It Is Time To Speak Up and Speak Out Loudly and Forcefully!

Thanks to Mick Gallagher.

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I will now shut up & sit down, for I am incapable of not losing my temper when discussing the hate & lies propagated over "our public airwaves." Yes, there are 'free speech' arguments here. But free "hate" speech? Where is the fcc?!

The latest tragedy involving the massive weaponry owned by Americans involves the sad low point of the 3 Pittsburgh Police officers gunned down there by a young man, who lost his job, and also 'thought' the Obama administration was going to take all his guns, including the AK47 he used to kill. And would the police officers [take away forcefully his rifles?] [This is]a threat used by the right for twenty-five to
thirty-five yrs!

Now where did he get this idea? Well, it's been the latest in a long line of rumors/threats from the GOP, RNC Neocon's through corporate rightwing media-- which millions listen to every day, and believe all that they hear as if it's Gospel Truth.

Perhaps they confused this administrations desire for a reduction in nuclear weapons... and the reigning in of roguestates.

But we all need to sit down, take some time to have a short, concise, rational letter to an editor written soon. This nonsense has gone on for too long!

During the [2008 Presidential] Campaign, they spewed hate & lies towards Obama, with threats about assassination, [and that] the blacks would riot, if they didn't get their way. The [rightwingers] used every hateful, incendiary, inflammatory lie they could to try to defeat the positive changes we desperately need, and [which] the world awaits. I also suggest the call in comment lines on C-SPAN, MSNBC, CNN, RUSH,
O'REILLY, SEAN HANNITY(FOX),etc. Those rightwing shows rarely get calls from intelligent liberals [progressives], maybe because we are not confrontational in general. But we need to speak up strongly & forcefully now--to set the record straight, once again! Please call in lines to newspapers too. When we don't speak up, it is taken as weakness, and [in some cases,] it is true. This "new," different guy is "rushing socialism and massive guncontrol." [The same policies were interpreted very differently] when they were [suggested by] the neoconmen bankers, etc, along with the bush Cabal's "free for all" de-regulation legislation to grease the skids of cronie unbridled capitalism.

Once again, as when Clinton came in, we have to clean up. [The economy, military, foreign policy, and government are]a real, real mess-- not imagined. I know the Fed reserve Rueben, Summers, Greenspan were fully in charge during the time of bush; and they're still there!
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US-Israeli Interactions

Thanks to Mick Gallagher.

US-Israeli Interactions
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www.uruknet.info [51986]
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U.S.-Israel Storm Clouds Ahead?

