Happy 4th of July everyone! Earlier this week I started sketching out a blog posting about today about all the people we need to thank for our freedom and independence we first earned 233 years ago.

But I’m currently joining about 650,000 of my fellow Alaskans in processing the puzzling news of our Governor’s resignation and don’t have extra writing capacity at the moment.

Fortunately, President Obama’s Independence Day greeting celebrates many of the qualities of America I intended to highlight today. My favorite line from this speech was:

“We are not a people who fear the future. We are a people who make it.”

Speeches like this remind me of why I voted for President Obama. The proclamations that we should be fearful and rely on the government’s power have been replace with acknowledgment that our “can-do” spirit can overcome serious problems. And that the solutions to our problems will be a group effort with meaningful citizen participation.

Although I have posted the video, I encourage you to read the full transcript.

Happy Fourth of July everyone!

Today is November 3, 2008. Tomorrow is Election Day in these United States of America. Eighteen weeks ago I dedicated myself to giving you a reason a week to vote for Barack Obama for our next President. Today is my last post on this subject.

All of the 17 reason I’m listing at the end of this post are important reasons for voting for Senator Obama. I hope you’ll consider them and if they speak to you, then vote to put Obama in the White House. But if you believe as I do that this country has run off the rails since 2001 under the leadership of President Bush, then you need to vote for Barack Obama. Senator McCain has been promising change. He has been promising reform.

But what change and what reform? What specific things will he do differently from President Bush? I’ve asked that question in this space and other places for almost a year now. And none of my McCain supporting friends (yes, I have some) can give me an answer. Challenges on blogs go unanswered. It seems reasonable to assume McCain is offering us more of the same. Especially when you consider:

• Senator McCain has voted with President Bush’s positions more than 90% of the time in the past several years.
• Tucker Eskew, the man that destroyed McCain in South Carolina in 2000 for the Bush campaign, has been a trusted McCain campaign aid since Labor Day.
• Karl Rove is an active adviser to the McCain campaign.

Same policies, same divisive politics. A Bush third term. Perhaps run more competently, but the same path. If you’ve enjoyed the last eight years and think the country needs nothing more than a few minor tweaks, then please vote for Senator McCain with my full respect. You’ve analyzed what you want and believe that McCain will be faithful to whatever positive aspects of the Bush administration you believe in. I don’t agree with you, but I respect your position.

If the last eight years have left you in dismay; if you believe that the Bush Administration has trashed our military and our reputation on ruinous, optional wars, secret prisons and secret torture; if you believe our liberties have been compromised without increasing our security; if you’re tired of politics that brands dissent as treason, then for all that’s self consistent, vote for Barack Obama as our next President. He has told us how he will be different and change our county’s policies. John McCain has not. If you honestly believe that Eight is Enough, then join me on the path out of our national nightmare and vote Barack Obama for President!

And, just in case you missed any of my other reasons to vote for Obama, here they are. PLEASE READ THEM before voting:

18 Reasons to Vote Obama / 1 – Respect for Others

Reason 2 to Vote Obama: Support Disabled

Reason 3 to Vote Obama: Transparency!

Reason 4 to Vote Obama: He is Pro-Family

Reason 5 to Vote Obama: Better Health Care

Reason 6 to Vote Obama: Better Energy Plans

Reason 7 to Vote Obama: It’s Fiscally Responsible

Reason 8 to Vote Obama: For Hillary Supporters

Reason 9 to Vote Obama: Empathy

Reason 10 to Vote Obama: Better Care for Vets

Reason 11 to Vote Obama: Engage the Country

Reason 12 to Vote Obama: Help Rural America

Reason 13 to Vote Obama: He Understands Technology!

Reason 14 to Vote Obama: Meaningful Homeland Security

Reason 15 to Vote Obama: Ending the Occupation

Reason 16 to Vote Obama: More Effective Military

Reason 17 to Vote Obama: Restore Foreign Policy

Ideally, I’d like to see American foreign policy mostly conformed to what Fareed Zakaria outlined in his book the Post-American World, which envisioned a strong United States successfully managing the “rise of the rest” to remain a leading power and center of innovation and ideals.

