Now that the voice of the people has been heard in the presidential elections it is time for that age-old tradition of sour grapes. All of the negative rhetoric of the McRage campaign is being vomited out in bitter rants and accusations. John McCain's very gracious and eloquent speech the night of the election did nothing to expunge the bitterness caused by all of his outrageous and desperate negative campaigning.
People are lamenting the divisiveness caused by the election. What has to be recognized is that it was not the election but the desperate actions of John McCain and of many leaders of the radically right that spewed endless hatred to advance their personal causes that has brought about and is salting the wounds in our nation. As the adage goes, "Those who live by the sword, die by the sword." Using a toxic message has poisoned the McCain election and may prove to be just as deadly to the many right-wing organizations that have published and preached the same bitterness.
Christianity the most positive message in the universe has once again been hijacked for the personal gain of certain people and their organizations. To take the threat of hellfire and brimstone to the voting ballot and tell a congregation or a supporter base that their eternal fate is at risk by how they mark the box for president is wrong, especially so when it is laced by out-right lies and venomous hate.
Get ready for all the rants from the "Right" or as a friend of mine likes to say "from the religious Wrong." Here is one such example in an interesting discussion board on SodaHead , asking the question "Did Barack Obama Buy the Election?"
My response: "Obama didn't win because of money or because of his race. He won because of his superior ideas and goals. He won because he struck a cord with the people of this country who want to see positive change. Our image in the eyes of the world has been sullied by the actions of the Bush administration. The Bush doctrine (IWRC) of pre-emptive war has caused vast mistrust of this country. We need a leader who can rebuild our image and once again put us in a position of respect not because we can drop more bombs but because we have a president who knows how to lead with diplomacy."
I confirm that I am a happy supporter of my President, Barack Obama.
One thing that stands out clearly in the 2008 Presidential election cycle is that the radically right believe deeply that they are the "true" Americans and also the "true" Christians." Sarah Palin told a crowd that she was happy to be speaking to a part of the country where "pro-Americans" lived. This implies that she must have been places in the US where "anti-Americans" live?
The religious radical right person believes that anyone who is not a part of their belief circle could not be a true Christian or a true American. They believe that anyone outside of their circle is a threat to the American/Christian way of life. And they do believe that the American way of life is definitely Christian. Their leaders in PAC groups and church groups tell them this again and again as they incite a mounting fear that has these people digging deep into their pockets to fork out hard-earned cash to these very PAC's and church groups. They must do so to ensure their freedom and their very way of life. If they do not, then those dirty, nasty, godless, child-eating LIBERALS will take away all their Bibles and guns and line them up in a train station to ship them off to a labor camp ready and waiting for all good right-wing Christians. So dig deep and give, give, give.
If you take the time to view some of the sites I have in my "Reading from Left to Right" section on this site you will find that LIBERAL is the vilest word in the right-wing lexicon. When anything goes wrong in their world, the LIBERALS are behind it. If they could pin Hurricane Katrina on the LIBERALS I am sure they would do so. After all, it must have been whipped up to make "W" look bad.
I recall that a member of James Dobson's staff was calling for torrential rain to fall on the last night of the Democratic convention. As it turned out, it was a beautiful starry night. However, the Republican Convention was greeted with a hurricane. Interesting if you believe that God is tossing these storms in judgement.
More of this is what I expect we will be seeing from the "right" wing:
The underhanded Democrat tactics of the 2008 political season are no less a declaration of war on the conventions and institutions of the American heartland than were the numerous Islamist attacks preceding 9-11. And anything short of a full and appropriate political and ideological counterattack from the right will guarantee its eventual defeat. - (November 13, 2008) The grim significance of the 2008 elections by Chris Adamo
What the Bible says about government and which also was written during Roman rule a government which was not a Christian theocracy:
Romans 13:1(Whole Chapter) [ Be Subject to Government ] Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God.
A must read article from Cal Thomas: Religious Right R.I.P. This article embodies what I believe as a born again Christian who came to Jesus in the Jesus People revival of the 1970's. I have been so disheartend by the politization of the Church. I have hope renewed by this article from Cal Thomas. The Church needs to wake up and realize that politics is not a savior. The people of God have to live their beliefs from the heart each and every day and not think that getting in the muck and mire of politics is going to change anything. The country will only change in a positive way if the citizens walk and talk their faith rather than trying to legislate it.
My Response to Cal Thomas: AMEN! AMEN! AMEN!
I have been waiting for a Christian of stature to say this for years!!! Thank you, Mr. Thomas.