February 20, 2009

After eight years of the closest possible relations, the United States and Israel might be headed for a period of increasing strain, particularly given the likelihood that whatever Israeli government emerges from last week's election will be more hawkish than its predecessor.
While Iran, with which Barack Obama has pledged to engage in a "constructive dialogue," and the future of its nuclear program, will no doubt serve as the greatest source of tension between the two allies, the new president's commitment to achieving real progress on a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict might also provoke serious friction, particularly if a reunified Arab League launches a major new push for its 2002 peace plan.
Last week's election produced a clear majority for right-wing parties led by the Likud Party of former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who has repeatedly declared his opposition to a settlement freeze, territorial concessions, and the creation of a viable Palestinian state.
Even if the more-centrist Kadima leader, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, can patch together a government of national unity, the right-wing parties will be able to effectively block major concessions in any peace talks, in the absence of any external pressure.
"Given the philosophical differences between Kadima and Likud on peace issues, such a unity-government would be hard-pressed to make the historic decisions needed to reach a deal with the Palestinians," wrote former U.S. Mideast peace negotiator, Aaron David Miller, in the Jewish Forward this week.
But Obama and his Mideast special envoy, former Sen. George Mitchell, might indeed be willing to exert pressure on Israel, among other things, by tabling their own views about a final peace agreement and how precisely it might be achieved, especially if ongoing Arab efforts to reconcile Hamas and Fatah in a new coalition government succeed.
If all goes well on that front, the Arab League, fortified by a developing rapprochement between Syria and Saudi Arabia, could announce the latest version of its 2002 peace plan at next month's summit in Doha, according to Marc Lynch, a George Washington University specialist on Arab politics. Such a move "could galvanize the situation and put the onus on whatever Israeli government emerges to respond positively," he wrote on his widely read blog on the Foreign Policy Website this week.
"If you have a unified Palestinian government and a unified Arab move for peace," added Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator, "then it's much more likely that Obama will step up his own efforts, ideally, working with an Israeli government that's ready to go along with a serious peace process, but, if not, being willing to make his disagreement (with that government) known."
The result could be a serious test between the next Israeli government and its influential advocates here and an administration which clearly believes that real progress toward resolving the 60-year-old conflict is critical both to restoring Washington's credibility among the Arab states and curbing the further radicalization of the region's population, particularly in the wake of Israel's recent military offensive in Gaza.
A more likely source of tension between the U.S. and Israel, however, will be Iran's nuclear program.
"Iran is going to be the most likely issue on which Israel and the United States will have a serious difference of opinion, if not a confrontation, in the next year," warned former U.S. Ambassador Samuel Lewis after the election last week.
Although Netanyahu has been the most outspoken, virtually the entire Israeli political and military establishment has described Iran's alleged nuclear ambitions as an "existential" threat to the Jewish state; [they have] suggested that Israel should be prepared unilaterally to attack Tehran's key nuclear facilities as early as within the next year if it cannot persuade Washington to do so.
Already last year, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert asked bush for bunker-busting bombs, refueling capacity, and permission to fly over Iraq for an attack on Iran, according to a new book by New York Times correspondent David Sanger, entitled "Inheritance."
That request was strongly opposed by Pentagon chief Robert Gates, who has been retained by Obama, and ultimately rejected by bush. According to bush's former top Middle East aide, Elliott Abrams, bush, who almost never denied the Israelis anything, was worried that any attack on Iran risked destabilizing Iraq.
While the violence in Iraq has continued to decline, U.S. military commanders insist that stability there remains "fragile," so that bush's concerns about the implications for Iraq of a U.S. or Israeli attack on Iran are likely to be shared by Obama.
Even more important, however, is the new administration's conviction that Afghanistan and Pakistan, which, like Iraq, also border Iran, constitute the true "central front in the war on terror," an assessment backed up by Obama's announcement this week that he will deploy 17,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan over the next few months, bringing total U.S. and NATO troop strength there to 80,000.
Top U.S. civilian and military officials dealing with "AfPak," as the new administration has dubbed the two countries, have made clear that they hope to enlist Iran, with which Washington cooperated in ousting the Taliban in 2001, in helping to stabilize Afghanistan.
"It is absolutely clear that Iran plays an important role in Afghanistan," Obama's special "Afpak" envoy, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, said in Kabul earlier this week in an interview during which he pointedly declined to repeat bush administration charges that Tehran was aiding the Taliban. "[Iran has] a legitimate role to play in this region, as do all of Afghanistan's neighbors," he insisted.
Most regional specialists, including Bruce Riedel, who co-chairs the White House's "AfPak" policy review, and John Brennan, Obama's top counter-terrorism adviser, have long argued that Iran's cooperation would make Washington's effort to stabilize the region and ultimately defeat al Qaeda markedly easier; conversely, its active opposition, as in Iraq, is likely to make the task considerably more difficult.
That assessment has, if anything, gained strength in just the past few weeks as Washington has scrambled to secure new supplylines into landlocked Afghanistan after a key bridge in Pakistan's Khyber Pass was destroyed by Taliban militants there; and Kyrgyzstan threatened to end Washington's access to its Manas air base.
While U.S. efforts to compensate have focused so far on the overland route through Russia and the Central Asian "Stans," a growing number of voices have noted that a much less costly and more efficient alternative route would run from Iran's southern ports into western Afghanistan.
Although Tehran would no doubt be very reluctant to permit the U.S. military to use its territory at this point, NATO's supreme commander, U.S. Gen. John Craddock, said earlier this month that he had no objection if other NATO members could negotiate an access agreement with Iran.
Of course, it is not yet clear whether U.S. success in "AfPak" and Iran's possible role in securing it, will help trump Washington's concerns about Tehran's nuclear ambitions.
But the clear priority [of] stabilizing Southwest Asia is being given by the new administration; and the abrupt change in the rhetoric emanating from Washington about Iran, not to mention abiding concerns regarding Iran's ability to destabilize Iraq, clearly run counter to Israel's efforts to depict Tehran's nuclear program as, in Netanyahu's words, "the greatest challenge facing the leaders of the 21st century."

And it will surely make it more difficult for him or anyone else in the next Israeli government to "harness the U.S. administration to stop the threat."

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Taken from www.uruknet.info
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http://ww.uruknet.info?p=m51986
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Leaders and Compassion

Today is the first day of forever! And we, as a country, for a welcome change, are getting off to a good start with Barack. So, let's push compassion to the limit, and demand it in our leaders-- all of them!:)

Exchange of Political Views

Thanks to Pat Fields and to Adamaria Francis:

Dear loving Friends of the Heart,

In a recent issue, Boone Posey wrote about some minority political feelings. We feel that we owe it to our readers to give both sides of a controversial issue; but we also owe them a response to every serious inquiry, or any serious challenge.

Thus, we have written the following letter to you, our peace-loving
friends:

[NOTE:] We will place the original letter in quotation marks, and our responses will be outside the marks:

"Dear Barbara,

Over the past few months, I have read your contribution to this newsletter, and I have a few comments. I wish that this type of political comment were a part of this newsletter, as it was intended, I believe, to be a forum for positive and more spiritual banter and good information."

Yes, we do work hard and consistently to keep the uld ["Universal Love Digest"] spiritually relevant. Spirituality implies positivity, but our real world is not some "Pollyannish" dream without negativity. Exposing negativity is a part of the positive path.

The areas that appear political, on first glance, are really not about mere politics at all, but about spiritual principles. We know that the shame and greed of foolish leaders is against not only our country, but crimes against ecology and humanity. They are truly spiritual concerns.

They need to be exposed. And spiritually educated people need to be introduced to these lies, crimes, and acts of horrible violence. Exposing lies and liars has always been a part of truth-teaching. [Jesus set a good example in Matthew 23.]

"I believe it has been used as a political 'soap box' for too many things."

We have tried hard to "cut down" the number of articles that we share with you, our beloved efamily, with the public, and with other friends. We have had much to say about the interfaces between politics and compassion-- especially when the never-elected administration has broken all the rules of decency, resulting in the deaths of four thousand American girls and boys, and perhaps, a million others, including women and children.

You say that "too many things" have been considered in the ezine. But, actually, in the tens of millions of books written about politics and morality, we have considered only one subject: The failure of the present administration, which claims to be "Christian," to live up to simple and clear guidelines of compassion, and to serve greed. That is not many, but only one subject!

For us to keep silent about these issues would make us appear as apathetic, or even supportive of evil-- which we will never be!

