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Voices on the Ground
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Pundits spend much of their time listening to each other. We’re more interested in listening to you. Voices on the Ground tracks events and opinion on the ground, from snapshots and reports sent in by our readers and correspondents across the nation to homegrown political advertisements on YouTube.

While we are interested in anything you have to say about the current election, on occasion we will post a new hot topic that we feel needs more discussion.

Hot Topic

THE OBAMA PROJECT: What Does The Election of Barack Obama Mean To You?

Let your voice be heard

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The Obama Project: Ode To Joy

Posted Jan 04, 2009 at 9:45 PM
Patricia J. Williams, New York, New York

Twas the eve of the future and all through the world
An electoral battle anxiously swirled.
The votes were all marked with unusual care
And still there were cases of ballot despair—
Whole graveyards were voting, or Elvis was there.
Polls said the numbers were awfully tight.
Too close to call, a tie, then not quite. 
From Georgia to Texas to Oregon too,
Red on one side, the other in blue,
Every constituency was poised to sue. 
McCain had curled up for just one more nap,
Biden was prudently shutting his trap.
In Alaska, the Palins were snug in their beds, 
While visions of rapture danced in their heads. 
But Barack Obama pressed on through the night,
Calling for change, and to do what is right. 
When November 4th dawned, he had fought the good fight.
The people came out in state after state,
They lined up at daybreak, they voted till late.
They voted in hoards and voted some more,
They voted in numbers unseen heretofore. 
"Begone Dubya! and Cheney! and Condi, you vixen!
Out, Chertoff! Off, Rove! Stop the bombin’ and blitzin’!
To the edge of the gangplank, the waterboards call!
Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!”
Despite being black or his name being funny,
Despite fears he was secretly Muslim—a Sunni?-- 
The results that came in left nothing to spin:
Obama had managed to win, baby, win.
Destruction averted, the world’s back in line.
There’s much to be done, but  we’ll all be fine.  
The Klieg lights shining in Grant Park that night
Gave the luster of day to the faces so bright. 
So relieved of their fears, so glistening with tears,  
A heartfelt goodbye to the last eight dreadful years.


Patricia J. Williams is James L. Dohr Professor of Law, Columbia University Law School. She has published widely in the areas of race, gender, and law, film, culture, legal theory and history. She is a columnist for The Nation and the recipient of numerous awards, including the prestigious MacArthur fellowship.

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The Obama Project: I Have A Dream

Posted Dec 31, 2008 at 11:14 AM
Will I Am (Producer), Commons (Music), YouTube

The Obama Project: Grant Park, Election Day 2008 (Part ll)

Posted Dec 30, 2008 at 11:29 AM
Bess Greenberg, Brooklyn, New York

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The Obama Project: Grant Park, Election Day 2008 (Part l)

Posted Dec 30, 2008 at 11:28 AM
Bess Greenberg, Brooklyn, New York

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The Obama Project: The Necessity For Hope

