11.28.2008

Obama Quotes Michael Pollen!

Agra-business  jumped on Obama for quoting Michael Pollen about how we have to change our approach to food to improve our health!   He talked about carbs and diabetes!  

   Bill Moyer's is interviewing Michael Pollen right now.   Gotta stop monoculture agriculture.   We made more greenhouse gasses from growing food than from any other source.

The Omnivore's Dilemma

11.25.2008

NoVoterLeftBehind.Net: Minnesota 2008 Shaping up to Be Florida 2000, With Republicans Likely to Try to Stop the Franken-Coleman Recount - MarketWatch

This is from the Wall Street Journal, which has no Democratic prejudice. They say Republicans will try to stop the recount and steal the Senatorial election like they did the Predidential in 2000 and 2004. Rove Republicans are criminals!

NoVoterLeftBehind.Net: Minnesota 2008 Shaping up to Be Florida 2000, With Republicans Likely to Try to Stop the Franken-Coleman Recount - MarketWatch: "NoVoterLeftBehind.Net: Minnesota 2008 Shaping up to Be Florida 2000, With Republicans Likely to Try to Stop the Franken-Coleman Recount

Last update: 10:14 a.m. EST Nov. 25, 2008
WASHINGTON, Nov 25, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Group Seeks Volunteers, Donations to Help Keep GOP From Repeating Gore-Bush Debacle By Forcing an End to Recount That is Likely to Go Against Republican Candidate.
With fewer than 200 votes now separating Minnesota Democrat Al Franken from embattled incumbent U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman, it is now 'almost a certainty' that Republicans will use the same tactics they employed in Florida in the wake of the 2000 presidential election to shutdown a recount that is slipping away from them, according to NoVoterLeftBehind.net ( www.NoVoterLeftBehind.net), which is accepting donations and volunteers to fight back against the GOP efforts to steal the 2008 Minnesota Senate seat."

11.01.2008

10.28.2008

Obama's "Bubble Up" Economy.

This is the actual quote from Obama's chat with the Dumber Plumber. (I am working class too, but don't believe it is an excuse for being uninformed and stupid." Palin and Samuel Wurzelbacher are dumb as doorstops.

What Obama was actually speaking to, was that in helping working class people, you spread the wealth around because instead of shipping the profit overseas, regular people spend it on plumbers, groceries, appliances, cars, going to college. Because our economy has depended so much on paper profits in the trickle down economy, there is nothing left to trickle down to the people doing the work.

McCain and the Republicans have become so used to lying that they can't tell the truth from what they make up. It surely is pitiful.

What Obama actually said:


"For folks like me who have worked hard, but frankly also been lucky, I don't mind paying just a little bit more than the waitress that I just met over there who's -- things are slow and she can barely make the rent.

My attitude is that if the economy's good for folks from the bottom up, it's gonna be good for everybody. If you've got a plumbing business, you're going to be better off if you've got a whole bunch of customers who can afford to hire you, and right now everybody's so pinched that business is bad for everybody, and I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."

10.26.2008

Return the Middle Class.

"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini

9.29.2008

The omnivore's dilemma : a natural history of four meals / Michael Pollan

The omnivore's dilemma : a natural history of four meals / Michael Pollan


I heard this author interviewed on the radio. Very interesting!

What should we have for dinner? The question has confronted us since man discovered fire, but according to Michael Pollan, the bestselling author of The Botany of Desire, how we answer it today, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, may well determine our very survival as a species. Should we eat a fast-food hamburger? Something organic? Or perhaps something we hunt, gather, or grow ourselves? The omnivore’s dilemma has returned with a vengeance, as the cornucopia of the modern American supermarket and fast-food outlet confronts us with a bewildering and treacherous food landscape. What’s at stake in our eating choices is not only our own and our children’s health, but the health of the environment that sustains life on earth.