"And most of these political statements is to trash our President."

He might well be your president, but he is not mine. I have had no president since the year twenty-hundred.

And those sound and solid, fact-based criticisms were elicited by his behavior. Very few have turned against bush because they simply don't like the man. Instead, he has become the primary representative of greed, of corporation-rule (a definition of "fascism"), division, murder, and general hatred. His policies have made America the most feared country in the world, according to 71% of Europeans. The Europeans and other foreign people have come to hate America, once the "light upon a hill" to the world. For the U.S., under bush, has actually invaded a third-world country, and a very poor one, to steal its oil for a few rich bush-cronies. Do gallons of oil really cost gallons of blood?

"I admit that he made some mistakes and is not one of the best leaders we
have had,..."

It is good as a reality-test that you can at least create some agreement in your heart about this. Jimmy Carter expressed the shared thought of tens of millions of Americans when he said that bush was "the worst president in history."

From the beginning, he was a man unfit for leadership. He has proved beyond the shadow of any reasonable doubt that he is incompetent, inept, and woefully ignorant.

"but I think he deserves some respect in the fact that he still is our President and the office alone deserves some consideration and respect."

Until this monstrous administration began to ruin the environment, give corporate welfare to giant corporations, and to murder American children for oil, I would have agreed one hundred percent with you.

This is a common, and tired, old argument: "If you don't respect the man, at least respect the office." But this is a very fine, and often impossible, distinction. For, during any administration, the officer is the office, for all practical terms. As I was growing up, I went to a public school; in that school, we were drilled thoroughly to be patriotic, to love and respect our country. We were taught to honor the office of president above all. And I did greatly honor it, until it was
revealed that a rich daddy could buy the office for mere bucks, and then, lie it in the lap of an uneducated, ignorant, and foolish son. Any office that can be "bought" does not deserve our respect-- much less, the profound respect that virtually everyone used to share for this high office. And when the office becomes the source of policies and laws that are anti-ecological, anti-economic, and anti-middle class, it is no longer possible to respect that office.

"I don't agree with war as a solution to any problem..."

Well, then, once again, we are in agreement. But can you not see that by supporting a "war-president," you are in fact supporting all the blood, agony, and torture, rape, and starvation that inevitably comes with any war?

"...but he did what he did because of the advisors around him,..."

What a false and manufactured argument! Bush has grandiosely reminded us, more than once, that he is "the decider." You are, for some reason, trying to clear the record of this man, who is more criminal and thief than president. He himself brags continuously about how he personally made all the important decisions. He sees some of his most horrible mistakes as a "legacy," about which he is very concerned. And he should be! Although he is parading around the country, blowing his own trumpet, boasting of what a "great president" he was, no one is really taking this blow-hard seriously. He has worked hard to cultivate the worst record in history; every time that he could have made a major error, by making the wrong decision, he did make that wrong decision.

"and so we are into two wars."

Yes, this is part of the bush legacy. He has made it clear that he would be doing just fine if we entered a third war, in Iran. The man is psychopathic. (He does not have a conscience.) When five hundred thousand women, children, and innocent men die agonizing deaths, they are just numbers on a report to george. His anti-ecology proves that he has no respect for life, and his eagerness for war proves that he does not know the value of human life either!

"The original war, with Afghanistan, was to retaliate for the attack on 9-11,..."

Maybe. But the bin Laden family had close economic arrangements interwoven with bush's own bank account. One of bush's companies even made fire-arms, making war profitable for both him and Cheney (big-buck connections with Halliburton). War was a delightful win-win! Except for all those inconvenient dead bodies. But they really didn't matter; they were "only" bad guys, "only" Muslims.

So, bush, for money, refused to attack the Middle Eastern country responsible for 9-11, which was Saudi Arabia. No, too many bucks from bush and company's personal bank accounts. But to appear "tough," he attacked a pitifully puny country with a rag-tag "army" whose "soldiers" were sometimes twelve-year-olds!

"and the Iraq war, was to keep the spread of support for Al-Quaida (sp?)..."

When george was told, by a reporter, that Al Queda (Al Chaida) was not even in the entire country of Iraq until the U.S. Invasion, do you know what he nefariously said? He said, "So what?"

"For all the wrong decisions he made, he still has keep the terrorists on the run, and they have not been able to launch another attack on our soil, since 9-11."

This is a tired and wearisome argument, but it says absolutely nothing about bush's competence or incompetence. It is a medal to be pinned, not on george's chest, but on all the hundreds of thousands of women and men in law-enforcement and national protection-- people who carefully did their jobs, often while george slept, or went on another of his interminable vacations to Crawford, TX.

"Now, the future Obama administration has already said that they will slacken up on the security of this country, by not tapping anyone's phones, or keeping a close eye on suspected terrorists groups in this country."

You seem to be missing the entire point that people are willing to sacrifice their rights in order to feel safe. But, in sacrificing their human rights, they also sacrifice mine. Ben Franklin said that if one were willing to give up her freedom in order to be "safe," then she deserved neither safety nor freedom. Bush has voluntarily and deliberately trashed even the most sacred political document in our
history, the Constitution, only because it was convenient. His profile is one of a dictator, not an elected president. He got away with an administration polluted and corrupted with scandal, bribery, dishonesty of many kinds, and a general attitude that the common person did not even matter. All who mattered were his "crony-buddies," the oil-billionaires, plus the billion--dollar corporations. In all of his legislative history, bush never once stood up for the common man, but did so
repeatedly for the corporations. Far from being "a man of the people," he was the perfect "corporation man."

