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Conservatives Warn Voters that Obama is a Mudblood!

In recent weeks, several prominent conservatives have challenged Illinoise Senator Barack Obama’s “Full-Blooded” Americanism. Their apparent argument: only an American who was raised in America by 100% American parents is able to fully understand what it means to be American. Peggy Noonan writes in the Wall Street Journal,

Hillary Clinton is not Barack Obama’s problem. America is Mr. Obama’s problem…[H]as he ever gotten misty-eyed over… the Wright Brothers and what kind of country allowed them to go off on their own and change everything? How about D-Day, or George Washington, or Henry Ford, or the losers and brigands who flocked to Sutter’s Mill, who pushed their way west because there was gold in them thar hills?…

Lucius Malfoy John McCain carries it in his bones. Mr. Malfoy McCain learned it in school, in the Naval Academy, and, literally, at grandpa’s knee….

Mr. Potter Obama? What does he think about all that history? Which is another way of saying: What does he think of America?

In an election characterized by unusual activity among youth, such sentiments are occasionally expressed more bluntly by young voters. Student Draco Malfoy recently was recorded as saying “No one asked your opinion, you filthy little Mudblood” to Hermione Granger, a fellow student whose parents were born outside of the wizarding world America.

The Harry Potter Super Serious Politics wiki provides an explanation of this term:

“Mudblood” is a derogatory term for a Muggleforeign-bornwizard or witch citizen; that is, individuals with no wizarding American parents or grandparents. There does not appear to be any difference in the magical power judgement or character of Muggleforeign-borns compared to those who are pure-blood or half-blood, but those prejudiced against Muggle foreign-borns consider them to be of “lower breeding” or worth, and undeserving of magic citizenship. The term implies that the individual has ‘dirty blood’.
Many older wizarding , elitist political families place great emphasis on “blood purity” and reject association with Muggles foreigners andMuggle foreign-borns. The notion is foremost in the minds of Dark Wizards, Death Eaters, and other followers of Lord VoldemortKarl Rove. It is possible that some well-meaning pureblood families espouse this prejudice as well, but to a less virulent degree.

The plight of these so called “mudbloods” in the wizarding world United States may in fact be worsening. Two resolute Democratic analysts describe the situation:

Remus Lupin: “Muggleforeign-borns are being rounded up as we speak.”
Ron Weasley: “But how are they supposed to have ‘stolen’ magiccitizenship? It’s mental, if you could steal magicAmericanism, there wouldn’t be any Squibs people who want American citizenship but can’t get it, would there?”
Remus Lupin: “I know. Nevertheless, unless you can prove that you have at least one close wizarding non-elitist American relative, you are now deemed to have obtained your magical power citizenship illegally and must suffer the punishment.”

Fortunately, Presidential hopeful Barack Obama is in fact near relative to several patriotic and well respected Americans. He has two white grandparents from Kansas; his grandfather fought in WWII, and his grandmother worked on a bomber assembly line. Obama was later born to a white teenage mother, and his father left while Barack was just two years old. He can also trace his family tree back to a more distant relationship with Vice President Dick Cheney, and even as far back in America’s history as George Washington. Indeed, under serious scrutiny, it seems Barack’s biography may in fact be one of the most poignantly and thoroughly American stories of any Presidential hopeful since Harry Truman.

Nonetheless, critics still choose to highlight Obama’s ties to family outside of the wizarding world America. Being a decendant of some patriotic Americans, or “half-blood” is apparently not enough, as conservatives are increasingly calling for “pure-blood”. Columnist Kathleen Parker writes:

Full-bloodedness is an old coin that’s gaining currency in the new American realm. Meaning: Politics may no longer be so much about race and gender as about heritage, core values, and made-in-America. Just as we once and still have a cultural divide in this country, we now have a patriot divide.

Who ‘gets’ America? And who doesn’t?…It’s about blood equity, heritage and commitment to hard-won American values. And roots.
Some run deeper than others and therein lies the truth of Josh Fry’s political sense. In a country that is rapidly changing demographically — and where new neighbors may have arrived last year, not last century — there is a very real sense that once-upon-a-time America is getting lost in the dash to diversity.
We love to boast that we are a nation of immigrants — and we are. But there’s a different sense of America among those who trace their bloodlines back through generations of sacrifice.

