what do you think i’d see, if i could walk away from me?

So I think one of the strangest things in life is the way we relate to and come into contact with mortality. One of my close friends died when I was a teenager, and it was hard but not as much as I thought it would be or perhaps wanted it to be.

A unique aspect of this issue is the public death or the death of pop-cultural figures. It isn't important that we never knew the people. What they did and who they were meant something to us just the same as friends and family. Yet there must be a difference. To try to understand this I thought about the many people famous people who have died that have meant something to me, and there are three that define this phenomenon for me more than any others: Heath Ledger, Kurt Vonnegut, and Lou Reed.

I remember Heath Ledger’s death. I learned about it at work in San Francisco when I was working for the government. That was probably 2007. He was an incredible actor, and he was probably around my age. It was strange to think of him dying. It felt like I had been robbed of seeing more of him. It was sad. It was also interesting because when I went to tell one of my coworkers she told me she’d already learned that “like an hour ago.” It was odd at the time to think of the competition she felt about who learned news the fastest. This is now a daily occurrence.


Kurt Vonnegut died around the same time -- I’m going to guess also in 2007 -- while I was working in San Francisco. When we heard, we started talking about his books, and I even went and bought a copy of Welcome to the Monkey House at a shop on Van Ness. I remembered reading Breakfast of Champions in high school and thinking for the first time: “Wow this guy is saying some things I’ve never heard before. Critical, yet informed things about America. Cool.” It made me sad to know that he had died, but he was old, and he seemed to want to go. He kept mentioning the disastrous state of the world and saying that humans were no good for the earth. So maybe it was a plus for him.


Finally just yesterday Lou Reed died. I've spent a lot of time in my life listening to the music of the Velvet Underground. I can probably sing every word to all four of their albums except for “The Murder Mystery” from White Light/White Heat. I have learned and sung many songs by them over the years: “Candy Says,” “Pale Blue Eyes,” “Jesus,” “Who Loves the Sun,” “I’m Waiting for the Man,” and others. Some of his solo stuff is also amazing. I swear, I even enjoy Metal Machine Music in the background. I don’t really care if it was a joke. But Lou Reed has been mostly irrelevant for years so I am not sure how sad I really am.

Reed and Vonnegut weren’t producing much of interest anymore, but they meant a lot to me over the years. Ledger was a wonderful actor who was just starting out. Maybe some day I’ll understand why it is certain deaths mean more to me than others. Maybe I’ll understand my reaction to these deaths and my reaction to deaths of people close to me. Right now though I am lucky as I don’t have much experience. I’m sure I will learn more in the future, and that is something that's bittersweet. It'll make me cherish the times I live, the music I’ve grown up with, and the friends I’ve made all the more. Without death I probably wouldn’t care much about now. Cliched but true.

red bulls - champions

So tonight the team that I’ve followed week in week out for the past 3.5 seasons won the Supporters' Shield for MLS. This means they have the best record, and in any other league in the world this is the real prize. In MLS, it is the second most important win behind the MLS Cup. They are the home team for the whole playoffs up to that. The final, if New York makes it, is in New York on December 7th. Maybe I can go for a great sendoff!

What an amazing game 5-2 over Chicago. It was a very happy moment for me but it was also a bit sad. It is almost certainly the perfect capper for my time as a Red Bulls fan in New Jersey but I know that I won’t be able to follow them the same in the future. The games won’t be available and even if they were they’d be on at something like 1 in the morning often. Unless I use a VPN and pay for MLS Live. It still won’t be the same.

But hey what a way to go out. Tim Cahill, Thierry Henry, Dax McCarty, Lloyd Sam, Markus Holgersson, Ibrahim Sekagya, Jamison Olave, David Carney, Péguy Luyindula, Luis Robles, Jonny Steele, Fabian Espindola, Ryan Meara, Eric Alexander, Kosuke Kimora, Connor Lade, Roy Miller, Brandon Barklage, Bradley Wright-Philips, Kevin Hartman, Ian Christianson, Heath Pearce, Marius Obekop, Andre Akpan, Amando Moreno, Matt Miazga, Ruben Bover, Michael Bustamante, Santiago Caetano, Andy Roxburg, Jérôme de Bontin, Robin Fraser, and of course MIKE PETKE! Thank you all.