Because of this I am voting for Barack Obama for President. While I don’t agree with everything he lays out at http://www.barackobama.com/issues/foreignpolicy/, I believe he lays out a number of ways for us to restore our influence and prestige, including:

• Talk to our Foes and Friends: Obama is willing to meet with the leaders of all nations, friend and foe. He will do the careful preparation necessary, but will signal that America is ready to come to the table, and that he is willing to lead. And if America is willing to come to the table, the world will be more willing to rally behind American leadership to deal with challenges like terrorism, and Iran and North Korea’s nuclear programs.
• Expand our Diplomatic Presence: To make diplomacy a priority, Obama will stop shuttering consulates and start opening them in the tough and hopeless corners of the world – particularly in Africa. He will expand our foreign service, and develop the capacity of our civilian aid workers to work alongside the military.
• Fight Global Poverty: Obama will embrace the Millennium Development Goal of cutting extreme poverty around the world in half by 2015, and he will double our foreign assistance to $50 billion to achieve that goal. He will help the world’s weakest states to build healthy and educated communities, reduce poverty, develop markets, and generate wealth.
• Seek New Partnerships in Asia: Obama will forge a more effective framework in Asia that goes beyond bilateral agreements, occasional summits, and ad hoc arrangements, such as the six-party talks on North Korea. He will maintain strong ties with allies like Japan, South Korea and Australia; work to build an infrastructure with countries in East Asia that can promote stability and prosperity; and work to ensure that China plays by international rules.
• Consultative Group: Obama will convene a bipartisan Consultative Group of leading members of Congress to foster better executive-legislative relations and bipartisan unity on foreign policy. This group will be comprised of the congressional leadership of both political parties, and the chair and ranking members of the Armed Services, Foreign Relations, Intelligence, and Appropriations Committees. This group will meet with the president once a month to review foreign policy priorities, and will be consulted in advance of military action.
• Promote Democracy in Cuba and Throughout the Hemisphere: Barack Obama will support democracy that is strong and sustainable in the day to day lives of the people of the Americas. In the case of Cuba, he will empower our best ambassadors of freedom by allowing unlimited Cuban-American family travel and remittances to the island. Using aggressive and principled bilateral diplomacy he will also send an important message: if a post-Fidel government takes significant steps toward democracy, beginning with freeing all political prisoners, the U.S. is prepared to take steps to normalize relations and ease the embargo that has governed relations between our countries for the last five decades. Throughout the hemisphere, Obama will increase support for the building blocks of durable democracies—strong legislatures, independent judiciaries, free press, vibrant civil society, honest police forces, religious freedom, and the rule of law.

Despite the end of the cold war, nuclear weapons remain an issue. This issue has added urgency when you consider that states like Russia and Pakistan have unsecured nuclear weapons. These are the places where terrorists are likelist to find a weapon for sale — not in countries that are years away from prototypes. Senator Obama understands this, as can be seen on this section of his foreign policy page:

Nuclear Weapons

• A Record of Results: The gravest danger to the American people is the threat of a terrorist attack with a nuclear weapon and the spread of nuclear weapons to dangerous regimes. Obama has taken bipartisan action to secure nuclear weapons and materials:
  1. He joined Senator Dick Lugar in passing a law to help the United States and our allies detect and stop the smuggling of weapons of mass destruction throughout the world.
  2. He joined Senator Chuck Hagel to introduce a bill that seeks to prevent nuclear terrorism, reduce global nuclear arsenals, and stop the spread of nuclear weapons.
  3. And while other candidates have insisted that we should threaten to drop nuclear bombs on terrorist training camps, Obama believes that we must talk openly about nuclear weapons – because the best way to keep America safe is not to threaten terrorists with nuclear weapons, it’s to keep nuclear weapons away from terrorists.
• Secure Loose Nuclear Materials from Terrorists: Obama will secure all loose nuclear materials in the world within four years. While we work to secure existing stockpiles of nuclear material, Obama will negotiate a verifiable global ban on the production of new nuclear weapons material. This will deny terrorists the ability to steal or buy loose nuclear materials.
• Strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: Obama will crack down on nuclear proliferation by strengthening the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty so that countries like North Korea and Iran that break the rules will automatically face strong international sanctions.
• Toward a Nuclear Free World: Obama will set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons, and pursue it. Obama will always maintain a strong deterrent as long as nuclear weapons exist. But he will take several steps down the long road toward eliminating nuclear weapons. He will stop the development of new nuclear weapons; work with Russia to take U.S. and Russian ballistic missiles off hair trigger alert; seek dramatic reductions in U.S. and Russian stockpiles of nuclear weapons and material; and set a goal to expand the U.S.-Russian ban on intermediate- range missiles so that the agreement is global.

