22 November 2008
07 October 2008
The Real John McCain
Make-Believe Maverick
A closer look at the life and career of John McCain reveals a disturbing record of recklessness and dishonesty
By TIM DICKINSON Posted Oct 16, 2008 7:00 PM
11 September 2008
21 July 2008
NYTimes.com: 9/11 and 4/11
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| |
Message from sender:
There is no ambiguity about Thomas Friedman. It can't be stated any clearer than he has in this editorial: We need to end our dependence on fossil fuels. Period.
OPINION | July 20, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist: 9/11 and 4/11
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
We are addicted to dirty fossil fuels, and this addiction is driving a whole set of toxic trends that are harming our nation and world in many different ways.
16 July 2008
04 July 2008
Barack Obama's Special Note to Supporters on FISA
By Joe Rospars - Jul 3rd, 2008 at 4:38 pm EDT
Comments | Mail to a Friend | Report Objectionable Content
Barack is on the road today, but he wrote a response that he asked be posted on the blog. You'll find it below.
In addition, for the next 30 minutes or so, three members of our policy staff will be in the comments on this post to respond to any questions you have. Danielle Gray is our Deputy National Policy Director, Denis McDonough is a Senior Foreign Policy Advisor, and Ben Rhodes is Foreign Policy Advisor and Senior Speechwriter.
I hope that you'll join the discussion in the comments thread below, and continue to use the My.BarackObama.com tools as a resource for organizing in your local communities and around the issues that are important to you and to victory in November.
Here's the note from Barack:
I want to take this opportunity to speak directly to those of you who oppose my decision to support the FISA compromise.
This was not an easy call for me. I know that the FISA bill that passed the House is far from perfect. I wouldn't have drafted the legislation like this, and it does not resolve all of the concerns that we have about President Bush's abuse of executive power. It grants retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that may have violated the law by cooperating with the Bush Administration's program of warrantless wiretapping. This potentially weakens the deterrent effect of the law and removes an important tool for the American people to demand accountability for past abuses. That's why I support striking Title II from the bill, and will work with Chris Dodd, Jeff Bingaman and others in an effort to remove this provision in the Senate.
But I also believe that the compromise bill is far better than the Protect America Act that I voted against last year. The exclusivity provision makes it clear to any President or telecommunications company that no law supersedes the authority of the FISA court. In a dangerous world, government must have the authority to collect the intelligence we need to protect the American people. But in a free society, that authority cannot be unlimited. As I've said many times, an independent monitor must watch the watchers to prevent abuses and to protect the civil liberties of the American people. This compromise law assures that the FISA court has that responsibility
The Inspectors General report also provides a real mechanism for accountability and should not be discounted. It will allow a close look at past misconduct without hurdles that would exist in federal court because of classification issues. The (PDF)recent investigation uncovering the illegal politicization of Justice Department hiring sets a strong example of the accountability that can come from a tough and thorough IG report.
The ability to monitor and track individuals who want to attack the United States is a vital counter-terrorism tool, and I'm persuaded that it is necessary to keep the American people safe -- particularly since certain electronic surveillance orders will begin to expire later this summer. Given the choice between voting for an improved yet imperfect bill, and losing important surveillance tools, I've chosen to support the current compromise. I do so with the firm intention -- once I’m sworn in as President -- to have my Attorney General conduct a comprehensive review of all our surveillance programs, and to make further recommendations on any steps needed to preserve civil liberties and to prevent executive branch abuse in the future.
Now, I understand why some of you feel differently about the current bill, and I'm happy to take my lumps on this side and elsewhere. For the truth is that your organizing, your activism and your passion is an important reason why this bill is better than previous versions. No tool has been more important in focusing peoples' attention on the abuses of executive power in this Administration than the active and sustained engagement of American citizens. That holds true -- not just on wiretapping, but on a range of issues where Washington has let the American people down.
I learned long ago, when working as an organizer on the South Side of Chicago, that when citizens join their voices together, they can hold their leaders accountable. I'm not exempt from that. I'm certainly not perfect, and expect to be held accountable too. I cannot promise to agree with you on every issue. But I do promise to listen to your concerns, take them seriously, and seek to earn your ongoing support to change the country. That is why we have built the largest grassroots campaign in the history of presidential politics, and that is the kind of White House that I intend to run as President of the United States -- a White House that takes the Constitution seriously, conducts the peoples' business out in the open, welcomes and listens to dissenting views, and asks you to play your part in shaping our country’s destiny.