an american fiat

When I think of the most important things to me I always focus on travel. For me like everyone else travel is primarily about discovery. I zero in on the small details that collectively make up the character of a place in my understanding. 5-cent rolls in Berlin. The subway announcements which sounded as if they ended in “klariodnok” in Budapest. The sparkling orange-ish soda in the bahamas. Yet what remains in my mind more than anything are the everyday things that show evidence of history. As my life has focused on the part of the world which used to be governed by communism, related imagery is of paramount importance to me. The silence on public transportation in eastern Berlin. The Soviet-produced subway trains in Budapest. The word “Kosmonaut” in eastern dialects of German. Yet somehow the most important artifacts are the cars. The German Trabi, the Czech Skoda, and the Polish Mały Fiat. Now I know Fiat is Italian but for me the Italian Fiat is a glamorous car driven by people in Milan who spend thousands of dollars on clothes from companies involving names like Ferragamo. My knowledge of Italy Fiat and whoever Salvatore Ferragamo is is minimal but that’s not the point; it is unique from its Polish comrade. The Mały Fiat (or Little Fiat) is only Italian for me insofar as it is a symbol of a foreign company sending in their products for profits which would never benefit Poland. In Poland, the Mały Fiat is a comically tiny car observable everywhere, a symbol of economic imperialism and poverty. I am making no argument based on these claims as to its presence in the U.S. It was just anathema to me to see it here. Of course this is a mighty fine version of the Polish clunker sitting next to my car in the faculty lot here at The College of New Jersey.

remembrance of things passed

This is a perfect title for a blog of mine. It does several things. First it is a literary reference. This shows one side of me. It is also a reference to a book I haven’t read which also seems appropriate. It is furthermore wordplay something I also enjoy. Beyond this it speaks to nostalgia something that I feel becomes more and more appropriate to life as one grows in age. God help me when I truly understand nostalgia. It could also be seen as a sad sense of opportunities not taken. Finally it is a joke. I think of tests, gas, and kidney stones. A bad joke or an unfunny one completes the picture.

normative barbecuing

It is an interesting phenomenon how we gain a great a deal of enjoyment from basic things simply because we associate them with a collective identity. I understand that food cooked on a barbecue is especially good and that it is fun to sit outside fire up a grill and have a conversation… and a drink. I never really did any of that as a kid though. In Arizona the grill was outside and we were inside because the phenomenon of a grill warming you up as the sun goes down and the temperatures drop does not really work there. As an adult in Princeton and in Poland and now in Plainsboro I have learned to love it. I feel like I am doing what I am supposed to do with a slab of meat and charcoal. What exactly is it however that that makes it so satisfying? It connects me to some sense of belonging though I am not sure to what. I understand the enjoyment that comes from communal events even when there is no community present. Many people have religion which can still provide people with strength everyday even if they only worship once a week. I personally have politics music and soccer to keep me sane. I suppose we all have social media. The extent to which sites like Facebook and Tumblr are successful because we actually feel like we are socializing with real people is unclear to me. But in all these situations the communities are more clearly defined or at least I feel I understand the others involved even if I am completely unaware of a group’s actual makeup. Barbecuing however connects me to some unknown community. Adults perhaps? I do not know. I guess what I am ultimately saying is that my enjoyment of barbecuing stems from a desire for community through normative behavior without being sure what community or why it is useful to understand a rather general style of cooking as normative. In the end maybe I should stop thinking so much and instead of barbecuing on a cold Sunday evening I should just watch football … like a normal American.

the audacity of shutter speed

I love this image. Visually thematically and if you’ll allow it terminologically. Visually it is stunning. Seeing the movement of light never gets tiring. Thematically it is a rebuke of everything that I despise about modern “conservative” politics. Terminologically I like the fact that instead of a general affront to the Romney campaign or to Governor Walker of Wisconsin (I in fact have no idea. I only know that this comes from Wisconsin.) it refers to a specific political-philosophical approach to debt. On a higher level I enjoy the image because of how the photographer uses shutter speed (presumably as I know quite little about photography) to represent time. With an extremely rapid shutter speed we would be left wondering where this photo was taken. Or why we should question austerity. Or perhaps we would start to get angry at the Romney campaign as a conduit for our animosity resulting from our “progressive” views. However by showing us the time lapse in the image we are left to think about the photographer. We think about the individuals in the cars who must have seen this even as the rays of light carried their message from the bridge. We think about the itch in the hair of the woman holding the q or how cold the cars rushing by must have made it on that Wisconsin night. Maybe it was summer? We are left to think of this protest as one of individuals who believe in what they are doing and not simply as a message on a bridge. It is a method of revealing the presentation in the product itself. It uses the Verfremdungseffekt to stop us from simply focusing on the words themselves and instead realize that they were produced and that this was carried out by people with actual grievances. Perhaps people without health insurance. By announcing him/herself in the shutter speed we grasp the entirety of the event’s background and understand more deeply the meaning of the protestors’ argument. Instead of simply affirming the argument we are left wanting to act. Exactly as Brecht intended.

