It Does Us No Good

Dear Hillary,
I understand and respect your desire to be President of the United States…. and particularly to be the first woman President of the United States. I know you sincerely want change in this country. The Democrats must win in November. About this we both agree. But please don’t let your personal ambition cloud the opportunity that we as Democrats have to make this a better, a much better America. We need a united Democratic party in order to win. Please don’t divide us.

First of all, you are not being very nice. This is not becoming of anyone, especially a candidate for President of the United States. To me, character is the most important quality in a Presidential candidate. Your negative campaigning and sniveling swipes shows weakness and bad sportsmanship, and quite frankly it makes me question the respect for you that I do have. This is exactly the old politics that we are all fed up with. Please give it a rest. If this is the only way you know how to fight when you are down, then perhaps you should rethink your run for the Presidency. It does us no good.

Why do you have to pretend that you are doing fine when we all know that are disappointed about the direction your campaign is heading. We know that you are human and not immune from feelings of disappointment. You may think that such an admission shows weakness, but I view it as a strength of soul, a genuineness that I would want, no I would need my President to have.

Instead you seem to brush off your losses as if they mean nothing. Why can’t you be gracious and congratulate your opponent, and why for heaven’s sake can’t you, at the very least acknowledge the efforts of your volunteers who work so hard for you, despite your losses? And how about your voters? They believe in you. If I were giving a speech after a primary, it would be the first words out of my mouth. It is common decency to thank people who have helped you whether it got you closer to your goal or not. A mother teaches her children this basic value, a teacher to her students and friends expect it of friends. A mention of thanks anywhere else but at the very beginning of your speech degrades their efforts. If ignoring those who proved useless to you and not finding it within your heart to acknowledge other’s successes even when you are down is the best you can muster, then perhaps you should rethink your run for the Presidency. It does us no good.

And, if I may, can to ask you to take a serious look at the momentum of the voters? It’s been a slow drumbeat since Iowa, but if you are a good listener then you can’t deny the steady march toward your opponent’s camp. A successful president listens to the people. I guess it’s an awful lot to ask you to hand him the baton but for the sake of our country might you at least consider it? You can’t deny the numbers: Barack Obama is slowly and very successfully chipping away at your voter base. You can’t deny it and you haven’t been able to stop it.

You are struggling up a hill that is morphing into a mountain. Catching up is becoming a greater challenge. Rather than putting all of your relentless energy into the battle for the nomination, for the sake or our country, please consider putting your ego aside and jumping on the bandwagon. And bring your voters with you. Just think of the power we can have together. So, you would not be remembered in history as being the first woman President, but you would surely be remembered as a hero. You would be my hero. Perhaps you should rethink your run for the Presidency.

Let's Hear Your Voice....

Since I know that I'm getting an unusual number of visitors from Sam Graham-Felsen's blog at the Barack Obama site (thank-you Karoli!), I thought it would be great to engage in a dialogue here - whether about women and Obama or other issues about the campaign . Both my daughter and I have posted our thoughts and it would be great to hear from all of you -- new visitors and old friends!

I realize I've focused here alot lately (okay mostly) on the Presidential election, and there are many other important issues affecting kids going on in the news that must be written about - but pardon my focus -- the Feb 5 Primary is on Tuesday - and aside from other personal responsibilities I have, this has been very important to me. There is an awful lot at stake - for our kids and the youth of this country - and if we don't find time now to help move us in the right direction, it will be too late later. I am working in my community this weekend to GOTV (Get Out the Vote) for our Feb 5 primary -- and I promise after the 5th to return to a more diverse dialogue with a sundry of issues.

So, in the spirit of youth (and you are only as old as you feel!) I've invited some other young adults from other blogs to weigh in with their thoughts on the election and hopefully they'll take me up on my offer. I also know there are other young visitors (you know who you are!) who read this blog -- speak up, even if you don't agree and Let's Hear Your Voice! If you are not young in years, you're not exempt .... chime in ... this is about a dialogue between the ages! Let's have some fun.

