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• Asian Pacific Americans Volunteering for Obama/Biden (in droves!)

  2008-10-31 2:23AM / 標準BLOG

  The videos and writing below are my best pitch to get Americans, especially Asian Pacific Americans, to volunteer for Obama/Biden this weekend. Click here to volunteer through your local campaign office (or just look up the address and show up!). Click here to learn about a canvassing effort in Las Vegas with groups driving in from Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco.
  
  Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FX7bKHjC04
  

  
  

  Annabel and I have been volunteering three or four days a week for the Obama/Biden campaign in Northern Virginia, and will do the same down south in Charlottesville (home of Thomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia) this weekend.  With only a few days left before election day, duties as a volunteer are as rewarding as they are fun.  Barack Obama's vaunted get-out-the-vote effort has already narrowed the field down to people who are probably supporting Barack Obama, so as you go door to door, you'll be unlikely to be confronted with hateful idiots who still think Obama is "an Arab" (not that there is anything wrong with being an Arab of course).  Your job as a volunteer is to make it more likely that people who already support Obama/Biden will make time to go out and vote.

  Last weekend, Annabel and I visited the home of a 78-year-old woman who had immigrated to the U.S. from Afghanistan.  She said she very much wanted to vote but was too old to leave the house.  We helped her fill out a vote-by-mail application and explained to her that she will be able to vote after all.  She was very happy about this, and it made us happy to know we'd given her the opportunity to participate in a historic election, and made a small contribution to the expansion of the American electorate.

  Yesterday, I knocked doors in a forest neighborhood in Annandale, VA, where I met 8 very enthusiastic Obama supporters and only one guy who said "I'm the complete opposite of what you're looking for."  In particular I'm happy about talking to a 22-year-old man named Jason who intended to take advantage of early voting, but had planned to go on a day when early voting is not available in Virginia (Monday, the day before the election).  Thanks to my visit, he'll be making plans to go today, Saturday, or on election day.

  Over the past two years, I have seen the American electorate expand by leaps and bounds to include immigrants and minorities and many others who had previously been left out of the process.  Early on in this journey, Barack Obama has come to symbolize this national transformation, but it really is, as he will tell you, much bigger than just one person, even the future President of the United States.  This entire movement was made possible by our great democracy and the idea of government for the people, by the people.  Various measures have been taken to keep minorities from having a say in how this government should function, and the result has been disastrous, an electorate homogeneous enough to be blinded by fears and prejudices that cause them to repeatedly vote against their own interest, and against the interest of the nation.  Asian Pacific Americans can and are playing a pivotal role in a seed change, where the American electorate is becoming too diverse to allow a fear or hate-based political strategy to turn large blocks of voters against any particular minority (gays, Latinos, Blacks, Muslims, Asians, the poor, etc.).  With a diverse electorate, the only movements that can unite the country are based on values that we share across ethnic and religious barriers, across sexual orientation and cultural barriers -- in short, we will build a national consensus based on hope instead of fear.  Different groups fear different things, but we all hope for the same things: equality, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  That is the direction we can take America if all of us participate.

  So go vote, of course, go vote. But voting is only one of the many ways that you can participate in your democracy.  By volunteering, you can help others who are intimidated or discouraged from voting, you can show fellow Americans how to become part of the process, and help them gain a sense of ownership and responsiblity for our government and how it is practiced.  Each person we bring into the process during this election will be an invaluable contributor to our democracy in the future (I'll expand on this in my first post after the election), all the more so because they forever remember that they participated in the historic election of 2008 -- and you will have made that possible.  So go do it!

  PS: I like the video above because it shows a great diversity of Asian Pacific Americans volunteering for Obama/Biden (I shot most of the footage but did not participate in editing).  We are about to release a new English language version of the video below, which now has 363,686 views on our United For Obama channel alone. It still chokes me up, right when we see Ken Leung's cameo at the end:
  Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ky8Hvq-F0U
  

  
  

  
  

  1個評論–  我來說兩句

• A Week Before The Election, A Breakfast Epiphany

  2008-10-28 11:04PM / 標準BLOG

  If future historians ever wish to find a window into the American political zeitgeist prior to the 2008 election, they should refer to the op-ed page of the October 28thm 2008 Washington Post, which today features yet another prominent Republican (this time a Republican dynasty former U.S. Senator) and a highly respected Independent woman explaining why they are voting for Barack Obama and not for John McCain.  Today’s op-ed page, which I savored over coffee and pancakes this morning, also features two superbly written deconstructions of the McCain/Palin campaign, one of which unmasks the plot to unleash upon America the “Palin mystique.”

  I recommend reading all four of these editorials. But in Palin’s Love Boats, Richard Cohen unleashes the most devastatingly revealing words so far written or spoken about the Conservative intellectual elite who, despite all the evidence, continue to advocate for Sarah Palin.