In this groundbreaking book, one of America’s most fascinating, original, and elegant writers turns his own omnivorous mind to the seemingly straightforward question of what we should have for dinner. To find out, Pollan follows each of the food chains that sustain us—industrial food, organic or alternative food, and food we forage ourselves—from the source to a final meal, and in the process develops a definitive account of the American way of eating. His absorbing narrative takes us from Iowa cornfields to food-science laboratories, from feedlots and fast-food restaurants to organic farms and hunting grounds, always emphasizing our dynamic coevolutionary relationship with the handful of plant and animal species we depend on. Each time Pollan sits down to a meal, he deploys his unique blend of personal and investigative journalism to trace the origins of everything consumed, revealing what we unwittingly ingest and explaining how our taste for particular foods and flavors reflects our evolutionary inheritance.


The surprising answers Pollan offers to the simple question posed by this book have profound political, economic, psychological, and even moral implications for all of us. Beautifully written and thrillingly argued, The Omnivore’s Dilemma promises to change the way we think about the politics and pleasure of eating. For anyone who reads it, dinner will never again look, or taste, quite the same.

Read the introduction and first chapter of
The Omnivore's Dilemma (PDF)







9.21.2008

Who Will Cut Your Taxes?


Country Club First
The numbers show John McCain places his Country Club buddies ahead of ordinary Americans.

Source: Obama and McCain Tax Proposals a Washington Post article on a Tax Policy Center analysis.

9.19.2008

WWJD?

Matthew 25:35-40 (New International Version)

For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,

I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'


5.23.2008

The "Right" is Wrong: Jesus was a Liberal

Matthew 25:31-46

31 'When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with
him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. 32All the nations
will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from
another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, 33and he
will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left. 34Then
the king will say to those at his right hand, "Come, you that are
blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the
foundation of the world; 35for I was hungry and you gave me food, I
was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and
you welcomed me, 36I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick
and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me." 37Then
the righteous will answer him, "Lord, when was it that we saw you
hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink?
38And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or
naked and gave you clothing? 39And when was it that we saw you sick or
in prison and visited you?" 40And the king will answer them, "Truly I
tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are
members of my family,* you did it to me." 41Then he will say to those
at his left hand, "You that are accursed, depart from me into the
eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; 42for I was hungry
and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to
drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you
did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit
me." 44Then they also will answer, "Lord, when was it that we saw you
hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did
not take care of you?" 45Then he will answer them, "Truly I tell you,
just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do
it to me." 46And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the
righteous into eternal life.'

5.04.2008

Dwight Eisenhower Criticizes Texas Millionaires That Would Abolish Social Security? - BreakTheChain.org

Republicans today would call Eisenhower's words liberal. But it is where the center was 50 years ago.

"'Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are [a] few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.'

- President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 11/8/54"

4.23.2008

Hillary Is Only Destroying Her Future Political Career

She could have been the next Supreme Court Justice or the Leader of the Senate.

4.07.2008

"Webb says U.S. presence in Iraq draining nation

"Webb says U.S. presence in Iraq draining nation
He says military is tied up, 'economy has gone down the tubes'

http://www.amarketplaceofideas.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/jim-webb.jpg

Monday, Apr 07, 2008 - 12:08 AM Updated: 01:11 AM

By TYLER WHITLEY
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER

The war in Iraq ended five years ago, U.S. Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., said yesterday.

'From that point forward, we have been in a very tedious and contentious occupation, which is what people like myself were warning about before we went in,' the Vietnam War veteran and former secretary of the Navy said.

Webb, who has become one of the foremost critics of the Iraq war since taking office in 2006, appeared on the ABC news show 'This Week,' hosted by George Stephanopoulos.

Unlike in July 2007, when Webb and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., seated side by side, engaged in a heated confrontation on the Sunday talk show 'Meet the Press,' Webb and Graham sparred gently yesterday.

This time, they were separated by distance. Webb was in the Washington studio; Graham was elsewhere.

