Search Results for: elections

7 Reasons Why Barack Obama is Uniquely Suited to be President

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Only a United States of America and an Obama presidency will change a bleak American future into one that is genuinely hopeful and positive. Barack Obama’s unique combination of strengths and abilities make him the only candidate:
1. Who convincingly articulates an ambitious plan for addressing the most pressing common problems facing most Americans;
2. Who has the leadership, character, and political skills to take the Democratic nomination from insider/“incumbent” Hillary Clinton;
3. Who will win the general election with the backing of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike;
4. Whose popular “coat tails” will pack Congress with legislators from all parties supportive of his agenda in ’08 and in following elections;
5. Who will inspire national leaders having competing interests, ideologies, and agendas to find workable legislative solutions;
6. Who will inspire a grassroots citizen movement to get behind and pass such legislation; and
7. Who has the honesty, integrity, courage, intellectual bandwidth, global perspective, vision, character, judgment, and Presidential leadership skills necessary to simultaneously and successfully handle breaking crises as they arise, while healing and transforming national and international relations, and shepherding huge domestic policy changes through Congress.
If we want to elect the smartest and best person in America willing to take the job, we should be working to elect Barack Obama President of the United States of America. Continue reading →

The Best (and Only) Way to Solve Our Terrorism Problem

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(excerpts): Consider: what if an imagined, vastly more powerful Muslim alliance had invaded and occupied the United States five years ago? We wouldn’t be “generating vigorous, sustained condemnation” about an occasional American suicide bomber way over in Iraq, consumed as we would we be already, here at home in America, with simple day-to-day survival, with burying and mourning our million dead brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, sons and daughters, with caring for five times that million beloved wounded, with desperately fleeing the violence along with the millions of our fellow Americans abandoning their homes and trying to pick up the pieces of their lives and dreams anywhere else….
Just who is it, Mr. Friedman, who is “erasing basic norms of civilization” by terrorizing—Islamic suicide bombers, or our own invading and occupying armies?
Both, of course.
I have no doubt that many extremist Muslims are every bit as crazy as some of our very own home-grown terrified fundamentalist Christians and Jews who stand ready to nuke whole Islamic nations right now with no more questions asked. Yes, there are violent, ignorant, vengeful people everywhere, and this is a big big problem. And adding more violence, suffering, anger, and fear to all of their lives is being done to what good purpose? (Excerpts): Friedman argues that it’s up to Muslim leaders to “remove this cancer” of terrorist violence. No. It is up to western leaders to remove this cancer of military-backed hegemony, this cancer of “might makes right,” this cancer of trampling the rights and traditions of smaller and weaker peoples.
Unless Mr. Friedman and I can somehow agree upon which of our children and grandchildren we’re willing to trade for a steady flow of cheap Middle Eastern oil, and which of our cities we’ll willing to exchange for bigger earnings for American stockholders, we should support leaders capable of shifting our nation and the world into to a new era of non-violent global cooperation, for the sake of all in both the east and the west. Continue reading →

Barack Obama, The Unforgiven, the Race Tightrope, and the Blame Game

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(Excerpt): I don’t think Obama walks a race tightrope. I think he walks and talks and thinks just exactly how he walks and talks and thinks, and he doesn’t attack anyone, white or black, because that’s who he is. Somehow, Obama has learned not to bother with blaming anyone for anything, because blaming is a waste of time and spirit and resources, and besides, it only invites retaliation, which must then be defended against. Instead, Obama consistently accepts, “as-is,” all others, black and white, American and “other.”
(Excerpt): Obama knows that everyone makes mistakes, and that the greater one’s power, the greater the potential for and impact of their mistakes. As Dr. King did, Obama encourages his audiences to move forward together to find solutions to unsolvable problems, to clean up impossible messes, to do better than the last generation, and he knows we can’t do it while carrying a burden of past guilt.
Not-blaming is a deliberate, habitual practice of Obama’s. He shares with King the best, most productive kind of humility: self-acceptance born merely—and spectacularly—from realization that they are God’s creatures, which is to say, imperfectly perfect, perfectly lovable, and forgiven. Continue reading →

