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Beware the Ides of March and Republican voter theft. Don't wait until November 4th to vote people. Let's look back at 2000 and 2004 shall we.
1. The lines may be long and you might be cut off.
2. Some voting places may suddenly not be available.
3. The police may block the roads leading to your specific one.
4. Your name may be removed from the voter roll.
5. Someone might challenge you for wearing an Obama pin.
6. You might be refused because of an error in how your name was listed.
These are just some of the ways an election can be stolen. Don't be lulled into complacency either. The corporate media reporting of poll numbers that favor Obama is not an accident. Don't start celebrating a 'win' just yet. He still has to cross that finish line. Our votes will put him there (if you are so inclined to do so).
All I have to say is this: if the opposition candidates would rely on their message and had a strong platform then tampering with votes should not be necessary. On the other hand some people are only interested in maintaining a status quo and making their friends rich at the expense of everybody else and will do whatever they think will tilt the results their way.
The Brennan Center for Justice is an excellent resource. Also Vote for Change. Make sure you are registered and able to vote. The earlier the better!! Like healthcare, it is a right not a privilege. We must be diligent and actively engaged.
Our battle has only just begun. This country is broke. According to the former Comptroller General (did you know we even had one?) the real national debt is close to $50 TRILLION. I just did a quick search and found a wiki entry that has it listed at $59.1 TRILLION. That breaks down to more than $516K per person. Our greed is going to keep us in beggar status unless we change our spending ways. We will not really be free until we end our dependence on oil and driving big cars. We need to cut back on our use of electricity and maybe lay off the bottled water while we're at it. Are there really that many fresh springs in the world to support our designer water habit?
Think about this for a moment: we buy water. There are people who are suffering the effects of drought and have to walk 20 miles for water or drink contaminated water. This is in addition to the water we use and pay for that's provided by our local municipality. So we pay twice. Then let's take into account other wasteful spending by the gov't and fraud. How can we wonder why we are in so much debt?
So we need to examine our motivations and actions as well as monitoring those that don't have the country's best interests at heart. Get out and vote and take it from there.
I saw this posted over at Black Girls Rock blog and immediately had to have a drink with ice cubes. If these two aren't dating in real life I suspect their reel life might lend to a modification with a quickness! The guy is hot, haut, haute and he is certainly enjoying his 'acting' assignment. This is why the right kind of erotica is such a visual stimulator and so satisfying!
It was in a scene from Matrix Reloaded where Morpheus was giving his latest pep talk/call to arms to Niobe and the rest of the humans fighting to be free from machine domination.
"All of our lives, we have fought this war. Tonight I believe we can end it. Tonight is not an accident. There are no accidents. We have not come here by chance. I do not believe in chance. When I see three objectives, three captains, three ships. I do not see coincidence, I see providence. I see purpose. I believe it our fate to be here. It is our destiny. I believe this night holds for each and every one of us, the very meaning of our lives."
**** Despite my misgivings about how not only won't it be like Christmas everyday with an Obama Presidency, but we may have to fight off a giant whitelash, lol, I have to tell you how much I'll be looking forward to standing in the freezing cold in D.C. for the inauguration. It just might happen. I'd just like to see a certain Green Party Presidential candidate with a seat at the table victorious in surviving the knife put in her back. Which I can't help but wonder if it was put there partially because she was a Black woman and betrayed by other Black people in leadership positions.
Anyhoo, I would be equally if not more giddy at a certain Michelle Robinson Obama as First Lady. That would forever put the nail in the coffin to the Daughters of the Revolution don't you think? The degrees and careers of the Obamas outside of politics are not so unique when one doesn't play into the "Black People Are Inferior" indoctrination that continues to be force-fed to this day. Actually they are not even close to being elite despite the corporate media and Rethug lying about it. Growing up poor with no pedigree one can hopefully see a trend of hard work and determination forming but certainly no white-version of affirmative action [corporate bail-outs, legacy admissions to schools, the original receipients of the GI Bill and pardons for committing crimes].
You do realize the billions of dollars that the gov't spends on helping out its 'friends' is a mere pittance compared to the few millions it spends on say Food Stamps and other social welfare programs [the bulk of which go to, you guessed it, white people]? It also shows how little they actually know about Black people in this country and the world. Or perhaps they do know but they persist in keeping the lies going and the masses just don't ask enough questions.
It's 11 weeks and counting. What will you stand for?
**** R.I.P. Rep. Tubbs-Jones.
P.S. Here's a great video from MoveOn that touches on this.
Hmmmm there's lots going on today. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones may have succumbed to life-threatening injuries.
Some Obama supporters have already given up and there's an awful lot of complaining about what he's not doing:
a. Speaking for Black People. Advocating for Black People. Talking in glowing terms about Black people. All the time!!! b. Fighting/Attacking/Kicking Ass and telling whitey that they're whitey and they're racists and they suck. c. He's too articulate. He needs to speak s-l-o-w-l-y and spell his words and use a 3rd grade primer because most voters are dumber than a doorknob.
