President Obama is not letting up on the Republicans and Romney. Today he wrote an op-ed column in Time Magazine about his directive to use prosecutorial discretion regarding those who came here as children (not to deport and to allow work visas) and the need to pass the Dream Act.
A year and a half ago, Democrats passed the DREAM Act in the House. It got 55 votes in the Senate, but Republicans blocked it. The bill hasn’t really changed since Republicans co-wrote it. The need hasn’t changed. And it’s still the right thing to do. The only thing that has changed, apparently, is the politics.
It makes no sense to expel talented young people, who, for all intents and purposes, are Americans. They’ve been raised as Americans and know this nation as their own. To expel these young people who want to staff our labs, or start new businesses, or defend our country simply because of the actions of their parents or because of the inaction of politicians makes no sense.
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Precisely because this is temporary, Congress needs to act. There is still time for Congress to pass the DREAM Act this year, because deserving young people should be able to plan their lives in more than two-year increments. And we still need to pass comprehensive immigration reform that addresses our 21st century economic and security needs.
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Just six years ago, the unlikely trio of John McCain, Ted Kennedy and President Bush came together to champion this kind of reform. I was proud to join 23 Republicans in voting for it. So there’s no reason that we can’t come together and get this done.
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We didn’t raise the Statue of Liberty with its back to the world. We raised it with its light to the world. What makes us American is not a question of what we look like or what our names are. What makes us American is our shared belief in the enduring promise of this country – and our shared responsibility to leave it more generous and more hopeful than we found it.
Time Magazine, by President Barack Obama, A Nation of Laws and a Nation of Immigrants
Much of this election comes down to what kind of world do you want to live in? One where a very few get most of the wealth and demand worship as "job creators," as modern "gods," or one where people have some kind of chance to make decent lives for themselves?
Hate or hope? These issues are interrelated. Wealthy Republicans have long used racism to appeal to working class and middle class whites who are afraid. As their lives get worse because of Republican policies, too many whites doubled down on hate, hating blacks, hispanics, asians, whoever looked different to them. They listen to Rush and scapegoat others for their lack of success, all the while screwing themselves by voting for the same Republican policies that impovrish them. In this vain attempt to hold on to some sort of white privilege, this vain attempt to elevate themselves above others even while they keep falling economically, these voters have essentially committed class suicide. The Wallace voters from 1968 became Reagan voters and now are going to be Romney voters. And Romney used them with his anti-hispainic hate in the primaries. Like George Bush I, Romney will cynically use race and ethnic hate to preserve class oppression. And too many whites will go along, just to be screwed again.
This is not true of the entire white middle class; nor is it only a blue collar white problem. Many whites have rejected the ways of hate. They join others in the coalition. It is Jesse Jackson's rainbow that is the present for many and the future for our nation. And we can defeat Romney and the billionaires in November.
There is much to be done and, no doubt, we will not do it all in President Obama's second term. We will face disppointments, life will be difficult for too many.
But the enemy is at the gates and we can have no progress unless we defeat Romney and the voices of hate.
Si, se peude!
This is the New Patriotism that will defeat Romney.
We didn’t raise the Statue of Liberty with its back to the world. We raised it with its light to the world. What makes us American is not a question of what we look like or what our names are. What makes us American is our shared belief in the enduring promise of this country – and our shared responsibility to leave it more generous and more hopeful than we found it.
Shared Responsibility is antithetical to Greed is Good.
The Promise of America:
What -- what is that American promise? It's a promise that says each of us has the freedom to make of our own lives what we will, but that we also have obligations to treat each other with dignity and respect.
It's a promise that says the market should reward drive and innovation and generate growth, but that businesses should live up to their responsibilities to create American jobs, to look out for American workers, and play by the rules of the road. Ours -- ours is a promise that says government cannot solve all our problems, but what it should do is that which we cannot do for ourselves: protect us from harm and provide every child a decent education; keep our water clean and our toys safe; invest in new schools, and new roads, and science, and technology.
Our government should work for us, not against us. It should help us, not hurt us. It should ensure opportunity not just for those with the most money and influence, but for every American who's willing to work.
That's the promise of America, the idea that we are responsible for ourselves, but that we also rise or fall as one nation, the fundamental belief that I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper.
That's the promise we need to keep. That's the change we need right now.
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Instead, it is that American spirit, that American promise, that pushes us forward even when the path is uncertain; that binds us together in spite of our differences; that makes us fix our eye not on what is seen, but what is unseen, that better place around the bend. That promise is our greatest inheritance. It's a promise I make to my daughters when I tuck them in at night and a promise that you make to yours, a promise that has led immigrants to cross oceans and pioneers to travel west, a promise that led workers to picket lines and women to reach for the ballot.
And it is that promise that, 45 years ago today, brought Americans from every corner of this land to stand together on a Mall in Washington, before Lincoln's Memorial, and hear a young preacher from Georgia speak of his dream.
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"We cannot walk alone," the preacher cried. "And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back."
America, we cannot turn back... not with so much work to be done; not with so many children to educate, and so many veterans to care for; not with an economy to fix, and cities to rebuild, and farms to save; not with so many families to protect and so many lives to mend. America, we cannot turn back. We cannot walk alone.
Barack Obama Acceptance Speech - DNC - 28 August 2008