Month: November 2008

Martin Luther King, Jr. “I Have a Dream” Delivered 28 August 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington D.C. I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation. Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity. But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition. In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the “unalienable Rights” of “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so, we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride,

From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges. But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their self-hood and robbed of their dignity by a sign stating: “For Whites Only.” We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until “justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.”¹ I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. And some of you have come from areas where your quest — quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends. And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today! I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of “interposition” and “nullification” — one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today! I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight; “and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.”² This is our hope, and this is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith, we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith, we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day. And this will be the day — this will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning: And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

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Bold Progressives

by dday

Alan Grayson has defeated Rep. Rick Keller to pick up a seat in the House for the Democrats. This one is great. Grayson is a better Democrat, a guy who went after fraudulent defense contractors who were wasting taxpayer dollars in Iraq. He’s a bold progressive. He’s going to be a leader in Congress.

Here’s Grayson on the Bush Administration:

I’m running because I’m fed up with the government mismanagement, the Bush administration’s shameless pandering to war profiteers. I think they set out on a deliberate course to make this war good for the people who were their friends. And I want to try to hold them accountable when I’m in Congress. When I’m in Congress… the Bush administration’s worst nightmare is going to be me with subpoena power because I know everything that they’ve done, and I’m going to hold them accountable for it.

Matt Stoller: But wait wait, let me just interrupt you there, the Bush administration’s gone in 2009.

Alan Grayson: Oh but all the people they set up as the new kings and queens of America are still around. What Eisenhower said, that we need to fear the military industrial compex, has become true because they have manufactured a five year war that they want to perpetuate for a generation or even a century so that they can keep lining the pockets of their friends, the war whores.

Matt Stoller: So, people are going to say, let bygones be bygones, or let’s have some sort of truth and reconciliation commission, what do you think needs to happen?

Alan Grayson: We don’t need truth and reconciliation, we need punishment. We need people to be held accountable for all the mistakes that they made that have screwed us up in this war and screwed us up in this economy. The economy is falling apart, the chickens are coming home to roost. You cannot spend $10,000 for every man, woman, and child in America for a war that never should have taken place in the first place.

Matt Stoller: But be specific, what do you mean by punishment?

Alan Grayson: We’ll put people in prison. We’ll take away the thing that they care about the most, their money. They stole, they hurt the troops, they killed people, they hurt the taxpayers year after year and they’ve destroyed this economy. They’re not going to get off scot-free.

Matt Stoller: Who’s ‘they’?

Alan Grayson: The people who have been running this government and their assistants who have been running companies like Halliburton. Think about it, we have a Vice President who was the head of Hallburton, who got a $23 million parting gift from them when he became Vice President. And he was the one who instigated this war and made Halliburton the largest army contractor in existence.

Awesome.

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Wrong

by digby

The segregationist, discriminatory scumbags from “Yes on 8” just had the nerve to send me — a resident of the godless People’s Republic of Santa Monica — a robocall with the voice of Barack Obama saying he doesn’t believe in gay marriage.

Eat this:

Joe Scarborough just went OFF on the Republican Party. He said “it wasn’t that long ago that Republicans thought they would have a permanent majority. They thought this country was a center right nation: WRONG!”

He went on:

“This is a total repudiation of the Republican brand. This is a party that is out of touch not only with the American electorate but their own base.”

Scarborough is pissed. This is going to be a good night.

Pat Buchanan: “I think, frankly, we could be on the cusp of a new era.”

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Uncivil Disobedience

by digby

Just a little observation about the right: I read this on Calitics this morning:

We just got a report in from a polling location in Contra Costa that a poll worker just came out and berated our volunteers, stating that she was morally opposed to what they were doing. Not exactly within the job description for a poll worker.

