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Remarks of Illinois State Sen. Barack Obama Against Going to War with Iraq

May 26, 2007 in Speeches | by bfwo | 1 comment

Against Going to War in Iraq (Source: http://www.barackobama.com)

October 2, 2002

Good afternoon. Let me begin by saying that although this has been billed as an anti-war rally, I stand before you as someone who is not opposed to war in all circumstances. The Civil War was one of the bloodiest in history, and yet it was only through the crucible of the sword, the sacrifice of multitudes, that we could begin to perfect this union, and drive the scourge of slavery from our soil. I don’t oppose all wars.

My grandfather signed up for a war the day after Pearl Harbor was bombed, fought in Patton’s army. He saw the dead and dying across the fields of Europe; he heard the stories of fellow troops who first entered Auschwitz and Treblinka. He fought in the name of a larger freedom, part of that arsenal of democracy that triumphed over evil, and he did not fight in vain. I don’t oppose all wars.

After September 11th, after witnessing the carnage and destruction, the dust and the tears, I supported this administration’s pledge to hunt down and root out those who would slaughter innocents in the name of intolerance, and I would willingly take up arms myself to prevent such tragedy from happening again. I don’t oppose all wars. And I know that in this crowd today, there is no shortage of patriots, or of patriotism.

What I am opposed to is a dumb war. What I am opposed to is a rash war. What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair, weekend warriors in this administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.

What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income – to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression. That’s what I’m opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics. Now let me be clear – I suffer no illusions about Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal man. A ruthless man. A man who butchers his own people to secure his own power. He has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity. He’s a bad guy. The world, and the Iraqi people, would be better off without him.

But I also know that Saddam poses no imminent and direct threat to the United States, or to his neighbors, that the Iraqi economy is in shambles, that the Iraqi military a fraction of its former strength, and that in concert with the international community he can be contained until, in the way of all petty dictators, he falls away into the dustbin of history. I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the middle east, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.

So for those of us who seek a more just and secure world for our children, let us send a clear message to the President today. You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s finish the fight with Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, through effective, coordinated intelligence, and a shutting down of the financial networks that support terrorism, and a homeland security program that involves more than color-coded warnings. You want a fight, President Bush?

Let’s fight to make sure that the UN inspectors can do their work, and that we vigorously enforce a non-proliferation treaty, and that former enemies and current allies like Russia safeguard and ultimately eliminate their stores of nuclear material, and that nations like Pakistan and India never use the terrible weapons already in their possession, and that the arms merchants in our own country stop feeding the countless wars that rage across the globe. You want a fight, President Bush?

Let’s fight to make sure our so-called allies in the Middle East, the Saudis and the Egyptians, stop oppressing their own people, and suppressing dissent, and tolerating corruption and inequality, and mismanaging their economies so that their youth grow up without education, without prospects, without hope, the ready recruits of terrorist cells. You want a fight, President Bush? Let’s fight to wean ourselves off Middle East oil, through an energy policy that doesn’t simply serve the interests of Exxon and Mobil. Those are the battles that we need to fight. Those are the battles that we willingly join. The battles against ignorance and intolerance. Corruption and greed. Poverty and despair.

The consequences of war are dire, the sacrifices immeasurable. We may have occasion in our lifetime to once again rise up in defense of our freedom, and pay the wages of war. But we ought not — we will not — travel down that hellish path blindly. Nor should we allow those who would march off and pay the ultimate sacrifice, who would prove the full measure of devotion with their blood, to make such an awful sacrifice in vain.

Who in their right minds wouldn’t support the troops?

May 26, 2007 in Hillary Clinton, Issues | by bfwo | Leave a comment

clinton_obama.jpg

 By Patricia Wilson-Smith

On Thursday, the House and Senate passed a measure to continue to fund the war in Iraq through September of this year. Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are both making news for voting against the 95 billion dollars in war funding. No surprise there. What I do find surprising in all this however, is the Right’s insistence that a vote against continuing to fund this misguided war is a vote against the continued support of the troops. As if casting a ‘no’ vote for the measure is akin to voting to rescind food rations for the many brave men and women who are serving in Iraq. That irks me, and strains credulity.

