Things that go against Obama being involved..(sm)
Posted By: Just the big bad on 2008-12-10
In Reply to: Intersting....sm - ms
I think they nipped it in the bud this early so they could hold a state senate hearing to see if they can put the senate seat up for a vote instead of allowing him to make that decision.
Also, in the transcripts there was a part where the Gov said that Obama, that &*(@#$!, was not working with him.
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50 Things about Obama
and I only new a couple, enjoy
From the UK Telegraph:
He collects Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian comics
He was known as "O'Bomber" at high school for his skill at basketball
His name means "one who is blessed" in Swahili
His favourite meal is wife Michelle's shrimp linguini
He won a Grammy in 2006 for the audio version of his memoir, Dreams From My Father
He is left-handed the sixth post-war president to be left-handed
He has read every Harry Potter book
He owns a set of red boxing gloves autographed by Muhammad Ali
He worked in a Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop as a teenager and now can't stand ice cream
His favourite snacks are chocolate-peanut protein bars
He ate dog meat, snake meat, and roasted grasshopper while living in Indonesia
He can speak Spanish
While on the campaign trail he refused to watch CNN and had sports channels on instead
His favourite drink is black forest berry iced tea
He promised Michelle he would quit smoking before running for president he didn't
He kept a pet ape called Tata while in Indonesia
He can bench press an impressive 200lbs
He was known as Barry until university when he asked to be addressed by his full name
His favourite book is Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
He visited Wokingham, Berks, in 1996 for the stag party of his half-sister's fiancι, but left when a stripper arrived
His desk in his Senate office once belonged to Robert Kennedy
He and Michelle made $4.2 million (£2.7 million) last year, with much coming from sales of his books
His favourite films are Casablanca and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
He carries a tiny Madonna and child statue and a bracelet belonging to a soldier in Iraq for good luck
He applied to appear in a black pin-up calendar while at Harvard but was rejected by the all-female committee.
His favourite music includes Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, Bach and The Fugees
He took Michelle to see the Spike Lee film Do The Right Thing on their first date
He enjoys playing Scrabble and poker
He doesn't drink coffee and rarely drinks alcohol
He would have liked to have been an architect if he were not a politician
As a teenager he took drugs including marijuana and cocaine
His daughters' ambitions are to go to Yale before becoming an actress (Malia, 10) and to sing and dance (Sasha, 7)
He hates the youth trend for trousers which sag beneath the backside
He repaid his student loan only four years ago after signing his book deal
His house in Chicago has four fire places
Daughter Malia's godmother is Jesse Jackson's daughter Santita
He says his worst habit is constantly checking his BlackBerry
He uses an Apple Mac laptop
He drives a Ford Escape Hybrid, having ditched his gas-guzzling Chrysler 300
He wears $1,500 (£952) Hart Schaffner Marx suits
He owns four identical pairs of black size 11 shoes
He has his hair cut once a week by his Chicago barber, Zariff, who charges $21 (£13)
His favourite fictional television programmes are Mash and The Wire
He was given the code name "Renegade" by his Secret Service handlers
He was nicknamed "Bar" by his late grandmother
He plans to install a basketball court in the White House grounds
His favourite artist is Pablo Picasso
His speciality as a cook is chilli
He has said many of his friends in Indonesia were "street urchins"
He keeps on his desk a carving of a wooden hand holding an egg, a Kenyan symbol of the fragility of life
His late father was a senior economist for the Kenyan government
He was involved though
and anyone who is planning on voting for him should understand just what happend back then. The facts are out there.
Okay....what things do you agree with Obama that...
trump all the things I mentioned? Just trying to understand.
Things could get worse with Obama..
nm
Every state is involved in some way
with political corruption, just not everyone is caught.
