BETRAYAL, TRUTH, LIES AND HOPE

It throws me when someone I gave my trust to
has hurled mean words at me.

It is such an act of clear betrayal.

I want to trust.

Especially in family.

I don't think I will ever be able to find a place
to store this ugly knowledge.

Though having the knowledge is better than denying it

When loving someone requires you to sacrifice yourself
it doesn't feel like love.

That's why I am here
while you are there

Broken family
but not broken spirit

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Clip from the movie Coach Carter
Uploaded by GiantsAwakening
I find things like this comforting.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
Your playing small doesn't serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We were all meant to shine as children do.

It is not just in some of us, it is in everyone,
and as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Written by Marianne Williamson in her book Return to Love
This passage is often accredited to Nelson Mandella.

I love the little book To Believe in Man by Joseph Pintauro...

...unless we all have plenty one of us will become a thief
the thief will make you angry
you will hurt him

this will hurt his children
they will punish you
this will hurt your children
they will punish his children
and that's how it begins

to believe in man is to know
peace will not work
if just one man alive
is unjust
if one many alive
is ignorant or hungry or crazy or ashamed

for we have seen

if only one of us
decides to pull the plug,
the millions of us can kiss the world good bye
whether we like it or not.

all we ask o lord
is to be safe
from the rain
just warm
enough in winter
to watch the snow with a smile
enough to eat
so that our hunger will not
turn us to angry beasts
and sanity enough
to make a justice
that will not kill our love of life...

WHO
WERE
YOU
ALL
?

we spoke in short
sentences
with our lips and eye
brows
we kept our teeth
white and
we smiled.
We could hard-
ly figure out why
We were here
but we tried

to love life
hoping it had
reasons of its own.

our worst ugliness
was our blindness
to our own beauty

and our fear
more than death
was rejection
from each other.

Remember
all those things
we used to
blame on the devil
and all those things we left up to god?

Now, it's all a hundred times
more
complicated

WE MUST BECOME
NEW MEN
or be satisfied
as we are.

...either way
we risk tragedy.

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OBAMA - BIDEN 2008


I'm Sick of John McCain
McCain ran ads Friday at 10:00 a.m. that John won the debate
That was before he agreed to take part in the debate

TIRED POLITICS MOVE OVER ~ THE WORLD IS WATCHING

“… My parents shared not only an improbable love, they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. They would give me an African name, Barack, or Blessed. Believing that in a tolerant America your name is no barrier to success. They imagined me going to the best schools in the land even though they weren’t rich…”
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Barack Obama speech highlights from the 2004 Democratic Presidential Convention

There is a claim that Barack Obama is lacking in "experience" to be our President. The claim is by Hillary and Bill Clinton. At the core, it is a fabricated political scam reason. All of the mudslinging subjects chosen by Hillary Clinton started after Barack Obama was gaining on Hillary’s believed predetermined win for the democratic Presidential candidacy.
And apparently, not much was dug up because everything they have thrown out to be negatives for Barack Obama, have been warped attempts to make something out of nothing. Their attempts have all looked like character attacks. They have not been warranted and have had no relevance to the man. As a black man, he has “experience” that only a black person can have in the white system. Hillary can claim “experience” as a strength for herself. But to say that Senator Obama, is lacking in his life experience to become the President is naïve. You could say that Dick Cheney has the experience to be President. But does his experience make him qualified to be the President? I would say not. Experience for Barack Obama includes a different kind than we are accustomed to. In the global aspect, he has much to offer.
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Obama '08 - To The Promised Land
Uploaded by Barack2008

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"Be strong and have courage..."
Speech by Barack Obama

Hillary’s silly argument about being ready to be in charge from day one presumes that Barack won’t be. Silly, because where do you go to “experience” or “leadership” school to get your “most experience” credentials? Seriously, being a “first lady” or even in the U.S. Senate for a few more years doesn’t make the leap to “most qualified”. And Hillary Clinton’s claim to being “vetted” for me works against her and not for her. A lot of that vetting came at the expense of attention to the “real” issues (Samantha Power’s book, “A Problem From Hell ~ America and the Age of Genocide", Chapter 10 “Rwanda” page 366).

The Clintons', both Bill and Hillary, for some warrantless even, admittedly, intense scrutiny put our country’s and international issues’ best interests in the back seat due to all the wrangling and attempts to personally bring Bill down. Of course, Bill did put himself in “vulnerable” positions in a country that requires pretense and puritan images of our politicians over honesty and “owning up”. Ken Starr drilled Bill Clinton to the USA's detriment.

We all have our own natural gifts to lead or not. We all have our own set of experiences to bring to the "table" for whatever job or task that presents itself in our lives.