A New Driver in the Seat

Posted by one of my daughters who will be contributing to Minivan Diaries:


Dear Grandma,

I sit here at the pinnacle of my youth, or at least that is how it feels to me. I know you would beg to differ. You would tell me that even you, who just celebrated your 74th birthday, are still youthful and that vigor and vitality are just a state of mind, one that is well worth preserving. Every time I see you a new sense of energy emanates from your enthusiastic words and optimism on issues that once seemed impossible. You are a product of success. You were at the forefront of feminism; you were in the vanguard of civil rights and a vigorous supporter of a woman’s right to choose. You know what it is like to work for something, but you also know what its like to win. This is not to belittle the tremendous fight that you prudently fought while balancing raising a wonderful and socially conscious family. How did you do it?

There is something else that you have instilled in me; the importance of retaining a sense of history from all angles of myself. I must remember as a woman, the fight that still rages today regarding equality. I must remember as a Jew the malicious anti-Semitic remarks that lead to the denigration and attempted extermination of our race, I must remember as an American the ideals that lay the foundation of our nation, and most importantly I must remember as a youth that I have a responsibility to prepare for the future.

Just the other day, you told me that you and your friend, Barbra, had had a conversation regarding the upcoming presidential primaries in our states. You were trying to convince your friend to vote for Obama (way to go Grandma!) and in the process the youth of America came up. You told Barbara quite simply that the youth are rallying for Obama and because the future is ours, not yours or Barbra’s, that she needed to follow suit. I had never thought of that. Now, don’t get me wrong, everyone has the right to vote for their own reasons and I am not suggesting that the 65 and older age group should rally behind the 25 and younger constituent and I know you weren’t either. You were stepping back and looking at the bigger picture. You were projecting the future and anticipating based on the past. You, as the older generations have the experience, we have the motivation. So this brings me to Hillary.

I didn’t originally want to write about this. The topic frustrates me as caller after caller suffocate public radio with sob stories on how the media is trivializing Hillary, simply by calling her by her first name. People connect to that. One woman called in saying that she too is called by her first name when her co-workers go by their last. I always thought it was straightforward as to why Hillary chose to be addressed this way. I thought she wanted to disassociate herself from her husband, a move I most nearly admired, but the admiration ended there (and so did the disassociation). Her campaign chose to go by Hillary, she chose to go by Hillary, so please do not tell me that it is degrading to her, to be called Hillary.

Grandma, you fought to put women on a level playing field with men. You stood at rallies, you lobbied legislators, you even opened a home for disheartened and downtrodden women, so you of all people are sympathetic to her plea. So I ask you one more question, do you see it as I do? Do you see this platform of attracting votes by simply being a woman as insulting as I do? To me, we have taken a step backwards. It is not the youth of America that are finding Hillary’s femininity attractive, it is the old feminists, those who themselves stood on the steps of the capital fighting for title IX, that are voting simply on gender. This to me is contradictory to their single most important goal; to be gender blind in situations like this. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe, having grown up with a generation, whether real or not, with the mentality that gender is not a means of distinguishing ability or character has given me and my peers a unique perspective. A recent Facebook and ABC News poll asked the question of what candidate Facebook members would least like to see in the white house. Hillary won with 70%, with nearly 32,000 votes (Edwards was a distant second with 16%). We are generally gender blind with no previous biases of the past directly impacting us, and we are supporting Obama in throngs.

In the end, it comes down to you and me. It comes down to us, cherishing this momentous opportunity to change our country for the better. I remember where I am from and what has formed and then reformed my ideas of what would be best for my generation and me. You have taught me to see through a kaleidoscope lens. You have left a legacy I hope to live up to because you, Grandma, are a true American hero.

For you...

A Letter to My Mother,

I am honored to be sharing this historical moment in history with you. We have witnessed a lot of historical events together - I remember watching the first walk on the moon with you on a small black and white TV set in your bedroom. I vividly recall the memory of wishing for my Saturday morning cartoons to return instead of the constant image of JFK’s funeral procession and endless media coverage. I remember turning on the car radio and hearing the body counts being reported of fallen victims of the Vietnam War. I remember my confusion of seeing you weeping at the news of Martin Luther King’s and Robert F. Kennedy’s assassinations. There is the blur of the Kent State shootings and the riots of the 1960’s. We watched the Beatles on Ed Sullivan and sang freedom songs on our car trips. I sat by your side as we watched Richard Nixon resign as President of the United States. We watched with awe as the Berlin wall came down and sat together after the Twin Towers fell. We walked together to celebrate Israel’s 25th Anniversary and rallied for Darfur.