While these remarks may seem politically motivated to some (they must be referring to the father who didn’t raise him, or to the 4 years he spent in Indonesia, or implying that Hawaii is another country), they are certainly rooted in sentiments held deeply by many Americans. Bridging the gaps between Muggle foreign-borns, half-bloods, and pure-bloods may even be the challenge that defines the next great chapter in the American Story.

lol cats more focused on the issues than network news

originally uploaded by Isaac on I Can Has Cheesburger.

I just made my first lol cat. Check it out…
vote it up so it will get more views on the i can has cheesburger site

Update: My friend Liz just told me about www.yeswecanhas.com. Awesome!

Archimedes Movement: “What do we actually do?”

The interim steering committee of the Archimedes Movement has been hard at work defining an operating structure for our Movement. For the last few days they have been busy gathering feedback from chapter leaders and other Archimedes members, and discussing the merits of many comments and concerns. Several times I have heard people express concern that our mission statement is not clear enough to really engage people. The mission statement really shouldn’t be part of the operating structure document, but it is so important and so up in the air right now that I think people are craving to find direction even in unlikely places.

I think we have a brilliant mission statement:

The mission of the Archimedes Movement is to create a new space for civic engagement outside our traditional legislative and governance structures to advance solutions to the common problems we face – starting with the crisis in the U.S. health care system.

But it doesn’t say what we actually do. It is the kind of visionary, 30,000 foot high mission statement that always makes people ask “so what are you doing to achieve that mission, what is it that you guys actually do?” This doesn’t mean it is a bad mission statement, it means we need a mission execution statement to explain exactly how we will execute our visionary mission statement. Last June our mission execution statement was as simple and persuasive as our mission statement:

In an extensive grass-roots process that has engaged thousands of Oregonians, we created Senate Bill 27, the Oregon Better Health Act. This bill contains a blue print for national health care reform, starting here in Oregon. We are currently working with legislators and special interest groups to rally the votes we need in the Oregon legislature to pass this awesome bill.

When SB 27 didn’t pass during the summer legislative session, our mission execution statement deflated in a big way, and we haven’t developed a very good one to replace it.

We have a speaker training soon, and a member meeting scheduled for May. We have set the goal of having a concrete mission execution statement ready for speakers before the upcoming speaker training. I would like to help speed that effort along, so I offer a few potential mission execution statements that we can all discuss.

When people get sick and die because they don’t have health care, they are the victims of a moral crisis in our nation. What most people don’t realize is that these sick people are only a fraction of the victims; we are also victimizing our children and their children because our health care system has such an inefficient structure that it is bankrupting our entire nation.

Right now our members are meeting up with local chapters, speaking in their communities, canvassing, tabling at public events, writing and engaging their legislators, and knocking on doors to educate people about these future victims. We are not doomed to ignorance or shortsightedness, we can do better. We can fix the sad structure of our health care system if we work together.

Or this mission execution statement:

When people get sick and die because they don’t have health care, they are the victims of a moral crisis in our nation. What most people don’t realize is that these sick people are only a fraction of the victims, we are also victimizing our children and their children because our health care system has such an inefficient structure that it is bankrupting our entire nation.

We are currently lobbying Oregon State Representative Mitch Greenlick, asking him to make modest changes in his proposed Hope Initiative so that we as an organization can support it. If we are successful, we will engage Representative Greenlick, other legislators, and thousands of Oregonians to pass this initiative in Oregon, and lay the foundation for health care reform in Oregon and the nation.

I think the first part is true to the Archimedes Movement, and to Dr. Kitzhabers most recent video “The Unfinished Business of the Baby Boom Generation.” I also think it is necessary to highlight the plight of future generations, because if we only care about offering our current broken system to more people, then it be more logical to just campaign for Senators Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton, both of whom intend to institute universal access to some kind of health care in the US. This frame of caring for future Americans, this perspective is what makes AM very important and very, very unique as a health care reform effort.

The second part is way more up in the air, and will change more as we go along.

Please discuss. Tell us all what you think.

Barackappella: Our a cappella version of the Obama Yes We Can song

On Friday the 29th, leap day, some members of my a cappella group and I did a benefit show called Barackappella at my college in Portland, Oregon. It was so much fun, I wanted to share the story with you.

