His back must hurt

Barack Obama was the perfect candidate to win the 2008 election.  But apparently, he’s not the same person we all voted for, because every time he opens his mouth, people are jumping on his back.  It seems that although he’s appointed one of the most diverse cabinets in history, he’s making everyone angry.  He started with the Republicans, because he slapped their hopes of victory into twenty-twelve with his landslide victory, and now he’s not being inclusive enough to appoint more than one or two to his cabinet.  Then it was Latinos, who said that Bill Richardson wasn’t getting a fair shake, and there weren’t enough Spanish-speakers at the table in the first three appointments.  Then it was the Gay and Lesbian community, with Rick Warren.  Now it’s women.  From Campbell Brown to NOW, he’s either not being forthcoming enough, or else he hasn’t done any better in appointing his cabinet than George Bush.  And apparently, black lawmakers aren’t happy with him, either.

While I am disappointed that Rick Warren is getting such a prominent symbolic role in the inaugural festivities, I’ve already said that I trust the President-elect to do what needs to be done.  And a friend of mine linked me to an article that tried to talk me down by pointing out Rev. Joseph Lowery’s role as a counterpoint to Warren.  A couple of the comments struck me:

by: Lev Raphael @ Fri Dec 19, 2008 at 07:45:58 AM CST

Has anyone noticed (3.50 / 4)

that Barack Obama does things that cause people to howl in protest, yet he does not respond. Then he completes the project, turns to his accusers and says “What is it you were upset about?”

It is his style. He did it during the debates – remember how we howled for him to land a knock-out punch, but he went deliberately along and won his own race, thank you very much?

This is more of the same. My gut says that this guy thinks and behaves longer-term than either the press or the American people are accustomed to. We respond/react instantaneously to each piece of the plan instead of waiting to see the whole plan and judging that.

Just my second-cup-of-coffee thoughts this morning. 
 

by: Dawn in Maine @ Fri Dec 19, 2008 at 08:41:06 AM CST

you may be right (3.33 / 3)

I’m being forced to confront my own fantasies that he would do every single thing I would wish could happen… some kinda superman. There is absolutely no way he can make everyone happy. The Warren choice infuriates me (so does choosing Vilsack), while other choices delight me, and some are just blah.

 I do feel it is literally impossible for a U.S. President to please anyone 100 percent of the time.  

 

And it doesn’t matter your political persuasion – Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Independent, liberal, conservative, male, female, black, white, brown, mixed-up – President-elect Obama is not going to do everything that you or I want him to do.  But he is going to do what is best for the United States, and he is going to do his best to help out the citizens of this country.  So let’s all cut him some slack.  The whining on the nightly news is getting old.

President-elect Obama defends inviting Pastor Rick Warren to speak at Inauguration

Why Gay Marriage is the Wrong Issue

Campbell Brown has another temper tantrum

Why some women’s groups are miffed at Obama

Black Lawmakers not happy with Obama Cabinet Picks

It may be Rick Warren’s neighborhood, but it isn’t Rick Warren’s world

How Many Zeros Are In A Trillion?

The new stimulus package proposed by President-elect Obama is going to cost seven hundred seventy-five billion dollars ($775,000,000,000.00). People are calling it a trillion ($1,000,000,000,000.00).  Three point nine million jobs are going to be lost (3, 900,000.00). He wants to create three million to compensate (3,000,000.00).  Three hundred thousand people have applied for new jobs in his administration.  He raised 750 million dollars on the campaign ($750,000,000.00). The bailout was voted on at seven hundred billion dollars($700,000,000,000.00). The auto companies got thirteen point four billion from President Bush when they “learned how to ask him nicely” ($13,400,000,000.00). How much did AIG get?
Are these real numbers? They don’t mean much to me. My paycheck has one, maybe two zeros, and those are often after the decimal point (oop$! – TMI). All of these fake numbers don’t mean much until a friend of mine says he lost his job ($0.00).
Then I start counting at one (1).

Numb and numb-er: Is trillion the new billion?

Iraq wants US out!

As the world focuses on Mumbai, and the President-elect rolls out his economic team to clean up the mess the lame duck is leaving him, Baghdad continues to move forward. Today, the Iraqi Parliament voted on a timeline for American withdrawal, with all troops out of cities and towns by December 2009, and all U.S. combat troops out of Iraq by 2011. While that’s not the sixteen-months President-elect Obama will command Secretary Gates to implement, it just goes to show that the Iraqis are tired of us being there, too.

Obama team reacts to Mumbai attacks

Iraq lawmakers OK pact allowing U.S. forces to stay through 2011

Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can break my heart.

We must scrupulously guard the civil rights and civil liberties of all citizens, whatever their background. We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our civilization.

-   Franklin D. Roosevelt

Sometimes words can be placating.  Sometimes words can be divisive.  Sometimes words can be amusing.  Sometimes words can be hurtful.  Two words of late have become both a rallying cry and an epithet – Gay Marriage.  Personally, I think those two words should be shelved in favor of more accurate words – Civil Rights.

