The Dream Lives On

Two years ago, Alex made this video to show at youth group. It is powerful and moving. I hope you'll take the time to watch it. How great that Inauguration Day is tomorrow - the day after we remember Dr. King and his legacy.

Let's Get This Party Started!

A moment that will live forever in history took place this election day. Barack Obama became the first black man ever elected President of the USA. I am hopeful for our country for the first time in a long long time. I believe that he will unite people and that he will look out for people who have no one looking out for them right now. I think the war in Iraq will be over very soon and I think a wave of hope and compassion has begun to sweep over our nation.

I know this election was very polarizing - especially among Christians. I know many people I consider dear friends cannot understand how I could embrace Obama because of some of his policy positions. I know I have a hard time understanding the same about those who supported McCain. But my hope and prayer is that we can all come together and give Obama a chance to lead...and see where it goes. I think it's the least we can do.

The Final Countdown - #8 - The Irish Connection

Enough said. :)

The Final Countdown - #9 - Obama's Image Around the Globe

Let's be perfectly honest, America isn't well loved around the world these days. Immediately following 9/11 the vast majority of the world rallied around the USA. There were newspaper headlines saying "We are all Americans" and people the world over were praying for us and ready to join us in the battle against terrorism.

The current administration took that good will and squandered it on an ill-waged war in Iraq. Now before some of you call me a hater - let me be perfectly clear that I am grateful for our men and women in uniform. I am supportive of our troops, I am not supportive of the war or the administration that (mis) led us into it. I know several military folks personally who are supporting Obama because of how the current administration has handled Iraq and Afghanistan.

So here we are 7 years post 9/11 with much of the world thinking we see ourselves as the world's police, that we can and will have our way regardless of the validity of our reasons. The absence of WOMD in Iraq has compromised the integrity of our "intelligence" and the maverick/cowboy quality of GWB has compromised the true nature of America.

John McCain is more of the same.

Obama is loved around the world. His recent European trip gathered crowds that were reminiscent of Kennedy's from the 60's. We have a chance here to restore our standing in the world...at a time when I believe that is critical. America is still the most powerful nation in the world and if we wish to maintain that status then we have to have allies that like us for more than our money.

To the folks out there who believe that an Obama presidency opens us up for another terror attack I can only say that if there are those out to attack us they will do it regardless of who is in the White House. Hate is timeless and opportunistic. I happen to think that if America's standing in the world is restored that the evil that lurks in the hearts of terrorists may think twice before coming after us again.

The Final Countdown...#10 - An Inspirational Leader

Ten days from now is the presidential election. So from now until then I will list my top 10 reasons for voting for Barack Obama.

Number 10

Barack Obama is an inspirational Leader. He leads and people follow. He has the largest grass roots campaign in our nation's history. He has broken all kinds of records for fundraising, without taking a dime from PAC's, lobbyists, or the government. People from all different backgrounds believe that he is the man that can finally lead our country in a new, more stable direction after the failed domestic and foreign policies of the past 8 years. He has assembled a coalition that has broken down barriers - racial, economic, social, educational, ideological - all of them have come tumbling down.

People write Obama off as all fluff, a good speaker with nothing to back it up. But even the most casual perusal of his website (linked to the right) will dispel that falsehood in a moment. His policies are realistic and they reverse the trend of making the rich richer and forgetting about the poor. People talk about "spreading the wealth around" like it is a bad thing!!??!! For me, as a Christian, it's all about giving my neighbor my shirt when all they ask for is my coat and walking the extra mile with those in need. If I have it, I want to share it, I don't want to hoard it. I have no problem with people making over a quarter of a million dollars a year paying higher taxes. Did you read that? A QUARTER OF A MILLION DOLLARS. Yes it is a liberal economic policy, I'm good with that. In 1960 JFK said the following:

What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label "Liberal?" If by "Liberal" they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer's dollar, then ... we are not that kind of "Liberal." But if by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal." [September 14, 1960]

I'm proud too.