The two were asked to talk about America's presence in Iraq, on the eve of an appearance before Congress of Iraq commander Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, who conceived of the troop-surge strategy that Republicans say is working and Democrats say is not.

Webb continued his criticism."

"This occupation has drained the country strategically in two different ways," Webb said.

"The first is that we have tied up the best maneuver forces in the world, the Army and the Marine Corps, on the streets, in the cities of one nation while the people were supposed to be fighting al-Qaida and other forces of terrorism, and, secondly, our grand strategic interests have fallen aside. Our economy has gone down the tubes, the price of oil has quadrupled and our main strategic adversary, China, has benefited."

Graham, acknowledging that the troops in Iraq are stressed, said, "The biggest stress of all is to lose a battle against terrorism that we can't afford to lose."

Webb said the United States needs to emphasize more regional diplomacy; Graham said the U.S. has to deal with Iran and Syria, which are arming some of the Iraqi insurgents.

Asked about recent remarks by Arizona Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, that the U.S. troops might have to stay in Iraq for 100 years in a noncombat status, Webb said: "We do not belong as an occupying power in that part of the world. . . . If the Republican side wants to have long-term bases, then they should be saying so."

Webb is among the uncommitted superdelegates to the national convention whom Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois are wooing in their close contest for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Obama, who is ahead, says superdelegates should follow the votes of the people; Clinton says they should decide on the basis of which candidate they think could best win the presidency.

"I think if they didn't want the superdelegates to have independent judgment, they wouldn't have created them," Webb said. " . . . I have the luxury of having two candidates who are really exciting the country and who are bringing more people into the process."

He added: "If I thought one or the other would be markedly better as president, I would endorse them, but I am really happy at this point to support them both."
Contact Tyler Whitley at (804) 649-6780 or twhitley@timesdispatch.com.

3.20.2008

'We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.'


Barack Obama's Speech On Race

Transcript: Sen. Barack Obama on March 18, 2008 in Philadelphia.

'We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.'

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution - a Constitution that had at is very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.

And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part - through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign - to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together - unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction - towards a better future for of children and our grandchildren.

This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton's Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I've gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world's poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners - an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.

It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts - that out of many, we are truly one.

Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.

This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either "too black" or "not black enough." We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.

And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.

On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely - just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. They weren't simply a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country - a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

As such, Reverend Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems - two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way

But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth - by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:

"People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend's voice up into the rafters….And in that single note - hope! - I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion's den, Ezekiel's field of dry bones. Those stories - of survival, and freedom, and hope - became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn't need to feel shame about…memories that all people might study and cherish - and with which we could start to rebuild."

That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety - the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America - to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through - a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past." We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven't fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students.

Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments - meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today's urban and rural communities.

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family, contributed to the erosion of black families - a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods - parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement - all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.

This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What's remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.

But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn't make it - those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations - those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's own failings.

And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren't always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns - this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.

This is where we are right now. It's a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy - particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.

But I have asserted a firm conviction - a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people - that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.

For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances - for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives - by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.

Ironically, this quintessentially American - and yes, conservative - notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright's sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country - a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen - is that America can change. That is true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope - the audacity to hope - for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds - by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial - or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time." This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should've been authorized and never should've been waged, and we want to talk about how we'll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

I would not be running for President if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation - the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.

There is one story in particularly that I'd like to leave you with today - a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King's birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother's problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn't. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.

Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."

"I'm here because of Ashley." By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.