Speculation abounds over the damage that voting against the measure could do to both Hillary and Barack if they happen to secure the Democratic Party’s nomination.  Many are of the opinion that their votes against the bill make them look soft on terrorism. Not so. In addition to what I am sure is their desire to see this pointless, bloody conflict end, there is another little reported on aspect to this issue that may further explain the Senators’ lack of enthusiasm for the bill.You see, if you look at this empirically (you know, do the very simple math), it’s not that hard to see why anyone would vote against such a measure. Ponder this: with the additional over 95 billion dollars that this bill appropriates, the total cost of the conflict in Iraq grows to over 300 billion dollars. Now – is it just me, or is 95 billion dollars a crap load of money to spend in just four months? If the additional 95 billion gets us to over 300 Billion, that means that over the course of the last five years, the troops have fought the war on 205 billion dollars, or a little over 40 billion dollars a year. That comes out to about 10 billion dollars a quarter, when compared to the 95 billion dollars being appropriated for the next four months according to the bill. What is that? Inflation? Really expensive new war technologies? 

The bill contains lots of money for reconstruction – cleverly tied to a “condition” that the Iraqi government is required to show progress to receive funds, while also providing a provision for President Bush to override the enforcement of such a condition at will. With no known previous plan for achieving a decisive victory and subsequent withdrawal, and with an admittedly shaky go-forward strategy that doesn’t include any foreseeable end to the conflict, the significantly higher numbers seem curious. It makes it look as though we’re just throwing money at the problem. So – I for one can see why  the Senators voted against the measure. On the surface, it seems like more money will help the situation; it’s not hard to find Republicans and Dems alike who agree with the bill and its intent (to provide more money for weapons, deployments, etc.). Opponents of the bill point out, however that it blatantly ignores both the need for a planned withdrawal, and language on what happens post September. Will we have to cough up more billions? Will we celebrate a magical victory made possible by the infusion of cash, what? What’s worse, the bill introduces a strategy for empowering the Iraqi government to step up sooner rather than later, that does nothing to ensure a contingency should Iraq continue to descend into anarchy and sectarian violence.I like the way Obama fairs here – in my mind, voting any other way would have been a major flip-flop for the man, considering  how staunchly resolute he has been about his opposition of the war from the very beginning (see Obama’s Remarks Against Going to War in Iraq from 2002). Yes boys and girls, unlike Clinton, Obama voted against the war early, and bemoans the never-ending conflict regularly. As a result, I don’t believe he will have the credibility problem with his stand on the war that Hillary will later. For sure, the troops need our love and support, and it probably wouldn’t hurt for them to have access to all the weaponry that they can get considering the voracity of the attacks they’re enduring on a daily basis. But Americans want out of this now – we want a plan for a systematic troop withdrawal that ensures the welfare and safety of as many of our men and women in combat as possible. Order (if not full Democracy) for the Iraqi people would be nice too, but most Americans these days just want this over with.  What’s needed is decisive leadership – a real plan, and a real date to bring it all to an end. I’m tired of watching our boys come home in body bags – like the rest of the country, I’m no longer willing to accept it, not even to democratize a struggling, war-torn nation that got that way in part because of us and our flawed intelligence. Our eventual withdrawal will be painful for Iraq no matter what – warring factions will continue to war, and those who were bred to hate us will continue to do that as well. In the absence of any real eminent danger from Iraq (a-la Iran), it’s time to shut it down.

And finally – who in their right minds wouldn’t support the troops in Iraq? See, that’s my biggest problem with all of this. By suggesting that Senator Clinton and Obama somehow don’t support the troops because they disagree with this bill is like saying to the American people “hey, you bunch of collective idiots – we can throw all kinds of unsubstantiated rhetoric at you whenever we want and you’ll believe it!” Shame on those who would do such a thing. I don’t question the support that anyone in this country is willing to give for the innocent young soldiers who make the ultimate sacrifice each day to keep us safe, because I know most Americans are deeply grateful for their service. Unfortunately for some, it’s easier to sling mud and blur the issue with political wrangling than it is to deal with the real issues and bring this all to a real resolution. And that sucks.

