Blog entry called "Can you handle the truth?" by my black lawyer friend Sheria made me cry this morning as she described what it means to be black in American and to have the first black president vilified by racists

http://theexaminedlife-sheria.blogspot.com/
I knew I had to ask readers to go there, because I know that she has been working very hard to explain issues, bills in congress, anything she can do to help President Obama during his first term in office. She is a lawyer so understands legal language which she can explain in terms easier for everyone to understand.  Naturally she wants nothing less than another term for this president which by tradition is generally his for the taking if a president does not stumble too badly. There is much to worry about.
As a pro life registered democrat I want this president to do as well in office as he can do, given what the party platform is and what he has pledged to try to do. I have tried to explain again and again that I do not think the party has allowed for dissenting voices within when it comes to an issue like legalized abortion, which the democratic party supports. I am sure there are other pro life democrats who feel that their convictions are no longer welcome.
I have often thought that with legalized abortion came sharp criticism of religious beliefs. Fanatics and zealots became words that were flung about freely, denigrating people as stupid and ignorant who could not support the killing of the unborn, who were shackled by commands from on high that no longer applied.  Well, Supreme Being bears some resemblance to me to Supreme Court that reversed Roe vs Wade and legalized abortion across the land. I grew up in the Mormon Church founded by the prophet Joseph Smith who claimed as most prophets do to be receiving revelations directly from God.  These revelations must have been pretty hard to swallow when God said men should take 7 wives to be fulfilled, and so on.  When I first found out that I was going to the temple to be baptized for the dead, I had a hard time believing that people who died had to wait around until I or some other Mormon child got baptized in their names, so they could enter heaven a Mormon.  Only Mormons went to heaven according to Joseph Smith!  Well, my father and grandfather were both free thinkers so I was allowed to express my doubts about this doctrine without being sharply rebuked, even though I did obediently made the temple trip.
Now sudden believers in abortion seemed to think that the Supreme Court's decisions were just as sacred and no one should think of questioning these august judges.  It looked to me as though a lot of people, including journalists, had a tendency to go along with authority if there was some risk in dissent, didn't matter where or how it came about.
Mormons in the heart of Mormon Utah found it extremely difficult to protest any revelations. In fact, when I did I had to leave the state of Utah so I could have peace and not be treated like the enemy in our midst.
If we all protested every single thing we are expected to believe, progress might just stop. I have voted in the past for pro choice presidents.  I voted for Clinton both times thinking that other good he could accomplish might outweigh his lack of conviction on the issue of legalized abortion.  But I finally had to decide that I could not even do that.
Or things would never change.  Over a million abortions a year would still continue like clockwork, a VIOLENT solution, and violence begets violence.  So we have to beware of supporting violence done to any human being, least of all to one who needs a mother's protection in the womb even to live.  
So I came out supporting Sarah Palin who has transformed herself into a pro life activist.  At the same time, I hope democrats realize that I still want this president to be as good and strong as he can possibly be.  I am a registered democrat because of what this great party has done for civil rights in this country. A great president in many ways, John Kennedy was surely assassinated for what he did do at great risk for our country when it came to standing up to the Russians in the Cuban nuclear missile crisis stopping them from moving in missiles pointing directly at our country 90 MILES AWAY.  I will never forget how he faced down the communist leaders of Russia and Cuba with such cool brilliance. And Robert Kennedy who fought crime, fought racists, was ironically killed by a terrorist who seemed to come from neither of those factions, but he died on the floor, nether the less, his life's blood soaking up the carpet of the hotel where he had just spoken to a crowd of screaming supporters who believed he would make another great Kennedy president.
I believe that Obama, too, has conducted himself with cool brilliance and careful control of his emotions, struggling with a myriad of challenging issues that every president must deal with when he takes office.  Racists must examine their hateful rhetoric and desist, for racism must not be allowed to determine what a black president can accomplish in the land of the free and the home of the brave where all men are to be treated as equal.

"Infidel" by Ayaan Hirsi Ali important book for women to read about brutality toward women among Islamic Fundamentalists

I don't know if you will remember the incident in the news where a Muslim woman, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, born in Somalia who had been elected to parliment in Holland made a ten minute film called "Submission 1" with the help of a Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh. She started receiving death threats as the result of this film about how Muslim women must submit to men and be brutalized even because it is part of the religion, so men feel more justified in doing it. She thought that Theo's life was in danger, too, but he refused to think anyone would actually kill him due to making a ten minute film on this subject, but a Moroccan man did, cutting a hole in his throat and leaving a letter addressed to Ayaan over the wrong she had done to single out Muslim men as wife abusers. In fact, Ayaan had even accused the Prophet Mohammad of being a pedofile because he allowed himself to be married to a six year old child and consummated the marriage when the child was 9. Of course this idea was so inflammatory that once it came out, Ayaan had to stay in hiding practically non stop. I don't know that the furore has died down even yet. I remember reading about her a great deal for quite some time after the murder occurred.
Her citizenship as a refugee in Holland was even revoked for lying on her application, so she was soon a woman without a country. She did come to America where this book was published, and I think you will be shocked at the life she had to live in several countries and the courage she showed in emerging from the shadows where so many Muslim women stay because of the philosophy of complete submission to the men. She was especially incensed because beating was so common among Islamic Fundamentalists that not only did the men beat and sometimes kill their wives and daughters for infractions but her mother beat her regularly, I mean really badly. Her grandmother saw to it that she and her sisters were 'cut' even though her father did not believe in the mutilation of the clitorus to keep women more pure and virginal for men. I am telling you, sometimes this book was hard to take, but I could not stop reading it. I practically wore my eyes out in one day it was so compelling an indictment of those who do not respect women's rights even to live should they assert themselves and their own ideas a little too strongly. I am glad this brave woman is still alive to tell her tale.

