On A Platform Of Understanding

We obviously had to watch some of the DNC (Democratic National Convention) this week, figuring it would only be fair after watching some of the RNC (Republican National Convention) last week - an entire evening of it, plus part of the next.

The only reason we were planning on not watching it is that we know the Democratic platform. We research and read about their platform all the time. We understand and agree with their platform. We had faith, and still do, that the claims they make will be based on, at least, well rounded facts and data...comparably anyway, when juxtaposed with the "content" of the Republican National Convention last week. We have faith that the Democratic platform involves real people helping real people, involves a more united philosophy, a free America. An America where the American Dream can be a real tangible thing.

And we'd be more familiar with the Republican platform...if they had a clear one that didn't primarily involve gutting the working people of the United States from both pocketbook and personal rights. If their platform didn't make our heart ache and our head pound...if it didn't conjure up images of donning a black veil for the death of the America we know.

We really wanted to watch the Democratic National Convention to see if they dropped as many outrageous "bombs" filled with lies that scattered shrapnel of wild-eyed hate, one way, or another, as the previous weeks political party convention had.

For all intent and purpose, the first night of the DNC was a yawner, for anyone who gets off on wild accusations and froths at the mouth with hatred for what they do not understand...well, there would be not wet panties or raging hard-ons. There wasn't hate-speech, or attacking, no wild accusations to incite rage.

Honestly we flipped the channel right before the speech made by Michelle Obama, which, from what we understand, was amazing. We were sure it was going to be touching, just as Ann Romney's appeared to be, and like we said, we know the platform. We know Mrs. Obama supports pro-choice, supports equal wages for women, supports love between any consenting adults. She supports women. She supports America.

The second night (Wednesday night) we didn't switch over once to the convention, but after Bill Clinton did his speech, we wish had. Twitter was all a flutter over him, even some of our most conservative Republican followers seemed enamoured. And when we flipped over to Facebook and The Father (our dad), our Right Wing Christian Republican father (hi, dad!) had written: "Ah ya, they don't call him slick Willie for nothin !" (not that he meant it in a positive way, however) on his Facebook page...well...there was no question about it, we were going to have to watch it.

So, we caught some highlights on CNN. And holy shit. We got the link this morning so we could watch it end to end (and supply it to you). It was everything a political speech should be.

Bill Clinton can talk, eloquent, witty, unaided by a Teleprompter, from his heart, and with honesty...not just because he believes what he is saying, but because what he is saying is true, and based on well-rounded data, research and facts.

In case you missed it...

 

(please let us know if this video gets removed from YouTube, or does not show up)

But what about the FACT checking? Just because we support the platform doesn't mean we are blind to folly. We wanted to make sure the people we support are keeping it on the up-and-up.

At the top of our morning our searches kept coming back to, and referencing, this article:

Fact check: Bill Clinton at the DNC
By Lori Robertson, with Eugene Kiely, Brooks Jackson and Robert Farley, FactCheck.org
USA Today, September 6, 2012
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politics/story/2012-09-06/clinton-fact-check-democratic-convention/57627036/1

but if you want a quick video because...wow, you have read this far, and it's not over yet...then this brief (but not as in-depth) video from Bloomberg.com (we couldn't get the link to embed properly, so here is the link: No False Claims in Clinton's DNC Speech http://www.bloomberg.com/video/no-false-claims-in-clinton-s-dnc-speech-c2Ha7CgMRqm9CIwOZMH2mA.html (Bloomberg TV, September 6, 2012)

Of course you'll be able to find much more information, articles....and a whole lot of other opinion pieces, as the day progresses (For those "Google search challenged", you might want to try search words like "Bill Clinton" "DNC Speech" and "Fact Check"). Content full of information and specualtion about how facts may have been skewed, or how he mis-stepped in some places, how some of his claimed were a little exaggerated, just those same articles will be guilty of the same thing; and the opposition will come out with their guns blazing...but there's not much of a target for them; and it will make some of the more ignorant ones wild with rage and spew unfounded, angry, and hateful. Poor frustrated them.

It's sad to think of the people who will choose to vote this year based on personal agenda, like not being able to accept the idea of two consenting adults in love, of the same gender, being married - as if somehow it effects them on a daily basis; people who think the reproductive rights of a woman they don't know is their responsibility - even though it has nothing to do with them personally; wanting to "Keep America American" (funny enough the same slogan of the KKK in the 1920's), all the while destroying it - stripping people of their person freedom, making it harder to crawl from beneath poverty by reducing PELL grants for higher education, cutting nutrition programs in schools, reducing and wanting to eliminate fail-safes that so many American people depended on in the last recession, supporting big business by giving it more rights than people, keeping the American Dream just that, a dream.

These are parts of the Republican platform. All while doing things like registering their yachts in the Cayman Islands (to avoid taxes), cutting taxes for their rich friends, and hiding thier money in offshore accounts to avoid their responsibilities (taxes) as Americans - completely out of touch with what being American means.

That is not our America.

So, despite the possibility of both political party nominations being no better than the other, we are still going to vote, we are going to vote with the side that feels like it cares about the inalienable rights of the America people. The people who understand what it means to be a responsible compassionate American, and who understands that it doesn't mean forcing a personal, religious, agenda on people.

In the end, we feel even better about our vote than we did before. So much better that we're planning on donating, for the first time in our 15 years of adult voting ability, to a political party. Not just for us, for all the people our donation, our vote, stands for; women, children, the elderly, the poor and middle class, immigrants. For the people that make this country what it is. Our American family.

This year we're donating to the Barack Obama Presidential Campaign
https://contribute.barackobama.com/donation/index.html

Because we value truth, and we value freedom.
We value human rights and we value progress.
We value our future. We value America.
And we believe in America.