Candidates and Potential Candidates for ‘08

May 20, 2007 in The Campaign Trail | by bfwo | Leave a comment

Democratic Party

Main article: Official and potential 2008 United States presidential election Democratic candidates

Candidates for the Democratic Party:

Potential notable candidates:

Note: Former Governor Tom Vilsack of Iowa, a presidential candidate from November 30, 2006 to February 23, 2007, withdrew due to a lack of funds.[15]

Republican Party

Main article: Official and potential 2008 United States presidential election Republican candidates

Candidates for the Republican Party:

Potential notable candidates:

Third parties

Main article: 2008 United States third party presidential candidates

Constitution Party

Actively pursuing or interested in candidacy for the Constitution Party (United States):

Green Party

Individuals seeking the Green Party nomination:

Individuals frequently mentioned as possible candidates:

Libertarian Party

Official candidates who have filed with the FEC for the Libertarian Party:

Announced candidates:

Actively pursuing or interested in candidacy:

Independents

Official candidates who have filed with the FEC as independent candidates:

Individuals who have expressed serious interest

Individuals rumored to be considering a presidential run:

(Source: Wikipedia.org) 

Remarks of Senator Barack Obama to the National Conference of Black Mayors

May 20, 2007 in Speeches | by bfwo | 2 comments

Baton Rouge, LA | May 05, 2007

It is an honor to be here at Southern University. It is a privilege to stand with so many of our leading mayors from across this country. Whether it’s a small town or a big city, the government that’s closest to the people is the one the people count on the most.

Our mayors are on the frontlines when it comes to housing, education, job creation, and finding new ways to strengthen our families and communities. They are some of the hardest working people in America and when a disaster strikes: a Katrina, a shooting, or a six alarm blaze — it’s city hall we lean on. It’s city hall we call first. And it’s city hall we depend on to get us through the tough times.

Last weekend, I attended a service to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the LA Riots. After a jury acquitted 4 police officers of beating Rodney King — a beating that was filmed and flashed around the world — Los Angeles erupted. I remember the sense of despair and powerlessness in watching one of America’s greatest cities engulfed in flames.

But I want to start today with an inspiring story from that tragic event — a story about a baby who was born into this world with a bullet in its arm.

We learned about this child from a doctor named Andy Moosa. He was working the afternoon shift on April 30 at St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood as the second day of violence was exploding in the streets.

He told us about a pregnant woman who had been wearing a white dress. She was in Compton and on her way to the supermarket. Where the bullet came from nobody knew. Her sister-in-law noticed a red spot in the middle of her white dress and said that I think you’ve been shot. The bullet had gone in, but it had not exited. The doctor described the ultrasound and how he realized that the bullet was in the baby. The doctor said, “We could tell it was lodged in one of the upper limbs. We needed to get this baby out so we were in the delivery room.”

And here’s the thing: the baby looked great. Except for the swelling in the right elbow in the fleshy part, it hadn’t even fractured a bone. The bullet had lodged in the soft tissue in the muscle. The baby was fine. It was breathing and crying and kicking. They removed the bullet, stitched up the baby’s arm, and everything was fine. The doctor went on to say that there’s always going to be a scar to remind that child how quickly she came into the world in very unusual circumstances.

Let’s think about that story. There’s always going to be a scar there, that doesn’t go away. You take the bullet out. You stitch up the wound and 15 years later, there’s still going to be a scar.

Many of the students in this room were just learning to read and write when the riot started and tragedy struck the corner of Florence and Normandy. Most of the mayors here know that those riots didn’t erupt over night; there had been a “quiet riot” building up in Los Angeles and across this country for years.

If you had gone to any street corner in Chicago or Baton Rouge or Selma or Trenton or Arcola, Mississippi — you would have found the same young men and women without hope, without prospects, and without a sense of destiny other than life on the edge — the edge of the law, the edge of the economy, the edge of family structures and communities.

Those “quiet riots” that take place every day are born from the same place as the fires and the destruction and the police decked out in riot gear and the deaths. They happen when a sense of disconnect settles in and hope dissipates. Despair takes hold and young people all across this country look at the way the world is and believe that things are never going to get any better. You tell yourself, my school will always crumble. There will never be a good job waiting for me to excel at. There will never be a place that I can be proud of and I can afford to call my home. That despair quietly simmers and makes it impossible to build strong communities and neighborhoods. And then one afternoon a jury says, “Not guilty” — or a hurricane hits — and that despair is revealed for the world to see.