The basic rights that all citizens of the United States enjoy are called civil rights.  They have little to do with religion, although religious freedom is first among them.  They are the security that each of us is guaranteed that our lives, liberty and pursuits of happiness will not be trampled by a large group of others who think differently.

Today, a battle has been enjoined between those who favor civil rights for all, and those who wish to curtail the civil rights of a distinct minority.  I wrote a short while ago that the same restrictions were placed upon black and white Americans in this country within my parents’ lifetimes, just forty-one years ago, that in fact Gay is the new Black.

Both in the comments section of the blog, and in numerous email conversations, I’ve been told that a) God don’t like ugly, b) gays choose to be gay, c) it’s a moral/religious issue, or d) I’m wrong for equating those who support Proposition 8 with slavecatchers.  But the link is there.  And while I was originally writing to and for my fellow black Americans, this is, much like President Elect Obama’s election, a moment of choice for all Americans.

Do “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal?”  Whether you are a God-fearing Jew, Christian, or Muslim or a heathen like Bill Maher, you have the right to worship as you choose in the United States. And whether you are in love and/or a monogamous relationship with a man or a woman, you have the right to marry them in the United States.

The Bible, the Torah and the Qur’an are the source of faith and inspiration to millions of people . . . but they are being used, as they were once by slave masters intent on shepherding their “colored children” into the arms of God with the end of a whip, to separate, to discriminate, to shield fear, hatred and prejudice.  And I’ve heard told (must have been in my confirmation class early on in life) that “the devil can quote scripture for his own purpose.”  And I’m sure some would say it of me, since I also remember Jesus saying, “that which you do unto the least of these, you do unto me.”

Are we loving our brothers and sisters?  Are we sheltering our brothers and sisters?  Are we excluding our brothers and sisters?  Are we telling them that they are not the children of God, too, because they are loving as God has shown them to love?

I’m sorry, I digressed into a philosophical question . . . must have been Keith Olbermann’s influence.  I was talking about legalizing discrimination.  I was talking about actions speaking louder than words.  Marriage is a public expression of a private commitment.  It is the celebration of union between two people who have chosen to become pillars of the community by establishing together another franchise of a pivotal institution.

An institution regulated by the State of California (or Massachusetts, or Hawaii, or Connecticut, etc.) which means that the fees paid for marriage licesnses are taxes used to support the public good; that marriages are also contracts between two people recognized by the government; that marriage is an “unalienable right” which should be accessible to all citizens – black, white, gay, straight.

We have a history in this country of thinking that civil rights belong to everyone except: the people we really don’t want to have them.  Want a list?  Plessy v. Ferguson, The Chinese Exclusion Act, English Only, Proposition 8, miscegenation laws, the Rule of Thumb, the slave codes, the black codes, the fifteenth amendment, Executive Order 9981, the ERA, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, etc.

Proposition 8 isn’t about “protecting traditional marriage.”  It isn’t about “the government supporting something God calls an abomination.”  Proposition 8 is about taking away those same civil rights fought for by the American Revolutionaries and codified in the United States’ Constitution and Bill of Rights; it’s about changing the discrimination defeated in the sixties into one supported in the new millennium; it’s about doing unto others what we would never agree to have done unto us.

Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can break my heart.  The founding of our country began with powerful words:

“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 to protect these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

The man who wrote those also wrote:

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed, from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”

I think we are responsible, as citizens, to stand up and fight tyranny in all its forms, even when it is especially when it is for others.  And so I end this as it began.

We must scrupulously guard the civil rights and civil liberties of all citizens, whatever their background. We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our civilization.

No on Proposition 8.  Yes on marriage, love, hope, and civil rights.

Same-sex marriage rallies stretch across the nation

Gay marriage supporters take to California’s streets

The End of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

California High Court Will Hear Appeal of Gay Marriage Measure

A Drum Major For Justice

The mother of one of my students sent me an email, part of a sermon she reads on Yom Kippur.  As I read it, it struck me that the truth of Robert F. Kennedy’s words is necessary now, as ever, for each of us to carry out our roles on a daily basis.

“Let no one be discouraged by the belief that there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world’s ills — against misery and ignorance, injustice and violence… Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation…
It is from the numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man (or a woman) stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he (or she) sends a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”

There is hate, anger, despair, frustration, vitriol, anxiety, insecurity and violence surrounding each of us every day.  Watching some of the political rallies of the last week, it has become disturbingly commonplace.  Whether we choose to incorporate those negative emotions into our mental matrix, to expel them on others because “misery loves company,” is a decision we make.  At times, watching the course of this campaign from way back, watching people scream at each other because they refused to embrace their common humanity, it has been discouraging.

But I’m sure that it was at times discouraging for my great great grandmother to be born into slavery and to live through emancipation and into Jim Crow; I’m sure it was at times discouraging for my grandfather to spend the last years of his life battling a disease that ate him slowly enough for him to know and dread it, but quickly enough for him to lament; I’m sure that marching, protesting, writing and speaking to inspire a nation to rise up to its better self was at times discouraging for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and I realize that these trials and tribulations are important, but, in the immortal words, “this too, shall pass.”

