from themiddleclass.org - The Middle Class:
McCain
Obama
Biden
Note the "grades" on the left part of the linked pages. McCain's not doing so well "in school" - incomplete last year and F's for the prior two measured years (not sure what happened to 2006). Someone needs a parent-teacher conference with the middle-class.
Compare that to Obama and Biden and there is NO match.
gObama/goBiden 08!
In light of the very important speech Obama is to give today, let us make March 18th, 2008,(un) Official "Obama Gear" Day! Let us wear whatever visible support of Obama that we can in our school, workplace, place of worship, home, or other environment in which we'll be tomorrow. Let us be proud of the candidate we support. Let us entertain questions with open hearts and support our answers with the facts that we know. Let us be proud! Wear clothing, buttons, hats, pins, or other accessories in support of Obama today, March 18th, 2008. We are with you Obama - we are the ones we've been waiting for... Please pass this along if you could.
This was posted on a blog tonight. The extended post is my response.
John F. Kennedy Civil Rights Address Speech delivered:June 11, 1963 Good evening, my fellow citizens: The heart of the question is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities, whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated. Now the time has come for this Nation to fulfill its promise. We face, therefore, a moral crisis as a country and a people. It cannot be met by repressive police action. It cannot be left to increased demonstrations in the streets. It cannot be quieted by token moves or talk. It is a time to act in the Congress, in your State and local legislative body and, above all, in all of our daily lives. It is not enough to pin the blame on others, to say this is a problem of one section of the country or another, or deplore the facts that we face. A great change is at hand, and our task, our obligation, is to make that revolution, that change, peaceful and constructive for all. Those who do nothing are inviting shame, as well as violence. Those who act boldly are recognizing right, as well as reality. Other features will be also requested, including greater protection for the right to vote. But legislation, I repeat, cannot solve this problem alone. It must be solved in the homes of every American in every community across our country. My fellow Americans, this is a problem which faces us all-- in every city of the North as well as the South. It seems to me that these are matters which concern us all, not merely Presidents or Congressmen or Governors, but every citizen of the United States. This is one country. It has become one country because all of us and all the people who came here had an equal chance to develop their talents. This is what we're talking about and this is a matter which concerns this country and what it stands for, and in meeting it I ask the support of all our citizens. Click to watch landmark JFK speech
Regarding Rev. Wright's statements:
We won't like and won't be able to immortalize everything Obama says (nor should we want to). Obama will mess up, HRC will mess up, McCain will mess up - our choice is perhaps which of those three will help THE PEOPLE to change the America we have now into the the USA that we know is possible.
We certainly won't like everything that supporters of Obama, publicly known or not, say either.
We do live in a country where race strongly influences one's potential outcomes - whether we like to admit it or not. Most of the things that Rev. Wright preached about are things of truth. He was adhering to a liberation theology in bringing to light injustices that exist in our society. Please remember that Jesus was a rabble-rouser - he overturned tables in the Temple when men were changing money in the Lord's house. The New Testament is filled with examples of Jesus bringing to light power inequities. [No, I'm not saying that we should worship Rev. Wright. But we likely could learn something from him if we resist our own defensiveness.]
It would serve all of us who are unfamiliar with the socio-historical relevancy of race in this nation to do some reading (such as, Privilege, Power, and Difference by Allan G Johnson). The US has put forth a "color-blind ideology" - a mythic belief that to recognize difference in color and the difference in power related to race is in itself racist. This could not be further from the truth. To deny differences is to make invisible persons' backgrounds that may or may not be important to them and also to deny the vast inadequacies based on race in our nation. Our nation has been denying the realities of racism since our legislation has told us to. Legislation does not change behavior and thoughts. The historical realities of racism are erased from most schools' curriculum - this is part of the reason why the late-learned truth is often so difficult, particularly for white folks, to digest and often results in disgust and anger. White folks should be angry, we should be angry that our schooling did all students an injustice by not including all history in our curriculum. Now it's time to learn about what we didn't then.
I am completely and utterly upset with HRC and her campaign "strategy". I was initially a supporter of her campaign and presidency (pre Super Tuesday), but now, after all of her bickering, back-door politics, and republican tactics, I doubt that I could, in good conscious, vote for HRC even if she were to cheat earn her way to a democratic nomination. This is coming from someone who wants to see the party unified.
"One-fifth of white Ohio voters said race was an important issue to their vote, and those who did voted three in four for Clinton. That compares with the one in five Democrats in Ohio who said gender was important to their vote, and they voted six in 10 for Clinton." Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23473864/
The mathematical translation.
Based upon the totals provided for all votes in Ohio on Jon Stewart tonight (if someone has the "official" numbers, please send and I'll update the math), the number that Clinton had, and the number that Obama had...
This is high level coverage of health care issues within the US. Link
Senator Obama is a fantastic listener and is good at pulling themes together to get at the heart of the matter. I have trust that the issues within the US with health care, education, and ALL the other issues will not go overlooked with Obama in Office. I really recommending clicking on that link. Link then click on live video and Obama's live panel presentation is on the right sidebar.
I received this in my email today...
I think this is yet another example of why Bush/Cheney/(McCain) approaches are failed approaches. We need a believer in the White House with the proven conviction to help protect those who are not capable of protecting themselves from the big bad US government. We need a government that cares.
Our Plan to Save Wolves
Today the Bush/Cheney Administration is officially eliminating vital federal protections for wolves in Greater Yellowstone and the Northern Rockies.
