned compatriots.

This is what James Baldwin was talking about in his classic 1972 work, No Name in the Street, wherein he noted:

"White children, in the main, and whether they are rich or poor, grow up with a grasp of reality so feeble that they can very accurately be described as deluded--about themselves and the world they live in. White people have managed to get through their entire lifetimes in this euphoric state, but black people have not been so lucky: a black man who sees the world the way John Wayne, for example, sees it would not be an eccentric patriot, but a raving maniac."

And so we were shocked in 1987, when Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall declined to celebrate the bicentennial of the Constitution, because, as he noted, most of that history had been one of overt racism and injustice, and to his way of thinking, the only history worth celebrating had been that of the past three or four decades.

We were shocked to learn that black people actually believed that a white cop who was a documented racist might frame a black man; and we're shocked to learn that lots of black folks still perceive the U.S. as a racist nation--we're literally stunned that people who say they experience discrimination regularly (and who have the social science research to back them up) actually think that those experiences and that data might actually say something about the nation in which they reside. Imagine.

Whites are easily shocked by what we see and hear from Pastor Wright and Trinity Church, because what we see and hear so thoroughly challenges our understanding of who we are as a nation. But black people have never, for the most part, believed in the imagery of the "shining city on a hill," for they have never had the option of looking at their nation and ignoring the mountain-sized warts still dotting its face when it comes to race. Black people do not, in the main, get misty eyed at the sight of the flag the way white people do--and this is true even for millions of black veterans--for they understand that the nation for whom that flag waves is still not fully committed to their own equality. They have a harder time singing those tunes that white people seem so eager to belt out, like "God Bless America," for they know that whites sang those words loudly and proudly even as they were enforcing Jim Crow segregation, rioting against blacks who dared move into previously white neighborhoods, throwing rocks at Dr. King and then cheering, as so many did, when they heard the news that he had been assassinated.

Whites refuse to remember (or perhaps have never learned) that which black folks cannot afford to forget. I've seen white people stunned to the point of paralysis when they learn the truth about lynchings in this country--when they discover that such events were not just a couple of good old boys with a truck and a rope hauling some black guy out to the tree, hanging him, and letting him swing there. They were never told the truth: that lynchings were often community events, advertised in papers as "Negro Barbecues," involving hundreds or even thousands of whites, who would join in the fun, eat chicken salad and drink sweet tea, all while the black victims of their depravity were being hung, then shot, then burned, and then having their body parts cut off, to be handed out to onlookers. They are stunned to learn that postcards of the events were traded as souvenirs, and that very few whites, including members of their own families did or said anything to stop it.

Rather than knowing about and confronting the ugliness of our past, whites take steps to excise the less flattering aspects of our history so that we need not be bothered with them. So, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for example, site of an orgy of violence against the black community in 1921, city officials literally went into the town library and removed all reference to the mass killings in the Greenwood district from the papers with a razor blade--an excising of truth and an assault on memory that would remain unchanged for over seventy years.

Most white people desire, or perhaps even require the propagation of lies when it comes to our history. Surely we prefer the lies to anything resembling, even remotely, the truth. Our version of history, of our national past, simply cannot allow for the intrusion of fact into a worldview so thoroughly identified with fiction. But that white version of America is not only extraordinarily incomplete, in that it so favors the white experience to the exclusion of others; it is more than that; it is actually a slap in the face to people of color, a re-injury, a reminder that they are essentially irrelevant, their concerns trivial, their lives unworthy of being taken seriously. In that sense, and what few if any white Americans appear capable of grasping at present, is that "Leave it Beaver" and "Father Knows Best," portray an America so divorced from the reality of the times in which they were produced, as to raise serious questions about the sanity of those who found them so moving, so accurate, so real. These iconographic representations of life in the U.S. are worse than selective, worse than false, they are assaults to the humanity and memory of black people, who were being savagely oppressed even as June Cleaver did housework in heels and laughed about the hilarious hijinks of Beaver and Larry Mondello.

These portraits of America are certifiable evidence of how disconnected white folks were--and to the extent we still love them and view them as representations of the "good old days" to which we wish we could return, still are--from those men and women of color with whom we have long shared a nation. Just two months before "Leave it to Beaver" debuted, proposed civil rights legislation was killed thanks to Strom Thurmond's 24-hour filibuster speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate. One month prior, Arkansas Governor Orville Faubus called out the National Guard to block black students from entering Little Rock Central High; and nine days before America was introduced to the Cleavers, and the comforting image of national life they represented, those black students were finally allowed to enter, amid the screams of enraged, unhinged, viciously bigoted white people, who saw nothing wrong with calling children niggers in front of cameras. That was America of the 1950s: not the sanitized version into which so many escape thanks to the miracle of syndication, which merely allows white people to relive a lie, year after year after year.

No, it is not the pastor who distorts history; Nick at Nite and your teenager's textbooks do that. It is not he who casts aspersions upon "this great country" as Barack Obama put it in his public denunciations of him; it is the historic leadership of the nation that has cast aspersions upon it; it is they who have cheapened it, who have made gaudy and vile the promise of American democracy by defiling it with lies. They engage in a patriotism that is pathological in its implications, that asks of those who adhere to it not merely a love of country but the turning of one's nation into an idol to be worshipped, it not literally, then at least in terms of consequence.

It is they--the flag-lapel-pin wearing leaders of this land--who bring shame to the country with their nonsensical suggestions that we are always noble in warfare, always well-intended, and although we occasionally make mistakes, we are never the ones to blame for anything. Nothing that happens to us has anything to do with us at all. It is always about them. They are evil, crazy, fanatical, hate our freedoms, and are jealous of our prosperity. When individuals prattle on in this manner we diagnose them as narcissistic, as deluded. When nations do it--when our nation does--we celebrate it as though it were the very model of rational and informed citizenship.

So what can we say about a nation that values lies more than it loves truth? A place where adherence to sincerely believed and internalized fictions allows one to rise to the highest offices in the land, and to earn the respect of millions, while a willingness to challenge those fictions and offer a more accurate counter-narrative earns one nothing but contempt, derision, indeed outright hatred? What we can say is that such a place is signing its own death warrant. What we can say is that such a place is missing the only and last opportunity it may ever have to make things right, to live up to its professed ideals. What we can say is that such a place can never move forward, because we have yet to fully address and come to terms with that which lay behind.

What can we say about a nation where white preachers can lie every week from their pulpits without so much as having to worry that their lies might be noticed by the shiny white faces in their pews, while black preachers who tell one after another essential truth are demonized, not only for the stridency of their tone--which needless to say scares white folks, who have long preferred a style of praise and worship resembling nothing so much as a coma--but for merely calling bullshit on those whose lies are swallowed whole?

And oh yes, I said it: white preachers lie. In fact, they lie with a skill, fluidity, and precision unparalleled in the history of either preaching or lying, both of which histories stretch back a ways and have often overlapped. They lie every Sunday, as they talk about a Savior they have chosen to represent dishonestly as a white man, in every picture to be found of him in their tabernacles, every children's story book in their Sunday Schools, every Christmas card they'll send to relatives and friends this December. But to lie about Jesus, about the one they consider God--to bear false witness as to who this man was and what he looked like--is no cause for concern.

Nor is it a problem for these preachers to teach and preach that those who don't believe as they believe are going to hell. Despite the fact that such a belief casts aspersions upon God that are so profound as to defy belief--after all, they imply that God is so fundamentally evil that he would burn non-believers in a lake of eternal fire--many of the white folks who now condemn Jeremiah Wright welcome that theology of hate. Indeed, back when President Bush was the Governor of Texas, he endorsed this kind of thinking, responding to a question about whether Jews were going to go to hell, by saying that unless one accepted Jesus as one's personal savior, the Bible made it pretty clear that indeed, hell was where you'd be heading.

So you can curse God in this way--and to imply such hate on God's part is surely to curse him--and in effect, curse those who aren't Christians, and no one says anything. That isn't considered bigoted. That isn't considered beyond the pale of polite society. One is not disqualified from becoming President in the minds of millions because they go to a church that says that shit every single week, or because they believe it themselves. And millions do believe it, and see nothing wrong with it whatsoever.

So white folks are mad at Jeremiah Wright because he challenges their views about their country. Meanwhile, those same white folks, and their ministers and priests, every week put forth a false image of the God Jeremiah Wright serves, and yet it is whites who feel we have the right to be offended.

Pardon me, but something is wrong here, and whatever it is, is not to be found at Trinity United Church of Christ.

Pennsylvania and Barack

Jill Jones — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 01:12:59 EDT

When did Americans become so thin-skinned? When did we become so gossipy and slanderous? Take a good look around at our current culture. Who are we kidding? People preoccupy their lives with the latest People, Star or OK Magazine. TMZ and PerezHilton have become the go-to location for the news we Americans seem to care about.

Sad but true. Charlie Gibson and George Steph-who? Don’t you think it’s about time to televise debates that the actual voters can participate in and have their questions answered? Let George and Charlie do what they do best, show face and collect their checks. Must everyone continue to go on the media’s ride when someone dare tear into the fiber of America? Are these guys journalists or paid character assassins? The sensationalism of it all is no different than tabloid TV.

And Bad tabloid.

Witness how we tear down our heroes or just good people every chance we get. The Media glorifies at first, only to then demonize. When the love affair doesn’t generate sales any longer, the break-up will and the come-back , oh my God, money in the bank!! Because one thing America loves is the underdog right? The Comeback Kids!! Ah Drama. I guess we honestly like to see someone fall down, go belly up so we can share our Christian compassion, right? U Bet, right by the hair of my chinny chin chin!!

This is America Too....................

Yvette Jarvis — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 20:36:10 EDT

Hello Fellow Obama Supporters,

I received this post from one of the Obamians from the Harlem for Obama group. This is a very stark and poignant piece that expresses exactly what Obama meant when he said Bitter. God knows the truth hurts but we have got to suck it up and take the pain if we are to grow as a nation. " I have a Dream.."

I forgive my Brothers and Sisters and pray for them. I pray as the Greek Orthodox Easter approaches, that they will one day forgive themselves.

The Lord is my shepherd and I shall not want......God Bless America, All of it!

Thank you VKing for this eye opener!

Yvette

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/04/bitter-and-angry-in-rural-penn.php

Bitter and Angry in Rural Pennsylvania: Obama's Reality vs. Hillary's Fantasy

By astral66 - April 12, 2008, 4:40PM

Maybe there aren't Bubbas driving around in pickup trucks with the classic bumpersticker "God, Guns and Guts Made America Free" where Obama's detractors live, but here in rural Pennsylvania that line may as well replace "e pluribus unum" as the motto on the national currency.

I live in western Pennsylvania, and I can tell you, people here are bitter and angry. Poverty is prevalent. People hunt squirrels and eat them, along with racoon stew. People also hunt deer here, not for sport, but so they can put meat in their freezer so they can feed their families. They cut wood in the forests and heat their homes with wood stoves because they can't afford to pay the gas bill. I know a guy who goes to old landfills to dig up old milk and beer bottles to sell on eBay. He uses the proceeds to buy clothes for his family at the Salvation Army (and to pay for his dial-up connection).

Racism and prejudice are ever-present here. A friend of mine is part-owner of bar in a small rural town south of where I live. I meet up with him there occasionally and watch as down-and-out people come in with their disability and welfare check money and drink it away. It's a pretty depressing place, but it does serve as the social center for a town that has seen its few industries shut down and the local people's jobs eliminated or shipped off elsewhere.

I hear the usual rants there, that it's all the fault of gays and minorities and immigrants (although those aren't the terms used, but rather the usual, virulent slurs). A black man walked in the last time I was there, and a guy near me at the bar muttered in a not-so-quiet way, "What's he think he's doing in here?" When I brought up the presidential race and Obama with another man at the bar, his response was, "there ain't no way America is ever going to vote for a black guy." Later on my bar-owner friend told me about his experience talking about Obama with another woman at the bar, and her angry response was that "it's because of half-breed n*****s like him that America is in such bad shape today."

Prejudice, racism and fear do run rampant in areas like this. People are poor. They are in bad health, overweight from a deep-fried diet, and toothless from the lack of dental care. They are unemployed. They are uneducated. They do cling to their hunting rifles and to their religious beliefs. For many, it is about all that they have. The towns around here are full of decaying, boarded up buildings. People live in rundown old trailers with abandoned cars in the front yard. I have seen people using an old car as a stable, with their goat tied to and living in it. I could drive you by a least three old houses that have Conderate flags in the windows.

So go ahead and discount Obama's talk of how bitter and angry that some of the people of rural Pennsylvania are. Call him elitist for taking the time to pass through areas such as this to listen to what the people have to say, and to then relate what he has heard to people in more prosperous parts of the country when he is asked about it. I have lived in San Francisco, and let me tell you, there is a marked difference between the general attitude there and the attitude here in the "rust belt". Go ahead and dismiss everything that Obama said as political posturing. Let Hillary and McCain "pick him apart" and parse his words. But please keep in mind that when Obama said:

"it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

that he is 100% accurate in his assessment.

I know, because I live here, my family and my friends' families have lived here for generations, and we see it every day, all around this region. There is a very fine line between poverty and prosperity here, where making above $20,000 a year puts you in the realm of the "haves", but also knowing that you're one contract termination away from joining the ranks of the "have-nots".

I come from a family of dairy farmers. I know what it's like to spend up to 12-16 hours a day sitting on a tractor for three dollars an hour, which I did through high school and every summer until I was fortunate enough to head off to college. Many of my friends were also fortunate and went to school, and then relocated to other parts of the country. Some of us were able to come back under better circumstances, but the large majority of people here are not as fortunate.

Thirty years worth of the right wing dismantling our public education system has taken its toll. Thirty years worth of mismanagement of the economy, of shutting down factories and shipping jobs out of the country, of subsidizing corporate farms and taxing family farms out of business, has taken its toll.

Yes, people are angry, and bitter, but Obama never said that they aren't resilient, opitmistic or hard-working. Those are Hillary and McCain's twisted words, and for them to stand up and suggest that rural Pennsylvanians aren't fed up with the way things are, only reveals how out of touch they really are with at least this part of the country.

Of course, all McCain has to do is suggest to poor rural folk that the party of gun-control, gay marriage, and NAFTA is going to take away what little they have left, and rural conservatives will vote for him, just as they did for Reagan, Bush I and Bush II. As for Hillary, the more she "takes apart" Obama's message, the more she does the GOP's work for free. If Hillary can't see that the people of rural Pennsylvania are bitter, and angry, and mad as hell about the way things are, then she needs to step down from that one hundred million dollar platform of hers and take a real look around.

In western Pennsylvania I hear two things: the "God, Guns and Guts" crowd see John McCain as the heir-apparent to the mantle of rural conservative values; and the people who hope for some kind of change see Barack Obama as the person who understands the situation that we are in, and maybe is the one who can lead us in a new direction. What I don't hear is anyone talking about whatever and whomever it is that Hillary claims to stand for.

Guns & Religion

Jim Welke — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 17:04:24 EDT

The man spoke his mind; he was forthright, forthcoming and forthwith. Do we condemn him for that? Yes. Apparently, candor is anathema to campaigning. If one hopes to lead this country, the last thing they should hope to do is tell the truth. The voter is a fragile and sentimental receptacle, easily damaged by criticism; an empty vessel hoping to be filled with glad tidings of a sunny prosperous future no matter how dark the clouds that loom on the horizon.

He said:

“You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Does anyone dispute that towns and cities across this country have lost their manufacturing jobs to low-wage workers overseas? Does anyone blame the people in these towns for anti-immigrant, or anti-trade sentiments when politicians have blamed immigrants for blue-collar job erosion, and over-sold the virtues of free trade for at least the last twenty-five years? Does anyone dispute that people have a right to be bitter when, as Senator Obama correctly points out, their elected representatives have consistently deceived them? Of course not. So that leaves the suggestion that these bitter, un-employed, and deceived constituents now cling to guns and religion for salvation. Does that statement somehow offend? What else is there for them to cling to? Right or wrong, guns have a deep-rooted association in this country with rugged individualism, and self-determination. Religion offers an unwavering moral compass, and the hope that those who take the trouble to be guided by that moral compass will be rewarded.

