Can you watch this and still sit silently by or look the other way?

From a speech by AFL-CIO’s Richard Trumka

this just in:

When I was at the Portland rally for Barack Obama, I took a few photos with my iPhone… I emailed one to a local person who was making a photo collage at headquarters, and it just appeared on a website! See it here.

My future as a photog  is more than assured now! :-p

P.S. Gawd, it’s embarrassing to see how little it takes to get me excited these days… I should have sent this one I call “and the crowd goes wild!” although it was more like me losing my grip… now if i can just figure out how to make this photo be rightside up…

Why I’m supporting Obama…

So last fall when I took an online quiz about which presidential candidate my views most closely align with, the results showed that I was something like 99.9% compatible with Dennis Kucinich.  Which tells you how likely I am to ever have my political wishes come true.  But I’ve lived with that a long time.  I can remember elections in which not a single person I voted for won.   So it came at no surprise that he didn’t do very well in any primaries and has been long gone from the race well before the Oregon primary.

Because the political season is so-o-o-0-o lo-o-o-o-g these days, I figured I wouldn’t invest that much energy into making a decision until I saw who was going to be left by the time the Oregon primary rolled around (if there was even still a contest!?)   When it was clear that the two front runners were Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, I kinda figured I would support Hillary because it might offer the only chance for me to see a woman become president during my lifetime.  To be honest, I’ve never been a huge Hillary fan and I’m not even sure why.  Well, I have some ideas, but I’ll get to that later.  I was so shocked, though, when I ran into people who just out and out couldn’t stand her.  And they were often women??  Even before she stood by her man through the Monica thing, which I know offended a lot of women because they wanted to see her slap Bill upside the head.  Which may well get to the heart of why she brings out mistrust in people.  If she put up with all his crap because she had political ambitions, we just flat out don’t admire that.  It makes her seem like a person who is guided by what works strategically and what gets her ahead, not by her soul.  Which sometimes makes her seem soulless.  Full of naked ambition, having lost touch with what makes us humane.  Or something like that…

But still, I felt a lot of criticism of her was sexist, and I really wanted to find a way to like and support her.  But the first straw was Bill Clinton’s blatantly racist remarks after the South Carolina primary.  And he just wouldn’t shut up saying offensive things about Barack Obama.  

Then she did things I thought were a little off the chart.  Like “visiting” Florida after she pledged not to campaign there because the DNC punished them for not following the rules.  (I think the rules are stupid, mind you, but if you pledge to follow stupid rules, don’t change your mind and try to sneak by.)  Then arguing that the Michigan and Florida primary results should be counted after all (as if she would be making the same argument if she had lost them!?)  There were a whole string of these kinds of things that struck me as quite unethical.<br
It also seemed like there was no consistency in her behavior.  One evening during a debate she was making nice with Obama, then the next day she just blasted him in a really nasty way.  What, because some in the media interpreted your graciousness as a kind of concession, you have to rear up and get mean?? Come on… give ME a break!

One evening watching the news, there were just one too many of these things.  I got so frustrated, I jumped up, ran to my computer, and donated $100 to Obama.  (Becoming one of the more than $1 million).  I had just had enough.  Part of what I am so sick of, what I want to change, what I want to be gone from politics is a win at any cost attitude, do anything to win, damn the torpedoes and never mind how much damage you cause…  And frankly, that’s what I feel Hillary’s campaign has become. Increasingly, it seems to be driven by anger and negativity.

I will have no part of it.  That’s part of what’s wrong with our government, in my view.  It’s being run by people who have no conscience, no shame, no qualms about what they do and how much damage they cause, and whether they have support of the people.  That’s how people who will do anything to win a campaign govern.  And that’s what I am so over.  Enough.  It stops now.

Barack Obama is saying things that sometimes people don’t want to hear.  (E.g., he told the auto industry rather than environmentalists that he wants 40 mpg vehicles.) He’s not stooping to doing anything to win.  He is behaving with integrity.  He says he will talk with those who have become enemies of the U.S.  He got thoroughly slammed for saying that, including by Hillary.  But instead of soft-shoeing that or avoiding it, he’s still bringing it up in his speeches. About damn time we have a candidate who doesn’t determine his positions and words by tracking polls or focus groups or handlers!  Of course we should talk to those who are our adversaries if we ever have any hope of changing our relationship.  We can’t just bully our way through this world, as the current administration has been doing.  As Dr. Phil might ask, “How’s that workin’ for ya?”  Hello!  It’s not.

I want to be a proud American again.  I think I have the best chance of doing that if Barack Obama becomes president.  After attending the rally in Portland Friday morning, I am confident he is a man of courage, conviction and integrity.  I also think he is a very strong person, and a lot of people who are calling him “inexperienced” and “naive” like Hillary and the Republicans are doing seriously underestimate this man.     

We must elect him president!