Living through History

Just not anything I can add to this.


Amanda Jones, 109, the daughter of a man born into slavery, has lived a life long enough to touch three centuries. And after voting consistently as a Democrat for 70 years, she has voted early for the country's first black presidential nominee.

The middle child of 13, Jones, who is African American, is part of a family that has lived in Bastrop County for five generations. The family has remained a fixture in Cedar Creek and other parts of the county, even when its members had to eat at segregated barbecue dives and walk through the back door while white customers walked through the front, said Amanda Jones' 68-year-old daughter, Joyce Jones.

and...
Jones' father herded sheep as a slave until he was 12, according to the family, and once he was freed, he was a farmer who raised cows, hogs and turkeys on land he owned. Her mother was born right after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, Joyce Jones said. The family owned more than 100 acres of land in Cedar Creek at one point, she said.

Amanda Jones' father urged her to exercise her right to vote, despite discriminatory practices at the polls and poll taxes meant to keep black and poor people from voting. Those practices were outlawed for federal elections with the 24th Amendment in 1964, but not for state and local races in Texas until 1966.
Amanda Jones says she cast her first presidential vote for Franklin Roosevelt, but she doesn't recall which of his four terms that was. When she did vote, she paid a poll tax, her daughters said. That she is able, for the first time, to vote for a black presidential nominee for free fills her with joy, Jones said.

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Why does Smith assume we won't know?

I received this from BRO. It quite nicely sums up the insult to my intelligence that Gordon Smith has been attempting to accomplish. It isn't working, by the way.

From Jeana Frazzini:

I'm truly stunned. Last night I watched one of the most offensive political ads I've ever seen.

None of us can escape the barrage of political ads in this intense election season. I find some of the ads to be dull, others slightly troubling, but none as offensive as what I have seen from Senator Gordon Smith.

This week alone he is running an advertisement that panders to gay voters in Portland and a different ad bashing us in rural Oregon.

One minute he's bragging about his support for gay rights. And the next he's attacking a minor party candidate for believing that same-sex couples should be treated equally under the law.

I've had enough. It's time for Gordon Smith to stop playing politics with our families.

Email Senator Smith today and tell him that our families are not political pawns.

Tell Gordon Smith that he can't play politics with gay rights any longer.

In solidarity,

Jeana Frazzini
Basic Rights Oregon
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"I started going liberal when..."

This is a comment made on DailyKos that really hit home for me. I don't ever really remember being very conservative, but I love how straight to the point this is, and will remember it the next time my mother calls me a "died in the wool" Democrat...as if that is a bad thing.

a former colleague left this on my fb page

"When did you get so left wing? Is it a college prof thing?"

This was my response...

If you must know, I got so "left wing" well before becoming a college prof.

I started going left wing when the right questioned my patriotism because I didn't support a war w/ a country that did not attack us.

I started going left wing when the "small government" right decided women don't have a right ... to choose...and wouldn't let a Florida woman die with dignity.

I started going left when "small" Government right wingers bloated the federal government.

I started going left when folks at the Republican National Convention in 2004 mocked a Vietnam Veteran with a Purple Heart while supporting candidates that used family influence to avoid service.

I started going left when the right gleefully chants "Drill, baby, drill" instead of addressing the problem.

I started going left when the "right wing" decided to call a "Christian" an "Arab" as if Arabs are evil.

I am a proud liberal, but I don't judge friends that have a different view

I think the list could go on and on.

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Biden and "Pro-American parts of the country"

Dissappointing is right.

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ColorOfChange.org calls out McCain/Palin

ColorOfChange.org is sending an open letter/petition to McCain and Palin, calling them out on the incredibly insulting racist pandering they are doing, and allowing to happen in their campaign.


John McCain and Sarah Palin have stopped talking about the issues, and have instead launched a strategy relying on fear-mongering, racial divisions, and hate. The result is McCain/Palin supporters saying "kill him!" "terrorist!" "traitor," and more, at rallies, with the McCain campaign playing dumb in response.It's outrageous and it must stop.

Together, we can show that Americans of all races won't stand for this.