Much of what we saw on our television screens 15 years ago was Los Angeles expressing a lingering, ongoing, pervasive legacy — a tragic legacy out of the tragic history this country has never fully come to terms with. This is not to excuse the violence of bashing in a man’s head or destroying someone’s store and their life’s work. That kind of violence is inexcusable and self-defeating. It does, however, describe the reality of many communities around this country.

And it made me think about our cities and communities all around this country, how not only do we still have scars from that riot and the “quiet riots” that happen every day — but how in too many places we haven’t even taken the bullet out.

Look at what happened in New Orleans and along the Gulf Coast when Katrina hit. People ask me whether I thought race was the reason the response was so slow. I said, “No. This Administration was colorblind in its incompetence.” But everyone here knows the disaster and the poverty happened long before that hurricane hit. All the hurricane did was make bare what we ignore each and every day which is that there are whole sets of communities that are impoverished, that don’t have meaningful opportunity, that don’t have hope and they are forgotten. This disaster was a powerful metaphor for what’s gone on for generations.

In New Orleans, the murder rate was one of the highest in the country — ten times the national average — well before the hurricane hit. Young men died far more frequently from gunshot wounds than they did from anything else. The schools were failing long before the levees broke. The city’s poverty rate was twice the national average. There was a reason why the evacuation failed and so many people were stranded on their roof tops. The folks who were making the plans assumed that people had cars that they could fill up with gas, put some Perrier in the back, drive to a hotel, and check in with a credit card for a week.

Of course, the federal response after Katrina was similar to the response after the riots in Los Angeles. People in Washington wake up and are surprised that there’s poverty in our midst, and that others were frustrated and angry. Then there are panels and there are hearings. There are commissions. There are reports. Aid dollars are approved but they can’t seem to get to the people. And then nothing really changes except the news coverage quiets down.

This isn’t to diminish the extraordinary generosity of the American people at the time. I want to thank the faculty and students here at Southern University for turning your field house and dorms into shelters for so many in the aftermath of Katrina. That act of kindness — the light in that storm — will never be forgotten. I want to thank the National Conference of Black Mayors for their efforts: securing more $125 million in New Market Tax credits to assist with redevelopment, and creating your own disaster relief fund that helped 5,000 families in 54 Gulf Coast communities.

But despite this extraordinary generosity, here we are 19 months later — or15 years later in the case of LA — and the homes haven’t been built, the businesses haven’t returned, and those same communities are still drowning and smoldering under the same hopelessness as before the tragedy hit.

It is time for us to come together and take the bullet out.

If we have more black men in prison than are in our colleges and universities, then it’s time to take the bullet out. If we have almost 2 million people going to the emergency room for treatable illnesses like asthma that costs us half a billion dollars; it’s time to take the bullet out. If one out of every nine kids doesn’t have health insurance; it’s time to take the bullet out. If we keep sending our kids to dilapidated school buildings, if we keep fighting this war in Iraq, a war that never should have been authorized and waged, a war that’s costing us $275 million dollars a day and the sacrifice of so many innocent lives — if we have all these challenges and nothing’s changing, then every mayor in America needs to come together — form our own surgery teams — and take the bullets out.

Let’s start with education.

We know what works. We know that if we put a dollar into early childhood education that we get seven dollars back in reduced drop out rates, reduced delinquency, reduced prison rates, more young people can go to college and get good jobs.

We know they work. An important study about an old program called Abecedarian, in which children from low-income families, almost all of them black, received full-time educational child care from infancy through age 5, said kids were three times more likely to go to college. They were half as likely to become a teen parent and smoke marijuana. In another study about another effective program at the Perry Preschool, which served low-income black children in Michigan, kids needed special education less often, and they were three times as likely to own their own home and half as likely to go on welfare. That early childhood program even helped the next generation.

So we know what it takes to improve our schools. We know that if children are learning in dilapidated buildings with teachers that are underpaid and textbooks that are 20 years old, they will not learn.

To change this, we need to fundamentally reform No Child Left Behind. The slogan is right, but how the law has been implemented is wrong. The slogan is good, but how they left the money behind is wrong. Let’s get serious.

Let’s finally make a quality education accessible to every American child so that every student can graduate from high school ready for college and work in a knowledge-based economy.

