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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Metacomet who wrote (141906)	2/10/2014 10:26:37 AM
From: Alex MG	Respond to of 149317

happened to catch this great documentary last night about Alice Walker most people forget that it really hasn't been that long that black folks have been afforded equal rights, even though slavery "officially" ended after the Civil War 'America Masters' on PBS is such a great program Film: Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth online video pbs.org Writer and activist Alice Walker (b. Feb. 9, 1944) made history as the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for her seminal novel The Color Purple (1982), for which she won the National Book Award. American Masters presents Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth, premiering nationally Friday, February 7 at 9 p.m. on PBS in honor of Walker’s 70th birthday and Black History Month. Filmmaker Pratibha Parmar’s new documentary tells Walker’s dramatic life story with poetry and lyricism, and features new interviews with Walker, Steven Spielberg, Danny Glover, Quincy Jones, Gloria Steinem, Sapphire and the late Howard Zinn in one of his final interviews. American Masters — Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth charts Walker’s inspiring journey from her birth into a family of sharecroppers in Eatonton, Georgia, to the present. The film explores Walker’s relationship with her mother, poverty, and participation in the Civil Rights Movement, which were the formative influences on her consciousness and became the inherent themes in her writing. Living through the violent racism and seismic social changes of mid-20th century America, Walker overcame adversity to achieve international recognition as one of the most influential — and controversial — writers of the 20th century. Delving into her personal life, Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth reveals the inspiration for many of her works, including Once (1968), The Third Life of Grange Copeland (1970), Meridian (1976), The Color Purple (1982), In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens (1983), Possessing the Secret Joy (1992) and Overcoming Speechlessness (2010). Praised and pilloried, Walker has driven people to express joy as well as anger and ruthless vilification over her art, personal views and global human rights advocacy. As seen in the film, Yoko Ono awarded her the 2010 LennonOno Peace Award for her ongoing humanitarian work. American Masters analyzes these aspects of the self-confessed renegade’s life and career. American Masters — Alice Walker: Beauty in Truth is one of 50 films that form part of Women and Girls Lead, a public media campaign spearheaded by the Independent Television Service, that harnesses the power of documentary film to showcase extraordinary women and girls who are changing the world. The initiative features groundbreaking women like Alice Walker, who refuse to submit to gender stereotypes or compromise her form of artistic expression.

To: Metacomet who wrote (141906)	2/10/2014 1:23:51 PM
From: bruwin	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 149317

"The Republicans are masters of advancing their cause of greed by employing mindless, bigoted, surrogates who are devoted to single issue causes, and will vote against their own best interests if it is consistent with whatever their pet issue happens to be ..among these groups who consider nothing but their focus issue are racists, NRA gun advocates, tax resistors TEA Party, anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-Muslim, anti-Hispanic...etc." The thing is, I'd like to think of myself as a Centrist when it comes to Politics and I try my best to interrogate the issues presented when I cast my vote. I may not always be exactly in the middle, but I try my best. In addition I try not to generalize, as best I can. I may not always exactly succeed in that regard, but I try my best. If we consider the actual number of individual votes, not Electoral, that President Obama received in the 2012 election and what Romney received, we have :- For Obama = 62 611 250 = 51.4% For Romney = 59 134 475 = 48.6% So are we saying that over 59 million Americans, or just under 50% of the Americans who voted, were taken in by mindless, bigoted surrogates or by those who employed mindless, bigoted surrogates and used such for their own nefarious ends ? That doesn't seem to say much for many millions of Americans, and it seems to me to be much of an over generalization. I can only repeat what I said in the post of mine that you referred to .... "The fact of the matter is that they (the elected officials) are there to Serve You, not themselves. That's what the Democratic Voting process is all about. [The] next time elections come about do whatever you believe is humanly and legally possible to inform and educate the electorate so that they adequately scrutinize and interrogate the candidates to ensure that what they promise Before the election they will uphold After the election." Unfortunately, in the same way that "the poor will always be with you [or us]" (as stated over 2000 years ago), so will those be who have racist tendencies, or are homophobic, etc.. etc.. And I suspect that some of them may also be among those who voted for the Democrats. Who can say, with any degree of certainty, that there aren't ? Who knows what are, or aren't, an individual's priorities when they cast their vote for a particular party ? Those personal priorities may override their support for abortion for example. And on the subject of gun advocates, or gun control, I came across the interesting observation by the late Alistair Cooke whose archived "Letter from America" I have been listening to lately ... The NRA often refers to the 2nd Amendment of The Constitution which says, "... the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed". They tend to say that they don't know why it's there, but it is there, so one should respect it. However, that is only the second part of the Amendment. The first part gives the reason. In full it says ... "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." This prescription was written for a nation which did not yet have a standing army and therefore relied on a citizen's militia to be made up of every male householder who could snatch the gun by his fireside whenever the call to duty came. The founding fathers thought only of that threat to the security of a free state. They were not thinking of individuals or any right to shoot a pheasant or defend yourself from a burglar or mugger, etc... etc.... So maybe those Americans who object to the vast proliferation of guns in their country should maybe do a lot more to bring the ENTIRE contents of the 2nd. Amendment to the attention of those who wish to obtain their votes and make it very clear that none will obtain that vote unless they fully subscribe to the entire letter and spirit of what the Founding Fathers wished for the country.