The Voice of John Edwards

John Edwards reminded us of how we best pray: with our feet.





The Voice of John Edwards

Cross-posted from John Edwards 08 Blog

user icon Karita Hummer in Quick Posts Feed of
2/12/2008 at 3:53 AM EST


John Edwards is our standard bearer.

Senator Edwards, we need your voice, because it conveys the most profound of messages: that this country is here for the common good and that everything we do should be toward that end.

Senator Edwards, you diagnosed our problems correctly and your remedies are what we need. It is that vision we must aim for ceaselessly.

Let us keep hearing from you, because the Country is in the greatest need for your sense of common purpose and common good.

Continue in a guiding role for us all.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

Karita and Paul Hummer
Edwards Democrats
San Jose, CA

Guadalupe59 wins Karita Hummer's Silver Pen Award for : "My hero, Francesco Bernardone, My guy, John Edwards"

My hero, Francesco Bernardone, My guy, John Edwards

Cross-posted from: http://blog.johnedwards.com/user/Guadalupe59

user icon Guadalupe59 in Diaries Feed of Guadalupe59's Diary
1/22/2008 at 3:56 AM EST

My parents moved from Mexico City to southern California with their first three children and number four on the way in the 50s. The first house I lived in backed up to a farm. I remember running outside to watch the neat old bi-plane crop-dusters flying so low over that farm. How cool that was! My younger brother was conceived in that house. My younger brother was born with Spina bifida. That birth defect was later linked to DDT, that's right, the stuff the cool crop-duster was spraying.

I'm not sure if that's what pushed Dad into being environmentally aware, but along with that, he became very involved in farm worker's rights, organizing huelgas, and he also became very active in the anti-Vietnam war movement.

My mother was in many ways a typical Mexican, Catholic mom. Where we had one image of Jesus on the cross in the house, we had images of the Virgin de Guadalupe all over the place. And in the garden, my mother's special place, St. Francis stood.

Mom would be out there tending to her plants and would talk about what an amazing man "San Francisco" was. Born to Pietro Bernardone, a wealthy Assisian cloth merchant, he was Christened Giovanni Bernardone by his mother Pica. His father later altered his name to Francesco. Francis, not happy at home land feeling a call to a greater good, left a life of comfort to aid the poor and down-trodden. "Can you imagine anyone doing that these days?" my mom would ask, in Spanish, rhetorically.

americancatholic.org:

St. Francis of Assisi, lover of all creation, champion of justice, patron saint of animals and the environment.

My mother loves all of Earth's little creatures and allowed her children to have many pets. As long as we were kind and tended them properly, pretty much anything went. I can't count how many wounded birds we took in in the hopes of making them well enough to return to the wild.

My father, a self-proclaimed agnostic, also admired St. Francis greatly. Dad says things like, "...now if these so-called Christians were more like St. Francis..."

americancatholic.org:

He walked away from comfort and wealth and declared himself "wedded to Lady Poverty", renounced all material possessions, and devoted himself to serving the poor.

"...that woudn't be too bad."

Hardly Christ-like, Francis rejected the wealth and corruption of the Vatican too. As Francis's popularity grew, he was seen as a threat. Pope Innocent III reluctantly gave verbal sanction to the Franciscan Rule, thus founding the Order of Friars Minor.

My parents taught my five siblings and me to be respectful of other people, animals and our Earth, and to join the struggles of those less fortunate than we.

americancatholic.org:

Through his example, St. Francis reminds us that we are called to bring about justice and peace in our world, to end violence and war, poverty and oppression and to protect our fragile planet.

Convinced that violence and war were wrong, St. Francis believed in peaceful dialogue with all our brothers and sisters. He calls us to be instruments of peace and healing by turning from weapons of violence to acts of love. "Happy those who endure in peace."

So how did all of this shape my choice for a presidential candidate? Let's see, poverty, the environment..., I'm for John Edwards. And when I say that I really wanted to be for a fellow Latino, a fellow woman or just a person of color, I really wanted to be. But no. It is John Edwards who speaks to the issues that matter most to me.

The biggest being the environment.

grist.org:

John Edwards is running left. He was, on climate and energy as on many other issues, the prime mover, staking out strong, comprehensive climate and energy positions that the other Democratic frontrunners later adopted. He's stumping for 80 percent cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050, with 100 percent permit auctions, and fleshing that goal out with detailed proposals for big boosts in renewables and fuel efficiency, changes to the energy grid and efficiency standards, a green-jobs program, and more. Edwards can no longer claim to be the greenest Dem frontrunner -- that's a tight competition -- but he gets credit for getting there first.