Democracy cannot exist without strong differences. And going forward, some of you may decide that my FISA position is a deal breaker. That's ok. But I think it is worth pointing out that our agreement on the vast majority of issues that matter outweighs the differences we may have. After all, the choice in this election could not be clearer. Whether it is the economy, foreign policy, or the Supreme Court, my opponent has embraced the failed course of the last eight years, while I want to take this country in a new direction. Make no mistake: if John McCain is elected, the fundamental direction of this country that we love will not change. But if we come together, we have an historic opportunity to chart a new course, a better course.
So I appreciate the feedback through my.barackobama.com, and I look forward to continuing the conversation in the months and years to come. Together, we have a lot of work to do.
Update: The discussion is going in the comments section. Here's a pic of Denis, Ben and Danielle right now reading the comments (regular HQ blogger Sam Graham-Felsen is back in that empty chair; he took the pic with his phone):
Update II: More than 600 comments and 90 minutes later (three times as long as we'd asked of them!) our policy folks are signing off. Thanks to Denis, Danielle and Ben for their time, and to all of you for your participation. We look forward to continuing the discussion.
10 June 2008
In the Spirit of Unity: $20.08 for Hillary
Last week we were focused on raising money for our own candidate; Today, we're raising money for Democrats.
Yes we can win in 2008!
In the spirit of unity, please consider making a donation in the amount of $20.08 to help retire Hillary Clinton's debt. If you can afford it, please feel free to add another zero or two at the end! The sooner we put the primary campaign behind us, the better for all Democrats.
To make your donation, go to the official hillaryclinton.com website: http://www.hillaryclinton.com/
PLEASE pass this idea along to all your friends and neighbors.
PLEASE post this idea in your own blog, and in your comments on other people's blogs.
PLEASE talk about this idea in your listservs, chat groups and emails.
PLEASE don't procrastinate. ;-)
We are the ones we've been waiting for.
http://my.barackobama.com/page/outreach/view/main/lindacat
09 June 2008
NYTimes.com: The Good American and Monsieur Obama
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08 June 2008
Barack Obama Wins the Wiki Way
The Wiki-Way to the Nomination
By NOAM COHEN
Published: June 8, 2008The Wiki-Way to the Nomination
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
A COLLABORATION Something like 75,000 people showed up at an Obama rally last month in Portland, Ore. Without a doubt, more than one supporter got there by way of the Internet.
The Wiki-Way to the Nomination
Barack Obama is the victor, and the Internet is taking the bows.
Commenting on the Democratic presidential primary campaign, the blogger Andrew Sullivan praised Mr. Obama’s success in mastering “Facebook politics.” Roger Cohen, writing online in The New York Times, likened the rapid success of Mr. Obama to that of a “classic Internet startup.” And The Atlantic Monthly, in a much discussed article titled “HisSpace,” described what Mr. Obama’s impressive online fund-raising apparatus owes to the enhanced social networking of sites like MySpace, Twitter and YouTube.
Mr. Obama is hardly alone in making use of the Web (remember Howard Dean in 2004). What sets him apart is his openness to contributions from those working outside the campaign organization. As he described it to a Time magazine reporter last week, “We just had some incredibly creative young people who got involved and what I think we did well was give them a lot of latitude to experiment and try new things and to put some serious resources into it.”
Consider the video “Yes We Can,” Mr. Obama’s words set to music by will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas, which has been viewed more than 18 million times online, first at YouTube, and now at the Obama campaign’s portal, my.barackobama.com. And there is also the ubiquitous poster of Mr. Obama (with the captions “Progress” and “Hope”) created by the street artist Shepard Fairey and later incorporated into the campaign and sold on its Web site.
Mr. Fairey posted the image (inspired by the famous photograph of Che Guevara) on his own site early in the primaries, and said in an interview that “the official campaign had been hit up so many times, they asked, ‘Can we get you to do an official thing?’ ”
The receptiveness of the Obama campaign to such bottom-up influences raises a question: might the candidate actually model his approach to politics on the informal communal spirit the Internet encourages?
It is not easy to say, because Mr. Obama draws on a range of influences, not the least of which is the high rhetorical tradition of American politics. As Garry Wills recently suggested in The New York Review of Books, Mr. Obama’s characterization of himself as an “imperfect candidate” draws on Lincoln’s idea “that the preamble’s call for ‘a more perfect union’ initiated a project, to make the Constitution a means for its own transcendence.”