Watching History Unfold

I was so aware as I watched Barack Obama win the democratic Nomination that we are all witnessing moments of extreme historical significance. For the first time in our nation's life a black man is the nominee for the presidency. I'm so proud and excited.

PS - I sure know how to pick a winner! And that post was all the way back in July of last year!!!

The Time Has Come

Today is the Pennsylvania Presidential Primary! (gosh I love that alliteration!) So it's time to get out and ROCK THE VOTE!

I want to encourage all of my friends in Pennsylvania to get to their polling places and allow their voices to be heard. I consider voting to be one of the most amazing and empowering things we are able to do in this country and I'm thankful for an opportunity to lend my voice to the chorus of others who are participating in the political process. I know it is easy to be very cynical about the process but in these very important days of our nation's history it is time to set cynicism aside and use our power as part of the electorate to effect the change we hope to see.

You all know I am voting for Barack Obama - if you are a registered Democrat I strongly encourage you to check him out of you haven't already. He is more than a politician - for me and many others he is an inspiration. The inspiration we desperately need in order for real change to happen in our world.

I heard this quote on one of his TV ads here in PA. I think it was from a speech he gave at Penn State...and I love it

"It's with your voice that we're going to be able to make a difference. One voice can change a room, and if it can change a room it can change a city, and if it can change a city it can change a state, and if it can change a state it can change a nation, and if it can change a nation it can change the world. Let's go change the world." - Barack Obama

This article (copied from here) really sums up how I feel as someone who is pro-life and an Obama supporter.



Why I'm Pro-life and Pro-Obama
Frank Schaeffer

I am an Obama supporter. I am also pro-life. In fact, without my family's involvement in the pro-life movement it would not exist as we know it. Evangelicals weren't politicized until after my late father and evangelical leader Francis Schaeffer, Dr. Koop (Reagan's soon-to-be Surgeon General) and I stirred them up over the issue of abortion in the mid-1970s. Our Whatever Happened to the Human Race? book, movie series and seminars brought the evangelicals into the pro-life movement.

(Dad's political influence persists. Last week one of my father's followers -- Mike Huckabee -- was interviewed by Katie Couric, along with all the other presidential candidates. Couric asked the candidates if they were to be sent to a desert island and could only take one book besides the Bible, what would that that book be? Huckabee answered that he'd take my father's book Whatever Happened To The Human Race?)

Fast forward...

In 2000, we elected a president who claimed he believed God created the earth and who, as president, put car manufacturers and oil company's interests ahead of caring for that creation. We elected a pro-life Republican Congress that did nothing to actually care for pregnant women and babies. And they took their sincere evangelical followers for granted, and played them for suckers.

The so-called evangelical leadership -- Dobson, Robertson et al. also played the pro-life community for suckers. While thousands of men and women in the crisis pregnancy movement gave of themselves to help women and babies, their evangelical "leaders" did little more than cash in on fundraising opportunities and represent themselves as power-brokers to the craven politicians willing to kowtow to them.

Fast forward...

Today when I listen to Obama speak (and to his remarkable wife, Michelle) what I hear is a world view that actually nurtures life. Obama is trying to lead this country to a place where the intrinsic worth of each individual is celebrated. A leader who believes in hope, the future, trying to save our planet and providing a just and good life for everyone is someone who is actually pro-life.

Conversely the "pro-life" ethic of George W. Bush manifested itself in a series of squandered opportunities to call us to our better natures. After 9/11, Bush told most Americans to go shopping while saddling the few who volunteered for military service with endless tours of duty (something I know a little about since my son was a Marine and deployed several times). The Bush doctrine of life was expressed by starting an unnecessary war in Iraq that has killed thousands of Americans and wounded tens of thousands more.