(1st post new concept) not quite mirror images

This is a great first picture for this account. It shows a modern Apple laptop with various cables showing that I have various iDevices. In the background there are a few purses and an old mirror on the floor. Furthermore the image is grainy because I was fiddling with Instagram filters as I learned how to use that App on my phone. This post was originally on Tumblr. It is interesting that there are two drastically different phenomena here. On the one side there are fashionable purses modern laptop iDevices and social media. On the we have the graininess of the image and the older mirror. Without the mirror and the graininess this would be an extremely cold and boring picture of purses laptops and implied iPhones and iPads. With the presence of the mirror and the Instagram-enabled “old” look the image takes on a warmth. Are we not driving a strong wedge between ourselves and the past throwing out all of our old possessions in favor of digital versions and then using this new technology to recreate false versions of our past? I suppose that is what people do in life. Or at least me. I constantly run away from the past mostly in embarrassed horror and then attempt to recreate it in an updated version. I make playlists to evoke emotions from middle school and prepare food just like my parents made it but with certain ingredients altered to fit my tastes. There is nothing wrong with any of this. However as this blog will dwell heavily on such issues I wanted to point out the appropriateness of this image.

President Barack Hussein Obama II

The news media would like to think this is a day for:

African-Americans
Immigrants
Post-Partisanship (civility)
Democrats
Minorities
Etc.

Nonononono. Today is a day for intellectualism, progressivism, leftism and secularism, which encompass and thus result in all of the things above and more. Societal groups cannot and do not exist within a vacuum and this is a major paradigm shift.

Because of this, at least for today and for the first time in at least 8 years, I will feel comfortable listening to our National Anthem. Perhaps I might even think about purchasing a flag.

Today is a good day for me to write a diary again.

Princeton!!!!!!!

No Bust.

From my future Senator

Menendez: McCain Has Taken Sides with Hardliners and Anti-Immigrants

One of Congress' most influential Hispanic members says that John McCain "walked away" from the Latino community and is not a "person of principle" on immigration reform -- a perception that could haunt the Arizona Republican in the general election.

In an interview with The Huffington Post, Sen. Robert Menendez offered a scathing rebuke of McCain, painting him as a candidate who sold his political soul to secure his party's presidential nomination.

"In my mind, he has dramatically shifted. He has really taken a Republican tact," said the New Jersey Democrat. "It seems to me, and it is out there in the community, that he walked away at a critical time. And when you take that view, which shows that he is not the person of principle that he would like to show himself being, and you wear the Republican mantle that is so negative and anti-immigrant... I think it is very hard for John McCain to make hay with Latinos at the end of the day."

During the course of the Republican primary, McCain veered away from his support of a comprehensive immigration reform bill, citing, openly, the political pressures being put on him by the conservative base.

"I understand why you would call it a, quote, shift," McCain told reporters. "I say it is a lesson learned about what the American people's priorities are. And their priority is to secure the borders."

Ultimately, the move helped McCain net his party's nomination. But not without a cost. As Menendez argues, many now believe that the GOP nominee caved for political gain; something McCain's camp adamantly denies.

"Everyone knows that John McCain risked his political life to lead on the bipartisan immigration reform effort last year," his spokesperson Brian Rogers told The Huffington Post. "He bucked his party in the middle of a presidential campaign, and was attacked relentlessly for it. These cheap partisan attacks are unfortunate and absurd."

How McCain transitions on immigration during the general election could, in the end, be a major determinant of his candidacy's success. Will he try to champion his initial position, which included pathways towards citizenship for illegal immigrants already in the country? Or will any move away from conservative orthodoxy be seen, as Menendez predicts, as a flip-flop-flip of historic proportions?

"The question that I would ask is: 'How are we supposed to believe you?' said Menendez. "Considering what they did to John Kerry on the question of the war, this would be much easier to do with John McCain. It would be: 'I was with you, before I was against you, before I was with you.'"

