Vote for Barack Obama

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Vote for Barack Obama
by Marguerite "Ezili Danto" Laurent
Sunday Feb 3rd, 2008 3:16 PM

Ezili's HLLN endorses Barack Obama

Standing on truth, living without fear - Supporting Barack Obama's vision of what can be...

Ezili Danto Note:

Haitians must believe they can overcome the odds to succeed.

And, success, some say, is not determined by the cards you are dealt in life, but how you play them.

That is why, playing the cards dealt, HLLN wants to use this occasion to urge support for Barack Obama for President.

We endorse Obama because he is the least vested in the Washington political ruling hierarchy.

We endorse Obama because of his courage, empathy, ethics, charisma, remarkable personal journey and, most decidedly because of his stated stances on immigration, the war in Iraq, health care, education, worker's rights, reforming the criminal justice system, repairing the environment and against corporate welfare and subsidies.

Why?

Because we Haitians are in the furnace of that "hope, possibility and change" that didn't bring us any change, but have Haitians eating all manners of dirt to survive - suffering occupation, hunger, misery, rape, torture, indefinite detention and slaughter.

For, President Rene Preval unfortunately has been nothing if not a tool of the status quo - of empire, endless debt, militarization, privatization and deep corporate greed - in Haiti.

Yet, at the time he came along, there was no other viable choice for the people of Haiti.

Same I think today with the US and the choice of Barack Obama.

It may all turn out that Obama's offer of "hope, possibility and change" ends up looking like President Rene Preval's "HOPE" because the good old boy's network is too evil to be challenged by good people.

It could well turn out that Barack Obama, like Rene Preval who first got permission to run for President not from the old civil rights guards but from the old US guards looking to stem the deadly damage and hatreds lifted up by Empire's shock and awe regime changes, will also become for the US, like Rene Preval in Haiti, the "best face" on US imperialism.

Still, what choices do we have?

Paralysis, cynicism and impasse are for neophytes.

The NAFTA-Clintons are not a change from yesterday.

Not for the poor and jobless in the U.S. Not for the "tan" women of Juarez, Mexico, nor the Black women of Ouanaminthe, Haiti, - all, tossed around by NAFTA employers like so much garbage.

No tenable choice exist with the remaining status quo candidates so vested in the Washington system that vies to exterminate equal division of resources, equal access, treatment, the poor's rights and decent folks' soul and humanity, globally.

Barack Obama has no dynasty, no monarch, no oil interests to protect and extend.

Not yet. He may do more for the abandoned poor in New Orleans and he seems to embrace, not what the United State is, but a vision of what the U.S. can be.

So, this may be the only time, before he's more vested in Washington's system that with a massive people-push and his sheer vision, determination and clear, un-compromised conscience he could help catapult the strong but beaten down and nearly invisible collective U.S. wish to be what we say we are, and herald in an unexpected quantum leap for the US citizenry, and therefore the planet.

A leap towards more decency and civility, away from profit-over-people values.

Either way, this is the moment for action.

Not debate.

After Super Tuesday, it won't take much courage to support Barack Obama.

So today, when silence could mean indecision, defeatism, fear, complicity or cynicism, we speak to formalize the grassroots work we've done outside the public eye, making public HLLN's support for Senator Barack Obama for president of the United States.

People know us at Ezili's HLLN for our regular collaboration with an international network of folks well educated in the pain, misery and suffering wrought on by constant U.S. government duplicity abroad and at home, and its grand tradition of promoting death and deceit under the guise of extending equity, democracy, generosity and humanitarian help. But today, at this historic moment, despite knowing full well the shams involved in the US electoral process, we are standing on truth, living without fear to endorse the only people's candidate remaining in this election.

HLLN endorses Barack Obama and Michelle Obama to help lead the US towards a more civilized, peaceful tomorrow and authentic change that would bring prosperity and opportunities for all.

We thank HLLN members who've participated in our private forums debating this matter and acknowledge the large percentage of our folks who contend that Obama has done nothing good for Haiti so far and that, if elected, Barack Obama will just be the new black face of U.S. imperialism, terror, increased repression, and therefore will end up exacerbating and further retarding the struggle for grass-roots, bottoms-up, revolutionary change, worldwide.

But the HLLN consensus is to go with Barack Obama.

So, we respectfully ask all who are going to the polls this Tuesday, to join us. Listen, not to your fears, but to the silent screams of the disenfranchised women on this planet wishing an end to senseless wars, hunger, rape, death and misery.

Vote for Barack Obama.

(The Obamas have no assassination fear -

Marguerite "Ezili Danto" Laurent, Esq.
Founder and Chair, Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network ("HLLN")
February 2, 2008
erzilidanto [at] yahoo.com
ezilidanto.com
margueritelaurent.com/law/lawpr...

Zodevan, February 16 2008, 11:38 PM

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