And what then is our legacy, as citizens of this country and this world in 2008?  What is the legacy that I leave to my seven and nine year olds?  How are we carrying on the traditions and ideals handed us in the founding documents?  How shall we hand over our country and the world to those who come behind?

I choose to think that we leave it as we live it.  That the daily example my children and students see in my actions, words and love for them will propel them to live their lives with love, compassion, honesty, joy, exuberance and empathy.  That in my giving to them all that I can, they will in turn give of what they have and who they are to be and become great people.  That President Clinton was right when he said that people, “are more impressed with the power of [your] example, than by the example of [your] power.”  Dr. King put it another way:

Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. (Amen) Say that I was a drum major for peace. (Yes) I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. (Yes) I won’t have any money to leave behind. I won’t have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind. (Amen) And that’s all I want to say.

If I can help somebody as I pass along, If I can cheer somebody with a word or song, If I can show somebody he’s traveling wrong, Then my living will not be in vain. If I can do my duty as a Christian ought, If I can bring salvation to a world once wrought, If I can spread the message as the master taught, Then my living will not be in vain.

It is up to us to be those “numberless diverse acts.”  It is up to us to “help somebody as [we] pass along.”  This is why writing, reading, speaking, sharing, actively participating in civil service is so necessary, right now!  And how we do is as important as what we do.  Our actions speak louder than our words. Reading these words, and others inspires me to go out and ask friends and family, “are you registered to vote?“; inspires me to keep typing in the hopes that one more word will encourage someone to reach up to their better selves, rather than fall down into selfishness and despair; encourages me to keep on “working for the good.”  It’s funny . . . I’ve heard some people say, “all Senator Obama offers is Hope.”  My response is, “Isn’t that a great place to start?”

I’ll leave you with a little inspiration from MC Yogi.  I think he’s feelin’ what I’m feelin’!

The Hate that Hate Produced

Terrorists have struck again on American soil.  Seven years after 9/11, John McCain is running for president of these United States by saying he is a war hero and he is the defender of our national security.  He’s a liar, a pirate, and a thief.  Standing in front of millions of people on Friday night, the lies that he’s been telling and the hate that he’s been fomenting by word and deed finally came to fruition in another act of domestic terrorism.

Children in Dayton, Ohio were attacked Friday night with a chemical irritant while their parents were attending services.  They were attacked by supporters of John McCain, who said, “the greatest single threat to the United States is Muslim extremists.”  The attack was perpetrated because they were Muslim, and for no other reason, by a group of people supporting John McCain for president by producing hate films.  While John McCain stood at the podium, these children choked and gagged.  While he spouted the lies he’s been practicing against Senator Obama, children screamed and begged for their parents.  While he shook hands and strolled off into the night, they whimpered and pleaded to return to Syria and Iraq, a nation he is so proud of invading.  Are you kidding?

President Bill Clinton said in his speech at the Democratic National Convention, “the world has always been more impressed by the power of our example, than by the example of our power.”  The terrorists that did this followed John McCain’s example.  He has decided that his integrity is irrelevant to this campaign, and these hate mongers have none.

This is the man who wants to go into Russia over Georgia; who is reading the alphabet in the Russian Prime Minister’s eyes; who is still fighting the Vietnam War even though he sat it out; who is singing songs about bombing other countries;  who said Friday night while the attack was happening, “I’ve been a part of a war that American lost,” as if that were justification for invading Iraq, as if winning in Iraq will somehow re-write his own Vietnam experience; who spouts “the surge worked” and “victory in Iraq” as if the occupation is worth the lives lost or the money spent; whose primary example is “when you’re afraid, attack!”

John didn’t order the hit.  He didn’t place the nozzle against the window and pull the trigger.  He only stood by while the lies he has told, the policies he’s espoused, the friendships he’s fostered, bore strange fruit.  Whether he’s suffering from overreaching ambition (“I didn’t decide to run for president to start a national crusade for the political reforms I believed in or to run a campaign as if it were some grand act of patriotism”) or just feeling the effects of his PTSD, John McCain has lost what honor he once earned and is assured of finding Osama Bin Laden in hell, because he’s earned a spot at the right hand.

I called him a liar, because he’s stopped telling the truth.  I called him a pirate, because he continues to take the work of others and claim it for his own.  I called him a thief because he’s stolen what the United States and the presidency is supposed to be and left a shell in its place.

“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those, who, in times of moral crisis, remain neutral.” – Dante

This guy isn’t even neutral.  He’s working for the dark side.  I won’t hear one word from him or Steve Schmidt or Rick Davis about this attack, about his supporters, because whatever helps him win is okay.  That’s why he’s not said anything about the Michigan Republican Party using home foreclosures to keep Democratic voters off the voter registration lists, or any of the other crap that’s going on.  Unfettered ambition, or post-traumatic stress disorder – John McCain is a danger to himself, the United States and the world.

Cross posted at Will Rhodes Portmanteau on September 29, 2008.