"He [Obama] will be putting us in more danger by doing this and he doesn't think it is a bad decision."

First of all, you have no proof that Obama is adopting, or considering, any legislation, or any action, that will make the common person less secure. If Obama can raise our level of respect as Americans, if he can open diplomatic relations with Middle Eastern countries, then Americans will be safer than ever-- on their own soil, and around the world! For bush has made it clear that he hates all Middle Eastern peoples, and all Muslims, and so they naturally despise him. A president whose middle name is "Hussein" might do wonders for American International politics. The texture of the geopolitical map is going to change; and it is so pitiably ugly, destructive, anti-human, and irrational that it almost has to get better!

"He has also chosen a man to head up the CIA that has no experience in this type of responsibility, and would probably mess it up worse than it was when the Clintons were in the White House."

Not everybody agrees that the FBI was in worse shape when Clinton was in the White House; many say that it became worse, and weaker, under the lawless attitudes of bush and co. At any rate, when it comes to appointments, let's please keep in mind two principles: 1) Almost never is it possible to "hook up the perfect person wit the perfect job." Everyone is imperfect; everyone lacks education and/or experience in some areas. And 2) You can never please all the people all the time. Even the very best of presidents will, from time to time, have less than ideal people working for her. This is where the art of forgiveness interfaces with politics. In time, we all must learn to forgive even george.

"I hope and pray that the new President will succeed in leading this country on a peaceful path, and show great leadership in solving our economic crisis."

We are in fullest agreement here, my friend. Obama has been left a huge pile of unsolved problems; the stacks of paper are ten feet tall!

"I want him to have every success and hope he governs like he said he would in his campaign, by reaching across the aisle to show cooperation with both parties in Congress."

His history in working with Congress is very promising.

"But, I think he has already made some bad decisions in his choices for his cabinet, and this has shown that he may be in for some long and hard confirmations from the Congress."

Congress is notoriously difficult to please, as it should be, in a polycultural society. But Obama has a fine way with words, and has even written a couple of books. If you have not read them, they do come highly recommended!

"I could be wrong about this, but I think there will be some controversy about the new cabinet and how well they can perform their duties."

No doubt; every new cabinet in history has stirred controversy-- often, not surprisingly, from the losing party. There has never existed a "perfect president," "perfect Congress," or "perfect cabinet." But Obama is, so far, surrounding himself with people largely of wisdom, well-educated, and with shining reputations for integrity. There are no perfect people on this planet, so let us be careful not to demand perfection! But when an honest cabinet replaces the likes of Cheney and Rice, that very honesty can lift our country together into a new feeling
of hope and optimism.

"As you can probably tell from all I have said, I lean toward the republican side of the political spectrum."

Yes, your lean to the right is a part of your pattern of selfexpression. But beware the tendency of rightwingers to see only themselves as right, and to paint all disagreement as "unpatriotic or even "evil."

"I did vote for McCain/Palin, as I thought they had a better chance of achieving the change in Washington that we needed."

Unfortunately, and a bit amusingly, John McCAin stole the theme of "change" from Obama. Johnny, you will remember, first ran on a ticket of "experience," until the inexperienced and comical Palin got on board!

"I hope that Obama will do a good job, as I have said before, and I will support him in his efforts where I can."

I think that this is a healthy and rational decision.

"I also hope that any decisions made about our national security will be made with the utmost of care and that we don't end up fighting the terrorists on our soil and possibly having a major conflict right here in our own back yard."

I am certain that Obama shares this concern, as do the hundreds of thousands trained in emergency-management, law-enforcement, military strategy-- in other words, the large ocean of people who will still be carefully guarding Americans against fanatics and crooks.

"A lot more Americans will be in danger and we will suffer more losses than we ever did on 9-11."

Yes, that would be true; but, at the moment, this is nothing but science-fiction. So, let's keep our heads, and not panic! Terrorists have their reasons for attacking America; but so far, the reasons not to attack have been stronger and more valid. (This has almost nothing to do with who is president, btw.)

"I hope you and your supporters have given this some thought."

Of course we have. We are not idiots! My friends, if anything, are more intelligent, educated, and observant of the world-situation than are average people.

"Fighting on our own soil will change the whole picture of this 'war on terror'"

Yes, but let's always remember that it has not happened. It is the negative illusion, the favorite scare-tactic, of some rightwingers-- nothing more.

"I just hope that the liberals won't do away with gun ownership before this happens."

This is another matrix-threat of the right. They have an almost "armageddonish" approach to the future, bathed in blood and horror. In this scenario, everyone grabs as many dried bananas as she can, and shoots with her handy little machine-gun anyone who threatens her bananas. And there are always "hordes" of mobs trying to get her bananas! It's all just bad science-fiction.

"I have carried on long enough, but wanted to reply to your comments, both the recent ones and the past ones. I feel this country is one of the best in the
world to live in."

I, and most of my friends, might surprise you when we agree with you. We also love America. The right has no monopoly on this, whatever they tell you about those "evil liberals who hate our country." This is sheerest nonsense, and anyone who is a "liberal" or who has "liberal" friends will deny this false accusation. In fact, it can be strongly argued that we progressives care more for our country than those who care only for dollars. For those on the right, anything can be justified-- war and ecological ruin, for example-- if it brings in enough dollars. This utter consumption by materialism and bucks is a major disease that severely infects the Republican Party. Until they relax a little, and loosen up, they will continue to drive away the young, and anyone else with a conscience. (Did you notice that almost everyone in the McCain/Palin crowds were white and old? There's a reason for this!:)

Anyway, we progressives are not from another planet. We share the strongest values with most Americans. We believe in the sacredness of life; kids should not be murdered out of greed for gold, nor should others.

