For a number of reasons, the South Chicagoland Young Democrats essentially stopped meeting roughly two years ago. Personally, as I’ve told many of you, I don’t care for machine politics. When the South Chicagoland Young Democrats was first conceived, it was an independent, self-steering group of high school students who made their own decisions regarding working for political campaigns or endorsing candidates. The group was made up of dynamic young men and women who published a newsletter, discussed political issues, interviewed candidates, endorsed candidates, worked hard for candidates, and more.
I was honored to work with each and every one of these Young Democrats through the years.
But I got burned out and frustrated with what I felt were attempts by other groups to, well, use our kids. Like I said, I don’t like machine pols. Machine politics kills politics. It leads to ugly things like patronage, and then all bets are off.
I was fine with taking time off, until I spoke with Elliott Minge, currently Finance Director of the High School Democrats of America and President of the Illinois High School Democrats. Elliott contacted me last week, and we finally spoke on Sunday.
I was very impressed.
I did not get the impression that Elliott was telling me what I wanted to hear. I felt I was talking to a very organized and honest community organizer. And I decided to work to get the band back together.
The South Chicagoland Young Democrats are BACK. And I’m excited about that.
If you are interested in joining the best and the brightest of today’s and tomorrow’s political leaders, join us when we meet.
As Prepared For Delivery
Berlin, Germany
July 24th, 2008
Thank you to the citizens of Berlin and to the people of Germany. Let me thank Chancellor Merkel and Foreign Minister Steinmeier for welcoming me earlier today. Thank you Mayor Wowereit, the Berlin Senate, the police, and most of all thank you for this welcome.
I come to Berlin as so many of my countrymen have come before. Tonight, I speak to you not as a candidate for President, but as a citizen – a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world.
I know that I don’t look like the Americans who’ve previously spoken in this great city. The journey that led me here is improbable. My mother was born in the heartland of America, but my father grew up herding goats in Kenya. His father – my grandfather – was a cook, a domestic servant to the British.
At the height of the Cold War, my father decided, like so many others in the forgotten corners of the world, that his yearning – his dream – required the freedom and opportunity promised by the West. And so he wrote letter after letter to universities all across America until somebody, somewhere answered his prayer for a better life.
That is why I’m here. And you are here because you too know that yearning. This city, of all cities, knows the dream of freedom. And you know that the only reason we stand here tonight is because men and women from both of our nations came together to work, and struggle, and sacrifice for that better life.
Ours is a partnership that truly began sixty years ago this summer, on the day when the first American plane touched down at Templehof.
On that day, much of this continent still lay in ruin. The rubble of this city had yet to be built into a wall. The Soviet shadow had swept across Eastern Europe, while in the West, America, Britain, and France took stock of their losses, and pondered how the world might be remade.
This is where the two sides met. And on the twenty-fourth of June, 1948, the Communists chose to blockade the western part of the city. They cut off food and supplies to more than two million Germans in an effort to extinguish the last flame of freedom in Berlin.
The size of our forces was no match for the much larger Soviet Army. And yet retreat would have allowed Communism to march across Europe. Where the last war had ended, another World War could have easily begun. All that stood in the way was Berlin.
And that’s when the airlift began – when the largest and most unlikely rescue in history brought food and hope to the people of this city.
The odds were stacked against success. In the winter, a heavy fog filled the sky above, and many planes were forced to turn back without dropping off the needed supplies. The streets where we stand were filled with hungry families who had no comfort from the cold.
But in the darkest hours, the people of Berlin kept the flame of hope burning. The people of Berlin refused to give up. And on one fall day, hundreds of thousands of Berliners came here, to the Tiergarten, and heard the city’s mayor implore the world not to give up on freedom. “There is only one possibility,” he said. “For us to stand together united until this battle is won…The people of Berlin have spoken. We have done our duty, and we will keep on doing our duty. People of the world: now do your duty…People of the world, look at Berlin!”
People of the world – look at Berlin!
Look at Berlin, where Germans and Americans learned to work together and trust each other less than three years after facing each other on the field of battle.
