Being a Liberal means you side, reflexively and all the time, with the little guy. Unions. Blue Collar people generally. The Poor. Minorities. The desperate. The doomed. The outcast. That little old lady you see pushing a shopping cart full of garbage outside Starbucks? She's your sister. What can you do to help her? The fact that she's talking to people who aren't there means she needs help. How can we make America a place where she is overwhelmed with gratitude at the help that follows her around, ready to catch her if she stumbles?
The soldier returning from war, unable to escape the terrible knowledge that what he has seen has shown him the damnable lies that our country tells itself in order to enable men to do things that will haunt them forever? The one who wakes up downstairs, halfway out the front door, because he heard an explosion in his dream and is now warning buddies who aren't there that they are about to die and his wife doesn't understand but tries to be there for him any way she can, but at the same time she's worried for the children? What can you do to help them? They are your brother and sister. How can we make America a place where they are overwhelmed with gratitude at the help that follows them around, ready to catch them if they stumble?
I don't know the first time I heard it. I'm pretty sure it was in a stump speech during the 2004 Presidential campaign. It was the Two Americas speech of John Edwards. It was the first time in my life that I was moved by a contemporary political speech.
And we have much work to do, because the truth is, we still live in a country where there are two different Americas...
... one, for all of those people who have lived the American dream and don't have to worry, and another for most Americans, everybody else who struggle to make ends meet every single day. It doesn't have to be that way.
In the past few weeks we have learned Obama is putting together a program reaching out to Christians as well as a faith based initiative with an Obama spin. Most seem to believe this is a good thing and it is, yet some too are concerned about the separation of church and state or churches using this money for other than charitable works. Obama's plan clearly spells out restrictions as well as expectations and is worth a read before deciding its merits.
Progressivism and religion are a good fit, one of the core values of each is social justice. So it isn't surprising a progressive candidate would reach out to people of faith. Obama understands the importance of churches in the fight for social justice during his time as a community organizer in South Chicago. What is also true, is many people don't realize what a powerful advocate for progressive change churches can be and have been in the past. Follow me below the fold for a look at religion and politics, the good parts.
Most folks have never heard of Yuri Kochiyama. That is a damn shame. Yuri Kochiyama has been one of the leading social justice advocates in the United States for more than 40 years...
O.K. I'm not. I am rich enough that Obama will not be cutting my taxes, but I would deny that the other two adjectives apply to me.
I believe in progressive values, including the idea that a lot of people who work just as hard as I do have not achieved the same financial success and that justice demands that I pay a larger share of the cost of government.
But what if I didn't? What if I was really selfish? What if I wanted to make as much money as I could and spend it all on mindless hedonism? I think, if I were smart, I'd still be for Obama. It's called enlightened self interest, and that's the point of what follows.
(Reposted in the hopes of more response; I originally posted this on the 4th of July, which, in retrospect, was probably a terrible time to post a diary without massive general appeal)
Full Disclosure: I was paid to develop Mark Richardson’s campaign website. However, I’m also a volunteer for his campaign; I’m not being paid for any campaign work/promotion not directly related to developing or updating his website.
Michigan’s primary (the real one which determines our Local, State and U.S. Congressional candidates, not the absurd Presidential “primary” that caused so much of a mess back in January) is coming up in a month, on August 5th.
As a long-time and active member of the dKos community (UID: 3620, for whatever that's worth), I’ve cheered on and donated money to many candidates that others have pushed for at every level. However, I’ve only led the way (in the blogosphere) one time for a particular political cause—the Berkley Nativity Brouhaha last fall.
Please bear with me. I have to explain. Partially as a result of my visibility here, I often get asked to write about books, particularly on education. Sometimes they show up at home or at school without notice. Even if they are good books, often it is not relevant to write about them here.
Also, people who try to turn the material from doctoral dissertations into books often find it exceedingly hard going, as my dearly beloved has discovered over the past few years.
And personal narratives can also be frustrating, because regardless of the success portrayed in the book, one immediately wonders if that success is transferable beyond the individual personalities, the specific context in which it occurred.
I have recently finished a book that is a personal narrative, derived from a doctoral dissertation. And I am going to suggest that even for a general audience such as this, it is not only worthy my writing about it, but also encouraging you to read it. It is entitled Spectacular Things Happen Along the Way: Lessons from an Urban Classroom and was written by Brian Schultz.
I received two emails yesterday from former members of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the youthful vanguard of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Each offered a story to consider on the 4th of July. I think they are worth passing along to the Kos community as they offer something to think about other than hot dogs, hamburgers, fireworks, flags and war...
(Cross-posted at Michigan Liberal and Blogging for Michigan)
Full Disclosure: I was paid to develop Mark Richardson’s campaign website. However, I’m also a volunteer for his campaign; I’m not being paid for any campaign work/promotion not directly related to developing or updating his website.