Those questions will come into sharp focus in July, when McCain is scheduled to appear before the National Council of La Raza, a pro-immigration group that took great umbrage with his adopted hard-line mentality.

"I expect him to try and dissemble and speak in ways that would lead you to the impression that we have to have comprehensive immigration reform," said Menendez. "But the question that has to be posed to him, first and foremost, is... how are we supposed to believe you in the first place, when you previously said something different? I think he's made his bed. He's tried to have it both ways and he came to the conclusion that to win the Republican primary he had to fall in bed with all the hardliners and anti-immigrants. And I think he will not successfully equivocate on this."

Menedez's critique of McCain's immigration policy is the hardest yet during the general election campaign. Various pro-immigration groups and elected officials had previously taken the Arizona Republican to task for his shifted position. But colleagues in the Senate have, by and large, kept their powder dry.

That said, Menendez wasn't 100 percent convinced that the Latino vote would break overwhelmingly for Barack Obama. While recent polling has the Illinois Democrat doing better among Hispanics than Sen. John Kerry in 2004, the numbers may not be enough to change the dynamics of the election.

"The latest poll I saw was Latinos supporting Obama over McCain by a margin of 60-40," said Menendez. "To be honest with you, we can't afford that. I think the Republicans would be happy if they go 40 percent of the Latino vote particularly in key states. If they could achieve that they will be on the road to the White House. I do think Obama will ultimately do well with Latino voters, but there is work to be done."

And what would that work be? Menendez suggested that the presumptive Democratic nominee talk to the Latinos about issues like health care and the economy, both of which disproportionately affect the Hispanic-American community. But there was a short-term solution as well.

Picking Hillary Clinton as vice president "would solidify the Latino situation immediately," said Menendez, a national co-chair of the Clinton campaign, "because she overwhelmingly had that support across the country."

Obama/Tusk '08 - Steal your grandmother's ID

In recent years, the Polish government has been dominated by identical twin brothers, Lech and Jarosław Kaczyński. Jarosław is the leader of their party, Law and Justice (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, PiS).

In 2005, after serving as the mayor of Warsaw, Lech declared that he would run for President of Poland. He said that if he won and his party took control of the Sejm (Parliament), someone else besides Jarosław would serve as the Prime Minister. Nevertheless, after Lech won the Presidential election, and his party became the majority, his brother became Prime Minister anyway. The two of them led the country, pushing for a very conservative, traditional Catholic platform, including a ban on Warsaw Gay Pride parade, continued abortion bans, and a relationship with the EU marked by extreme animosity. They were often seen as the most troublesome EU member country. They wholeheartedly supported the Bush Administration, the Iraq War, the missile shield and they even traveled to the US to speak at radical Christian fundamentalist meetings. More or less, they functioned as the Bush(es) of Europe.

In late 2007, to the relief of many, the Polish government fell apart and elections were held. The lead candidate for the main opposition party, the center (perhaps even center-right) Civic Platform (Platforma Obywatelska, PO) was the young, affable Donald Tusk.

Tusk ran a campaign of tolerance, promising to loosen Catholicism's grasp on the Polish government, establish better relations with Germany and the EU, discuss reparations with Jews who had lost their homes during the Holocaust, push tolerance (perhaps even for same-sex couples, something unheard of in Polish government), revisit the decision to allow the US to build a missile defense system near the Ukrainian border and withdraw Polish troops from Iraq.

Now for the fun. It was extremely exciting for a country still reeling from the end of the Cold War. The older generations were afraid of some of the changes pushed by Tusk, while the younger generation and the urbanites cheered in delight. Tusk even had the foresight to travel to England to campaign where over a million Poles now work to make ends meet. He was reaching out to the industrious, educated youth. Again, sound familiar?

In the lead up to election day, young Poles created a plethora of youtube videos, advertisements and songs, and used mass text messages to promote their candidate for change. The massive generation gap made it clear that the GOTV campaign for the younger generation was the only hope for Donald Tusk. The advertisements took this into account.

There were joke ads about how the twins would switch places without anyone else knowing and that's why their administration was in such disarray.
Kaczyński is derived from the word "kaczka", which means "duck", so some ads mocked the election as "Donald vs. the Ducks".

The best ad encouraged young people to "Steal your grandmother's ID", thus allowing the youth vote to reign and running one of the Ducks out of office. While the ruling government fumed, the young people laughed and fought on. And Tusk won! After a few days of pouting, Lech admitted his brother's loss and Poland was rid of one Duck.

