The Obama Project@WindonWater.net

Free to take for everyone who gave a victory over race-baiting, religious intolerance, and gay-bashing.

Which is why I’m posting this on my front page:

Today is election day in the United States, but it is also the first day of the Month of Qudrat, which means “Power” in the Baha’i calendar. Qudrat always starts on the evening of the 3rd, and continues till nightfall on the 4th, but election day is just coincidentally the same day this year.

I don’t believe this says anything about the election, but it makes me reflect on power, God’s, and ours. Today the citizens of the United States are exercising the power of the vote, and conferring imminent power on their next elected leader. I pray that we do this task prayerfully, and with the thought in mind of the best use of power. From the Writings of Baha’u'llah, Prophet-Founder of the Baha’i Faith:

The utterance of God is a lamp, whose light are these words: Ye are the fruits of one tree, and the leaves of one branch. Deal ye one with another with the utmost love and harmony, with friendliness and fellowship. He Who is the Day-Star of Truth beareth Me witness! So powerful is the light of unity that it can illuminate the whole earth. The One true God, He Who knoweth all things, Himself testifieth to the truth of these words.

–Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, page 14

Um… wow…

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/11/barack-obama-fo.html

My great fear since 2004 is that this could have gotten even worse. Another attack and the abuse of power could have become much worse. A Romney or a Giuliani, empowered by religious fanaticism and a worship of state power, could have taken us down a path much darker than even the Cheney-Addington-Yoo cul-de-sac. Ron Paul emerged as the one Republican prepared to defend the rule of law, the Constitution and habeas corpus in the primaries. But, in the end, McCain emerged by default, a torture victim himself, and a critic of some aspects of the conduct of the war. But we saw in 2006 that, when push came to shove, even McCain acquiesced to the legalization of America’s use of the very same torture techniques once used against him. And in this campaign, we have seen how no Republican candidate can escape the logic of bigotry, fanaticism and xenophobia that now grips and motivates the Republican party base. We have also learned, much more importantly, that McCain would appoint Justices to the Supreme Court who would acquiesce to and constitutionally entrench the dictatorial presidency that Bush-Cheney believe in as loyally as Roberts, Alito, Thomas and Scalia. That means we are one vote away from the court ever restraining this unchecked executive. It doesn’t matter who that executive is and what party he or she belongs to. What matters is that the controls upon it – controls critical to the endurance of constitutional balance and individual freedom in America – have been frayed to the breaking point. There is no greater cause right now than repairing that.

If I were to give one reason why I believe electing Barack Obama is essential tomorrow, it would be an end to this dark, lawless period in American constitutional government.

There is no way for me to fairly quote this piece for all of it’s power without simply quoting the entirety of it. So – please go read it.

QT

When I was a young girl, my grandmother purchased the apartment building she’d lived in. I lived there with my dad and my mom. My aunt, my dad’s sister, and her children (my cousins) lived there as well. This was in Bedford-Stuyvesant in Brooklyn, NY. Then, as now, Bedford-Stuyvesant was known as a tough neighborhood, and my mom and dad, as soon as could be arranged, purchased a house in an entirely different section of Brooklyn. My aunt moved out after awhile too – she moved to New Jersey.

My parents divorced when I was 8, and not too long after that, my father remarried – and moved back into my grandmother’s apartment building. He, being a community organizer, believed firmly in reinvesting in the community. Besides creating a community services center in the storefront of my grandmother’s building, my father and my stepmother purchased a number of other properties on the block. The dream was to purchase, renovate, and make productive the many otherwise rundown or abandoned buildings in the community.

That they accomplished as much as they did (the purchase of the several properties) was impressive because they were not rich. If anything – they were lower middle class, and their only income was whatever they would earn from low-income housing (only sometimes collecting rents) and the small salaries they paid themselves from grants brought into the community service center.

Out of the community service center, my father and stepmother coordinated social services for people in the neighborhood. The peripherally (or actually) homeless, the poor seniors shut in and unable to get about to take care of their basic needs – these were their clients. Helping welfare moms find both work and childcare was part of what they did long before Clinton coined the term “workfare.” Sometimes over a summer break, I would work in the soup kitchen that they ran. My dad taught me never to look down on people. The worst criminal could be a productive member of society… my dad had a way of organizing recently paroled men into neighborhood watches or other volunteer service.

My father, unfortunately, failed to live up to his own highest aspirations. He became addicted to drugs and over time, lost everything. My father’s demise took its toll on the neighborhood – the shining hope that had once been there – the belief that something good could happen on Ralph Avenue, and that maybe the residents there could be a part of it, died with my father’s failures.

At the age of 60, my dad was diagnosed with congestive heart failure. Years of cocaine use is hard on a heart. This summer I spent a lot of time on the old block. I was working to get my father off the block, and into senior housing. His wife had died at the start of the summer, and I had a hope against all hope that my father would finally have improved living conditions that would let him regain some of his health, and some hope for living. I asked him what he thought of Obama’s chances. He thought that Obama would win. I asked him if folks in the neighborhood were excited about it all… he said no.

In the end, even after getting my dad set up in decent housing, he died. He was only 63, and I’m sorry to say that I don’t believe he died clean. Hopelessness, when it sets in, is worse than cancer – and even the excitement of this moment doesn’t reach fully into the deepest part of the inner city. Nothing short of a win – and real results – will bring hope to communities that are used to black failure, both at our own hands, and at the ever-present hand of racism.

So – today, with only a day and change left to this election season, I’m offering the one reason I never let myself offer before, for why I want Obama to win. I want him to win because he’s black. Because – I want people who are teetering on the edge of hopelessness, who’ve seen it all, done it all, and don’t believe in change – I want them to see change happen. I want that self-defeatist doubt to finally be itself doubted… I want hope to become real for those who don’t dare to hope.

I’ve had lots of reasons to want Obama to win. I’ve come around on universal health care. I absolutely want green energy. I am sick of corruption going unchecked. I’m concerned that government has gotten too complex for the little people to monitor it. I think Obama can bring about change in all of those conditions. But just for today – I want Obama to win, because I want it to be finally proven that it really CAN happen. And I want him to be a kick-butt president, because I have already seen what it looks like when a brilliant man with a generous heart and an innovative mind lets himself and others down. Obama has proven, against lots of odds, not least of which includes beating the trajectory of drug involvement, that he can deliver. I want to see him do it.

When my father died, it fell to me to go through his things, decide what to keep and what to toss. In a suit pocket, I found 2 dollars. It was all he had to his name. I promised to do a good deed with those two dollars, because as a Baha’i, I believe that good deeds done in the name of the deceased help their souls in the hereafter. I put one dollar in the bucket at a 12 step meeting – one that my father would have qualified for had he ever availed himself of the opportunity. I donated $20 And to the nice round number of 20, I’m adding $1. So, that’s 20 from me, and 1 from my dad, in support of hope, and change.

I donated directly at Barack Obama’s site and as part of Bob Cesca’s fundraising drive, which is here: https://donate.barackobama.com/page/contribute/pf?outreach_page_id=69867

QT