Gratitudes: Day Two

I am so very grateful that I am an American Citizen. It has not been an easy campaign cycle. Not in who I wanted to vote for, but by the amount of muck I needed to rake through to get to the truth-by the nastiness of it all. No, Obama is not a saint, nor the Messiah, but I am very proud of him and how he tried his best, sometimes under very difficult circumstances, to stay out of the mud.

But here we are, Election Day, and I have the right to speak my mind, to vote for whom I choose. That in itself is a huge blessing. I am grateful for our Founding Fathers who did an exceptional job 200 years ago, and for the soldiers who fight for us and the government officials who do their best to keep America strong.

I am very grateful for the Bill of Rights. All of them, even the Second hahaahah!!!

Some of my other grats:

1. For Caitlyn who tucked *me* in so sweetly lasy night. My Bicillin shot really hurt and she made sure I had my heat pack nice and warm and that I was all cozy when she said good night.

2. For my mom- who didn’t call me yesterday because she knew how hard I was working from home LOL

3. For my brother- who knows why.

4. For all of you who read this! I love getting hits on my blog.

An Informed Electorate

I just posted this on Oscraps, but thought it important to post here too.

I know you all know I am a liberal/progressive, and it is no secret that I am voting for Obama. But I truly enjoy listening to all sides of an issue- it forces me to think outside of my own box, which is one reason I love politics!

Unfortunately, I am finding that main stream media/TV news is not doing a good enough job of informing the electorate- the people- on the issues. Because of corporate ownership and that news is more entertainment than investigative, the truth gets muddled with misinformation and smears.
I find that I do better reading my news online.
Some of my favorite, non-biased sites:
NPR Topics: News
BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition
RealClearPolitics (This has articles from the left, the right and everything in between)
Democracy Now! (This leans left on issues it reports, but it is one of the few sites that does true investigative journalism)

Then you need your Fact Checking:
PolitiFact
FactCheck.org
Fact Check

It is really good to know that the claims made by the McCain/Palin team regarding Bill Ayers has been completely debunked:
A radical Ayers allegation

One last website:If you are not sure where the Candidate stand on isuues- here’s a cute site:
Election 2008: Issues-o-Meter

I know I prob send too much time with politics, but I feel that the US Constitution is an incredible and amazing document. It has provided us with a system of checks and balances that is a work of art. It also reminds us that *we* are the Gov’t – “We, the people” And it is up to us to vote our own conscience, but it needs to be an informed conscience.

Quote:

“The most effectual means of preventing [the perversion of power into tyranny are] to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large, and more especially to give them knowledge of those facts which history exhibits, that possessed thereby of the experience of other ages and countries, they may be enabled to know ambition under all its shapes, and prompt to exert their natural powers to defeat its purposes.” –Thomas Jefferson: Diffusion of Knowledge Bill, 1779. FE 2:221, Papers 2:526

Love that TJ

Better get off my soapbox, the air is getting thin this way up high and I am getting dizzy

Obama for President

Heh, if you all know me at al, you know I am a pretty liberal-minded person. So no suprise that I have been an Obama supporter since the very beginning. Call me a an Obaminite, Obamican, whatever. The more I see him in the news, on the TV, in press releases, the prouder I am to be a supporter.

I read this on the Boston Globe Website:  Obama for president

What a wonderfully written endorsement of him.
One of the best parts of this- and one that I hope all of my more conservative friends was this:

Evident from all that scrutiny (since starting his campaign) is a nimble mind, an ever more impressive grasp of policy detail, and an ability to listen to contradictory viewpoints. Obama is clearly a liberal. But when he led the Harvard Law Review, he won praise from conservative thinkers because he genuinely wanted to hear what they had to say.

If this is not a leader…

In light of America’s current economic, political and militaristic issues currently unfolding rapidly, I find that this sums up my feelings quite well.

As the first black major-party presidential nominee, Obama has strived to make voters comfortable with a ‘‘skinny kid with a funny name.’’ And yet the historical significance of his bid is impossible to ignore. Voters can make no more powerful statement about America’s commitment to inclusion and opportunity than to put forward this man — Barack Hussein Obama, son of a father from Kenya and a mother from Kansas — as the nation’s representative to the world.

An early Obama campaign slogan declared, ‘‘We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.’’ His critics deemed such rhetoric too ethereal. Now it seems prescient, as the nation confronts a financial crisis of historic proportions, as well as all the other policy failures and debt-fueled excesses of the last eight years. The United States has to dig itself out. Barack Obama is the one to lead the way.

This is why I want Obama to win

“I’m not interested in fighting people just for the sake of scoring political points.” “If I’m going to fight somebody it’s going to be fighting over the American people and what they need.”

This sums it up- this is what our country needs. Critics say his speeches are just words, I disagree. I think his words have a deeper and more profound impact that all of the mud-slinging that has been going on from other sides.

I think he can truly make a difference.

Obama 08