Stand Up For Your Rights

One reason America is such a great country is because of our right to free speech. I have been practicing this right for most of my life going back as far as the anti war movement of the late sixties. When it comes to free speech one should follow the golden rule. You should be able to say whatever you like as should I. Here in Austin Texas things have been getting pretty heated up with the election coming here and this being an important state for our Democratic candidates. What I have witnessed here lately has made me proud as well as disappointed. I work at the University of Texas campus and have been very proud to see so many young people getting involved with the political process. What has disappointed me are the few that seem to believe that only they have the right to free speech. Before the Hillary and Obama debate here we had a large group of supporters from different camps showing there support by holding up signs and making noise. Mostly they were from the Hillary and Obama camps. At first the police put up a long yellow tape and told all of the Hillary supporters to get on one side and the Obama people to get on the other. It appeared to me that the Hillary supporters out numbered the Obama people two to one. After a while the Obama people moved to one side of the campus street while Hillary’s people moved to the other. At one point one of the Hillary leaders asked for fifteen people to move up the hill to the main street. At this location there was a large group of Obama supporter holding up two very large banners and many more holding smaller signs. I think they wanted people driving by to see this larger group of Obama supporters near the busy road and believe that the main large group down the hill was also mostly Obama supporters. I volunteered and headed up the hill into this large group of Obama supporters. Most of the people were on the west side of the road nearer to the main groups while on the other side were a lesser number of Obama people holding their two large banners and smaller signs. The traffic had become very busy because it was around quitting time so it was almost imposible for our guys to cross this four lane road. We did have one person there and near where our person was standing and on top of a short hill was one of our Hillary signs placed into the ground and leaning against an oak tree. This sign had six posters on it so you could see three on one side and three on the other. When the Obama people saw our sign, their large group moved up to the top of the hill and appeared to be trying to block the view from passers by. I thought that this was a little uncool but didn’t think much about it. Not long after that I and a few of our supporters witnessed one of their people pull our sign out of the ground and threw it into the dirt. They seem to believe that because there were so few of us Hillary supporters at this location that they didn’t think we would see them or just didn’t care. Right away one woman from our side ran across the busy street and recovered the sign and held it next to there group. She must have been braver than I because I had to wait a minute before I could get across. Seeing them do this made me very upset. I held up my sign to them and said why don’t you come knock my sign down, after all isn’t that what you Obama people are all about? They look rather frightened and refused. I began to march near them shouting, “Hillary believes in free speech and Obama people are uncool.” I went up to the group again and told them,” you don’t knock down my flag and you don’t knock down my sign.” A little later I asked them how they would like it if I took down there banner that I was standing next to. Another lady from our group made it across the street about this time and began untying there banner after seeing me point to it while asking them. At about this point the person that vandalized our sign said that she was sorry. I then said right away that that was all I wanted to hear and headed down the hill to the woman taking down there banner and told her that they apologized. She then stopped. After awhile they gave up and crossed the street and headed for the main groups. We then put our sign back were it was and stayed near making sure nobody did this again. This was just one of many incidences that happened that day. Later we discovered that we weren’t the only ones having to deal with this kind of behavior coming from the Obama camp. Mostly their people would run through groups of our people shouting and shoving people out of there way. When one of these people came up to me, he found that I wasn’t going to move out of his way like most people did. This made him very upset and he cursed at me while sticking his finger in my face. He then told me that I was using my sign as a weapon. I almost couldn’t believe my ears after hearing this. What a cowardly bald face lie, I thought to myself. By now I like most people there began to see that there was a huge difference between our two groups. Many people would write later to the school paper in the forum section and discussed about how childish the Obama people had act at this rally. You might think that it was because they were young and didn’t know any better if it wasn’t for the fact that we had two times the number of young people there who behaved better than any group that I have ever demonstrated with. I just wanted to tell people about what I had witnessed because I had heard many times Obama speak about how he wanted to bring the country together and thought that perhaps people should know the truth before it’s too late. If Senator Obama were to tell his people to show a little respect then I wouldn’t feel the need to point out the difference between his rhetoric and reality. How could anyone bring the country together when they can’t even show a little respect to there own party?