To begin the great transformation in our schools, we need to invest in the most important part of a child’s education: the man or woman standing at the head of the classroom. As President, I will recruit hundreds of thousands of new teachers and principals. For what it costs us to fund the Iraq war for 30 days, we can recruit a new army of teachers and principals.

As President, I will recruit a new generation of science and technology leaders to teach our children the skills they will need to be competitive. We need to expand summer learning opportunities for our children emphasizing math and science. And students, who live in poverty, suffer from a learning disability or who don’t speak English at home, should get the extra help they need and their schools need the resources to help their students reach their full potential.

I want to support teachers at all stages of their careers by increasing salaries across the board, improving incentives to get the best teachers to work in our rural areas and our most challenging cities, providing more resources so that teachers have more security and control over their classrooms, and by providing more opportunities for professional development.

There are models of excellence in many communities that show when you put a great teacher in a classroom, students can learn. There’s Murphy High School in Mobile Alabama and Rufus King in Milwaukee Wisconsin. There’s no shortage of great ideas; we just need to scale them up. We need to get past the old style of politics that only talks about education and start actually educating our kids for the 21st century.

And while we’re at it, let’s do something for the young people ready for college. Here at Southern University in Baton Rouge, I’m sure that this won’t come as a surprise when I say that college tuition rates are rising almost 10 percent a year. Those increases have priced out more than 200,000 students in 2004. And for what it costs to fund the Iraq War for three weeks, we could provide each student with four years at a public college or university.

We all know how important education is. It’s a passport to a better life. But millions of children are not given an equal chance to realize their own potential. And for too long, our kids — not “those kids,” but our kids — have been asked to settle for mediocrity simply because of their zip code, the color of their skin, and how much their parents earn.

This is wrong. We must change. We must take this bullet out if America is to remain the leading force for good and creativity and innovation in this world.

But we can’t stop at education if we want stronger communities. We need to provide economic opportunity in every corner of our country if we want to take the bullet out.

We know what it takes to develop our communities economically. Right now, the Iraq War is set to cost us $2 trillion dollars — that’s more than enough to lay broadband lines from ” Columbia South Carolina to Portland Oregon.” What good is the Information Super Highway when too many towns and cities are still riding around in dial-up. We must connect the disconnected so economic opportunity is there for everyone — not just everyone who can afford it. It might not stop certain jobs from being outsourced to India, but this national effort would create jobs over 60,000 jobs a year over the next two decades and improve our country’s competitiveness.

We know that we have to invest in transitional jobs too. When there are people who are homeless, veterans struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder from this war in Iraq, and thousands of children aging out of foster care, we can’t expect them to have all the skills they need for work. They may need help with basic skills — how to show up to work on time, wear the right clothes, and act appropriately in an office. We have to help them get there.

That’s why I have called for $50 million to begin innovative new job training and workforce development programs. This plan will also provide mentoring opportunities and let case workers help men and women make difficult transitions. It will coordinate with local employers, community colleges, and community organizations so that job training programs are actually connected to good paying jobs with the opportunity for career growth. This would help lift more people out of poverty and into the middle class.

There are models all across this country for how for how we can rebuild our cities and communities. There’s a new idea coming for the Gulf Coast and the New Orleans area. Congressman Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, Emanuel Cleaver, the former mayor of Kansas City and head of the National Conference of Black Mayors, and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus will soon introduce legislation that creates a Gulf Coast recovery and empowerment initiative. It will employ people who fled the region to rebuild the region: the houses, the businesses, roads and bridges. It will give people an incentive to move back home and put them back to work. That’s the kind of leadership we need to take the bullet out.

If we want to create more jobs in our communities, let’s stop sending $800 million a day to some of the most hostile nations on the planet and end our dependence on foreign oil. We don’t have an energy policy right now. That’s why we’re funding both sides of the war on terror, melting the polar ice caps, and letting the old style of politics make sure that Detroit doesn’t produce more fuel efficient cars. And if we don’t do something soon, more Katrina’s are going to happen and we know which communities will bear the brunt of those storms.

When it comes to global climate change and developing the fuels for the 21st century, America must lead. I want our farmers to grow the renewable fuels and produce biofuels. I want us to lead the way on low carbon fuels. I want our young people to imagine and build the next great inventions. If we finally have a president who deals with this challenge, we could not only make our country safer, we could save the planet and create jobs throughout all our communities. We must meet this challenge. We must take the bullet out that’s stopped our progress for all these years and bring more economic opportunities to every community. We can do this.