Now, only backwards Lech remains as President, while tolerant, young Tusk and his centrist party start moving Poland forward. And Poland, Europe and the world breathed a sigh of relief! Sound vaguely familiar?

Perhaps in the states where ID is required (Indiana, right?), we can encourage the same thing to stop the out-of-touch McCain:

Obama '08 - Steal your grandmother's ID

We can only dream, because in reality that's disenfranchisement..... hehe.

a nytimes article on the subject if you're interested

Congratulations!

Congratulation Barack Hussein Obama and family!

I am extremely proud of our nation today.

It's on to Washington, President Obama. Hail to the Chief!

Do not go gentle....

into that good night, rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Hang in there Mr. Kennedy.......

Same-Sex Marriage Is Legal in CA!

"In contrast to earlier times, our state now recognizes that an individual's capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual's sexual orientation, and, more generally, that an individual's sexual orientation -- like a person's race or gender -- does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights." -CA Supreme Court

She's done! (from Der Spiegel)

CLINTON IM AUS

Das Ende einer Ära

Die frühere First Lady hat hoch gepokert. Und verloren. Wenn nicht noch ein Wunder geschieht, ist Barack Obama der Kandidat der Demokraten - in einem dramatischen Finale wurde heute Nacht die Ära Clinton beendet.

CLINTON IS DONE

The End of an Era

The earlier First Lady bet everything. And she lost. Unless a miracle occurs, Barack Obama is the Democratic candidate for president - in a dramatic finish, today signals the end of the Clinton Era.

I do not understand.

I just finished reading my Christmas present from Agnieszka, "Inny świat" (or "Another World") by Gustaw Herling-Grudziński (written as Gustav Herling on the jacket....) It is his account of his life in the GULAG (a word which happens to be an acronym for Главное Управление Исправительно-Трудовых Лагерей и колоний, ГУЛАГ, Glavnoye Upravlyeniye ispravitel'no-trudovich LAGeryei i kolonii or Main Administration for Corrective Labor Camps and Colonies...... and actually refers to the prison system rather than the prisons themselves.....).

He ends the book with an amazing epilogue. He has been released from the prison as part of a much-belated general amnesty for Poles after the Sikorski-Mayski Agreement that allied Poland with the USSR against the Germans in 1941. He joined the Polish Army and, after the war, ended up in Rome. He was working at a government newspaper when he was approached by a former Polish Jewish cellmate, who had a similar story. The man had been the prisoner that announced the Fall of Paris to Gustaw in 1940. It signaled the end of all hope for the prisoners.... The then allied Germans and Russians had effectively conquered Europe; only London was left. The Poles would never be freed...... This man had been released under the same agreement as Gustaw, joined the Red Army, was injured, joined the Polish army and stormed Warsaw. There, he found all of his extended family dead, and he escaped to Italy.

Now, at the end, he has come to Gustaw for help. He wants to tell him a story of his life in the zone (what they call the GULAG), to which he would like Gustaw to simply reply "I understand". His story is that he was taken from a reasonable job in the zone and worked ragged in the Siberian forest for a few months. He was then taken before 4 of his fellow prisoners, Germans. The authorities wanted him to sign a statement claiming that he had heard the Germans discussing the impending fall of Moscow to Hitler. If he did as much, he would be allowed to leave the forest and go back to his previous, comparatively cushy, engineering job. He chose to sign the statement. He then heard the four Germans get shot.

Our hero Gustaw mulls the story over, remembering the depravity and horror to which he was driven, while in the zone. He decides that he has to make a similar choice to that of his friend. He can help his friend by condoning his actions and thus suffer -- this would mean reentering the realm of altered morals and lack of humanity that had existed during their incarceration -- or he can choose to escape this fate and remain a human being.

From the end of the book, after his friend has finished his story and is hoping for his "I understand":

'The choice was the same: it had been his life or the lives of the four Germans, now it was his peace or mine. No, I could not say it.
"Well?" he asked quietly.
I got up from the bed and without looking him in the eyes walked over to the window. With my back to the room I heard him going out and gently closing the door. I pushed the blind up. On the Piazza Colonna a cool breath of afternoon air had straightened the passers-by, as it would a field of corn bowed to the ground by drought. Drunk American and English soldiers walked along the pavements, pushing the Italians aside, picking up girls, looking for shade under the striped awnings of shops. Under the pillars of the corner house the black market was in full swing. The Roman "lazzaroni", small ragged war-children, dived in and out between the legs of enormous negroes in American uniforms. The war had ended a month ago. Rome was free, Brussels was free, Oslo was free, Paris was free. Paris, Paris, Paris....
I watched him as he walked out of the hotel, tripped across the road like a bird with a broken wing, and disappeared in the crowd without looking back.
The End'

Amazing book. Thank you Agnieszka.