Look at Berlin, where the determination of a people met the generosity of the Marshall Plan and created a German miracle; where a victory over tyranny gave rise to NATO, the greatest alliance ever formed to defend our common security.
Look at Berlin, where the bullet holes in the buildings and the somber stones and pillars near the Brandenburg Gate insist that we never forget our common humanity.
People of the world – look at Berlin, where a wall came down, a continent came together, and history proved that there is no challenge too great for a world that stands as one.
Sixty years after the airlift, we are called upon again. History has led us to a new crossroad, with new promise and new peril. When you, the German people, tore down that wall – a wall that divided East and West; freedom and tyranny; fear and hope – walls came tumbling down around the world. From Kiev to Cape Town, prison camps were closed, and the doors of democracy were opened. Markets opened too, and the spread of information and technology reduced barriers to opportunity and prosperity. While the 20th century taught us that we share a common destiny, the 21st has revealed a world more intertwined than at any time in human history.
The fall of the Berlin Wall brought new hope. But that very closeness has given rise to new dangers – dangers that cannot be contained within the borders of a country or by the distance of an ocean.
The terrorists of September 11th plotted in Hamburg and trained in Kandahar and Karachi before killing thousands from all over the globe on American soil.
As we speak, cars in Boston and factories in Beijing are melting the ice caps in the Arctic, shrinking coastlines in the Atlantic, and bringing drought to farms from Kansas to Kenya.
Poorly secured nuclear material in the former Soviet Union, or secrets from a scientist in Pakistan could help build a bomb that detonates in Paris. The poppies in Afghanistan become the heroin in Berlin. The poverty and violence in Somalia breeds the terror of tomorrow. The genocide in Darfur shames the conscience of us all.
In this new world, such dangerous currents have swept along faster than our efforts to contain them. That is why we cannot afford to be divided. No one nation, no matter how large or powerful, can defeat such challenges alone. None of us can deny these threats, or escape responsibility in meeting them. Yet, in the absence of Soviet tanks and a terrible wall, it has become easy to forget this truth. And if we’re honest with each other, we know that sometimes, on both sides of the Atlantic, we have drifted apart, and forgotten our shared destiny.
In Europe, the view that America is part of what has gone wrong in our world, rather than a force to help make it right, has become all too common. In America, there are voices that deride and deny the importance of Europe’s role in our security and our future. Both views miss the truth – that Europeans today are bearing new burdens and taking more responsibility in critical parts of the world; and that just as American bases built in the last century still help to defend the security of this continent, so does our country still sacrifice greatly for freedom around the globe.
Yes, there have been differences between America and Europe. No doubt, there will be differences in the future. But the burdens of global citizenship continue to bind us together. A change of leadership in Washington will not lift this burden. In this new century, Americans and Europeans alike will be required to do more – not less. Partnership and cooperation among nations is not a choice; it is the one way, the only way, to protect our common security and advance our common humanity.
That is why the greatest danger of all is to allow new walls to divide us from one another. The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down.
We know they have fallen before. After centuries of strife, the people of Europe have formed a Union of promise and prosperity. Here, at the base of a column built to mark victory in war, we meet in the center of a Europe at peace. Not only have walls come down in Berlin, but they have come down in Belfast, where Protestant and Catholic found a way to live together; in the Balkans, where our Atlantic alliance ended wars and brought savage war criminals to justice; and in South Africa, where the struggle of a courageous people defeated apartheid.
So history reminds us that walls can be torn down. But the task is never easy. True partnership and true progress requires constant work and sustained sacrifice. They require sharing the burdens of development and diplomacy; of progress and peace. They require allies who will listen to each other, learn from each other and, most of all, trust each other.
That is why America cannot turn inward. That is why Europe cannot turn inward. America has no better partner than Europe. Now is the time to build new bridges across the globe as strong as the one that bound us across the Atlantic. Now is the time to join together, through constant cooperation, strong institutions, shared sacrifice, and a global commitment to progress, to meet the challenges of the 21st century. It was this spirit that led airlift planes to appear in the sky above our heads, and people to assemble where we stand today. And this is the moment when our nations – and all nations – must summon that spirit anew.