There are many challenges in American foreign policy and so there is much more available on Obama’s foreign policy page. Look it over and come back and tell me what you think. If you disagree, great. But tell me why and what you (or your candidate) would do differently. It isn’t enough to be against something, we must be FOR something.

Obama was right when he stated:

This must be the moment when we answer the call of history. For eight years, we have paid the price for a foreign policy that lectures without listening; that divides us from one another – and from the world – instead of calling us to a common purpose; that focuses on our tactics in fighting a war without end in Iraq instead of forging a new strategy to face down the true threats that we face. We cannot afford four more years of a strategy that is out of balance and out of step with this defining moment.”

— Barack Obama, Washington, D.C., July 15, 2008

He has the ideas and energy to do something both different and positive. For this reason alone Barack Obama deserves your vote on November 4, 2008. Or before then if your state has early voting!

What I see as one of America’s biggest problems today is the mismatch between the United State’s military capability and the tasks we set for it. As a result too many servicemembers are seeing third and fourth back to back tours of Iraq, Afghanistan and other global hotspots. This takes an unacceptable toll on our men and women in uniform. Equipment and training also suffer. This needs to change.

If it were me, I would solve this dilemma by scaling back our commitments back down to the level of our military resources. Neither Obama or McCain is proposing this and the very idea is anathema in US politics. We’re “too tough” to take that route. Make no mistake, Obama will continue to use the military as President. He will cooperate with Iraq’s government to end the occupation, but he will redeploy troops to Afghanistan and provide military logistics to Darfur.

What Obama proposes to do, as does McCain, is to expand the US military to try and increase its capabilities to meet the increased demand for their services. This is a self-consistent approach that I can respect. I believe that Obama has the smarter plan to make this happen. Some of his actions items include:

• Rebuild the Military for 21st Century Tasks: As we rebuild our armed forces, we must not simply recreate the military of the Cold War era. Obama believes that we must build up our special operations forces, civil affairs, information operations, and other units and capabilities that remain in chronic short supply; invest in foreign language training, cultural awareness, and human intelligence and other needed counterinsurgency and stabilization skill sets; and create a more robust capacity to train, equip, and advise foreign security forces, so that local allies are better prepared to confront mutual threats.
• Expand to Meet Military Needs on the Ground: Barack Obama supports plans to increase the size of the Army by 65,000 soldiers and the Marines by 27,000 troops. Increasing our end strength will help units retrain and re-equip properly between deployments and decrease the strain on military families.
• Fully Equip Our Troops for the Missions They Face: Barack Obama believes we must get vitally needed equipment to our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines before lives are lost. We cannot repeat such failures as the delays in deployment of armored vehicles, body armor and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles that save lives on the frontlines.
• Ensure Freedom of Space: An Obama administration will restore American leadership on space issues, seeking a worldwide ban on weapons that interfere with military and commercial satellites. He will thoroughly assess possible threats to U.S. space assets and the best options, military and diplomatic, for countering them, establishing contingency plans to ensure that U.S. forces can maintain or duplicate access to information from space assets and accelerating programs to harden U.S. satellites against attack.
• Barack Obama will provide the National Guard with the equipment it needs for foreign and domestic emergencies and time to restore and refit before deploying. He will make the head of the National Guard a member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to ensure concerns of our citizen soldiers reach the level they mandate. He will ensure that reservists and Guard members are treated fairly when it comes to employment, health, and education benefits.

Two other advantages of Obama’s approach to growing the military are:

• Obama is willing pay for his military expansion here and now by allowing some Bush tax cuts to expire. McCain pushes the cost of his expansion onto our children by insisting that we cut taxes while raising defense spending. McCain talks about saving money by eliminating earmarks, but even Citizens Against Government Waste could only identify $17.2B in pork spending in 2008. Cutting this amount would not fund two months of the Iraq Occupation, something which McCain wishes to continue against the desires of the Iraqi people.
• Obama doesn’t place National Missile Defense (NMD) as a cornerstone of his defense policy. He wants to see it proven before deployment and doesn’t want it to divert resources from more critical defense areas. His position likely comes from an understanding that we are more likely to face a nuke in a cargo ship than an missile attack. Missiles can be traced back to their point of origin, leaving little doubt as to responsibility. McCain continues spending in this area, taking away funds that could be used for more servicemembers.