The society that Obama is calling us to sacrifice for is a place wherein life would be valued not just talked about. As he said in his speech delivered on February 6 in New Orleans, "Too often, we lose our sense of common destiny; that understanding that we are all tied together; that when a woman has less than nothing in this country, that makes us all poorer." Obama was talking about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, but his words also apply to our overall view of ourselves.

Regardless of the official position of the Supreme Court on abortion, a country in which all Americans are offered some sort of dignity and hopeful future would be a place conducive to the kind of optimism each of us must hold in our hearts if we are to welcome children into this world. But if our highest aspiration is to be a consumer with no thought or care for our neighbor, we will remain a culture in which abortion is not only inevitable but logical.

What we need in America is a spiritual rebirth, a turning away from the false value of consumerism and utilitarianism that have trumped every aspect of human life. To implement this vision we need leaders that inspire but to do so they have to be what they say they are. It's not about policy it's about character.

Obama's rivals for the nomination -- the Clintons -- do not inspire. When the Clintons were in the White House they talked about humane values while Bill Clinton betrayed every single person who voted for him by carrying on an unseemly sexual dalliance in the Oval Office with a young woman barely out of her teens. Since that time the Clintons have enriched themselves through their connections to a point where they're able to make a $5 million personal loan to their campaign.

For someone who says she has spent "the last 35 years of my life as an advocate for children" and/or "fighting for healthcare" that's a lot of money to have collected through doing good works. Presidential Mother Teresa wannabes shouldn't be doing deals with uranium mining outfits in Kazakhstan while schmoozing with the likes of President Nursultan Nazarbayev and wealthy mining magnates -- not if they want the moral authority to lead.

Similarly the Republicans have also been hypocrites while talking big, for instance about their pro-life ethic. But what have they achieved? First, through their puritanical war on sex education they've hindered our country from actually preventing unwanted pregnancy. Second, through the Republican Party's marriage to the greediest and most polluting earth-destroying corporations they've created a climate (both moral and physical) that has scorched the earth for-profit, with no regard to future generations whatsoever. The Republicans are to the pro-life movement what the Clintons are to selfless public service.

The real solution to abortion is to change the heart of America, not the law. We need to stop seeing ourselves as consumers. We need to stop seeing ourselves as me and begin to think of we. Our country needs someone to show us a better way, a president who is what he seems, someone with actual moral authority that our diverse population can believe in who has the qualities that make us want to follow him. Obama is that person.

Frank Schaeffer is a writer and author of "CRAZY FOR GOD -- How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back"

An Eloquent Endorsement

In today's New York Times Op-Ed section Caroline Kennedy (daughter of JFK) wrote a moving and eloquent endorsement of Barack Obama. I hope that regardless of your political leanings, you'll take the time to read it.


A President Like My Father
Caroline Kennedy

Over the years, I’ve been deeply moved by the people who’ve told me they wished they could feel inspired and hopeful about America the way people did when my father was president. This sense is even more profound today. That is why I am supporting a presidential candidate in the Democratic primaries, Barack Obama.

My reasons are patriotic, political and personal, and the three are intertwined. All my life, people have told me that my father changed their lives, that they got involved in public service or politics because he asked them to. And the generation he inspired has passed that spirit on to its children. I meet young people who were born long after John F. Kennedy was president, yet who ask me how to live out his ideals.

Sometimes it takes a while to recognize that someone has a special ability to get us to believe in ourselves, to tie that belief to our highest ideals and imagine that together we can do great things. In those rare moments, when such a person comes along, we need to put aside our plans and reach for what we know is possible.

We have that kind of opportunity with Senator Obama. It isn’t that the other candidates are not experienced or knowledgeable. But this year, that may not be enough. We need a change in the leadership of this country — just as we did in 1960.

Most of us would prefer to base our voting decision on policy differences. However, the candidates’ goals are similar. They have all laid out detailed plans on everything from strengthening our middle class to investing in early childhood education. So qualities of leadership, character and judgment play a larger role than usual.

