Voting Remix!
This is just awesome! These kids are not only talented, but are very politically active and aware!!! I love this video and song, and T.I. is just tickled about this! I LOVE IT!!!
War & Peace
This election season has been very emotional, personal and stressful for everyone. It has conjured up all kinds of suppressed emotions and thoughts such as fear, doubt, racism, sexism, hate and doubts. With all the heated discussions and topics taking a personal turn, it is very easy to get caught up and lose sight of what this election is about. This election is about change, which no matter where you stand on the political spectrum we are in need of great change in this country as a whole. We are at a crossroads where we will either grow together or fall apart.
As a democrat and Obama supporter, I personally have been on the bull horn calling for change and peace. I have been proud to find that my choice for leadership has presented a platform that was built on the issues, facts and a plan for change in a peaceful united front. Where we stand economically and in the global community is devastating enough without turning on one another. This time, this election is and should be about uniting a torn and depleted nation, not creating more division and confusion. I felt that most democrats and Obama supporters were on that same page, unfortunately I was wrong.
Friday morning I was at the gas station wearing my “I Only Date Democrats” t-shirt and my blinged out Obama sweatshirt. A Jewish man approached me as I pumped gas and asked where I got my sweatshirt, he liked it and wanted to get one for his daughter. I gave him the card of my girlfriend who created the shirt and started a conversation about Obama and the election. Then he asked me if I had seen the “art” display in West Hollywood where they had McCain burning in the chimney and Palin hanging from the roof in a noose. I said yes, and he said that he was sad to see it come down. I stood there in shock! To hear a man… a father who’s ancestors face mounds of ridicule and discrimination promote hate and violence over political differences was scary! I couldn’t believe it!! Well, I couldn’t just stand silent of course. I told him though I do not agree with the McCain/Palin platform and don’t really care for Palin personally… the thought of someone promoting violence against her based on that, is disgusting and wrong. She may be a lot of things, but is also a mother, a wife and a woman and she isn’t deserving of DEATH or DEATH THREATS! And that is what that display was, a death threat!
Well, needless to say this man went on. He claimed that he was afraid that, “the gays” were going to cost Obama the election with “this prop 8″ nonsense. Now I haven’t really been vocal about my position on prop 8… not out of fear, but because I’ve been focused on the “main event”. But, the bottom line… this proposition is divisive, discriminatory and just plain wrong! This man argued with me that it is a moral issue rather than a discrimination issue and it doesn’t compare to Black people not being able to marry White people. But he is wrong. What he fails to realize, and I say this as a Christian/Catholic, is that for years people have thrown around the morality clause and scripture in order to control a group of people. It wasn’t just black and white people not being able to marry one another. It was all interracial marriages, and native American marriages weren’t even recognized at all until the late 1950’s. And not too long before the Civil Right Acts, black people were not recognized as citizens or even human… we were deemed soul less by pastors and masters all over the country. The Germans did it to the Jews, the southern white Americans did it to the Africans, the southern blacks and whites did it to the Creoles, The whites to the Native Americans and the Egyptians to the Jews. This was an argument that this man just couldn’t win with me because I am the product of a single man that faced more discrimination in his lifetime than most, my grandfather.
My grandfather was a homosexual Navajo Native American man who ran away from the ranch his family worked in Texas to go to Chicago and have a real life. When arriving, he had to change his identity to become a black straight man in order to survive! Technically his marriage to my grandmother in the early 1950’s would have been illegal because technically he wasn’t an African American marrying another African American. Later down the line when he came out of the closet he was unable to benefit not only from the choice of marrying legally, but to be able to reap the benefits of domestic partnership in the eyes of the law. Though my grandfather never really could be truly comfortable or accepted fully by society, he never promoted hate. He didn’t focus on the pain that discrimination caused him or his family, he once told me that thinking about it was a waste of time, he had other things to do!
As his granddaughter and has a young minority woman, I am overwhelmed with emotion over this election period as I know all of you are. But one emotion that doesn’t overwhelm is hate! Hate is wrong in any form! This country has come so far from the days of people waking up to burning crosses, being moved away from their land, not being able to choose who they can legally live the rest of their life with… we cannot afford to go back. The fight that our family, friends and ancestors fought will all be in vain. The conversation with that man scared me and made me sad. I wondered how he could support a man who is all about peace, facts and change, and sit and spew such terrible things and hateful things. He proved to me that even though I can count on his vote for change, he still lives in a fear bubble that is guard by a wall of hate. He isn’t living change.
No matter what happens tomorrow, this country needs to get on the road to healing. As staunch Obama supporters we have to carry on his message. So what do we do? We show up to the polls tomorrow and we VOTE! And whether Barack Obama wins tomorrow, he has started a movement in this country. If he loses it just means we still have to fight a little bit harder, but we cannot give up. Just remember:
Crispus Attucks fell so that Rosa Parks could sit, Rosa Parks sat so that Dr. Martin Luther King could march, Dr. Martin Luther King marched so that Barack Obama could run, and Barack Obama is running so that our children and grandchildren can fly.
