Berkeley Forum

A friend asked me who's my favorite candidate for president.
I'm leaning towards Edwards.  He's the straightest and clearest (apart  from Kucinich)
about Iraq, his presentation of his universal health plan is  by far the best I've heard, and he's
deadly serious about ending poverty.    A friend of mine who was at the
California Democratic Convention last month  said Edwards got more ovations than the other
candidates combined.  Of course, Obama is the one in my heart.

My research shows that heis an  awesome politician with a spine of steel, the most gifted leader to come along 

in a generation.  Unlike the other candidates, what Obama inspires in  millions of people is LOVE.
He knows his life is in constant peril (he's already receiving Secret  Service protection). I'm deathly
afraid that he's going to go the way of John and Bobby, of  Mahatma Gandhi, Malcolm X,
and Martin Luther King.  His life is in mortal danger because he is the REAL THING.

-Clive Leeman

# posted by Berkeley Forum : 8:25 PM  1 comments

Today, May 13, 2007, America will observe “Mother’s Day” with a $16-billion commercial blitz of cards, flowers and restaurant meals. .While many people value and celebrate the contributions of mothers to their family not too many people know that " Mother's day actually began as a women's peace proclamation which has clearly being expressed in the Julia Ward Howe's 1870 English Language Poem.

Today, a group of mothers led by prominent and well known war opponent Cindy Sheehan, who lost her son in Iraq, reclaiming “ Mother’s Day” as a day to protest war and started a 24 hours vigil outside the white house to protest the war in Iraq.

She said in a press conference " I don't want any more mums to grieve for a child lost in this unjust, unnecessary war in Iraq,"

So, as America celebrates Mother’s Day, let us remember that prior to 1914 when the first mother’s day was enacted, Mother’s day was a day in which women would rise up for peace in the world. Let us remember that motherhood is not only a biological fact, it is the quality of nurturing. Many women who never experience being a mother, mother the world by nurturing and healing the communities, locally and globally. They all believe that another world is possible. A world with peace, equality and respect to human rights. .

Mother's Day Proclamation

Arise then ... women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies,
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy,
and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."

From the voice of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil
At the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead,
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
Whereby the great human family can live in peace.

-Elaheh Amani

# posted by Berkeley Forum : 6:23 PM  1 comments

Now that we have passed the fourth anniversary of President Bush's 
"Mission Accomplished" speech and been painfully entertained once again by
the sight of him strutting around the deck of the U.S.S. Lincoln in a flight
suit (codpiece intact) with a flight helmet under his arm, isn't it time for
us to wonder why a sitting president, who is constitutionally always a civilian
commander in chief, was wearing military gear that day.

No U.S President, with one exception as far as I can tell, has ever worn
a military uniform while president.  George Washington's donning
his old uniform and leading the army into western Pennsylvania against
the Whiskey rebels of 1794, is the only known instance, I believe, of a
sitting presidentacting officially while in unifom.

On that Mayday four years ago, George Bush revealed a disdain for the constitutional
desgnation of commander in chief as a civilian and always a civilian.  

Perhaps he was also  compensating for his shabby record with the Texas Air National Guard
by swooping on to the flight deck of the U.S.S. Lincoln
in a fighter jet and then  parading around before the whole world as some
kind of fighter pilot hero.

What a pathetic spectacle.


-Professor Clive Leeman

# posted by Berkeley Forum : 4:14 PM  0 comments