Tonight I met Cindy Sheehan

(Welcome to my first diary on DailyKos..... so far, including my contributions, I have 38 comments and 17 recs.)
I live in CA-8, Nancy Pelosi’s district. In fact, I live right in the middle of downtown San Francisco. I see, literally every day, some of the ills of gentrification, as well as the high-rise development in downtown and the dire situation of drug use and homelessness that plagues our nation. I have lived in and traveled all over Europe, and I’ve never seen the devastation of the San Francisco Tenderloin.

I have been following this presidential race obsessively, first cheering for Obama, then Edwards, then Clinton, then Obama again, then Clinton again, then Edwards again, and finally Obama. Now, without any reservations, I am strongly behind Obama. I currently live in CA-8, but will soon be moving to central NJ.
Tonight, however, I faced one of the most interesting tests in the development of my political thought. I grew up in suburban Phoenix, believing in Bill Clinton due to my parents, reading Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky and listening to Rage Against the Machine and hardcore. I was the stereotypical simplistic radical teenager. I voted for Ralph Nader (and not only do I stand by my vote, I challenge anyone to convince me that Nader is to blame, rather than the US Supreme Court, the Florida Supreme Court, the Republican Party, George W. Bush, the Democratic Party, Al Gore, the media, etc. etc). Yet, I heard Democrats claiming that by supporting a Green, I had betrayed the Democratic Party. I had to remind them that the Democratic Party was only the answer insofar as it represented my views..... and Gore had not.
Finally though, I went to Berkeley and watched my (theoretical) wing of the Democratic Party grow and come into conflict with the moderates on one side and those prone to radical ignorance on the other. I strongly pushed for social programs, for civil liberties and for tolerance. Those were my biggest concerns and issues. I finally became a Democrat.
Then, the war came. I was told, by two Japanese friends of my girlfriend, almost with glee, "your country just bombed Iraq". I cried at the University Health Center, watching pictures of "shock and awe". I had opposed both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. I was disappointed in us, the people of the US. I loved my East Bay representative Barbara Lee for her contributions to our country. Yet nobody listened. And people died.
Suddenly, Cindy Sheehan came forward and spoke on behalf of her son. He was killed for an embarrassing, horrifying and destructive war. I saw her as a person in more than legitimate pain for the loss of a family member. Then, I saw her lampooned by the media. She was called crazy, delusional, an anti-Semite, etc. I began to ignore her.....
But it was entirely unfair. Tonight, she held a fundraiser in San Francisco for her campaign to take on Nancy Pelosi for the CA-8 seat in 2008. I watched her discuss her points. I didn’t think she represented her angle well. She sounded like a naïve groupie who was preaching to the choir. BUT then she started discussing Iraq. The obscenities started to fly. She was no longer the friendly, understanding person who had begun the discussion. Her passion overwhelmed me. I FELT her point. Here was a woman who had been completely devastated by the disastrous policies of my government and she was lashing out, screaming, "LISTEN TO ME!!!!!!"
Despite the errors of the activists that represent the left, we need to hear the voice of people like Cindy Sheehan. As much as we try to theorize about the political aspects of our current or future administrations, we are not allowed to fail to understand that people’s lives are at stake. Not just Cindy Sheehan’s son. Also: the children of countless others whose kids/parents/boyfriends/girlfriends/brothers/sisters are dying in Iraq; the Iraqis who’ve died by the hundreds of thousands; the victims of Hurricane Katrina who died, suffered and continue to suffer while our government just sits; low-income families who have to live with little income and no health insurance, and countless, COUNTLESS, other victims that I’m too angry to be able to name.
In the end, I don’t support Cindy Sheehan’s candidacy, because I don’t think she has the knowledge to lead our country. However, I have to say, and I want to repeat, ad infinitum, that her grievances are real, that the grievances of all our citizens are real...... and that this election is the fight of our lives.... THE FIGHT... OF OUR LIVES. This could be the twilight of our nation, and it is up to us to pull it back from despair, if only to preserve it for another generation of two. I’m sure you know whom I will be voting for. I hope you do the same. If you need a little guidance, think of those like Cindy Sheehan.