Many of us rightly question the wisdom of preserving the probably misconstrued Second Amendment -- we don’t need to carry guns anymore, and we don’t need local militias. Many would question the wisdom of a literal interpretation of the Bible. But there are those among us who do insist on preserving their broad interpretation of the Second Amendment, and do insist on a literal interpretation of the Bible. So why condemn a man for pointing it out? Is it because we are ashamed of these cadres in our midst, so disenfranchised, so disaffected that their dearest possessions might be a Bible clutched in one hand, and a rifle in the other? Are they so different from the disaffected and disenfranchised who founded this country?

I, for one, respect and appreciate Senator Obama’s honest efforts at genuine understanding and inclusion. I hope everyone will find within themselves the real patriot, and join the movement -- lapel pin, or not.

BLOGGING FOR OBAMA: My e-mail to ABC

Danny — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 17:01:23 EDT

My e-mail to ABC News chief. if you enjoy it, tip the blogger by donating to the campaign via my donation page on my barackobama.com profile.

Some Articles from MSNBC 4/17 with commentary.

EMK — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 14:02:49 EDT

The debate: I wasn't going to post this MSNBC article, but with this petition that Edward has found (and I signed--throwing in Ammendment IX), I recommend using the article to help motivate you to sign the petition!

Carter: Carter and Hamas politician meet, embrace.

DNA: U.S. seeks to widely expand DNA database. Read the article and take the poll.

Gaza: Gaza doctors: Israeli shell killed cameraman.

There are more important stuff than the debates going on, and there are more than I can post! Just read the articles, feel free to debate, and do the polls and petitions that I got out ther.

Here's a quote from Obama that is relevant now (also cited in my blog If you get bitter...):

From the post: Obama: Voters can be both angry and hopeful.
"Just because you're mad, just because it seems like nobody is listening to ordinary Americans, that's not a reason to give up hope," Obama told the Building Trades National Legislative Conference. "You get mad and then you decide you're going to change it. If you're not angry about something you're going to sit back and let it happen to you. If you're only angry, you don't feel hopeful, and you won't get the energy to change it. I'm mad, but I'm also hopeful."
--Barack Obama

And once again, thanks to Edward for the petition link!

"The society's depravation relies/ not on our differences/ but the separation within."
--Linkin Park, "Frgt/10."

EMK

Hillary's respect for Working Class Whites in 1995 per the Huffington Post

Maria — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 11:28:47 EDT

See the following clip from a Huffington Post Article and let's let Working Class Whites know who is REALLY hurtful to them:

Hillary Clinton On Southern Working Class Whites In 1995: "Screw 'Em" - The Huffington Post

During the Philadelphia debate, Clinton tried to connect Obama again to the "bitter" remarks. While it's easy to say that Clinton was playing politics as usual, it's fair to point out that during Bill Clinton's term in office, she took a stand against working class white in 1995.

As reported by The Huffington Post, in January 1995, the then Bill Clinton administration pondered whether to make overtures to working class white southerners who had all but forsaken the Democratic Party? During a debate at a Camp David retreat, the then-first lady abandoned the working class white by pressuring her husband to do the same:

"Screw 'em. You don't owe them a thing, Bill. They're doing nothing for you; you don't have to do anything for them."

The statement was included in a book titled, "The Truth of Power: Intellectual Affairs in the Clinton White House," written by Benjamin Barber who witnessed and wrote about it.

POOH ON ABC & HILLARY TOO

BRGHTSD1 HOPE & COURAGE — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 08:24:56 EDT

PACK UP THE TIGGERS
THE EYORES
AND ROO'S
PACK UP THE MICKEY'S
THE MINNIE'S
THE POOH'S
PACK UP THE BOOKS, THE PLUSH AND CD'S
TELL ABC THAT YOU'RE NOT IN THE SLIGHTEST BIT PLEASED.

TELL THEM THAT YOU THINK THAT NEWS SHOULD MEAN FACTS...NOT PANDERING, WANDERING, SLANDEROUS CRAP.
TELL EM' THE INFOMERCIAL, THE PREVIEW MCCAIN WAS NOT VERY NICE, IN FACT WAS INSANE.

YES, GIVE DISNEY (ABC) THEIR STUFF BACK...SEND A MESSAGE "I'M BITTER & MAD"...THIS WASN'T A DEBATE IT WAS JUST PLAIN SAD"..."I'D RATHER BE POOH-LESS THAN GIVE YOU A DIME"..."I'M NOT GONNA' TAKE IT, OH NO, NOT THIS TIME".

OKAY...SO THIS IS MY POEM...I KNOW IT'S NOT GREAT...BUT I KNOW IT'S NOT HILLARY'S TURN IN 08.

Obama Served on a Board of Directors with a Pro-Palestinian

Judy B. in Austin, TX — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 01:03:30 EDT

Obama Served on a Board of Directors with a Pro-Palestinian

This is my prediction for the traditional "October Surprise" that'll hit mainstream media about 3 days before the PA Primary.

I google searched it yesterday and there was only about 12K stories. Now today, it's up to 14K. It's slowly creeping into obscure, libral blogs like so many false stories do.

It's almost like everyone is being distracted by the stupid 'bitter' thing right now. All the on-air cable news analysts who are pro-hillary will get their campaign talking points on Friday before the PA election, telling them to say the media has been ignoring this story and then the crap will hit the fan. It's always a stupid, false & highly inflamatory story that gets folks attention on Friday and then they talk about it all weekend and vote on Tuesday. It's the type of story that could start out hot and then end up to be nothing but always too late for an election.

Here's my google search so see for yourself if the number of search results increases from it's now 14,000 between now and when the election begins on 4/22/08.

I hope I'm wrong.

Audacity vs. Chutzpah

Jerome from Claremont, NH — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 19:58:04 EDT

Who is Hillary Clinton to criticize Barack Obama for his “bitter” comment after she blatantly lied about dodging sniper fire in Bosnia? Hillary is a hypocrite who thinks the Presidency is her entitlement. Fortunately, the audacity of hope triumphs over the chutzpah of deceit!

"Bitter-Gate" What Obama Really Said

Stephanie — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 18:06:38 EDT

repost from The Huffington Post -- by David Coleman

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-coleman/i-was-there-what-obama-re_b_96553.html

I Was There: What Obama Really Said About Pennsylvania

Last Sunday evening I attended the San Francisco fundraiser that has been the center of recent political jousting. The next day, when asked about the talk Obama delivered, I too commented about his answer to a question he was asked about Pennsylvania. Over the past week, though, I have had a Rashomon-like experience concerning those remarks.

Clinton, McCain, and media pundits have parsed a blogger's audio tape of Obama's remarks and criticized a sentence or two characterizing some parts of Pennsylvania and the attitudes of some Pennsylvanians. In context and in person, Senator Obama's remarks about Pennsylvania voters left an impression diametrically opposed to that being trumpeted by his competitor's campaigns.

At the end of Obama's remarks standing between two rooms of guests -- the fourth appearance in California after traveling earlier in the day from Montana -- a questioner asked, "some of us are going to Pennsylvania to campaign for you. What should we be telling the voters we encounter?"

My Thoughts on Obama's "Bitter" Remark

Michael Kotyk — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 17:12:52 EDT

Much has been made in the press concerning Senator Obama's use of the word 'bitter' to describe people in Pennsylvania who are having a tough time economically. Senator Clinton and Senator McCain's campaign have jumped all over Senator Obama's 'faux pas' by saying that he is out of touch with the people and that he is acting like an elitist.

I am so very glad that the media, as well as Senators McCain and Clinton, can speak for those of us who live here in Pennsylvania. I'm glad that they consider themselves the voice of the people. The only problem I have with this though is that they should actually speak to the people before opening their mouths.

In other words, Senator McCain, Senator Clinton and the news media in general, don't know what they are talking about.

Senator Obama, on the other hand, does. He also does not need to apologize for a remark which is right on target.

You see, I do live in Pennsylvania. I am unemployed and am facing some very tough decisions on just what I am to do in regards to supporting my family. I'm frustrated by the reluctance of employers to hire veterans because they fear we may 'go nuts' (PTSD) or suffer medical problems which they may have to pay for. I'm frustrated by the lack of concern from Washington DC as well as from the VA (Veterans Administration). Basically, I'm frustrated which has led to bitterness.

Obama's "Bitter" comment explained

Vince from Boston, MA — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 14:06:50 EDT

in a Charlie Rose Interview from 2004.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHodpyhXFSg

..... Pass this on

Barack Obama 08'

..... Hope and a new direction.

There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America. -Barack Obama

"The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith." - Franklin D. Roosevelt

Vince ;-} Hope Monger Yes We Can !

http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/blog/vince

Bitter-Gate?

Robert from Vero Beach, FL — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 11:16:18 EDT

I have put up a new blog post at my website about the "bitter" comments that explains to people why we all need to just calm down and think rationally for a minute.

Check it out at <a href="http://www.garmentfile.com">http://www.garmentfile.com</a>

Don't worry, it's a non-profit, pro-Obama blog, not some clever trick to get your email address or soemthing!

Responding to Dan Schnur

Benjamin Vos, Nashville — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 10:42:34 EDT

http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/15/right-fight-wrong-word/index.html

So, Dan Schnur is the next in line to take a stab at Barack Obama by twisting his words to mean something they don't. We shouldn't be particularly surprised by this. Schnur helped run John McCain's 2000 presidential campaign. So we know where he stands.

Schnur's "new" addition to the debate is a response to the book, "What's the matter with Kansas?" Schnur notes the following about voters who go against their own best interests by supporting candidates on the basis of 'single issues':

"For many people, that’s certainly true. But there are plenty of other voters who don’t necessarily base their votes solely on jobs and taxes, and many of them are quite financially successful. They have determined their political affiliations largely as a result of the same continuing battles over abortion, guns and same-sex marriage that have drawn so many working-class voters to Republican candidates over the years. The only difference is the side of the fight they’ve chosen. It’s hard to argue that a wealthy pro-choice Democrat is any less of a values voter than a pro-life construction worker who votes Republican."

To which, I respond, "DUH!"

If the shoe doesn't even belong to you, then don't complain about how it doesn't fit you.

Schnur seems intent to stir up outrage at Obama's comments, which were directed at a very small minority of swing voters who are cynical about politics as usual, and frustrated about the fact that government doesn't seem responsive to their most important issues. Obama wasn't saying anything like, "All values-based voters are naive," or, "Republicans are closed-minded." Let's look again at what Obama actually said:

"You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Now ... notice what Obama didn't say. He wasn't talking about "working class voters" or "uneducated voters" or "Republican voters" or "Democratic voters" or "values voters". Unlike Karl Rove, Obama didn't try to divide people into "beer drinkers" or "wine sippers" or "latte drinkers" or "pro-life" or "pro-choice". He's looking at another dynamic - cynicism because government has made empty promises they didn't keep. And the biggest issue for our democracy today is cynicism - people just aren't involved in the political process like they should be. When 40% of people don't even bother to vote, you've got a problem. When only 48% of the 60% of people who vote are supporting the winning candidate, that means you've got about 30% of American voters supporting a particular candidate.

And that, my friends, is the issue. That's Obama's heart - Project Vote, getting 150,000 new voters registered in Chicago back in the early 90s, community organizing, helping people to get involved in the process again, going directly to the people instead of engaging in "top-down" political gamesmanship. And regardless of who wins and who loses, what matters most is that people are getting involved in the political process again.

And that's the sub-text of all this "outrage" about Obama's comments. The Republican National Committee, the McCain campaign, the Clinton campaign ... their entire message is designed to tell people, "Obama's just another ordinary politician."

There's just one problem. The facts don't fit.

Schnur tries to paint Obama as naive and closed-minded. "A more experienced and open-minded candidate would recognize and respect the foundations on which these values are based."

And this is the height of hypocrisy. Because Obama truly understands the "foundations on which these values are based". He knows that there is, like Ed Rendell said, "a small minority of voters" who will not vote for a candidate simply because he's black. Obama realizes that the core issue for many voters is not "the issues" but rather a disbelief in the power of government to help people. And that belief hasn't been there since Bobby Kennedy's death in 1968.

Obama has plenty of experience - being raised in Indonesia to learn that many Muslims are not extremists, growing up as a biracial child who is neither black nor white, but both at the same time, having a single mom on food stamps, going to high school in Hawaii, having a little trouble with his own cynicism, not being accepted by the majority white culture or the minority black culture, attending Columbia University and studying international relations at a top-notch school, doing community organizing for churches in Chicago's south side, serving as the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review, working for Project Vote, serving a minority district in the Illinois State Senate, teaching constitutional law at one of the top conservative law schools in the country ... how much experience do you need?

Time will tell whether the "elitist" meme will stick. But this white Evangelical pro-life Tennessean male is not convinced. I think that the entire GOP strategy is disingenuous, cynical, dishonest, insincere, and wrong.

All that Dan Schnur did is make me more certain that the Republican party will say anything to dupe voters into voting against Obama.

Polls, Presidency, Being "Bitter", and WINNING IN PA

The Pollitikat — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 06:17:15 EDT

Response to blog post about hating polls:

I love the polls. Polls are our friend. lol. we need polls to gage the situation, the key is not to take them too seriously. We all have an internal poll, and I know what Im feeling. Im feeling a win in PA. Barack has campaigned different in PA. He did what needed to be done. He did the Bus tour, and he allowed his visits to marinade by visiting other states in between. He talked with locals, gave important speeches, launched effective add campaign, and pushed back against her attackes. I believe he has made great inrodes in PA and these recent comment controversy will only gain him votes among those who the opposition think it will cost him votes. Those voteres will realize that Barack really does understand them, and he is willing to take their message to the "elites". This comments shows that Barack speaks for all people no matter who the audience. His response was effective in positiong the comment in its proper context. Because of Barack I am beginning to have great confidence in the American populous. I realize now that many people are hungry for truth just like me and soon there will be only those who are ignorant by choice because the truth is out there.

Barack looked presidential, while Hillary looked "bitter". When I think over the past weeks I cant help feeling sorry for her. The humanity in me hopes she comes out with some dignity. We shall not take joy in her demise, but grant her the courtesy she may not have given Barack. I TNIHK HE IS GIONG TO BAET HER!
and he will win the general election.

Barack has defied all the odds, and I honestly did not see it coming. My only concern is the debate tomorrow, if he comes off too cocky the tide could turn. the last time he debated barack acted like he was singing her goodbye song at the end, it was awkward and that turned voters off. This time he just needs to take it easy, and he will win.

Bitterness, Guns, God, Iran attack & a New pro-peace Israel lobby

Mark Levin — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 03:14:06 EDT

Not as eloquent as "Guns, Germs and Steel," I know.

The primary is a done deal (90%, based on most prediction markets), despite these media-hyped "pivotal" contests ahead. I've been pivoting for months!

But his damage control (and seeming more professorial than caring) needs to improve. I am starting to get worried about Barack's November electability. I think his rejoinder to the whole "cling to guns and God" charge could have been better explained by saying something like this -

"I used a poor choice of words - I should have said angry or frustrated (which is a reality) instead of bitter, which was silly to say. Respect for character, morals, deep faith and the right to bear arms are deeply embedded in our national psyche. Hard-working Americans are feeling helpless, that no President can help them with their economic problems, so it is natural to focus on other issues they care about or direct their frustration in other ways. I want to tell them - 'Do not lose hope on the economic front. We need your hand and determination. You are my brothers and sisters. I care about what happens to you.' And some of us may feel less friendly towards immigrants and view them as being competition - all this is natural under these circumstances. We have to right the ship of our nation so that we the descendants of immigrants can together forge a stronger America, America the proud." And then he should have gone medieval on the metaphorical ass of his two tormentors...on the elitism charge, which he was suitably combative about.

There were some rumors last year - that tired with the right-wing politics of the pro-Israel group AIPAC, American Jews were joining hands to form an alternative lobby to it, to give our politicians some more palatable choices. Obama is also extensively referenced here:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070423/weiss

Then it was just announced this week that the new lobby, "J Street Project" is being launched:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/975291.html

This may be timely (or too late) if Newsmax, that paragon of objectivity is right:

"Source: US Strike on Iran Nearing"
http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/iran_nuclear_strike/2008/04/14/87887.html

"The Coming War with Iran: 6 Days in Hell!"
http://w3.newsmax.com/a/apr07/

Bitter is Better than No Truth At All

Nickie — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 01:46:27 EDT

I had to laugh at Hillary's new ad in PA about Barack's Bitter comments. Somehow we need to turn this into a positive message. So far I've read a million comments from people on blogs and here about how bitter we are and why Obama is right. American's are discontented. The polls show our unhappiness level somewhere in the 70+ percentage points. I mean that is a lot of bitter people.