This is the moment when we must defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it. This threat is real and we cannot shrink from our responsibility to combat it. If we could create NATO to face down the Soviet Union, we can join in a new and global partnership to dismantle the networks that have struck in Madrid and Amman; in London and Bali; in Washington and New York. If we could win a battle of ideas against the communists, we can stand with the vast majority of Muslims who reject the extremism that leads to hate instead of hope.
This is the moment when we must renew our resolve to rout the terrorists who threaten our security in Afghanistan, and the traffickers who sell drugs on your streets. No one welcomes war. I recognize the enormous difficulties in Afghanistan. But my country and yours have a stake in seeing that NATO’s first mission beyond Europe’s borders is a success. For the people of Afghanistan, and for our shared security, the work must be done. America cannot do this alone. The Afghan people need our troops and your troops; our support and your support to defeat the Taliban and al Qaeda, to develop their economy, and to help them rebuild their nation. We have too much at stake to turn back now.
This is the moment when we must renew the goal of a world without nuclear weapons. The two superpowers that faced each other across the wall of this city came too close too often to destroying all we have built and all that we love. With that wall gone, we need not stand idly by and watch the further spread of the deadly atom. It is time to secure all loose nuclear materials; to stop the spread of nuclear weapons; and to reduce the arsenals from another era. This is the moment to begin the work of seeking the peace of a world without nuclear weapons.
This is the moment when every nation in Europe must have the chance to choose its own tomorrow free from the shadows of yesterday. In this century, we need a strong European Union that deepens the security and prosperity of this continent, while extending a hand abroad. In this century – in this city of all cities – we must reject the Cold War mind-set of the past, and resolve to work with Russia when we can, to stand up for our values when we must, and to seek a partnership that extends across this entire continent.
This is the moment when we must build on the wealth that open markets have created, and share its benefits more equitably. Trade has been a cornerstone of our growth and global development. But we will not be able to sustain this growth if it favors the few, and not the many. Together, we must forge trade that truly rewards the work that creates wealth, with meaningful protections for our people and our planet. This is the moment for trade that is free and fair for all.
This is the moment we must help answer the call for a new dawn in the Middle East. My country must stand with yours and with Europe in sending a direct message to Iran that it must abandon its nuclear ambitions. We must support the Lebanese who have marched and bled for democracy, and the Israelis and Palestinians who seek a secure and lasting peace. And despite past differences, this is the moment when the world should support the millions of Iraqis who seek to rebuild their lives, even as we pass responsibility to the Iraqi government and finally bring this war to a close.
This is the moment when we must come together to save this planet. Let us resolve that we will not leave our children a world where the oceans rise and famine spreads and terrible storms devastate our lands. Let us resolve that all nations – including my own – will act with the same seriousness of purpose as has your nation, and reduce the carbon we send into our atmosphere. This is the moment to give our children back their future. This is the moment to stand as one.
And this is the moment when we must give hope to those left behind in a globalized world. We must remember that the Cold War born in this city was not a battle for land or treasure. Sixty years ago, the planes that flew over Berlin did not drop bombs; instead they delivered food, and coal, and candy to grateful children. And in that show of solidarity, those pilots won more than a military victory. They won hearts and minds; love and loyalty and trust – not just from the people in this city, but from all those who heard the story of what they did here.
Now the world will watch and remember what we do here – what we do with this moment. Will we extend our hand to the people in the forgotten corners of this world who yearn for lives marked by dignity and opportunity; by security and justice? Will we lift the child in Bangladesh from poverty, shelter the refugee in Chad, and banish the scourge of AIDS in our time?
Will we stand for the human rights of the dissident in Burma, the blogger in Iran, or the voter in Zimbabwe? Will we give meaning to the words “never again” in Darfur?
Will we acknowledge that there is no more powerful example than the one each of our nations projects to the world? Will we reject torture and stand for the rule of law? Will we welcome immigrants from different lands, and shun discrimination against those who don’t look like us or worship like we do, and keep the promise of equality and opportunity for all of our people?
People of Berlin – people of the world – this is our moment. This is our time.
I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we’ve struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We’ve made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.