But at the same time, Mr. Obama’s notion of persistent improvement, both of himself and of his country, reflects something newer — the collaborative, decentralized principles behind Net projects like Wikipedia and the “free and open-source software” movement. The qualities he cited to Time to describe his campaign — “openness and transparency and participation” — were ones he said “merged perfectly” with the Internet. And they may well be the qualities that make him the first real “wiki-candidate.”
Wikipedia is the influential online encyclopedia that is in a constant state of revision, thanks to its tens of thousands of contributors around the world. There is no single “editor,” no presiding panel of experts for its 2.4 million articles in English. Indeed, anyone can pick up an article and make changes immediately (“wiki-wiki” is Hawaiian for fast).
Similarly, open-source software is created by groups working on “patches,” as programmers call them. Anyone can contribute, and the most useful ideas thrive. A result has been successes like the Linux operating system and the Firefox Internet browser.
Yochai Benkler, a Harvard law professor whose book “The Wealth of Networks” is a manifesto for online collaboration, points out a crucial difference between Mr. Obama’s approach to attracting supporters and that of his chief rivals. “On the McCain and Clinton Web sites, there is a transactional screen,” Mr. Benkler said. “It is just about the money. Donate, then we can build the relationship. In Obama’s it’s inverted: build the relationship and then donate.”
For this reason there are thousands of people working across the Internet to build enthusiasm for the campaign, some of it even gently mocking, like Barackobamaisyournewbicycle.com, a site listing the many examples of Mr. Obama’s magical compassion. (“Barack Obama carries a picture of you in his wallet”; “Barack Obama thought you could use some chocolate.”)
For his part, Mr. Obama is quick to take himself out of the narrative, even as he promises to remake Washington. This isn’t simply modesty. It reflects the utopian, community-building vision central to the Internet. Wikipedia’s unpaid collaborators, for example, hope to “distribute a free encyclopedia to every single person on the planet in their own language,” says the site’s mastermind, Jimmy Wales. So too the thousands of programmers in the open-source world intend not just to develop a free operating system, but vanquish Microsoft.
In this scheme, Mr. Obama’s role, at least in the rhetoric, is less leader than facilitator, a conduit for decentralized collaboration as described by James Surowiecki in his book “The Wisdom of Crowds.” “The ethos of the Net is fundamentally respectful of and invested in the idea of collective wisdom, and in some sense is hostile to the idea that power and authority should belong to a select few,” Mr. Surowiecki wrote.
This is not to say that open projects always produce the best results. Thousands of ordinary people having their say can lead to dubious outcomes. And in politics, particularly at the presidential level, where decisions affect the lives of millions, the risks can be great.
For a candidate, there is always the danger of “making yourself vulnerable” by “giving participants control of chunks of the enterprise,” Mr. Benkler said. Mr. Obama has to walk a careful line. It’s one thing to help popularize a campaign, quite another to shape policy. And Mr. Obama’s team has been as adamant as any about staying on message.
To some extent, however, Mr. Obama has invited policy ideas from outsiders. Deb Barry, an Obama supporter in New Hampshire, said she was impressed that the organization she belongs to, Educators for Obama, had a chance to speak with his education-policy staff members before the primary there. “I went into that conference call, kind of with the impression that the purpose was for us to ask questions,” she said. In fact, “they were picking our brains. They had specific questions they wanted to ask us, and were seeing how we felt about what had already come out from the campaign.”
Not that Ms. Barry expects to play a direct role in shaping government policy. “There is a huge limitation about how much contact someone like me can have with the big decision makers,” she said, but a critical first step is reaching out: “Not just reaching out to experts, with big titles and degrees after his name, but people with experience.”
Other online activists are more skeptical about the openness to outsiders. “The Obama campaign is still very much a top-bottom operation,” Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, of the influential DailyKos Web site, wrote in an e-mail message. “They’ve made it very easy for people to hop on the bandwagon, but those in the back of that wagon still get no say in where the campaign is going.”
Yes, someone is driving the bandwagon, even if he constantly plays down his role — describing himself as a Rorshach image on whom others project. Even Wikipedia has administrators who monitor the work there, and open-source projects have their “leaders,” who keep them on course.