Now I admit I'm not 100% team Obama. I have questions. I don't want any surprises. I don't expect him to save me, but I don't want to find out "Satan's" been pulling the strings either. It's beyond hope in a jar. It's like Mr. Right showing up at your door and you send him away because he's nothing like what you expected so you REJECT him. Instead you go back to the guy who cheats on you and beats you. You hate it, but not nearly enough to walk away from it. The abuse is comforting in its depravity.
We're so jaded and doubtful. We also need to think critically, hold him accountable and make sure our voices don't get drowned out. I shouldn't have to worry about that $250K donor getting access over me, but that's how this country operates. The thing is.....we can change that. Or at least lessen it's influence.
I figured it was going to be Clinton vs. Guiliani. I was not looking forward to this election cycle really because it was going to be another situation with choosing the lesser of unsatisfactory candidates. Yeah I got the "Bill Clinton was an Amazing President and Our Budget Was Balanced" memo, but..... I saw that NAFTA sucked and millions of jobs disappeared into the ether, there was a tidal wave of newly poor risking life and limb to cross the border, the FCC went to sleep, Clear Channel bought everything that wasn't nailed down and I stopped listening to the radio. Oh yeah...let's not forget WalMart and the Big Box stores taking their revenue out of their area of operation, the crappy pay and discrimination. I just couldn't get on board the Clinton Express. I didn't think staying with a man who'd humiliated you for years was a reason to vote for the wife of a former President.
Yeah, yeah I know comparing the Clintons to the Bushes is a big no-no. But those years went from bad to worse to me praying for the 2004 version of Noah's Arc so we could start over AGAIN. But my conscience is clear because I never voted for Shrub. I was in the UK in 2003. I saw the bodies of the dead children and people with limbs blown off because it wasn't censored by the media. I read articles in the newspapers protesting the war and Tony Blair's capitulation to the US. I even marched in a million-strong protest in Hyde Park. It got so bad I had to tell people I was Canadian. Being Black gave me no reprieve from the anti-US gov't and citizen outrage of the Brits and Europeans.
I was relieved when Obama started kicking butt and taking names despite a whole bunch of shade being thrown his way. By other Black people in leadership positions. By so many people who thought they were above racism. By a lot of pampered and privileged white women. By other people who either wish to co-opt or destroy what they can't control. Of course there are some deep pockets and powerful people supporting his candidacy. This country wouldn't have it any other way. It was built on back-room deals, exploitations and murder.
But let's be positive shall we? I really like Michelle. No I don't know her but she seemed like someone who knew what time it was. Of course all the attacks on her personage appear to confirm that. Yes the Obamas have to be vetted for their commitment to all of us regular folk, but we let our votes be taken for granted by white people for YEARS. Yes - some of us - have woken up. FINALLY. It's about time!
There is another great candidate running on the Green Party ticket. Cynthia McKinney. Watch American Blackout. She is fierce, she is unbossed. She was chewed up and spit out for fighting the good fight. She might still get my vote just because. If the Green Party gets 5% of the vote nation-wide they'll get Congressional representation. Anything to break up the 2-party monopoly! In a fair and just world......
So here we are 10-11 weeks away from Doomsday. How many people are going to limit themselves by voting against their interests? I'm not even going to get into why voting for McCain should result in an immediate ban from living in this country. "Satan" doesn't have to pull his strings. That was strictly a volunteer assignment! He will certainly be beneficial for the ones that benefit from back-room deals, exploitation and murder. Now is not the time to be dumb. God gives us choices and then we have to live with them. The Republicans have had free reign for 8 years and you can see the result of that. If you only care about yourself and foolishly think there won't be any blowback then go ahead and pull the lever for the liar/cheater/wife-beater.
There's things we the average Joe, Juanita, Janiqua or Jamal can do.
1. Phone Bank 2. Register people to vote 3. Sign up to be a Poll Worker - cuz you know some funny stuff will go down 4. Write about the hypocrisy of the Corporate Media and all their surrogates 5. Donate money
You know we could talk about how wrong things are, how unfair the system is, how we have questions, how we're not sure, how some candidates are not fit, how we don't like the way they're running their campaign, how we'd do things differently if WE were in charge, blah blah blah!!!!
DO SOMETHING AND STOP TALKING ABOUT DOING SOMETHING.
************************************ Remember the Macy Gray song on her debut album? I really liked it when it came out. Now that it's been nearly a decade you can see and hear how well her songs and videos have held up. She is definitely not your average girl with a record deal. We need more artists like her and Santogold and M.I.A. and Rachel Yamagata and Res and Roisin Murphy and Choklate and Zaki Ibrahim and Estelle and Sia and J*Davey and __________ add your own artist, plant the seeds and watch them grow.
