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Ssshhh. Listen Up.
There are voices, crying, begging, screaming: Iraqis, Pakistani lawyers, Burmese monks, Kenyans, Katrina victims, sick children without insurance, mothers of soldiers, steelworkers, immigrants, polar bears even. The noise is deafening if you listen, but listen, we must.
It is the Year of Listening Well.
And so must Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee and it will be the test of their lives. No matter what happens in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and beyond, the American people already understand where the will of the people leans, where the yearning for a particular kind of leadership has opened.
Sssshhh. Listen.
We are tired of the blind eye and the deaf ear, we are weary of the bullies and the bullied sparring over the details of yet another cut at the Constitution or human rights. We don’t like torture, rendition, or the loss of jobs. We despise the housing and mortgage industry and those who were supposed to regulate it. We want health care for all, and we’ll take what Canada and France have, even with the imperfections.
Ssshhh. Listen: The needy children. The firefighters. The veterans, the teachers, the homeless and the unemployed. All need to be heard.
And yes, we all get that global warming is real and we have blown the stewardship thing.
And so we turn to the new leaders, the voices for change and the two men who are emerging as the representatives for such change. They are both expansive and present, both see far and wide and both listen and consider. Both have strong cores of values. Both have mobile active faces, both are complex movers, and both relate deeply and purposefully.
Sssshh. Because the noise level may drive them mad. Because now it begins: the voices in the ear, the hand on the shoulder of the experienced, the tug at the sleeve from the supplicants, the advisors, consultants, constituents, the funders, the donors, the bundlers, the “special interests”, and these two men will listen, must listen, should listen to the experts too, right?
Two men stand in for our need to be heard: one is Black and one is White, one has a multi-ethnic and global perspective, having lived in the larger world, and one is deeply focused on a particular belief system and is authentically, religiously narrow.
Some of the voices will be telling Barack Obama: focus in, speak to American values, move closer to the middle (or the RNC will portray you as a LIBERAL). Some will be telling Mike Huckabee: Speak out against immigrants, support prayer in schools, stop gay marriage (or the evangelicals will see you as a LIBERAL).
And yet both men, each in his way, are innately liberal, meaning they are open, good listeners, nuanced thinkers, considerate and capable of advancing an idea into policies that work for most. Problem-solvers. They are smooth dancers who can lead on the floor and come away with new insights.
Will they? Or will they succumb to the noise and, in the effort to sort out the voices, privilege the ear-whisperers, the ones with one hand full of cash and the other on the shoulder, steering them towards the corporate, the profiteering, the imperial and imperious insider trade mart?
Sssshhhhhhhhhh. Watch. Observe, Listen. Be aware and beware. We enter into the fray as foot soldiers for peace and justice and learning and caring for the planet and each other. All around us is noise and jumble. We must be vigilant.
Mr. Obama and Mr. Huckabee: We are watching you both.
Sssshhh. When the noise level rises, you know what to do.
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Also posted here for those who would like to support it:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/1/5/95241/02848
Karen,
It's the noise of the 'experienced' and the advisors that makes me nervous about them. Those people, as Christy pointed out in the open thread, wish to maintain their position of power and the status-quo.
It is those people who offer their advise to them. It is that noise they hear instead of the voices of pain out here.
I just pray that wedge issues and bullying won't be allowed to continue unabated as they have in the past 30 years.
We need sanity again. We need to take the corporations out of our government. And yet it is these corporations who have the biggest investment in maintaining the status-quo.
Very very good. I'll go to the Kos version to recommend. I also want to promote Mr. Drinkwater because he is very talented and needs to be "seen" - it may help people to listen. I think he is as good as Jules Feiffer or Saul Steinberg. He's a friend of Nyc, who is a friend of Kayakbiker and I, our emissary from NYC.
http://silencedmajority.blogs.com/silenced_majority_portal/2008/01/mr-drinkwater-v.html
It will be interesting to see how the powers that be react.
The "anyone but Huckabee" movement began in earnest Friday morning, as the "Capital Gains Cut or Death" crowd decided that they couldn't live with an even vaguely Christian inspired approach to economic policy. God forbid they trade Club for Growth ideology for the Sermon on the Mount! Aren't they afraid of the loss of their eternal souls? Evidently not!
As for the Democrats, in 2004, the ducks all fell in a row after Iowa. It remains to be seen if the Clintonistas will go without much of a fight. I doubt it. With yesterday's dour employment report, the possibility of the country falling into recession during the next twelve months became much more realistic. Yet, with these primaries having been so excessively front-loaded, there's probably not enough time for these emerging economic trends to fully impact the Democratic outcome, as they deserve to. Thus, in a very real sense, our political process has become even more disassociated from reality.