But while we’re at it, what good is an education and a job, if there are only million dollar mansions and quarter million dollar condos and you can’t afford a place to live? When our children are being priced out of the neighborhoods and towns they grew up in and when families cannot find safe places to live near their job, that’s a bullet that’s got to come out too.

We have to invest in housing again. In too many communities low-income families are priced out of the housing market. In fact, there is not a single metropolitan area in the country where a family earning minimum wage can afford decent housing.

We need to create an Affordable Housing Trust Fund that would create as much as 112,000 new affordable units in mixed income neighborhoods. We need to fully fund the Community Development Block Grant initiative. As a former community organizer on the south side of Chicago, I know how critical those grants are and we have to do more to strengthen the partnership between the federal and local governments when it relates to housing programs like Section 202 for all those seniors who lost their apartments when the hurricane hit. We can do this.

We must also do more to protect homeowners in this country. A recent report found that the housing market experienced its worst sales-month in 18 years and foreclosures are up 47% compared to last year. Right now, too many people are caught in a nightmare caused by mortgage fraud and predatory lending.

That is why my “Stop Fraud” proposals require mortgage professionals to report suspected fraudulent activity and support state and local law enforcement in their efforts to fight fraud. It addresses abuses in the subprime loan market where 2 million homeowners may be at risk of foreclosure. And it provides $25 million for housing counseling to tenants, homeowners, and other consumers so they get the advice and guidance they need before buying a house and support if they get in to trouble down the road.

Even if we succeed in making housing and homeownership affordable for all, if we don’t help strengthen the families that live inside those homes, then those bullets will make the American house crumble from the inside out. We have to do more to help families balance work and take care of one another. Let’s help 17 million children by extending the child tax credit to low-income workers. Let’s stop spending $275 million a day in Iraq and pass some tax cuts that people actually need.

If we want stronger families in America, then we have to confront the tough issues. When too many fathers think that responsibility ends at conception — when they have not yet realized that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child but the courage to raise one, we know that our families are in crisis. That’s a self-inflicted wound we all have to help heal.

Now there are ways that the government can help. That’s why I introduced the Responsible Fatherhood and Healthy Families Act. It provides fathers with innovative job training services and increases access to the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). It calls for an increase in child support enforcement by almost $5 billion over 10 years, resulting in nearly $20 billion in collection. That money will go directly to children and their mothers. But let’s be honest, government alone can’t solve the breakdown of our families. This is something we have to look to ourselves so that fathers become parents too.

We know what the challenges are in small towns and big cities across this country. We know what those bullets are. We’ve talked about them for years. What’s stopped us from meeting these challenges and taking these bullets out is not the absence of sound policies and sensible plans. What’s stopped us is the failure of leadership and absence of urgency and a belief that if we ignore our problems like discrimination and poverty that they will someone how go away.

For the last six years we’ve been told that our mounting debts don’t matter, we’ve been told that the anxiety Americans feel about rising health care costs and stagnant wages are an illusion, we’ve been told that climate change is a hoax, and that tough talk and an ill-conceived war can replace diplomacy, and strategy, and foresight. And when all else fails, when Katrina happens, or the death toll in Iraq mounts, we’ve been told that our crises are somebody else’s fault. We’re distracted from our real failures, and told to blame the other party, or gay people, or immigrants.

That kind of politics has to stop. That kind of quackery has to stop. We don’t need anymore faith healers and snake oil salesmen. We need some doctors to take the bullets out.

Before we can start that work, we need to end this war in Iraq, which has cost our country and our people so much. I opposed it from the very start, back in 2002 when it wasn’t popular to be against this war. I opposed it because I believed strongly that it could lead to the disaster we find ourselves in today, with our brave young service men and women mired in the middle of a civil war.

This war never should have been authorized by Congress and it never should have been waged. And it’s time, once and for all, to bring our troops home. It’s time to recognize that American soldiers can’t solve Iraq’s political differences or ethnic rivalries.

That’s why I introduced a plan in January that would have begun withdrawing our combat forces on May 1st-five days ago-and would have brought them home by March 31st, while forcing the Iraqi government to meet its obligations.