We are delighted with the great blessings of this country; in fact, the way that we celebrate that freedom is by speaking our minds. Those who celebrate freedom, and yet, would like for the progressive side to shut up and sit down are mere hypocrites. For the founding fathers and mothers of our country were often "radical liberals," from the vantage point of the Crown. And, at any rate, they lived-- and died-- so that all voices could be heard.

We love and treasure our country so much that we work every day to preserve laws that guarantee liberty. We also work to save our country-- its ecology, clean air, and pure water. There are no better ways to love one's country.

Joy and Peace,

the staff of the uld

Obama's Use of Complete Sentences Stirs Controversy

Thanks to Mick Gallagher.

In the first two weeks since the election, President-elect Barack Obama has broken with a tradition established over the past eight years through his controversial use of complete sentences, political observers say.

Millions of Americans who watched Mr. Obama's appearance on CBS's 60 Minutes on Sunday witnessed the president-elect's unorthodox verbal tic, which had Mr. Obama employing grammatically correct sentences virtually every time he opened his mouth.

But Mr. Obama's decision to use complete sentences in his public pronouncements carries with it certain risks, since after the last eight years many Americans may find his odd speaking style jarring.

According to presidential historian Davis Logsdon of the University of Minnesota, some Americans might find it "alienating" to have a president who speaks English as if it were his first language.

"Every time Obama opens his mouth, his subjects and verbs are in agreement," says Mr. Logsdon. "If he keeps it up, he is running the risk of sounding like an elitist."

The historian said that if Mr. Obama insists on using complete sentences in his speeches, the public may find itself saying, "Okay, subject, predicate, subject predicate -- we get it, stop showing off."

The president-elect's stubborn insistence on using complete sentences has already attracted a rebuke from one of his harshest critics, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.

"Talking with complete sentences there and also too talking in a way that ordinary Americans like Joe the Plumber and Tito the Builder can't really do there, I think needing to do that isn't tapping into what Americans are needing also," she said.

Andy Borowitz is a comedian and writer whose work appears in The New Yorker and The New York Times, and at his award-winning humor site, BorowitzReport.com.

Past and Future

Thanks to Mick Gallagher.

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I had a feelin' i didn't wanna say much but the Rueben, Kissinger, Summers, Geitner, Greenspan clan is back from the dead. Let's hope & pray it's a different Larry Summers than the one who handled Russia after collapse, when the oligarchs income disparity quadrupled, as Yeltsin drank nearby. These guys helped engineer. As well as grease the skids of 'fast-track' capitalism that is killing us again. Make sure you read Wm Greiders 3rd-4th paragraph below; the collusion of the neocon Zion lions of modern western style capitalism. I am not criticizing Obama's choices so early. I'm an incorgible optimist. Yet, this proves once again the power of these zion lions--and we should [not] be surprised. I'm not sure Obama had any choice. The markets love these guys, and why wouldn't they.

Past and Future
By William Greider

A year ago, when Barack Obama said it was time to turn the page, his campaign declaration seemed to promise a fresh start for Washington. I, for one, failed to foresee Obama would turn the page backward. The president-elect's lineup for key governing positions has opted for continuity, not change. Virtually all of his leading appointments are restoring the Clinton presidency, only without Mr. Bill. In some important ways, Obama's selections seem designed to sustain the failing policies of George W. Bush.

This is not the last word and things are changing rapidly. But Obama's choices have begun to define him. His victory, it appears, was a triumph for the cautious center-right politics that has described the Democratic party for several decades. Those of us who expected more were duped, not so much by Obama but by our own wishful thinking.

Let us stipulate that these are all honorable people, smart and experienced veterans of Washington combat. But they represent the Democratic party that mainly sees itself as managerial--making government work better. The long era of conservative dominance has taught them to keep their distance from big reform ideas that promise fundamental change of the system. Their operating style is incremental and cautiously practical. They conscientiously avoid (or actively block) propositions that sound too liberal or radical. Alas, Obama is coming to power at a critical moment when incrementalism is irrelevant. The system is in collapse. Financial chaos won't wait for patient deliberations.

Events have confronted Obama with a fearful symmetry between past and present, illustrated by his choice of economic advisers. On Friday, we learned that Timothy Geithner, president of the New York Federal Reserve, would become his new treasury secretary and Larry Summers, who held the same position in the Clinton administration, would be the White House overseer of economic policy. On Monday, Geithner was busy executing the government's massive rescue of Citicorp--the very banking behemoth that Geithner and Summers helped to create back in the Clinton years, along with Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan and Robert Rubin, Clinton's economics guru. Now Rubin is himself a Citicorp executive and his bank is now being saved by his old protégé (Geithner) with the taxpayers' money.

The connections go way beyond irony. They raise very serious questions about where the new president intends to lead and whether he has the nerve to break from the weak and haphazard strategy of the Bush administration. It has dumped piles of public money on the largest financial institutions and demanded little or nothing in return, hoping for the best. Geithner has been a central player in the deal-making, from Bear Stearns to AIG to Citi. The strategy has not only failed, it has arguably made things worse as savvy market players saw through the contradictions and rushed out to dump more bank stocks.

