So, I've been doing this series lately called Obama: The Only Thing You Need to Know. You can find it here --
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
(Don't worry, Obama's back tomorrow)
Today though, I thought I'd try my hand at writing about one of our Senate candidates. Something less divisive than primary politics, plus I have two reasons to love Andrew Rice.
- He's a committed progressive who would be a wonderful addition to our Democracy.
- Jim Inhofe is the scourge of the earth. He is the #1 Senator I would love to see go down, and with Mitch McConnell in the running, that's really something.
Donate to Andrew Rice. Now.
First, go read his biography. I was going to try to clip out some pieces of it, but it's just too good. You literally have to read the entire thing, and I want some room for news clippings.
When the New York Times published its "Portrait of Grief" of David, I was too distressed to take it in, but some months later I looked at the newspaper again and was shocked that in that same edition - just six days after the attacks - Vice President Cheney was saying, ‘if you’re against us you’ll feel our wrath’. The nation was in shock, like clay waiting to be moulded, and here were our leaders saying we would rid the world of evil. There was a battle going on inside me - the visceral part was saying ‘we’ll show them’, but the more rational part was saying ‘force won’t help’. Then, as reports of civilian casualties came in from Afghanistan, I found myself getting more and more upset that ordinary people like my brother were losing their lives. When I discovered Peaceful Tomorrows on the Internet, it was a huge relief to realise I wasn’t the only one who thought retribution would get us nowhere.
http://www.theforgivenessproject.com...
Wow, just wow. To go through a loss like that and be able to make such a level-headed, honest assessment such as this, speaks to the kind of character we truly need more of in the United States Senate.
If there's any doubt left in your mind of the empathy this man is capable of expressing, you should check out From Ashes, a documentary directed and produced by Andrew Rice:
Set in Southern India, this is the story of Chris Skill, a convicted murderer and recovering heroin addict who, after five years in prison, won an appeal in the high courts and was released from his life term. Upon finishing his treatment for heroin addiction at a small rehab home in the Southern city of Bangalore, Chris was asked to help out at the poorly staffed AIDS hospice started six months earlier by two of the directors at teh rehab home. When he comes in contact with an HIV positive baby girl, Chris is forced to wrestle with his new-found life as a social worker.
Rice now is the head of the Progressive Alliance Foundation, a non-partisan group that advocates on behalf of initiatives ranging from civil rights to ethical foreign policy. He’s a new dad who traveled the hard road to political involvement, and he argues eloquently in favor of reconciliation. And to pursue a life in public service, Rice left the political haven he found in New York—a blue city in a blue state—for Oklahoma, where he would be in the minority.
Rice made a conscious decision to do important work where he thinks it is truly needed, rather than, as he puts it, "being a progressive activist where we are the majority... in places like New York City or on the West Coast."
http://www.colby.edu/...
This is the kind of man we need to represent Oklahoma. This is the kind of man we need to represent every state, but especially in a "red state" like Oklahoma, God dammit, we need this kind of man!
Rice had found his focus: reconciliation. "It’s a humbling process to see commonality between you and someone who has brought harm to you and your family, but one we must undertake as part of the process of self-introspection," he said. "Introspection is one of the most important and powerful aspects of every religious tradition."
Rice appears to make a genuine attempt to reach across divides. He opposes the war in Iraq and supports the soldiers who fight and die in it. In June 2004, when Michael Moore offered a premiere of his movie Fahrenheit 9/11 as a fund raiser to organizations in 10 cities, Rice’s organization, Progressive Alliance Foundation, was one. At the end of the evening, half of the proceeds were given to military families in Oklahoma affected by the war in Iraq.
The Progressive Alliance Foundation is as widely engaged as its founder. Through planning public forums and brainstorming strategies for communicating policy to Oklahomans, the organization has attracted an impressive roster of speakers that includes Bud Welch, who lost his daughter in the Oklahoma bombing and later befriended the parents of bomber Timothy McVeigh. The group launched the traveling exhibit of the Forgiveness Project in Oklahoma City.
Honestly, I just give up. I don't think you need me to tell you any more, and there's just too much that's good to say about Andrew Rice. He needs your money badly, because Jim Inhofe will not go quietly. But I'm asking you not to think just about who has the best chance of winning, but who deserves to win? Who do we really need in the Senate? Who can we count on to always put his morals before his politics? I don't know him personally, but to me, it sounds like that man is Andrew Rice.
So, to conclude: Donate to Andrew Rice. Now.
I found a good video too: