Earlier today I made the first political contributions of my life (certainly not last). I gave a small amount to my two favorites for the '08 Democratic Primary:

$10.00 - Barack Obama
$10.00 - John Edwards

The first quarter fundraising deadline is approaching this weekend, and candidates are sending our a barrage of emails attempting to squeeze as much cash as possible out of their online supporters. I was originally just going to donate to Edwards, after I was deeply inspired my this campaign video. But, when I was that the Obama campaign has decided to only display the number of donations rather than cash amount raised, it convinced me to donate to them as well.

I'd like to point out that I chose to contribute just $10 for a reason. Of course I could have given much more, but what's important is that I made the donation not how much it was. The Obama camp understands that and that's why they're only displaying the number of donations, with the slogan: You Count. It's about people-powered politics, a movement born in the Dean campaign. In 2003-2004, Dean for America raised tens millions of dollars online from small donors. For the first time in American politics a major presidential campaign was funded not by corporate interests and the wealthy minority, but by average Americans who wanted to see real political change in their country. Dean realized that the only way to run a campaign that isn't beholden to special interests, is to run one financed by the people it aims to help. So: give early, give often, and give small.

Lewis Black on the good news from Iraq.

It is often suggested by the right-wing supporters of this war (a war that has cost almost half a trillion dollars, 3,200 American lives, and at least 59,000 Iraqi lives) that we are fighting them over there, so we don't have to fight them here at home.  That somehow if we left Iraq, the terrorists would follow us back. This is laughable.

First of all, how would they follow us? Would they sneak a ride on a cargo ship? or a magic carpet perhaps? I think not. Also, the Iraq war has been a wonderful thing for Al-Qaeda. Because of it, they are getting more recruits and power than ever before. In fact I would say they are fighting us over there, so that they don't have to come here. Attacking the United States is not an easy thing to do.

We have placed over 140,000, Americans in Iraq, where terrorists can target Americans with relative ease. We aren't only making it easier for terrorist to attack Americans abroad, but if they ever, god forbid, manage to pull off a large scale attack on the United States, who would defend us here? We have sent a major percentage of the national guard to Iraq!

So to recap, the war makes it easier for terrorists to attack Americans, strengthens terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda, and makes us less prepared for an attack at home. But hey, at least Halliburton is making record profits.

Presidential candidate John Edwards announced with his wife this afternoon that the breast caner which she fought off in 2005 has returned. The couple has decided that the '08 campaign will continue.

Statement from John Edwards:
"As you may have heard, yesterday we found out that Elizabeth's breast cancer is back, but confined mainly to her bones. Although this isn't the news we wanted to hear, we are very optimistic. Having been through many struggles together in the past, we know that the key is to keep your head up, keep moving and be strong. And that's exactly what we intend to do."

The once prominent anti-war youth movement Students for a Democratic Society is back. The organization held the very first protest against the Vietnam War in Washington D.C., in April 1965. It has now been brought back to protest the war in Iraq, by two frustrated high school students and a former member now in his late 60s. The complete story of SDS's return was described in detail in this AlterNet article.

I'm not surprised that a well known organization from the Vietnam era has returned to protest Iraq, considering the many parallels between the two conflicts. Obviously the Iraq war is a lot more complicated with so many religious sects and regional powers involved. But, the core argument that Neo-cons spout in favor of prolonging the madness is virtually the same argument used during Vietnam. They claim that if we pull out now the Iraq will fall into complete chaos, which will spread throughout the entire region and threaten America. Of course there is some truth to that, if we pull now Iraq will fall into a worse civil war than its already in right now (a terrible situation that they have put us in). However, the doomsday scenarios are blown way out of proportion. On January 28, 2007, the San Francisco Chronicle published an article titled "Doubt cast on Dire exit scenarios", one of the most important and unnoticed MSM (main stream media) articles written this year. The article casts serious doubt on the Neo-Con's rhetoric about Saudi and Iranian involvement in wake of a hypothetical pullout.

Former Vice President Al Gore, featured in the Oscar winning documentary An Inconvient Truth, testified before the House Science and Technology Committee yesterday. He brought with him boxes upon boxes of messages from 519,414 Americans (including me!) calling on congress to take action to stop the dangerous effects of global warming. Rather than analyze every section of the testimony, I'll let you see the highlights for yourself:

After weeks of front page controversy in the federal prosecutors scandal, Democrats in the House issued subpoenas for top administration officials today. The White House has stated it will not allow the officials to testify, and political showdown between Democrats and Executive Branch looms.

"After two months of stonewalling, shifting stories and misleading testimony, it is clear that we are still not getting the truth about the decision to fire these prosecutors and its cover-up" - (D) Rep. Linda Sanchez

Excerpt from a One Campaign email to supporters:

"Dear Ian,

I'm a third-generation farmer who grows cotton, corn, and a little wheat on 625 acres near Lubbock, Texas. I receive U.S. farm subsidies, but I am writing to ask you to call your senators to help limit subsidies as they are one of the major structural causes of global poverty.

These subsidies have a global impact, undercutting farmers in the developing world and here in the US as large farms can sell their goods at prices lower than the cost of production.

Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Byron Dorgan (D-ND) have introduced an amendment to the budget resolution which would correct many of the problems with these subsidies. They will be voting on the amendment either tonight or tomorrow. Please take a moment to call your senator and ask them to support this amendment.

The bulk of these farm subsidies go to big-business farmers: 2% of farmers receive 35% of the payments. The Grassley-Dorgan amendment would cap subsidies at $250,000 per year, meaning that folks like me would still get the subsidies we need to remain competitive, but big business farmers can't sell at artificially low prices."

Here is a video we made that covers Obama's Oakland rally.

So Ian, Marshall and I went to the big Barack Obama rally in Oakland. There were almost 12,000 people at the event (Merely 2,000 people less than the capital of Greenland. damn, so close.) The event went well. The crowd was enthusiastic, the weather was great and we managed to film some neat footage. Although Barack spoke eloquently, with passion and emotion, he didn't speak about as many raw issues as I would have liked. One part that excited me was when he said there would be universal health care by the end of his first term. He also said he would put an end to the war in Iraq (a war he has never endorsed.)

More Info, and footage, from the event coming soon....

John Edwards is the first democratic candidate with a real detailed universal health care plan. It's not surprising considering that he's had a much longer time to prepare his campaign than any of the other candidates (since the day of his '04 VP loss). Clinton, Obama, and others have also called for universal health care, and I'm expecting them to release their own plans sometime this summer. Meanwhile, Edwards continues to own this issue, and his campaign obviously hopes that it'll help him in Iowa. This following vid is an except from a DVD that the Edwards camp is distributing to Iowa primary voters.

    After weeks of working on site designs and coding, Got Democracy is
officially open for business! (our site designer Marshall is currently
recovering from a web-coding induced stroke)
         
    Got Democracy is a progressive blog written by Barak Wouk (me) and
Ian Magruder. We are both 17 years old and will be voting for the first
time in this upcoming election. We are devoted to spreading the
progressive message on and offline.

    Although officially up, the site is by no means done. We are
planning revolutionary new features such as an about page, categories,
and archives... Also we will introduce a video section of the site, as
soon as Marshall makes a full physiological and psychological recovery
(within a few days.)