In truth, there is no such thing as purely collective decision making. As Mr. Surowiecki summed it up in his book: “It has historically been unusual for change to bubble up from below on its own. So it is, in fact, more likely that someone will take it on himself to champion the idea of collective wisdom, and in that way create the conditions that allow it to flourish. This is paradoxical, but no more so than the fact that an individual, not a crowd, wrote ‘The Wisdom of Crowds.’ ”
By NOAM COHEN
Published: June 8, 2008
Barack Obama is the victor, and the Internet is taking the bows.
Commenting on the Democratic presidential primary campaign, the blogger Andrew Sullivan praised Mr. Obama’s success in mastering “Facebook politics.” Roger Cohen, writing online in The New York Times, likened the rapid success of Mr. Obama to that of a “classic Internet startup.” And The Atlantic Monthly, in a much discussed article titled “HisSpace,” described what Mr. Obama’s impressive online fund-raising apparatus owes to the enhanced social networking of sites like MySpace, Twitter and YouTube.
Mr. Obama is hardly alone in making use of the Web (remember Howard Dean in 2004). What sets him apart is his openness to contributions from those working outside the campaign organization. As he described it to a Time magazine reporter last week, “We just had some incredibly creative young people who got involved and what I think we did well was give them a lot of latitude to experiment and try new things and to put some serious resources into it.”
Consider the video “Yes We Can,” Mr. Obama’s words set to music by will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas, which has been viewed more than 18 million times online, first at YouTube, and now at the Obama campaign’s portal, my.barackobama.com. And there is also the ubiquitous poster of Mr. Obama (with the captions “Progress” and “Hope”) created by the street artist Shepard Fairey and later incorporated into the campaign and sold on its Web site.
Mr. Fairey posted the image (inspired by the famous photograph of Che Guevara) on his own site early in the primaries, and said in an interview that “the official campaign had been hit up so many times, they asked, ‘Can we get you to do an official thing?’ ”
The receptiveness of the Obama campaign to such bottom-up influences raises a question: might the candidate actually model his approach to politics on the informal communal spirit the Internet encourages?
It is not easy to say, because Mr. Obama draws on a range of influences, not the least of which is the high rhetorical tradition of American politics. As Garry Wills recently suggested in The New York Review of Books, Mr. Obama’s characterization of himself as an “imperfect candidate” draws on Lincoln’s idea “that the preamble’s call for ‘a more perfect union’ initiated a project, to make the Constitution a means for its own transcendence.”
But at the same time, Mr. Obama’s notion of persistent improvement, both of himself and of his country, reflects something newer — the collaborative, decentralized principles behind Net projects like Wikipedia and the “free and open-source software” movement. The qualities he cited to Time to describe his campaign — “openness and transparency and participation” — were ones he said “merged perfectly” with the Internet. And they may well be the qualities that make him the first real “wiki-candidate.”
Wikipedia is the influential online encyclopedia that is in a constant state of revision, thanks to its tens of thousands of contributors around the world. There is no single “editor,” no presiding panel of experts for its 2.4 million articles in English. Indeed, anyone can pick up an article and make changes immediately (“wiki-wiki” is Hawaiian for fast).
Similarly, open-source software is created by groups working on “patches,” as programmers call them. Anyone can contribute, and the most useful ideas thrive. A result has been successes like the Linux operating system and the Firefox Internet browser.
Yochai Benkler, a Harvard law professor whose book “The Wealth of Networks” is a manifesto for online collaboration, points out a crucial difference between Mr. Obama’s approach to attracting supporters and that of his chief rivals. “On the McCain and Clinton Web sites, there is a transactional screen,” Mr. Benkler said. “It is just about the money. Donate, then we can build the relationship. In Obama’s it’s inverted: build the relationship and then donate.”
For this reason there are thousands of people working across the Internet to build enthusiasm for the campaign, some of it even gently mocking, like Barackobamaisyournewbicycle.com, a site listing the many examples of Mr. Obama’s magical compassion. (“Barack Obama carries a picture of you in his wallet”; “Barack Obama thought you could use some chocolate.”)
For his part, Mr. Obama is quick to take himself out of the narrative, even as he promises to remake Washington. This isn’t simply modesty. It reflects the utopian, community-building vision central to the Internet. Wikipedia’s unpaid collaborators, for example, hope to “distribute a free encyclopedia to every single person on the planet in their own language,” says the site’s mastermind, Jimmy Wales. So too the thousands of programmers in the open-source world intend not just to develop a free operating system, but vanquish Microsoft.