Yeah, think things are bad with Obama? Imagine
nm
There is a sociopath involved, but it is not Bush. nm
See you can still talk smack without God's name involved. nm
x
There is no force involved whatsoever. I do it
because I "choose" to do what the Bible commands. I love the Lord and want to do what His Word says. There is nothing forced about. If you don't think it's a sin, that is your perogative. I, however, feel that it is and that is my perogative, too. 
what a very positive and involved post!
By the way, how does one "speak" loudly on an internet board?
The last time I looked we were NOT involved
.
Bush involved in leak scandal
Source to Stephanopoulos: President Bush Directly Involved In Leak Scandal
Near the end of a round table discussion on ABCs This Week, George Stephanopoulos dropped this bomb:
Definitely a political problem but I wonder, George Will, do you think its a manageable one for the White House especially if we dont know whether Fitzgerald is going to write a report or have indictments but if he is able to show as a source close to this told me this week, that President Bush and Vice President Cheney were actually involved in some of these discussions.
This would explain why Bush http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2005/08/17/bush_plame/index1.html>spent more than an hour answering questions from special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. It would also fundamentally change the dynamics of the scandal. President Bush could no longer claim he was merely a bystander who wants to get to the bottom of it. As Stephanopoulos notes, if Bush played a direct role it could make this scandal completely unmanageable.
I am personally involved and communicate with my senators...sm
and represenatives. However, I have talked until I am "blue in the face" to people who believe everything they are told by their church, their husband, their wife or their parents, etc. Unless I am talking to someone who has an open mind and not willing to follow the pied piper and check their facts, I am wasting my breath. Of course, I keep trying. LOL.
Obama has other things to worry about: North Korea! Israel:Palestine etc...
Why are you so interested to know WHO visits the White House in top secret meetings?
This is not what Obama meant when he said...'I will open the White House...!
typo - meant cite things as hoax, not "site" things
Just thought I'd correct that before I get pummeled by the people who want to believe snopes is a truthful organization.
Oh I can always tell when things are going your way
the diatribes ensue.
How do you get away with saying things like that exactly?
Two things:
1: His approval rating as I write this has now decreased to 29%. (However, by the time you read this, it may be even lower yet. He is most definitely *a work in progress,* and the number of Americans who are waking up and smelling the proverbial coffee is increasing at a rapid rate.
2. The fact that the government has been tracking phone calls of hundreds of millions of Americans may be nothing more than a political *parking ticket* compared to what we might discover next week.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/5/12/19380/1332
NSA Whistleblower: There's More, People Are Going To Be Shocked
Fri May 12, 2006 at 04:38:00 PM PDT
From the subscription-only Congress Daily, Chris Strohm reports that NSA whistleblower Russell Tice will make some on bombshell revelations on Capitol Hill next week:
A former intelligence officer for the National Security Agency said Thursday he plans to tell Senate staffers next week that unlawful activity occurred at the agency under the supervision of Gen. Michael Hayden beyond what has been publicly reported, while hinting that it might have involved the illegal use of space-based satellites and systems to spy on U.S. citizens. Russell Tice, who worked on what are known as special access programs, has wanted to meet in a closed session with members of Congress and their staff since President Bush announced in December that he had secretly authorized the NSA to eavesdrop on U.S. citizens without a court order. In an interview late Thursday, Tice said the Senate Armed Services Committee finally asked him to meet next week in a secure facility on Capitol Hill.
Tice was fired from the NSA last May. He said he plans to tell the committee staffers the NSA conducted illegal and unconstitutional surveillance of U.S. citizens while he was there with the knowledge of Hayden, who has been nominated to become director of the CIA. Tice said one of his co-workers personally informed Hayden that illegal and unconstitutional activity was occurring. [...] I think the people I talk to next week are going to be shocked when I tell them what I have to tell them. It's pretty hard to believe, Tice said. I hope that theyΉll clean up the abuses and have some oversight into these programs, which doesn't exist right now. [...]