Im bitter because of X

I have hope because of Y

I don't know...there's a political ad in here that rocks. Somehow.

Maybe some creative genious can take the idea and work it into something dynamic. But Hillary getting a few of those 20+/1 happy supporters to say they were offended at Baracks comments was lame. I think we can do one better. About being bitter and not going to take it anymore. Ideas?

Isn't Move on.org doing some kind of competition for an ad?

Oh and I did see Barack's ad in response but it lacked something. At least, I think I saw something. I watch so much Obama stuff sometimes it all bleeds together.

don't let non-issues divide us

Ali F. — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 01:26:30 EDT

I'm not surprised that the Republican sleaze machine has turned full force to try to distract us from how bad the GOP's policies have hurt this country. It's typical old school politics (led by Fox News). However, I am dissappointed to see that Sen. Hillary Clinton has joined the republicans in in this attack. I am dissappointed to see the lame and unconvincing efforts of Sen. Clinton to suddenly turn herself into a gun-toting conservative, in response to Sen. Obama's "bitter" remark.

Why is Sen. Clinton joining ranks with the Republican attack machine? I don't know. I suppose I could be cynical and say it's because the Clinton's always put themselves ahead of the party (as some in the media have suggested). When asked if Sen. Clinton was crossing a line when she implied Sen. McCain was more prepared to be Commander-in-Chief than Obama, Terry McAuliffe justified this attack by claiming that it's less harsh than what the Republican attack machine would do. I'm comforted to see that Sen. Clinton's campaign pegs it's moral compass to the GOP attack machine.

But I think it is none of these. I think this is a simple case of old school politics vs. new school. In other words, we can either play the same old political games, by allowing the talking heads and the politicians to divide us using non-issues and distract us from having substantive debate and solving real problems. Or we can reject those tactics and decide that we need to debate iraq and healthcare, not diction. We need to find ways to help families facing foreclosure, not throw around charged slogans to gain cheap political points.

And for the record, I am bitter that our leaders took us into a disastrous war in Iraq, while Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan have regrouped. I am bitter that our brave iraq war veterans are getting sub-par healthcare through the VA. I am bitter that american workers are losing their jobs, and their government is cutting their social benefits, just when they need them most. I am bitter that the income inquality has increased dramatically, making the American Dream harder to achieve for many families.

Even if you support Sen. Clinton or Sen. McCain, you must admit that we should be spending time debating policies, not throwing around buzz-words to get a rise out of people.

Bitter??

Madama Ambi — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:48:18 EDT

Yes, Patrice is bitter. A direct response to the charges that Barack Obama doesn't understand the problems of ''what used to be the middle class.'' This interview is in four parts...from bitter to angry...with thanks to Milton Friedman and trickledown...just trying to make ends meet & mad as hell not gonna take it anymore...

We will be more than 'Bitter' if we don't get Barack elected

deanne in florida — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:34:51 EDT

This thing the media is picking at, promoting for God knows who or what is merely a ruse. But, I know all of you, know that. It is true, that Barack misspoke. Yet, like he explained and stated later, his words were taken out of context. What is going to surprise the 'Media' is when most Americans let them know that we are not taken in by all the hype.

When the truth is this: While talking about small town or rural Pennsylvanians, Barack was trying to say; "The people living there, and like all across America, are bitter and frustrated because their government has ignored them. They feel that no one in Washington listens to their wants and needs. And so they turn (here he misspoke with cling) -- to the only thing they feel they can do. Well, at least we can try and maintain our constitutional right to bear arms. We can try and maintain our freedom to worship in the church that we choose. We can try and maintain our borders, both Mexico and Canada should be enforced and or controlled."

We all know that is what Obama meant. And, we all need to be prepared for what the real elitist from Washington DC, are going to throw at our man.

by Deanne with also; Pajama Party 2008

Are You Bitter Off Than You Were Four Years Ago (cartoon)

Cindy in Salt Lake — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:19:40 EDT

Attribution
John Darkow, Columbia Daily Tribune, Missouri

Hillary seems to sense she can't win...

j f n — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:13:56 EDT

I receive campaign emails from Senator Clinton...just to keep my nose into the other side of things... (I'm considering joining McCain's mailing list as well...)

But anyways, Clinton sends an email with a subject heading "Winning and Losing".

She starts the email by saying, "No candidate can guarantee victory." I think she is right to try to prepare her supporters for a let down. She's in a tight spot. She won't be able to win unless she can make a case for herself or unless Obama slips up in some significant way. This is why she has been so unrelenting on the 'bitter' remarks. Even this backfired on her... Now she seems to be airing the possibility of her defeat...

At least she's not delusional, right? The question remains, how does she plan to justify prolonging this contest if she does not truly believe she can win?

P.S. -- the initial publisher of the 'bitter' remarks, citizen journalist Mayhill Fowler, is actually an Obama supporter who was torn between publishing and not publishing the story... I hope Obama supporter don't hold anything against her. The press took her story and ran with it, changing a few details that made the situation seem shadier than it was...

Of, By, For

Thomas from Providence, RI — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 22:47:07 EDT

Why is it that some of us are accustomed to news reports about violence, poverty and hopelessness in the "inner city" (aka urban low-income communities of color), and their implicit assumptions like poverty leads to hopelessness leads to crime and violence, but we are indignant when similar notions are suggested about white communities? I sometimes don't even realize I'm making assumptions until someone points it out, but when my awkwardness and discomfort wears off, I'm grateful for the insight. I feel more connected to the world because I understand it better, and am more respectful of its complexity.

The truth is, we have a lot to learn about each other if we are to coexist peacefully and prosperously. (Think of how you feel when someone asks you about your life, your background, your interests, what you think.) I worked for many years with low-income rural people of different races and cultures. In my role as an organizer and advocate, I constantly ran into assumptions about rural people, most commonly: uneducated, poor, close-minded, backwards, primitive, and insular. So I wonder if some of the concern about Senator Obama's remarks in San Francisco stems from a frustration with the redneck-hillbilly stereotype.

...

The story that matters most in this campaign is the number of donors to Senator Obama's campaign, and the average size of donation. That is the best indicator not only of his unassailably broad appeal, but the promise he represents for rejuvenating the democratic process. "Of the people, by the people, for the people": what a concept?! Maybe after all of these years, we have a chance to build a more perfect union. What amazes and appalls me, however, is how we as Americans don't seem to be able to recognize democracy when it's standing right in front of us.

It's shocking (and telling) to me that the GOP took pride in rallying behind its nominee so early. Democracy IS messy, but it is in my opinion far more important than unity.

Reasoned critiques of any candidate are fair, expected and necessary: they will strengthen a campaign and clarify its message. And Senator Obama would be the first one to say that he's open to new ideas, and his responses' effort to open and deepen conversations reflect this perspective. A desirable (and currently absent) trait in a president, if you ask me.

...

And lastly, some unsolicited tips for the campaign(s)...

Hillary and Barack should spend a week (at least) just focusing on McCain. I think Democrats in PA and beyond know enough to decide, and some "double-teaming" would end McCain's honeymoon, start to chip away at any Republican advantage, serve as an unequivocal sign of Democratic unity.

...and fellow supporters:

Every criticism of Senator Obama is now a signal to me to send in another donation.

and

I was wondering today if it would be interesting to start a "Piggybanks for Barack" campaign--my daughter (4) has one and is probably the strongest supporter in the house.

Lou Dubbs is BITTER and Obama is BETTER

Ash Sadek — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 22:14:27 EDT

Lou Dubbs GOT BITTER

MY God, I was so happy to see Lou Diubbs defeated on his own show that turned into a full Clinton support and attacking Obama. Tonight, Lou repeated "Bitter" more than 100 times. He failed big time when the poll showed that 66% of the 9000 voters were feeling Bitter and Angry.. God Bless you Obama.

Obama is BETTER

Some Bitter Advice

Michele — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 22:05:50 EDT

Dear Sen. Obama,

You will undoubtedly be asked about the "bitter" bruhaha at Wednesday's debate. All eyes and ears will be studying your response. As a former Republican who worked on Republican campaigns I know all about elitst tactics used to "fire up" the common American. It is a Rove fact, that to win states like Ohio, Penn, or any place where regular folk reside: call them what you will, average Americans, blue collar workers, Joe six pack, when they want to distract the people from real day to day issues, like jobs, economy, war - there is nothing better than to hit America's heartland straight at their culture. They play the country fiddle like a Strativarius, and make the good people afraid the opposite candidate will let gays run wild, remove all our guns and make the populace so afraid our country's going down the toilet, they vote out of fear. Look at the last campaign Bush vs. Kerry. All the Republicans had to do was play the video of Massachusets recent gay weddings over and over again to get the electorate all worked up and vote along cultural lines.Predictable. Reliable, it works every time. If people don't realize this is a well-tested and well-used strategy then they are living on another planet.

There is nothing wrong with voting along one's moral compass, to vote along cultural lines and values. If those things, those issues are important most of all, then by all means that should guide one's vote. But Republicans think they have rural and everyday America figured out. They think they know how to manipulate the masses. And I am sorry to say, but their methods usually get the desired results.

You know this Sen. Obama. I am listening to your critics and I am getting so angry. You did not say, because people are bitter, only then do they turn to God or to their values. Who believes that? Nobody. But what HAS happened, is the electorate allows a single issue - hot issues to influence their vote - They elect a candidate out of fear that their values will be a thing of the past. So they put in a president who promises to respect the second ammendment, who goes around getting their picture taken shooting a rifle, and the electorate is appeased. They forget that the person they are voting for also has policies that will keep them down while others get richer, or will promote an American business to go overseas, or will side with corporations.

I think if you said they cling to "issues" like Religion, Gays, Guns you would have been fine and not so misunderstood. Clinton and McCain know what you meant. But they are going to distort and run wild with what they can - and both are ViRTUOSOS playing this bitter tune on their country fiddle.

Clinton and McCain are best friends. They have had a silent handshake, a wink and a nod of how it will be. I never heard a Republican candidate before endorse a Democratic one. Absolutely amazing! She is tag teaming with a Republican to undermine a fellow Democrat - someone she says she honors and respects! Baloney!

People are bitter- cynical and are tired of the same old politics. You recognize that, the millions that send in hard earned money (like me) recognize it too. You point out painful truths but you offer honest hope that just this once, it can be different.

My mother always told me "A best friend will tell you something you don't want to hear, but need to know."

You are America's best friend and best hope.

IT'S A VERY BITTER BREW (HA, HA)!!!!!

John Lewis-Dickerson, Atlanta — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 21:19:58 EDT

Obama, Bitterness, Fundamentalists and Guns

Media Sh** Storms and Heartland Reality

By JOE BAGEANT

There seems to be no end to the media mediocrity we must suffer in this country. Now we have the Obama Guns, God and Bitterness sh** storm, with the sh** pouring forth from the same media scuppers (scuppers are outlet sewage blowholes on the sides of ships) as usual: The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, CNN.com, the Associated Press, Fox News, Reuters, Politico, the Lou Dobbs Show, Hardball, Olbermann's Countdown, The Atlantic.com, The DailyKos, TalkingPointsMemo

And all because Obama mentioned something we've known for at least a couple of decades now......

ARTICLE- http://www.counterpunch.org/bageant04152008.html

Transforming "Bitter" to "Better"

BENTON GRIMMETT — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 19:30:34 EDT

There is power in the word "bitter" for it is used during the Seder to remind us of the hardships of economic distress, new forms of "slavery", and looking at the reality of past deeds that are propagated to present generations. Nevertheless, because of our favor, creativity and infinite abilities given to us by the Almighty, we will experience a transformation from "bitter" to "BETTER" and we will have victory because of our FAITH.

As we support Mr. Obama we become a part of a transformation that will change the "i" to "e", and from the negative past realities to the positive hopeful realities for our future.

We will demonstrate more brotherly love, function in a non-zero sum situation, and realize that we ALL can move forward in this society and can jointly participate in a transformation to make the "bitter" become the "better" for ALL Americans, not just for some Americans.

What do you think?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maror

The Articulate Version of Bitter

Barbara from Herndon, VA — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 19:25:08 EDT

The articulate version of the bitter sentiments appeared on Charlies Rose (11/2007) and was replayed last night (4/14/08). Casey was a guest. Haven't seen any coverage. Just the hammering and yammering re: San Francisco. Stop it!

No Bitter Drop

Michael Tenery — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 17:33:10 EDT

Despite Hillary's and McCain's echo chamber attack on Obama's accurate though poorly said statement that small town voters are bitter and despite her campaigning on it with ads and the whole dog and pony show, it has not effected Obama's standing in Pennsylvania. She is likely to win but not by enough to matter. The next big Poll will be Thu/Fri after the debate tomorrow night. Let's see who gets a bump then. Until then don't let her and her campaign's ranting shake you. She is the one coming across desperate and yes, bitter.

Here are the polls for today.

SUSA:

Hillary Clinton: 54%

Barack Obama: 40%

Quinnipac:

Hillary Clinton: 50%

Barack Obama: 44%

Rassmussen:

Hillary Clinton: 50%

Barack Obama: 41%

John Stewart on 'Bitter'

Mary from Vermont — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 15:19:02 EDT

This is not to be missed. The Daily Show's take on the latest 'bitter' controversy......it's hilarious!

http://www.redlasso.com/ClipPlayer.aspx?id=2e8f3421-9fc1-4727-ad7b-21172957794a

If you get bitter...

EMK — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 14:09:24 EDT

Remember this article: Obama: Voters can be both angry and hopeful.

Especially this quote:

"Just because you're mad, just because it seems like nobody is listening to ordinary Americans, that's not a reason to give up hope," Obama told the Building Trades National Legislative Conference. "You get mad and then you decide you're going to change it. If you're not angry about something you're going to sit back and let it happen to you. If you're only angry, you don't feel hopeful, and you won't get the energy to change it. I'm mad, but I'm also hopeful."
--Barack Obama

Furthermore, remember about the inclusion of political activsim with community activism:

From my blog, This is WHY COMMUNITY Advocacy must INCLUDE POLITICAL Advocacy:
Keep an open mind, and make sure it's MAIN STREET policies! If we support Obama, we must be educated supporters! Obama has given a lot of us a reason to be inspired and to vote, including myself; and, ironically, if it weren't for Obama running in this election, I might not have even bothered to look at what these other referenced candidates had to say, or even cared to vote. I want Obama to be president, and we must help him overcome the "burdens" he is facing!

"The society's degradation relies/ not on our differences/ but the separation within."

--Linkin Park, "Frgt/10."

EMK

Bitter

dd — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 11:29:50 EDT

Here is the full quote of Sen. Obama's answer that contained the bitter comment: Obama: No Surprise That Hard-Pressed Pennsylvanians Turn Bitter.

Here is a write-up by someone who was there: I Was There: What Obama Really Said About Pennsylvania

An open letter to George Will

Benjamin Vos, Nashville — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 11:29:39 EDT

George:

Since I was in high school, I've always admired your thoughtful observations on American culture. But you have also embodied elitism for me since I was in high school. You are elite in the sense that Jon Stewart reminded us about last night on "The Daily Show" - you have an air of superiority and you seem to believe that you are superior and take a proper pride in your virtues. (Why would you write all these articles and wear a bow tie on national TV if you didn't believe you had something important to say?)

But when I read your article published today, "Candidate on a High Horse," I was gravely disappointed with your tone and attitude. First, you created a straw man of Barack Obama. Second, you implied a condescension on his part that is so inaccurate and devoid of factual evidence that it's almost laughable. Third, you connected Obama with what you called the "fulfillment of modern liberalism."

Now, I agree with you in some senses that Obama fulfills a transformation of liberalism. But to place Obama within the traditions of liberalism totally misses the point - that he served as a Constitutional law professor in a bastion of conservative legal scholarship, that he worked to mobilize and encourage self-determination among groups of disenfranchised people in Chicago, that he ran for public office on a truly Republican model of government (representative government that actually represents people), and that he supports economic policies that are far more conservative than his Republican rival (who would bankrupt the nation in a war without goals, without success, and without any apparent end).