Happy Independence Day, everyone!
Michigan’s primary (the real one which determines our Local, State and U.S. Congressional candidates, not the absurd Presidential “primary” that caused so much of a mess back in January) is coming up in a month, on August 5th.
As a long-time and active member of the dKos community (UID: 3620, for whatever that's worth), I’ve cheered on and donated money to many candidates that others have pushed for at every level. However, I’ve only led the way (in the blogosphere) one time for a particular political cause—the Berkley Nativity Brouhaha last fall.
You ever have one of those moments where you come to the realization that there is a real injustice occurring and that it is necessary to finally stand up and say something about it? Well Brenda Diggs, an English teacher at South High Community School in Worcester did and finally expressed the words that so many students in urban high schools have wanted to say for years. She wrote this letter to the Telegram and Gazette and finally outed the media for its discriminatory practices:
Throughout the primary process, Obama has campaigned as a champion of dignity. The GLBT Human Rights Campaign endorsement is a good example of the vibe that will hopefully get Obama elected (and guide his policies once in office).
The dignity promise, however, is something that's made me cautious about throwing my support behind Obama. Dignity has many meanings, and the promise of dignity is about as vague as promises come. I feel desperate for a little dignity, but what is it I really want? What can Obama do that will actually touch the morass of dignity deficiency that is my life?
Social Justice. Some of us were introduced to the idea in church, appropriately because Jesus preached social justice. Altho social justice is an important theme in all major religions, some churches like the Catholic Church have offices of Social Justice. In deed the term was coined by a Jesuit priest in the mid 1800's, based on the teachings of Thomas Aquinas.
It got a lot of press both good and bad in the 60's when Jesuit priests preached social justice and organized the impoverished of South America. Social Justice is the heart of Liberation Theology and Black Liberation Theology. Follow me below the fold for a little background on social justice, why shooting the messenger is counter productive and oh yes, the grand experiment of YES WE CAN.
Disclosure: I've been a volunteer with the Perez campaign since April 2007.
We won. Manuel Perez won the Democratic nomination for the 80th Assembly District in California. He won thanks to grassroots organizing, an insightful and professional grasp of core issues, and the powerful support of his brothers and sisters across the broad spectrum of the labor movement. But essentially because he's a mensch, and he's in this for us. His rally speech at 2pm:
Video shot by Rafael Aguilera, director at The Verde Group, who has worked with Manuel, and came down to be here for the campaign. Crossposted from Calitics. Updated on Sun., June 8th to trim a bit, title was From Rally to Victory Speech - Election Day.
For those not familiar with the situation in Southern Florida, please see this amazing diary. A group of farmworkers that banded together to increase wages and end abuse in the fields of Immokalee, FL has just won another battle against the fast food industry. Burger King is said to agree to farmworker demands later today. [articles below the fold]
Update: Senator Bernie Sanders apparently mediated this. [another article added]
Update 2: For those who don't know about the Burger King spying scandal. The New York Times' Eric Schlosser reports about it. Burger King fired two top execs after they were repeatedly blasted in the media.
Update 3: Joint press release posted. CIW updates their website
These are interesting times, to say the least, and to overcome the rancorous divide that characterizes partisan interactions today, we need new and bold solutions.
I have returned from hospital with a decidedly reformed viewpoint.
Those of us with college degrees and some degree of intellect often forget how the other half lives. Instead of confronting directly what seems to us like superstitious pseudo-science or urban legends, we forget how very real these prejudices and unquestioned theories are. We dismiss them as quackery and scoff at their very existence in any rational plane of existence.
I admit it, he just capped it for me. Even though I do not live in PA, I do feel bitter. Maybe it's a West Coast thingy after all he was talking to a left coast crowd. Yes. the Bush Years have left me bitter and with an awful taste in my mouth. I grew up in the 50 and 60 and I do not recognize my country. I do not believe the John Wayne, I watched in all those Movies would either.
Why exactly might I be bitter? Where do I start?How about $3 Trillion wasted, a 100,000 to millions of deaths inflicted needlessly, I may never have enough $ to retire, If I loose my job and can't find a job, it's BK and foreclosure, 8 years of BushCo pumping up our Carbon emissions - Global Warming is the real threat!, what of our manufacturing jobs, the debt crisis, the tent cities emerging on the out skirts of our Cities, food riots because food is being diverted to fuel, the Arctic is melting, Antarctica too, the war on our own people - opps I mean the drug war, the prison/industrial complex, the true media elites, Hill's plundering of Obama, the military/industrial complex, the dumbing down of our schools China's and India's Industrialization and millions of cars and their emissions, Vietnam, Darfur the Holocaust, the transfer of our Industries overseas and the hollowing out of the Middle Class
