ONE PERFECT MOMENT
By Jackie McIntosh - Mar 29th, 2008 at 11:37 pm EDT
Not so long ago I sat with my partner to watch one of the televised debates.
"This makes me so proud," I said,"this just makes me so proud."
I didn't have to say anything else, he knew what I meant and shared in my emotion. We were democrats. It was the triumph of progressive thought, manifest.
Standing on that stage, a group of talented, accomplished individuals representing the union of interests, ethnicities, idealogies and faiths that form the democratic party, proclaiming our common creed of equality, inclusion, tolerance and liberty.
It was a moment that generations had waited to see and we were that generation. This moment was our truest victory.
It is hard to believe that only a short time later we have forgotten what that moment felt like. No matter which candidate you supported, for this one brief moment, it just felt good to be a democrat, it felt good to be an american. It just felt good.
Today we are inflamed by the passions of our convictions and determined that "our side" must win.
We all feel cheated, abused and powerless in this malestrom of emotion that has overtaken that one perfect moment.
Many are dissenchanted with an electoral process that has delivered us into chaos. Many resent an elite, political aristocracy that would assume to impose its will, but seems to have no control of the sytem.
Supporters in each camp are suspicious, angry and dedicated to "our cause." Issues are being lost to rhetoric and I have been as guilty as most.
A certan thugishness has taken root in our debate and emotions have replaced reason.
This party is in real trouble and to believe these wounds will heal without remedy is foolishness. Many will
leave regardless of the outcome, others will simply not vote in the fall. Some will stay and fight for change.
I fear the outcome of this.
If the fractures in this fragile alliance are not tended, that one perfect moment may never come again.

THANK you Jackie!

This was a great post, but the replies were even better! I really saw some hope for us coming together in November. There's lots of barking and nipping at heels etc. but there's also a lot of reason (not 100% but passing).

I personally thank ALL of you who replied for a VERY interesting read. I REALLY HOPE (there's the "H" word) that we can unite behind whomever is the Democratic nominee and kick these bums to the curb!

http://www.democrats.org/page/community/post/ronhotstream/ChQ7/commentary#comment-gGCBXy

Two days ago I saw hundreds of soldiers getting off a World Airways flight; they're headed for Iraq, many for the third or fourth time. Some won't make it back; some will return severely wounded.


If that's OK with you, choose John McCain as your next President; perhaps your children or grandchildren will get to experience a HumVee ride through Baghdad.

Sandi: I hope you can live with the choices in your life. Get out of your county and you might see what the world is about...and it ain't your snivelling drivel!

Night All

Way past my bedtime! Saw a story on CNN today about how Dubai has a multi-Trillion dollar building plan in progress. That's Trillion with a "T". They're importing labor from "third-world" countries and paying laborers $175 a MONTH for constructing their skyscrapers. Aren't you glad you live in the United States of America?

Well we ain't got a barrel of money...
We may look ragged and funny...
But we're travelin' on...
Singing our song...
Side by side.

I hope!

Night all!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24538157/

Re: Edwards

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080509/pl_nm/usa_politics_edwards_dc_1

States where the winning candidate had large victories:

Over 11% Margin: Obama 24 Clinton 7

Over 20% Margin: Obama 18 Clinton 2

Over 30% Margin: Obama 11 Clinton 1

Peace from Kuwait

States where the winning candidate had large victories:

Over 11% Obama 24 Clinton 7

Over 20% Obama 18 Clinton 2

Over 30% Obama 11 Clinton 1

Peace from Kuwait; tomorrow Beirut

Bed Time in Turkey $10.75 a gallon gas here....small cars! Haven't seen any Lamborghinis or Humvees there yet.

To Kuwait tomorrow...$ 0.75 a gallon gas there. Lots-o-Lambos there; Humvees are passe They're loving our gas thirst in Kuwait; no recession for those folks! Gas up USA! They love it! Eighteen cents a gallon savings for four months; Get Real!

Eighteen cents a gallon isn't going to change anything; $6.00 a gallon gasoline will. That's what the people in Europe were paying ten years ago and they demanded smaller, more fuel efficient cars.

