Blog for Blue Democrats in Red States and the folks who love us.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
BARACK OBAMA DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION 2008
This election is not about Republican & Democrat.
It's about restoring wisdom to the White House...electing leadership that has expressed a desire to work WITH the world...replacing toxic energy with clean energy.
It's about who is best qualified to use a truth razor, only the truth is true, to evaluate & empower solutions.
Lord bless his heart Senator McCain is second generation industrial/military/congressional complex (S&L crime). He has been part of the system that has messed this country up over the last 50 years.
For example, Senator McCain's solution to our energy crisis is oil & nuclear, keeping problems in place.
Here at the Computer Underground Railroad we heard on MS-NBC about a "Nobama" campaign in response to the MOVEON.ORG presidential campaign promotion of Senator BarackObama, Obama '08.
Are the McCain supporters kidding? Can one get more negative than that? Saying no without reason to solutions is what created many of the problems we have now.
Our government, which has legislated us to death, literally, says no to hemp which is a biomass champion that pulls excess CO2 from the atmosphere, the cause of global warming, as it grows.
When Bruce DePalma was alive the government said no to DePalma's N-Machine that created clean, free magnetic energy. No is how the industrial/military/congressional complex keeps We The People in slavery.
GOBAMA
Go straight to the White House and help us solve our problems now.
GOBAMA GOBAMA GOBAMA
OBAMA GO
In this the information age, vote for a computer literate president. Vote Obama '08.
Are Senators Clinton and McCain qualified to be president?
I'm still reading people I love talking about Hillary Clinton for president. I don't get it. Anyone who is still considering Hillary Clinton or John McCain as president should take a closer look at their records regarding 9/11, the greatest test of our nation in this century, though Katrina, wild fires and the Mississippi floods are testing our metal too.
"Are Senators Clinton and McCain qualified to be president?" (not that our current one is.)
Based on results, I don't think so.
9/11 Site Workers Hearing: Freddy Cordero Testimony
I know Senator McCain is not qualified based on his writing the intro to Debunking 9/11 Myths . He's sold on not dealing with what happened and why. A recent 9/11 hunger striker outside of his office, Blair Gadsby, was only able to get the promise of a meeting with Senator McCain at some point in the future, if then, to discuss the matter. A call from Arizona State Senator Karen Johnson to Senator McCain regarding 9/11 is still waiting a response.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lgEpaLVjgo
When it comes to the industrial/military/congressional complex, Senator McCain's got two of the three covered and his wife has the third. I live in Arizona. I'm not voting for Senator John McCain.
I believe it's time to follow Dwight Eisenhower's advice. To survive we must take control of our nation out of the hands of the industrial/military/congressional complex, with their toxic fuels and foods, and fix our problems now, before it's too late. Any strategy that includes a 100 year war is not one that is going to work.
I've been frustrated for years at Senator Clinton's failures in leadership during this 9/11 era. At the beginning of this crisis I expected her to call for an independent investigation; get the funds to evacuate people in the City exposed to the toxic soup called World Trade Center Dust (hemp legalization and tax would finance the process); open her office for information to help folks be safer in toxic environments; make pro-active medical attention available for those who need it dealing with World Trade Center Illness; and demand justice for those responsible.
I left 10 NY years ago when I realized the state was being run by the politically appointed via stolen elections (like zero votes for Obama in 80 Districts in New York, many in Harlem)
"In the Harlem district, for instance, where the primary night returns suggested a 141 to 0 sweep by Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, the vote now stands at 261 to 136. In an even more heavily black district in Brooklyn — where the vote on primary night was recorded as 118 to 0 for Mrs. Clinton — she now barely leads, 118 to 116."
generational poverty pimps, their friends and family.
When WTC 1, 2 and 7 became toxic dust, Senator Clinton was in Washington and gave a great speech on 9/12/01 in praise of the president and national resolve.
Has she yet called for an investigation into the 9/11 Truth movement which has documented thermite, a sign of explosives used, in the WTC dust?
9/13/01 is when the head of the EPA said the air was safe to breathe and the water safe to drink. She should have been their champion demanding military style respirators, ample food and rest areas, etc. for those working on the pile.
People who were there have reported that they knew the EPA was lying but they were too busy working at Ground Zero.
Did she slap the EPA for lying about the dangers in the dust either then or later when it came out that the White House altered the EPA's 9/11 report? Though the city's sewers keeps air quality checks going because they are open, we were told only EPA data was available. She did not demand to see the City air quality numbers to double check EPA data, like when she signed onto this war.
How could she have not known that exposure to toxic chemicals can kill people?