Posted Dec 23, 2008 at 9:52 AM
Sondra Myers, Scranton, Pennsylvania

  • Back in 1995 a distinguished committee of colleagues and I, perhaps presumptuously, determined to define and rank the basic elements of democracy—in preparation for a handbook we were working on. Though the list contained the obvious essentials, like the rule of law, freedom of the press, and the rights and responsibilities of citizens, we ranked first “trust, goodwill and idealism.” I would be more succinct now and simply call that first imperative hope.           
  • President- elect Obama speaks of the audacity of hope—and I invite you to reflect on the necessity for hope-- in building, sustaining and, yes, healing a democratic society.  Acts of terrorism, more often than not, dependent on men and women willing to die for their cause, differ from democratic process dramatically—and tragically, because they are acts of hopelessness.  Hope ranges from cautious optimism to instrumental optimism to rose-colored-glasses optimism—maybe from the sublime to the ridiculous—or at least from the sensible to the naive.
  • I am in praise of and advocate for hope because it is a necessity for progressive change. It gives us the audacity to insist on the rule of law. We can only opt for this enlightened approach to governance because we hope and trust that our neighbors as well as we will obey the laws that are created by and for the people. We can only promote the free flow of ideas in the press and elsewhere because we trust that for the most part we will hear the truths and opinions of our very diverse population and we can endure and benefit from a very wide range of views.
  • Terrorism is the instrument of the hopeless and powerless. It requires a lot of ingenuity and yes, audacity, but it is at the same time, nihilism incarnate--killing for killing’s sake out of the despair generated by systems that have no place for citizens.  Citizens thrive and build societies that thrive by virtue of their law-given rights and responsibilities. There is no more effective way to make the changes that stretch a society, helping it to come closer to such ideals as “liberty and justice for all.”
  • The Obama presidency comes at the best and worst of times. Perhaps every generation finds itself in that Dickensian predicament. We Americans have taken an important step forward not only by electing our first African American president, but by electing a man of incomparable intelligence and integrity. And, at the same time, we find ourselves in our worst economic downturn since the great depression.  And so we are giving our new president a daunting challenge—with the hope that he will deliver us into an era of promise.
  • Obama brings hope to Americans and, indeed, to the world. We hope that the tragedies of the last decades, born of many factors, including the collapse of the old world order, which left us, in the words of philosopher Hannah Arendt, “between the no longer and the not yet,” will be replaced by an era of promise to all the world’s people. The candidate of change —the leader of promise—is the beginning of our “new hope”—a cautious optimism founded in our belief in democracy and in an extraordinary leader.
  • But that “new hope” will be to naught if it does not energize and inspire us to seize the moment by rededicating ourselves to what the late Justice Louis Brandeis termed the most important job in our democracy—that of the citizen. Obama has made it clear that the task ahead-- running this country and leading the world—is not a one man job. It is our job, Democracy is not about charismatic leaders alone—it is played out in the every day actions of people like us enjoying our rights as individuals and assuming the responsibilities of citizenship.

 

Sondra Myers is the editor of several books on democracy and interdependence. She is Senior Fellow for International, Civic and Cultural Projects at the University of Scranton and a frequent writer and speaker on strengthening democracy internationally and the integration of culture into public policy in the United States

The Obama Project: First Day

Posted Dec 21, 2008 at 12:19 PM
Oliver Wasow, New York, New York

© Oliver Wasow

The Obama Project: Everything I Could Hope For

Posted Dec 19, 2008 at 11:20 AM
Lowery Stokes Sims , New York, New York

"The election of Barack Obama as President of the United States simply means that everything I could hope for as an African American woman of the boomer generation has been fulfilled and I can die happy."
--Dr. Lowery Stokes Sims, Curator, Museum of Art and Design, New York

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The Obama Project: The Common Good

Posted Dec 17, 2008 at 1:22 PM
Donald W. Shriver, New York, New York

Obama's election means to me: that at last we have a president who speaks and acts as though he knows the importance of the concept of our "common good."  Common means addressing the specific interests of the public in relation each to the other, e.g. his speech of March 18, 2008 in which he defended the truth of African American suffering of injustice in our history but also the unjust suffering of white working-class Americans. Long ago, the social psychologist G.H. Mead said: "Democracy depends upon the ability of the voter, once inside the voting booth, to vote for someone else's interests in addition to their own." Also, my hope it that in Obama we will get loose from the superficial uses of the words "left" and "right" in describing policy alternatives, as well as "liberal" and "conservative."  We must get away from using all four of these words as abstractions which conceal human realities of  need and responsibility.  Common good also means the human common good worldwide. The new global world will not permit us to indulge in a facile politics which tosses off  "America first" as either a realistic or a moral stance towards our world neighbors.

Donald W. Shriver, Jr. is president emeritus of the Union Theological Seminary in New York

THE OBAMA PROJECT: Call For Submissions

Posted Dec 17, 2008 at 1:16 PM
Maurice Berger, Political Director, PollTrack, New York, New Mexico

PollTrack has just come off a very successful campaign season, tracking the most exciting presidential election in a generation (along with more than 20 US Senate races). With more than 220,000 visitors in the first two-and-half months of our launch we had visitors from every state in the union and 108 nations. One feature of the site, VOICES ON THE GROUND, invited contributions from artists, writers, observers, scholars, students, and others who helped us track the election from the perspective of where it mattered the most: with voters on the ground.
 
As we approach the inauguration of President-Elect Obama, VOICES launches The Obama Project--an online forum for commentary, analysis, poetry, photographs, and YouTube content that explores the following questions: What Does The Election of Barack Obama Mean To You? And What Does it Mean for The Nation?
 