The Friends of the Earth endorsement in October spoke was great too. Yeah, he had me at the environment.

His very smart Rural Recovery Act tackles other issues that are important to me. I work with small family farmers and their livestock in my very ag oriented, semi-rural area of California. Edwards proposals are well thought out and could really help here.

Poverty. It is the issue with which he launched his campaign, and it wasn't for popularity! Many people thought that it was in fact, a losing proposition. I didn't and I'm not alone.

Do I think John Edwards is another St. Francis? No, not close.

But is he speaking truth to power? Is he standing up for those less fortunate than himself? Is he standing up for family farmers and even the hogs they raise?

Yes to all of the above and more.

"The Voters in Iowa and Beyond" by coots receives Karita Hummer's Silver Pen Award

Recipient of Karita Hummer's Silver Pen Award



Reposted from John Edwards for 2008 blog

user icon coots in Arguments & Analyses Feed of
11/25/2007 at 10:28 PM EST

Shortly after the Democratic voters of Iowa would have gathered in churches, school buildings, government building, and senior citizens center to caucus to make their decision who they think the next Democratic Nominee for president should be. President Bush will be addressing the United States Congress and the nation in the traditional "State of Union Address". Let us examine the State of the Union since president Bush has taken office

First of all he did not get off to a very good start, The Republican controlled Supreme Court had stolen the 2000 election. The newly appointed President Bush then had the audacity to say that " He had a mandate from the American people to govern", ignoring that Al Gore had received over a half a million more votes than he did. How in a world could he say he had a mandate? Let us look at what has happened in the last seven years Since the Republican and Bush pull that shameful take over? We have had a major terrorist attack on 9/11 where nearly 3000 people had lost their lives, and the mastermind behind the evil act Osama Bin Laden is still at large. The world just for a brief time rallied around the United States, giving Bush an excellent opportunity to achieve greatness in solving many of the world's problems and bringing the perpetrators of 9/11 to justice. No, instead he selected to pull a so called "bate and switch" on the American people in attacking Iraq. We were told that Iraq had massive amounts of weapons of mass destruction, and they were attempting to develop a nuclear bomb. We were told that Iraq was a direct threat to the United States. There was also an implication that just maybe Saddam Hussein was involved with the 9/11 attacks. It was all lies. The lies have causes nearly 4000 American soldier's their lives, nearly 70 thousand casualties. Tens of Thousands of Iraqis have lost their lives. Billions upon billions of dollar spent on this ill-conceived war. Billions of dollars are missing and cannot be accounted for. There have been bribes and no bid contracts given to Bush and Cheney's corporate friends. In the battlefield front our soldier's have been deprived of the proper equipment, body armor, proper food, and water. Once again Bush has the audacity to say, he is a friend of the American Soldier. To often when the wounded warriors come home their medical needs are not taken care of. They fall into the category of an already over crowed group of forgotten American, forgotten by Bush who had said on many occasion. " America will take care of their Veterans" The Soldiers that have fought in this war that Bush had started, Bush now has turned his back on them. The United States was respected in most corners of the world. We were that "Shinning City" that Reagan once said. Now we are despised and not trusted by much of the world. All the credit for all the above destruction should be given to Bush, he has certainly earned it.

On the home front our gas prices are now over three dollars a gallon. Has there been any real effort by this president to find any alternative clean sources of energy. The answer is no. Why should he? It would not be in the best interest of the oil and gas industries, Bush's corporate friends. The oil and gas companies are only showing a profit margin that is unheard of in all of human history. In the energy area Bush would not dare to do something that would be in the best interest of the American people.

When Bush took office less than 40 million of Americans did not have health insurance, now over seven million have been added to that number. Has Bush done anything to address the health care crises in our nation? Once again the answer is no. Why should he do anything to address the needs of 47 million Americans, when it is not in the best interest of the insurance and drug companies?

I have not even touched on a failing education system the Global-warming problem that Bush chooses to ignore. I could go on for hours.