3.08.2008

Anam Ċara – A Book of Celtic Wisdom

In our time, there is much obsession with spiritual programs. Such spiritual programs tend to be very linear. The spiritual life is imagined as a journey with a sequence of stages. Each stage has its own methodology, negativity, and possibilities. Such a program often becomes an end in itself. It weights our natural presence against us. Such a program can divide and separate us from what is most intimately ours. The past is forsaken as unredeemable, the present is used as the fulcrum to a future that bodes holiness, ntegration, or perfection. When time is reduced to linear progress, it is emptied of presence. Meister Eckhart radically revises the whole notion of spiritual programs. He says that there is no such thing as a spiritual journey. If a little shocking, this is refreshing. If there were a spiritual journey, it would be only a quarter inch long, though many miles deep. It would swerve into rhythm with your deeper nature and presence. The wisdom here is so consoling. You do not have to go away outside yourself to come into real conversation with your soul and with the mysteries of the spiritual world. The eternal is at home--within you.

The eternal is not elsewhere; it is not distant. There is nothing as near as the eternal. This is captured in a lovely Celtic phrase: "Tá tír na n-óg ar chul an tí--tír álainn trina chéile" -- that is, "The land of eternal youth is behind the house, a beautiful land fluent within itself." The eternal world and the mortal world are not parallel, rather they are fused. The beautiful Gaelic phrase fighte fuaighte, "woven into and through each other," captures this.

Behind the facade of our normal lives eternal destiny is shaping our days and our ways. The awakening of the human spirit is a homecoming. Yet ironically our sense of familiarity often militates against our homecoming. When we are familiar with something, we lose the energy, edge, and excitement of it. Hegel said, "Das Bekannte überhaupt ist darum, weil es bekannt ist, nicht erkannt" -- that is, "Generally, the familiar, precisely because it is familiar, is not known." This is a powerful sentence. Behind the facade of the familiar, strange things await us. This is true of our homes, the place where we live, and, indeed, of those with whom we live. Friendships and relationships suffer immense numbing through the mechanism of familiarization. We reduce the wildness and mystery of person and landscape to the external, familiar image. Yet the familiar is merely a facade. Familiarity enables us to tame, control, and ultimately forget the mystery. We make our peace with the surface as image and we stay away from the Otherness and fecund turbulence of the unknown that it masks. Familiarity is one of the most subtle and pervasive forms of human alienation.

In a book of conversations with P. A. Mendoza, a Colombian writer, Gabriel Garcia Márquez, when asked about his thirty-year relationship with his wife, Mercedes, said, "I know her so well now that I have not the slightest idea who she really is." For Márquez, familiarity is an invitation to adventure and mystery. Conversely, the people close to us have sometimes become so familiar that they have become lost in a distance that no longer invites or surprises. Familiarity can be quiet death, an arrangement that permits the routine to continue without offering any new challenge or nourishment.

This happens also with our experience of place. I remember my first evening in Tübingen, Germany. I was to spend more than four years there studying Hegel, but that first evening Tübingen was utterly strange and unknown to me. I remember thinking, Look very carefully at Tübingen this evening because you will never again see it in the same way. And this was true. After a week there, I knew the way to the lecture halls and seminar rooms, the canteen and the library. After I had mapped out my routes through this strange territory, it became familiar, and soon I did not see it for itself anymore.

People have difficulty awakening to their inner world especially when their lives have become overly familiar to them. They find it hard to discover something new, interesting, or adventurous in their numbed lives. Yet everything we need for our journey has already been given to us. Consequently, there is great strangeness in the shadowed light of our soul world. We should become more conversant with our reserved soul-light. The first step in awakening to your inner life and to the depth and promise of your solitude would be to consider yourself for a little while as a stranger to your own deepest depths. To decide to view yourself as a complete stranger, someone who has just stepped ashore in your life, is a liberating exercise. This meditation helps to break the numbing stranglehold of complacency and familiarity. Gradually, you begin to sense the mystery and magic of yourself. You realize that you are not the helpless owner of a deadened life but rather a temporary guest gifted with blessings and possibilities you could neither invent nor earn.

--John O’Donohue in Anam Ċara – A Book of Celtic Wisdom

A Vote For Hillary Is A Republican Vote In The Fall!