With Hillary, I Know We Can

Have any of you had to hire someone to do a job for you like working on your home or repairing a car? If you have, then you may know that there services are not always as reliable and within the costs as they promised. That’s the problem I have with giving my support to someone like Barack Obama. Too many times I’ve heard someone state with confidence, “yes I can,” only to be extremely disappointed shortly after the job begins. That’s not to say that Senator Obama wouldn’t do a great job. Perhaps he could be a great president. What I’m saying is that perhaps people should be wary of politicians that make such promises while having so little to show as proof of there expertise. With Hillary, you know what to expect because she’s been fighting for the same things for so many years. Maybe you dislike her, but still you know what she stands for. With Senator Obama, you have to have a load of hope. With such an important job as the president, it’s like hoping that the baby sitter you just hired can be trusted with your children. I myself would prefer to hire the sitter that has been doing the job for many years and has even has written a book on the importance of raising children. Maybe if I was young and naive and didn’t have all of the hard lessons that I’ve learned about all the people who seemed to promise anything just to get the job, I would be as eager to believe. When John McCain told a crowd in Michigan that there auto manufacturing jobs were not coming back, many people in his own party used his statement against him. You see, that’s the difference between someone who will tell you what they believe to be the truth as opposed to someone who will tell you whatever it takes to get elected. When someone buys a lottery ticket, they don’t want to hear that you have a better chance of getting hit by lighting than having the winning ticket. It’s much more fun to believe that the ticket in your pocket is worth millions and your ticket out of the endless work that they face everyday. For a short time, that worthless ticket gives them a short high until, like always, they find out that it’s not worth the paper it’s printed on. They will always say that you can’t win unless you play. That would be fine if you only played a few games and gave up. The problem is, is that so many keep telling themselves the, “yes I can win,” and keep playing until they find that they have spent hundreds and nothing to show for it. Of course if you were to point this out to them then they would tell you about the time they won five dollars as proof that your wrong. I’m sure most of you know people like this or even may be one of them. It reminds me of the other day while at our favorite restaurant; my wife read her fortune cookie which told her that she had to visualize what see wanted in order to make her dream come true. As I pointed out to her, that’s what a dream is when it comes to having a wish come true. You picture in your mind what is you what, like money or love, and then you have your wish or goal. Life would be a very dull experience if no one had a dream or goal in there life. So first we get out dream and then we find the hope that drives us toward out dream coming true. That’s just human nature and politicians understand this. I’m sure most people in Michigan would love to believe that there auto manufacturing jobs will come back, but I just can’t see how that’s going to happen when they can be made so much cheaper somewhere else. Like the new car made in India for less than the cost of a sound system in some American cars. The only way there dream could come true is if we were to put up a wall around America and asked Americas to pay way more for there automobiles, as many here would love to do. What they may not understand is that many more people here also have dreams of just being able to feed there family while still being able to afford the medicine that they need so desperately. How can we just ignore all the people that are fighting to keep there head above water everyday just because some group has a powerful lobby working for them? To me, it’s important to be able to understand the true reality of the problems we face instead of wishing things could be like they were in the past. To me it’s more important to be able to look ahead than keep looking behind and wishing for some miracle to make things like they were. To me, Hillary can see just what our main problems are that we need to tackle before we will be able to move ahead. Universal health care, for instance. People on the right, will or have called her a socialist and wish for the days before social security and all the social programs put forth by F.D.R. As with today’s auto manufacturing people wishing for the old days. They never had to choose between medicine or food for there family. They just can’t understand why the rest of us wouldn’t want to pay more in order to bail them out. As much as we would love to see our country being number one in automobiles or iron works and all the rest, we just need to see the truth if we are to ever be able to be number one again. Today the truth is, is that our jobs are going over sea while our dollars are pouring out of this country and not coming back. The drug dealers are getting richer because this country refuses to deal with the fact the Americans love to do drugs and nothing can change that no matter how many prisons they fill up. Credit card depth is a huge problem as well as our depth to other nations. The middle class is shrinking at an alarming rate. In other words, or country is sinking fast and needs the leaders that can make the unpopular decisions in order to save us before it’s too late. If I had not seen with my own eyes how Bill Clinton saved us before from this fate, then perhaps I wouldn’t believe anything could be done. I saw with my own eyes that, “yes we can,” could be more than just some cheap words from a politician willing to say anything to get elected. With Hillary in charge and with Bills help, I can honestly say, I know we can.

Pimping Out The Press

As most of you may know, right wing talk radio started because the people on the right felt that the major news outlets were too far to the left in most cases. I’ve always believed this to be true but never really understood for myself just what it feels like to be in there situation, being that I am a Democrat. Not until now, anyway. The reason I’ve come to a new understanding is because I support Senator Hillary Clinton and have seen first hand just how unfair the press can be, as many have talked about already. I have a great deal of respect for all of the candidates and will support whoever wins the race 100% no matter which party may win. When W. Bush was elected, I like most Democrats had a hard time dealing with the fact that more people voted for our guy but still lost. Around that time I had been visiting my in-laws in China. I remember very well while on the train I had been talking to a couple who were very nice but like many of the people there became upset when talking about there problems with our government. I found myself in the strange position of having to defend our president because I understood that as an American I should try and stand up for my country rather than do the easy thing and just agree with there complaints. That’s just the way I am. Being that W. Bush was our leader, I felt that it would be wrong to criticize him even though deep down inside I felt upset about the whole election mess. Even while I was on the plain ride back I was glad to find an American to talk to, but he had a real problem with Governor W. Bush and his reputation for killing criminals on death row. As I recall he said that all Texans, like myself, liked to kill these criminals to which I replied something like, “kill them all.” Again I found myself defending W. Bush, which surprised me somewhat. I guess that I learned that I should get behind our leader when my country or state came under attack. Today it would seem that there is a very good chance that our next leader will be a Democrat which both sides seem to agree on. If that were to happen, then as a Democrat, I would surely love it if most Americans could support our leaders in this way, no matter which party they follow. Too much time has been wasted on Americans attacking each other, in my opinion. The problem I find with the unfair treatment with which Hillary seems to be having isn’t so much a hatred towards her but the love fest for Barack Obama that seems to be going on with the media. He seems to be getting a free ride from what I see. Of course it’s more difficult to criticize someone with such a short history than someone who has been under attack for so long. It seems that the media find it so easy to say something like, the Clintons are pimping out there daughter, while at the same time would never say anything like that about Obama. So because of this, I find myself coming to understand how the Republicans must feel when they see the unfair treatment that they receive. I can see very clearly that it isn’t the Clintons but is the major news medias that are pimping out there reputation as being fair to everyone, as they pretend to be.