Obama is a humanist, to be sure. But to brand Obama as a "liberal" totally misses the point. Obama is a post-liberal, post-conservative, and post-modern thinker and candidate. Related to Obama, your use of the word "liberal" is clumsy and your attribution of liberalism to Obama is ludicrous.

Obama, like millions of Americans born after the baby boom, has grown up watching older Americans debate about Reaganomics, the Cold War, the stock market tech bubble, and now the credit crisis. George HW Bush's branding of Michael Dukakis as a "liberal" might have worked in 1988, but at that time we were not at war, we were not in a recession, and the Cold War was on the brink of victory.

This is a different world. And while John McCain is still recalling the glory days of the late 1980s, the rest of America is incensed about the irresponsibility of our national government. To put it bluntly, most Americans truly are "mad as hell," and Michelle Obama has touched a nerve which alienates the 30% of conservatives who still support GW Bush while resonating with the 70% of Americans who are sick and tired of the direction this country is going.

Obama supports tax policies that would create "bigger government," to be sure. But his economic plans create programs that will pay for themselves in savings to the American people - a healthier, more educated, and motivated populace. Obama is not looking for free handouts like we saw during the Great Society - Obama realizes that government cannot solve every problem. But in the YouTube era, Obama recognizes the opportunity to mobilize voters in ways that couldn't have been imagined in 1984. And as a result, he is inviting voters into political action who would never have believed that government could actually work for them and with them.

To summarize: you missed the mark in trying to pin Obama down as a liberal. Like Ronald Reagan before him, Obama is tapping into deep dissatisfaction with Washington politics-as-usual - a scandalized politics that has broken the faith of the American people. And like Reagan, who followed Nixon with straight talk and populist Republicanism, Barack Obama is following the moral bankruptcy of the Clinton era by advocating for a populist progressive politics that is successfully changing the field in American politics.

Cordially,

Ben Vos

Nashville, TN

Jon Stewart's Reality Check

YesWeCan Carol — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 10:37:10 EDT

In case you missed this precious moment in "Silly Season", Jon has put bitterness into perspective:

http://www.redlasso.com/ClipPlayer.aspx?id=2e8f3421-9fc1-4727-ad7b-21172957794a

PA responds- He was right

Jordi — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 10:27:44 EDT

Perhaps you should share this with your newspaper. Help spread the word.

-----

Dear Fellow Pennsylvanian,

We live in small towns and rural areas throughout Pennsylvania and we support Barack Obama for President.

A few days ago, Sen. Obama made some comments that his opponents are now using to make him appear as if he is something he is not. Instead of speaking to us honestly about how they intend to solve the problems we are facing, they are playing the same old Washington games that accomplish nothing.

What Sen. Obama said is that over the last 25-30 years, working class people in places like Pennsylvania have been falling behind, and that politicians in Washington haven't been looking out for them. He also said that, as a result, many people have become frustrated, angry and even bitter about all the broken promises.

He was right.

The politicians who are now saying that we shouldn't be frustrated are the ones who are out of touch.

People in the towns and communities we live in have seen their jobs shipped overseas. We've seen our pensions disappear. We've seen our health care costs skyrocket. We've seen everything from the cost of gasoline to a gallon of milk go through the roof.

As our families have struggled to make ends meet and our communities fought to stay intact, how has Washington responded? By giving tax breaks to the wealthy, rewarding corporations who ship jobs overseas, and turning the levers of power over to the lobbyists and special interests.

It's easy to feel a little frustrated when you see these Washington politicians continue to ignore you. But it's not the only emotion we feel. When someone comes along who is untainted by the system in Washington, who doesn't take money from federal lobbyists or special interests and who promises that things can be different, we feel something else--hope.

That's why we're supporting Barack Obama. Others have come along and promised change, but failed to deliver. Sen. Obama is different than the rest. He doesn't take money from the special interests, and he speaks honestly about the issues we are facing.

In addition to supporting his plans for jobs, health care and education, we believe that he can deliver on his promises to ensure economic opportunity for family farmers, to provide support for rural economic development, to promote renewable energy in rural America, to protect the rights of hunters and other law-abiding Americans to purchase, own, transport, and use guns for the purposes of hunting and target shooting, and to preserve open land for hunting and fishing.

Unlike his opponents who have been part of the Washington establishment for decades, Barack Obama understands the struggles we are going through. We welcomed him with open arms as he made his way through small towns and rural areas on his recent bus tour across the state. And we will work day and night from now until the primary on his behalf not only because he has heard our frustrations, but because he speaks to our hope that Washington can actually work for people like us.

Sincerely,

Ted Alter, State College
Westmoreland County Commissioner Tom Bayla, Greensburg
Mayor John Brenner, York
Lloyd Casey, West Chester - President, Pennsylvania Forestry Association
Mayor John Fetterman, Braddock

Mayor Rick Gray, Lancaster
Scott Harrison, Warriors Mark
State Representative Bryan Lentz, Swarthmore
State Senator Sean Logan, Monroeville
Carl Majji, Claysville - Corporal, U.S. Army
Mayor Thomas McMahon, Reading

State Senator Bob Mellow - Pennsylvania Senate Democratic Leader
U.S. Representative Patrick Murphy, Doylestown - U.S. Congressman (PA-08)
Perry County Commissioner Steve Naylor, New Bloomfield
Lackawanna County Commissioner Corey O'Brien, Dunmore

Fran Rodriquez, Lancaster
State Representative Josh Shapiro, Abington - Deputy Speaker, Pennsylvania House of Representatives
Major General Walter Stewart, Berks County - Former Commander, 28th 28th Infantry Division, Pennsylvania Army National Guard

State Representative Dan Surra, St. Marys
State Representative Thomas Tangretti, Greensburg
Lackawanna County Commissioner Michael Washo, Scranton

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Obama, bitterness, and other pills to swallow

Jordi — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 10:13:15 EDT

So , Obama has been attacked for his "bitter"comments. As if you didn't know, the snippet that has most drawn sharks like blood in the water:

"And they fell through the Clinton administration and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are going to regenerate and they have not," he went on. "And it's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

"Cling", "guns," and "religion" seem to have been the trifecta that sprung the "elitist" trap on him (Well, he trapped himself and has admitted it was not well said). Memories of Gore and Kerry, two fine leaders and VETERANS who were easily fitted with the mantle of "king of the elitists," came surging back, stoking Obama's enemies (Clinton AND McCain) and the media alike. One example.

The elitist charge seems like it dates back to the post-Goldwater rise of the conservative movement. I sense darker undertones...elitist is not only arrogant or snobbish, but more sinister. It echoes fears of fifth column traitors, communists, or jews lurking amongst us "normal" folk. Like ghouls or demons, they pose as normal and can only be caught when their mask slips. Ah... cue William Kristol, in an op-ed where he places Obama's comments next to Marx's "religion is the opiate of the masses."

What does this mean for Obama's presidential prospects? He's disdainful of small-town America -- one might say, of bourgeois America. He's usually good at disguising this. But in San Francisco the mask slipped. And it's not so easy to get elected by a citizenry you patronize. [My emphasis].

And, as the irony sirens scream, let me also point out that the modus operandi of this adherent of conservative ideology, which surely critiques the idea of the subconscious and psychology, relies on a the technique of a Freudian slip to show how Obama actually disdains America and Americans (assumed to be a monolithic entity). I guess misleading us into war with laundered propaganda, since conscious and not a Freudian Slip, is not disdainful or elitist. Just what then...? Nietzschean? Leo Straussian? Oh Vay. Now Lieberman piles on. Did Obama claim that economic frustration causes religiosity and extremism about the 2nd amendment? Probably. The full context of the quotation and his subsequent remarks (clip or transcript) clarify his more nuanced understanding that economic frustration can lead to greater feeling or using religion or culture to understand economic changes. More to the point, the bitterness is because the elites have forgotten middle America , the place, and the people. Obama:

"Nobody is looking out for you. Nobody is thinking about you. And so people end up- they don't vote on economic issues because they don't expect anybody's going to help them. So people end up, you know, voting on issues like guns, and are they going to have the right to bear arms. They vote on issues like gay marriage. And they take refuge in their faith and their community and their families and things they can count on. But they don't believe they can count on Washington."

Ok, on a more humorous note. If religion is the opiate of the masses, what are guns? The crank? The drags? "Die Religion ... ist das Opium des Volkes." Karl Marx. "Recruits: [chanting] This is my rifle. There are many like it but this one is mine. My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life. Without me, my rifle is useless. Without my rifle I am useless. I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy, who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will. Before God I swear this creed: my rifle and myself are defenders of my country, we are the masters of our enemy, we are the saviors of my life. So be it, until there is no enemy, but peace. Amen." Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket.

whistful for tradition...

Gabriela — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 09:21:15 EDT

This latest ‘bitter’ stir is by all accounts political to the core, but the so called ‘blue collar voters’ may make the difference next week and in the fall. Why not try to bring them too into the fold! In a past debate with Senator Clinton, Senaor Obama put to rest the ‘plagiarism’ quasi-controversy by confronting it head on; he's done the same with the issue of his pastor; why not in this case too?

As with many political accusations, this may be pernicious exactly because it may have some kernel of truth: as one whose life-course has "CHNAGE' spelled at every turn, Iand for all the blessings that CANGE has brought into my life, sometimes, just sometimes I am whistful of what would feel to: wake up or tens of years in a row in the same home, in the same ame neighborhood; celebrate Chistmas and Easter with the same relatives and friends.

Enough Negative

ObamaBob NSB — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 09:14:41 EDT

Even Hillary's supporters have had enough of her 'bitter' attack politics!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcyhJSAjAr0

YES WE CAN keep it positive. YES WE CAN keep it on message and policy. YES WE CAN keep hope.

Barack is right! We ARE bitter.

Wendy — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 08:09:00 EDT

He is absolutely correct!!!! He should not feel bad about what he said at all, it is true.

There are NO jobs in Michigan (especially for people over 50). I'm trying to live on $700 a month & it's not working. Will probably end up losing my home within the next couple of years as I won't be able to pay my property taxes.

People are turning to guns and religion. Heck, . . . if we don't watch out, our right to bear arms will soon be taken away. The Bush administration has been using fear to take our rights away.

The auto companies can't seem to figure out why no one is buying their cars. . . . . well, . . . . since the "free trade" agreements, all our jobs have been "traded" overseas in exchange for cheap goods.

This system is going to collapse. Why ARE we allowed to purchase goods from communist China, but not Cuba?

Bring our jobs back home!

The U.S. has always imported more than it has exported (not a good system). It's about time our government realized this and did something about it.

How many millions can the Bush and Clinton families spend in a lifetime?

I would settle for just being able to pay my bills and buy food.

Obama 08 Be a Part Of Something GREAT!

eric HUSSEIN graff — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 06:48:21 EDT

This is it! The eternal election season here in PENNA is down to the LAST WEEK! Are you going to sit on the sidelines or be on the FOREFRONT OF VICTORY??????????? Phone banking, canvassing, data entry and dontations of food & drink ARE URGENTLY NEEDED! This is the VERY LAST WEEK to help secure a world shaking event RIGHT HERE IN NEPA! Lead, follow or get out of our way! Let's TAKE BACK OUR PARTY & COUNTRY!!!! It's up to you now! EVERYONE of us can contribute IN SOME WAY, so JUST GIT R DONE for BARACK! Bitter Eric HUSSEIN Graff

Bitter in Culver City

Halford Fairchild, Ph.D. — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 04:31:04 EDT

One of the tests of our candidate is how they can only find TRUTHS to critique. They critiqued the good Reverend Jeremiah Wright, when he spoke the truth; and now our beloved Barack Obama, when he spoke the truth of bitterness that resides within our souls.

Sure we're bitter. Look at the price of gas!

The costs of living.

OUr national identity is one of Might makes Right. We turn to guns in the guise of religion. We sing "God Bless America" as we take war to a sovereign nation on the other side of our planet. (Reverend Wright was right.)

The untold Truth is that the bitter/religion confluence pervades rural Pennsylvania and the rest of the U.S. Who are we kidding?

The good news in all of this is that Barack Obama is a visionary who speaks a collective vision. The more he is attacked, the better he defends, and the stronger he becomes.

Yes! We can!

Absurd Article... and my response

Anthony D — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 02:11:45 EDT

I was infuriated with an article I read on the National Reviews website today about Obama's "bitter" remark. So I decided to respond to author of the article Peter Wehner, a former Deputy Assistant to President Bush. In his summation, everything he said was inaccurate or untrue, and completely biased, so I took it apart statement by statement. It's kinda long, so I apologize. ;-)

Read National Review Article HERE

Peter,

I can't remember a time when I've been more infuriated by a columnists article, then after reading your article today entitled "Off-the-record Obama". The article of course is very well written, and well constructed.

I take issue with the entire text of your last two paragraphs, and I will address each issue one-by-one. My comments are in bold.

"Increasingly, Barack Obama appears to be the Candidate of Illusion. He presents himself as post-racial — which is harder to accept than it once was, given his intimate, longtime relationship with a pastor and church that harbor deep and obvious racial anger toward whites." I think there is a term for this, Guilty by association. Massively taking the Rev. Wrights words out of context is one thing, but not even making an effort to get to the truth of the matter helps no one but you and whatever agenda it is you represent. The now infamous comments by Rev. Wright, "God Damn America" came from his sermon directly after the tragic events of 9/11. If you read the entire sermon, you will see that there is nothing racist or anti-American in anything that he has to say on that day. Anderson Cooper of CNN posted this analysis on his AC360 blog. Full Sermon Here

"Obama presents himself as post-partisan — even though in his time in the Senate he has done nothing to bridge the partisan divide, which explains why he has been endorsed by the rabidly partisan MoveOn.org." I love how you end with the endorsement of MoveOn.org, as if to say "see, the crazy ultra liberal group likes him". Who's your audience? MoveOn.org also ran ads during the 2004 election season saying "give Bush the boot". How could they possibly represent the feelings of Americans, when only 28% of the people in this country support President Bush?

"Obama presents himself as post-ideological — even though he was named the Senate’s most liberal member in 2007 by the respected National Journal." Obama has never described himself as post-ideological, that’s a term the media came up with. How can you hold him to label created by others for or about him? Besides that, everybody has an ideology. If he didn't have strong beliefs, he wouldn't be running for President.

Obama is a public critic of free trade — yet his chief economic adviser is quoted by a Canadian official as saying that Obama’s position on NAFTA is politically motivated and insincere." Why are you still repeating these flat out lies? As a "respected" journalist, I would think that the truth would matter more than anything else, and that you would let the facts stand on their own merits, and not create or perpetuate falsehoods. On March 3rd, the Canadian Embassy in Washington released a statement including this, “In the recent report produced by the Consulate General in Chicago, there was no intention to convey, in any way, that Senator Obama and his campaign team were taking a different position in public from views expressed in private, including about NAFTA. We deeply regret any inference that may have been drawn to that effect.” Full Canadian Embassy Statement

"Obama speaks about the importance of religious faith in his life and the life of the nation — yet when speaking to a group of rich liberals, he implicitly denigrates people of faith, pairing them with people who have “antipathy to people who aren’t like them” and who harbor “anti-immigrant sentiment[s].” He paints religious believers as folks clinging to crutches to better deal with their desperate lives — only to insist last night that his words were actually a tribute to people of religious faith. So sayeth Barack Obama, “healer of broken souls.” When Senator Obama was explaining to a group of supporters why he wasn't doing as well as he should be in the mid-west states, his explanation makes sense. In context, he is speaking about people being ignored by previous administrations, and being told that the jobs will come back when they haven't. If you read the entire quote it becomes a very different statement, and doesn't seem in any way that he is speaking down to the people of those rural communities. If anything it shows how deeply understanding Obama is to the realities these communities face. Someone who was elitist and "out of touch" would not come to the same conclusions. Here is the first part of the quote most people don’t get to see… “You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

"Early on in this campaign I was impressed with Barack Obama as a thoughtful, inspiring, and admirable (if far too liberal) political figure." Are you saying this to gain credibility with your readers? As though you were a supporter of Obama in the beginning, but now have seen the error of your liberal tendencies? If you were before truly impressed with Senator Obama, how could you possibly let these falsehoods change your mind? There are two possible answers; either you didn't know that what you were saying wasn't true, or you don't care, and you never really liked him.