And this is basically the plan the President vetoed this week, defying not just a majority of Congress but the will of the American people. But rest assured, his veto was not the last word. If the President continues to stubbornly ignore the realities of Iraq, we intend to force our colleagues in the Senate and House to take vote after vote until we overcome his veto or he finally understands that we have to change course.

We need 16 Republican votes in the Senate to override a veto. There’s a Republican right here in Louisiana who needs to vote to end the war. Tomorrow I’ll be in Iowa and there’s a senator there whose vote we need. I need the mayors and the students here to call their senators and congressman too. This is the only chance we have to truly end the war. It’s not symbolic; this is real. Sixteen votes and we can turn the page on this war. Sixteen votes and we can start bringing our men and women home.

Let me just close by saying this. We can only meet these challenges together. We can only take these bullets out together. We can only strengthen our cities and towns and in turn transform our nation, together.

We know how the doctors do it. We watch some of these TV shows like ER and Gray’s Anatomy. The doctors are in the operating room. One’s got the scalpel, but others are watching the monitors and administering the IV. The nurses are on the job. The orderlies are on the job. There was a team that got the bullet out of that baby girl 15 years ago. She’s got a scar on her arm, always will, but she survived.

America is going to survive. We won’t forget where we came from. We won’t forget what happened 19 months ago, 15 years ago, 200 years ago. We’re going to pull out bullet after bullet. We’re going to stitch up arm after arm. We’re going to wear those scars for justice. We’re going to usher in a new America the way that newborn child was ushered in.

We’re never going to forget there is always hope — there is always light in the midst of desperate days — that a baby can be born even with a bullet in her arm. And we can come together as one people and transform this nation.

For the last almost twenty years…

May 20, 2007 in Did You Know?, Hillary Clinton | by bfwo | Leave a comment

bush_clinton_bush.jpg

For the last almost twenty years, there has been someone in office either named ‘Clinton’ or ‘Bush’:

2000-present: George W. Bush

1992-2000    :  William J. Clinton

1988-1992    : George H.W. Bush

Enough is enough. I am personally a real admirer of Hillary Clinton’s, but it is obvious that we need a new direction in this country, and that direction needs to be charted by someone who is not so deeply engrained in the “politics as usual” conundrum we’ve been mired in for the last twenty years that they can’t affect real change. And real change is needed.

This nation has seen prosperity over the last twenty years, and endured unspeakable tragedy. We have waded through scandal after scandal, some real, some imaginary, and some just plain stupid. We spent countless millions of dollars and only God knows how much airtime, energy, and hits to our global reputation on what amounted to one man’s inability to be faithful to his wife, only to be treated to revelation after revelation of similar dalliances and scandals coming from the opposing party that put us all through it in the first place.

We’ve been pushed into a war that from the beginning strained credulity, only to have our reasons for being in that war morph into something that is hardly recognizable from the original justifications given by the Bush Administration; while Osama Bin Laden remains at large, and terror cells in the United States continue to sprout, plot and plan.

We have an education system that is failing us, a healthcare system that more and more leaves hard-working Americans in a lurch, and a shameful record of dealing with poverty and homelessness that defies description. It’s time for change in America, and we won’t get it without a fresh perspective and new ideas. Enter Barack Obama.

But what of Barack Obama’s inexperience, you say? He’s never had to lead us through an international incident, he has no real foreign policy experience, you say? This is the most popular argument from those who oppose Obama’s candidacy – I listen to the Right, and to other candidates, the political talk-boxes, the hot mamas on Fox News that double as reporters, and I shake my head in frustration. The fact of the matter is, some of the greatest presidents in our history have been unproven, but were successful, even remarkaby so because they had the right ideas about where the nation was at the time, and the direction the nation needed to go in. Upon close examination, Barack Obama wins again and again in the arena of ideas, and his strong stance on the recent war funding vote means he is capabale of standing on principle, even when his stance is not a popular one.

Let’s show the world that we really are much better than what we have become; I believe that it’s time to show our global partners that we will not be defined by the Don Imus’ of the world, or by our failed Iraq policy, not even by our obsession with the salacious – it’s time for the hard-working, kind, generous nation of free people to take back control – let’s dispense with politics as usual and put a man in the White House who can represent us all, and do it well.  It’s time to de-Clinton, and de-Bush our nation. Barack Obama for President in 2008!