The young dead soldiers do not speak.
Nevertheless, they are heard in the still houses:
who has not heard them?
They have a silence that speaks for them at night
and when the clock counts.
They say: We were young. We have died.
Remember us.
* * *
They say: Our deaths are not ours: they are yours,
they will mean what you make them.
They say: Whether our lives and our deaths were for
peace and a new hope or for nothing we cannot say,
it is you who must say this.
We leave you our deaths. Give them their meaning.
We were young, they say. We have died; remember us.
This year marks my first excursion into political activism.
I have watched from the sidelines all my life. I've always had strong political opinions, but I've always avoided airing them outside of circles of friends. I've always voted, but never contributed or worked for a campaign. I was in the "what can one person do?" camp.
One of my resolutions this year is to talk more about my support for Obama with people I meet casually, just to try to spread the word every bit I can.
I'm writing this diary to others who might be in the same position. You're a little shy with strangers. You avoid confrontation. Yes you can. You can make a difference. Today, I moved a low-information voter one little step toward voting for Obama. I'm not a hero. I didn't make much difference. What will make a difference is if we all do a little bit more than we have ever done before.
Update:
Cool. My first Rec List Diary. A big thank you to all who rec'd and commented. One of the great things about dKos is the ability it gives all of us to support each other with information and encouragement as we work together.
I'm sitting in the hotel lobby with kath25 and a bunch of bloggers. A lot of people have left already, but the rest of us are here talking and typing away on our laptops.
Gotta' love Chuck! Here he is making the point that the trip so far is a huge win for Obama, and that even in his "CENTCOM clarification" Maliki used the word "timetable," reinforcing Obama's message on ending the war. According to Todd, this all points to the economy returning as the central issue of the campaign.
Barack Obama's planned campaign rally and speech in Berlin on Thursday is roiling the German political class, reports Der Spiegel (article in German). Authorities in Berlin are preparing for a million spectators, which would instantly make Obama's speech the biggest political event in that country since unification in 1990. There are even plans to close down the street, a mile long, and replicate the setup during the World Cup with massive projection screens. Inevitably with a political earthquake of this magnitude, there's some controversy stoked by conservatives.
Obama will be speaking on the eastern side of the Victory Column - the Siegessäule - a monument to the Prussian victories in the wars of unification that preceded Bismarck's establishment of the Second Empire. The speech itself will be focused on the Trans-Atlantic relationship and give a preview of the foreign policy approaches of an Obama administration towards our NATO allies.
A 21 year old black man in Winnfield, Louisiana, named Baron "Scooter" Pikes, was tasered 9 times in 14 minutes by a white police officer in January after he was arrested and handcuffed. He died. Seems a tad excessive to me. However, here's the story of his arrest and subsequent death according to the police report by the arresting officers:
(cont.)
Update [2008-7-20 15:34:52 by Steven D]: Title changed for Clarity.
On July 13, nine soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 503d Infantry Regiment (Airborne), 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, Vicenza, Italy, died in one of the deadliest attacks on U.S. troops since the 2001 invasion. A few days ago, they were honored in Italy with a touching, traditional ceremony marking their absence, reported in Stars and Stripes. It is known as the Final Roll Call.
Please join me over the fold for the rest of the ceremony, as we stand for those who stood for us—to honor, remember and say good-bye.
I have just received an important clarification from CentCom regarding remarks that I made in my diary yesterday about John McCain. It seems as though there was a misinterpretation and misunderstanding, so this necessary update and clarification was issued a few moments ago.
Please note the following changes in bold and/or strikethrough from the original comments that were "purportedly made" by me:
The new newspaper trend -- even extending to boring old AP -- of encouraging reporters to not merely report but opine in their "news" pieces reared its ugly head again this morning by way of a front page story in the Austin American-Statesman on Saturday's Netroots Nation events.
Patrick Beach, a feature writer at the paper who once described himself as a "raging moderate," repeatedly described the gathering in stereotypes that better fit the aging Old Left of years ago than the much younger Netroots of today. I mean, how many of you have ever read much of Chomsky or even know who Nanci Griffith is?
When Beach, at the start refers to the crowd as "marauding liberals" I know it's not to be taken literally. But then we get this:
Last week we learned about the 'pay for access' bribery scandal involving the administration and a man named Stephen Payne who was, before resigning because of the scandal, a member of the homeland security advisory council. If you didn't catch the story, here's the nut:
A lobbyist with close ties to the White House is offering access to key figures in George W Bush’s administration in return for six-figure donations to the private library being set up to commemorate Bush’s presidency.
Well, there's a new player connected with this scandal: Randy Scheunemann
His current responsibility is to try to spin McCain's foreign policy as somehow being an asset for the candidate.
With pundits calling Maliki's endorsement of Obama's plan a "major development" in the campaign, the White House, in coordination with McBush, was in a total damage control. A few hours later, some murky sources in Maliki's office began apparently walking backwards on reported qoutes from his interview in Spiegel. "Lost in translation defense" was apparently channeled via CentCom.
I called the death of Indymac Bancorp on Monday, July 7th. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation seized Indymac on Friday, July 11th.
I called the implosion of the two Government Sponsored Entities in the mortgage business, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on Wednesday, July 9th. Sunday, July 13th the White House announced a bailout for them.
Want to know what happens next? It’s ape ass ugly and it’s going to happen to you, so don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Wow, Frank Rich's Sunday NYT Op Ed column, It’s the Economic Stupidity, Stupid, just slams McCain! Despite a somewhat odd discussion towards the end about VP candidates, it's a thing of beauty, with this as the central point:
were voters forced to actually focus on Mr. McCain’s response to our spiraling economic crisis at home, the prospect of his ascension to the Oval Office could set off a panic that would make the IndyMac Bank bust in Pasadena look as merry as the Rose Bowl.
"Could I mention the presence of my friend, Congressman Steve Pearce, who I believe will be joining me in the United States Senate?" - John McCain in New Mexico this week.
It just gets worse and worse for John McSame and the gop.
Full lineup and other goodies below...
Diaries should be substantive. A good guideline is that if you don't have at least three solid paragraphs to write about your subject, you should probably post a comment in an open thread, or in a recent diary or front-page post that covers a topic relevant to what you wish to write about.
I would add that tight writing, careful research, insightful analysis -- these are the ingredients of the best diaries. And of course the carefully chosen word.
But sometimes, only pictures -- and the look in a soldier's eyes -- will do...
Along those lines, Dr. Ali al-Dabbagh, who the Times calls a spokesman for the Iraqi government, has released a statement saying that Prime Minister Maliki's statement was "misunderstood and mistranslated" and "not conveyed accurately regarding the vision of Senator Barack Obama, U.S. presidential candidate, on the timeframe for U.S. forces withdrawal from Iraq." But as the Times notes al Dabbagh did not specify what had been mistranslated.
Another interesting detail, noted by the Times. al-Dabbagh's statement was released by CentCom. I do not know how often Iraqi government statements are released by CentCom.
So, the official Iraqi spokesman's statement was released by U.S. Central Command? Um, are they fucking kidding us? Couldn't they be a little more subtle about this?
Sam used up his diary for the day furiously live-blogging the panel earlier (which I highly recommend taking a look at; it's an in-depth look at how and why the campaign and its volunteers organize the way we do), so I thought I'd hop on and share the video that just played at the convention ...