Obama leads Clinton in Wyoming - Los Angeles Times:

Your Vote In a November general election between Sens. John McCain and Hillary Clinton, I would vote for:

50.3% Hillary Clinton (WITHIN MARGIN OF ERROR!) Fear looses!
49.7% John McCain
10574 total responses

In a November general election between Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama, I would vote for:

32.0% John McCain
68.0% Barack Obama Obama Kicks McCain's butt easily!
11480 total responses

3.07.2008

Correction: Obama Won In Texas Delegate Count

"The Morning News
Local News for Northwest Arkansas

Correction: Obama Won In Texas Delegate Count
By John Brummett
THE MORNING NEWS

You may have received incorrect information about what happened in the Democratic presidential race the other night. There is the widespread impression that Hillary Clinton won Texas.

It looks like Barack Obama may well have.

I'll explain in a minute, but first, the larger picture: After all is said and done, it appears that Hillary will have gained maybe a half-dozen or so delegates nationally Tuesday night.

It appears that she remains behind Obama somewhere between 140 and 150 in earned delegates. And now she doesn't have so many big friendly states in which to make up that ground.

Her only hope is to make such a splash with a big win in Pennsylvania, and big wins in do-overs in Florida and Michigan, that the super delegates will go for her. They would catapult her past Obama's lead in delegates won via the voters - meaning, you know, the democratic way.

In other words, the white bosses would have kept down the black people again. It's not at all clear that the Democratic Party wants to do that - disenfranchise black people, I mean.

It is true that Hillary won three of the four primaries Tuesday, including the one in Texas. It is true that she has"

NPR: Will Split Decision Shift Texas to Obama?

NPR: Will Split Decision Shift Texas to Obama?:
Column by Ron ElvingWatching Washington

Will Split Decision Shift Texas to Obama?

"Hillary Clinton has called her primary victories this week 'stunning,' but their contribution to her delegate total continues to dwindle.

Senator Clinton won the Ohio primary with a healthy margin and squeaked past 50 percent in the Texas primary. She went on TV as the shiny new star of the 2008 campaign, the belle of the ball once again. All the glitter seemed legit at the time. She had cleared a high bar set by no less an authority than Bill Clinton himself, who said she had to win both of the big states on March 4 or it was lights out.

But even as the confetti fell in Columbus there were flaws with the Comeback Kid scenario. The delegate dividends from the states she won were surprisingly poor. She picked up just four delegates net in the Texas primary, one fewer than her net gain of five in tiny Rhode Island. Even her big win in Ohio gave her just 74 delegates to Obama's 65.

Subtract from this total the three delegates Barack Obama netted in tiny Vermont and Senator Clinton had gained just 15 delegates in the March 4 primaries. Given that she trailed by 152 pledged delegates as the day began, this shift did not seem nearly as impressive as the victory celebration and headlines implied.

And now it appears that even her net gain of 15 on the day may be cut nearly in ha"

Hillary Is a Monster

Is Hillary going to run as McCain's V.P.? It is her only route to the White House. When Bush Swiftboated Kerry, he used surrogates. Hillary is knifing Obama in the back herself! She out Roves Rove!

According to Hillary, experience is of primary importance. If we ONLY judge by that criteria, then McCain wins hands down.

Hillary is the largest reciever of industrial/military funds in the Senate and donations from the medical cartel. If you want change, vote for Obama. over 90% of his funding is from people like you and me.

3.06.2008

Flashback! HRC once thought taxes should be open (Spin Cycle)

Flashback! HRC once thought taxes should be open (Spin Cycle): "Flashback! HRC once thought taxes should be open

taxes.jpeg

A trip down memory lane:

Eight years ago, when Hillary parachuted into NY to become our Senator, she and Howard Wolfson became completely obsessed with opponent Rick Lazio's tax returns, which he did not release until the end of August..