Tice said his information is different from the Terrorist Surveillance Program that Bush acknowledged in December and from news accounts this week that the NSA has been secretly collecting phone call records of millions of Americans. It's an angle that you haven't heard about yet, he said.
what 2 things
In the last paragraph of your post Re: The Other Side of Mel Gibson, you state,
There's two things that booze does. You omitted the second thing. What, in your opinion, is the second thing that booze does?
I get it. You really do think all those things....
just in poor taste to post them. We are on the same page now.
I believe three things
1. My eyes watching Scooter's conviction.. 2. Valerie Plame, the person who knows her situation best. 3. Patrick Fitzgerald. Now there's a guy with a high IQ that was not manufactured by professional fact fixers.
Two things....
Obama has already said he was going to put a windfall profits tax against the oil companies...money earned by one person...and divvy it out in $1000 whacks to people who did nothing to earn it. That is redistribution of wealth and that is Marxist. He already said he was going to do it. Government run health care is socialism.
Second question...how is he going to pay for all that stuff you have listed there? Tax oil companies more? What do you think that will do to gas prices?
Just wondering.
What are those things
Can someone explain what those things are outside the RNC. I understand wanting to protest and you hold a sign up showing your viewpoint and maybe you yell out something you believe in, but I can't understant what those things are that are wearing masks, being dragged away, having to be hosed down by the police.
What a nonsense and insane world they must live in. I'm all for freedom speech, but this is beyond my understanding.
Also - don't they have jobs? Do their employers allow them to take time off work to go do this and get arrested? I want that job. HA HA
A few things I would add...
This reply is picking up at the point after the main context regarding religion, which was addressed now under 2 separate posts.
The comments regarding basic human kindness. Is that a one-way street? What part of the Black Liberation Theology campaign which, if I recall corectly, you championed most vocally and most repetitively was not about race, politics or religion? If it's not two-way, it's a dead end. Perhaps leading by example would be a first step in the right direction.
With regard to welform, it is comforting to know that both candidates and both parties are on agreement and promote programs that tie welfare, jobs and training together. In terms of expecting welfare recipients to climb out of the "lower bracket," it is curious that you would hold them to an entirely different standard than you would the entire middle class, which again, if memory serves me, you claimed in a previous post in defense of tax cuts to the wealthy, fell into that same "lower bracket." To bankroll welfare that would raise the middle classes out of the "lower bracket" would most certainly appear socialist, and of course, we can't have any of that.
I am not aware of any candidate who seeks to "stifle" American ingenuity. Please enlighten us on that one. Are you referring to tax increases on individual incomes in excess of $250,000 or the proposals that would remove tax loopholes for large corporations? I am confused as to how that would "stifle" them. Our candidates seem to be in agreement on the need for government accountability and fiscal responsibility. Not soo sure how McCain proposes to go about it, but O has outlined his fiscal policies nicely here http://www.barackobama.com/issues/fiscal/ and has detailed him in his Blueprint for Change here http://origin.barackobama.com/pdf/ObamaBlueprintForChange.pdf.
That unity Americans supposedly shared in the aftermath of 9/11 is what some people would characterize as shellshock after an act of war on our own soil. Seems that the present administrations's response to that attack over these past 8 years is exactly why the nation is so divided now. That shared experience is not something that can be taken back. One thing is for sure. The politics of fear that worked so well for them is not really working that well anymore, so there is no "going back;" there is only going forward from here.
Not quite sure what the prayer statement is trying to say, especially in the context of discrimination (?) against Christians. God is on the currency, but Jesus is not. If you are referring to prayer in school or any other public gathering, I'm afraid that could get pretty messy. Nothing against prayer or praying, but this being a country where all are free to practice their religion, then public places would need to have a prayer room and rug to accommodate the Moslem practice of call to prayer, meditation rooms for the Eastern faiths and the like. In assemblies led by Christian prayer, it probably would need to be followed by a prayers or readings from The Torah, The Holy Kitab, The Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, The Avesta, The Confucian Analects, The Doctrin of the Mean, The Holy Mencius, The Great Learning, The Holy Quran, The Hadith, The Holy Akaranja Sutra, The Holy Kalpa Sutra, The Holy Kojiki, The Holy Nihongi, The Holy Tao Te Ching, The Holy Chuang Tzu, The 4 Vedas, The Upanishads, the 18 Puranas, the Bhagavid Gita
see what I mean? Kinda messy. There is a reason our forefathers had the insight to provide for the PRIVATE practice of religion.