When it comes to experience, there is a certain understanding in life and the world "stage" that is available to an intelligent, educated and introspective human. Barack Obama brings an international personal experience that no other candidate can come close to. It is built into his familial experience. We have had many presidents who are not qualified in different aspects of being our president. This word "experience" (link is JFK speaking about experience on the road to the presidency) is one of those words that is for "sound bites" and the thrower of it ~ Hillary, in this case ~ hopes that it will "stick" and bring down the opponent. The one comment was made to appear like a genuine compliment to Barack. But let’s consider, that the man who said it, had just come out for Hillary and then made this comment. But who would JUST come out for one of two front runners and then compliment the other front runner? No one. The comment was made intentionally with the hope that people would hear the connotation and think negatively about it. I choose not to say the comment because I won’t perpetuate it.

I think there are racist undertones in what Hillary's camp has been slinging about Senator Obama. If she could get away with it, I think she would be more openly racist. But the hope may be that what has been said will appeal to the bigotry so ingrained in our psyches and we will make the connections under even our own consciousness' radar. The damage therefore being successful without being branded by our covert racist, institutionalized society as bigotry.

I find it interesting that there are positive Youtube Obama uploads from people who aren't United States of America citizens. People who outside the country have already made a positive connection to Senator Obama and feel he is one who can help in the healing of international issues that are languishing. I have seen videos posted at youtube and dailymotion from France, Sweden, speaking on religion and politics with another of Jerry Triplett, 73, in Winterset, Iowa, who broke out in song at a Barack Obama town hall meeting, Denmark, from Africa, as well as Asia. This is something that is very important ~ this already is a real sign of the headstart that Barack Obama has with international influence, illustrating that our global community is already attaching much importance to Mr. Obama. I don't believe any other candidate has this reach. The world is watching.

RACISM IS NOT A GOOD THING FROM ANY SIDE OF IT

God Created All People Equal ~ It's Just That We Can't Get There From Here Unless We Lose the Fear
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http://youtube.com/watch?v=swmlc5avUy8

As I walked today with my white skin with a Barack Obama pin on my coat, I felt something. It was just my sense of what was going on. But I trust my intuition. I sensed racism.

I have written about this before: Personally I have experienced racism in my own family. The two times in my life that I experienced it, was when my family found themselves confronted with the issue because I had a black male in my personal life. This happened when I was eleven and when I was thirty-six. You might think that my parents would have let the first one slide because I was only eleven and chances are I wasn't going to marry him one day. But no, that is not what happened. And you might think that when I was thirty-six, that my parents would have realized that it was none of their business, because I was well-beyond the years of being raised by them. But that was not the case.

I no longer am in the 15 year relationship with my former "significant other", but I still adore his family. His family was a blessing to my life and they continue to be a blessing to the son that we adopted together, who is white.

There was one time that he and I attended a concert and I was about the only white person there. That was a revealing and new experience of feelings for me. That is exactly what my former significant other has to live every day for his entire life. We, white people, have no idea what it is like to live with racism every day.

And as much as I love Barack Obama as a Presidential Candidate, I am sobered by the realness of racism that we have in the "United" States of America in 2007. This country will never be the "grown-up" that it has the potential and responsibility to be, until it confronts its racism toward the American Indians, the blacks, the Mexicans, "immigrants" and on and on. We don't really "need" to have another group of human beings to look down upon, in order to "lift our own opinions of ourselves up". We can find our worth without knocking someone else down. But we can't do that unless we are willing to face our internalized racist, bigoted covert or overt ways.

We are better than this. We can do better. But not without asking the questions that will require the courage to face the ugly truth that we are bigots.

Barack Obama bleeds the same color of blood that every other person bleeds. We are all the same in the most human and valuable ways. But many will pass him up because they see his skin.

Racism comes from fear. People controlled by fear about their own worth are most likely to be racist.

One of the last songs that my dad sang to me before he passed away May 10, 2007 was the childhood song:

"Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, red and yellow black and white, they are precious in his sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world."

Okay, so I never did get the color thing. I mean who is yellow or red? And I always thought that black people were more brown than black. And I'm not really white. And that "flesh-colored" crayon ~ really was a racist, bigoted statement in a box of crayons. But the idea of that song is that if we are Christian, then we should love and accept everyone equally. But that has not been my experience in my so-claimed Christian family.

I am disappointed to put it mildly that many people won't vote for Barack because of one thing. And it isn't that he lacks experience. Bush didn't have "experience", as well as other qualities and yet he has been the president for two terms. So ~ it would be a really good thing for people to get to know what integrity Barack has and accept him accordingly.

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http://youtube.com/watch?v=HFBUgPNcCcE
This Little Light of Mine
Sung by Bruce Springsteen