"As the months have worn on, it’s become increasingly apparent that the candidate is projecting mere shadows on the wall. Our Republic deserves better." You and I both agree on one point... Our Republic does deserve better. It deserves better than the politics of fear and manipulation. It deserves better then persons with the ability to influence tens of thousands of people to misrepresent factual events, and to perpetuate falsehoods. If you truly believe that there is another candidate who is better and more qualified, then talk about that persons strengths. Let the chips fall where they may. The simple fact that you have perpetuated more falsehoods, tells me that you know that he is what he appears to be. Barack Obama IS the charismatic, honest and genuine person who has inspired Americans all over this great country. He is someone who has the ability to bring about great change in this country, and for whatever reason you don't want that to happen. I believe he will win, and I believe that he will change the political landscape in this country. We can do better, and we will do better, and Barack Obama is person who will help restore honor, respect, and Hope to this Great American Republic.

Thank you for reading my response to your article.

Anthony D'Elia
Phoenix, Arizona

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world."
-Mahatma Gandhi

OUT OF TOUCH!! video of Hillary and McCain

Abigail — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 01:41:31 EDT

I read a suggestion this morning on the blog to make a video of Hillary and McCain's out-of-touchness, in response to the hooha they are creating about the bitter comments....

It's not my dream version of it, I would love to have actual clips of the Hillary "misspeaking", etc but its a visual photo message that is under 4 mins, so that;s good!

Maybe when I graduate, I'll have more time to make proper videos ; )

here's the link!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEwG-EReGOw

Am I Bitter?

Nickie — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:10:00 EDT

Here is my take on this:

I am an Obama supporter. I want to say, I'm 42 years old, female, educated but still paying - DEFAULTING - on my student loans because I couldn't get a teaching job after I graduated. I am certified to teach theater and history. NO ONE WAS HIRING DRAMA TEACHERS. The whole time I've been out of college, Bush has been in office. GUess you can figure out what I feel about no child left behind. Obama has a doable awesome plan for people to not only pay for college, but also he wants to help teachers get more pay, and bring the arts and all manner of subjects back into the classroom. Maybe after Obama gets elected I'll actually be able to get a teaching job.

During Clinton's administration, my husband became very ill. He was diagnosed with lymphoma, and started undergoing chemotherapy, and then the insurance money ran out. He had the student health insurance.

We had applied immediatly upon his diagnoses for disability, the only option for us, and he was turned down because the diagnoses stated that he had a good chance of recovery if you can believe it. He has to be at the point of dying, before he would get aid.

Needless to say that we had to obtain a lawyer and petition the system. It was many months but he finally was approved. We were on our way out the door when Medicaid called and said that because he had received his settlement, he now made too much money to receive medicaid. They used their own settlement, against his income. You see medicaid is proactive from the date applied. So if I applied for disability today, and it took a year for them to approve it, I would get a lump sum of money from the date of application.

They tried to bully me, but I threw such a stink, they immediately realized I was a law suit in the making, and we were able to get my husband the bone marrow transplant. His body, however had been beaten down so much that by this time, it was too late. He died of complications.

This happened under Clinton's administration. This happened because it was the policy of that government to let people with expensive medical related problems to slip through the system. If was more cost effective to let him die than it was to do anything about it. Am I bitter?

Now years later, I can not afford health care, my children are thankfully on medicaid, but I am not. I think I have breast cancer, but can not go to the doctor, because I already owe $11,000 in unpaid medical bills. Am I bitter?

There is only one candidate that I believe will change this. Barack Obama.

I am A Bitter American

Wade Boyles — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 23:36:41 EDT

Obama actually spoke to me as I'm sure he did millions of other Americans. I am a bitter American, though I may not cling to guns or religion, I'm bitter over not having health care and not being able afford it. I'm bitter that I have to pay $3.29 a gallon for gas and George W. Bush got us into a war that we should have never been in. I personally know Americans who are bitter and who do cling to their religion and their right to bear arms, for those are values in which they cherish.

But, just like myself, those folks feel like we have been left stranded with no assistance from our government. Washington is out of touch with most of America and our only hope is found in Barack Obama.

Barack Obama has built his campaign from grassroots efforts. Raising money from over 1,300,000 people all across America. Barack has a way of uniting the majority of people and is definitely not an elitist.

Hillary Clinton and John McCain each represent old Washington politics and if Americans want a real change in our government and want our integrity restored in this world, then the majority will elect Barack Obama and he will be our next President!

Media Literacy is "bitterly" Lacking in Schools

MrJWenn — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 23:25:15 EDT

Something needs to be added to the 3R's and that's Media Literacy. As I watched another day of the "bitter" debate, it has again reaffirmed my belief that one of the most important subjects NOT taught in public schools is media literacy. One organization that I have seen with excellent materials is:

www.medialit.org

I would love to hear from other teachers about ways they teach their students to critically understand media's influence.

Children and adults alike (myself included) must be trained and educate themselves on the techniques used by media to influence our choices. So much of teaching of social studies under NCLB is teaching "facts" and not interpretation and critical analysis. Yet if the goal of civics education is to have our student be knowledgeable participants in democracy, students K-12 should be educated to critically think about how the media shapes and often creates "reality" as well as how to use the media for positive purposes.

The frantic attempts of a fellow Democrat to use and manipulate the media for the mere purpose of personal ambition is deplorable. It is however, the job of all of us, to keep this from happening both in the short and long run.

Bitter? Hope vs. Mud

Qaliqo — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 22:31:16 EDT

After three days of constant slander by cable news, I must speak up for Barack Obama. As a small town resident who takes more solace in spirituality and gun rights more than in our United States government, I take real offense at the media, Sen. Clinton, and Sen. McCain pretending that our bitterness is a figment of elitist imagination. Hope has fought long and hard with bitterness as the one-income, forty-hour household was replaced by the two-income, fifty-hour-plus household. I support Barack Obama for President because I am ready to end my bitter opposition and stand together with all Americans - if our shared values outweigh corporate lobbyists. Otherwise, I stand with God and gun against those who would sink our great nation for their own profit.

That being said, in small town Ohio we live with a lot of xenophobes, racists, and zealots. All three groups lack the self-awareness to connect their views to a declining quality of life for the less educated. Despite persistent anti-intellectual myths to the contrary, many two year colleges are accessible to anyone capable of a GED. Native-born Americans should never compete for jobs done in China or by undocumented immigrants; we have resources to improve the lives of our less fortunate, despite the Clinton-Bush policy disaster that is now coming to roost.

Barack Obama tried to squeeze two paragraphs of thought into a long sentence, and did an imperfect job of it. Who is offended? Who thinks Barack Obama needs to apologize? Who really believes that Sen. Obama is an elitist for one poor choice of words? Only the xenophobes, the racists, and the zealots, none of whom would have voted for Barack Obama because he was racially mixed, his father was a non-European immigrant, and his mother was an atheist.

Hope. Vote. Change.

Isn't Crown Royal more of an elitist drink?

LuAnn in Indiana — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 21:47:41 EDT

Just to make you smile! I was thinking today, that if we chose which candidate was the elitist on their chose of drink.......................................Hillary would WIN Hands down.

BE SURE EVERYONE WATCHES THE ABC debate WEDNESDAY NIGHT. BARACK SHOULD SHINE ABOVE HILLARY, NO MATTER WHAT SHE THROWS AT HIM. I AM SURE WE WILL HEAR THE WORD "BITTER" AT LEAST ONCE.

I FOUND IT INTERESTING WHILE WATCING MSNBC TONIGHT, THAT SEVERAL OF THE HOSTS WERE COMMENTING ON HILLARY MOST LIKELY NOT RECEIVING THE GORE SUPPORT AFTER REFERING TO HIM AS AN ELITIST.

I ENJOYED THE CLIPS ALSO OF BARACK CALLING HER ANNIE OAKLY AND JOKING ABOUT HER BEING IN A "DUCK BLIND".

I NEVER USED TO THINK SHE WAS SO PHONY, BUT WATCHING HER THROUGH THIS ELECTION JUST ILLUSTRATES WHAT A TRUE FAKE SHE CAN BE.

HE HAS SUCH A SPECIAL AND ACTUALLY "CUTE" WAY OF TAKING A LITTLE SWING AT HER AND NOT COME OFF LOOKING LIKE HE IS ATTACKING HER.

You Can't Run a Country Like a Company

Tighelander — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 21:32:32 EDT

Obama's "bitter" remark was right on target. Too much of this country is going to seed because there's nothing in it for those in power, and when something is done, all too often citizens are thought of no differently than mineral rights. They become just another resource for a company that's moving into the area to exploit. They're just another perk for the company, like 30 years of tax breaks, not people.

I think this notion of a "CEO President", and running the country like a corporation should be vilified. A corporation can sell off an underperforming division; to think you could do this for a country is crazy. You can't sell off Alabama, for example, if it's not pulling it weight. Or how about, "CEO Father"? "Excuse me Timmy, but don't forget about your yearly performance review." "Running the country like a corporation", now that's out of touch; that's an elitest remark. Saying that is to ignore how corporations can go out of business. Going out of business is not an option for a country.

I am bitter, dammit!

Martha — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 21:14:49 EDT

I won't blog much, I'm sure -- but, after listening to the crap on tv for the last few days in response to the "bitter" comment, I just felt the need to come here and reach out a bit. I know EXACTLY what he meant; what he said was NOT an insult (or shouldn't have been, anyway); Democrats need to focus on McCain and not each other (you know who I'm talking to); and I still think that the man is SPOT ON about this country, it's present state, and what we need.

Watching the YES WE CAN video still makes me emotional -- because it's the first time I can remember feeling inspired, and feeling hope that others feel the same. This country can be good AND great - they're not mutually exclusive. Liberals (and atheists) CAN be proud of this country, even if they're not now. And the country we could make could actually show some conservatives what it really means to be something to be proud of.

A "Bitter" Hillary

Cliff Sharples — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 20:04:14 EDT

The latest attacks by Senator Clinton on Barack Obama's personal character once again provides voters with an insight into what a Clinton presidency would be like. Incapable of standing on her own merits, she demonstrates time and time again that her only strategy is to tear her opponents down and her only interest is winning - at any cost. It is as if Karl Rove is paying her behind the scenes to pull off what should have been almost impossible after the Bush-Cheney disaster: a Republican winning in November.

Barack Obama is not out of touch with Americans in small towns or big cities. If he is guilty of anything, however, it is that he is out of step with Washington's broken ways. And that is a very good thing.

Are Americans really BITTER ?

Gaylord from Camarillo, CA — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 19:20:13 EDT

The next time you're at a gas station, ask the person at the next pump how he feels.

ANOTHER BLESSING IN DISGUISE

Army Officer (Ty) — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 18:46:05 EDT

A BLESSING IN DISGUISE

Alright! I called the Rev. Wright issue to a “T” last month see http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/tyronepinkins/gGBKTg . So I am going to put this BITTER thing in its place also. I’ll break it down so that it can forever be broke. So many people are focusing on the fall out because of Barack’s use of the word “BITTER” Well, I for one am glad that people are focusing on it and making so much of it. I am glad that he used the word bitter. The reason I know that it is “A BLESSING IN DISGUISE” is as follows.

Hillary Clinton and her hounds have jumped allover this thing like a black cat on a fat rat. Unfortunately for the Clinton Campaign this is about to come back and bite them in the ANUS in about two days. Actually it will be Wednesday during the debate. She will be asked about the bitter comment and she will again declare her stance on Barack’s use of the word bitter. Unfortunately for her Barack will tear her to pieces on national television in front of Pennsylvanians and also at the same time re-state why so many people are “BITTER” He has already given us a preview of ho when is going to respond when she steps into this pot-hole.

** All of you have to be smart enough to see this coming **

Next she has called Barack Obama an elitist! Wow! In my opinion Barack is sitting back “SALIVATING” as he waits for this debate. Again at the debate on Wednesday she will be asked why she believes he is an elitist and again she will shove her foot even further down her throat in response. Barack will tear her to pieces again when he compares their lives and asks who the real elitist here is.

And just to add insult to injury! Unfortunately all of us are forgetting that Bosnia and the Columbia Free Trade Agreement will come up in the debate also. She still has to answer those questions and not only will she look stupid when she says she doesn’t support CAFTA while her husband and Chief Strategist works in favor of the Columbians, but she will also again be labeled as a liar when the Bosnia Sniper Fire question resurfaces. Remember all of this stuff has happened since the last debate and is sure to resurface.

Ladies and Gentlemen ironically right now what we are witnessing is the “CALM BEFORE THE STORM!” There are so many odds stacked against Clinton in this next debate that I wouldn’t be surprised if she pulled out of the debate at the last minute. She is about to get slaughtered in a debate on national television one week before the Pennsylvania Primaries. So let them keep calling him an elitist. Let them keep talking about people being BITTER. All of this is just going to make this debate that much sweeter when we see all the EGG smeared on her face. It is clear that the pressure is getting to this woman. She is losing to a man that most Americans had never heard of until this year. THIS YEAR! We are only in the 4th month thus far! She is filthy rich and losing to a guy who is wealthy but doesn’t have nearly the political backing or establishment backing that she has. No matter how far ahead he gets, he’ll still be considered the underdog. I am typing this blog post with a smile on my face because I realize that although the media twists things up, most Americans aren’t as STUPID as the Clinton’s make us out to be. Surprisingly, there are millions still voting for Hillary (and I cannot figure out why) but it’s not nearly enough to win her the nomination. I really believe that this debate on Wednesday will win Pennsylvania for Obama. If the right questions are asked, not only will she continue to dig her own grave, but she will also choose the flowers, design the tomb stone and write the Eulogy for the ceremonious beheading of her political career.

It’s 1:30 A.M. here and I’m hungry. Where’s Aunt B with those virtual cookies?

BE INSPIRED http://www.youtube.com/v/2yYfXB7uz6k

Get MOTIVATED https://donate.barackobama.com/page/contribute/dt2std?source=mainnav

GET UPLIFTED http://www.youtube.com/v/2yYfXB7uz6k

LITTLE BIT OF ENCOURAGEMENT http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNfuX9seIyM&feature=related

LITTLE MORE ENCOURAGEMENT http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jR-PD0l5qko

4****OBAMA****FROM****IRAQ

SPEECH!! SPEECH!! Time for Barack to make his class speech!!

Madama Ambi — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 18:43:18 EDT

yeah, neither Hillary nor McCain can paint Obama more elitist than they are...BUT...they did, they are, and spin goes along way, doesn't it...my brother-in-law supports Obama (his wife for Hillary) and he wrote to me and said he thinks the statement was right on but that tactically it may have been "a serious misstep"...

this is depressing to me...if anyone from the campaign is lurking on this list...or if anyone on this list knows anyone close to Barack himself, I, personally, would URGE him to make ANOTHER SPEECH...ABOUT CLASS, AND ANGER, AND SPIN...and being played by interests that want to keep the American people divided and reactive...

what do you all think about urging Barack to take the podium and address these important, deep issues...???...

yours
Madama

Some articles from CNN & MSNBC with some comments: 4/14.

EMK — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 18:11:13 EDT

Well, some of these articles range from the silly to the severely serious...

HRC shootin' whiskey... I wonder about the hangover...

Antiabortion supporters -- FOR OBAMA!

Al Gore's environmental campaign's impact on the presidential campaign.

Maybe "bitter" was the right word: Coaldale, PA.

Are they really going to write these documents in plain English, or are they trying to trick us again; your opinion?

Update on Carter: Israel will not guard him. (See my blog, My opinion on Carter's trip to Syria: Debate thread, and DMFO's blog, Carter goes to Syria for more information and opinions.)

Most importantly: grain prices causing international riots! We'd better get our economy fixed fast before we won't be able to do anything about anyone else's crises!

EMK

SPEECH!! SPEECH!! Time for Barack's Class Speech!!

