Text:
I very early on, when I was elected to the U.S. Senate said, that George Bush's ownership society essentially meant you're on your own and that's been great for us, those who are gathered here.
But it hasn't been good for a whole bunch of people and because we have not been willing to reinvest all the wealth and all the productivity gains that have been achieved over the past decade, resentments have built up and if you go into Ohio if you go into PA if you into the vast midlands of the country they are ready to shut down globalization tomorrow.
Protectionism, anti-immigrant sentiment which is a variation on protectionism and its not that they don't understand that things have changed, its that they feel like they don't have a stake in that change and they're right because all of us have enjoyed tax breaks from George Bush that we didn't need and weren't even asking for, instead of taking some of that money and some of those surpluses and reinvesting it in infrastructure, laying broadband lines in rural communities, making college more affordable and retraining workers who have been laid off and so rediscovering in the sense that we're all in it together that's going to be critical and again, that's a political issue, that's not that we don't know how to do it.
In a strange turn of events, a short video recorded at a Marin County California (northern S.F. Bay area) fundraiser on the 6th of April was removed from YouTube less than 24 hours later and after being viewed less than 1500 times. It was posted on Daily Kos and Democratic Underground, and was seen by the few who actually got the chance to study it as essential context to the "Bitter Flap" that dogged the Obama campaign in the final week of the Pennsylvania Primary.
The short video clip, recorded on a "point and shoot" camera, was captured on the same day Huffington Post contributor Mayhill Fowler recorded the now infamous snippet in which Senator Barack Obama pointed out the "bitter" feelings held by many small town Pennsylvanians due to declining financial situations and lack of trust in there government.
It must be pointed out that this video, though it may not be from the same event, was recorded during one of a number of fundraisers held that day throughout the San Francisco Bay area.
The significance of the time-line here is that the Mayhill Fowler piece was posted 5 days after Senator Obama made these comments. At the time, he had no idea that they would be recorded, or used against him in such a way. There was no reason for him to conceive that he would have to defend, clarify, or re-word his comments.
After I found that this video was removed from YouTube, I decided to search the internet for another copy of this video. I was able to dig a copy out of my cache and reformat the file. I then took a copy , plus an audio rip of the file to the PA headquarters of Obama for President in an attempt to receive guidance as to whether the campaign pulled the video, or if they even knew of it's existence.
I received no response. But I did eventually find a link to the video that still exists on the net.
Maybe they thought that it would be better if the story was just ignored; that it would just go away. But as we have just found out in PA, this is not the case. This story will not die.
Maybe, and I feel that this is more likely the case, the copy that I provided just got lost in the system, a casualty in the furious campaign to get out the vote in Philadelphia.
I felt at the time, that the responsible thing to do was to allow the campaign to make the decision about this video. But in light of the down right despicable campaign waged against Senator Obama by the Clinton campaign in Pennsylvania, and what I perceive as voter suppression in the Philadelphia area, including many long time Democrats that I met during my GOTV adventures in the predominantly African-American wards of South Philadelphia west of Broad Street who were wiped from the voter registration roles (three of whom I met gathered around the scene of a shooting at a Mifflin st. bar), and the lack of provisional ballots at these voting locations, I now feel that pointing this video out is the most responsible course of action.
It is true, what Senator Obama said about how Pennsylvanians cling to our religion or our guns in times like this. We cling to our religious beliefs because it strengthens our morality in times of stress and uncertainty. And we cling to our guns because we loose faith in the system to protect us; when violent crime rates rise due to a lack of jobs, after school programs, and the suffrage of Veterans returning from the war to find broken and foreclosed homes. This is just as true in the Bad Lands on North Philadelphia as it is in the rolling hills of Lehigh Valley.
Many of our political leaders use these wedges to turn Pennsylvanians and Americans against ourselves, because they have nothing else to run on. Fear is their commodity. But Senator Barack Obama has shown us another way. A way without fear.
(link to site operated by the persons who made this video)
http://cellularrecords.com/... /
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