In this scheme, Mr. Obama’s role, at least in the rhetoric, is less leader than facilitator, a conduit for decentralized collaboration as described by James Surowiecki in his book “The Wisdom of Crowds.” “The ethos of the Net is fundamentally respectful of and invested in the idea of collective wisdom, and in some sense is hostile to the idea that power and authority should belong to a select few,” Mr. Surowiecki wrote.
This is not to say that open projects always produce the best results. Thousands of ordinary people having their say can lead to dubious outcomes. And in politics, particularly at the presidential level, where decisions affect the lives of millions, the risks can be great.
For a candidate, there is always the danger of “making yourself vulnerable” by “giving participants control of chunks of the enterprise,” Mr. Benkler said. Mr. Obama has to walk a careful line. It’s one thing to help popularize a campaign, quite another to shape policy. And Mr. Obama’s team has been as adamant as any about staying on message.
To some extent, however, Mr. Obama has invited policy ideas from outsiders. Deb Barry, an Obama supporter in New Hampshire, said she was impressed that the organization she belongs to, Educators for Obama, had a chance to speak with his education-policy staff members before the primary there. “I went into that conference call, kind of with the impression that the purpose was for us to ask questions,” she said. In fact, “they were picking our brains. They had specific questions they wanted to ask us, and were seeing how we felt about what had already come out from the campaign.”
Not that Ms. Barry expects to play a direct role in shaping government policy. “There is a huge limitation about how much contact someone like me can have with the big decision makers,” she said, but a critical first step is reaching out: “Not just reaching out to experts, with big titles and degrees after his name, but people with experience.”
Other online activists are more skeptical about the openness to outsiders. “The Obama campaign is still very much a top-bottom operation,” Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, of the influential DailyKos Web site, wrote in an e-mail message. “They’ve made it very easy for people to hop on the bandwagon, but those in the back of that wagon still get no say in where the campaign is going.”
Yes, someone is driving the bandwagon, even if he constantly plays down his role — describing himself as a Rorshach image on whom others project. Even Wikipedia has administrators who monitor the work there, and open-source projects have their “leaders,” who keep them on course.
In truth, there is no such thing as purely collective decision making. As Mr. Surowiecki summed it up in his book: “It has historically been unusual for change to bubble up from below on its own. So it is, in fact, more likely that someone will take it on himself to champion the idea of collective wisdom, and in that way create the conditions that allow it to flourish. This is paradoxical, but no more so than the fact that an individual, not a crowd, wrote ‘The Wisdom of Crowds.’ ”
31 May 2008
Kurt Stone: Obama at Shul
Mr. Obama Goes To Shul
BOCA RATON, FLORIDA * Senator Barack Obama came to Temple B'nai Torah this
afternoon. As will often happen with candidates out on the campaign trail,
his arrival was delayed by several hours. And although he apologized for
being tardy and making us wait, he never did mention the reason for his
delay. As I found out later that night, he had hopped up to Capitol Hill in
order to vote in favor of a measure which greatly expands the G.I. Bill. He
could have taken the high, self-serving road and told those assembled why he
was late. He could also have taken the low, "finger-pointing" road and
flailed Senator McCain for being one of 22 Republicans voting against our
men and women in uniform.
Instead, he did neither.
This was not his reason for going to shul.
Rather, he was here, in the midst of approximately 750 mostly-Jewish men,
women and teens, to talk about himself, Israel, and anti-Semitism, and to
address head-on the virtual St. Vitus' dance of fear that has been such a
noxious staple of cyberspace this past year
I managed to snag a VIP pass and, guiltily walking past the long line of
folks standing out in the rain, was seated about 6 feet away from the
senator. Sitting with me were -- somewhat surprisingly -- at least thee
lions of the Republican Party and a couple of die-hard Clinton acolytes.
They, like so many in the assembled minyan, were not there because they
already supported Senator Obama. Rather, they had come to find out for
themselves just who the "skinny guy with the strange-sounding name" is, and
whether or not he will be as bad for Israel as so many have claimed.
Senator Obama certainly had his work cut out for himself.
To make the senator's task even more challenging, just the day before he
attended shul, the New York Times ran a story entitled "Many Florida Jews
Express Doubts On Obama." In the article, staff writer Jodi Kantor quoted a
handful of South Florida Jews who were dismissive -- if not downright
hostile -- to Senator Obama's candidacy. One elderly woman said she would
never vote for Obama "because of his attitude on Israel." A second averred
that Obama "is part of Chicago's large Palestinian community." A third
worried that if he were elected, Obama "might fill his administration with
followers of Louis Farrakhan." And yet a fourth opined, "His father was a
Muslim and you can't take that out of him."