I support Barack Obama. I am very happy about the phenomenal voter turn out and political participation his campaign for the presidency is inspiring, and I am so excited about what I believe he will do as president. One of the many things I like about Obama is that he inspires action among really diverse groups of people. He inspires different people in different ways, but a lot of us love his speeches. A few weeks ago a group of famous artists put portions of some of his speeches to music, and made a very cool video called Yes We Can. Millions of people have watched it at the original site and also on YouTube, where it was re-posted.

I cried the first time I watched this video, and I know I was not alone. It is so nice to hear a “We” instead of an “I”. It is so nice to be so proud of a person who represents our country as a senator, and who I believe will be our President. Words do matter. I feel empowered when I say “Yes I Can,” and I feel even more empowered when I feel connected to something large enough to say “Yes We Can”. I believe more empowerment and civic engagement would be great for our country, and our world.

Just days after first watching this video, some friends and I wondered if we could arrange an a cappella version. I was already in an a cappella group at my school called MoMo and the Coop, and I knew that most of the other members were also Obama supporters. Long story short, most members of our group and another friend decided to do a benefit concert, and to call our concert Barackappella. Our performance was one of many “Leap for Change” events nationwide. About eighty people attended, including some of MoMo and the Coop’s fan base, and many Obama supporters we had not seen before. Some in the audience were much younger than me, and others could have been my grandparents. The video above is our version of Yes We Can, we also posted videos of the seven other songs we sang that night.

I am the guy with pink pants in the video, in case you were curious. I hope you enjoy it, it was so wonderful for me. By the end of the song my normally confident voice was quivering - definitely a symptom of my strong emotions, not stage fright. The audience really loved it, but I cherish most the proud and excited expressions of my friends who helped build this version of Yes We Can. Thanks guys.

The original Yes We Can speech was phenomenal, and the Yes We Can video is probably a lot more impressive musically, but I think our project is special. We are not famous or powerful, I think we are an interesting bunch, but all things considered we are ordinary Americans. But, we are participating in this movement in a way we would not have for any other politician since we were born. We are participating in our own way because a very inspiring person told us that ordinary Americans could do extraordinary things, and now our YouTube video is getting an awesome ton of views.

It’s been 24 hours since we performed (to the minute…as I write this), and we have already received some pretty awesome press. The Oregonian covered the event in an article that hasn’t been published yet. The Youtube video already has over 300 views and a bunch of great comments. The site that originally published the Yes We Can video linked to us along with other Dip Inspired projects. We have already received a request to perform this song in other parts of Oregon, and I hope we will. I am so excited. I would like to thank Jon Wash (red shirted guy in video)et al. for arranging this piece, Ben Brysacz (leader of Lewis & Clark students for Barack Obama) for helping promote the event, the lovely audience, Wil.i.am (main creator of the Yes We Can video), and Barack Obama, for inspiring all of us. If you hear of any press/publicity that I have not mentioned in this blog, please do leave a comment to let me know. If you like this story, please post it to your Facebook profile, blog, del.i.cious, etc. Please send us an email at momoandthecoop [at] gmail [dot] com for questions or performance requests.
cheers

Update: We are now approaching 50,000 views on YouTube and more than 20 comments on my blog here; we really love that people are enjoying the video. Our YouTube fans are leaving some really nice comments, and it looks like we will definitely continue to work on this song, and plan on performing again. A few people have even suggested that we try to sing at the Democratic National Convention. I think people really like that we are just a group of relatively ordinary folk being part of something extraordinary. People seem to be enjoying our efforts more because we are less famous, and closer to the grassy roots - that’s pretty different from traditional campaigns isn’t it? What do you all think? DNC?

Update II: Barack the Vote! Over 65,000 views and we recently performed again at a Barack the Vote rally at Lewis & Clark College. I think Obama is more than popular enough to win Oregon, our great challenge right now is registering voters. I grew up in conservative central/eastern Oregon, and I now attend one of the most progressive schools in progressive Portland Oregon. The Obama campaign is really the first time I’ve been able to talk with friends from school, friends from home, and family, and everyone is excited about the same thing. This movement for change has captured the attention of a very broad swath of Oregon’s great political diversity, and so now we really just need to focus on getting everyone registered to vote (due to Oregon’s mail in ballot, you must be registered by April 29th, 20 days before the actual primary, find more info on registering to vote here).

We were also honored to have Congressman Earl Blumenauer speak about why Obama inspires him. After it was all over we had pizza and doughnuts with the Obama logo on the frosting. It was a fun and I think successful event. Thank you so much everyone for encouraging me and my group to keep being part of the Obama movement.