A change was made in the 2008 election. The precedent of having some diversity in the office of president in the white house (which was built by African slaves) was LOOONG overdue!
This is a step in the right direction. Change does come very slowly. Many people thought a man who identified as Black in any way (Obama has indicated he identifies as both Black and White) could NEVER be elected President in the US!
Now that this precedent has been set, I hope people can start paying more attention to the issues as we move into the future. Obama does offer hope and he offers a historical, symbolic change. Obama surely is preferable to McCain. However, over time, people will inevitably come to ask if Obama will change these ten prominent issues
1 Poverty - Obama's plan to solve poverty (from his own website) is to raise minimum wage to $9.50 by the year 2011. Could you feed a family or even yourself on that? In the richest country in the world wealth is concentrated in a greedy 1% who own mulitiple houses and cars while working class and poor people struggle to afford food and shelter. We need LIVEABLE wages.
2 The Media - The media are conglomerates run by rich people who profit off of keeping the poor poor while the rich get richer. The corporation GE (General Electric) owns NBC, MSNBC, The History Channel, and more. Rupert Murdoch of Fox News, and the Disney/ABC/ESPN Conglomerate basically own the rest. The voice of the poor and oppressed is not heard in the rich agenda of what they consider news (for real news: DemocracyNow.Org, SleptOn.Com)
3 Foreign Policy - 700 Billion dollars a year or more is spent on military spending. This money is not spent to protect an invasion on US land by another country, but to add more land and resources to the control of the US Empire. Half of this spending could give Universal Healthcare to all citizens of the US. The interference of the US military abroad also makes other countries hate the US and makes this country far less secure. Security means getting out of other countries lands and paying them reparations for the damage the US has caused
4 Healthcare - In the US if you cannot afford your medical bills when you go to the hospital you will die. 50 million American have no healthcare b/c they cannot afford it. Or, if you get sick you will go so far in debt that you'll lose your house and end up working three jobs. In Canada, Europe, and Cuba you do not pay for healthcare. This needs to happen here! Even if you have healthcare your plan offer won't cover you when you need it, because they lose profits that way. See the movie Sicko by Michael Moore to learn more.
5 Education - Like healthcare, higher (college) education is provided free of charge in other countries. Also, in a democracy schools should be equal. However, if you go to school in the city, you find the schools have FAR less resources than the schools in the suburbs. Kids graduate college $100,000 in debt with student loans here and esentially become indebted servants to credit card companies (who are comparable to organized crime loan sharks). Meanwhile, the rich send their kids to better schools and their kids do not have debt from college student loans. The rich also often avoid military service because they have more options in the US.
6 Bigotry - I would like to hear Obama speak up against the bigotry shown toward Arabs, Muslims, and other groups. He certainly stands up for Christians and Jews. Are Arabs not human as well? I'd also like to see him fight for equality for gays. On the day he was elected, gay marriage was banned in California. Why should the government care who people choose to sleep with?
7 Perception of History - Our current issues come from a history that is not widely known or taught in the US. We need to talk about how this country was founded and built on the backs of Native American and African genocide and exploitation of sweat shop labor in and out of the US. These are things I would love to hear Obama talk about. I hope he does... Ignoring the past and saying how great America is does not help things. We need a lot of dialogue as a country...And we need to address and rectify the true (and often supressed) history of this country. (See "A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn from 1492 to Present)
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The Elections and Political Process - In a dictatorship people only have one option. In the US we have only two options. This is not a strong democracy at all. There were more than 5 other candidates on the ballot (including excellent candidates like Cynthia McKinney/Green Party & Ralph Nader/Independent) that were virtually ignored by the media.
The debates are controlled by the republicans and democrats and the conglomerates who own the media and these forces BAN and SILENCE other candidates from the debates. This is a major problem. See
www.opendebates.org 9
Culture of Materialism - In the US the rich people who own and run the TV stations, colleges, internet (yahoo, google, AOL, etc), radio stations, magazines, newspapers, etc have created a culture of materialism and self gratification! Our culture has established a dominant consumer culture where people are primarily targeted audiences for advertisers. They teach us that happiness comes from things (what we own) and not from helping others or doing things that benefit humanity. Sucess in capitalism is too often measured in how much money we make, rather than who we are and what we offer society and the community. There is a GREAT video on this at
www.storyofstuff.com Its only 20 min. Pass it on to everyone you know. It's a must see
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The Justice System - Putting people in cages like animals does not deter crime all too well. It's also
far from humane. It tends to make people more angry and more knowledgable on crime (from living with other convicts). In some cases, if people are very poor, it offers them food and shelter (that are too expensive to afford on minimum wage). We need
prison abolition. This movement is about true rehabilitation and education of those who are convicted. People need to be cared for
humanely, and to get counseling, and help building their life and societial skills. Many prisons now are privately owned and they profit off of keeping them full. There is also profit to be made from making prisoners work for pennies a day. This is a form of slavery. Building more jails will not stop crime. Providing affordable housing, education, healthcare, and liveable wages will help. And the drug war must be ended. See the film
www.AmericanDrugWar.com for more info. Prohibition did not work and was a waste of time and money, and so is the drug war. We also need to eradicate the death penalty.
In a system where the rich get the best lawyers and the poor get the worse legal representation available, the death penalty can be seen for what it is.
Not to mention many people on death row have been proven innocent or could be. See
www.AfterInnocence.Com . Police brutality is also a problem and the Sean Bell case was a blatant disgrace.
As I said the rich pay to stay free by affording the best lawyers. Of course this represents what we have in the US, which is democracy
for sale.
Once people are done celebrating (part of me is happy too to have this long overdue precedent established), they will realize that symbolic change does not equate to REAL change. People must let Obama know loud and clear that we want peace, equality, and justice, because the issues I discussed above are critical.
PS - There is no such thing as America. America is a continent (that includes Mexico and Canada) not a country! I see a lot of flag waving out there. There is no American Flag. Don't forget about Central and South America. Just somethin to know...
* If I saluted a flag it would be a flag of all humanity... of equality, love, justice, sharing, and cooperation for ALL.
Peace,
Tha Truth