No one ever said running for president was easy; especially when you're
a guy named Barack Obama, and you're speaking in a synagogue before more
Jews than the rabbi has seen since last Rosh Hashana.
With a mesmerizing mix of eloquence and erudition, articulation and
affability, the Senator won over the vast majority of the assembled minyan.
During the more than two hours he spent speaking and dialoguing, Senator
Obama made it abundantly clear that he was, is, and always shall be, a
staunch defender of the Jewish State. [One should know a fact: after going
over the voting records of both Senator Clinton and Obama vis-a-vis issues
pertaining to Israel, AIPAC -- the main Israel support lobby in the U.S.
gave both a 100% rating. That's 100% of the time that both senators voted
in a manner that was favorable to the Jewish State.]
Senator Obama told of how, as a youngster attending summer camp, he had a
Jewish counselor who told him about Zionism:
"I really connected with it, because in Zionism, there is this sense of
rootedness, of having a place and a home. And for a kid with my unusual
background . . . and not knowing precisely where I fit, this struck a
tremendous chord."
When asked about his relationship with a Palestinian professor from the
University of Chicago, the Senator said:
"Yes, I have met the man, but why do people automatically conclude that
therefore I must be in agreement with what he espouses? People do have the
ability to listen to those with whom they disagree. How can one ever make
any progress if the only folks they talk to are those with whom they are in
agreement?"
Obama went on to say:
"I don't want to get in to the 'some of my best friends are Jewish' trap,
because it's terribly demeaning. But I will tell you this: when I first ran
[unsuccessfully] for Congress against Bobby Rush, the main argument against
me was that I was too close to the Jewish community! I have always believed
that Jewish and African Americans have an historic bond, an historic memory.
I mourn the passing of the time when Jewish Americans and African Americans
worked together in harmony to bring about change. If it weren't for the
Jewish community and their central role in the Civil Rights struggle, I
wouldn't be here today, running for President of the United States."
Addressing all the emails that are going around [indeed, I just received
one entitled "The Fifty Lies of Barack Obama"], he made a telling point with
a fine degree of humor:
"You know, no one believes those emails that start out: 'I'm a Nigerian
who has $5 million in the bank but can't get at it . . . however if you'll
only send me a thousand dollars . . .' Or all those medicines that promise
to help expand your . . . well, let's not go there . . . [laughter] . . .
But seriously, why then do people believe scurrilous rumors? Promising
millions for nothing or potency for pennies has about as much reality as
proclaiming that I am a Jihadist."
Many in the crowd were of the opinion that "George W. Bush is the best
friend Israel has ever had." I hear this from my students more often than
is comfortable. Senator Obama addressed this in words of stark simplicity:
"In the past seven years, Iran has become infinitely more powerful than
ever before. It has given tremendous financial support to the major enemies
of Israel. This has all happened under the Bush-Cheney-McCain watch. How
can anyone conclude that the one who empowers your worst enemy is your best
friend? It doesn't make any sense."
One person in the crowd asked why, in saying he would convene a summit
meeting of all Arab countries, he excluded Israel, Obama smiled and
answered:
"Well first, Israel isn't an Arab country; its a Jewish State. Secondly,
they are our strongest ally . . . our best friend in the region. The
countries we would be talking to are the ones we want to convince that
someday, somehow, they're going to have to learn how to live in peace with
Israel. If you only talk to your friends, there is absolutely no chance
that you're ever going to be able to change your enemies. That is part of
the definition of courage"
By way of example, Senator Obama mentioned how, when speaking before
students at a school of Ramallah, he told them, "One day you are going to
have to learn to live in peace with Israel."
Did Senator Obama's "performance" make supporters out of everyone in
attendance? Probably not, for he is, as we say in Hebrew, raq basar va'dahm
["merely flesh and blood"]. Nonetheless, I believe he quelled the fear and
uncertainty in many hearts.
There no doubt will always be those who choose to believe the worst about
Senator Obama -- or anyone in the public eye for that matter. There will
also always be those who seek to hide incipient racism beneath the veneer of
inept rhetoric. And believe me, I am fully expecting people to write and
tell me that I have had the wool pulled over my eyes -- that Senator Obama
is a Muslim, ant-Semitic . . . the whole nine yards.