I am asking the voters of Iowa to support John Edwards for President because he has the brains and most importantly the courage to stand up to those corporations that control this country. Hillary Clinton who is a very capable person but would do little to address the real problems in Washington the corporate lobbyists, she would be obligated to them. She is the Status Quo Candidate. Obama is also very capable but he is to nice and to green to deal with the back stabbing element of our government. The American people are at war here at home against the corporations that want to keep us down for the sake of their bottom line. We need a fighter for a president like John Edwards. Edwards has been fighting his entire adult life against many of those corporations, in the courtrooms or now as he is campaigning for Presidents. The voters in Iowa and beyond need to ask themselves a question that Robert F. Kennedy asked many years ago. "What kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in."
here is a link; http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/26/politics/main3540352.shtml

Saje Williams' "Populism: The Key to Victory" gets Karita Hummer's Silver Pen Award for

Karita Hummer's Silver Pen Award

Cross posted from JohnEdwards.com

http://blog.johnedwards.com/story/2007/8/22/2257/96266#7

Populism: The Key to Victory

user icon Saje Williams in Arguments & Analyses Feed of
8/22/2007 at 11:03 AM EST

What we're faced with in the Neocons is a group of people who embrace an ideology that believes that the "free market" can decide economic issues, that anyone who cannot thrive in the "free market" deserves what they get, and that conservative religious "values" should be the driving force behind any political change.

They call themselves conservative, but they did not act to conserve ANYTHING, but, instead, acted to return the United States to a economic state that existed before FDR's New Deal that gave Americans opportunities their grandparents and great grandparents never had. They acted to steal away the hope of those they were elected and appointed to serve to the advantage of a select few.

We all know what the neo-cons represent. They represent the darkest side of American politics. The "I've got mine and to hell with everyone else" philosophy. They represent the "we know best and the rest of you are just rabble to scrape off our shoes" ideology.

They believe that the wealthy and powerful should have more access to government, that the guy flipping burgers at the local fast food joint, or the girl cutting hair in the beauty salon, don't have anything to offer in terms of political insight. The construction worker and the secretary are simply votes to harvest, not active minds to call upon for ideas.

And it's not just the neocons that feel this way. We hear echoes of that when the DLC speaks ill of the bloggers, when the corporate media sneers down at those of us on the digital fringes because we have the nerve to raise our voices to assail our "betters."

We are the great unwashed, the unelect, the uninformed. Our views are, at best, suspect. At worse, they're the product of some "class warfare" brainwashing.

But, in fact, we are the "boots on the ground" when it comes to democracy in action. We are those who live and work everyday with the people who make up the largest percentage of Americans--the people who aren't investors, who move the economy by donating their labor, not pure capital. We are the base of the pyramid on which everything else is built.

We're tired of being ignored. We're tired of being used, being lied to, being taken for granted. We're tired of being downsized, watching our jobs being sent overseas to the advantage of the corporations, we're tired of falling ill and having to mortgage our souls to get medical care. We're tired of being played for fools.

We're speaking out, and we're getting louder all the time.

And we're never going away.

There is only one candidate who's speaking to us, who is telling us that we matter, and speaking in such a way that those who have been misled into voting Republican for the past several years can hear and understand. He stands there and says "I have been where you are, and I know you feel as though none of us hear your voice."

They attack his career, which was predicated on facing the giants on behalf of the little people, acting as though the rest of us should feel any sort of protective instinct toward the goliaths that use us and give us as little as possible in return.

They attack his hair, and his home, and make him out to be some kind of fringe lunatic, but his voice speaks to people who don't feel they've been heard by everyone else who's gone up to Washington. Yeah, he's a rich guy. But he comes across as though he is listening to the concerns of those who aren't in his social class. And that's something that a lot of politicians simply cannot and do not do.

Talking to everyday people about their financial concerns, in a way that every single one of them can grasp, is the ONLY thing that can effectively counter the religious wedge issues the Repugs draw out during every election cycle. People NEED hope, need to believe that they're sending someone up to Washington that understands their issues, and will work to resolve them.

When Edwards pulls into a small town and speaks to the crowd, people walk away with the impression that "that guy knows what it's like to be me. To be here."

Despite everything the corporate media is doing to dilute his message, he's getting it out there to the people who most need to hear it. And, with any luck, that will help turn the tide when the general election actually comes. Even if HE is not the candidate in the end. He SHOULD be, but we all know how the game is played.

But the others need to reach out with this message as well. Obama already is, and he's doing a good job of it.

It's not liberalism, as such, the people will embrace first. It's populism. The fact that many of the same ideals drive both ideologies will help in the long run. But first the people have to be told, and actually believe, that THEY matter.

That Everybody Matters.