  “Palin is a down-the-line rightie, so her inexperience, her lack of interest in foreign affairs, her numbing provincialism and her gifts for fabrication…do not trouble her ideological handlers. Let her get into office. They will govern.”

  In Campaign on Empty, one of my personal favorite columnists, Eugene Robinson describes the fatal misjudgment of the McCain campaign:

  “In choosing a running mate, McCain made an absolute mockery of his “country first” slogan and instead put politics above all other considerations. It suffices to note that the Anchorage Daily News — the biggest newspaper in Palin’s state — endorsed Obama, saying that Palin was being stretched “beyond her range” and that she clearly is not ready to be “one 72-year-old heartbeat from the leadership of the free world.”

  “It’s hard to imagine that a McCain presidency could possibly be as scattered, irresponsible, uninspiring and intellectually bankrupt as the McCain campaign. It’s even harder to imagine that Americans, at this crucial juncture, will take that risk.”

  
  

  2個評論–  我來說兩句

• Barack Obama's Celebrated "Cool" is Asian Cool!

  2008-10-15 5:13PM / 標準BLOG

  A few days ago in Northern Virginia, I attended a press conference headlined by a hero of mine, U.S. Congressman Mike Honda (D-CA), at which Barack Obama’s “Blueprint for the Change We Need for Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders” was unveiled for local newspapers.

  After the event, an Asian Pacific American reporter asked me an interesting question:
  
  As a mixed race Asian American, do you feel an added connection to Barack Obama, who is also mixed race and has Asian roots?

  I must have said something the reporter found interesting, because she asked me to expand upon it twice. I said, “Barack Obama carries himself with Asian dignity: you can see it in the debates.”

  Journalists describe the quality I’m speaking of as a “steady disposition,” and praise Sen. Obama as “calm under fire” and “calm, cool, and collected.” The word that springs to mind for me is “poise.” Poise was a measure of strength that was instilled in me when I was growing up in Hawai’i (Obama’s boyhood home), by Asian male role models such as teachers and baseball coaches. My mother, who is Chinese American, pointed to “quiet confidence” as a quality she admired in her father, Donald Tom, as a quality to which I should aspire. (If you have seen my narrative films, my Asian American male characters often exhibit poise and quiet confidence.)

  Journalists also marvel at the contrast between John McCain and Barack Obama during the debates. Where McCain is irritable, resentful, boastful, and disrespectful toward his opponent; Obama is poised, dignified, respectful, and gracious in responding to intense criticism.

  These are all qualities that I grew up admiring in Asian male role models in Hawai’i and among my Chinese American relatives in California. I suspect Obama grew up admiring similar traits growing up a few valleys east of me in Honolulu. And, I suspect these were qualities exemplified by his Indonesian step father.

  Obama’s calm disposition may mystify the media, but it’s no mystery to me. Barack Obama’s cool is Asian cool!

  I also wanted to share the other point I made during the interview.

  Asian Americans and mixed race Americans know how it feels to have our American identity questioned by others. “Where are you from? No, where are you really from? No before that where did you come from? You speak very good English.” This idiotic yet all-too-familiar conversation is not unlike the various attacks that Barack Obama has endured in recent weeks from the McCain campaign and its surrogates. “He is not like us. He is an Arab. He is a Muslim. He pals around with terrorists. He’s a socialist, no he’s a communist. He is a community organizer. He does the terrorist fist bump with his wife. He won’t wear a flag pin. He was educated in a Muslim school. He won’t salute the flag.”

  In the very town where I live in Virginia, the Republican party chairman sends his volunteers out to talk to voters with a speech about how Barack Obama is like a terrorist who bombs the Pentagon, to which his volunteers are known to shout, “Yeah, and we don’t even know where he was born!” (Obama was born in Honolulu).  Recently, John McCain was forced to explain to his supporters at a town hall in Minnesota that Obama is indeed a citizen of the United States! All of these lies have been designed to question Barack Obama’s right to identify himself as an American, and put fear, doubt, and hate into the minds of voters.

  I told the reporter that I’m very proud of the way Obama has responded and, to this point, overcome these attacks, just the way Asian Americans and all people of color do throughout our lives.

  If Barack Obama is successful this November 4th, it will be a victory for America and all it stands for. In particular, it will be a victory for those Americans who have had their identiy as Americans dismissed, derided, or challenged.  I’d rate Asian Americans at the top of the list.

  
  

  2個評論–  我來說兩句

• Throwin' Bombs: McCain's "Terrorist" Claim Leads to Exposure of Keating Five Scandal

  2008-10-07 4:47AM / 標準BLOG

  
  Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDofbll86dY
  

  
  Below is my commentary on the politics behind this hastily crafted, but devastating video released by the Obama campaign today about John McCain, the Keating Five Scandal, and the broader issue of the deregulation of America's banking industry. (Click here to see the website the Obama campaign set up to present the video.)