After years of her ineffective strategy of study the problem, rather than take an active role in reducing the effects of World Trade Center Illness (registry vs. health care), she's now getting help for on site workers. But what about the people who live and work in the area? Many are already dead. Sick people have marched on Washington for attention since their representatives (not just Senator Clinton) failed to represent THEM in D.C. by delivering solutions to the problems New Yorkers face.
Senator Clinton was elected to do a job...represent NY in the Senate. The senate controls a lot of power, which could have been used to clean up the area (they are still finding body parts in the area as of this year).
Here's the short list of toxins folks were exposed to from Senator Clinton supporter:
Lead from 50,000 Personal Computers - 4 lbs. ea. 200,000 lbs Main Frame Computers 300 Wire and cables Hundreds of miles Transformer Oil contaminated with PCB's 130,000 gallons
From Plastics (still looking for amounts)
Polyvinyl
Chloride
Copper
Furans
polybrominated diphenyl ethers
Small hazardous waste generating entities
NRDC has estimated that there were approximately 50,000 pc's in the World Trade Center with 4 lbs of lead each. 50,000 X 4 = 200,000 lbs of lead just from the pc's. Office furniture, fabrics and human remains were transformed into dust in the time it took for the two towers to fall. Rescue workers report that they didn't find a computer, desk or chair.
The area is not cleaned yet, not even in the homes because asbestos does not wash out in the laundry.
The senate also has the ability to call for a vetted investigation into what really happened on 9/11. 19 lucky Arabs who just happened to pick the day when the military was engaged in war games is not standing up to the truth. Instead we got the 9/11 Commission report which speaks loud and long but says nothing.
Please check out Senator Clinton's activities on and after 9/11. The toxic dust spread all over the place and did not stop at 14th Street as reported. Is it possible she did not know that paper from the WTC was found on Long Island, yet the government said the dust stopped on 14th Street. The city was put on lock down. Why was she not on the phone with the call GET THOSE PEOPLE OUT OF THERE!!!!?
Why was there not one aircraft carrier with the ability to respond to a crisis paying attention to protecting New York, Washington, Pennsylvania...? How is this O.K. with her since the senate helps appropriate and approve the military budget?
Based on her response to 9/11 so far, I don't think Senator Clinton is qualified to be president yet.
By the way, when I contacted Senator Clinton at the time I was told that she only responds to material from New York and contact my senator. I did and was told IF there was a problem Senators Clinton and Schumer would handle it and they said nothing. Since they don't to listen to me, I've been posting initially on the New York Times site Abuzz and over the years I've put up notes on the subject of World Trade Center Illness at www.geocities.com/cureworks2. Still haven't heard from her.
I'm voting for Senator Obama as the next president. With the 5% Black blood rule, which use to be enough to get a person lynched, we've already had 5 Black Presidents, Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Harding and Coolidge according to Dr. Leroy Vaughn, MD, MBA, Historian were Black. During their era's were some of the greatest times of this nation. Jefferson and Jackson organized us. Lincoln freed and unified us. Harding and Coolidge were the Roaring 20's.
Senator Obama is a smart, Harvard educated lawyer. His call for change has the potential to open a floodgate of common sense. Use the truth razor of only the truth is true.
Please, just keep your eyes and mind open. Learning is change and to be effective, it must include all of us. I'm sure, as we work together to build a better nation, based on freedom, truth and justice, we will discover and implement ways to heal. Together, we are getting to what Willie Nelson calls A PEACEFUL SOLUTION.
Keith Olberman makes up for the journalists who are silent in the face of all the information that 9/11 was an inside job.
He tells the real report about what Senator Hillary Clinton means when she referenced assination possibility as a rationale for her staying in the Presidential race. She disqualified herself by showing who she really is.
Keith Olberman, bless you and yours eternally for the work you are doing on behalf of truth. '
Elitist? Clinton Over $100 million - Obama $1.3 million Net Worth
Senator Clinton recently charged Senator Obama with being an elitist. Is she kidding? The net financial worth between them speaks volumes.
How in touch was Senator Clinton with the people of New York when the buildings were exploded and the city was put on lock down? Check CNN for a list of what she did on 9/11. If she was so in touch, why did she not stand up to the EPA when they lied about the dangers in the dust?
During the debate season, former VP candidate John Edwards brought up that the average Black person has a net worth of 10% that of the average White person.
What was not said, was when Black folks work to do extraordinary things with their lives, the number is much lower.
The Clinton's reported over $100 million in income. The Obamas net worth is listed at $1.3 million. Less than 5% or what the prosperity books call a poor millionaire.