McCain is a veteran. Obama is not. But in terms of rebuilding the nation’s military, Obama has the more specific and better plan of reshaping our armed forces to meet what America has determined to be the threats of this century. That is part of the reason he deserves your vote on November 4th.

One of the first things that attracted me to the candidacy of Senator Obama was his opposition to the Iraq Occupation. We’ve had disagreements — he believes we should make the Iraqis use their surplus to rebuild Iraq and I believe we owe Iraqis reparations for our invasion and our initial failure to secure anything beyond the oil ministry. As the occupying power, we have an obligation to pay for the repairs to bring the country back to its prewar condition. Improvements beyond that are up to a sovereign Iraqi government, but we must fund repairs to that point. It doesn’t matter that the occupied nation can afford it. It is one of the costs of conquering a country in civilized times.

Despite these differences, Senator Obama and I are mostly on the same page. He is also on the same page with the Iraqi people and the government of Iraq, which as of this writing asked us to withdraw all US troops by 2011.
While I would make the case for withdrawing military forces even if they wanted us to stay while they bickered; it is imperative to leave now that we are being asked to by the elected government of Iraq.

Obama understands this. That’s why his plan for Iraq included the following months ago:

A Responsible, Phased Withdrawal

Barack Obama believes we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. Immediately upon taking office, Obama will give his Secretary of Defense and military commanders a new mission in Iraq: ending the war. The removal of our troops will be responsible and phased, directed by military commanders on the ground and done in consultation with the Iraqi government. Military experts believe we can safely redeploy combat brigades from Iraq at a pace of 1 to 2 brigades a month that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 – more than 7 years after the war began.

Under the Obama plan, a residual force will remain in Iraq and in the region to conduct targeted counter-terrorism missions against al Qaeda in Iraq and to protect American diplomatic and civilian personnel. He will not build permanent bases in Iraq, but will continue efforts to train and support the Iraqi security forces as long as Iraqi leaders move toward political reconciliation and away from sectarianism.

Preventing Humanitarian Crisis

Barack Obama believes that America has both a moral obligation and a responsibility for security that demands we confront Iraq’s humanitarian crisis—more than five million Iraqis are refugees or are displaced inside their own country. Obama will form an international working group to address this crisis. He will provide at least $2 billion to expand services to Iraqi refugees in neighboring countries, and ensure that Iraqis inside their own country can find sanctuary. Obama would also work with Iraqi authorities and the international community to hold the perpetrators of potential war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide accountable. He would reserve the right to intervene militarily, with our international partners, to suppress potential genocidal violence within Iraq.

Surging Diplomacy

Barack Obama will launch an aggressive diplomatic effort to reach a comprehensive compact on the stability of Iraq and the region. This effort will include all of Iraq’s neighbors—including Iran and Syria, as suggested by the bi-partisan The Iraq Study Group Report. This compact will aim to secure Iraq’s borders; keep neighboring countries from meddling inside Iraq; isolate al Qaeda; support reconciliation among Iraq’s sectarian groups; and provide financial support for Iraq’s reconstruction and development.

The Status-of-Forces-Agreement

Obama believes any Status of Forces Agreement, or any strategic framework agreement, should be negotiated in the context of a broader commitment by the U.S. to begin withdrawing its troops and forswearing permanent bases. Obama also believes that any security accord must be subject to Congressional approval. It is unacceptable that the Iraqi government will present the agreement to the Iraqi parliament for approval—yet the Bush administration will not do the same with the U.S. Congress. The Bush administration must submit the agreement to Congress or allow the next administration to negotiate an agreement that has bipartisan support here at home and makes absolutely clear that the U.S. will not maintain permanent bases in Iraq.

There is only one major candidate in this race who has pledged to end the occupation of Iraq in accordance with the desires of the Iraqi people. One candidate who understands that as in welfare, an endless blank check to a client state does no favors. That candidate is Barack Obama and I hope you’ll join me in voting for him on November 4th.