Fighting over issues on Youtube

My video "Gerry focuses on Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA)" has gotten 27 hits so far, which shows there is enough interest for me to deem this video worth making, but let me tell you what has alarmed me about such things as this extremist legislation--what I am seeing on Youtube. Obama turned to Youtube to help spread his word, which proved to be highly successful in reaching the young, but just as strongly, those in opposition, especially to this bill, have turned to Youtube. I have seen videos now of Obama making promises in his speeches to support this act all the way as he did in one to Planned Parenthood. Now this is unprecedented for a male candidate to do this in our history of legalized abortion. I just saw a video that said "This man will be supporting 6,000,000 deaths in his term of office." The video goes on to say that the US is estimated to be killing 1,500,000 a year in legalized abortion. The implication is that if this bill is signed, the numbers will climb, which I think they surely will, and Obama will be tied to these deaths.
What I fear is that Obama is being made the sacrificial goat for the abortion rights extremists who are going to make everybody in opposition furious if this bill is signed into law that can't be touched. He will be a much bigger target for violence than they will be. If you google FOCA you will find the full text of this act which does not leave out one single way people have tried to oppose legalized abortion. It practically even forbids those in office of talking against abortion! When they say untouchable law they mean it.
If you support the solution of abortion you are entering the killing fields and many things change when you do that, including the safety many have taken for granted in this country. Once the country is killing 1,500,000 a year in the unborn, our country becomes increasingly unsafe for anybody. People think just because it is the unborn, which we have managed not to think about very much at all, the rest of us are perfectly safe. Wrong. We are not safe. Nobody's safe when that much killing is going on.
Abortion advocates keep talking about protecting the life of the mother. In FOCA we see that the sacrifice of the child means nothing which is thinking that many do not espouse or think is logical. So are we to let abortion extremists rule? This act will in my opinion create a very volatile atmosphere, where the violent will feel they have more justification to explode.
Obama sounds so committed to this cause in these videos, I do not know if he can be influenced. I think now is the time for all citizens to weigh the consequences of going to extremes with abortion and try to make themselves felt and heard. Obama is not just an attractive and intelligent black man, as he is to most, he is a black man with a very troubling agenda to me, if these videos are any indication. I have fought the extremists for years in both parties. I left Mormon Utah because of their extremist religous views toward a lot of issues, including homosexuality. I have not attached myself to any church since because I think they all tend to be extremist. I had to look at it from the viewpoint of one who thought her father was gay, the man I relied on to protect me. I thought my father was wrong in a lot of his behavior, but it was wrong for his society to make him feel there was no way out but suicide. I fought his suicidal tendencies my whole life. And I continued to fight the condemnation that causes bisexual men to be suicidal.
With legalized abortion, we may get such extremist views from both camps, it can only lead to extreme violence! This is what we need to try to prevent if we possibly can by sounding the voices of moderation, moderation. All people's thinking on this issue is very important in order to prevent a clash between uncompromising camps that could produce another great national tragedy. There needs to be dialogue and a lot of it about what can be done to be more moderate. I am a great believer in the power of thought coming from the many.
You can google FOCA. I copied and pasted it and have it among my papers. I also copied a timeline on abortion since it was legalized. I am trying to get myself as well informed as possible. I am also going to speak out as a democrat objecting to the idea that the democratic party is the party of abortion. I know there are a lot of democrats who just aren't considering and speaking out about this issue if it means clashing with more vocal extremist leaders, but if they want to protect their young leader, they will get very knowledgeable about a very dangerous issue. Trying to find a path of moderation that will not lead to violence.
Trying to force Catholic hospitals to do abortions by law if they do anything with women in the gynocological and obstretrical fields is extremist. I suppose they are furious at how strongly the Catholics continue to fight legalized abortion, and tend to think they need to be soundly defeated, destroyed if possible. FOCA purports that abortion should be an untouchable right, indicating that the Catholic opposition to it since the 3rd century is completely wrong! That is extremist thinking and will lead to violence. I have often wondered if abortion extremists would ever be satisfied without more late term abortions, less restrictions. The ban on partial abortion infuriated them for example. Mothers will die! How many mothers are actually going to die because the gruesome practice of partial birth abortion (tearing apart the child no matter how late term)is banned? FOCA retrieves that abortion right by overturning the ban. Angry extremist thinking. Dangerous thinking.
Extremists create war when peace would be better. Bush, for example, showed his extremist thinking that war was the only solution and far over extended the US in war after 9/11. To heck with the cost. The world was going to tolerate his war against bin Laden but it was a good deal less supportive of his invasion of Iraq, and eventually hardly anybody seemed to have supported this war, but did he allow their reservations to stop him? Well, he moved too fast, catching many off guard still trying to access what to do after 9/11 which shocked and threw everyone off balance. We will have to forgive Bush because of his brash haste in invading another country, but he was our leader, and as he reminded us it was his decision to make and then try to marshall our support later. Reluctantly we gave it. By the end of his term we are hardly even showing him enough respect to listen to him talk, president or not. Extremists will suffer such consequences and worse.