But I also know how much I love America. I know that for more than two centuries, we have strived – at great cost and great sacrifice – to form a more perfect union; to seek, with other nations, a more hopeful world. Our allegiance has never been to any particular tribe or kingdom – indeed, every language is spoken in our country; every culture has left its imprint on ours; every point of view is expressed in our public squares. What has always united us – what has always driven our people; what drew my father to America’s shores – is a set of ideals that speak to aspirations shared by all people: that we can live free from fear and free from want; that we can speak our minds and assemble with whomever we choose and worship as we please.
These are the aspirations that joined the fates of all nations in this city. These aspirations are bigger than anything that drives us apart. It is because of these aspirations that the airlift began. It is because of these aspirations that all free people – everywhere – became citizens of Berlin. It is in pursuit of these aspirations that a new generation – our generation – must make our mark on the world.
People of Berlin – and people of the world – the scale of our challenge is great. The road ahead will be long. But I come before you to say that we are heirs to a struggle for freedom. We are a people of improbable hope. With an eye toward the future, with resolve in our hearts, let us remember this history, and answer our destiny, and remake the world once again.
During my spring break, I was flipping through the channels when I just so happened to stumble across Barack Obama on “The View”. Whoopi Goldberg asked him what the first three things he would do if elected president.
The obvious first answer was to “…responsibly and honorably begin a withdrawal from Iraq…” That response was followed by “…give every American health care”. As important as those are, they didn’t really interest me. However, his third response made me like him even more than I already did. Obama said “The third thing is I really think we have to deal with our energy crisis. Everybody’s personal crisis is $4 a gallon gas which is maybe coming up this summer. So for us to say we’re going to deal with climate change and cap the emission of greenhouse gases and raise fuel efficiency standards and invest in solar and wind and bio-diesel, it’s a three-for. That’s the only way we can drive gas prices down over the long-term. It’s the only way that we’re going to deal with global warming.”
To me, that topic is very important. As a member of S.P.A.R.E. [students for protecting and restoring the environment] at my school, I would like our president to understand and agree with what I believe in. My peers and I feel Obama represents us, and will help increase the amount of teenage interest in politics.
Alright so a month ago I said that I would keep you guys up to date on the primaries. Well I forgot to do it so I have decided to update you on everything that has happened in the last ten weeks. I already did week 1 so this post begins with week 2.
Week 2 September 17-23
This week, Hillary Clinton announced her plan for mandatory healthcare for all American citizens. The plan would allocate $110 billion to help people afford healthcare while making it a law that all people must have some form of health insurance. She made this announcement at a hospital in Iowa in front of a large group of supporters and hospital workers. Upon hearing her announcement, both John Edwards and Barrack Obama were quick to attack her plan. Edwards claims that it is almost identical to his own healthcare plan and Obama was quoted as saying that his own plan goes farther than Clinton’s proposal.
Barack Obama announced his tax plan that would contain $80 billion in tax cuts. Obama plans to support these tax cuts by decreasing taxes on the poor and middle class and increasing taxes on the wealthy. This proposed tax plan fits into his constant statements in which he claims that the current tax code rewards the rich and punishes the poor and middle class. He also said that he will simplify the tax code, making it possible for most people to file their taxes in a matter of minutes.
Week 3 September 24- 30
John Edwards announced this week that he will accept public financing in the primary election. To accept public financing means that Edwards will limit the amount of private funds he will be allowed to accept. Critics have claimed that his acceptance of these funds is a result of a drop off in the amounts of money that he has been able to raise but Edwards claims that this is a move based on principle and he challenged his competitors, namely Obama and Clinton, to do the same. Barack Obama has stated that he will accept public financing in the general election if the Republican counterpart agrees to do the same.
Hillary Clinton is widening her lead in New Hampshire polls, now beating Obama by more than twenty points. As the primary gets closer, Clinton seems to be becoming more and more popular with the voters. Edwards is currently in third place and Richardson is currently coming in fourth.
Week 4 October 1-7
Barack Obama made a claim this week that his early opposition to the war in Iraq proves that he has the right qualities to lead this country. As a state senator in Illinois, Obama made a public statement before the invasion of Iraq in which he said that Saddam Hussein posed no imminent threat to the US. Because of his own opposition to the war, Obama has said that the Senators that voted in favor of the war should have foreseen the problems that would arise. By making this statement, Obama effectively attacked the decision making abilities of Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, both of whom voted in favor of the war.