I've signed onto ColorofChange's open-letter calling out McCain and Palin. ColorOfChange.org will publish it this week, and as they've shown in the past, when enough of us stand together, we can force the mainstream media to amplify our message. Will you join us?

http://www.colorofchange.org/united/?id=2110-108809


McCain-Palin rallies have started to look more like mob scenes than political events. The candidates keep asking "who is the real Barack Obama?" (a question that also kicks off almost every McCain television ad).In response, supporters have yelled "terrorist!" and "traitor!" And the venom goes beyond Obama--one McCain/Palin supporter shouted a racial epithet at a Black member of a news crew, saying "sit down, boy."

McCain and Palin are going down a dangerous path. Watching some of their supporters being interviewed shows the kind of fear their campaign is stoking and exploiting.McCain and Palin are clearly in the driver's seat. They've personally made it a point to use "terrorist" and "Obama" in the same sentence; they have surrogates repeatedly refer to him by his middle-name;and they keep pushing the discredited guilt-by-association smears that have long been debunked.

All of it plays on the much more sinister rumors in anonymous smear emails which claim Obama is Muslim, anti-American, and is somehow connected with terrorists. This strategy is powerful because Obama is Black, and it's designed to make Obama's race a disadvantage without appearing overtly racist.

As Americans of all stripes, we've seen how Barack Obama's historic candidacy has moved our friends and family to have a more honest conversation about race in this country. It's inspired a lot of people to step out of their comfort zone and confront racism in their own communities, with their friends, neighbors and families.

In the final days of this campaign, we can't let a desperate John McCain and Sarah Palin drag us down. If enough of us act, we can create a powerful story in the media about Black people and our allies of all races standing together against race-baiting and fear-mongering coming from the McCain/Palin campaign. But it will take a lot of us speaking in unison.

Will you sign an open letter to McCain and Palin, telling them who you are and why you won't let them move our country backward? ColorofChange.org will publish the letter and make sure John McCain is forced to respond.

http://colorofchange.org/united/?id=2110-108809


Thanks.
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ACORN Response to Senator McCain's Smear Ad

The fact that McCain would even be dumb enough to try and blame the current crisis on a nonprofit community organization tells me how completely out of touch and desparate the man has become:

ACORN President Maude Hurd released the following statement today in response to the McCain campaign's new ad claiming that, among other things, ACORN is responsible for the mortgage crisis:

"For almost a decade, ACORN, a community organization of 400,000 families in neighborhoods across the country, has been fighting against the predatory lending practices that have robbed our members of their homes, destabilized neighborhoods, and roiled the global economy."



"In his newest ad, John McCain's campaign bizarrely claims, "ACORN forced banks to issue risky home loans, the same types of loans that caused the financial crisis we're in today." Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, ACORN has worked successfully to help working class families get good home loans on fair terms from legitimate banks and has fought vigorously against predatory lenders who have ripped off families in our communities. These predatory loans caused the crisis."



"For more than a decade, ACORN members have held protests, released reports, and advocated for regulations to protect homeowners from predatory lenders. ACORN organizers and volunteers have been working day and night to help victims of the GOP economic meltdown to save their homes from foreclosure. In fact, ACORN has brought class action lawsuits against several predatory lenders, and has lobbied the Federal Reserve and Congress in support of regulations against predatory lending. ACORN has even been successful in convincing many lenders to treat homeowners more fairly and help families be able to make their mortgage payments and save their homes."



"Unfortunately, the Bush administration and Congressional Republicans like John McCain have blocked the sensible regulations that ACORN and others proposed that would have averted the mortgage meltdown. If John McCain thinks that community organizers caused the foreclosure crisis, he knows even less about the economy than previously thought."

"John McCain and the Republicans are desperately trying to shift the blame for the economic crisis they caused with a philosophy of deregulation and indifference to homeowners. All the grainy footage and creepy music in the world can't cancel out some simple, basic facts, and the facts about the economy are not on John McCain's side."
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Place in Hell for Women who Misquote Other Women

Ok I know this isn't earth-shattering, but I got a kick out of it.

Does this LOOK like a woman you want to get on the bad side of?



"Though I am flattered that Governor Palin has chosen to cite me as a source of wisdom, what I said had nothing to do with politics. This is yet another example of McCain and Palin distorting the truth, and all the more reason to remember that this campaign is not about gender, it is about which candidate has an agenda that will improve the lives of all Americans, including women. The truth is, if you care about the status of women in our society and in our troubled economy, the best choice by far is Obama-Biden."
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