It is time to stop fear-mongering and start walking in faith and in the steps of our Lord Jesus. As Christians we have the most radical change program in the universe and it doesn't rely on any politics but on God's boundless love.
We Christians must stop hating our neighbors... even if they are "gaybors" and realize God did not call us to judge but to love our neighbors as ourselves. This is exactly what Jesus taught without hesitation. Love wins out over all other actions. If not, then the work on the cross is ineffective.
God will never condemn you for sharing His love with everyone. We don't need religion in politics. What we need is the love of God shed abroad in the hearts of politicians. And of course, in the hearts of all people.
Jesus was a true Radical. His way of thinking and living was counter to all norms. He changed the world without employing politicians to do his work. He changed the hearts of people with God's love. He walked it, he talked it, he died for it, and he rose again so that we might live in the love of God. The Spirit of God descended on the disciples on Pentecost not with a torch to consume sinners and blast them from the planet, but with a flame to burn the chains of sin from their souls so that they could sing God's praises from a clean heart. And to empower them to take the message of God's love so that the chains of sin would be broken in all the world. God's love is not for an elite group. It is for all people.
If every church would make a vow to keep politics and voter coercion away from their pulpit and instead teach their flocks to love as God loves then the politics of this nation would be transformed without the help of even one religious political action committee. That's the revolution we need...the one where the people of God share his Love with everyone they meet. Our Christian faith was never meant to be a political base, but a base for the kingdom of the true living God.
Click photo for opportunity to order limited edition stickers from MoveOn.org.
I confirm that I am a private citizen and in no way officially connected to the Barack Obama campaign other than personally being in support of the Obama candidacy.
I confirm that I am a private citizen and in no way officially connected to the Barack Obama campaign other than personally being in support of the Obama candidacy.
Exuberant after the election, I returned home from my Congressman's victory watch party and found that there were several op-ed pieces already published online. Being inspired I wrote my own post about the election.
And then I shared the following in a email to my co-workers:
Two hundred and thirty-two years after Thomas Jefferson penned the words within the Declaration of Independence, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness", we have elected an African-American as the 44th POTUS all the while many asked if our nation was ready for such a thing. So deeply run the scars of our inhumanity towards each other caused by slavery and the lack of respect for life that this injustice has wrought, we still today have to ask if we are ready for a black man to be president. Maybe it is fitting that this man, son of a white woman from Kansas "the Free State" in the heart of America and a black man from the distant shores of Kenya in the continent from which slaves were brought to this land, should unite us in the understanding that all people are indeed created equal. The blood of both races flows through his veins. How symbolic, how right, how just is it that Barack Hussein Obama II should be the first black man to stand in the office of President of the United States signaling the final breaking down of the wall caused by the injustice of slavery.
Many will still ask this question and we may see difficult times in future days as our nation absorbs the significance of this election. It is my prayer that we as a nation and as individuals live out the words Thomas Jefferson was so ardent to add to the Declaration and that we embody the sentiment, "We hold these truths to be self-evident..." Our nation is a beacon set upon a hill and the eyes of the world are upon us. May the "someday that we shall overcome" be this very one.
And in the spirit of his campaign the people answered, "YES WE CAN!"
I received many thankful and complementary emails but was also reported to HR and had to have a discussion with my manager.
I had been low-key at work about the election except for a single campaign button on my purse. We have a casual dress code and yesterday I was wearing an Obama campaign t-shirt I received for walking neighborhoods in Missouri to help get out the vote. I figured the election was over so this couldn't be seen as political campaigning. And I had brought in a poster of my president which I had also just pinned up in my cube. I admit that my computer wallpaper and screen-saver had screen shots from the Obama campaign site. After the conversation, of my own choice and not the suggestion of my manager, I put on a sweater and buttoned it up to conceal my Obama t-shirt, I removed my computer wallpaper and screen saver, removed my campaign button and I sadly took down the poster of my president. I felt truly sorry that my comments had caused offense.
I didn't think at the time that I wrote my comments that they would be offensive, but that rather I was pointing out the historic significance of the election outcome. I should not have sent it realizing that McCain supporters would have been very disappointed. That was something I overlooked in my excitement over this historic event and I do feel bad about that.
However it was brought up to my attention that the complaint had to do with someone who was very religious and that I should understand how deeply religious people would feel about my comments and the election outcome.