On Wall Street, Geithner is known as a highly competent technocrat, well versed in the financial complexities. But he has also been seen as a weak and compliant regulator of Wall Street firms, someone who did not seem the storm coming. Occasionally, Geithner would anguish publicly about the accumulating time bombs like credit derivatives and urge bankers to do something, but he did not use his supervisory powers to compel action. In bailout negotiations with Wall Street titans, Geithner and the Federal Reserve were spun around like a top more than once.

No wonder the stock markets rallied explosively when they heard Geithner would be their new boss in Washington. They think he is their guy. Summers may be a brilliant economist--everyone says so--but he, too, is a club member in good standing and now manages a huge hedge fund while he advises Obama. The president-elect needs to get a "second opinion"--someone from outside the financial club who can explain the flaws in the rescue strategy preached by Bush's treasury secretary Henry Paulson and Tim Geithner at the New York Fed.

Their approach has clearly been designed to preserve what's left of the Wall Street establishment and maintain the supremacy of the largest financial firms while the taxpayers pick up their losses. That model has failed and too many smart people know why. The bailouts have been too little too late and aimed at an impossible objective--persuading private capital investors to believe in the phony assurances proffered by the bankers. AIG, the insurance giant taken over by the feds, has turned into a bloody hemorrhage. Citigroup will be another and may soon be joined by other major banks demanding the same favorable terms. Wasting more public money on insolvent mastodons is the least of it. The real scandal is it doesn't work. It can't work because the black hole is too large even for Washington to fill. Government should take over the failing institutions or force them into bankruptcy, break them up and sell them off or mercifully relieve everyone, including the taxpayers.

Stock markets rallied again with the salvage of Citigroup. But not everyone in Wall Street was cheering. Christopher Whalen of Institutional Risk Analytics, the bank monitoring firm that has repeatedly been right about the banks when the government officials were wrong, had harsh words for the deal. "Pretending that Citi is going to be a going concern I think is silly," Whalen said. "We should be thinking about breaking this company up and redistributing the assets into stronger hands."

Will Timothy Geithner or Larry Summers advise the next president to face reality and throw in the towel? One hopes so, because Whalen warns: "By embracing Geithner, President-elect Obama is endorsing the ill-advised scheme to support AIG directed by Hank Paulson et al at Goldman Sachs and executed by Tim Geithner.... This scheme to stay AIG's resolution cannot possibly work and, when it does collapse, Barack Obama and his administration will wear the blame."

Barack Obama is too smart and perceptive to let this happen to his yet-unborn presidency. Maybe he should find out what Whalen knows.

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This article can be found on the web at:
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081208/greider_web

SC Priest: No communion for Obama supporters

Thanks to Mick Gallagher.

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But if you voted for more of the same, more wars, more serial warcriminals, more looting of the treasury, more crony capitalism, more hate, fear, and lies, you can have this lil Vanilla Wafer that, really is "The Christ." Well, first of all, that's cannibalism. Wait a minute...so all other good human beings, who can't partake in that weekly ritual, meant for power & control,then, those people are not worthy?

They are not close to Mother-Father God? [She/He is] the creator of all. [Are they really alienated from] the universe, the cosmos? Nonsense, total nonsense. And so is some old priest for trying to use that as a cosmic 2 by 4 over the heads of "believers." Believers in what? The church? Or true Christianity? Would Jesus say sumthin that friggin stupid? No; he would probably deny the faux churches that support charlatans, and condemn the very impostors that chastise the lost, scared flock.

This is why I could care less if I ever set foot in another Catholic church. Sorry if your offended. I'm highly offended by these "satanic" [fearbased] gestures of the lessor god of self.

Gandhi had it right: "In Heaven there's No Religion," thank God!

I think that everybody who voted with her higher Godconscience should quit going and putting her money in the the li'l' basket; so what if they list you at the end of the year with a big fat zero?! [That is simply] more shame and blame. My God is bigger than that! The great Spirit within & without knows what I do, what I give. I am not filling out any form to shame me into giving to that huge Goldmine in Rome!!
[To that Church, I say:] Take care of your Nuns 1st... And maybe let your Men marry then become Priests! Seems a lil more natural, don't ya think.

And one more thing: The Church doesn't seem to speak too loudly against the illegal, immoral, unconstitutional wars for oil and profits. Perhaps they're too afraid? Or they're getting a li'l' side cut, [being paid off].
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It's a start -- Our next president

Thanks to Barb Baty.


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This is an editorial piece from the New York Times. Enjoy.

November 5, 2008
Editorial
The Next President

This is one of those moments in history when it is worth pausing to reflect on the basic facts:

An American with the name Barack Hussein Obama, the son of a white woman and a black man he barely knew, raised by his grandparents far outside the stream of American power and wealth, has been elected the 44th president of the United States.

Showing extraordinary focus and quiet certainty, Mr. Obama swept away one political presumption after another to defeat first Hillary Clinton, who wanted to be president so badly that she lost her bearings, and then John McCain, who forsook his principles for a campaign built on anger and fear.

His triumph was decisive and sweeping, because he saw what is wrong with this country: the utter failure of government to protect its citizens. He offered a government that does not try to solve every problem but will do those things beyond the power of individual citizens: to regulate the economy fairly, keep the air clean and the food safe, ensure that the sick have access to health care, and educate children to compete in a globalized world.

Mr. Obama spoke candidly of the failure of Republican economic policies that promised to lift all Americans but left so many millions far behind. He committed himself to ending a bloody and pointless war. He promised to restore Americans’ civil liberties and their tattered reputation around the world.