Soldiers: Partners for Peace

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The following thought-provoking letter-to-the-editor denouncing war protesters recently appeared in our local paper. (My response, as well as the fantastic response of my friend and neighbor, Nancy Arnold, are printed below that letter.) Please click on “MORE” below….
LOCAL PROTESTERS DESERVE RIDDANCE
“On behalf of the followers of al-Qaida and militant Islamic jihadists everywhere, I would like to extend our admiration and gratitude to those extraordinary citizens who turned out downtown to show support for our efforts and to register disgust with their country’s war on terror.
We share a strong common bond. We each despise George Bush, the American military and Western-style democracies. It is imperative that American resolve to fight our cause be diminished. Your assistance in that regard is greatly appreciated.
It is, after all, the highest form of patriotism to give aid and comfort to your country’s enemies—especially when our sons and daughters are sacrificing their lives for your freedom.”
PLEASE CLICK ON “MORE” TO READ OUR TWO PUBLISHED RESPONSES TO THIS LETTER…. Continue reading →

Choosing Freedom from Fear (also see my photos attached)

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“America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way (in a) revolution of values. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. These are the times for real choices and not false ones.” –Martin Luther King, 1967 Continue reading →

Bad Things That Could Happen If We Ignore the Rumors of a Coming Coup in Iraq

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(Excerpt): President Bush can still redeem himself in the eyes of history as the good old boy he means to be, but first he must stand up courageously and presidentially to his neocon friends and their misguided schemes. (Excerpt): If Mr. Bush wishes to be remembered as a force for good, rather than a dupe for a tiny manipulative clique, he should go to work immediately with Congress and cabinet to cut short any planned coups, and to plan a thoughtful withdrawal of all U.S. troops and bases fromIraq.
(Excerpt): During his remaining years in office, he has an opportunity to devote the $2 billion/a day we currently spend on war, toward brokering a lasting Middle East peace agreement. Then he can offer generous support to those regional leaders willing to compromise, together rebuilding a peaceful Middle East to their mutual specifications, not ours.
(Excerpt): If President Bush wades deeper into an exploding Iraq now, to prop up a coup or to attend to certain blowback from it, he will waste his last two years, and all our money, not to mention vast swaths of American and Iraqi lives, on a futile, catastrophic, Vietnam-like last-gasp effort to impose narrow-minded changes upon a very distant, very old, and very dissimilar civilization.
(Excerpt): If the coup rumors are ignored, Americans will wake up someday soon to news that a coup has already taken place (or has been disastrously attempted); that American lives are in danger; and that a far-more massive American military force must be rushed immediately off to Iraq. In just this way have fourteen previous regime changes secretly been engineered by past Presidents and their administrative and corporate cronies, all to American discredit, all at shocking human and material cost.
(Excerpt): Once such jingoistic adventures get started on their mindless juggernauts, once demagogues begin feeding the public imagination with new reasons for new fighting, then an unending toll of new, unforeseen losses and enemies will make the widening conflicts almost impossible to stop. If a few right-wing zealots might welcome an “inevitable” Armageddon in the Middle East, the vast majority of Americans would not.
(Excerpt): It would be wonderful if James Baker could visualize the shape of an eventual compromise following such a catastrophe, and be so bold as to broker that same compromise right now, before any more bloodletting. Continue reading →

Fair Negotiations with Iran. NOT.

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(Excerpt): International fairness is demonstrated when individual nations hold themselves to the same high international standards of behavior they expect from others. America is the biggest and strongest nation among equals, established under the highest principles, ideals and values; we can also choose to become the humblest, the most respected, even the most loved nation, by reflecting in our international policies our deeply-held belief that all men truly are created equal, with inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and by living the golden rule–treating all others as we would like to be treated. Continue reading →

Wanted: New Leadership, New Vision, New Courage

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(Excerpt): Only faithful leaders trust in God's redemptive love for every one of earth's children, and in international dialogue and peaceful cooperative efforts, disavowing the politics of exclusion, polarization, and dehumanization;
Only hopeful leaders join with like-minded light-bearers of other nations, stand with them, work with them, and lift all nations and peoples up, leaving no one behind, and;
Only loving leaders forgive, and let go of the past–and past blame–accepting, supporting, and respecting human life everywhere, instead. Continue reading →

Left, Right, Left, Right…Wrong?

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I received a letter from a reader of the conservative political persuasion who has kindly and thoughtfully taken the time to outline our political differences. In hopes of continuing our dialogue, I herein reprint his letter, followed by my response. Continue reading →

American Politics, Before the Next Terrorist Attack

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Our future safety and political freedoms rest upon whether Americans recognize sooner, rather than later, the terrifying truth that our traditional, well-intentioned and well-funded militaristic approaches to national defense and espionage have very limited preventative effects, and cannot keep us safe from the horrors of terrorism or global thermonuclear war during a century of instant communications and easily-accessible lethal weaponry. Furthermore, such anachronistic, adversarial strategies actually provoke increasing threats to our country and our planet. Even as we squander more and more money, energy, and time, they advance the likelihood that our worst nightmares will become realities. Continue reading →