The sad thing, is that at that moment in the conversation, I did totally understand since I had previously read James Dobson's letter from 2012. It was not until this morning that it hit me that my email had nothing to do with religion. This was a bogus argument. I could be called up for sending a message over company email about politics and that would be fair, although I was not campaigning and the election results were in and I was speaking about our president-elect in terms of the historical significance of his election. I said nothing about John McCain at all and did not offer Barack Obama as the better candidate.
I myself am a deeply religious person. Of course that is irrelevant to the conversation except that was a reason given for my email being offensive, that a deeply religious person found it so. The stretch would be to say this comment of mine brought religion into discussion, "It is my prayer that we as a nation and as individuals live out the words Thomas Jefferson was so ardent to add to the Declaration and that we embody the sentiment, "We hold these truths to be self-evident..." Our nation is a beacon set upon a hill and the eyes of the world are upon us. May the "someday that we shall overcome" be this very one."
In any case, I am repentant for causing offense to any of my co-workers. I am also deeply grieved that the religious leaders of our nation have so vilified my president to the extent that many in our nation are afraid of their future under his leadership. That is the deepest offense of all.
I confirm that I am a private citizen and in no way officially connected to the Barack Obama campaign other than personally being in support of the Obama candidacy.
New York Times, Thomas L. Friedman: And so it came to pass that on Nov. 4, 2008, shortly after 11 p.m. Eastern time, the American Civil War ended, as a black man — Barack Hussein Obama — won enough electoral votes to become president of the United States.
A civil war that, in many ways, began at Bull Run, Virginia, on July 21, 1861, ended 147 years later via a ballot box in the very same state. For nothing more symbolically illustrated the final chapter of America’s Civil War than the fact that the Commonwealth of Virginia — the state that once exalted slavery and whose secession from the Union in 1861 gave the Confederacy both strategic weight and its commanding general — voted Democratic, thus assuring that Barack Obama would become the 44th president of the United States. - Read more...
Slavery began in Virginia soon after the English colonists first settled in America around 1607 and lasted until the ratification of the thirteenth amendment to the US Constitution in 1865. Slavery was seen by many to be abhorrent as far back as the writing of the Constitution of the United States. That it was not abolished at that time, in a sad twist of fate which has caused much sorrow within our nation and has kept us from being truly great. In spite of the sentiment shared by many and expressed in Thomas Jefferson's words, acknowledging that "all men are created equal" slavery persisted as a compromise in hopes of forging a stronger union able to withstand the coming war for independence from England. And yet, after the war for Independence was fought and won, slavery persisted for nearly 100 years more.
President Lincoln, in his campaign of 1860, challenged this compromise and campaigned against the expansion of slavery. His electoral victory was followed by seven Southern states declaring succession from the Union. The bitter war that ensued between the States, the deadliest in American history taking the lives of over 620,000 soldiers and an undetermined number of civilians, ended in 1865 bringing the official end of slavery in the United States. However it did not end the inhumanity that resulted from slavery and was followed by the Reconstruction of the South and then the hateful "Jim Crow" years. Inequality and injustice remained the written law of the land for nearly 100 years more. Changing the slavery laws of the land at the close of the civil war did not change the hearts of the people.
This unsettled issue of racial equility bore fruit to the civil-rights movement initiated with 1954 Supreme Court case of Brown v. the Board of Education. The struggles born out of the duplicity of our beliefs and our refusal to live out the "truths" we "hold to be self-evident" violated our national conscience and the nation could not rest as long as we enslaved any of our citizens in the bonds of inequality. The unrest of the civil-rights movement strained our nation again to it's limits. The sorrows of that era included the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert Kennedy, and the Reverend Martin Luther King. Many brave men and women, black and white, fought the predominance of discrimination at the risk of their very lives. Many strides toward equality were made through dedicated efforts.
Some fifty years past the Brown v. the Board of Education case and two hundred and thirty-two years after Thomas Jefferson penned the words within the Declaration of Independence, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness", we have elected an African-American as the 44th POTUS all the while many asked if our nation was ready for such a thing. So deeply run the scars of our inhumanity towards each other caused by slavery and the lack of respect for life that this injustice has wrought, we still today have to ask if we are ready for a black man to be president. Maybe it is fitting that this man, son of a white woman from Kansas "the Free State" in the heart of America and a black man from the distant shores of Kenya in the continent from which slaves were brought to this land, should unite us in the understanding that all people are indeed created equal. The blood of both races flows through his veins. How symbolic, how right, how just is it that Barack Hussein Obama II should be the first black man to stand in the office of President of the United States signaling the final breaking down of the wall caused by the injustice of slavery.