On the abortion issue. This is easy. All people do have their say. That's why we have choice. Free to exercise the choice to have or NOT to have an abortion. To remove choice is anything but free. So you want quality, affordable, portable health care for all, lower costs, etc. Here's a plan you might consider. http://www.barackobama.com/issues/healthcare/
Thank you for saying things that I have
been trying to say. Thank you for standing up for Jesus. Thank you for not being afraid to say how you feel. I, too, am a born-again believer and I am terribly burdened by what I have read on this board. I am shocked that so many of my co-workers do not believe in prayer, or even in God. I guess this is something I have always just taken for granted. Once again, thank you for your courage.
One thing we can do, as believers, we can pray for wisdom in making our decisions who we will vote for in this election. Also, whoever is elected, we can lift them up daily for strength and wisdom and God's will in the decisions they make for our great country!
If you don't like things the way they are NOW, and you
most definitely that you were intellectually challenged.
You have taken things too far!
You do not have the right to call someone ignorant just because they interpret those quotes as racist. If you don't think they are racist, fine.....after all we are all entitled to our own opinions. If you can't handle people having a different opinion than your own, don't bother reading or posting on the board. Calling people names does not prove your point.
Obviously there are other people on the board other than the original poster who feel those quotes were racist. I have always thought Obama and his wife were racist and these quotes are just more proof of that.
no one is looking things up and
posting for discussion. they are recycling the old attacks about flag pins and trying to provoke silly discussions to distract from the precipitous plunge of the McClain campaign in the face of the wall street debacle.
It is the WAY you said things
you were very condescending. That doesn't get anyone anywhere!
I am not judging you but the Bible also tells us to basically "check one another" when need be. And I am checking you. Chill out and have a little compassion. Be on fire for Jesus, by all means, but be SMART about it!
There are some things, whether Dem or Rep, that
Christians have to be intolerant of. We absolutely ARE NOT supposed to hate anyone and we are instructed to love our neighbors as ourselves. That doesn't mean we have to tolerate things that go against our beliefs; we just have to be kind no matter how we feel about a situation.
Too bad you don't know how to put things in
@
so many of these things can be
turned around and said about Obama. The lack of his experience. He has never run anything. He has consistetly voted present instead of making an executive decision of yes or no. He has only been in the senate for 4 years and has spent more money on pork and earmarks in those 4 years than McCain has his whole political career. Palin got rid of the personal jet the prior governor had. She has made her state a success and she has given money back to her constituents. She has the highest approval rating as governor. You care about the money the RNC spent of Palin's clothes which will be given to charity and you don't comment about the millions and millions of dollars that Obama has spent during his campaign....not to mention the 2 million dollar shindig they are planning in Chicago during election...who is paying for that? you bring up troopergate with Palin and yet you refuse to see Obama on committees with terrorists who gave money to radical groups. All the money that Obama raised for educational purposes didn't improve the schools in his district at all. The housing that was in his area for community organizer....especially the ones owned by Rezko were so bad that people had no heat during the Chicago winters. The same Rezko who he had sketchy dealings with in order to buy his mansion for way less than what it is worth. Obama the same man who attended church for 20 years where the preacher did nothing but preach about how America sucks because it was run by whitey and blacks should take over. Not to forget his cousin in Kenya who Obama campaigned for and gave money to and when his cousin lost the election....his followers rioted and killed innocent people. Obama campaigned for him when he visited kenya. What has Obama run successfully? The housing in his district were not up to snuff. The school he pledged to help with the committee he was on did not improve. Are you not seeing a pattern here.