Madama Ambi — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 18:01:36 EDT

neither Hillary nor McCain can paint Obama more elitist than they are...BUT...they did, they are, and spin goes along way, doesn't it...my brother-in-law supports Obama (his wife for Hillary) and he wrote to me and said he thinks the statement was right on but that tactically it may have been "a serious misstep"...

this is depressing to me...if anyone from the campaign is lurking on this blog...or if anyone on this blog knows anyone close to Barack himself, I, personally, would URGE him to make ANOTHER SPEECH...ABOUT CLASS, AND ANGER, AND SPIN...and being played by interests that want to keep the American people divided and reactive...

what do you all think about urging Barack to take the podium and address these important, deep issues...???...

yours
Madama

Lies from Mayhill Fowler and the Huffington Post

Gail Brown — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 17:13:52 EDT

So, there I was this afternoon, reading the Talking Points Memo, which is the best political blog out there, and I saw a link to a story written by Huffington Post's "Off the Bus" editor, Jay Rosen. As I'm sure you know, the audio tape of Barack's comments in San Francisco was recorded by Mayhill Fowler, who is what they call an "amateur" journalist. Indeed. (If you read her posts from Texas during the primary, you know the kind of sleezy journalism she represents.) Mr. Rosen, after the Huffington Post was buried under an avalanche of posts objecting to the story, finds himself defending Ms. Fowler. Actually, he spends most of the post objecting that when Tim Russert of Meet the Press reported the comments by Obama, he did not reference the story from Mayhill Fowler in which the audio tape is described and linked. In fact, Russert didn't reference her in any way and Rosen says that is so unfair, that Fowler broke the story and deserves credit. He then goes on to state that Fowler is an Obama supporter, and that she is near the maximum donation to Obama of $2300. He also notes that she has given to Hillary and to Fred Thompson. This story is offensive on so many levels and it is utterly false. First, Fowler is not an Obama supporter - her posts are always critical of the Democrats and she is clearly a GOPer who tries at every opportunity to harm Obama and Clinton. She gives to the campaigns to buy access to events which are closed to the press. Then she sneaks in her hidden tape recorder (did you hear the quality of the audio). No legitimate media outlet would do this - this is Drudge Report/UTube stuff. This is not the first time Fowler paid to get in to a fundraiser and then posted comments on Huffington Post. No wonder she is near "maxing out" on her donations to Obama - and she seems to have concentrated on getting a "gotcha" moment from Obama as opposed to Hillary. Please go to huffingtonpost.com and make a post on the Jay Rosen story - it is at the top of the posts today. The posts are about 50 to 1 against Ms. Fowler and this type of journalism, but let's make it 1000 to 1. It may be time that we Obama supporters take our blogging elsewhere - may I suggest talkingpointsmemo.com, the page on time.com, dailykos.com or politico.com (except for Ben Smith).

PS I post on Huffington under "PeaceChristBwithU" - please join me in calling for the resignation of Mr. Rosen and a refusal to post any more "citizen journalist" peices by Ms. Fowler.

Update: Seems Ms. Fowler told the New York Times this was the best day she had had since her wedding. What a sleeze bomb. You may have trouble posting on the above referenced story on Huffington Post - a number of people are posting complaints. I was cut off three times while trying to post on Jay Rosen's story. Just keep trying.

I Am Bitter...Someone Tell Hillary

Jason from Corning, NY — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 16:33:28 EDT

The following is a message that I sent to Michellle Obama. I hope that she and her husband get the message and relay it to voters in PA.

Hello!

This is an important message regarding the recent "bitter" controversy. I am a New Yorker who had his manufacturing job sent overseas a couple years ago, and I am extremely bitter. Not only did I lose my job, but they flew over the Thai replacements and forced us to train them. There is no worse feeling than training a person to do your job, and knowing that they will get paid $5 per day while you go stand in the unemployment line. This outsourcing took place in the state in which Senator Clinton was watching over, and I am bitter that she did nothing to stop it.

Please feel free to share my story of bitterness. For Senator Clinton to think that people aren't bitter about outsourcing is ridiculous. If she had bothered to talk to the people that I worked with (at Avanex Inc), then she would know how we feel. It seems that Hillary is the one that is out of touch with the people.

Thank you for listening.

Jason Williams

Frustrated, Bitter or Both?

Pamela A — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 14:23:14 EDT

Frustration is something that seems temporary to me - for example when the computer freezes up or when there're unexpected traffic snarls keeping you from being on time for that appointment. Bitter truly feels more like an emotion that has deepened inside of your physical and mental realms. Its presence may even define the facial aging lines a bit more severely and make us more prone to a reactionary response. Bitterness sets in when the situation provoking it is out of the control of the people affected to do anything. Bitterness is the ultimate emotional response resulting from "being victimized" by something you felt was trustworthy but found to be otherwise.

So I responded as being both frustrated and bitter at the following links:

http://pa.barackobama.com/page/s/paletter and http://www.bitteramericans.com/

My response is below:

______________________________________________

FOCUS On America's Working Families [NCEF]

Geoff Gilson — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 13:31:25 EDT

[What follows is an open letter to Barack and his team of Economic Advisers, that I will be taking with me to the Chapel Hill, North Carolina meeting of Barack's North Carolina Economic Forum.]

Dear Barack,

Better than 'Bitter': "FOCUS '08"

I will be attending the Chapel Hill meeting of your North Carolina Economic Forum on April 15, 2008.

There, I will be urging you and your team of Economic Advisers to adopt into your campaign policy my proposition, FOCUS '08, a simple, yet powerful proposition that offers comfort to all working families who currently live in fear of losing their homes and jobs, or who feel they can't make ends meet because of rising food and gas prices (www.focusonpoverty.blogspot.com).

FOCUS '08 declares that:

'Every man, woman and child in the United States should have access to adequate food, clothing, housing and healthcare.'

I am registered as an unaffiliated voter in North Carolina, and frankly, I consider myself to be undecided until the moment my pen hits the ballot paper. However, there is much about you and your camapign, Barack, that attracts me. Not least your obvious empathy with working people.

It is, therefore, as a friend of your efforts that I write this letter, and although painfully blunt (and something tells me you won't mind that!), it is offered solely in a spirit of helpfulness. So, to business:

It is a brave man, Barack, who advances an honest analysis of dire economic conditions, without immediately accompanying it with a concise summary of the uplifting policy that will address resolution - wrapped up in language that enrolls rather than offends.

This last point, in particular, should now be crystal clear in light of the temporary hiccup that has followed your 'bitter' speech last weekend.

Mind you, what you said was spot on - as an incisive checklist of the frustrations of working people in America. I should know. I am one of America's angry working poor.

It is only those who are truly elitist and out of touch who would suggest our anxieties do not exist, and who would deny that it is all too easy to find unhealthy ways to vent those anxieties - and that there are those who would feed on the latter fact.

Goodness knows it's nice to have a politician who has the guts to be honest and straightforward. But, to be equally honest, what was a little unfortunate, Barack, was your language, and the fact that you chose not to accompany the analysis with a simple breakdown of your recommended solutions.

Without wishing to appear too presumptuous, I hope you won't mind if I use the opportunity of the Forum meeting to help you out a tad, and offer a couple of ideas that might assist you in addressing both of these issues.

For some years now, America's working folk - whether in the cities or in the country - have watched helplessly as power-mongers and the elite in political and financial circles have caused the American economy wildly to ride the waves, and then to crash into the abyss.

Why helplessly? Because all this has meant for us is more jobs lost, more plants shut down, our homes under threat, prices rising, the bar continually raised and our lives constantly squeezed.

Democrats, to whom I have spoken, have openly wondered why, through all this, more and more of my working friends have found themselves turning to the likes of George Bush, and now John McCain.

I tell these Democrats that, at a time of seeming inability to cope, at a time when all seems so weak, it is easy to turn to the appearance of strength and experience - however false the promise of that strength and experience may be.

When you sense that your country has abandoned you, and there is little point in trying, it is too easy to find paths of escapism. One of the easiest is a political philosophy that says it's ok to take that anger and convert it into hatred and envy and revenge.

When we are told that the real problem lies overseas, it's all too easy to respond to a pseudo-call for patriotism and sense of duty, and to cheer on a war, even though we now know that war is both futile and dishonest - and, moreover, it is killing a disproportionate amount of the sons and daughters of our working familes.

And where have the Democrats been, to offer we working people an alternative? Why, trying their hardest to pack themselves into those same Republican clothes - but without packing any conviction.

The problem is, when you're a sheep in wolf's clothing, it's a bit difficult to look anything other than…well…sheepish.

Until you, Barack, came along.

I'd had a bad feeling about voting for some 20 years. You are the first American politician in that time who's making me look forward to voting in November.

Now. We've hit a glitch. It's not the end of the world. And this is what I suggest to you and your Economic Team going forward:

1) Adopt FOCUS '08. The working folk of this country deserve a rallying cry that offers them a safety net, while preserving their dignity.

This is true, not just for those of us who already struggle below the poverty line, but also for those who, through no fault of their own, feel that they may be next.

We did not create the housing and jobs crisis, or cause gas and food prices to rise.

2) Enroll these same good people, Barack, in the campaign to sell you, your policies and FOCUS '08.

Do not pity us. We are a proud people. Appeal to our better nature. Challenge us. Turn the tables on your opponents, and make an appeal to genuine patriotism and a real sense of moral duty.

Go so far as to put it in military terms, if necessary.

Offer us a deal - "A New Compact." Tell us boldly and bravely: 'You take care of your business at home, and we'll back you up, by taking care of our business in Washington.'

[I expand on this approach in a separate document of talking points, which can be found as the next post in this blog.]

Call on America's working men and women to support a "Citizen's Code": family, country and honor.

'We take care of our family first; then we help our neighbor; then the folk around us. Not because of a political slogan or a grand economic strategy, and not for personal gain or ambition, but because it's the honorable, the right thing to do.'

Meanwhile, holding up the other side of the compact, you, Barack, have to clean up Washington. Clear out the logjams, get the necessary bi-partisan support, prioritize action, and get us the help we need to support what we're doing on the home and family front.

FOCUS '08 can be a part of that. Take George Bush's slogan, and turn it against our opponents. Make that slogan ours - and make it apply to all Americans under a Barack Administration. 'We will leave no-one behind.'

I have my own political line for all of this: 'Taking Care of America's Family Values.'

So, Barack, come one, why not give it a try? Visit the web-site (http://focusonpoverty.blogspot.com), sign the Petition (www.thepetitionsite.com/petition/483881699), even buy the T-shirt (http://197491.spreadshirt.com).

But. Most important of all. Adopt FOCUS '08, and enroll America's working folk in its implementation.

I’m Not Bitter: I’m Mad As Hell (And I’m Not Going to Take It Anymore!)

Jim Parker — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 13:28:09 EDT

Okay, maybe making reference to the film “Network” (and the trademark catchphrase-rant of its apocalyptic news anchor Howard Beale) isn't the most ingenuous (or original) lead-in to today’s blog entry, but it fits so well that I'll stay with it.

In case you missed it, “Network” was a dark evocation of mass media’s effects on our culture: The triumph of entertainment over information, image over imagination, fear over freedom.

The film ostensibly focuses on Howard Beale’s dismissal from his anchor position with a hypothetical fourth broadcast news network, UBS (Are you listening Katie Couric?), due to plummeting ratings.

As Beale contemplates his own jobless future, he begins a journey into madness—not necessarily insanity (although the clarity of the revelations that he experienced and bespoke were certainly tinged with delusion), but definitely into angriness, and that of an extremely bitter nature.

After an interrupted newcast, during which he announces his firing and declares to viewers his intention to commit suicide on-air as a ratings-boosting swan song, Beale is eventually allowed a second chance to say goodbye on his own terms and explain his earlier meltdown.

Take a look at what the fictional Howard Beale said in 1976 and see if it doesn't seem every bit as apt today:

Howard Beale: I don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression.

Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth; banks are going bust; shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter; punks are running wild in the street, and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it.

We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat. And we sit watching our TV’s while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be!

We all know things are bad—worse than bad: They're crazy.

It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out any more. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we're living in is getting smaller, and all we say is, “Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials, and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.”

Well, I'm not going to leave you alone. I want you to get mad!

I don't want you to protest. I don't want you to riot. I don't want you to write to your congressman, because I wouldn't know what to tell you to write. I don't know what to do about the depression and the inflation and the Russians and the crime in the street.

All I know is that first, you've got to get mad. You've got to say: “I'm a human being, goddammit! My life has value!”

So I want you to get up now. I want all of you to get up out of your chairs. I want you to get up right now and go to the window, open it, and stick your head out and yell: “I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not going to take this anymore!”

* * *

That’s what came to my mind earlier, as I checked the morning cable news shows and watched the anchors and correspondents tut-tut over Barack Obama’s comments last week that Pennsylvanians (like voters elsewhere) are “bitter” at the state of America’s political debate and looming economic collapse: The word “bitter” is too mild a term to convey what I, myself (and millions of other Americans) feel as we see the campaign distracted from life-and-death issues of war and peace abroad and prosperity and peril at home by the slice-and-dice tactics of the Clinton campaign.

That's when I logged into this site, clicked a link to a video of a speech that Barack delivered in Indiana over the weekend where he described the frustrations of folks in Pennsylvania and everywhere else—even my hometown of Decatur, Illinois—at the erosion of virtually everything, in recent decades, that we hold dear: education and environment, investment in our common future via a fair, shared tax code, and economic opportunity and prosperity for all Americans.

After viewing the video, I was invited—as every other viewer is—to share my feelings about the hysterical, ridiculous turn the campaign has taken since Mrs. Clinton’s advisors have latched onto Barack’s use of the word “bitter” (ironically, in a campaign she has pledged to wage to the bitter end), as evidence that Senator Obama is somehow more “elitist” and “out of touch” with blue-collar voters than her megamillionaire self.

Here's what I wrote then:

I've been frustrated and, yes, embittered by Hillary Clinton's "scorched-earth," politics-as-usual, "kitchen-sink" campaign style. She has failed to recognize the transformational mood of the electorate during this election cycle and has thus attempted to mischaracterize and otherwise call into question every aspect of Barack Obama's appeal to voters throughout the primary season.

I'm also embittered by the continuing failure of leadership in Washington to address the critical issues that confront our nation: The ongoing, economically-ruinous war in Iraq, catastrophic national debt and trade imbalances, tax cuts for the wealthiest members of our society, a health-care system that leaves far too many children (and their parents) behind, soaring costs for everything from food to fuel (but not the products made in China by virtual slaves), and our crumbling, obsolescent infrastructure and educational system.

In fact, "bitter" may be too kind a characterization for my feelings on the state of the American political system; "disgusted" and "repelled" seem closer to the truth.

That's why I'm flying to Pittsburgh tomorrow—and to Indianapolis, after that: To do everything in my power to ensure the success of the most transformational, empowering political candidacy since Robert F. Kennedy.

That way, perhaps, my daughter—and her children and grandchildren, after her—might live in an America that represents, and redeems, its promise and potential: What Abraham Lincoln recognized so long ago, when he declared a truly united (and rededicated) United States to be "the last best hope of earth."

* * *

That’s why I’m posting this entry now: To encourage us all to remember the words of Howard Beale and take them one giant, effective step further.

Get mad. But don't run to your window and start screaming like a madman. (That’s Hillary’s turf, anyway.)

Instead, get busy. Do all you can, whenever you can. Go to Pennsylvania to help get out the vote. Make calls. Mobilize. Donate. Speak out. Act.

Recognize the moral imperative that Martin Luther King described as “the fierce urgency of now.”

Then consider how well labor organizer Joe Hill’s last words still apply today, and can inform and inspire us all during a month when we commemorate the 40th anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination: “Don’t mourn me. Organize.”

YES, I am bitter, Barack Obama is the one who is in touch with how real folks are feeling!

Sonjala from Pittsburgh — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 13:23:09 EDT

I was interviewed by 2 local stations on Sunday after I happed upon a “protest” of Hillary supporters out side of the Pittsburgh campaign office. I grabbed a sign from my car window and joined them because I could not let them be to only voice there.

I work at Carnegie Mellon as a Career Counselor and have been very involved in this campaign and process for the first time doing more than just "casting my vote” I live in Penn Hills and the Penn Hills for Obama team was recently recognized as on of the top 2 neighborhood teams working to get Barack Obama elected in PA. I had the honor last week of being one of 3 team leaders in the Western region to meet with David Plouffe on Friday to talk about what we have been doing in PA and to tell our stories and struggles.