We ask you to submit texts (from a single line to 2,000 words), photographs, or content you've posted on YouTube. We will be uploading content on an ongoing basis through the inauguration and beyond. You are also welcome to submit materials that relate to Election 2008 but do not fall within the purview of The Obama Project.
 
To submit texts or images, go to the "Participate" tab on the yellow tool bar in the lower right of the VOICES page. You may also send texts (and photo attachments) directly to voices@polltrack.com. However you submit materials, PLEASE: include your full name and your city and state or location (if outside the US)
 
We very much look forward to hearing your voices on PollTrack.
 

An Open Letter From Roger Smith: Goodbye And Good Riddance

Posted Dec 01, 2008 at 11:29 AM
Roger Smith, New York, New York

An Open Letter From Roger Smith: Goodbye And Good Riddance: Dear Friends: After all my pre-election bombardments, I have spared you any post-election bragging in the form of "analysis."  (Oh, don't worry, something of that sort is in the works.)  But I urge all of my friends of similar views re George W. Bush to spend a few more weeks contemplating just how vast a landscape of wreckage Mr. Bush has left behind before we turn our thoughts to just how a President Obama can somehow clean up the mess.
 
Toward this end, I am indebted to a good friend (a man of normally quite sober demeanor who would, I am sure, prefer to remain anonymous) for alerting me to an article that appeared on the website of The American Prospect, written by one of their regulars, Paul Waldman.  The piece's combination of a fine anger with a solid sense of the facts makes me inclined to read Mr. Waldman's book, Being Right is Not Enough: What Progressives Must Learn From Conservative Success--despite its rather turgid title. 
 
Back during Goerge W.'s first administration, I used to get people asking me WHY I had such an unreasoning, almost unbalanced hatred of George W. Bush.  I of course thought it both reasoned and balanced, but I allowed that little Georgie had, in abundance, personal qualities that literally drove me over the edge.  But along about the time of Katrina even my few remaining "righty" friends stopped asking.  (Well, one such friend still asks, but then he finds the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal the fount of wisdom and Rush Limbaugh a boon companion.)
 
Is the piece below over the top?  I don't think so--I just find it admirably exhaustive in its catalog of the high (and low) crimes and misdemeanors of the Bush administration.  What frightens me is that the American populace has NOT in fact turned against these policies and beliefs--just their wildly incompetent practice.  Had the Iraq War gone reasonably well (unlikely under the best of management practices, but possible) and had the results of their economic stewardship been less readily and horribly apparent, we could easily have seen a victory by a Republican who, unlike McCain, might have run on a promise to continue these benighted policies.
 
Life--and certainly politics--rarely offers clarity.  However, George Bush has provided it in abundance.  The years 2001-8 will be seen by historians--even ones writing in the very near future--as almost a laboratory test case of what happens when the Federal government of the United States was run by people who could not have done worse had that been their purpose.  And maybe it was.
 
Bush's belief that he will, like Harry Truman, be vindicated by history is just another pathetic fallacy of Mr. Bush.  Indeed, perhaps our pathetic fallacy is attributing human emotions to George W. Bush.  As Kurosawa titled one of his greatest--but least known--movies, "The Bad Sleep Well."
 
Dealing with the aftermath of this massive tidal wave of physical, social and fiscal destruction will take years--maybe decades--just to get us back to where we were in 2000, before the aptly-named Mayberry Machiavellis were let loose. 
 
I for one am not prepared to sweep these events under some enormous rug.  I think a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (like post-Apartheid South Africa's)  is needed to make sure that most Americans will understand the sheer magnitude of the folly brought about by those of us who elected this man--not once, but twice.  Seeing a few of the worst evildoers off to the hoosegow (while emotionally satisfying) will not be enough.  But more realistically, I suspect our team will have to settle for watching these miscreants eagerly accept the blanket pardons that will soon be emanating from the Oval Office.
 
For Paul Waldman's article from The American Prospect click here.  (If you find the piece as delightful as I did, you might want to check out Mr. Waldman's latest posting to the TAP blog  It examines the strange phenomenon of how the conservatives are already feeling themselves a miserably oppressed minority--indeed, they never stopped at the hieght of their power).

Roger Smith's analysis of the state-by-state racial breakdown of the 2008 presidential race is forthcoming on our Writing on the Wall page.

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