(Akiit.com) President Barack Obama must immediately undertake four priorities if he is going to fulfill his promise of changing this nation from the downward economic and social spiral which Bush administration policies, Wall Street greed and neo-conservative war mongering set in motion.

Priority #1 - End the unnecessary, immoral and illegal (under-international-law) war in Iraq. Within the next year, take the more than $10 billion a month being spent on that disastrous war and return it to America to be used for the benefit of struggling American citizens, especially those currently faced with the prospect of losing their homes.

Priority #2 - Use some of the Iraq war funds to launch a 10-year, $50 billion per year economic development program designed to revitalize inner city America. The inner cities can only be saved with a massive infusion of capital which builds businesses (especially minority owned), creates descent-paying manufacturing jobs and rewards promising teachers and students for academic success.

Priority #3 - Repeal President Bush’s tax cuts for the rich and re-direct that money to provide tax relief to the middle classes. Poverty increased during virtually every year of the Bush administration and the income/wealth gaps between the rich and the middle classes also increased. According to a United Nations report released last month, America has one of the most unequal distributions of wealth in the world. This must end.

Supply-side economic policies which say make the rich richer and maybe some of that wealth will “trickle down” to the rest of us must be abandoned.

Priority #4 -Avoid any more unnecessary wars. Resist all pressure to go war with Iran. We are told Iran is trying to develop a nuclear weapon. Even if we are being told the truth by the same people who lied about weapons of mass destruction being in Iraq, so what?

The United States has an estimated 5,000 nuclear warheads. According to former President Jimmy Carter, Israel has 300 nuclear weapons. But we are told if Iran gets just one nuclear weapon within the next 5 to 10 years, it is a threat to Israel and we may have to go to war with Iran in order to protect Israel. This argument is absolutely ridiculous. Israel is actually a greater threat to Iran than Iran is to Israel. No more wars!
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(Akiit.com) To my delight it has come true, as Sen. Barack Obama shall be our 44th president… It’s nice to see how far we have come as a nation… Now living in harmony, and so on… Our forefathers would be proud… Anyway I need to go shopping soon, but for some reason can’t remember where Jones Clothing Store is located… Need to find it, as I do know it’s near some steel buildings just around Adams Street… Oh well, I can’t believe Hotmail upgraded its look… Hard for me to read my email now, etc… Thanks alot Microsoft but I will continue to use their free email service…

Written By CTA

(Akiit.com) “I never thought I’d live to see the day.”
How often have you heard that expression in the aftermath of Barack Obama’s victory in Tuesday’s presidential election? And I think it’s safe to say it was uttered as often in the Stamford area as it was in Biloxi, Miss. or Birmingham, Ala.

In my own case, as I said to my wife the morning after the election, “I’ve never been so proud to an American.” And that includes a period of time when, as a boy, I was thrilled by the Allied victory over Germany and Japan in World War II and later by my own two years of service in the U.S. Navy.

Even after Martin Luther King’s ascendance and magnificent “I Have A Dream Speech” in 1965, nowhere in the country did anyone think it possible that even 40 years after Dr. King’s assassination a black man would be elected president. As a reporter for ABC News and later CBS News, I got to know Dr. King quite well, and never, while covering many of his talks, did I ever hear him predict that some- day America would have a black president.

Growing up in Stamford in the 1940s and ’50s, I remember a city where, as I recall, there were no black teachers, only a few black policemen, no black firemen and few if any blacks on city boards or holding any high-level positions in city government or in the private sector. Moreover, most Stamford High School sports teams were all-white (as were almost all of the students), including basketball teams I played on. Indeed, almost all sports teams from Little
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(Akiit.com) WASHINGTON (AFP) — US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday called President-elect Barack Obama “inspirational,” saying his election marked “an extraordinary step forward” for race relations.

Rice, the first black woman to serve as the nation’s top diplomat, told reporters she was filled with pride to see Obama elected America’s first African American president, even if they belong to opposing political parties.

“This was an exercise in American democracy of which Americans across the political spectrum are justifiably proud,” Rice told reporters as she prepared to travel to the Middle East.

She praised her fellow Republican John McCain, a 72-year-old white senator from Arizona, as “gracious” in his defeat to Obama, a 47-year-old Democrat and first-term senator from Illinois.

Rice also called McCain a “great patriot” for his days as a Navy pilot who was shot down and seriously wounded during the Vietnam war.

“I want to note that president-elect Obama was inspirational and I’m certain he will continue to be,” she said, vowing she and her State Department will do everything possible to ensure a “smooth transition” to an Obama administration which assumes power January 20.

“But one of the great things about representing this country is that it continues to surprise, it continues to renew itself, it continues to beat all odds and expectations,” Rice said.

“You just know that Americans are not going to be satisfied until they really do form that perfect union,” Rice said alluding to a phrase in the US constitution.

Closing on what she called a “personal note,” she said she was “especially proud” as an African American.

Obama’s election was “obviously an extraordinary step forward” on the nation’s “long journey” of overcoming the pain of the past and “making race not the factor in our lives,” Rice told reporters.
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(Akiit.com) Sometimes when you are in the midst of watching an historic event unfold, you don’t know what or how to feel, such was the case for me as I watched the culmination of what was nothing short of miraculous, an African-American male became the 44th president of the United States. As the build up to the election approached I could not help but think of how men like D.W. Griffith (Birth of a Nation) must be turning in their graves at what is taking place in their beloved country, while the restless souls of the thousands of nameless people who lost their lives during the middle passage to this country in cargo ships, discarded overboard like trash, those souls of individuals who did nothing wrong except be born with the wrong skin color and were hung from trees or the internal and external wounds inflicted on the freedom riders, how they must have danced and shouted at this monumental occurrence.

In between answering the barrage of text messages I received from my athletes, friends, and family my feelings were put on ice, I wish there was something in me that could produce tears of gladness, but alas there were none, there was just this sense of surreal numbness and a discreet pessimistic eye watching the TV screen as the poll numbers kept streaming by, I was anticipating something or someone to come in and pull the plug on the entire festive moment, any moment someone was going to come on the air and say” wait a minute we have a recall or large numbers of voter fraud have been discovered” the next president elect is not Barack but John McCain.
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