We shared all of this, as mother and daughter. We often talk about the progress of the woman’s movement and the quandary women of my generation face about choosing to stay home to raise our children or to enter the workforce. We come from different generations, yet as we evolved from mother and child to mother and daughter to mother and friend we have learned much from each other. We look back at history with different lenses, our perspectives and memories shaped by our experiences and our years. But we look forward with the same hope.

We have reached a critical moment in history again. Mother and daughter, mother and friend.... we are two women from different generations who stand upon this precipice of history with a voracious appetite to devour every moment. My memories of those pivotal events in history are clouded by my youth. I want to soak up every minute of this incredible story. And I am glad you are here to share it with me.

Woman to woman, I am proud that you are not shackled by feminist guilt to dutifully vote for a candidate solely because she is a woman. You have told me that you are listening to the voices of our youth because it is their future, not yours. Our feminist forbears made it possible for us to be at this crossroads. But I think you would agree that it was never their intention to burden us with such a ridiculous responsibility to blindly support any woman for the sole reason of gender. I believe that their legacy entreats us to think critically and act responsibly when exercising our precious right to vote.

I know about your hopes for the future and I know that as much as you wish to see the day when a woman is President, this woman is not the one you would choose. But the simple possibility that this nation would consider a woman and an African American as serious contenders for President of the United States is momentous in itself.

We share the excitement of Barack Obama’s candidacy because he symbolizes all of those historical moments that we shared together. He represents hope and a desire to change what isn’t good and to make even better things that are. He has dreams for us to believe again. In all our years as mother and daughter, you’ve taught me to dream and to believe that things can always be better if we put our minds to it. Well, my dear mother and beloved friend, we are doing just that.

Canvassing 101

I feel invigorated after this morning’s workout. No, I did not go to the gym or go on a long run... nor did I liberate my lab from behind the fence for a jaunt in the woods - I drove my car to a large urban high school and canvassed (my first time ever!) for Barack Obama. I call it a workout, because after I was done, I felt as good as I do after one of my long, hard hikes on a winter morning.

The "Walk for Obama" gathering was an event to get people like me out to learn how to canvass. This is grassroots at it’s best. I sat in the cafeteria of this large city high school, getting pumped by the mayor’s encouraging words. What we soon discovered was that our Canvassing 101 class consisted only of watching 2 volunteers demonstrating 3 typical scenarios and an overview of the rules and etiquette of canvassing… and then we were deemed A+ students ready to head out on our own - more like Boot Camp 101!

I walked with my daughter and her 3 friends through a neighborhood in the city, which quite honestly, we would have previously only driven through with our doors locked. We had been handed a 3-page list of doors to knock on, mapquest directions to the area and a script to follow in case we got stuck. As the adult in the group, I felt I had to appear confident and show some leadership but honestly, I felt as incompetent and intimidated as the kids.

At first glance, we stood out so badly in that neighborhood. We had walked out of the suburbs and into this broken down neighborhood - and it showed. Hardly anyone answered the door when we knocked. But we knocked on every one that we were assigned. We were a little frustrated -- but soon we started talking to people on the street. We had conversations, asked directions, encouraged people to vote. We even met a woman who knew practically every person on our list. She was so enthusiastic that I thought she was going to take us each by the hand and personally bang on those doors until we got an answer! Instead we got away with some very copious notes on our voter list.

Here was the best outcome of all - these kids would never have walked those streets had it not been for their commitment to help with this campaign. I witnessed their pride after we turned in our completed forms and I commended them for following through. They had accomplished a lot of firsts in a very short time: campaigned for a candidate they hope will be our next President and overcame the trepidation of knocking on doors and talking to strangers. But more important than all that is the other stuff - my mother refers to these things as “the goodies” the extras that you never expect to get. In this case, we bridged a gap between 2 worlds, if even for only a couple of hours, and we realized that as fearful as we were, the people we met were just people like us whose presence in their neighborhood made them feel like they counted - that their vote really was important. For some fleeting moments we all shared something in common.

Growing Active Citizens

The youth of our nation can have a powerful voice, if they choose to use it. Not long ago I posted about the film 18 in ’08 - which is meant to inspire our 29 million young voters between the ages of 18 and 24 to exercise their democratic voice through the ballot box. It was all the news after the Iowa Caucuses and if Iowa and New Hampshire are any indication, it appears that this is just what they are doing.

