Our Voice Now

For anyone who has been following the election and the months since, never before in history has a President-elect been looked to for answers and leadership than Barack Obama has been.  And, as he keeps reminding everyone, there is only one President at a time and he is not President yet.  Never has a President-elect had to do that!  What does that say about the last eight years?

Yet, even as America, it’s new leader and it’s people move forward, it seems to Ultra-Conservatives (aka as the Fundamentalists/Extremists of the Right) are trying to hold us back.  The likes of Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh are still out there whining and pushing intolerance and hatred.  Sarah Palin is still complaining that Katie Couric used ‘gotcha’ journalism on her.  Wow, Katie Couric?  Imagine what Palin would have gone through if a true hard-edge journalist had interviewed her?

To be clear, I am more conservative, but a moderate conservative.  I was raised in the Baptist denomination for the most part, believe in Creation and am still very involved in my church and the community (now the United Church of Christ however).  What I see in Obama is not just the first black President and let’s shove it in the faces of the moronic racists.  No.  Obama is merely a small part of what is going on here and it’s a shame that this nations own extremists (who are no different than Muslim extremists that we have labeled as Terrorists) refuse to embrace the massive leap forward this nation is finally taking - albeit these conservative extremists will, in fact, lose their power and control and that is no doubt what they fear the most for the good of the average person was NEVER part of their agenda.

As I watched the We Are One concert at the Lincoln Memorial today it was very clear that this is much more than about a new President.  This concert, and the celebrations to come, are for the people of this nation who have worked so hard, whether it be in the last few months on the campaign or their entire life fighting injustics, to bring us to where we are today.

This is bigger than I think any of us can really realize right now.  The power has been given back to the people.  It is *our* turn to take the next steps to make this country the best it can be.  Now is NOT the time to sit back and say ‘oh, I did my part. I worked on the campaing, I voted so now it’s up to Obama’.  No.  Now is the time for ALL of us to get out there and say “I did my part to get this country going in the right direction and I must continue to do my part because one man cannot do it alone”.

What if Rosa Parks never refused to move?  What if Martin Luther King never stepped out from behind the pulpit and spoke to the nation, simply accepted the injustices?  What if women never stood up to their husbands and demanded a right to vote?  What if blacks and whites alike never marched through Montgomery, deciding it was too much effort and wouldn’t result in anything anyway? 

So the next time you start to complain that this nation isn’t doing enough for the poor and homeless and struggling stop and ask yourself what have YOU done to help?  Have you taken a few hours out of your day per month to go serve food to the homeless at your local shelter?  Have you taken the time to take your slightly worn clothes to the local Salvation Army or have you opted for simply throwing them in the trash because it’s easier?  Have you taken one weekend out of your year to help build a house with Habitat for Humanity?  If the answer is no to these questions, do not blame the government or the President for it all starts at home, with each and every one of us.  NOW is the time to start that change. 

And for those who have complained that Obama’s inauguration events are costing too much and he should have scaled it back because we are a nation at war and with an economic crisis I first ask this, did Bush and the conservative extremists scale back in 2004?  Not one bit.  Secondly, this is far more than a celebration for Obama - this is a celebration of US!  A celebration of what can be, what will be and that above and beyond all else, we are a nation of people who have far more in common than different with each other.

For those who couldn’t have been bothered voting this past November just remember this. Starting Tuesday at noon, you no longer have a right to complain about anything that Obama or Biden do over the next four years.  Don’t vote?  Don’t complain.  If you couldn’t be bothered to take half an hour to even write in a vote if you didn’t like the two choices then you freely gave up your right to complain.  Harsh?  Not at all.  For all the women and men of all colors who died to fight for our right to vote the least you can do to honor them (your parents, grandparents) is to exercise your right to vote.  What a disgrace it is to the honor and memory of all those who gave up their lives for that.  Shame on you.

There’s an old saying ‘a bad penny always turns up’ and the same could be said, it seems, about one Sarah Palin.  Just when you think she has crawled back to her isolated world up there in Alaska (you betcha), someone gives her yet more tv time!  Why? 

After the disaster that was the pardon a turkey while it’s fellow turkeys were being slaughters in plain view behind her, we all thought that was it.  She was finally humiliated and laughed out of the headlines.  Well, like that perverbial bad penny, she still keeps showing up.