Update 10/9/2008 – Link to quoted material provided.

Before I get into reason 14 to vote Obama, a brief plug for the book Edge of Disaster: Rebuilding a Resilient Nation by Stephen Flynn. Flynn is a national security specialist who started out in counterterrorism. Watching the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina convinced him that there were many serious risks to the country and terrorism, while important, wasn’t at the top of the list. The book documents our natural and man-made disasters and how their terrible effects are often amplified by our actions — or negligence. Fortunately there is much we can do do mitigate the effects of nearly anything that happens to us IF the gov’t is willing to treat business and citizens as partners and not spectators in providing security. This book should be first one the new President reads. I hope that man is Barack Obama, but John McCain could learn much from it too! He should read it even if he stays a senator.

Ok. Back to why Homeland Security is an Obama issue. Barack Obama, like Stephen Flynn understands that America faces many risks, and that building resiliency in America will enable us to stand tall no matter what happens. Additionally, he is willing to pay current funds to make the following happen:

Protecting Our Chemical Plants

Chemical plants are attractive terrorist targets because they are often located near cities, are relatively easy to attack, and contain multi-ton quantities of hazardous chemicals. While a number of plants have taken voluntary steps to improve security, there are still major gaps; and the federal government has never established meaningful, permanent security regulations. Senator Obama worked with Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) to introduce comprehensive chemical plant security legislation that would establish a clear set of federal regulations that all plants must follow. The bill requires chemical facilities to enhance security, including improving barriers, containment, mitigation, and safety training, and, where possible, using safer technology, such as less toxic chemicals.

Keeping Track of Spent Nuclear Fuel

The nation has 103 operating nuclear power plants which annually produce over 2,000 metric tons of spent fuel that remains highly radioactive for many years. A report by the Government Accountability Office found inadequate tracking and security for spent nuclear fuel rods. Nuclear plants in Connecticut, Vermont and California have reported missing spent fuel in the last five years. Senator Obama introduced legislation to establish guidelines for tracking, controlling, and accounting for spent fuel at nuclear power plants.

Evacuating Special Needs Population in Emergencies

One of the most devastating aspects of Hurricane Katrina is that most of the stranded victims were society’s most vulnerable members – low-income families, the elderly, the homeless, and disabled Americans. Too many states and cities do not have adequate plans in place to care for special-needs populations. Senator Obama introduced and passed legislation to require mandatory planning for evacuating people with special needs.

Reuniting Families After Emergencies

After Hurricane Katrina, thousands of people struggled to contact family and friends following evacuation. Evacuees were forced to comb through dozens of databases in an effort to reconnect with loved ones. Senator Obama introduced and passed legislation to create a centralized, federal database to allow individuals displaced by an emergency to call one phone number or go to one website and post their location and condition. Family members and law enforcement officials would be able to use this same secure, centralized system to check the status of missing loved ones.

Keeping Our Drinking Water Safe

There are almost 170,000 public water systems in the United States. An attack on a drinking water system could contaminate or disrupt water service, thereby disrupting society, impacting human health and compromising critical activities such as fire protection. Senator Obama introduced legislation to provide $37.5 million over 5 years for drinking water systems to upgrade their monitoring and security efforts.

Source: http://origin.barackobama.com/issues/homeland_security/

If we want to secure our country, we must understand the real levels of risks and how to appropriately defend against them. We can’t hype one risk that’s politically useful at election time, but won’t directly harm most Americans while ignoring risks that put millions at risk every year. Barack Obama understands this and that’s why he deserves your vote on November 4th.

My “Baker’s Dozenth” reason for you to vote for Barack Obama on November 4th is because America needs a President (and a Congress!) that really understands technology and the internet. We need informed policy on the internet and other technology from people who are comfortable with it. Senator Obama understands both the risks and benefits from our digital world. He has specific plans to amplify the benefits and minimize the risks. Some of his specific proposals include:

• Protect the Openness of the Internet [Net Neutrality]: A key reason the Internet has been such a success is because it is the most open network in history. It needs to stay that way. Barack Obama strongly supports the principle of network neutrality to preserve the benefits of open competition on the Internet. Users must be free to access content, to use applications, and to attach personal devices. They have a right to receive accurate and honest information about service plans. But these guarantees are not enough to prevent network providers from discriminating in ways that limit the freedom of expression on the Internet. Because most Americans only have a choice of only one or two broadband carriers, carriers are tempted to impose a toll charge on content and services, discriminating against websites that are unwilling to pay for equal treatment. This could create a two-tier Internet in which websites with the best relationships with network providers can get the fastest access to consumers, while all competing websites remain in a slower lane. Such a result would threaten innovation, the open tradition and architecture of the Internet, and competition among content and backbone providers. It would also threaten the equality of speech through which the Internet has begun to transform American political and cultural discourse. Barack Obama supports the basic principle that network providers should not be allowed to charge fees to privilege the content or applications of some web sites and Internet applications over others. This principle will ensure that the new competitors, especially small or non-profit speakers, have the same opportunity as incumbents to innovate on the Internet and to reach large audiences. Obama will protect the Internet’s traditional openness to innovation and creativity and ensure that it remains a platform for free speech and innovation that will benefit consumers and our democracy.
• Open Up Government to its Citizens: The Bush Administration has been one of the most secretive, closed administrations in American history. Our nation’s progress has been stifled by a system corrupted by millions of lobbying dollars contributed to political campaigns, the revolving door between government and industry, and privileged access to inside information-all of which have led to policies that favor the few against the public interest. An Obama presidency will use cutting-edge technologies to reverse this dynamic, creating a new level of transparency, accountability and participation for America’s citizens. Technology-enabled citizen participation has already produced ideas driving Obama’s campaign and its vision for how technology can help connect government to its citizens and engage citizens in a democracy. Barack Obama will use the most current technological tools available to make government less beholden to special interest groups and lobbyists and promote citizen participation in government decision-making.
• The CTO will also ensure technological interoperability of key government functions. For example, the Chief Technology Officer will oversee the development of a national, interoperable wireless network for local, state and federal first responders as the 9/11 commission recommended. This will ensure that fire officials, police officers and EMTs from different jurisdictions have the ability to communicate with each other during a crisis and we do not have a repeat of the failure to deliver critical public services that occurred in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
• Deploy Next-Generation Broadband: Barack Obama believes that America should lead the world in broadband penetration and Internet access. As a country, we have ensured that every American has access to telephone service and electricity, regardless of economic status, and Obama will do likewise for broadband Internet access. Full broadband penetration can enrich democratic discourse, enhance competition, provide economic growth, and bring significant consumer benefits. Moreover, improving our infrastructure will foster competitive markets for Internet access and services that ride on that infrastructure. Obama believes we can get true broadband to every community in America through a combination of reform of the Universal Service Fund, better use of the nation’s wireless spectrum, promotion of next-generation facilities, technologies and applications, and new tax and loan incentives.
• Invest in Climate-Friendly Energy Development and Deployment: Barack Obama knows that we need to rely on technology to help solve the critical energy and environmental problems facing this country. As he announced in his energy policy, Barack Obama will invest $150 billion over the next ten years to enable American engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs to advance the next generation of biofuels and fuel infrastructure, accelerate the commercialization of plug-in hybrids, promote development of commercial-scale renewable energy, and begin the transition to a new digital electricity grid. This investment will transform the economy and create millions of new jobs.

There is more at his technology page at http://www.barackobama.com/issues/technology/. Please read through it. Since you’re reading a blog, I know you’re interested web technologies. Vote for Barack Obama and informed candidates for Congress on November 4th and we’ll continue to have means to reap the most benefit from the internet and other 21st Century technologies.

I live in Juneau, Alaska. The population is a little over 30,000. As a native of Los Angeles, Juneau feels kinda of rural to me every once in awhile, even after ten years. But the truth is that Juneau is the third largest city in Alaska. Many, many towns and villages in Alaska have populations under 1,000 people and are truly rural. You can explore different aspects of Alaska’s population through our Dept of Labor’s Research and Analysis Division’s Alaska Population Page.  These communities, and to a lesser extent, Juneau share concerns with rural areas in the Lower 49 – left behind on internet bandwith, high energy costs, few jobs, etc. Unlike the 1960s, America now has the technology to alleviate many of these problems IF we have the will. Additionally around the country it seems like family farms have been gobbled up by agribusiness in a capitalistic process of collectivization. More of the same failed policies of the last eight years won’t help.

