Read "Nobodies" by John Bowe. Slavery is still alive and well even in the United States. Some well known brands have some labor done by slaves on U.S. soil.

I read somewhere that there are more slaves in the world today than at any other point in human history. Granted, in a population pushing 7 billion it's a tiny percentage, but the fact that there are still people trafficking in human beings, not to mention the a**eholes who buy, that makes me want to vomit. If you add wage slavery in the third world, child labour, "debt slavery" and all the other miseries we inflict on one another, and look at how that percentage blooms then, I just sometimes feel like saying "roll on apocalypse".

~Simone.

This rush to see who can toss the deepest cynicism and best water onto the celebration is certainly a hopeful sign!

Oooooo, maybe we should just make bonfires of ourselves so everyone can prove just how cynical they truly are.

Yes, the world is now and has always been full of more than enough wrongs we can right. But occasionally it seems to me that we should celebrate the bits of hope we do find rather than to blow them off as meaningless in the grand picture.

I sometimes find the blindness to "joy" in "big-picture" folk insufferably chic and self-defeating.

Nichole

Sorry Nichole, you're right. Today is a hopeful day and we should accept it as such. I do have a tendency to get carried away with things.

~Simone.

The joy will come when the inspections at the airport are lifted.

Quote from: lisagurl on November 05, 2008, 03:03:56 PM
The joy will come when the inspections at the airport are lifted.

For all the time I have known you and for all the respect I have for you, I find it difficult to believe that the absence of airport inspections will substanially affect your ability to feel joy, Lisa.

But, I'll try to remember that pledge and see what might occur in future!

If I'd bet, I'd have to bet against the occurrence in your case. Luckily I'm not a bettor.

Nikki

Quote from: Nichole on November 05, 2008, 09:40:26 AM
When I recall all the hopes dashed and the time we've spent wandering in the wilderness ...

Quote from: Martin Luther King Jr.
We've got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn't matter with me now, because I've been to the mountaintop.
And I don't mind.
Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!

I simply can't read, much less hear those words without tears.

Martin was Moses. Barack, it's time for you to be Joshua.

After last night I am very proud to be an American.  I think that my President will do great things with this country.  And is it to early to say 'Four More Years'?

It is going to be an exciting four years to come. 

This is far more profound for both America as well as the world that we have not even begun to understand what a mind blowing change it is.

I think a lot of people agree, tekla, which is why so many people, white and black alike, who said that race was an important factor voted for Obama.

A Democratic (i.e, blessedly dysfunctional) Congress and Pres. McCain (i.e, not nearly as reckless as Bush) would probably produce policy not terribly disticnt from what we'll get with Obama -- though granted that Obama is better in many ways that are important to me.

The symbolism, however, is enormously important, and will have an enduring impact. This election by itself does so much to restore the moral authority that America had and Bush squandered after 9/11 -- and that by itself could mean countless lives saved.

~Alyssa

And, as far as I'm aware Obama has no relatives, as in Mom or Dad, who've been threatened with assassination by the leaders of Kenya or Indonesia, so we can probably rest assured he'll not feel the need to invade anywhere in the world for that reason anyhow.

And I'm not so sure that McCain wouldn't have been more reckless than Bush, Alyssa. Guy seems to have some real anger issues and admits he likes to make spur-of-the-moment decisions. I think we probably have someone way more stable than either the Repug nominee or the Repug sitting President.

Nichole

What funny, is the place Palin called 'the real america' Gillford County, SC, went for Obama.

Quote from: tekla on November 06, 2008, 07:03:34 PM
What funny, is the place Palin called 'the real america' Gillford County, SC, went for Obama.

She also said that Africa was a country not a Continent and could not find it on a map.

Yeah the 'Pubs are hanging her out to dry and gutting her like a trout.  I think Obama has at least two years of relative peace as the Pubs infight and try to blame each other for having lost it all. 

New Matercard Commercial......

Shopping spree at Zaks........ $150,000

Traveling with the family on tax payers dollars.........$56,000

Unpaid back taxes........$1,200

Plumbing business you really can't afford ........$250,000

Seeing Sarah Palin go back to Alaska and Joe the plumber disappear from the media, PRICELESS!

Oh no, there is a reason the 'Pubs are savaging her so.  I want here out there everyday reminding people of what the other option is.  The more she talks, the deep she digs herself in.

And the more bitter and recriminatory the Repugnants are the more fun it'll be to see what the Dems have looked like in the past.

The problem with parties in USA is that they seem to think that the success of an FDR or a Ray-gun means they have a divince-right forver after to be in-power and they literally rips themselves apart when that fails to occur. You think waht they did to themselves during Clinton was fight? Nope, two years later they were running the show with the Contract On America.

Now this is gonna be fun, because I think if they could have made some sort of mincemeat of Barack they'd have turned on that machine already. What they've found hasn't stuck and I am not buying just yet that the man has some horrible secret in his past and current life that's going to be useful to them.

Clinton wanted to "protect his political viability." Obama has shown him how it's done. A bit late for Bill, but a pretty good outcome for Barack.

Nichole

Well Clinton he is not.  Clinton was still appointing key people just a few weeks out.  I think the O people have already thought this through and they know most of who they want.

Clinton, and Carter too, both ran as 'outsiders' they ran kind of as anti-democratic Democrat, and, in that, they both walked into a world of hostility when they got to DC.  I think a lot of people want to see this succeed, and he is going to have a much easier time with Congress then C&C did.  There are also quite a few moderate Repub Congress Critters who just saw their red state go blue.  That ain't going to be lost on them.  So I think he gets a bit more cooperation there too.

And yeah, if there was some big smoking gun, they would have shot it by now.