Latest news

Full text of Barack Obama's speech
November 4, 2008

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

Well, the pundits were wrong. White voters didn't change their minds in the voting booth. Barack Obama's victory proves that some analysts gave too much weight to race, not only in gauging today's opinions but also in judging how the American people's attitudes have been taking shape for decades.

On Nov. 4, 2008, it happened — Barack Obama became our first African American president. What an historic moment this is. A nation that held people of African descent in bondage for 300 years and denied them rights of citizenship under Jim Crow for a century more has elected a Black president. It doesn’t get any more historic than that.

1. The world is quite likely on the brink of a global depression. “Free market” economic policies are the key to understanding this crisis. Barack Obama has rejected these policies. John McCain now blames individuals, greedy Wall Street executives, even Bush, to hide his complicity and support for these policies, while offering the same economic policies Bush pushed for the past eight years. We are early in the crisis. Electing Obama can be like electing Franklin Roosevelt in 1930, not 1932. Electing McCain will be like electing Herbert Hoover in 1930, not 1928, something that no rational electorate would do.

RICHMOND, Va. — Members of more than a dozen AFL-CIO unions packed the Communications Workers Local 2201 union hall here, Nov. 2, divided up into 30 teams and fanned out across north Richmond to get out the vote for Barack Obama.

CHICAGO (AP) — Studs Terkel captured the essence of Chicago in the pages of his best-selling oral histories, chronicling common people and celebrities alike.

OAKLAND, Calif. — Bright purple tee-shirts filled the plaza at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center here Oct. 29, as striking health care workers gathered to demand the highly profitable company improve staffing levels, stop contracting work out and drop proposed takeaways in the contract they have been negotiating since May.

Barack Obama has correctly reminded his supporters and staff not to get cocky, to remember the lessons of his New Hampshire primary loss. Nothing can be taken for granted, especially in the era of Republican voter suppression efforts, scurrilous robo-calls, and escalating ultra-right racism and desperation.

QUEENS, N.Y. — A major shift in the politics of New York state may be under way, and a local state senate race here may play a big part.