With a message of hope and competence, he drew in legions of voters who had been disengaged and voiceless. The scenes Tuesday night of young men and women, black and white, weeping and cheering in Chicago and New York and in Atlanta’s storied Ebenezer Baptist Church were powerful and deeply moving.

Mr. Obama inherits a terrible legacy. The nation is embroiled in two wars — one of necessity in Afghanistan and one of folly in Iraq. Mr. Obama’s challenge will be to manage an orderly withdrawal from Iraq without igniting new conflicts so the Pentagon can focus its resources on the real front in the war on terror, Afghanistan.

The campaign began with the war as its central focus. By Election Day, Americans were deeply anguished about their futures and the government’s failure to prevent an economic collapse fed by greed and an orgy of deregulation. Mr. Obama will have to move quickly to impose control, coherence, transparency and fairness on the Bush administration’s jumbled bailout plan.

His administration will also have to identify all of the ways that Americans’ basic rights and fundamental values have been violated and rein that dark work back in. Climate change is a global threat, and after years of denial and inaction, this country must take the lead on addressing it. The nation must develop new, cleaner energy technologies, to reduce greenhouse gases and its dependence on foreign oil.

Mr. Obama also will have to rally sensible people to come up with immigration reform consistent with the values of a nation built by immigrants and refugees.

There are many other urgent problems that must be addressed. Tens of millions of Americans lack health insurance, including some of the country’s most vulnerable citizens — children of the working poor. Other Americans can barely pay for their insurance or are in danger of losing it along with their jobs. They must be protected.

Mr. Obama will now need the support of all Americans. Mr. McCain made an elegant concession speech Tuesday night in which he called on his followers not just to honor the vote, but to stand behind Mr. Obama. After a nasty, dispiriting campaign, he seemed on that stage to be the senator we long respected for his service to this country and his willingness to compromise.

That is a start. The nation’s many challenges are beyond the reach of any one man, or any one political party.

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The Demise of Bush-McCain's Republican Party?

Thanks to Barbara Baty.

The Demise of Bush-McCain's Republican Party?
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Party Like It's 1964
By Richard Cohen

A column, like a good movie, should have an arc -- start here, end there and somehow connect the two points. So this column will begin with the speech Condi Rice made to the Republican National Convention in 2000 in praise of George W. Bush and end with Colin Powell's appearance Sunday on "Meet the Press" in praise of Barack Obama. Between the first and the second lie the ruins of the GOP, a party gone very, very wrong.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Bush and now John McCain have constructed a mean, grumpy, exclusive, narrow-minded and altogether retrograde Republican Party. It has the sharp scent of the old Barry Goldwater GOP -- the angry one of 1964 and not the one perfumed by nostalgia -- that is home, by design or mere dumb luck, to those who think that Obama is "The Madrassian Candidate." Karl Rove, take a bow.

It is worth remembering that both Rice and Powell spoke at that Philadelphia convention. And it is worth recalling, too, that Bush ran as a "compassionate conservative" and had compiled a record as Texas governor to warrant the hope, if not the belief, that he was indeed a different sort of Republican. When he ran for reelection as governor in 1998, he went from 15 percent of the black vote to 27 percent, and from 28 percent of the Hispanic vote to an astounding 49 percent. Here was a coalition-builder of considerable achievement.

Now, all this is rubble. It is not merely that Barack Obama was always going to garner the vast majority of the black vote. It is also that the GOP, under Rove and his disciples in the McCain campaign, has not only driven out ethnic and racial minorities but a vast bloc of voters who, quite bluntly, want nothing to do with Sarah Palin. For moderates everywhere, she remains the single best reason to vote against McCain.

But the GOP's tropism toward its furiously angry base, its tolerance and currying of anti-immigrant sentiment, its flattering of the ignorant on matters of undisputed scientific consensus -- evolution, for instance -- and, from the mouth of Palin, its celebration of drab provincialism, have sharpened the division between red and blue. Red is the color of yesterday.

Ah, I know, the blues are not all virtuous. They are supine before self-serving unions, particularly in education, and they are knee-jerk opponents of offshore drilling, mostly, it seems, because they don't like Big Oil. They cannot face the challenge of the Third World within us -- the ghetto with its appalling social and cultural ills -- lest realism be called racism. Sometimes, too, they seem to criticize American foreign policy simply because it is American.

Still, a Democrat can remain a Democrat -- or at least vote as one -- without compromising basic intellectual or cultural values. That, though, is not what Colin Powell was saying Sunday about his own party. "I have some concerns about the direction that the party has taken in recent years," Powell said. "It has moved more to the right than I would like." He cited McCain's harping on that "washed-out terrorist" Bill Ayers as an effort to exploit fears that Obama is a Muslim (so what if he were? Powell rightly asked) and mentioned how Palin's presence on the ticket raised grave questions about McCain's judgment. In effect -- and at least for the time being -- Powell was out of the GOP. S'long, guys.

Those of us who traveled with Bush in the 2000 campaign could tell that when he spoke of education, of the "soft bigotry of low expectations," he meant it. Education, along with racial and ethnic reconciliation, was going to be his legacy. Then came Sept. 11, Afghanistan and finally the misbegotten war in Iraq. After that, nothing else really mattered. But just as Bush could not manage the wars, he could not manage his own party. His legacy is not merely in tatters. It does not even exist.