Many will still ask this question and we may see difficult times in future days as our nation absorbs the significance of this election. It is my prayer that we as a nation and as individuals live out the words Thomas Jefferson was so ardent to add to the Declaration and that we embody the sentiment, "We hold these truths to be self-evident..." Our nation is a beacon set upon a hill and the eyes of the world are upon us. May the "someday that we shall overcome" be this very one.
And in the spirit of his campaign the people answered, "YES WE CAN!"
I confirm that I am a private citizen and in no way officially connected to the Barack Obama campaign other than personally being in support of the Obama candidacy.
The RNC style committee ran for 5th Avenue out of fear of this: Sarah Palin's wardrobe on the campaign trail in Alaska.
Sarah Palin's wardrobe in run for Governor without the help of the RNC.
Sarah Palin's wardrobe, makeup and accessories have cost the RNC approximately $172,000 within a three month time span. You may say, "This is old news." You have already heard about this. "So what?" You may ask.
I did some math to put this in perspective. In order to keep Sarah Palin looking this good for four years in office as Vice President, if she kept spending at the same rate would be a whopping $2,064,000.
According to InfoPlease, the salary of the vice president in 2001 was $208,100 with a $10,000 spending allowance. Sarah's gross salary for four years is a measly $872,400 before taxes. It is likely to be between $600,000 and $500,000 after taxes. So where will the additional money ($1,500,000) come from? She should be able to get some nice tax deductions for donating her used clothing to charity, but that surely won't support her need to look the part.
We might just have to start a Sarah Palin Clothing Charity or our Veep might travel the world like this:
Click image for more Sarah fashion sense from the Daily Beast.
That was then and this is now. Please contribute to the "Keep Sarah Polished" charitable foundation.
I confirm that I am a private citizen and in no way officially connected to the Barack Obama campaign other than personally being in support of the Obama candidacy.
John McCain runs on the message of Change saying he will bring change to Washington. He also continually points to Barack Obama's record. How about John McCain's record of supporting George Bush over 90 percent of the time while President Bush was running our country into the ground? The man who was most influential to George Bush during this time was Dick Cheny, vice president. Now Dick Cheny solidly endorses John McCain to continue the same failed policies. I have to ask. Where's the change?
This is the endorsement that John McCain has been ducking and running from to keep from revealing his strong association to the policies of George W Bush. You can run but you cannot hide from W.
I confirm that I am a private citizen and in no way officially connected to the Barack Obama campaign other than personally being in support of the Obama candidacy.
McCain has ties to terrorists McCain has tried to tie Barack Obama to terrorism through his association with Bill Ayers because they both sat on the board of a charitable organization even thought Bill Ayers was a respected member of the community and a college professor by that time. If this is all it takes, then how does John McCain explain his actions when he knowingly accepted endorsements from people actively supporting domestic terrorism against medical doctors in the US?
I confirm that I am a private citizen and in no way officially connected to the Barack Obama campaign other than personally being in support of the Obama candidacy.
In just four days we will know the outcome of the past two years of campaigning and assessing the candidates that hope to be presidient.
The biggest looming question is will the outcome be clear. Will we know on November 4th who has won or will there be a struggle, will there be claims of fraud, will the election be clear or will it appear to be stolen?
HBO is currently playing "Hacking Democracy" and "Recount" two very sombering films about what happened in 2000 and 2004 with the presidential elections. You can find them on the programming schedule or view On Demand.
The scariest colors of this season may not be orange and black but red and blue.
"We believe the problem will be solved when voting is no longer done on electronic voting machines."
"We favor paper ballots, counted by an optical scan reader. And when the paper ballots are counted, if the total is different from what the optical scan reader reports, the paper ballots’ total should be the official election result."
Part Two - No transparency in how electronic voting machines work. Companies hide their technology. Part Three - Independent company, tests and tests and tests until results please the manufacturer. They don't report on any negative results. Part Four - Diebold claims glitches in favor of Bush were not intentional Part Five - How acurate is the vote? Only as acurate as the coding allows. If that is kept secret, how can we trust our electoral process? We must demand transparency. Part Six - Current, official, and signed polled tapes found in bin destined to be shredded. Part Seven - in recount, precincts that didn't add-up properly were set aside and left uncounted Part Eight - Diebold influences purchasing decisions through campaign contributions to Republican party Part Nine - And the proof is in. Program code can switch the vote so convincingly that it is certified by election officials who believe it to be accurate.
A Spoof that is too close to true:
I confirm that I am a private citizen and in no way officially connected to the Barack Obama campaign other than personally being in support of the Obama candidacy.