The lives of real people, both in America and around the world, are at stake here. The people of Iowa understood that - and they voted for change, and for hope. Will the politicos care? Whose country is this anyway?
I wonder this? If the GOP does to Huckabee what Rove did to McCain in South Carolina, will the evangelicals ever forgive them? They shouldn't. My guess is that this will be a watershed election any way it turns out - but the change that ultimately endures might be different from that which we see on the surface today. We are clearly about to enter "interesting times".
In the overall race for delegates, Clinton leads with 175, followed by Obama with 75 and Edwards with 46.
Yeah but in New Hampshire this time the press seems to LIKE McCain.
I don't - if you click on my name I have written a caution for NH about him. The evangelicals have been used, just the way any subgroup stands to be used (gays, minority subgroups, demographic groups, labor and occupational groups etc.) If they realize it soon, it's about time!
The Republican establishment never wants to remove the social issue problems (Roe v Wade doesn't go away, DOMA doesn't pass) - or there would be no wedge issues to organize around.
Reuters/C-Span/Zogby
In New Hampshire, Clinton's lead over Obama in the Democratic race shrunk slightly to four points, 32 percent to 28 percent. John Edwards, a former North Carolina senator who finished second in Iowa, was in third place with 20 percent.
Among Republicans, McCain's lead over rival Mitt Romney fell by two points to 32 percent against 30 percent. Huckabee, a Baptist minister and former Arkansas governor, gained two points to 12 percent.
That is in the realm of chance between Clinton/Obama and McCain/Romney. I doubt Huckabee is a big player in New Hampshire.
I voted at DKos but didn't see the diary up - we use (a few friends) DocuDharma more now because it was designed for diaries that drop too fast at "Big Orange" and is more inclusive, cultural and artistic (supposedly, though there was a recent brawl, at which point I left for awhile, as that is not a good purpose for the internet).
Hillary Repackages Herself as a Black Man by Andy Borowitz
In what some party insiders are calling a Hail Mary bid to win Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton today attempted to repackage herself as a black man.
In the wake of her disappointing third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses, there was consensus among Mrs. Clinton’s campaign aides that her presidential bid needed to be rebooted, but few party professionals expected her to change her race and sex with only five days to go until New Hampshire.
According to Clinton strategist Mark Penn, however, Mrs. Clinton’s decision to become an African-American man was thoroughly consistent with her history as a “change agent.”
“Hillary is all about change, and changing her race and sex is just the most recent example of that,” he said.
Speaking at a rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, Mrs. Clinton thanked her supporters for “keeping it real” and promoted her just-released autobiography, “The Bodacicty of Hope.”
“This election is about whether or not America is ready to elect a black man President of the United States,” she said. “I believe I am that black man.”
Meanwhile, former President Bill Clinton was dismissive of rival John Edwards’ comparison of himself to Seabiscuit, remarking that “in addition to being a black man, Hillary has for many years been a world-class horse.”
Mr. Clinton made his comments in an interview on PBS’ “Charlie Rose Show,” in which the former president, looking bleary-eyed and unshaven, touted Mrs. Clinton’s victory in last year’s Belmont Stakes.
Elsewhere, embattled G.O.P. presidential candidate Mitt Romney unveiled a new campaign slogan, “What the Huck?!”
I loved this piece karen. Thanks. We ALL need to listen. But most importantly, our politicians need to listen since we are the ones they work for - or don't - as is the case with the current American president. And after the minefield of words and advice quietens; when we sort the wheat from the chaff; we can Get the Word Out
Anywhere and everywhere. I think in his Iowa win, Obama got the word out. I think there will be more voters at the next election than ever before, if he gets the nomination. So many utterly disenfranchised people are looking at him with hope. Hope that they might get a voice.
"What the Huck" indeed, Mr Romney. I thought for a moment the slogan meant that those who supported him should now look to the Huck. God politics is a sick and seedy, sorry business.
As well as getting the corporations and corruption out of the federal government, a great start to the new presidency would be to cut the size of it by at least half. It is way too big and too expensive. It has too many people doing too little work. Get the word out about the deadwood, and have them dumped at their next election.
With unemployment creeping higher, the government is looking even more top-heavy than usual.
I asked a question in the open thread that wasn't answered the other day. Unless I didn't see the answer/s. Is it possible, when the new president is safely installed, is it possible to have GWB investigated and charged with the constitutional, criminal and civil crimes he's committed? If found guilty then his nominees on the stacked benches could be challenged and found wanting, surely. Only will court cases show the people and the corrupt that they WILL be called to account.
Oops - and after reading bits of Eats, Shoots & Leaves, I shouldn't have missed this one.
I didn't mean God politics; I meant - God, politics is a sick and sorry business. Actually God politics is too. so that's okay.
OK, we appear to be back online.