I realized reading that the right has created this myth that if you are morally opposed to doing something you have a right to break the law and suffer no consequences. They created this theme around the abortion debate going all the way back to the Hyde Amendment and more recently with groups like Pharmacists For Life and the gay marriage issue and faith based initiatives. It’s inevitable that some poll workers and federal employees would get confused and think they have the right to break federal and state laws generally if they find them morally objectionable.

If these were undertaken as acts of civil disobedience, with the full knowledge that they would be prosecuted, then that would be one thing. We have a long and honorable tradition of such things. But they want to be exempted from the consequences. That’s not the way we do it.

And while we have always had corruption of the electoral system, like every democracy, at least on some minor levels we have never allowed the ballot to be compromised because of someone’s “moral objections” to something on it. Again, it’s just not the way we do it.

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America’s A-Hole

by dday

Joe Lieberman, everyone:

BECK: But do you agree that Senator Hatch said to me that if we don’t at least have the firewall of the filibuster in the Senate that in many ways America will not survive?

LIEBERMAN: Well, I hope it’s not like that, but I fear.

Lieberman also hinted that next session, he would be supportive of conservative efforts to filibuster progressive legislation. Lieberman said that the filibuster is a “key” to stop such “passions of the moment”:

LIEBERMAN: And I think the filibuster is the key. You know, it gets a bad name, but it was really put there, a 60-vote requirement, to, as somebody said to me when I first came to the Senate, stop the passions of a moment among the people of America from sweeping across the Congress, the House, through the Senate, to a like-minded President and having us do things that will change America for a long time. So the filibuster is one of the important protections we have.

“Protections” from such things as giving kids healthcare, getting our troops out of Iraq, building the new energy infrastructure of the future, you know, “dangerous” things like that.

If anyone’s counting Democratic numbers in the Senate, be sure not to include Lieberman on our side. He’s telling you right here that he’s not. We can make that permanent, you know.

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Update:

From Dday writing on Calitics:

Make my election prediction come out right! This is from Debbie Cook’s campaign, via email:

We have volunteers monitoring precincts across the district, and the results look encouraging. Our voters are showing up and Republicans are just not very excited by Rohrabacher.

We need you to help phone from home now, and until the polls close at 8:00.

We need to personally call every Democrat in the district before 7:30 and get them out to vote.

Can you help?

If you can, please email debbiecookforcongress-at-gmail-dot-com and we’ll send you the simple instructions to call from home.

Joe Shaw
Communications Director
Debbie Cook for Congress

A Cook victory would be the biggest ideological shift in the entire House of Representatives. She is a Better Democrat who needs your help. Stay for Change and give Debbie Cook a hand. She will make you proud in Washington.

More Than Obama

by digby

I just got off the phone with Darcy Burner. She’s upbeat and feels confident, but it’s going to be close and she needs every possible voter today. If you know anyone in her district you need to call them. If you are in her district don’t think of blowing it off just because the gasbags are calling the election for Obama.

It is very, very difficult to turn a red district blue by unseating an incumbent, but Democrats like Darcy may just get it done this time. But it won’t happen if people fail to vote today.

Here in California I heard from some of my spies (Gloria) that the lines in Debbie Cook’s district were very long and included lots of young people, which is unusual in the precincts I heard about. Maybe we can take down that awful throwback Dana Rohrabacher too.

Cook and Burner are the faces of the new Democratic party. If they can get elected in these western blue state districts that are changing from conservative strongholds into modern, pragmatic progressivism we will see a more progressive country.

Take nothing for granted. This isn’t easy.

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Come From Ahead

by dday

This map is floating around the Internets today. Survey USA polled a hypothetical matchup in 2006 between McCain and Obama. McCain took it 510 to 28 in the Electoral College, with Obama only winning Illinois, Hawaii and D.C.

Two years ago John McCain was probably the most popular Republican in politics, and maybe the nation’s most popular politician. It’s important not to forget that. Fed by a media image that portrayed him as almost a comic-book hero, as this noble warrior willing to follow his conscience instead of party labels, he was exalted as the rugged maverick. It’s simply incredible how that image has been completely tarnished by this Presidential campaign. He did it to himself, and because of the incredible engagement online and in the grassroots, the media was finally compelled to follow.