I do have a bitter taste in my mouth about how this country has been run and I know a lot of people feel the same way. I think Hillary’s camp would be hard pressed to find anyone that is "joyful" about spending huge amounts of their paycheck on gas, or having the threat of loosing their home because of the economy. Anyone who says that people are not angry and bitter about the state of America is out of touch. I am also once again put off by Hillary’s twisting of words and meaning. Being disappointed, angry, even bitter about a bad situation does not mean you are a miserable person. She is the one making that connection because that is her fram of reference. I can be bitter and angry about a situation and yet still be a joyful happy an optimistic person.

Obama can renew Americas’ optimism. I have hope that Obama will work to reverse the damage done, not continue with the negativity I see coming from Hillary. Obama gives me a sense of purpose; he has empowered me to make my voice heard. He is the one that can build a bridge uniting democrats, republicans and independents around a hopeful message of change that we can believe in. I would like to see more coverage of that positive powerful energy that is flowing through our city.

here are links to to coverage of the "protest" amd my rebuttal.

http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/politics/15870875/detail.html

Click the link below the picture for the video.

http://kdka.com/campaign08/barack.obama.hillary.2.699245.html

Sonjala

Whiskey Rebellion of 2008

CumberlandGeorge — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 13:13:48 EDT

Hillary is mocking small town Pennsylvanians. She thinks we are about protecting a life-style of gun ownership, hunting and drinking whiskey with the boys. We understand why an elitist would completely misunderstand our deeper concerns. And she will fail to understand why we will dump her out behind the shed.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v343/SGeorge/Hillary_shots.jpg

FOCUS '08: Talking Points

Geoff Gilson — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 13:10:05 EDT

[What follows are talking points for Barack in support of FOCUS '08. If you want a prettier hard-copy, please feel free to write to me at the e-mail addesss at the end.]

The proposition - FOCUS '08:

“Every man, woman and child in the United States should have access to adequate food, clothing, housing and healthcare."

The Rationale

No politician likes to be told upon whom they need to focus their attention, and how. It betrays weakness. I’m assuming you’re [Barack] as different as you say.

The demographic battleground in this election may well be the white working male – the ‘once upon a time’ Reagan Democrats. Reagan lured them with an appeal to their pride and patriotism. You need to appeal to the same pride, but to a different sense of duty.

Many are today scared of losing what they have. Of joining the millions of already working poor. They fear losing their jobs, their homes, but most of all their dignity. And there is the rub.

As much as they worry about rising food and gas prices, they are too proud to ask for help; to be considered part of any grand plan for the poor. So, you can’t openly offer them a helping hand.

Instead, you should ask of them that they be the ones to offer the helping hand to those of their neighbors who are already working poor. This gives them the opportunity to be selfless. Yet, see that there is a safety net for them too, if they should falter.

Whereas Bush takes their fear, and turns it into anger and envy and revenge, you allow them to be truly courageous, and change that fear into a determination to help themselves and their neighbors.

I call it A New FOCUS.

When you come to North Carolina, you are not going to be able to avoid the subject of poverty – not in John Edward’s backyard. FOCUS offers you a way of addressing the fears of working people, without telling them what they already know – they might be about to join the ranks of the working poor.

What follows is not so much a speech, as a series of possible talking points, to flesh out these preliminary thoughts.

“A New FOCUS”: Taking Care of America’s Family Values

1) A Safe and Strong America

I [that would be you, Barack] want a safe and strong America.

I don’t mean one like the Republicans want.

I want an America where every man, woman and child feels safe.

There are a lot of scared people in our country at the moment.

Scared of losing their job or their home. Scared of not being able to feed their children because of rising food prices. Or buy gas. Or put their clothes on their children’s backs, and pay to keep them healthy and strong.

There are millions of our friends and neighbors who already live in that nightmare. Working families who struggle every day with dignity and grace, but still fail to make ends meet.

You may be one of those brave folk. Or you may know of one. Or more. Indeed, and perhaps more to the point, you may be scared that you will be next.

This is not good enough. Our citizens. You. Your friends, your neighbors. Our servicemen fighting bravely abroad. Their families who remain at home. Our firefighters. Our teachers. Our friends who keep the lights on, the water running, and serve us at the gas station and the convenience store. All of us, we deserve better than this.

We all deserve the right to feel safe. To feel secure. To know that there is an adequate safety net if we should stumble for a moment.

And we politicians need to find the strength and willpower in ourselves to help you help yourselves and your friends and neighbors.

And it’s not just down to we politicians.

You know the hardest thing is to ask for help. To have the strength to ask for help. To have the inner courage to set aside false pride, and admit to oneself that one needs help. To have the courage to ask for it – so as to keep you and your family safe.

Now, I know a thing or two about asking for help. Some xxxxxxxx million of you have responded generously to my request for help with this peoples’ campaign of ours to make change a reality for all working Americans.

That takes almost as much strength – the willingness to respond. When you are facing difficulties of your own. To set those to one side. Recognize that there may be those of your friends or neighbors whose need for a helping hand is greater. That takes generosity of spirit, and true strength.

Helping them, without the need for them having to ask; without the need for a government program; or a political slogan. Just helping because it’s the decent thing to do. That takes real strength.

And here I don’t mean strength like some do. I don’t mean taking fear, and turning it into anger, and calling it patriotism. I don’t mean taking frustration, turning it into envy, and calling it duty. I mean real strength.

Real men don’t get angry. They get busy. They don’t find easy targets to attack. They do the truly difficult thing. The selfless thing. The less glamorous thing. They stay at home, and take care of business.

They take care of their families. And then they take care of their neighborhoods. And then they help to take care of the less fortunate around the country. That’s what real men do.

Now, our country can help. We politicians can help.

We can find the strength to speak the truth, to take bold action and to hold out a helping hand – not a handout; a helping hand. Offer all working folk, not a tax break – just a decent break.

The working people of America – ordinary folk, like you and me – we are proud.

We want to be able to look after our own.

We won’t beg. And we shouldn’t be made to.

I can’t promise to fix all the problems that are causing so much pain and fear today. Although I will address them if you give me the chance.

But I can pledge to you today that my Administration will live by the proposition that every man, woman and child in the United States should feel safe.

I call it our “New FOCUS”.

It’s central theme is that every man, woman and child in the United States of America will have access to adequate food, clothing, housing and healthcare.

2) What is Too Much to Ask?

Let me begin by telling you how I [that would be me, Geoff] came to FOCUS.

For two years, I lived with a working girl, let’s call her Toni, and her three children, who were 8, 5 and 2 years old.

We lived in Seneca, South Carolina, ironically the birthplace of John Edwards. Toni’s parents still live near Charlotte, North Carolina.

Toni lived every day in a cocktail of emotional and physical pain. Her husband of 10 years left her after promising that once he had finished college he would stay at home and look after the kids while she completed her degree in computing.

Never happened. Instead, two weeks after her third child was born, her husband upped and left her and the kids. He then spent 5 years trying to take the children away from her.

Toni went back to work, as the manager of a video department in her local supermarket. Her body had a chemical reaction to child-bearing that left her in so much pain that there would be days when I would find her hunched over on the floor of her department, labeling videos, the tears running down her face.

But Toni never, ever gave up.

She bore the pain. She fought for her kids. And won. She struggled at work. Against supervisors for whom disability and family commitment were one-line jokes, not rights guaranteed by American law.

I wondered so many times why she never gave up. If there would ever be a moment when she thought that this was all too much to ask.

And then, on a quiet Saturday evening, I’d peek in and see her singing gently to her 2-year old, as she washed him in the bathtub. I’d laugh as she yelled at the other two to stop fighting in the front room.

And I realized, with stunning clarity, that nothing would ever be too much to ask of this working parent. Everything was worth the struggle, if it meant that she had these few moments each week with her children.

So, what is too much to ask of each of us?

Toni is the strongest and bravest person I know. Braver than me. I didn’t have the strength to stay with her. That honor resides with her new husband, who works 2 to 3 jobs to try to help Toni make ends meet.

Toni is too brave, too proud to ask for her help. But I’ll ask for her. And for the millions of other working families who struggle with pride to make the world safe for their kids.

What is too much to ask? What is too much to ask to keep Toni and her husband and children, and every man, woman and child in America, safe and secure? Free from fear?

Of course, the naysayers will jump up and down and declaim that this will cost money.

Let’s be honest. Of course it will cost money.

If anyone out there knows of a way to guarantee that each of our citizens has the basic necessities of life without it costing money then I [Barack] will guarantee that person a job in my new Administration.

Ideological rants from talk show hosts won’t put clothes on backs, food in bellies, stop foreclosures or bring down the cost of gas.

Only money will do that.

And public money – your money. I will never forget that each and every dollar that government spends is a dollar that has come out of your pocket, the product of your daily sweat.

Your tax dollars have to lead the way.

Do you know that an increase in tax of 1% across the board – that is, 1% on every tax, from income tax, to corporation tax, to capital gains tax – 1% would raise some $200 billion a year.

$200 billion that we could use to begin the job of offering a helping hand to Toni, and all the working people like her, who currently live in fear in this, the richest country the world has ever known.

Is 1% really too much to ask to keep working families safe? Our friends’ families? Our neighbors’ families?

We can find the money to rebuild a country half a world away. Are we really saying that we can’t find the money to rebuild our own country?

Is this really too much to ask?

There are those who will claim that this is all 'their' fault. As if working families caused the housing crisis. As if working families caused jobs to move overseas. As if working families caused gas and food prices to rise. The Social Security fund to fall. The dollar to collapse.

C’mon. Government did this. And government has to lead the way in finding the answer. We can not and we will not pass the buck.

And anyway, enough of this finger-pointing and blame. I’m so tired of being told there’s only so much we can do – when ‘so much’ is so often just not enough; just too little.

We are a people of boundless generosity and unlimited vision and possibility. We overflow with optimism and hope. We have allowed ourselves for too long to be sold a bill of goods. We have for too long bought into the message of despair and pessimism.

I’m tired of a government that tells us it’s ok to have an economic policy based on greed; a social policy based on envy; and a foreign policy based on hatred and revenge.

Other politicians may tell you that we can be better. I say that we are better, right now [oops, back to being you, Barack, again!].

In my travels around America I have seen only warmth and generosity and hope towards all the people of this land.

I don’t think there is one caring American who would say that this is too much to ask.

3) What has Happened to Honor?

My [Geoff’s] Aunt in Grand Rapids, Michigan just died at the age of 84, after a 26-year battle with breast cancer.

Every day of her life, she was a practicing liberal, Democratic, Catholic. But ‘liberal’ in the old tradition. Before the Republicans made it a cuss word.

‘Liberal’ in the sense that she was brought up to believe that you cared and you gave back, without needing a political slogan or a government program to prod you. She gave because it was the decent thing to do.

What has happened to that sense of decency? That sense of duty and honor? When you do something because it is right; not because it brings you material reward or political kudos?

When we didn’t allow a bigot or a talking head to convince us that it’s all too much to ask, or that everything is doom and gloom?

We seem to have forgotten words like: honor, loyalty, responsibility.

We do terrible things, because we can, and because we can get away with them. Where is the self-control? Where is the little voice inside each of us saying, this is just plain wrong? There is a better way. It’s not too much to ask.

We do things to gain an advantage. For profit. For personal gain. For political gain.

So, we lie, we spin, we torture, we break our own rules. For that extra advantage. And we convince ourselves that’s it’s ok. Because of that extra advantage.

We do it for today. And we let tomorrow take care of itself. Without realizing that we have mortgaged all the financial 'tomorrows' of our kids and their kids. And we have held their consciences to ransom.

Yet, when that 'tomorrow' finally comes, we feel bad about ourselves. And we’ve been feeling bad about ourselves for a long time.

It’s time to start doing the right things. Just because they are the right things to do.

It’s time to start feeling good about ourselves. It’s time to cast away the doom merchants and say, it’s not too much to ask.

We see a friend or a neighbor in pain – someone like Toni – but we don’t help. We are still tempted to listen to the mean voice that says, ‘this is all pennies out of your pocket.’

It’s time to stop listening to that voice, and to start again to listen to the voice of our conscience – the voice of my Aunt – speaking, the voice that says, ‘it’s not too much to ask.’

To all those sensible voices that talk of ‘ the common good’ and ‘social responsibility.’

We have become a country of division and exclusion. When we are, in fact, a people that naturally includes.

That is the basis on which this great country was founded. That we welcome the poor and the huddled masses from other countries, and we include them in our society.

Let’s be no less inclusive of those who already live in our country.

No-one should be left behind. Not one man, woman or child. There should be a safe home for everyone in our country. We deserve no less.

It’s not a question of whether it’s too much to ask. The question is how much is too little to deliver.

It’s not so much that we need change, as we need a return to America’s true values.

Values based on social conscience and selfless good works.

Warmth and generosity that flow from the American heart, and the wisdom and intelligence of its working people.

Good deeds that are undertaken by good people – with a little helping hand from our tax dollars. Because it's not too much to ask.

4) Where are the Real Men?

[FOCUS arose out of a series of programs we did on our local community radio (WCOM 103.5FM Carrboro/Chapel Hill), following the catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina, in 2005. One of the questions posed to me was, how do you sell FOCUS to working stiffs who think it’s ok to vote Republican because George Bush is a ‘real man’ who straps on his boots and brings the oil home? This was my response. Like most of what I offer, it’s blunt.]

FOCUS: How to sell it

To whom are we selling “A New Reality” and FOCUS? First, to Merlot Democrats, who need to re-learn three things:

· The Democratic Party is supposed to represent the interest of ordinary Americans, who, more and more, are also America’s working poor.

· America’s working poor do not always want the same things that enlightened and educated 'Merlot' Democrats think they should want.

· The Democratic Party should, once again, become a Party of listeners.

Once that hurdle is negotiated, we need to focus our attention on winning back NASCAR Democrats, who are the working backbone of America – they keep the shop running.

My view is that you sell “A New Reality” and FOCUS both as tough love and as the ‘Real Deal.’

Bush Democrats think real men, real heroes go down to the VFW on a Friday night, down a few beers, and sing along with Toby Keith as he knocks the stuffing out of a few Arabs.

A ‘real’ Democrat would stand up and say that real men, real heroes stay home on a Friday night and take care of business.

They don’t steal their wife’s rent money, or skip out on child support. They take care of business. They buy the food. They help around the house. They give their hard-working wives a break.

They offer a helping hand to the guy down the street who’s fallen on hard times. They help the neighborhood, by looking after the environment. They take responsibility for their lives, their families, their neighborhood and their country.

The Marine motto is that no-one is ever left behind. Bush stole it for his education program. Democrats should take it back, and make it their war-cry for 2008 – in a Democratic America, no-one will be left behind. FOCUS should be the first shot in that battle.

It is being reported that 2005 will see the single largest leap in State revenues from tax since 1990 – some 7.2%. Already, Governors are talking tax cuts. This is nonsense.

1990 was the herald of the coming economic expansion. If we are about to undergo another economic growth period, then Democrats need to develop sufficient guts to say: enough of cuts; we will use that extra revenue to ‘invest’ in people in America.

That was the message that Tony Blair used in Great Britain to overturn 18 years of tax-cutting Conservatives. He had to promise that there would never be any tax increases, but that spending cuts and increasing tax revenues would be used to invest in people.

I think Democrats should take the Robert Kennedy approach, and go one further. They should say, irrespective of any increase in tax revenues, they would increase the rate of taxation, on both individuals and corporations, across the board, by 1% a year, for the four years of a Presidential administration.

America’s working poor, NASCAR Democrats do not want a tax break; they just want a decent break. They don’t want a hand-out; they merely ask for a helping hand. It’s not too much too ask.

We are the richest country the world has ever known. We have also regularly proven ourselves to be the most generous nation the world has ever known. If ever there was a time to rise, once again, to that challenge, it is now.

America’s people deserve more than an economic policy based on greed, a social policy based on hatred, and a foreign policy based on revenge.

It is time for the government to take care of its real business; for corporations to take care of real people; and for the people to take care of their real responsibilities.

That’s how you sell “A New Reality.” That’s how you sell FOCUS.