If you’ve been watching this space, then you know that Senator Barack Obama has a plan to help rural areas of the country. Some of the things he’d try to enact with Congress include:

• Connect Rural America: Barack Obama will ensure that rural Americans have access to a modern communications infrastructure. He will modernize an FCC program that supports rural phone service so that it promotes affordable broadband coverage across rural America as well.
• Promote Leadership in Renewable Energy: Obama will ensure that our rural areas continue their leadership in the renewable fuels movement. This will transform the economy, especially in rural America, which is poised to produce and refine more American biofuels and provide more wind power than ever before, and create millions of new jobs across the country.
• Improve Health Care: Rural health care providers often get less money from Medicare and Medicaid for the very same procedure performed in urban areas. Obama will work to ensure a more equitable Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement structure. He will attract providers to rural America by creating a loan forgiveness program for doctors and nurses who work in underserved rural areas. He supports increasing rural access to care by promoting health information technologies like telemedicine.
• Prevent Anticompetitive Behavior Against Family Farms: Obama is a strong supporter of a packer ban. When meatpackers own livestock they can manipulate prices and discriminate against independent farmers. Obama will strengthen anti-monopoly laws and strengthen producer protections to ensure independent farmers have fair access to markets, control over their production decisions, and transparency in prices.
• Strong Safety Net for Family Farmers: Obama will fight for farm programs that provide family farmers with stability and predictability. Obama will implement a $250,000 payment limitation so that we help family farmers — not large corporate agribusiness. Obama will close the loopholes that allow mega farms to get around the limits by subdividing their operations into multiple paper corporations.

There’s more to his plan, and I encourage you to read more at http://www.barackobama.com/issues/rural/.

Alaskans by nature are dreamers. Often big dreamers. One of my dreams is to see a state with a robust, cheap supply of electricity from Alaska’s many renewable resources that is combined with Internet 2 like connection speeds. That would allow us to move from being hostage to commodity prices to becoming the next silicon glen. Or would it be silicon tundra? Either way we’d be making ourselves economically sustainable in an environmentally friendly way while helping keeping America on the technological edge. If you vote for Barack Obama on November 4th along with a willing Congress, you can make that happen for Alaska and many other rural areas.

Last week, Senator McCain and Senator Obama put politics aside to speak at a September 11th forum on national service. Since national service is in the news, it seems like a good time to highlight Obama’s plans to expand opportunities for people to make a difference in their communities, their country and the world at large:

• Expand Corporation for National and Community Service: Obama will expand AmeriCorps from 75,000 slots today to 250,000 and he will focus this expansion on addressing the great challenges facing the nation. He will establish a Classroom Corps to help teachers and students, with a priority placed on underserved schools; a Health Corps to improve public health outreach; a Clean Energy Corps to conduct weatherization and renewable energy projects; a Veterans Corps to assist veterans at hospitals, nursing homes and homeless shelters; and a Homeland Security Corps to help communities plan, prepare for and respond to emergencies.
• Engage Retiring Americans in Service on a Large Scale: Older Americans have a wide range of skills and knowledge to contribute. Obama will expand and improve programs that connect individuals over the age of 55 to quality volunteer opportunities.
• Expand the Peace Corps: Obama will double the Peace Corps to 16,000 by 2011. He will work with the leaders of other countries to build an international network of overseas volunteers so that Americans work side-by-side with volunteers from other countries.
• Show the World the Best Face of America: Obama will set up an America’s Voice Initiative to send Americans who are fluent speakers of local languages to expand our public diplomacy. He also will extend opportunities for older individuals such as teachers, engineers, and doctors to serve overseas.

Integrate Service into Learning

• Expand Service-Learning in Our Nation’s Schools: Obama will set a goal that all middle and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year. He will develop national guidelines for service- learning and will give schools better tools both to develop programs and to document student experience. Green Job Corps: Obama will create an energy-focused youth jobs program to provide disadvantaged youth with service opportunities weatherizing buildings and getting practical experience in fast-growing career fields.
• Expand YouthBuild Program: Obama will expand the YouthBuild program, which gives disadvantaged young people the chance to complete their high school education, learn valuable skills and build affordable housing in their communities. He will grow the program so that 50,000 low-income young people a year a chance to learn construction job skills and complete high school.
• Require 100 Hours of Service in College: Obama will establish a new American Opportunity Tax Credit that is worth $4,000 a year in exchange for 100 hours of public service a year.
• Promote College Serve-Study: Obama will ensure that at least 25 percent of College Work-Study funds are used to support public service opportunities instead of jobs in dining halls and libraries.