Senator Obama has demonstrated these qualities throughout his more than two decades of public service, not just in the United States Senate but in Illinois, where he helped turn around struggling communities, taught constitutional law and was an elected state official for eight years. And Senator Obama is showing the same qualities today. He has built a movement that is changing the face of politics in this country, and he has demonstrated a special gift for inspiring young people — known for a willingness to volunteer, but an aversion to politics — to become engaged in the political process.

I have spent the past five years working in the New York City public schools and have three teenage children of my own. There is a generation coming of age that is hopeful, hard-working, innovative and imaginative. But too many of them are also hopeless, defeated and disengaged. As parents, we have a responsibility to help our children to believe in themselves and in their power to shape their future. Senator Obama is inspiring my children, my parents’ grandchildren, with that sense of possibility.

Senator Obama is running a dignified and honest campaign. He has spoken eloquently about the role of faith in his life, and opened a window into his character in two compelling books. And when it comes to judgment, Barack Obama made the right call on the most important issue of our time by opposing the war in Iraq from the beginning.

I want a president who understands that his responsibility is to articulate a vision and encourage others to achieve it; who holds himself, and those around him, to the highest ethical standards; who appeals to the hopes of those who still believe in the American Dream, and those around the world who still believe in the American ideal; and who can lift our spirits, and make us believe again that our country needs every one of us to get involved.

I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them. But for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that president — not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans.

AND He Has a Sense of Humor!!!

Thank You Iowa!!!

A huge victory for Barack Obama in the Iowa Caucus last night! Winning by 9 and 10% over Edwards and Clinton gives amazing momentum to this candidate of hope in what is being called the most important election in modern history. I encourage all of my readers (even if you think your mind is made up) to go to Barack Obama's website and listen to some of the speeches they have there. Even if they don't change your vote, they will make you think and re-evaluate where America is headed and the "audacity of hope" that Obama hopes to bring.

Here is a great song about voting and Obama:


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Placing My Eggs In A Basket

I have decided to support Barack Obama in his bid for the presidency. I have joined his website and started a blog there. Here is a copy of my first post.

(I know politics can be a polarizing issue - please know these are my views and I respect the right of everyone to have their own views. I welcome your views even if they diverge from mine - I love the chance to learn from others and to have my stances challenged.)

It isn't without some fear that I enter into the unknown (to me) world of the Democratic party. For all of the 19 years I have been a registered voter it has been as a Republican (and truth be told I haven't officially changed yet...but I have decided to). As that naive 18 year old I didn't bother to ask myself why I chose that party. It was the party of my parents, and on the "hot button" topics I fell down on the conservative side.

Back then I was willing to be a single issue voter - I was young and idealistic - and I didn't realize that voting on one issue alone was incredibly short sighted and hypocritical. So I voted for someone who was against abortion - but they were also against legislation that helped the poor. How could I be so concerned with only the unborn...to the exclusion of the living? Viewing the world through the eyes of a college freshman, I couldn't see the disparity in my thinking...or maybe I just didn't want to.

Looking back, I can see that the transformation has been slow and deliberate. Different circumstances coming together to open my eyes to issues at home and abroad that challenged my views. Relationships with real people who were being oppressed by the policies in place. Realizing that the "American Dream" was reserved for the few rather than the many. All of these things plus more helped to lift the veil from my eyes so I could see that I was now in the wrong place.

Compassion matters...and the whole compassionate conservative thing has never really taken flight. People matter...and I can no longer align myself with a political party that seems to value the wealthy above the poor and executive privilege above openness and honesty in leadership. Peace matters...and as the most powerful nation in the world we must have peace as a core value...it cannot be optional.

So why Barack Obama you may ask? Because when I looked at his Issues page ( Link ) I knew he was someone who I could believe in. I believe he will be honest...even when he has to do hard things. I believe he cares about America and it's people and I believe he will do what he can to help the marginalized, oppressed, and downtrodden. That's why Barack Obama gets my support...his policies and points of view have earned it.