The announcement of the third quarter fundraising totals happened this week and Hillary Clinton came out as the top fundraiser for the Democrats. She reports having raised $27 million this quarter. She beat Barrack Obama by roughly $7 million as his staff is reporting his total funds raised to $20 million. Coming in a distant third for total money raised is John Edwards who is presently reporting $7 million and Bill Richardson reported $5.2 million.
Week 5 October 8-14
Senator Obama criticized Hillary Clinton for a vote that she made in support of a measure regarding Iran, claiming that she repeated the mistakes that were made before the invasion of Iraq. The measure declared the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, part of the Iranian military, a foreign terrorist organization which could possibly allow President Bush to use military force against Iran. Obama used this vote to attack Clinton’s judgment ability while she defended herself saying that it was not a law.
Senator Clinton announced this week that, if elected president, she would meet with President Ahmadinejad of Iran without precondition. This statement called into question the comments that Clinton made following a debate in which she criticized Barack Obama calling him naive for having made a similar statement. In an effort make herself look less like a hypocrite, Clinton’s campaign issued follow up statement in which they clarified her position as if it were actually different from that of Obama.
Week 6 October 15-21
Polls have shown that Hillary Clinton holds more support from black Democrat voters than Barack Obama. Clinton holds more support from black women and the male black vote is split more evenly between the two candidates. Clinton’s popularity among black voters seems surprising but it shows that black people have trouble relating to Obama.
In an attempt to gain stronger support in South Carolina, John Edwards keeps bringing up the time that he spent living in the state. He claims that he knows well the issues important to the voters of that state because he experienced them personally. This is not entirely true because he may have been born in South Carolina but he was raised in North Carolina. Despite this fact, he is hoping that a win in South Carolina will help him to win the primaries in other key states.
Week 7 October 22- 28
The major national labor unions have yet to endorse a Democratic candidate for the primary. All of the candidates are actively working to gain the endorsement of any one of the major unions that have yet to offer endorsements. Analysts are saying that the unions are waiting until later in the primary, once the field has thinned out a bit, to name an endorsement because of the defeat of both of their endorsed candidates in the 2004 election. These unions are widely expected to endorse a candidate come the general election.
Analysts are saying that Barack Obama needs to start being tougher in his campaign strategy. He has always based his campaign on the principle of him being a unifier and reconciler. As a result, Obama commonly wins polls over who is the most likeable candidate. In polls of who will win, however, Clinton has a strong lead because people do not believe that Obama can win a national election unless he toughens up his campaign strategy.
Week 8 October 29- November 4
The endorsements of unions are powerful tools for presidential candidates in the Democratic primary. Unions offer candidates both recognition and a large supply of “ground troops” to help in the campaigning process. This week Hillary Clinton accepted the endorsement of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees. With the Service Employees International Union refusing to endorse a candidate, this endorsement was highly sought by all of the Democratic hopefuls. John Edwards also received an important endorsement from the Service Employee’s International Union’s Granite State chapter in New Hampshire, the first state to hold a primary.
John Edwards and Barack Obama both attacked Hillary Clinton this week for her vagueness in describing her plan to strengthen Social Security. They also attacked her for being too close with lobbyists and the Washington elite. These attacks from Obama and Edwards show that both of these men are taking a tougher stance on their campaign policies.
Week 9 November 5- 11
Hillary Clinton was quoted as saying that her performance in last week’s debate was not her best. She said that she was not able to clearly express the points that she was trying make. Some of these points included her calls for fuel standards to increase over the next twenty years as well as a question regarding giving drivers’ licenses to illegal immigrants.
In a move that will hurt Barack Obama’s popularity with the 18-25 age group, his campaign pressured the South Carolina Democratic Party to vote against allowing Stephen Colbert to be on the Democratic ballot there. This pressure came from telephone calls made by leading Obama supporters in South Carolina. Obama has officially denied any connection to these phone calls, seeing an attack on Colbert as being detrimental to his popularity with young people, who make up the majority of Colbert’s fan base.