So go spout your BS somewhere else because this person, who has done her research, isn't listening. Obama has many more sketchy things in his life than Palin and he has just as little experience.....and he is running for president....NOT VP.
There are many things about
Barrack Obama that scare me. His far left ideas are just a tip of the iceberg here. The facts that he will basically force companies to unionize by getting rid of a secret ballot will lead to corruption. It will lead to more control by the democrats. With a democrat controlled congress with a democrat in the White House.....who are we to stop anything? Obama will have total control and I literally shake at the idea of having a man like Obama....with his radical ideas and his associations.....with power over our country. I never thought the USA could be threatened by a dictator........but I truly fear we are heading in that direction and that thought terrifies me.
he says a lot of things -
x
Some things
he might not have specifically said because he wasn't thinking of the Americans who would be sitting around splitting hairs (wild hairs I might add). RE: "And only recently has he started saying workers."
I don't believe that she said these things
Until it can actually be substantiated, rather than just hearsay, I do not believe that Palin did not know that Africa is a continent. That is ridiculous. She is not a stupid woman, regardless of whether or not you like her. Remember--Obama said something about 57 states, but I don't believe that he doesn't know how many states there are, either.
EMR and VR are two different things.
EMR just refers to being able to access medical records via computer rather than having to have the paper chart in front of you. That part will not affect our work load as the reports still need to be done & entered on the computer system.
VR is a completely different nightmare than endangers patients almost as much as offshoring IMO.
Things that don't add up...(sm)
To me there are 2 glaring problems with this (besides the fact that she can't care for that many children)
1. She is supposed to be on workers comp for her back, but she can carry a pregnancy of octuplets? I would think workers comp would be investigating that. It's one thing to have a bad back and accidentally get pregnant, but this was intentional.
2. I think she's a certifiable nut, but isn't she majoring in psychology?
There are many things that
factor into the car industry crisis. First off, unions, in my opinion, are the bane of the car industry. States that force unionization show a lower number of production, lower number of job growth, etc. The states that do not force unions have a higher rating in production and job growth. When the economy was booming, the unions didn't help but they weren't running business into the ground. Now that the economy sucks....the unions are sucking the life out of the car industry.
Next we have Americans buying foreign cars. Not only does that send money to other countries but it is hurting American auto makers, etc.
Then you have the legacy costs that, just like the unions, were okay during a good economy but are now sucking the life out of the car industry. To allow people to retire at 50 and then receive that kind of pension is insane. They shouldn't be letting people retire that early....unless their health doesn't allow them to work.
Then you have the CEOs making huge amounts of money and other higher ups who are making millions to do absolutely nothing.
Now our economy stinks and people can't afford to buy cars and the ones who can are too afraid because the car industry is struggling as well as they are also scared of their own finances if this gets worse.
All in all....we have succesfully killed the car industry. Dealerships are closing doors like crazy. Dealerships go a whole day with no traffic on the lot. People are losing jobs left and right. Factories are closing. People are forced to take a week off each month, etc. It is truly scary and we have greed to thank for this whole thing. Greed in government.....greed in the unions.......and greed in CEOs, etc.
Saying it and doing it are 2 different things
It's all fine and dandy to act like the "tough guy" but at some point someone who is supposed to be "sane" at the moment they are committing the crime and thinking they are doing justice by a vigil ante (sp?) attitude is no better than the original person who committed the crime. There are very sick people in this world. If they commit a crime they should be put behind bars and get the counseling they need. But to take matters in your own hands and dowse someone in a chemical and set them on fire. That chemical then goes down the throat. The fires then goes down their throat. Its just awful awful awful. I don't care how much anguish, anger, frustration you feel. She had no right to do that and she is no better than he was. I stick by my statement and I hope the family of the rapist sue this lady. What she did was unspeakable.
There are many other things
that will have to change and happen before I give much praise to the current administration. As for Nasdaq going up....that is great but we will all have to wait and see if it stays up.
