I didn’t expect the Republicans to be nice last night, they needed to energize their base and make a strong case against Obama and while they veered farther to the right than I thought they would, what surprised me and actually really angered me was when Rudy Giuliani mentioned that Barack Obama was a community organizer and following which, the crowd and Giuliani both laughed. And after that, Sarah Palin also dogged on Barack’s community organizing..

A group of young Obama supporters. Photo by Barack Obama (Creative Commons)

This I thought was pretty disgusting. Community organizing isn’t easy work, it doesn’t pay well and often yields small results, meaning the person doing the work has to find motivation somewhere other than instant success and change. They have to find motivation in the people they are meeting and truly believe in the grassroots work they are doing. And even if you can’t usually pinpoint it’s success, community organizing is vital to understanding how communities work and what the needs of working people, and low-income people are. And this it seems to me would be an important thing to understand as the President of our country.

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If you’re near BFI Southbank you’ll have another chance to catch Jonathan Demme’s documentary about former president Jimmy Carter. The doc, entitled Jimmy Carter Man From Plains is an intimate and personal look at our 39th President and his quest to promote peace. The story revolves around a promotional tour for Carter’s controversial book “Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid.”

Roger Ebert made a pretty good case for seeing the film when he wrote: “One reason to see this film might be to learn more about his views on the Middle East, but a better reason might be to observe how he attends to the privilege and responsibility of doing what he believes is the right thing.”

Seems a good way to spend a few hours.

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As Wendy mentioned, last weekend was Netroots Nation, where lots of awesome bloggers and folks got together to talk about exciting things in the realm of making the world better. Not only was Al Gore there, but my fellow TakePart blogger Katie Halper (she’s on a break this summer) was there too!

And in case you miss your daily TakePart dose of Katie, check out the video below, it’s sure to make you smile!

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My good pal Elliott over at Meerkat Media did an interesting post recently about unique songstress Joanna Newsom and the labor movement. In it, he looks at one of Newsom’s earlier songs “Yarn and Glue” and he points out what seems to be an awesome political message:

But it’s the song’s lyrics, not the production, that’ve got me stoked. Catch these selected lines from the track “Yarn and Glue,” which catalog the toasts of conspiratorial workers on their day of rest, amid a world of power, money and surveillance:

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Is it any coincidence that Dr. Edgar Mitchell’s claim that there are aliens in space comes 1 day before the new X-Files movie opens???

I wonder… Maybe this fan video (with super cool Blink 182 music) says it all:

More on Mitchell after the jump

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I’ve always been interested in the impact of our vanishing water resources, an environmental issue that seems to get left behind a lot. A point Elizabeth de la Vega echoes in a piece she recently wrote for TomDispatch entitled “Our National Water Policy - Oh Wait, We Don’t Have One“. The piece opens with as American of a quote as you can get, one from Homer Simpson:

“Lisa, the whole reason we have elected officials is so we don’t have to think all the time. Just like that rainforest scare a few years back. Our officials saw there was a problem and they fixed it, didn’t they?” — Homer Simpson

Simpson’s aside, De la Vega explores the much needed state of water policy here in the US as a time when we have floods in the Midwest and wildfires on the West Coast, here’s a taste of the confusion and lack of definition she explores:

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1) Burgers, Tofu, and Climate Change

For the Cinema YouTube Video of the Day, Click here>>

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Feeling alienated from the election process with all the headlines and spin? You should head on over to jibjab.com, where you can watch their latest election satire and even put yourself in it!

You can watch mine here : (although I’m not sure why I have a mustache in it…)

• It’s time for some campaigning !

It’s kind of fun and the video does a great job of poking fun at everyone. I have to say that this years election is already pretty intense considering we haven’t even had the conventions yet. Since I’ve been in Ohio, I ‘ve seen atleast 3 John McCain TV ads, and I haven’t been watching much TV…

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1) Highlights of Al Gore’s Challenge - We Can Solve it

For the Cinema YouTube Video of the Day, Click here>>

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The best from the around the internet the TakePart way:

CULTURE:

• Hidden Treasures : Keeping up with old movies at Bologna’s annual festival of rarities @ The Moving Image Source

ENVIRONMENT:

• Honey Bee Videos Latest Viral Trend? (VIDEO) @ Huffington Post

FAIRNESS:

• UPDATE: Rhode Island Courthouse Immigration Raids Spark Protest @ ABC6.com
  

HEALTH:

• KFC Canada Goes Vegan @ Ecorazzi

HUMAN RIGHTS:

• When Repression Rains, It Pours @ Lines of Flight

PEACE:

• Exiting Iraq Is Easier Than They Say @ The Nation
  

RESPONSIBILTY

• Our Warrantless Wiretapping Lawsuit @ The Nation

*picture from tm_lv