These leaders did these things out of faith and love and strength. Hate is a weakness. Obama represents change and we can’t be about change if we are still living and promoting the past! Vote Yes on Obama and No on Prop 8. Don’t just be about hope and change with your vote, but with your words and your actions. It’s a new day in America, make your contribution.
-Brooke
A Call to Average Joes and Joannes
“Joe The Plumber” has been placed into the Republican script for John McCain, Sarah Palin and Elisabeth Hasselbeck. They are trying to make a man who has 7 homes and a woman who hunts Moose relate able to the “Average Joe”, playing up that the community organizer is out of touch and elitest. WOW!
Most of you have been preaching Obama and Biden policy plans, canvassing, volunteering, phone banking and sporting your Obama gear. We are 9 days out to Election Day, and you’re wondering what else can I do. Well, Hill Harper has created a website where he is encouraging the “Average Joe” to endorse Obama. We have to be a united front going into November 4th and this is another way to show that as your average American worker, you find Barack Obama more relate able than John McCain. Below is the instructional video and link.
http://www.joes4obama.com
Wow…
We knew it was coming, there were rumblings over the past couple of days that Republican Former Secretary of State General Colin Powell would come on Meet The Press and endorse Senator Obama’s bid for the Presidency. Well, it happened. But what moved me and made me not hate Colin Powell anymore is not his actually endorsement… but what he said before actually endorsing him. The genuine manner in which he spoke and the power of his words and beliefs of what America is and should be was something I have not seen or heard from General Powell in a long time. He has broken from the chains of Papa Bush and his military allegiances and actually spoke from his heart about the direction this country, his country is going in. I had lost respect for him when I noticed him just going along with the program, allowing himself to be used as a scape goat and tool over and over again since the Gulf War. He gained some of my respect back today… He gained a lot of respect today. Not just from democrats, but independents and some republicans.
I needed to hear someone from the right speak the truth, and he did!
Elephant Blues
I think I just heard Elisabeth Hasselbeck lose a whole chunk of her hair!! It’s been a terrible day for the republicans! John McCain’s bandwagon of Obama is a Terriorist has dumped over into a mound of horse poo and the report was just handed down where Palin was found to have abused her power in firing the commissioner in her state! Whew!!!
So basically the Republicans have a shifty/shady VP Nominee and their Presidential Nominee says a President Barack Obama is not something to fear and that he very capable of being president. The Maverick and the Beauty Queen are slowly losing their shiny brass appeal!
Round 2
Barack Obama was called out to the yard after school by John McCain who formed a fist, pointed to the clock and then back to Obama signaling an after school playground brawl.
The older Senator finally got his town hall forum to engage Senator Obama in a debate. A forum where he has been known to excel as he takes questions from the audience, shocking people that at his age he can still remember their names, shake hands and give a perfunctory pat on the back to that random young person in the audience that is completely disconnected going in and out of the forum. Like Hilary Clinton during the primary season, John McCain waltzed into the debate tonight overly confident that he would sweep.
Yea… NO!
Instead of appearing Presidential and connected to the 21st century, John McCain was distant,combative and seem to lurk around the stage throwing insults not only to his opponent but misunderstanding the intelligence of the American people. His condescending language and attitude doused with his lies were a disgrace to the fundamentals of campaigning and politicking in this country.
The maverick was grounded. His bi-partisan record was over shadowed by the fact that he doesn’t have enough respect for his Democratic opponent to refer to him by name and position, and not “that one!” . His patronizing and disingenuous greeting before dancing around the question was intolerable. His attempt to further distance himself from our current President was futile. Senator McCain seemed more like President Bush tonight than I had ever seen him before.
Instead of proposing that your new Secretary of the Treasury who could be either Warren Buffett, The Creator of Ebay or Miley Cyrus create a new bailout bill on top of the one you faux suspended your campaign and cancelled on David Letterman to rush to DC a day later to work on, I think that we should create a “Maverick” stock. Basically it’s an investment on how many times you use the words Maverick, Reform, Pork Barrel and Ear Marks with any relevance to what you are speaking of. It’s an easy investment and I’m sure will bring the Dow up as most people know it’s a sure money maker, like Target or Starbucks!
One positive thing that Senator McCain accomplished tonight was solidifying my choice in endorsing and supporting Barack Obama. He has set me into overdrive in making sure that not only is my voice heard this election year in electing Senator Barack Obama for President, but now I am on a mission of bringing everyone to the blue side! He solidified my need for change and has charged up the hope in me to make this a reality! I am voting for real reform! I’m standing behind the real bi-partisan maverick who is concerned about the community of America and it’s moral and economic base.