No matter what rhetoric you preach or how much kool-aid you drink, the fact of the matter is common sense.....you can't spend and borrow your way out of debt. The current administration is making a huge mistake spending all of this money
Obama says he wants better education and yet he does away with vouchers and the teachers union does nothing but keep bad teachers employed. You cannot let the teachers union control things and make education better at the same time....it just won't happen. If we held teachers accountable and fired them for poor performance, the teacher's union would scream and shout.
He wants national healthcare. Who wants the government to decide how long people live and whether or not they should receive treatment or not? Who wants government to tell you what procedures you can have done and when you can have them no matter how urgent your need is?
He wants bigger government. I don't want everything controlled by government. That gives them too much power and they obviously are too greedy to handle such empowerment wisely for the sake of the American people.
So what if the market is up.....whooptee do. There are still so many things that Obama wants to do that I cannot agree with. There are still too many crooked things going on in Washington with Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Tim Geithner, Pelosi, etc.
For once I want a president and politicians to actually do things that are best for the American people. Not what is best for the executives who gave them money for their campaign but the American people who work hard everyday and are struggling right now. I'm tired of having a president in office who is being pulled by puppet strings.
Those car fax things are only
accurate if people report their accidents to their insurance. If they take it home or to someone they know and have it fixed without turning it into insurance....that won't show up on a carfax report. Just a tip.
Two things.
1. I believe she meant that Glenn Beck had a heart for the soldiers. Which he does.
2. There are a whole lot of us in the deep end with her. And we like it here.
Two things: 1. No he's not hot.
2. Barf, barf.
Two things: 1. No he's not hot.
2. Barf, barf.
Three things.....(sm)
1. I understand your insecurity about having a president who can't think for himself as we've just been through 8 years of that. However, this one actually has a mind of his own. Imagine that. Now that's what really scares you. He thinks for himself and isn't swayed by the ridiculous temper tantrums of the party of NO.
2. You are correct in saying that other countries didn't know what Bush would do next, he!!, WE didn't know what Bush would do next. Kind of like the way we look at North Korea and Iran --- we call them rogue nations, but when we do it, it's supposed to be the right thing to do? Get real.
3. Yes, I laugh at what you guys try to pass off as facts because the rationale for most of the statements on this board (which are usually just repeats from Fixed Noise) are absolutely comical. Heads up...here comes Beck with a gas can! I wonder how long it will take before they put him in a padded cell?
There are other things, too, though.
They already to treat the wealthy differently. There is a point of income beyond which they cap and stop taking out social security. Eliminating that cap would go a long way to equalizing the playing field. And I see nothing wrong with there being a means test to be eligible for social security. I can't get food stamps or other government aid because I make $50 too much a month to be eligible, yet I am still paying into. Why should those that can afford it be denied?
And there have been isolated pockets of people who were able to opt out of social security. But when you recall what happened to those who entrusted Enron with their pension funds, and people who now have seen their 401Ks invested in mutual funds dwindle away to next to nothing, social security still serves as a barrier between the effects of today's robber barons and economic instability.
There are other things, too, though.
They already to treat the wealthy differently. There is a point of income beyond which they cap and stop taking out social security. Eliminating that cap would go a long way to equalizing the playing field. And I see nothing wrong with there being a means test to be eligible for social security. I can't get food stamps or other government aid because I make $50 too much a month to be eligible, yet I am still paying into. Why should those that can afford it be denied?
And there have been isolated pockets of people who were able to opt out of social security. But when you recall what happened to those who entrusted Enron with their pension funds, and people who now have seen their 401Ks invested in mutual funds dwindle away to next to nothing, social security still serves as a barrier between the effects of today's robber barons and economic instability.
There are other things, too, though.
They already to treat the wealthy differently. There is a point of income beyond which they cap and stop taking out social security. Eliminating that cap would go a long way to equalizing the playing field. And I see nothing wrong with there being a means test to be eligible for social security. I can't get food stamps or other government aid because I make $50 too much a month to be eligible, yet I am still paying into. Why should those that can afford it be denied?