Defenders of Wildlife’s legal experts are preparing for a long, hard court battle ahead. Our on-the-ground staff in the Northern Rockies continues to work night and day to stop outrageous state plans that would bring wolves back to the brink of extinction. And staff and supporters across the country are mobilizing to save our wolves.
We need your help. Please donate $50.00, $30.00 or whatever you can afford
Things have gone from bad to worse for wolves in Greater Yellowstone and the Northern Rockies.
Today, the Bush/Cheney Administration is stripping these amazing animals of vital federal protections, officially opening the door to the shooting, trapping, and killing of up to 1,200 wolves.
We can’t let that happen. Donate $50.00, $30.00 or whatever you can afford today and help support our Yellowstone Wolf Legal Defense Fund and on-the-ground efforts to protect wolves and other wildlife.
Under existing state management plans -- plans approved by the Bush Administration -- all but 300 hundred wolves could be killed. That’s 80% of the wild wolves in Greater Yellowstone and the Northern Rockies!
As I wrote last month, federal officials already made it easier to kill wolves while they were still protected under the Endangered Species Act. Now they’re taking the final step, and eliminating these federal protections altogether.
Idaho officials want to use aerial gunning to kill wolves in their state. Wyoming agencies have left the door open to the use of traps and poison to eliminate wolves. And officials in both states -- and Montana -- have proposed wolf hunts.
States could start the killing by the end of March. Please make a tax-deductible emergency donation right now and help support our work to save these wolves.
More than a decade ago, caring wildlife supporters just like you helped Defenders lead the fight to return these majestic animals to Greater Yellowstone and the Northern Rockies.
With your support, we’ve stopped earlier attempts by the Bush Administration to eliminate federal protections for these wolves. We’ve taken on wolf opponents in the Farm Bureau who wanted to kill these majestic animals… and won. We’ve pioneered innovative strategies to help humans and wolves co-exist and built powerful coalitions to advocate for common-sense wolf management.
Now we need your help to save them again.
To fund our ongoing legal work, on-the-ground advocacy efforts and proactive conservation programs to save wolves and other wildlife, we need to raise at least $125,000 by March 20th.
Your tax-deductible donation of $50.00, $30.00 or whatever you can afford will help us meet this goal and provide the essential resources we need to win this fight and save wolves.
The battle to save our wolves is one that we can, must and will win. But we can only do it with your help.
Sincerely,Rodger SchlickeisenPresidentDefenders of Wildlife
P.S. To help support our efforts, please make a secure donation online or call 1-800-385-9712 to donate over the phone.
Obama wins the Democrats abroad!
Nice work, Obama! Thanks for the votes citizens abroad!
(Thanks Jeremiah T for this link)
It seems that the NY Senator has done less than she'd have us believe, particularly since in the Sentate. This doesn't match up well against Barack's record which is much more extensive AND successful.
Read The Curious Myth of Hillary Clinton's Senate Effectiveness.
It's amazing, or perhaps refreshing is a better word, to me how cordial Obama is. He truely is someone who can rise above the divisive politics that are so common in DC. This unsucessful track record of Hillary's hasn't even been on the stump speech trail. Talk about rising above! Now Obama's a politician that I can believe AND believe in.
Is Senator Obama too inexperienced to be an effective president? Should I believe what I hear about Obama, that he is all talk and no action?
If these are questions you're asking, here are the answers - no and no. Below is a detailed numerical representation of the proven and extensive experience that Obama has - experience, vision, and effective solutions that we need in the next president of the USA to lead our country and people to a better destiny.
Here's a video link speaking directly to Obama's specifics.
Visit this blog for more specifics on the experience and record of progress that Obama has made in his time in politics and public service.
An extensive list of Obama's accomplishments, experience, and record…familiarize yourself, please.
These are direct quotes with the links from which they were gathered.
Civil Rights
Record of Advocacy: Obama has worked to promote civil rights and fairness in the criminal justice system throughout his career. As a community organizer, Obama helped 150,000 African Americans register to vote. As a civil rights lawyer, Obama litigated employment discrimination, housing discrimination, and voting rights cases. As a State Senator, Obama passed one of the country's first racial profiling laws and helped reform a broken death penalty system. And in the U.S. Senate, Obama has been a leading advocate for protecting the right to vote, helping to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act and leading the opposition against discriminatory barriers to voting.
Pasted from <http://www.barackobama.com/issues/civilrights/>
(Dis)Abilities
(From a blog) And there was a video on that site. It was an outline of Barack Obama's plan to empower Americans with disabilities. Project Readon said that Barack Obama's campaign was the first website to sign up to caption their videos. They asked other candidates to join in, but they didn't. The Republicans said no to Project Readon, which shows the lack of care that the Republican party has shown to Americans with disabilities.
"I looked at Hillary Clinton's website. None of her videos are captioned, and she doesn't provide a link to Project Readon where you can find her videos. Barack Obama does provide that link, which you can find here with the green button that says "Closed Captioning."
Pasted from <http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/group/WomenforObama631>
Can anyone translate this video, La Caminata, into English so that some non-Spanish speakers can understand the lyrics? (I'm assuming this is Spanish, perhaps not Castilian.) The speed of the lyrics is too fast for me to catch much of what is being said.
Thanks!
"Change will not come if we wait for some other person. Or if we wait for some other time.We are the ones we've been waiting for" - Super Tuesday speech (2/5/08) by Barack Obama