Week 10 November 12-18
On the issue of Social Security reform, Hillary Clinton offered a basic outline for the policies that she would push for if elected president. Compared to Obama, she claims that her policies would be more cautious, relying on bipartisan coalitions in Congress and fiscal responsibility. Barrack on the other hand stated that he would eliminate the cap on taxable income generating more funds by taxing the upper end of the socio-economic ladder. Both candidates support reducing the strain on middle-class families that currently bear the brunt of the cost of Social Security.
In the Democratic debate this week, Hillary Clinton defended herself against the constant barrage of attacks that have been aimed at her by her opponents for the Democratic nomination. She called all of these attacks mudslinging and defended herself against the claims that she has not taken a firm stance on any controversial issue since the start of her campaign. Obama and Edwards both continued to attack Clinton throughout the debate, attacking her positions on issues like the Iraq war and the corruption in Washington.
“This just in,” as they say, from Harvey Wells, General Manager of WCPT. In short, a new place on the dial, and a much stronger signal! Of course, this will also necessitate a new URL for the web page, currently at http://www.wcpt850.com/
Dear 850 Club Member,
It’s a good thing that we did not issue membership cards because if we did, they would simply be a collector’s item as of Monday, November 26th. That’s because beginning that day, WCPT is moving three steps to the left. Instead of broadcasting at 850-AM, we are moving to 820-AM. While that might be three small steps on the radio dial, it’s going to be one giant leap for Progressives all over Northern Illinois, Southern Wisconsin and Northwest Indiana.
Our new signal at 820-AM will literally double our coverage area. Instead of broadcasting at 2,500 watts from Crystal Lake Illinois, our new transmitter moves 40 miles right to the heart of Chicago. In fact, WCPT’s new 5,000 watt daytime signal will be the best signal of any major AM station in Chicago. Yes, I did say daytime because the 820-AM signal is also licensed by the FCC to sign-on at sunrise and sign-off at sunset. Although we would love to broadcast all day and all night, the new WCPT at 820-AM will now be heard from as far north as Milwaukee to as far south as Springfield.
The 820-AM signal has been very successful in the past. In fact, it was to fist signal of WSCR (The Score) and I can tell you from personal experience as The Score’s first General Manager that our new signal will finally put us on a level playing field with the rest of Chicago’s talk radio stations; just in time for the 2008 election season.
Speaking of playing fields and seasons, I am happy to tell you that Ed Schultz is coming back to Joey’s Brickhouse on Thursday night, December 6th. That is the night when the Bears play the Washington Redskins. We could not think of a better reason to bring Ed to Chicago than a combination of Washington politics and Bears football…until today. Now Ed’s appearance will not only be for watching the Bears beat the Redskins, but it will also be a celebration of our new home at 820-AM. Admission to the event is ten dollars, but the boys at Joey’s have promised a menu of great food that will more than pay for the admission price. For information, please call Joey’s Brickhouse at (773) 296-1300.
Finally, I have to thank each and every WCPT listener for spreading the news, like Johnny Appleseed, on the station and helping us take this very important step. I am especially thankful to the people who live in areas where our signal at 850-AM has (to say the least) not been very strong. Your ability to withstand radio noise will now be rewarded with a static-free signal beginning on Monday, November 26th. It’s our way of extending the Thanksgiving weekend an extra day!
Let me be the first person to welcome you to the 820 Club,
I’m trying to write this, make dinner, and hand out candy, all in the next 30 minutes, so forgive me for making this rather abbreviated and short.
Today, as many people know, is Halloween, the day in which children (and some who aren’t children) dress up as something with the intent to either frighten others, or get candy. (I’ve never really celebrated Halloween as most of you know it, so my interpretation may be a bit off.)