And there have been isolated pockets of people who were able to opt out of social security. But when you recall what happened to those who entrusted Enron with their pension funds, and people who now have seen their 401Ks invested in mutual funds dwindle away to next to nothing, social security still serves as a barrier between the effects of today's robber barons and economic instability.
Let's just keep things real. That is all I am saying. NM
Some things never change...
War Crimes Even Helen Keller Could See
By Mickey Z.
In a textbook example of whitewashing, if today's America knows Helen Keller (1880-1968) at all, it's the easy-to-digest image portrayed in the 1962 film, 'The Miracle Worker.' Brave deaf and blind girl 'overcomes' all obstacles to inspire everyone she meets. 'The Helen Keller with whom most people are familiar is a stereotypical sexless paragon who was able to overcome deaf-blindness and work tirelessly to promote charities and organizations associated with other blind and deaf-blind individuals,' writes Sally Rosenthal in Ragged Edge.
But, in 1909, Helen Keller became a socialist. Soon after, she emerged as a vocal supporter of the working class and traveled the nation to voice her opposition to war. 'How can our rulers claim they are fighting to make the world safe for democracy,' she asked, 'while here in the U.S. Negroes may be massacred and their property burned?' Of course, as a woman with disabilities, she was patronized by the same mainstream media that previously championed her as a heroine. The editors of the Brooklyn Eagle wrote: 'Her mistakes spring out of the manifest limitations of her development.'
Keller minced no words in her responses...one of which appeared in newspapers across America: 'So long as I confine my activities to social services and the blind, the newspapers compliment me extravagantly, calling me an 'arch-priest of the sightless' and 'wonder woman'. But when I discuss poverty and the industrial system under which we live that is a different matter.'
As the militaristic frenzy spread across America, Keller appeared at New York City's Carnegie Hall on January 5, 1916. 'I have a word to say to my good friends, the editors, and others who are moved to pity me,' she said. 'Some people are grieved because they imagine I am in the hands of unscrupulous persons who lead me astray and persuade me to espouse unpopular causes and make me the mouthpiece of their propaganda. Now, let it be understood once and for all that I do not want their pity; I would not change places with one of them. I know what I am talking about. My sources of information are as good and reliable as anybody else's. I have papers and magazines from England, France, Germany and Austria that I can read myself. Not all the editors I have met can do that. Quite a number of them have to take their French and German second hand. No, I will not disparage the editors. They are an overworked, misunderstood class. Let them remember, though, that if I cannot see the fire at the end of their cigarettes, neither can they thread a needle in the dark. All I ask, gentlemen, is a fair field and no favor. I have entered the fight against preparedness and against the economic system under which we live. It is to be a fight to the finish, and I ask no quarter.'
Keller's critique of the government propaganda campaign to stir up Americans to support U.S. intervention in the war remains more germane than ever. 'Every modern war has had its root in exploitation' Keller said. 'The Civil War was fought to decide whether the slaveholders of the South or the capitalists of the North should exploit the West. The Spanish-American War decided that the United States should exploit Cuba and the Philippines. The South African War decided that the British should exploit the diamond mines. The Russo-Japanese War decided that Japan should exploit Korea. The present war is to decide who shall exploit the Balkans, Turkey, Persia, Egypt, India, China, Africa. And we are whetting our sword to scare the victors into sharing the spoils with us. Now, the workers are not interested in the spoils; they will not get any of them anyway.'
She urged workers-the ones who do the fighting and dying-to strike at the heart of America's drive toward war. 'Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought,' she declared. 'Strike against preparedness that means death and misery to millions of human beings. Be not dumb, obedient slaves in an army of destruction. Be heroes in an army of construction.'
Excerpted from the soon-to-be-released '50 American Revolutions You're Not Supposed to Know: Reclaiming American Patriotism.'
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