Invest in the Nonprofit Sector

• Social Investment Fund Network: Obama will create a Social Investment Fund Network to use federal seed money to leverage private sector funding to improve local innovation, test the impact of new ideas and expand successful programs to scale.

Social Entrepreneurship Agency for Nonprofits: Barack Obama will a create an agency within the Corporation for National and Community Service dedicated to building the capacity and effectiveness of the nonprofit sector.

The above is just a summary. There is a nine page plan linked from Obama’s website.

What I especially like about these plans is how they tie into other important issues. The Clean Energy Corps proposal ties into his plans for freeing America from dependence on foreign oil. The Classroom Corps would directly tie into his education plans. The America’s Voice Initiative ties into his ideas on foreign policy AND helps fight the stereotype that all Americans are monolingual.

This isn’t proposing make-work, this is harnessing the energy and enthusiasm of Americans to help meet very real needs. It is a concrete form of patriotism much more important than wearing a flag pin. It is a love of country that builds the nation. And that’s what I want to see blossom next January. If you agree, vote for Barack Obama for President on November 4th.

No matter your stance on the Iraq Occupation, we all agree that all servicemembers deserve the best care and full benefits once they become veterans. Sadly, this isn’t happening. The Government Accountability Office has 98 reports on problems in veteran care going back to 2003, the start of the Iraq war.

Our next President needs to fix these problems to the satisfaction of our veterans. That’s only right after they’ve made the sacrifices we’ve asked of them AND because the Iraq Occupation is not only unwanted by Iraqis, but has generated over 30,000 wounded, with almost half unable to return to duty.

Barack Obama has some ideas on how to fix our troubled VA system. Some of them include:

• Allow All Veterans Back into the VA: One of Obama’s first acts will be reversing the 2003 ban on enrolling modest-income veterans, which has denied care to a million veterans.
• Fully Fund VA Medical Care: Barack Obama will fully fund the VA so it has all the resources it needs to serve the veterans who need it, when they need it. Obama will establish a world-class VA Planning Division to avoid future budget shortfalls.
• Fix the Benefits Bureaucracy: Obama will hire additional claims workers, and improve training and accountability so that VA benefit decisions are rated fairly and consistently. He also will transform the paper benefit claims process to an electronic one to reduce errors and improve timeliness.
• Expand Vet Centers: Obama will expand and strengthen Vet Centers to provide more counseling for vets and their families.
• Improve Mental Health Treatment: Obama will improve mental health care at every stage of military service. He will recruit more health professionals, improve screening, offer more support to families and make PTSD benefits claims fairer.

And he has some accomplishments in this area to point at:

Record of Advocacy: As a member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Obama passed legislation to improve care and slash red tape for our wounded warriors recovering at places like Walter Reed. He passed laws to help homeless veterans and offered an innovative solution to prevent at-risk veterans from falling into homelessness. Obama led a bipartisan effort in the Senate to try to halt the military’s unfair practice of discharging service members for having a service-connected psychological injury. He fought for fair treatment of Illinois veterans’ claims and forced the VA to conduct an unprecedented outreach campaign to disabled veterans with lower than-average benefits. Obama passed legislation to stop a VA review of closed PTSD cases that could have led to a reduction in veterans’ benefits. He passed an amendment to ensure that all service members returning from Iraq are properly screened for traumatic brain injuries. He introduced legislation to direct the VA and Pentagon to fix disjointed records systems and improve outreach to members of the National Guard and Reserves.

Additionally, he is viewed more favorably by veterans rights groups than John McCain, as reported by Project Vote Smart (PVS). Obama was rated 80% by Disabled Veterans of America in 2006 and 92% in 2005. Additionally, according to PVS, “in 2006 Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America gave Senator Obama a grade of B+.”

We need to do more than talk about supporting veterans. We need to support veterans. And as President, Barack Obama will.