Now, in between supporting the dentist industry and checking for the spaghetti water to boil, I have a couple of seconds here and there to point out what is really frightening in this world: the simple fact that Noah Webster and Samuel Johnson are under the thumb of the GOP. I am, of course, referring to the makers of the first dictionaries, and the monopoly that President Bush and his cronies have on the English language. The control of the language began, of all places, in Hollywood, known for their dramatic special effects, from the mind of Ronald Reagan. While most Americans were drawn in by the rhetoric to fight the Soviet Union and “win one for the Gipper,” a subtle change was occuring: the word “public” became related with communism, and “private” was suddenly the popular word around the Beltway. Now we’ve got privatized Social Security (as if that isn’t a contradiction in terms), private military contractors, and on and on. Next I imagine we’re going to privatize sidewalks.
Since I’ve already written on Blackwater, I’ll go after the future of Social Security here. It’s certainly possible that I’ve missed something major, but from what I understand of the president’s plan, all of “Social” Security in the future will be handling by investing in Wall Street. Now, it may just be the spaghetti, but something there just doesn’t sit well with me. In terms of economics, we’ve got a real problem on our plate at this very moment. The housing market has reached a new low, a credit crunch is here now, and the Fed’s plan to ease us out of it is to inject $17 billion into the economy, which only causes inflation. Economists left and right are anticpating a major recession to come, and to come soon, resulting in billions of dollars lost by businesses. And, billions of dollars lost by businesses means that shareholders aren’t going to get their dividends (don’t forget we’ve got this little problem of the national debt, too). So, go ahead and invest your retirement savings, but if what the experts think will happen actually happens, then you’d better work to pay off your retirement debts. Personally, I’d rather pay into Social Security now and get guaranteed returns, than pay into Wall Street now and get possible returns. Here’s what is really scary about this year’s Halloween: the potential for millions of retirees to suddenly be without money if the market collapses (and it will- but that’s a different story to come). As a side note, President Bush is taking money out of Social Security to fund the occupation of Iraq, then returning to DC and complaining about how Social Security is broke. Well, I wonder why!
And, for those of you who are interested in knowing, I am wearing a Cubs shirt for Halloween. My dad doesn’t mind having a Democrat for a son, he minds having a Cub fan for a son. Luckily for him it’s only for a day, but when he’s old enough to get Social Security, he’d better hope that the coming recession is old history by then.
As a nation, the number 80 seems to be a peculiar feature of our republic. It was approximately 80 years ago that the nation voted overwhelmingly for FD Roosevelt, for change in the face of the Great Depression. 80 years before that, there was Lincoln, and 80 years before that- George Washington.
Friends, we are at a crossroads of history. Now, as the 80th year approaches and history confronts us once more, we are left with a deceptively simple choice. There is a feeling I have that this election will determine the course of history and may be the single factor that either restores or destroys the falling opinions of the US abroad. As it is, the best man for the job may be Barack Obama.
For what this nation is, or rather, for what “President” Bush has let this nation become, we need somebody new. We are embroiled in not one, but two wars, while our reputation worldwide has fallen to incredible lows. TIME Magazine had a story about worldwide polls asking which nations people believed had a better government. Of the nations, the majority of people believe that the Kremlin is a better government that the White House! This reflects very poorly upon us as a nation, and we need someone to restore our reputation. The politicians have done little to stop this. For them all that matters is making money, but Obama is different. Barack has refused to take money from lobbyists, meaning that his capital is much smaller than the other candidates, but also that he is not burdened by special interests. In one sense, you might say that Obama’s sole special interest is the American people. Now THAT is a revolutionary statement for a politician.
And the war? Even in 2002, Obama was a stalwart opponent of the invasion of Iraq. No other candidate can claim anything similar. We cannot say that Bush lied, because the intelligence that the war was based on turned out to be false. MI-6, FSB, the Mossad, and various other intelligence agencies all had the same information. But when Congress nearly unanimously supported the war, Obama stood among a small contingent of those who were opposed to the war no matter what the CIA told us. History has vindicated Obama, perhaps in a subtle means of drawing our attention to him. Obama remains among the few candidates who are committed to a complete withdrawal because he, unlike Hillary, unlike McCain, unlike Giuliani.
