Small Task #12 - Health Care

I think this is a really interesting article. Your task for today. Just read it. And pass it on.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122152292213639569.html#printMode

Small Task #11 - Wear Blue

I learned about this email going around from partymomabrooklyn and wanted to spread the word:

OBAMA BLUE DAY!!! September 30, 2008

Its time to REPRESENT!!!!!

This election season has remained too close for comfort and to close to call! We have 100,000s of unregistered and millions who remain on the fence! Its time for us to come together, voice our unity, and make a difference!

Tuesday September 30, 2008

everyone is asked to do two things

1) WEAR BLUE

2) REGISTER TWO VOTERS!

(If you can't register two voters talk to two people who may be on the fence/ or a McCain supporter and sway them to become a Obama Supporter).

LETS MAKE OBAMA BLUE DAY a DAY OF ACTION!!!!

BARACK THE VOTE!!!!!!

PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO EVERYBODY WHO MAY BE INTERESTED IN PARTICIPATING!!!

Small Task #10 - Learn

You will be tested. You won't always succeed. But know that you have it within your power to try. That generations who have come before you faced these same fears and uncertainties in their own time. And that through our collective labor, and through God's providence, and our willingness to shoulder each other's burdens, America will continue on its journey towards that distant horizon, and a better day. - Barack Obama

Today the task is simple. Just do a little reading. Find an issue that interests you and get some more information. That way, the next time you talk about Barack Obama to friends and family, you will have even more information to pass forward.

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/

Small Task #9 - Be an Ambassador

And if they tell you that,'Well, we're not sure where he stands on guns.' I want you to say,'He believes in the Second Amendment.' If they tell you,'Well, he's going to raise your taxes,' you say,'No, he's not, he's going lower them.' You are my ambassadors. You guys are the ones who can make the case. - Barack Obama

I think most of us have noticed a different tone in part of this election. Where outrageous lies are told, not always in the media but in whispers from neighbors and slanderous email forwards. This spreading of lies is hard to fight against because it's as much of a word of mouth campaign as our campaign of truth. So this week, I ask you to rail against that. If you get an email forward that is outrageous lies, find the truth and pass it on. If you hear someone spouting misinformation, call them on it. Not everyone will believe you, but perhaps it will spur them to learn a little on their own. Or maybe it will give them pause the next time the repeat something you told them was untrue. Not many people truly want to spread lies. It is our job this week to spread the truth. Be kind about it, but firm and remember we really do have the truth on ourside and it is our job to forward it on.

http://factcheck.barackobama.com/

I want to campaign the same way I govern, which is to respond directly and forcefully with the truth - Barack Obama

Small Task #8 - Attend

A belief that we are connected as one people. If there's a child on the south side of Chicago who can't read, that matters to me, even if it's not my child. If there's a senior citizen somewhere who can't pay for her prescription and has to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it's not my grandmother. If there's an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties. It's that fundamental belief. I am my brother's keeper, I am my sister's keeper that makes this country work. It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams, yet still come together as a single American family. "E pluribus unum." Out of many, one. – Barack Obama

Today your task is to sign up to attend an event for the Obama campaign in the next week or two. If you follow this link you can search for events in your area. There are many events to register people to vote which is a great way to get active and really make a difference.

http://my.barackobama.com/page/event/search_simple

Small Task #7 - A Good Read

Today's Simple task is a departure from the rest. This was written by Eve Ensler, the writer of the Vagina Monologues. I thought it was too good not to share. So read it and if you like it, copy and forward it on.

Drill, Drill, Drill - Eve Ensler

I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it's their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.

I don't like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.

But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story -- connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.

I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.

Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God's plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin's view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, "It was a task from God."

Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist's baby or not.

She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.

Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.

Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.

Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God's name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.

I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.

If the Polar Bears don't move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, "Drill Drill Drill." I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.

Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?

Small Task #6 - Visible Sign

It's a time where you can go to any town hall or street corner or coffee shop and hear people express the same anxiety about the future; hear them convey the same uncertainty about the direction we're headed as a country. Whether it's the war or Katrina or their health care or their jobs, you hear people say that we've finally arrived at a moment where something must change. - Barack Obama

Today is pretty simple. Put a magnet on your car, a sign in your yard, a pin on your bag, a sign on the stroller, anything you can think of to show your support.

If you don’t have any of those things, just print out a sign from here

http://www.barackobama.com/downloads/

and put it somewhere that people will see it.

Make your support visible today!