…by the way, I don’t think this is an example of the media being biased, it’s a typical example of them being dumb and myopic, thinking that the most important part of the election story is when THEY can report the returns, not giving voters accurate information of when the polls close in their area. It’s malpractice of the worst kind. They still think this whole thing is for their amusement.

MSNBC continually aired graphics that purported to show “POLL CLOSING[]” times for each state. But in states that cross over time zones, the times listed in the graphics reflected the western-most time zone in the state, in which polls close an hour later than the rest of the state. Thus, people watching MSNBC in the eastern portion of some states could be left with the impression that local polls would be open for an hour after they actually close.

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Vote Suppression

by digby

By “Black Panthers?” It so figures…

Meanwhile, back on planet earth:

Video the Vote has more.

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News At Eleven

by digby

I just want to add to what tristero said below — if the networks call the election early they will not only run the risk of being wrong, they will likely lower turnout in the west. That will affect our congressional and senate races as well as important ballot initiatives.

There is no reason for this bullshit. They tease the results of the news for hours including the all important sporting events. Indeed, there is an old trope that describes it called, “news at eleven.” There is no reason that they can’t hold off calling the election until the polls are closed. None. Considering their egregious performance just eight years ago, I find it mind-boggling that they are talking about doing this.

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How Different This Is

by dday

There is the obvious, of course, and that’s a big deal. Senior citizens who were the sons and daughters of slaves are going to the polls today to vote for the son of a Kenyan for President of the United States. It’s extremely unique, and anomalous for the world. In fact, the US is the most likely place for this to happen. Europe has never had an ethnic minority lead one of their countries (Nicolas Sarkozy is the son of Hungarian immigrants, but that’s not really what we’re talking about), and immigrants are simply not assimilated into the society in the same way. It sounds weird to say it, but this is a uniquely American event.

But believe it or not, I think Adam Nagourney gets this largely right – while the phrase “change politics as we know it” gets thrown around a lot, this election truly has.

It has rewritten the rules on how to reach voters, raise money, organize supporters, manage the news media, track and mold public opinion, and wage — and withstand — political attacks, including many carried by blogs that did not exist four years ago. It has challenged the consensus view of the American electoral battleground, suggesting that Democrats can at a minimum be competitive in states and regions that had long been Republican strongholds.

The size and makeup of the electorate could be changed because of efforts by Democrats to register and turn out new black, Hispanic and young voters. This shift may have long-lasting ramifications for what the parties do to build enduring coalitions, especially if intensive and technologically-driven voter turnout programs succeed in getting more people to the polls. Mr. McCain’s advisers expect a record-shattering turnout of 130 million people, many being brought into the political process for the first time.

“I think we’ll be analyzing this election for years as a seminal, transformative race,” said Mark McKinnon, a senior adviser to President Bush’s campaigns in 2000 and 2004. “The year campaigns leveraged the Internet in ways never imagined. The year we went to warp speed. The year the paradigm got turned upside down and truly became bottom up instead of top down.”

And regardless of whether that is good for Democrats or Republicans (right now, it’s Democrats, but that could change), it’s good for the country. Political engagement is good for America. It’s going to be sorely needed as we meet these enormous challenges, the fallout of the Age of Bush.

What was most different is that, despite the smear campaigns and the attacks, this was quite a substantive election. It was waged on ideological grounds, and while a lot of important issues hardly ever got raised, the core philosophies of conservatives and liberals was fully on display. And so the outcome ought to produce a bigger mandate than in the past. Obama made the argument, and so did McCain. Now the winner can act on it. And hopefully, we will see a citizenry as engaged about governing as they were about the horse race. That is the great challenge for the next President, because only people power will be able to overcome the special interests and the guardians of the status quo.

So go vote. But then on November 5, the work begins.

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