I am thrilled that we have reached this point. I am wondering, however, if it’s the timing, the candidates or the issues that has finally moved these kids to action. And are Republican youth driven by the same issues and concerns as their Democratic peers?

There are issues that our kids relate to: certainly a greater awareness of Global Warming brought to us by Al Gore, more knowledge of the health care crisis thanks to Michael Moore and his documentary, Sicko, the Iraq war and Afghanistan, thanks to well, you know, along with a “threat” of nuclear threats in North Korea and Iran. Then there is the genocide in Darfur - also a newsmaker that our youth are actively engaged in. Bigger topics, that are less issue specific such as the economy, unemployment, national security, education, crime and welfare and many other are less glamorous and more difficult to wrap their arms around but still undoubtedly on their minds. Whatever has lit their fires indicates that they are on a mission to help put them out.

Just read the voice of one youth, from a blog called, “It’s Getting Hot in Here” to hear the passion in their voices. It’s electrifying. Here’s just a piece of it:

What does this all mean? Is it all rhetoric? Of course it is. But what it means is that Obama is rallying this state and in turn the country around the idea of a movement. The high-school kids in Concord, NH who rallied for Obama: they’ve never yelled for the civil rights movement before, they’ve never been told they’re part of a movement before - and now, there they are, cheering to be part of something bigger than themselves.

During the 2004 Presidential election, I home schooled one of my daughters who was then in the eighth grade. The election stood as the backdrop to our year of study. We examined the Constitution, voting, citizenship and politics. As a result of that year, she took on leadership positions in high school and is a very active citizen, engaging her classmates in community awareness and service projects. During that home schooling year I discovered that there are many organizations devoted to educating our youth about voting and citizenship. There are curriculums for elementary and middle schools. For example, the mission of Kids’ Voting is:

to get students involved and ready to be educated, engaged citizens. Students learn about democracy through a combination of classroom activities, an authentic voting experience and family dialogue.

PBS sponsors the Democracy Project for Kids that includes an interactive website. Service Vote, a program of Youth Service America,

challenges young people to think critically about how they can affect the issues that they work to address through service by participating in the political process and provides opportunities for them to participate in the presidential election.

Beyond voting, is the notion of civic engagement -- engaging kids in the community through service projects and teaching philanthropy. Making current events a regular part of family discussions and talking about solutions will contribute not only to a more educated electorate but to one that believes that community service is essential to the wellbeing of our country. As kids we had the Boys and Girls Scouts, now such, on-line organizations as Idealist.org, Freethechildren.com, Kiva.org and Youth Services America have made our world so small that kids can help affect change in their local community or across the ocean.

Rather than receiving gifts from classmates for their Bar or Bat Mitzvah, my daughter’s class opted to open a Tzedakah in Action (Charity) fund, where each family contributed the equivalent of the gift each child would have received. Under the supervision of our Rabbi, the class acts as a Board of Directors of a Philanthropic Fund and they decide how the money will be disbursed. They are not only learning about philanthropy, but also about decision-making, compromise and leadership. And it’s never too early to start. During the holidays, the popular on-line game, Club Penguin offered members (elementary aged kids) an opportunity to trade in their virtual "hard-earned" money for real donations to one of 3 chosen organizations:

..."Coins for Change" campaign ending on Christmas Eve in which 2.5 million users donated in some cases as many as 1,500 coins -- enough to furnish an igloo -- to charities. In turn, the site, owned by Walt Disney Co., divided 1 million real dollars among the charities: the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, the World Wildlife Fund and Free the Children.

This was money that kids had earned on the site that they spend to buy items for their penguin. It was an opportunity for each child to understand first-hand how good it feels to give.

As parents, we must use these early years as a training ground for teaching civic responsibility by seeking out meaningful opportunities. Taking interest in what is going on in our world, participating in activities to help better our own or other communities, practicing philanthropy at an early age and bringing our kids to the polls when we vote will create informed and compassionate adults who will not squander their precious right to vote but instead use it as it should be - to make their voices heard loud and clear.