This editorial is perfect

From the NYTimes

The Low Road to Victory

Published: April 23, 2008

The Pennsylvania campaign, which produced yet another inconclusive result on Tuesday, was even meaner, more vacuous, more desperate, and more filled with pandering than the mean, vacuous, desperate, pander-filled contests that preceded it.

Voters are getting tired of it; it is demeaning the political process; and it does not work. It is past time for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to acknowledge that the negativity, for which she is mostly responsible, does nothing but harm to her, her opponent, her party and the 2008 election.

If nothing else, self interest should push her in that direction. Mrs. Clinton did not get the big win in Pennsylvania that she needed to challenge the calculus of the Democratic race. It is true that Senator Barack Obama outspent her 2-to-1. But Mrs. Clinton and her advisers should mainly blame themselves, because, as the political operatives say, they went heavily negative and ended up squandering a good part of what was once a 20-point lead.

On the eve of this crucial primary, Mrs. Clinton became the first Democratic candidate to wave the bloody shirt of 9/11. A Clinton television ad — torn right from Karl Rove’s playbook — evoked the 1929 stock market crash, Pearl Harbor, the Cuban missile crisis, the cold war and the 9/11 attacks, complete with video of Osama bin Laden. “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen,” the narrator intoned.

If that was supposed to bolster Mrs. Clinton’s argument that she is the better prepared to be president in a dangerous world, she sent the opposite message on Tuesday morning by declaring in an interview on ABC News that if Iran attacked Israel while she were president: “We would be able to totally obliterate them.”

By staying on the attack and not engaging Mr. Obama on the substance of issues like terrorism, the economy and how to organize an orderly exit from Iraq, Mrs. Clinton does more than just turn off voters who don’t like negative campaigning. She undercuts the rationale for her candidacy that led this page and others to support her: that she is more qualified, right now, to be president than Mr. Obama.

Mr. Obama is not blameless when it comes to the negative and vapid nature of this campaign. He is increasingly rising to Mrs. Clinton’s bait, undercutting his own claims that he is offering a higher more inclusive form of politics. When she criticized his comments about “bitter” voters, Mr. Obama mocked her as an Annie Oakley wannabe. All that does is remind Americans who are on the fence about his relative youth and inexperience.

No matter what the high-priced political operatives (from both camps) may think, it is not a disadvantage that Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton share many of the same essential values and sensible policy prescriptions. It is their strength, and they are doing their best to make voters forget it. And if they think that only Democrats are paying attention to this spectacle, they’re wrong.

After seven years of George W. Bush’s failed with-us-or-against-us presidency, all American voters deserve to hear a nuanced debate — right now and through the general campaign — about how each candidate will combat terrorism, protect civil liberties, address the housing crisis and end the war in Iraq.

It is getting to be time for the superdelegates to do what the Democrats had in mind when they created superdelegates: settle a bloody race that cannot be won at the ballot box. Mrs. Clinton once had a big lead among the party elders, but has been steadily losing it, in large part because of her negative campaign. If she is ever to have a hope of persuading these most loyal of Democrats to come back to her side, let alone win over the larger body of voters, she has to call off the dogs.

A loss of 8.6% is painful because the monster can spin it.

Will everyone please stop representing this race as if the two sides are equal? Hillary's attacks are disgusting. Obama's main left-field attack on Hillary was that she did, in fact, lie about Bosnia.

Her attacks on him?
1) He's a Muslim (Farrakhan, Hamas newsletter, picture in African garb, her answer of "I have no evidence of that" rather than "no" when asked if he's a Muslim)

2) He is soft of terrorism/he is a terrorist (9/11, Weather Underground, 9/11, Muslim, anti-American preacher, OH, and 9/11)

3) He's an arrogant elitist who hates guns and religion.

So, to my understanding, he's an elite terrorist Muslim, who hates religion and has a crazy Christian pastor.

What do I think the Democrats should do? I think they should elect Obama, the Democrat in the race, before our neo-con/neo-lib (yes both) friend Clinton destroys our party, allows McCain to use her attacks on Obama, the clear nominee, and causes more war, more tax-cuts for the rich, abortion bans, homophobia, basically the end of our constitution and thus any meaningful USA.......

Let's face it. It's Obama, or the destruction of our country. Here's a hint: Hillary is not Obama.