One final point: Rahm Emmanuel, the Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, has predicted that it is highly unlikely that Democrats will regain control of Congress any time soon. There are simply not enough marginal Republican seats ups for grabs.

Change will come, therefore, only with a change in the White House. And Rudolph Giuliani and John McCain are looking more formidable than anything the Democrats have to offer – at least with their existing message.

[Oops. Remember, this was written in 2005. Mind you, I didn’t do too badly on the John McCain prediction!]

Ideas submitted by Geoff Gilson. No copyright attaches. Have at it. Use as you will. My concern is only that the right thing is done, not that credit is forthcoming.

These ideas flow from my thoughts on FOCUS On Poverty 2008. But you can’t enroll working people into the concept by scaring them with the specter of their own possibly impending poverty. Instead, better to appeal to their sense of duty and honor. Hence, the morph into ‘A New FOCUS’.

You can find more at:

www.focusonpoverty.blogspot.com

www.thepetitionsite.com/petition/483881699 (to sign the Petition)

http://197491.spreadshirt.com (for the stylish T-shirts!)

And you can contact me at: 200 Barnes Street, Apt. B-18Carrboro, North Carolina 27510 (919)923-0096

geoffgilson@hotmail.com

PA Union Dissent Against Hillary!

Not-a-Sheep : ENOUGH is ENOUGH! — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 13:09:09 EDT

Well here it is, folks. Video of Hillary speaking to a crowd of Union members who vocally disagreed with her assesment of Obama's comment about rural Pennsylvanians. Watch it and judge for yourself. They apparently disagree with Mrs. Clinton.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/24109989#24109989

Sen. Obama is Right. Rural America is Bitter

Bill Marjenhoff — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 12:45:40 EDT

“Barack Obama is right,” says Dave Lindorff. “I've seen it in person. The people in rural America are bitter and frustrated, and after years of being played by politicians, they fall victim to the charlatans who tell them it's all because of ‘the Blacks,’ or the immigrants, or who tell them that their guns are in danger. Or they turn to religions that preach division or apocalypse -- a concept that offers the chance of a final, delicious revenge against the rich and the powerful oppressors on Wall Street and in Washington.” Lindorff is co-author of The Case for Impeachment (St. Martin's Griffin, 2007). Full story here: http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff04142008.html

Times Transcript of Obama's Remarks at San Fran with link

John From Cape Cod. Ma — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 10:56:58 EDT

LINK: http://thepage.time.com/transcript-of-obamas-remarks-at-san-francisco-fundraiser-sunday

They say this is an actual transcript of the remarks that were so widely spread over the weekend.

read and judge for yourself...I myself think his remarks are not only positive but honest.

By Clinton and Mccain making an issue of this they actually helped spead the word in venues that have been mainly Pro Clinton and Pro McCain...they may realize this by now..but the damage they did to THEMSELVES not to Sen.Obama is already done.

Transcript of Obama’s Remarks at San Francisco Fundraiser Sunday

OBAMA: So, it depends on where you are, but I think it’s fair to say that the places where we are going to have to do the most work are the places where people are most cynical about government. The people are mis-appre…they’re misunderstanding why the demographics in our, in this contest have broken out as they are. Because everybody just ascribes it to ‘white working-class don’t wanna work — don’t wanna vote for the black guy.’ That’s…there were intimations of that in an article in the Sunday New York Times today - kind of implies that it’s sort of a race thing.

Here’s how it is: in a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long. They feel so betrayed by government that when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn’t buy it. And when it’s delivered by — it’s true that when it’s delivered by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama, then that adds another layer of skepticism.

But — so the questions you’re most likely to get about me, ‘Well, what is this guy going to do for me? What is the concrete thing?’ What they wanna hear is so we’ll give you talking points about what we’re proposing — to close tax loopholes, uh you know uh roll back the tax cuts for the top 1%, Obama’s gonna give tax breaks to uh middle-class folks and we’re gonna provide healthcare for every American.

But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there’s not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Um, now these are in some communities, you know. I think what you’ll find is, is that people of every background — there are gonna be a mix of people, you can go in the toughest neighborhoods, you know working-class lunch-pail folks, you’ll find Obama enthusiasts. And you can go into places where you think I’d be very strong and people will just be skeptical. The important thing is that you show up and you’re doing what you’re doing.

Please comment and refer anyone you know that needs this transcript over here.

Please feel free to join my Group also..its not only Coast to Coast, it is now international.

Link to group:

http://my.barackobama.com/page/group/MassachusettesActionGroup

PEACE JOHN

flip-flop

Sue — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 09:06:39 EDT

I'd like to buy Hillary Clinton a pair of flip-flops, but I can't even afford them for myself.

Something just came to mind when I was reading another blog about Hillary's flip-flops.

Remember way back when she was joking with the audience, about "the skies will open"', etc??

Funny how now she's saying all of those small town Pennsylvanians feel that way. What she then called false hope, she's now saying is real hope.

If and when the skies open, it will be because Barack has become our president! That's where the real hope is.

I attached this reponse to the letter, You guys should too!

Keziah Cicero — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 07:03:35 EDT

I live in Elkins Park which is about 2 minutes outside of Philadelphia. Everyone has been focused on rural Pennsylvania but there are areas in Philadelphia that when you travel through you feel like your in a third world. This of course didn't just start under Bush, it began even before the Clintons. These people have been forgotten by the system a long time ago and they turn to the government, the welfare system because it's all they know. My husband and I are both college students, I have about 18 credits left. I haven't been able to complete them because even though my huband makes about 41,000 (wages being the result of two jobs he works form 4am to 9 am then 11 to 8pm almost everyday), we don't qualify for any programs to send our children to daycare at a reduced cost. On the flip side we cannot afford to pay for daycare as it is now, especially with the cost of food and gas soaring. Why is it that the systems that is suppose to help those who temporarily need a hand only help those who will be on it for life. These questions need to be addressed. Limiting welfare by a couple at a time if recipients don't have a job as Bill Clinton did does not get to the root of the problem. Barack Obama is not delusional enough to think that poverty started when the Bush's took office, it's true that his term has blurred the lines even further so that even the middle class has no cushion. I'm tired of lying politicians who tell you what you want to hear or who insult my intelligence by pandering to my demographics, we are not fooled. Barack Obama is not out of touch, I'm a Pennsylvanian and I say that these other candidates are out of touch, because we are bitter, and we are angry! On April 22, I know who I'm voting for and it starts with a B and ends with an A.

Obama Takes Off The Gloves

Nickie — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 05:14:24 EDT

Wow! Hillary sure has done it this time. My favorite mild mannered sweet nicer than he should be senator and next president of the US has gone on the offensive. Or at least he is offended. I just watched a video where he struck back at Hillary's comments about Barack being out of touch and elitist. I would not want Obama mad at me! Hillary really should be ashamed of herself! She will I believe regret those comments. She isn't running like a democrat now, she's running scared and grasping at whatever straws she can to shore up votes in PA. She's been slipping in the polls, and so when Obama makes a slight error in word choice she's out to flame him. But Barack Obama is not backing down this time. He's right and he's standing up to Hillary and McCain and he's going to own this issue! If you want to see Obama in a fiesty mood... The fighter Obama, the Obama that takes off the gloves... Then Watch this!http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/04/11/smackdown-the-emdaily-sho_n_96185.html

Same old bitter politics as usual

Amon from Warren, MI — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 04:55:19 EDT

Disclaimer: It is late and I am tired so this may not be the most articulate post I have written but I feel compelled to say something before I go to bed.

End of Disclaimer.

After reading an inordinate amount of blogs and listening to the pundits spin this on television for three days now. Something doesn't set well with me.

First let me say that Barack made a mistake in saying what he said the way he said it. It was at the very least inartful. But it must be put into its proper context. He was speaking at a closed fundraising event in which it was announced that there was to be no tape recorders etc. So it stands to reason that he would be a lot more laxed in his responses thinking that he was in friendly terrain. If you want a much more artful explaination of what he said check out his you tube conversation with Charlie Rose. http://youtube.com/watch?v=dJut4-dHuV8

Listen to the whole interview it is quite insightful about the candidate and his views. Having said that, there is certain elements to this whole "dust up" that disturbs me. I think there is/was a pattern to a lot of this.

First, is Miss Fowler herself. She claims to be an Obama supporter and a "citizen journalist" what ever that means. But if you read the articles she writes about Obama they don't seem to show this "support." In fact, they do the opposite. You would think by reading her articles that she didn't like the man, coloring him as arrogant, flirty and putting on acts for crowds. Now in fairness to Mrs. Fowler, if she is to be objective as a journalist then she can't show her bias. And yet I think that maybe her assesments of his character do just that. One could argue that they may over compensate for her laiden feelings for Barack. In her attempts to not show slant in his favor she became overly critical of the Senator.

To me, this seems like it may be plausible, at first and second glance. But that still doesn't explain away the whole "gotcha" tactics in which she broke this story. Now, she claims to be a supporter of Barack. This means that she most likely voted for him in the democratic primary when it came to California. I think it's safe to assume that if she supported and believed in his politics so much that she gave him her endorsement by voting for him. That is the very least and the best way she could express that.

But we know that she has done more. Because the fundraiser she was at in San Fransico was aclosed to the public; which means that you had to be a donor to the campaign in order to attend the event. And we also know through her own admission that it was an event for those who had maxed their donationis. In other words we know that she at least gave the Senator 2,300 dollars towards his candidacy. Which means she helped put ads on televisions, pay for his staff, his travel expenses etc... I think you see what I am getting at.

Now here is where my problem lies. If she was there as a supporter, why the recorder if they said that they weren't permissible. If she was there as a journalist, why then when they said no recorders she didn't turns hers off. Because in my humble opinion, it was the equivilent of telling the room that what ever is said here is off the record. It is clearly obvioius that she and I differ on opinions on this matter. So lets move on. Now, if she were either a supporter or a journalist or maybe even both, why wouldn't she let Barack know what she intended to do? Why wouldn't she try to get clarification on what he meant if it bothered her and that is the reason she is bringing this tape out. She potentially could have sank the candidate she supported without so much as giving him a chance to ease her mind about what she thought was troubling remarks. And my last point about her is why she took liberties with distorting the story to fit her telling.

Ms. Fowler posted two stories in relation to this fundraiser. In one, she categorizes the audience as being middle classed Americans who were listening to the "Cocky" Barack tout about his foreign policy experience and speculate on who his VEEP would be. Yet, when she retales this "bitter" story, the middleclassed Americans are now upgraded to afluent know nothings of the real world millionares. (Funny how the person who was bothered by the generalizations of rural Pennsylvanians took out her own paint brush and started broadstroking the middleclass....err....I mean rich people depending on which characterization of them we are believing now.) Anyway, in either case, the respectable thing to do was give Barack an opportunity to explain himself before you ran with the story. But of course, this doesn't get her name in the paper. And it is my suspicions that that is what she wanted in the first place...

And might I add, that Ms. Fowler didn't even place this story in the proper setting. She made it seem like Barack was just talking to supporters in whispered tones behind closed doors about how backwards people were in small towns. When he actually was asked a question by some supporters who were coming to Pennsylvania to go door to door for him to drum up support. They wanted to know what to expect, what they would be facing in terms of obstacles when they got here and in a relaxed, non P.C. way Barack tried to convey how things were in the small town as it pertained to their mentality about voting.

I must say Ms. Fowler if this is what you call journalism, you are not that good at it.

Now on to CNN. MY GOD! The way they have handled this whole dust up has been deplorable. It has been almost as bad as fox news...well I wouldn't go that far. But I found it funny that they spent a whole hour pouring gasoline on this brush fire in hopes that it would ignite the forest. The caption on the crawl below the screen said "Barack attacks small town America" ...I take back my previous comment, this was as bad as something Fox news would have done. They spoke of how this was doom and gloom for Barack's candidacy for the president.

Funny how Barack's careless words could be construed in such a way. I mean were they even half as bad as Hillary Clinton's top advisor taking money from Columbia in the hopes of pushing a trade agreement that she is allegedly opposed too. Even though she has eight hundred thousand reasons not to be....That isn't a bigger story than this? Her own husband taking eight hundred thousand dollars on behalf of Columbia to promote free trade is not a torpedo sinker to her candidacy but Barack's clinging to guns comments are. On a scale of one to ten which subject do you think is more damaging to America as a whole...free trade...or Barack saying that people vote for guns and based on their religious beliefs?...

Where has our politics gone when unartful words about the middle class is more of a concern than conflicting interest in the economy for this same middle class. When has someone comments about the way people vote been more of a concern to the voters than potentialy those middle class citizens losing more jobs to another unfair trade agreement? How much time did they devote to this story? This story which twisted and turned two ways, pointing in two directions from Mark Penn to her husband and ultimately those cozy relationships that lead back to her? Okay, let me stop ranting on that and get back to CNN coverage of this incident.

I thought that they devoted entirely too much time on this topic of Barack's gaffe. But I figured that tomorrow they would have Barack's response up to rebuttal the alligations of him being an elitist from John Mccain and Hillary only to find them giving entire segments to Hillary talking on the stump in hopes that she or someone in the crowd may respond to Baracks comments from the day before. I am not kidding. They were devoting entire segments to Hillary. And then when they finally did show the Senator's response from the night before while he was out on the stump in Terre Haute they would edit it. It took all of three minutes....his response did... and they edited the response.

Now how are they devoting entire segments to Hillary and not even giving Barack three full minutes of time in his response? That doesn't sound right. That was the first time in this campaign where I can say that it was clear bias from the media as far as coverage goes. To further illustrate this point there is a part in Baracks video where he attacks John Mccaine and then right after he goes after Hillary. Well CNN cuts off his response right after he addresses Mccain and then Susan Maulvox says that he didn't have anything to say about Hillary.

To me, it just seems like the media is being irresponsible about reporting it all because it is their desire to see this continue. They make more money and get more ratings when it does. I mean they are devoting hour long shows to cover Baracks words, when they wont even do an entire segment on a war criminal and his crimes.(That means you Mr. Bush) Bush was caught on tape joking about the whole Iraq and Katrina fiasco. And the media barely mentioned it. That is sad.

I don't know I just think we should be better than this. The country is on the edge right now. We are tittering on something drastic here. This country is the worst I have seen it in my thirty three years. I am currently out of a job due to the brilliance of nafta, I am on the verge of losing my home, I have a grandmother that can't retire, a mother that needs real healthcare and kids that need a stable future and CNN and Ms. Fowler wants to play politics.

And oh, by the way, I am bitter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Fox News finds Pennsylvanians Agreeing with Barack

j f n — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 04:52:14 EDT

Interesting, Laura Ingle of Fox News went out in the town of Allentown, Pennsylvania to get a sense of what voters truly think about his late Friday comments and whether or not there was any truth to it. Surprisingly, even FOX couldn't slant this one.

http://onthescene.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/04/12/are-people-bitter-in-pennsylvania/

Check it out at the link above.

Also, get the press to cover Amanda Scott's blog about Pennsylvanian testimonies about their frustrations.

Digg it here. This helps decide what stations cover; it shows what the viewers are interested in so please take the little time that's necessary to register. It's so worth it to have a voice in these matters.

Posts with the tag bitter

But We're Not Stupid

McCain Mob Mentality

Word Associations

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Hello

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Bitter Sweets

Is This Bitter Now Sweetie

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Obama Sweetie

Setting Our Sites on West Virginia

Obliterate - Pt.2

Obliterate

Bitter! Who's Bitter?

Race for The Bottom

What they need to hear

I'm BITTER and clinging to my keyboard!

Bittersweet Choices

Barack's Promise of Honesty

jabberwocky about elitism

Funny New Parody Ad.

The Rantings of an 87-Year-Old Life-Long Republican

What Obama really said about PA

'Far More Than "Bitter": ' by Marylee Smithwick

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It's not the media. It's us. We are the problem.

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Pennsylvania and Barack

This is America Too....................

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BLOGGING FOR OBAMA: My e-mail to ABC

Some Articles from MSNBC 4/17 with commentary.

Hillary's respect for Working Class Whites in 1995 per the Huffington Post

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Obama, bitterness, and other pills to swallow

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I am A Bitter American

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A "Bitter" Hillary

I am bitter, dammit!