Why I will vote for Obama

I have been sick the last few days and have been watching the news channels CNN and MSNBC non-stop. Even with all that endless chatter, I have not budged one bit on my reasons why I will vote for the Democratic candidate.

My reason has been the same since the primaries when I voted against Hilary Clinton. In fact since the announcement of Sarah Palin to the Republican I have been even more convinced that the only person I could in good conscience vote for is Barack Obama.

My reason has nothing to do with the who is ready to take the 3 AM call, or that he is a Democrat. My reason is very simple, who do I want to represent me to the world.

The president is the first and foremost "face of America" and we need a new face. We are a country of immigrants and yet we have had the face of blue blood aristocracy for far too long. Barack is a first generation American of an immigrant and by that he has more in common with millions of Americans that the other candidates.

When one looks at the rest of the world you see more people of color than white men of wealth and privilege. Even though Barack grew up in relative comfort of an American home, compared to the rest of the worlds population, he also didn't grow up in the isolated world of wealth as did our current president.

Do I think this man will drasticlly change American foreign policy, NO. Will he solve the problems of American relations with the Middle East, NO. Will he solve our energy issues, NO. Will he bring back the heady prosperity that Americans believe they deserve, NO, and he shouldn't, but that is another post. Will he get us out of Iraq, MAYBE, or into to Iran, DON'T KNOW.

But I don't think that he will make things worse, and he maybe able to make redeem the US in a small way with the rest of the world. I also don't believe that he would be overly reactionary and would resort to maximum diplomacy before acting. That is good enough for me. I also know that the world can not take one more minute of neo-con policy and domination.

Wobblies, Black Panthers and Other Subversives of the 20th Century

I just finished watching the movie The Wobblies which I really enjoyed. One of the more ironic points that I noticed was the propaganda tactics used against the IWW and how these tactics have been repeated throughout the 20th century and still haunt us today.

I had to really think about the message and internal nature of the IWW to figure out what was so threatening to the status quo. It is hard to see it unless one looks at other organizations and movements that were hunted down and criminalize out of existence in the last 90 years. Two other organizations that came to mind was he Black Panthers and American Indian Movement (AIM).

Some would argue that the latter two were civil rights inspired where the IWW was a labor movement. I disagree, there were many civil rights issues in the IWW movement, including Free Speech, the Right to Assemble and demand for humane treatment both in the work place and living conditions.

What do, 5,000 Bisbee Arizona copper miners loaded into boxcars in the summer and hauled 170 miles to Columbus, New Mexico and dump in the desert and AIM have in common? I would say a whole lot! And what might Huey Newton and Bobby Seale have in common with Big Bill Haywood, Daniel De Leon, Eugene V. Debs and Mary Harris Jones "Mother Jones" other than being prosecuted, and vilified for their beliefs.

So what make these groups such a threat? The short list is this:

1. Non-centralized leadership that can not be cajoled into meeting the establishment half way.
2. Internal identity, where each member see the other members as an extension of him or herself.
3. Internal mutual aide structures, that allows the members to sustain themselves when they are in direct confrontation with authority.
4. Directly challenge the illusion that power comes from the top down and is granted by the benevolence of the establishment.

These are in my opinion the real threat to the established power and wealth structure around the world. In a time when it seems that there is no real leadership in our midst, I like to look back and find inspiration from these past bright points of leadership and try to figure out what did and can they teach us about ourselves?

Are we really so easy to scare into compliance or are we not at the end of our rope yet? Are we afraid of losing, and what do we convent so much that we can't see the shadows for what they really are and know that all we need to do is stand up and turn around to see the light of our own reality.

I would like to see some comments that address the issue of; what scares us into compliance or just indifference to when exposed to radical and non-establishment approved ideas?

I will start with an admission that I often fear that any revolution would only replace one establishment with a new one, faces may change but the goal for power and wealth would remain the same.

Where in the world is Idaho Blue?