Obama to Arab-Americans: I Want Your Vote
L0ok into his eyes! He is channeling the magically seductive powers of his teleprompter to win your Oriental affections…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzXFuyFKNpo]
A guest post from Nadine reminds us why we should vote next week:
10 reasons to for us to Vote.10- Do you complain about our national and international policies? If you don’t vote, you are just tilting at windmills.
9- Cancel out the vote of one of the lunatics who hates our community (i.e. the Smearcasting Dirty Dozen) , or to just cancel out my Obama vote.
8- While no candidate is going to fix everything, your vote can effect the direction of the country. Arab Americans are clustered in high enough concentrations in battle ground states (VA, OH, PA, and FL) to effect the outcome of the election.
7- An educated voter is effective. Do the research before you vote. The Congressional Score Card is filled with information on how your congressperson voted on key legislation important to our community.
6- Women and minorities have fought hard for the right to vote in the US. In the Arab world our families and friends are still struggling. We shouldn’t take these hard won rights for granted.
5- How many of us have heard “Go back to your country”? Your vote says “this is as much my country as much as it is yours.” Take a stand against xenophobia and vote.
4- If you don’t vote someone else will be speaking for you, and it could be the the person who shouted “Go Home!” as they drove by.
3-Arabs Americans live the consequences. As a targeted community, we are first to feel the heavy hand of government, and our civil liberties are at risk this election.
“The new [FBI] guidelines reduce standards for beginning “assessments” (precursors to investigations), conducting surveillance and gathering evidence, meaning the threshold to beginning investigations across the board will be lowered. More troubling still, the guidelines allow a person’s race or ethnic background to be used as a factor in opening an investigation, a move the ACLU believes may institute racial profiling as a matter of policy.” ~ ACLU (10/3/2008)
2- A small, affluent, highly educated community can impact the electorate. But we have to show up before we can hope to be heard. In VA we show up, and while we still struggle against bigotry the campaigns takes our meetings, come to our events and asks our advice.
1- Every vote counts. Bush won the 2000 Presidential election by 537 Florida votes. Do you really need another reason to vote?!?! IMAGINE a President Palin the White House.
I hope everyone watches this video.
It shows exactly the kind of nonsense everyone’s supposed to be supporting. Enough to make one believe that the overly educated are really not that smart.
But that’s okay. “If Obama betrays us, we’ll vote Republican next time!”
How about, instead of the call to play ping-pong between Republicans and Democrats every four years, we hear a call to spend our energies on imagining and creating better ways to live — ways that entail true democracy and collective decision-making. Ways that do not rely on “leaders” to partake in the impossibility of “representation.” Ways that encourage us to do politics every day — not once every two or four years.
The current system is whack. Asking that everyone participate in it is not going to change it any. On the contrary, it’s why it continues to exist as our only thinkable “solution.”
Nadine has great points.
Qui, also well said. Many live as if it is only the leaders who lead. Lazy man’s democracy.
This is too little too late for Obama. After all the attacks on Said and Khalidi and Arab Americans as a whole, no I cannot vote for someone who puts out 1 video in 2 years of campaigning.
Nadine makes some good points…
as far the video goes though……. TOZ!