I’ve been distressed by the subterranean RNC hatemails and 527-group TV ads which “accuse” Barack of being a Muslim. In response, our local Obama field office took it upon ourselves to do an outreach with the local Muslim community, in the form of non-partisan voter education and registration. After enjoying an excellent Iftar (post-Ramadan meal) with them, and subsequent followup visits, we were able to register approximately 50 new voters in that community. The icing on the cake was Gen. Powell’s recent statement of support for Obama when he hit this slur head-on:
. . . “But the really right answer is, ‘What if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?’ The answer’s ‘No, that’s not America.’ Is there something wrong with some 7-year-old Muslim American kid believing that he or she could be president?” . . .

The other troubling misrepresentation is McCain’s (and now Palin’s) willful confusion between diplomatic “preconditions” vs “preparations,” through which they slam Barack on his position regarding negotiations with Iran. Click on the website link under my name, which leads to a recent letter-to-the-editor. In it, I attempted to clarify — at least for the local Virginia audience — the vital differences between the two terms.

Keep the Flame, folks! JESSE

As I read the comments it does my heart good to know that I am not the only one who sees the light at the end of the ‘foreign relations’ tunnel as Senator Obama. Watching the debates and hearing McCain refer to our friends and enemies repeatedly vowing not to have any conversation with our ‘enemies’ without ‘pre-conditions’ (and making such a huge issue of pre-conditions) I am constantly reminded that the paradigm is shifting and this election is but a small part of the shift. I know without a doubt that Senator Obama when he is our President, which I know he will be soon, will begin to mend the wounds those before him have inflicted on so many people’s/countries around the world. I know he will listen with his heart and wisdom and will understand that peace can not ever be attained through military force or by separating ourselves from the rest of the world. I am so very excited about the next four years and how much closer we will grow to all of our friends and neighbors around the world through the wise and kind guidance of President Obama and his staff.

In closing I only want to point out that ‘we the people’ also bear a great deal of responsibility in bridging the gaps between cultures/peoples/countries and the U.S. that has been formed by so many years of living in fear of those who are different than we are. We all need to reach out to those in other countries through the internet, through travel and in other ways to help repair the reputation of Americans. We all need to embrace the differences between us and to remember the deep irrefutable undeniable inherent similarities between each and every one of us at the same time. I think sometimes that our goverment here in the U.S. conveniently forgets that this great land was intended to be a place of freedom for ALL people from ALL cultures from ALL walks of life from ALL countries and that it is our diversity that makes us such a great and strong country and not our sameness or single-mindedness. Let us out here in the public continue to spread our willingness to be citizens of the world first and then Americans throughout this great land so that those who still choose to live in fear of those who look and who are different might be influenced to change for their own benefit and for the benifit of their children.

Again I want to thank all of you for your years of service and dedication not only to this country but to humanity.

Bless you all.

Sincerely,
Cheryl Huerta

As a former lifelong Republican myself, it makes perfect sense to me that a lot of us, regardless of Service experience or lack thereof, have managed to look around not only at our own country’s current state, but at the world as a whole and how we are beginning to play a completely different role in it. (And a rather unsavory one, at that.)

Analysis of one’s country must be both subjective and objective, and I trust those who have been abroad serving this nation in their balanced assessments of Senator Obama’s potential strengths on the world stage, and those character traits that provide for these strengths.

The only way I could possibly NOT be moved to intellect by such support, would be to continue to pretend that things were not as they in fact truly are, and to conjure up trivialities to sidetrack the national conversation, and I refuse to do so. My former party taught me to do just that, and now that party itself is paying the price of lacking any sort of substance or theory. It has gone against it’s own platform, it’s own ideals… MY ideals, and I proudly support Senator Obama within my own conservative, non-interventionist, socially-equalistic and non-socially-interventionist ideals.

May the best man win.

I cannot tell you how proud I am, as a naturalized American of 20 years and an African, to see history made when he clinched the nomination of the Democratic Party, for starters. For me, whatever happened afterwards was truly the icing. He had already won.

My husband and I lived in a number of places in Africa and our last post was in India. It was very hard trying to walk that fine line between supporting my President and his policies, which were, clearly, out of touch. Increasingly, we were being ridiculed for these policies. Even Africans (who have given us all the breaks in the world for a very long time) were getting tired of the “we will get it done by ourselves and do not need anyone” strategy.

We need to repair our image abroad. We need to reconnect with our traditional allies. We need to reach out to those that have increasingly become suspicious of our intentions, no matter how noble. I am very excited about the Obama/Biden ticket because I think that it is the first step to clean up this mess.

Dumisile.

I have already voted absentee in order to be free to be of help to anyone that needs it.

Congratulations on a wonderful effort.