I replied yesterday about the smile on the Hybrid car driver on the road next to you; all the answers were from Honda and Toyota owners! Why were HONDA and TOYOTA the first to give us really fuel efficient cars? Easy! Because they've been demanded for years by people in Europe and Asia. We didn't care, and the US car makers gave us SUVs, Humvees "Full size" cars that get 24 MPG if you're lucky!

If you get 40 MPG, your fuel costs will be back at 1999 levels, consumption will decline, gas prices will fall.

$6 a gallon fuel might be just what we need. We're mad as hell, and we're not going to take low MPG anymore!

Eighteen cents? Really!

Let's declare a truce! No more of the "N" word. We're all a bit fed-up now....both sides! Take a deep breath, count to 100, whatever you have to do. We are not encouraging people to support our candidates. We've got guys spilling their guts out in IRAQ. Let's respect them by keeping this POSITVE. At least for a while!

Peace!

Lights going out in Turkey. Peace to all my new found friends (Hillary supporters too) Don't fight. Thanks for all your previous "Good Night" posts, I read them first thing in the morning.
Ciao for now.

WRM out.

This is a re-post of a few days ago but germane because of the zero visability in Kuwait caused by hight winds. Hope they can get that stuff out of Kuwait before I return next week.

"According to the Kuwait Arab Times this morning: Lead and depleted uranium found in Kuwait sand...the sand is being hauled by the BBC Alabama...is bound for a landfill in IDAHO!"

I wonder where Iraq's sand will go in ten years.

Bedtime for Bozo here in Turkey. Don't fight. We're all Democrats, and as such must swallow whatever pride-based illusions about not voting, or voting for Mccain, that we have.

NO MORE WAR. NO MORE FATHERLESS OR MOTHERLESS CHILDREN CAUSED BY THIS WAR HERE IN THESE UNITED STATES!

Peace! See you tomorrow. Same time, same station.

We'd have 4000+, and counting, more voters this year if only we had listened to the right person.

Link

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 a 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 arm-chair, 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 am 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.

If only we had listened! Sure he didn't vote, he wasn't a Senator yet, but he had the intelligence to oppose the war for the right reasons.

Peace

Moved to Turkey, and the lights are going out. Peace to all. Don't fight. Keep America safe and leave a light on for me.

Beats the hell out of Kuwait!

the lights dim in Kuwait. Lots of nice posts today and not too much animosity. Be good to each other, we're all Democrats. We fight among ourselves sometimes, but don't any outsiders try it, we'll kick your butt!


Good Night all.

Peace

Nice Job all! 10:32 in Kuwait and all is well. Our troops over here would be proud.

It's 10:17PM in Kuwait. How about a 15 minute moratorium on nasty remarks and negative posts?

The text of that sermon, not just a snippet.

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04252008/profile.html

Watch the video or read the text.

Where governments lie, God does not lie. Where governments change, God does not change. And I'm through now. But let me leave you with one more thing. Governments fail. The government in this text comprised of Caesar, Cornelius, Pontius Pilate - the Roman government failed. The British government used to rule from East to West. The British government had a Union Jack. She colonized Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Jamaica, Barbados, Trinidad and Hong Kong. Her navies ruled the seven seas all the way down to the tip of Argentina in the Falklands, but the British government failed. The Russian government failed. The Japanese government failed. The German government failed. And the United States of America government, when it came to treating her citizens of Indian descent fairly, she failed. She put them on reservations. When it came to treating her citizens of Japanese descent fairly, she failed. She put them in internment prison camps. When it came to treating citizens of African descent fairly, America failed. She put them in chains. The government put them on slave quarters, put them on auction blocks, put them in cotton fields, put them in inferior schools, put them in substandard housing, put them in scientific experiments, put them in the lowest paying jobs, put them outside the equal protection of the law, kept them out of their racist bastions of higher education and locked them into position of hopelessness and helplessness. The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law, and then wants us to sing God bless America? No, no, no. Not God bless America; God damn America! That's in the Bible, for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating her citizen as less than human. God damn America as long as she keeps trying to act like she is God and she is supreme!


http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/04252008/profile.html

Meaning is a bit different when taken in totality,

We have heaped great injustices on many diverse peoples in these United States. We are not without sin.