Let's Restore Hope: Obama in '08

What an awesome responsibility politicians owe to their constituents. As public figures we expect them to act judiciously, courageously, unselfishly and honestly. Yet, time and again, their humanness seems to get in the way, and the simple qualities we expect them to engender slowly erode away. And then we lose trust, hope and inspiration. But, we constantly seek intelligent leaders who will inspire us with vision and honesty - and every election we anticipate that somebody will step out from behind the curtain - who will be decent and humble despite being a politician who must wield influence and power to get their job done. Maybe it’s an oxymoron to expect both. Or maybe not, I still want to believe it is possible.

The first time I ever heard of Barack Obama was at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Like many Americans, I was stirred by his speech. Like many Americans, I remember thinking what a great candidate he would have made for president… and then like many Americans I thought, no way - he’s young, he’s black and nobody knows him. So, when he announced his candidacy last February, I was thrilled, but wary.

And then I watched his Victory speech in Iowa Tuesday night and I was sold. Until that moment, I wasn’t exactly sure who I would be supporting - although Obama was cautiously my answer when somebody would ask me. I realized that the Democrats can nitpick and debate over the issues all they want, because at the end of the day, I can live with the positions of any of them. So, who moves me? Who inspires me? Who do I want to trust the future of our country and this world to? Who represents the person I would want my children to respect and maybe even think of as a hero? Hands down, it would be Barack Obama, and so I have registered to volunteer for his campaign despite his youth, his color, his relative inexperience. I believe he is that person who has stepped out from behind the curtain to lead us with intelligence, integrity, pride and humility.

So I signed up to volunteer to work on his campaign, because to win, he needs everyone to help. Back in February when he announced his run for the Presidency he said,

That's why this campaign can't only be about me. It must be about us — it must be about what we can do together. This campaign must be the occasion, the vehicle, of your hopes, and your dreams. It will take your time, your energy, and your advice — to push us forward when we're doing right, and to let us know when we're not. This campaign has to be about reclaiming the meaning of citizenship, restoring our sense of common purpose, and realizing that few obstacles can withstand the power of millions of voices calling for change. 


I have always taken my role in the Democratic process seriously and I have been one to believe that my vote, my voice counts. Despite our soiled reputation in the world and despite the lying and pomposity that has regaled this administration and despite the message of fear and the eroding of our civil rights that we have become accustomed to, I want to believe there is hope. I want to feel proud to be an American and I want my children to believe that this process can work and that we can each play a vital role in making it happen.

Obama’s word’s Tuesday night touched me. Hope.

Hope is the bedrock of this nation; the belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us; by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is; who have the courage to remake the world as it should be.

WMDS:

To join the Obama Campaign, click here.
To view Obama's Iowa Victory speech click here.
For the written text of Obama’s Iowa Victory Speech, click here.
To view a great documentary about Obama’s past year and hear some of his entire speeches instead of the sound bytes we hear on the news, click here.

18 in '08

Whenever I listen to John Mayer’s song, “Waiting on the World to Change”, it makes me sad for this generation of young adults who believe they are disenfranchised. His lyrics resonate with young people. Yet to me, his words sound hopeless: rather than believing they can play an active role in addressing the world’s problems, they’ll just “wait on the world to change”. I have to believe that the current administration has been partly to blame for their cynicism and feelings of hopelessness. But we are less than a year away from the next Presidential election and now is the time for them to realize that their voices are important and must be heard. The first step is to vote. There will be over 29 million people between the ages of 18 and 24 eligible to vote in 2008.

There is a new documentary, directed by a Haverford College freshman, entitled “18 in ’08”. Young people should get hold of this film and watch it - then they should pass it on to somebody else they know and so on, and so on until it has reached this entire cohort of people - waking them from their passivity and stirring them to action. If the candidates only realized the potential influence this demographic has in deciding our next president, they would be campaigning hard for their votes. Instead, because they are “waiting on the world to change” we are not hearing the voices of this generation nor are they asking the tough questions and demanding answers.

I recently wrote a post about the documentary, 2 Million Minutes. I feel a similar sense of uneasiness after viewing this film. What is the future for the young people of this country? What roles will they play academically, economically, politically and socially? John Mayer sings:

Me and all my friends
We're all misunderstood
They say we stand for nothing and
There's no way we ever could
Now we see everything that's going wrong
With the world and those who lead it
We just feel like we don't have the means
To rise above and beat it

My hope, is at the very least, they will realize that their vote counts and it will be the first step to discovering that they can’t “wait on the world to change” or it will be too late.