They talked about them at every opportunity. In early July, Hillary called it 'frankly disturbing.' A guy in an Uncle Sam outfit was dispatched to be a nuisance at various Lazio events in August. Howard himself showed up once to try to rattle Lazio by offering him a copy of some Chappaqua property tax receipt after Lazio said he'd release his state returns as soon as Hillary released hers (which didn't exist, because she had just moved up here).

This produced a lot of coverage. We've copied one of the stories after the jump, if you're interested. But obviously, what brings it to mind is the current discussions of when, if ever, Clinton and Wolfson will release her tax returns as she runs for president this year. Their attitude has been, basically, when they feel like it.

Pressed again today by the Obama campaign, Wolfson said: 'Their tax returns since they left the White House will be made available on or around April 15.'

Maybe a"

Obama/Webb! Jim Webb's Democratic response to President Bush's speech

Transcript: Webb says Bush took U.S. to war 'recklessly'

POSTED: 2:42 a.m. EST, January 24, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Below is the text of the Democratic response to President Bush's speech, delivered by Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia:

Economy

International affairs

Iraq

Good evening.

I'm Senator Jim Webb, from Virginia, where this year we will celebrate the 400th anniversary of the settlement of Jamestown ­ an event that marked the first step in the long journey that has made us the greatest and most prosperous nation on earth.

It would not be possible in this short amount of time to actually rebut the president's message, nor would it be useful. Let me simply say that we in the Democratic Party hope that this administration is serious about improving education and health care for all Americans, and addressing such domestic priorities as restoring the vitality of New Orleans.

Further, this is the seventh time the president has mentioned energy independence in his State of the Union message, but for the first time this exchange is taking place in a Congress led by the Democratic Party. We are looking for affirmative solutions that will strengthen our nation by freeing us from our dependence on foreign oil, and spurring a wave of entrepreneurial growth in the form of alternate energy programs. We look forward to working with the president and his party to bring about these changes.

There are two areas where our respective parties have largely stood in contradiction, and I want to take a few minutes to address them tonight. The first relates to how we see the health of our economy,­ how we measure it, and how we ensure that its benefits are properly shared among all Americans. The second regards our foreign policy, how we might bring the war in Iraq to a proper conclusion that will also allow us to continue to fight the war against international terrorism, and to address other strategic concerns that our country faces around the world.

Economy

When one looks at the health of our economy, it's almost as if we are living in two different countries. Some say that things have never been better. The stock market is at an all-time high, and so are corporate profits. But these benefits are not being fairly shared. When I graduated from college, the average corporate CEO made 20 times what the average worker did; today, it's nearly 400 times. In other words, it takes the average worker more than a year to make the money that his or her boss makes in one day.

Wages and salaries for our workers are at all-time lows as a percentage of national wealth, even though the productivity of American workers is the highest in the world. Medical costs have skyrocketed. College tuition rates are off the charts. Our manufacturing base is being dismantled and sent overseas. Good American jobs are being sent along with them.

In short, the middle class of this country, our historic backbone and our best hope for a strong society in the future, is losing its place at the table. Our workers know this, through painful experience. Our white-collar professionals are beginning to understand it, as their jobs start disappearing also. And they expect, rightly, that in this age of globalization, their government has a duty to insist that their concerns be dealt with fairly in the international marketplace.

In the early days of our republic, President Andrew Jackson established an important principle of American-style democracy ­that we should measure the health of our society not at its apex, but at its base. Not with the numbers that come out of Wall Street, but with the living conditions that exist on Main Street. We must recapture that spirit today.

And under the leadership of the new Democratic Congress, we are on our way to doing so. The House just passed a minimum wage increase, the first in 10 years, and the Senate will soon follow. We've introduced a broad legislative package designed to regain the trust of the American people. We've established a tone of cooperation and consensus that extends beyond party lines. We're working to get the right things done, for the right people and for the right reasons.

International affairs

With respect to foreign policy, this country has patiently endured a mismanaged war for nearly four years. Many, including myself, warned even before the war began that it was unnecessary, that it would take our energy and attention away from the larger war against terrorism, and that invading and occupying Iraq would leave us strategically vulnerable in the most violent and turbulent corner of the world.