This time she has decided to wear the hat of media watchdog by claiming that the media is being nicer to Caroline Kennedy than they were to her because Ms. Kennedy comes from money.  Last I checked, generally you have to have a good bit of money to not only live in Alaska but to also have five children, a bum of a husband who doesn’t feel like working, a home with a lake view, a private plane, snowmobiles for all family members and the ability to go up in a helicopter to hunt whenever you want.  Had Ms. Palin come out making the arguement that Caroline Kennedy doesn’t have any political experience and that she was being given a free ride because of her name, that might have held water - although it would appear in politics having the Kennedy name can be just as much of a hinderence as a help and Ms. Kennedy has spent a good bit of her life working behind the scenes with charitys, community work (oops, that’s right working with the community means nothing, I forgot), schools, education, etc. - far more than Ms. Let me check out five different universities and settle on being a beauty queen who is handed a job at a local tv station Palin did.

Alas, no.  Sarah Palin decided that she was merely going to come out complaining (what she seems to do best) about how the media massacred her and having nothing bad to say about Caroline Kennedy and that it wasn’t her fault the Katie Couric interview was so bad, it was the campaigns fault because they made her do it.  Um, first of all, if she had become Vice President, she’d have to do tv and radio interviews… albeit Cheney has done a fine job of hiding somewhere.

It would seem that Sarah Palin has yet to accept the fact that people simply did not, and still do not, like her.  She labeled people.  She stereotyped people.  She divided people more than Bush could have hoped for.  She made some of the stupidest comments ever that made Paris Hilton sound like a genius (even Paris never claimed to be able to see another country from her backyard).  Ms. Palin needs to accept the loss, accept that people in the real world outside of Alaska simply do not like her and go back to doing whatever it is she does up there.  Maybe she could help her bum of a future son-in-law get a high school diploma (though she does claim he’s not a high school drop out) now that he doesn’t have a job again. 

She does, however, seem to forget that for the first few weeks of her nomination, the media did not question anything she said or did!  They only touched the surface when they did finally start questioning.  Imagine what she would have been like if the media had attacked her full fo

Probably about the only thing everyone can agree on is that, realistically, there will never be true peace in the Mid-East.  It’s a nice dream that I am sorry to say, I don’t think will ever be realized, at least not in any of our lifetimes.

So, with that out of the way, I bring forth the question that seems to *finally* be being asked by some of the more hard-hitting journalists as well - why is the US giving carte blanche in support to Israel?  What have they done for us?  As I recall, it wasn’t that long ago where Americans were being targeted in Israel.

It almost seems that there is a fear in this country that if you don’t support anything and everything the Israeli government does then that somehow means you are anti-semitic.  That logic seems about as reasonable as Bush’s ‘if you don’t support me you support the terrorist’ rhetoric.

Does Israel have a right to protect itself? Yes.  Absolutely.  There is no question about that.  (Edit - I meant include they have a right to protect themselves if a situation warrants but no one was killed by the Hamas missiles - for the moment they were more of a nuisance as opposed to the hundreds killed by the Israeli attacks).  But what has been forgotten or purposely not reported is that since they took control of Gaza and basically walled the Palestinians in, they have treated the Palestinians almost the same way the Saddam treated the Iraqi’s who didn’t support him.  They have cut off food, water, electricity and other basic needs to the Palestinians - and have for years not just since this latest fighting started.  They do not allow the Palestinians to travel from one section to another without having to go through security checkpoints.  Didn’t we overthrow an entire government (albeit illegally) because Saddam did the same?

While in no means do I support Hamas, and please remember, if someone is Palestinian it does NOT mean they are members of Hamas - that would be the equivalant of saying if you are white and live in the south then you are a member of the Klan, I do question Israel’s over-reacting of the missiles being fired by Hamas.  Hamas’ missiles did not kill anyone.  In one day, Israel killed more than 250 civilians in Gaza and the deaths continue to rise.  They bombed two U.N. schools - the Israelis, not Hamas.

The timing also seems a bit… convenient.  Bush has less than two weeks left as President.  Did the Israeli government panic figuring it was now or never because the odds are Obama will not let them just attack and use the excuse of ‘but we’re Israel, you have to support us’?

While neither side is right in this issue, the saddest part is the hundreds of innocent lives being taken in the name of pride and arrogance.  I would like to believe that the average Israeli citizen is just as disgusted by the actions of their leaders as so many Americans were disgusted by the actions of Bush.