  There are certain American icons, John Wayne for instance, that we prefer to remember for the character they played — rather than the person they might have been behind closed doors.  I feel the same way about John McCain.

  In this election, no one wanted to see a contest between Senator Obama and the real John McCain.  America would have preferred a contest between Senator Obama and the character John McCain plays on TV: the "maverick," the "reformer," the 20th century war icon.  Personally, I feel confident Obama could have defeated either one.

  This may be why you have not heard anything from the Obama campaign about John McCain and the Keating Five Scandal until today. It was the weapon they preferred not to use. There were strategists inside the Obama camp who wanted to drop this bomb on McCain from the start (it is now a much BIGGER bomb in light of the current Mortgage Banking Crisis that so closely mirrors the Savings and Loan Scandal that frames The Keating Five). But by sending Sarah Palin out to call Barack Obama a terrorist in her latest memorized stump speech, John McCain has given Obama strategists the excuse to release this 13 minute video that demolishes the character McCain plays on TV, simply by exposing its genesis.

  When John McCain was implicated in the Keating Five Scandal, he had been caught red-handed, using his position as a member of Congress to enrich himself, his wife, and his friends. He was so humiliated that he spent the next 20 years trying to atone for it, making it a personal crusade to accuse others of the same or similar improprieties, anointing himself the "maverick" of the U.S. Senate by ruffling feathers in his own party (in general Republicans are against ethics reform).

  In his 20-years of playing a maverick on TV, John McCain has in many ways become the icon he aspires to be. Certainly in the eyes of millions of Americans, he is that man. In this way, McCain reminds me of the infamous televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, the man who's sexual appetite was so shameful and tortuous, he spent his lifetime lecturing others about it. Swaggart exposed two other televangelists for sexual improprieties, ruining their careers, only to himself be caught in an airport hotel with a prostitute.  Swaggart's tearful "I have sinned against you" performance earned him forgiveness from his followers and saved his own career. Then he was caught with another prostitute three years later and that was that.

  I have no quarrel with Swaggart's penchant for prostitutes, but I do have a concern about John McCain's role in the two largest banking meltdowns in American history, each of which cost American taxpayers billions and billions of dollars.  So, perhaps it was appropriate, in light of the Mortgage Banking Crisis, to draw obvious comparisons to McCain and the Savings and Loan Scandal from 20 years ago.

  The sad part is, it wasn't necessary. If McCain had stuck to the issues just a little bit more, instead of building his campaign around calling Obama a traitor and a terrorist, the media would have been more than happy to give McCain a free pass on a past sin that he has done much to atone for. But now that the Obama campaign is talking about The Keating Five, the media is forced to talk about it.

  I had hoped the average American would remember John McCain as a "maverick" who lost his bid to become President in 2000, and then tried again in 2008, the year Obama made history.

  Now, he may instead be remembered as the Jimmy Swaggart of Senate corruption and billion dollar banking scandals.

  
  
  
  

  14個評論–  我來說兩句

• John McCain's Dive of Death

  2008-09-30 1:07AM / 標準BLOG

  Hello everyone. I am in Virginia volunteering for the Obama campaign (videos coming shortly). Virginia is an important "swing state" in this election. And, the momentum of this election is also important to Virginia. Over the past several years, Virginia has been becoming more diverse, more forward-thinking, and less susceptible to the divisive politics and racial discord that characterized the 20th century. John McCain likes to tout his "experience" but the truth is that the majority of his experience came in another era —— the Cold War era, the Vietnam Era, the era when Americans could be easily manipulated based on fear and/or racial divisions. I think that era is over in Virginia. And I think this election will signal that 20th century fear politics are over in America.

  For those who follow my blogging habits, you know that I was much more verbose in dissecting the choice between Obama and Clinton during the primary, than I have been in dissecting the choice between Obama and McCain in the general election.

  This is not because I am any less passionate, or any less convinced, that Obama is the best choice for our country's future. It's because the choice is so obvious to me that I don't find it nearly as interesting to write about it. Besides, others are doing a much better job than I could:

  If you don't mind reading a long article that goes into great detail, please read this New York Times Op-Ed by Frank Rich.

  Or, if you prefer something entertaining, funny, less detailed but equally devastating, watch these clips in which John Stewart makes fun of McCain's "suspension" of his campaign, and, another spot where he makes fun of the fact that Bush's speech interrupted "David Blaine's Dive of Death" to tell us about our economy's dive of death.
  
  Meanwhile, the Obama campaign has not had any difficulty pointing out what this choice is about. Obama's 1-minute advertisement which debuted over the weekend really jumped out at me as the best campaign ad I have seen, simply because it shows the Candidate himself explain where his presidency will take us. Click here to see a 2-minute on-line ad that is similar but more detailed.
  
  
  

  6個評論–  我來說兩句

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