YALLA VOTE ‘08 Our Voice. Our Future.

Our Voice. Our Future. Yalla Vote ‘08 Let’s make a pledge to make our voices heard in this election year.

The National Declaration is an important component of this year’s Yalla Vote campaign. Your signature adds the strength of your voice to the thousands of others who want to be sure our community’s concerns and wisdom is heard loud and clear this November. As the nation moves towards this year’s historic elections, we urge you to get involved in the political process and stay informed about the issues. We cannot afford to remain silent. We must make our voices heard this year. We must vote, and we must make our votes count.

Simply click here to sign the declaration and make a pledge to vote with your voice on these critical issues.

Please also download and print a copy of the Yalla Vote National Declaration to distribute at your next gathering, be it at your church, your mosque, or your community center.

Send a link to the declaration directly to five of your friends and family, asking them to consider signing the declaration and upholding its ideals this election year. Copy and paste this into your e-mail message: http://www.aaiusa.org/page/s/YallaVote2008Pet

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Below is the pledge the declaration makes. Please consider adding your name to the thousands of others who believe in these values and will vote their hearts on these issues come November.

At home and abroad, America faces serious challenges. The results of the 2008 presidential election will in large part decide our nation’s future course.

As concerned Americans, here is what we seek in our next president:

At home, we have become increasingly concerned by the loss of civility in our national discourse and the erosion of basic civil liberties.

• We want leadership that builds our national community, promotes respect for all faiths and ethnicities, and recognizes that within our diversity lies our nation’s greatest strength.
• We seek the protection of those fundamental Constitutional freedoms enshrined in the Bill of Rights, and a renewed commitment to the rule of law.

Abroad, we are deeply troubled by the degree to which a unilateral approach has left America more isolated, less respected, and less secure in a changing world.

• We want an American foreign policy that will bring peace, with justice and self-determination to the Palestinians, reconciliation and full sovereignty to Lebanon, and security and an end to the occupation and war for the people of Iraq.
• We want a strong America that leads by example, supporting the implementation of outstanding U.N. Security Council resolutions and complying with international conventions.
• We want a foreign policy that restores America’s image abroad and addresses the root causes of extremism rather than fueling it; a foreign policy that provides for national security by strongly advocating tolerance of ethnic and religious differences, respect for human rights, and freedom from arbitrary violence and oppression—the same American ideals we hold and promote at home.

These are the issues we seek to bring to the national debate and these are the issues on which we will base our vote in 2008.