We are at a crossroads of history. Now, like every 80 years before, we have the opportunity to directly change the course of our nation. The chance may not come again in our lifetimes, but now we have the opportunity to make there be another chance. Therefore, not only for myself and for America, but for the world. I will be voting Obama, and I invite everyone to join me. The best politician is not a politician.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad spoke today at Columbia University in New York City despite complaints from many influential people. On the list of opponents of this speaking engagement were several city council members for New York, several professors at Columbia, Henry Kissinger, and large crowds that gathered around in protest. The complaints stemmed from Ahmadinejad’s positions on the Holocaust, the state of Israel, and homosexuality. More or less, people did not want to let him speak because of Iran’s common association with terrorism and instability in the Middle East.
Despite all of these protests, the president of Columbia still invited Ahmadinejad to speak, an action for which I applaud him. I do not mean to say that I support the views of Ahmadinejad, who claims that there is insufficient evidence to support the existence of the Holocaust. I simply believe that it is important for Americans, especially young Americans, to learn a broad view of the world at large. It is important to hear unadulterated views about important global events, especially when it is ever more difficult to believe what our own leaders here in this country are telling us.
Most of what President Ahmadinejad said was complete garbage: fictitious ravings from an unbelievably biased source with obvious intent to sway public opinion. Nonetheless, it is important to hear what he has to say. The American public can learn from such view points. Imagine the reception that President Bush would receive if he were to go speak at an Iranian university. In order to be responsible citizens and to understand the world in which we live, we must listen to what leaders from around the world have to say, no matter how biased they may be.
Mercenaries have been a part of war for millenia. The Carthaginians used them to attempt to hold off the growing might of Rome. The Italian city states, too weak individually to sustain a military, used them to defend from various European empires. The British used Hessian Jaeger mercenaries to try to help subdue their rebellious colonies along the Atlantic coast. But the idea of a mercenary seemed- for a while, at least- to be a method of war that had disappeared sometime before the First World War. Hidden from most of the world, unknown to Congress, unreported by the media, was the “private military contractor,” Blackwater.
Sounding more like Blackbriar from the Jason Bourne movies, Blackwater amounts to much the same thing. It is a shadow organization, unencumbered by the limits of Geneva or national ethics. As a corporation, it does not have to report to the government, yet it only acts when the government asks it to. Up to now, when they slip up in Iraq, too few people knew what was really happening. Blackwater had been asked by the Iraqi government (really by the State Department) to help defend key areas from insurgent attack. Yet, it is questionable if that is what Blackwater was really doing. The cold facts are as such: Blackwater USA was active in Iraq and came under fire from possible insurgents. The response was to fire randomly, killing at least eight Iraqi civilians, innocent people who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now Blackwater is in the wrong place. This is the seventh time that Blackwater has innocent blood on its hands, and they are now being brought to an Iraqi court to decide if they will remain in the country. I for one applaud this. The Iraqi minister of national security affairs, Shirwan al-Waili, declared that there was no justification for what Blackwater had done. The priliminary report of the situation found that “the murder of citizens in cold blood in the Nisour area by Blackwater is considered a terrorist action against civilians just like any other terrorist operations.” These allegations are extremely harsh and will likely devastate what little trust the world has in the capability of the USA to stem the insurgency.
Yet, that is not the only new development in the case against Blackwater. Federal prosecutors are investigating that Blackwater illegally smuggled weapons into Iraq, selling the weapons on the black market. If anything, Blackwater is actully helping the insurgency. One way or another, the organization will benefit from death, so long as they profit in some way, earning the title Merchants of Death. The organization itself has not said anything about either of these allegations. The website’s most recent press release is from June 2007, and the last news report on Blackwater that the company admits is from April! These are signs that CEO Erik Prince, a former Navy Seal, would much rather return to the shadows than hear his mercenary organization’s name every day on FOX News (fair and balanced, as usual). In this modern world, every merchant of death would prefer to remain shadowed. But now Blackwater is trapped. Congress is clamping down, and Baghdad may shut off their link for several decades, if not forever. In an ironic twist, the very same group that the State Department called in to secure Iraq may do so only in its departure, a departure which would be celebrated across the world as the merchants of death leave the largest battleground of the decade.
From the mind of Eamon Driscoll
Sources:
1: Blackwater USA
2: Wall Street Journal 18.Sep.2007
3: Associated Press 22.Sep.2007
4: New York Times 23.Sep.2007