And yet, for at least one afternoon, in one shul, the minyan had the
opportunity to listen to -- and share with -- a man who reminded us that the
Arabic barack and the Hebrew baruch share the same meaning: "Blessed."
It was a "sermon" well worth the wait.
Oh yes: by the end, even the three Republicans were on their feet.
And don't worry about being late Senator. You see, ever since Sinai,
we've been on Jewish Standard Time .
C2008 Kurt F. Stone
Kurt Stone is a rabbi, writer, lecturer, political activist, professor,
actor, and medical ethicist. Educated at the University of California, the
Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University and the Hebrew Union
College, Stone holds a B.A. in American Political History, a Master of
Hebrew Letters, and a Doctor of Divinity. A resident of South Florida for
more than 25 years, he is currently spiritual leader of the North Broward
Havurah in Coral Springs.
13 May 2008
Handwriting of Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Barack Obama may speak volumes
--------------------
Handwriting of Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Barack Obama may speak volumes
--------------------
Experts see telltale markings of personality in penmanship samples from the presidential candidates.
By Faye Fiore
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
May 13 2008
WASHINGTON — Now that the presidential contest is looking ever more like a two-man race, the country can't help but marvel: John McCain, once a longshot, wouldn't lie down. Barack Obama, the new kid, charmed voters. And Hillary Rodham Clinton, an early favorite, has yet to surrender.
The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-handwriting13-2008may13,0,5566144.story
Visit latimes.com at http://www.latimes.com
05 May 2008
Operation Anti-Chaos: Narrative on “White Voters” Is Fiction
read more | digg story
01 May 2008
DNC chairman under Bill Clinton:On My Switch to OBAMA
read more | digg story
30 April 2008
NY Daily News: Is Jeremiah Wright a colossal disaster for Barack Obama or a press trick?
| This page was sent to you by: LindaC Message from sender: The Wrong Side of Rev. Jeremiah Wright |
29 April 2008
Breaking News! : Hillary Clinton Required to Testify in November
read more | digg story
28 April 2008
Hillary & Monsanto & The Destruction of Farms and Farmers
read more | digg story
17 April 2008
The Debate Debacle
Am I disappointed? Yes. As one who believes Barack Obama is by far the best person to lead this country as President, I would prefer that he came out ahead on all points.
Do I think the debate will decide the election? No. There have been so many debates this primary season that I believe voters (like myself) pretty much know what results to expect.
I can't wait for Olbermann's take on all this.
14 April 2008
Mixed Feelings: At least it's over
Congratulations! Three dedicated grassroots volunteers from CD30, running together as a slate, successfully garnered the most votes to represent our district as Obama delegates to the National Convention in Denver.
They are:
Victoria von Szeliski
Shayne Adamski
Bob Vanderet
Participating in the caucus as a candidate myself was incredibly exciting. Plus, I learned a lot about the process - both positive and negative.
On the positive side, before this election I was unaware of the California caucuses. I was pleasantly surprised to know that such a process exists in California that truly brings the election to the constituents; providing voters, volunteers and campaigns an opportunity for personal interaction and dialogue.
In CD30, however, questions about gerrymandering persist, especially in light of the language used by the successful slate in their campaign correspondence - specifically, referring to CD30 as the "West LA Area". Clearly, with at least 40% of Democratic voters in the District residing North of West LA, in the San Fernando Valley, Conejo Valley and Malibu, as well as East of West LA, namely in West Hollywood and Beverly Hills, in no way can CD30 be accurately described as the "West LA Area".
I hope Victoria, Shayne And Bob appreciate that they do indeed also represent the Obama voters in ALL of CD30, not just the Westside.
13 April 2008
California Caucus impressions
11 April 2008
NY Times alerts
U.S. / POLITICS
By PETER S. GOODMAN (NYT)
As first lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton supported her husband’s decision to sign into law a bill forcing welfare recipients to work and imposing a five-year limit on cash assistance.
U.S. / POLITICS
By JEFF ZELENY (NYT)
In a television interview, former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said he “admired” how Senator Barack Obama handled a speech last month on race.
10 April 2008
What if the whole world voted?
What if we all voted?
A simple poll of who the world would vote for in
the upcoming
http://www.whatifweallvoted.com/
Please vote, and then check the results for your country!