God Damn America. Most Americans don’t agree with that statement. Presidential candidate Barrack Obama doesn’t and yesterday in Philadelphia gave another inspiring speech denouncing much of what Reverend Wright delivered from the pulpit.
Unlike many politicians Obama didn’t distance himself from Reverend Wright but embraced him. At one point Obama said, “As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me.” I think every person in America understood exactly what that means. You don’t throw your family away even though they may be embarrassing at times.
My mother always told me to hate the sin but love the sinner. I think that’s a subtlety lost on many of todays right wing politicians and religious leaders. Many of whom just a few short weeks ago were implying Obama was a Muslim are now saying Obama has been going to a Christian Church for years where the pastor is a racist. I guess the idea is to throw enough mud untill it sticks.
To his credit Obama was mostly silent on the attempted religious slurs (even though being a Muslim is not a slur) but tackled the issue of race firmly and decisively. He continued and clarified his campaign of hope and unity saying, “We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demoagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias, but race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Rev. Wright made in his offending sermons about America — to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.”
Tags: America, Obama, president, presidential campaign, race
An election is a decision making process where people choose people to hold official offices. This is the usual mechanism by which modern democracy fills offices in the legislature, and sometimes in the executive and judiciary, and in regional and local government. This is also typically the case in a wide range of other private and business organizations, from clubs to voluntary associations and corporations.
The universal acceptance of elections as a tool for selecting representatives in modern democracies is in sharp contrast with the practice in the democratic archetype, ancient Athens, where elections were considered an oligarchic institution and where most political offices were filled using sortition, also known as allotment.
Electoral reform describes the process of introducing fair electoral systems where they are not in place, or improving the fairness or effectiveness of existing systems. Psephology is the study of results and other statistics relating to elections (especially with a view to predicting future results).
The above is a very dry explanation of ‘election’ from the Wiki. But we’re talking about a presidential election in the good old USA! Let the mudslinging begin.
Djehuty over at Generation Cobweb is building very nice page with all the candidates and links to information about them. I recommend everyone study all the candidates and issues before making a decision on any presidential hopeful.
Tags: election, president, presidential campaign, vote