Just an observation that Senator BarackObama's income and ideas places him closer to the average American than the Clintons. People are mad and are holding onto our faith and guns as we straighten things out. Obama just told the truth. After all, he did not support the Iraq War at any time.
Senator Clinton, when you point a finger at someone, there are 3 pointing back at you. 1. She has a lot more vested in money than Senator Obama. 2. She failed to adequately address what happened on 9/11. 3. She voted for the Iraq and upcoming Iran wars.
Shame on you Senator Clinton, name calling like that. It's the pot calling the kettle black.
"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 our 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 slave owners – 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 world view 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 naive 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.
National Security - Senator Barack Obama's Analysis
Five years ago today, President George W. Bush launched a war that should never have been authorized based on faulty premises and bad intelligence.
This war has now lasted longer than World War I, World War II, or the Civil War.
Nearly four thousand Americans have given their lives. Thousands more have been wounded. Even under the best-case scenarios, this war will cost American taxpayers well over a trillion dollars.
And where are we for all of this sacrifice?
We are less safe and less able to shape events abroad. We are divided at home, and our alliances around the world have been strained. The threats of a new century have roiled the waters of peace and stability, and yet America remains anchored in Iraq.
I am running for President because it's time to turn the page on a failed ideology and a fundamentally flawed political strategy, so that we can make pragmatic judgments to keep our country safe.
That's what I did when I stood up and opposed this war from the start and said that we needed to finish the fight against al Qaeda. And that's what I'll do as President of the United States. Please take a few minutes to read my strategy for ending the war in Iraq and making America safer. I hope you will sign on and show your support:
Senator Clinton says that she and Senator McCain have passed a "Commander-in-Chief test" -- not because of the judgments they've made, but because of the years they've spent in Washington.
She made a similar argument when she said her vote for war was based on her experience at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.
But here is the stark reality: there is a security gap in this country -- a gap between the rhetoric of those who claim to be tough on national security, and the reality of growing insecurity caused by their decisions.
It is time to have a debate with Senator McCain about the future of our national security. And the way to win that debate and keep America safe is to offer a clear contrast -- a clean break from the failed policies and politics of the past.
Nowhere is that break more badly needed than in Iraq.
Join me in supporting an end to this war and a plan for a safer America:
The judgment that matters most on Iraq -- and on any decision to deploy military force -- is the judgment made first.
If you believe we are fighting the right war, then the problems we face are purely tactical in nature. That is what Senator McCain wants to discuss -- tactics. What he and the Administration have failed to present is an overarching strategy: how the war in Iraq enhances our long-term security, or will in the future.
That's why this Administration cannot answer the simple question posed by Senator John Warner in hearings last year: Are we safer because of this war? And that is why Senator McCain can argue -- as he did last year -- that we couldn't leave Iraq because violence was up, and then argue this year that we can't leave Iraq because violence is down.
When you have no overarching strategy, there is no clear definition of success.
Success comes to be defined as the ability to maintain a flawed policy indefinitely. Here is the truth: fighting a war without end will not force the Iraqis to take responsibility for their own future. And fighting in a war without end will not make the American people safer.
When I am Commander-in-Chief, I will set a new goal on Day One: I will end this war. Not because politics compels it. Not because our troops cannot bear the burden -- as heavy as it is. But because it is the right thing to do for our national security, and it will ultimately make us safer.
Show your support for a clear strategy to end the war in Iraq and focus our national security efforts on making America safer:
Here are the core elements of my strategy to address our critical national security challenges in the 21st century:
End the war in Iraq, removing our troops at a pace of 1 to 2 combat brigades per month; Finally finish the fight against the Taliban, root out al Qaeda and invest in the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan, while making aid to the Pakistani government conditional; Act aggressively to stop nuclear proliferation and to secure all loose nuclear materials around the world;
Double our foreign assistance to cut extreme poverty in half;
Invest in a clean energy future to wean the U.S. off of foreign oil and to lead the world against the threat of global climate change;
Rebuild our military capability by increasing the number of soldiers, marines, and special forces troops, and insist on adequate training and time off between deployments;
Renew American diplomacy by talking to our adversaries as well as our friends; increasing the size of the Foreign Service and the Peace Corps; and creating an America's Voice Corps.
This must be the election when America comes together behind a common purpose on behalf of our security and our values.
That is what we do as Americans. It's how we founded a republic based on freedom, and faced down fascism. It's how we defended democracy through a Cold War, and shined a light of hope bright enough to be seen in the darkest corners of the world.
When America leads with principle and pragmatism, hope can triumph over fear. It is time, once again, for America to lead.
