"I'm here because of Ashley."

"There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother's problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn't. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.

Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."

"I'm here because of Ashley." By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins."

http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/hisownwords/

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:cry:

It was an amazing moment and I just pictured that old Black man saying that....

Wow... :grouphug:

but hasn't touched McCain or any of the fundie nutjobs? And some supposed Democrats are willing to help them too. x(

"real" agenda is...there is no balance or fairness or real news coverage...its all sensationalism and propaganda....

After Obama's speech today, when I had tears streaming down my cheeks and felt so moved, like a bad buzz kill, I had to first listen to Wolf Blitzer t& Candy Crowley try to simplify it by stating immediately that this was a "political move" that Obama had to make, to switching to MSNBC to having to hear Joe Scarborough "summarize" what the speech was about and the teams of talking heads dissect it and tear it apart. Where was a Walter Cronkite type to make a comment like "Wow, that was a historical speech folks that will go down in history?" Seriously - do any of these so called political experts or journalists or commentators have any emotion, any connection to the significance of this speech? Apparentely not, and it just made me sick. That's when i turned the TV off and then just went on with my day and relished in the thought that Obama made history today and that those talking heads can try to spin it anyway they want, but Obama showed the world why he is going to be the next President of the United States. :patriot:

They are propagandists, infotainers, who are paid to talk down to Americans as if we are children or imbeciles. They have done as much harm to this nation as Bushler&Co. because they helped empower the neocons to get away with their crimes against humanity. In a just world, Hannity, O'Reilly, Blitzer, et al would be wearing striped suits and making license plates.

To paraphrase Rev. Wright, 'goddamn them'!

I teared up a few times before that, but that's when the tears started to stream.

the part you mention and the part i quoted were my favorite parts.

gridlock in congress. So nothing getsdone for the people.

It's why Obama will win. We the people.

In the late 90's I was a single mother of four children. My daughter is seven years older than her brothers and has some very nurturing instincts. There was a time when money was beyond tight. I was working sixty to seventy hours a week just to be able to squeak by each month. Because she was older, my daughter was often tasked with babysitting her brothers when I was working overtime.

There was never much food in our house; it was that tight. At one point, my daughter told me that she had discovered mayonnaise and pickle sandwiches and that this was her new favorite. She convinced her brothers that they were a delicacy (something they still try to convince themselves of to this day). My heart broke. I felt that I was a bigger failure than any mother could ever be. I never collected a penny of child support or welfare. I worked hard and long. And still my children had to make unfathomable sacrifices. Sacrifices that I know left scars both emotionally and physically.

It's not something that I have ever talked about. I've lived with the shame for years.

They say what doesn't kill us, makes us stronger. My story is one of the lucky ones. I didn't have a terminal illness and I did eventually get a better job and got re-married. My daughter has a lovely son and lives in the bay area where she volunteers at the food bank and homeless shelter at least two weekends a month. She takes my grandson with her. He is five years old and now knows five different languages.

We are the richest nation in the world. There should be no Ashley's.

And she is one impressive young woman. We will see more of her, I can assure you!