I want to share with all of you a picture that I have carried with me for more than 50 years. This is my father, when he was a young Air Force captain, flying cargo planes during the Berlin Airlift. He sent us the picture from Germany, as we waited for him, back here at home. When I was a small boy, I used to take the picture to bed with me every night, because for more than three years my father was deployed, unable to live with us full-time, serving overseas or in bases where there was no family housing. I still keep it, to remind me of the sacrifices that my mother and others had to make, over and over again, as my father gladly served our country. I was proud to follow in his footsteps, serving as a Marine in Vietnam. My brother did as well, serving as a Marine helicopter pilot. My son has joined the tradition, now serving as an infantry Marine in Iraq.

Like so many other Americans, today and throughout our history, we serve and have served, not for political reasons, but because we love our country. On the political issues, those matters of war and peace, and in some cases of life and death, we trusted the judgment of our national leaders. We hoped that they would be right, that they would measure with accuracy the value of our lives against the enormity of the national interest that might call upon us to go into harm's way.

We owed them our loyalty, as Americans, and we gave it. But they owed us ­ sound judgment, clear thinking, concern for our welfare, a guarantee that the threat to our country was equal to the price we might be called upon to pay in defending it.

Iraq

The president took us into this war recklessly. He disregarded warnings from the national security adviser during the first Gulf War, the chief of staff of the army, two former commanding generals of the Central Command, whose jurisdiction includes Iraq, the director of operations on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and many, many others with great integrity and long experience in national security affairs. We are now, as a nation, held hostage to the predictable ­and predicted ­disarray that has followed.

The war's costs to our nation have been staggering. Financially. The damage to our reputation around the world. The lost opportunities to defeat the forces of international terrorism. And especially the precious blood of our citizens who have stepped forward to serve.

The majority of the nation no longer supports the way this war is being fought; nor does the majority of our military. We need a new direction. Not one step back from the war against international terrorism. Not a precipitous withdrawal that ignores the possibility of further chaos. But an immediate shift toward strong regionally based diplomacy, a policy that takes our soldiers off the streets of Iraq's cities, and a formula that will in short order allow our combat forces to leave Iraq.

On both of these vital issues, our economy and our national security, it falls upon those of us in elected office to take action.

Regarding the economic imbalance in our country, I am reminded of the situation President Theodore Roosevelt faced in the early days of the 20th century. America was then, as now, drifting apart along class lines. The so-called robber barons were unapologetically raking in a huge percentage of the national wealth. The dispossessed workers at the bottom were threatening revolt.

Roosevelt spoke strongly against these divisions. He told his fellow Republicans that they must set themselves as resolutely against improper corporate influence on the one hand as against demagogy and mob rule on the other. And he did something about it.

As I look at Iraq, I recall the words of former general and soon-to-be President Dwight Eisenhower during the dark days of the Korean War, which had fallen into a bloody stalemate. "When comes the end?" asked the general who had commanded our forces in Europe during World War II. And as soon as he became president, he brought the Korean War to an end.

These presidents took the right kind of action, for the benefit of the American people and for the health of our relations around the world. Tonight we are calling on this president to take similar action, in both areas. If he does, we will join him. If he does not, we will be showing him the way.

2.21.2008

Michelle Obama Proud

Original from Madison (I cannot verify):



Altered Madison:



Milwaukee and Madison Compared (I cannot verify these tapes):

2.06.2008

Behind Obama and Clinton

Read the entire article, click here.

Stephen Zunes | February 4, 2008

Editor: John Feffer



Senator Clinton’s foreign policy advisors tend to be veterans of President Bill Clinton’s administration, most notably former secretary of state Madeleine Albright and former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger. Her most influential advisor - and her likely choice for Secretary of State - is Richard Holbrook

These folks all supported the invasion of Iraq.



Read the entire article, click here.