Archive for » November, 2008 «

Participate! – Tell Obama to break with Rendition and Liars about Iraq!
18
November
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I have hope that a President Obama will bring change.  But he can only do this if he is enabled by a public outcry to do the right thing.  Persistent public pressure has always been the impetus that has brought about enduring, progressive change in this country.  I’m inviting you to join me in letting our President Elect know that we are concerned about the continuation of the reprehensible policies of Extraordinary Rendition, Domestic Wiretapping, and the corruption of the Intelligence community that enabled the administration to illegally LIE to the American Congress and Public in order to launch a war on Iraq.  Two of the people responsible for these failures are John Brennan and Jami Mescik and they’re on Obama’s Intelligence Transition team.

Whenever I’m concerned about something like this, I’m visiting change.gov to let President Elect Obama know.  I’m asking you to do the same.

Read this article about who is advising him on the Intelligence Transition team.

Visit Change.gov and let Obama know you are concerned about this.

Here is what I wrote:

Hello,

I wanted to take a couple of lines to share some concerns I have about my future President’s transition team in regards to National Intelligence.  I volunteered for the Obama campaign and talked my friends in to voting Obama in the hopes that he could bring about change in some key areas.  I’m hopeful that Obama is the kind of President who will be responsive to my concerns, which I know I share with thousands of other informed Obama supporters.

I am concerned about the inclusion of John Brennan and Jami Miscik in the Intelligence Transition Team.

John Brennan supports extraordinary rendition and the Bush domestic eavesdropping program.  We need to cut ties with these kinds of programs that have so tarnished our reputation as a moral leader in the world.

Jami Miscik is partially responsible for “The Whitepaper” that provided congress with Bush’s lies to get us to go to war in Iraq.  She is partially responsible for the  lies in the damaging speech that Colin Powell gave to the UN to convince the world that war was necessary and that Iraq was an imminent threat.

I trust that President Elect Obama does not share these views nor values and I hope that he would be very skeptical of the advice given by these people when it comes to how to reform and restore the Intelligence community.  I understand the value of dissenting views, but these sorts of destructive, unAmerican, and dishonest characters do not have a place in a quality American government.

Thank you for listening,
Jayson P. Vucovich

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Uniquely American, Isn’t It?
14
November
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“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much. It is whether we provide enough to those who have too little.” -FDR

“If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.” – JFK

“You work three jobs? Uniquely American, isn’t it? I mean, that is fantastic that you’re doing that.” – George W. Bush, to a divorced mother of three

In 1991, an LA Times Poll found that only 23% of Americans believe the state has a responsibility to take care of the poor.  What country in Europe is closest to us in this regard?  Germany at 50%.  Every other European country was far more than twice as likely to disagree.  Every other country in Europe also has a far narrower gap between the rich and the poor.  We’re somewhere between The Philippines and Mexico (by Gini Index.)  The “richest nation in the world” has 15 million children live in poverty.

But there is ALWAYS money to fight a war against people who didn’t attack us or money to protect golden parachutes!  There’s a government guarantee for money in the bank, but as a nation, we are morally bankrupt when it comes to our priorities.  Uniquely American, Isn’t it?

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Pallin’ Around with Domestic Terrorists…
14
November
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I hope it’s not telling that my first post ended up being one about Bill Ayers.  I’ve been waiting to write some deep treatise on what I believe, what my values are, and how that shapes my politics.  But that hasn’t happened (yet).  Instead, I was so struck by two things said in the first interview with Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn after the election that I had to share them.

I think it is a very provocative juxtaposition to have this couple, much maligned by the GOP, speak for a message of bottom-up change and fearlessness.

First, Bernadine discusses the biggest change to come from the result of the election:

And it does represent two important things, at least. One of them, it seems to me, is a pretty decisive rejection of the politics of fear, whether it’s fear that there’s some secret cell of domestic terrorists from the ’60s hanging around or fear that our major primary approach to the world and to raising our children should be one of fear. Obviously, life is—includes tragedy and pain and suffering, and that will come along, but approaching the world as five percent of the world’s people now seems possible, adjusting how the United States thinks of itself in the world. That’s, to me, an enormous thing.

The other striking part of the interview, for me, comes just a moment before when Bill Ayers says:

The question is, as Bernadine is saying, how do we build the movement on the ground that demands peace, that demands justice? This is always the question. It’s happening—the question is being raised in a new context. So how do—you know, I often think, thinking historically, Lyndon Johnson wasn’t the civil rights movement, but he was an effective politician who passed civil rights legislation. FDR wasn’t a labor leader. Lincoln didn’t belong to an abolitionist party. They all responded to something going on on the ground. And in a lot of ways, we have to get beyond—progressive people have to get beyond the idea that we’re waiting for a savior. We’re not waiting for a savior. We need to transform ourselves, transform our movements, reach out to one another and build an irresistible social force for change.

We are the change we have been waiting for.  The campaign slogan was not, “Yes I can,” but rather, “Yes, WE can!”

Read, Watch, or Listen to the interview at Democracy Now!

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