In the end, Powell was determined not to be one of the GOP's useful idiots. Those moderates willing to overlook the choice of Palin, those capable of staying in a party where, soon enough, she could be an important or dominant force, retain the intellectual nimbleness that enabled them to persist in championing a war fought for duplicitous reasons and extol cultural values they do not for a minute share. Powell walked away from that, and others will follow -- the second time that a senator from Arizona has led the GOP into the political wilderness.

cohenr@washpost.com

The Shame of Greed

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In every one of his speeches, and in many of his writings (he has written several profound books), Barack Obama encourages community, community-awareness, and community-action. He encourages Americans to think of ourselves as interactive and interdependent people. And he always makes a special effort to think of the poor and the middle class.
This "ordinary American" is something that the Republican Sarah Palin has tried to fake, but, due to her $150,000 clothing, make-up, and jewelry (she also paid a professional cosmetician $11,000 a week to make her look better), she has never managed to pull this one off; she has fooled almost no one. McCain has from seven to ten houses, and even he is not certain how many he owns. And the Republican Party has been the puppets of corporations for the last eight years, under the bush regime.
It is thus not at all surprising that the Republican Party has emerged, and continues to define itself, as the party of the coddled, spoiled, and rich elite. "Common, average" people are rare among them, and the poor virtually non-existent within Republican ranks. For decades, this party of greed and materialism has appealed to the lowest nature within human beings-- territoriality and survivalism.
In stunning contrast, Obama regularly calls upon people to exercise compassion through service; he even has a plan for National Service for young people, to help pay for college. In summary, Obama calls upon us, challenges us, to think of others as well as of our own families; we all stand together, not only as Americans, but as human beings.

This is a cohesion infinitely more powerful than mere money. Compared to this wise
and wide calling, the Republican focus on personal dollars appears as almost an illness, an unhealthy obsession. Indeed, greed has been the root of virtually every major conflict and war in the history of our poor little planet. It is time for all of us to seek to outgrow this childish, self-serving trend, and to give more to the poor. At the very least, if we do nothing else, we can support them in our hearts, prayers, thoughts, and actions. We can lift our political agenda towards compassion and away from the consuming and dreaded disease of greed.
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Obama NOT a Muslim!

Obama NOT a Muslim!
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It is a well known fact that Barack Obama is NOT a Muslim; he is, and has been for many years, a Christian; in fact, the Republicans tried to get him in trouble due to his lunatic Pastor, an extremist named Jeremiah Wright. But you simply cannot have it both ways: If Obama were a Muslim, he would not even "have" a Christian pastor! So, they had to choose: Which attack was more damaging to Obama and his cause?

The Republicans are running scared. That alone explains why they are starting, all over again, to use this discredited myth, calling Obama a "Muslim," and turning that word into a perjorative. McCain's entire campaign is falling apart in state after state-- largely due to his impulsive, impetuous appointment of Sarah Palin as his running-mate. She has excessively damaged the campaign, but, even if she were gone,
McCain's continual and consistent support of George Bush would itself be enough quite thoroughly to ruin him.

Absolutely anything can be written, and passed along, in absolutely any email. I received this charge of "Obama's being a Muslim" early in the campaign, and have heard Obama himself deny it several times. It has been quite thoroughly and repeatedly disproved and discredited. In every one of his bionotes (writings about his life-history), he makes it crystal-clear that he has never been a Muslim. For most who are "hip" on the political scene, this lie was quashed several months ago. I am not at all certain that I could vote for a Muslim to "run" the U.S., although, of course, each adult person has a full right to believe whatever she chooses. So, there is, and should be, no attempt to limit the beliefs of other adults.

Nevertheless, you can rest fully assured that Obama is not a Muslim. He has an "odd name" because of past cultural influences, but is as American as you or I. He is deeply loyal to his country, and to a highly idealistic vision of how it can be improved. After eight years of trying to turn the White House into an asylum, where insane and incompetent men (and women, like Condy) can "recuperate," it might soon once again become the center of good government and good laws for this country.
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Counting Votes

Thanks to Michelle Spivey.

Counting Votes
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something to think about :


Facts are powerful!!
Obama/Biden vs McCain/Palin. What if things were switched around?
Would the country's collective point of view be different if race and gender did not enter in?

Consider the following:

• What if McCain had only married once, and Obama was a divorcee?
• What if Obama was the candidate who left his first wife after a severe disfiguring car accident, when she no longer measured up to his standards?
• What if Obama had met his second wife in a bar and had a long affair while he was still married?
• What if Michelle Obama was the wife who not only became addicted to painkillers but also acquired them illegally through her charitable organization?
• What if the Obamas had adopted a white child?
• What if the Obamas had paraded five children across the stage, including a three-month old infant and an unwed, pregnant teenage daughter?

• What if Barack Obama finished fifth from the bottom of his graduating class?
• What if Obama was the one whose military experience included numerous disciplinary problems and a record of crashing seven planes?
• What if Obama was the one who was known to display publicly, on many occasions, a serious anger management problem?

• What if Obama had been a member of the Keating Five? (The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s.)

• What if John McCain was a former president of the Harvard Law Review?
• What if McCain was a charismatic, eloquent speaker?
• What if Obama couldn't read from a teleprompter?
• What if Michelle Obama's family had made their money from beer distribution?
• What if Cindy McCain graduated from Harvard?

And what about the educations of the candidates?

Barack Obama holds a B.A. Political Science with a Specialization in International Relations from Columbia University and a Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Law School. While, John McCain graduated from United States Naval Academy and ranked 894th in a class of 899.

Joe Biden holds a B.A. in History and a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Delaware, as well as a J.D. from the Syracuse University College of Law. While, Sarah Palin holds a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Idaho, where she completed a total of 5 semesters, after having spent one semester at both the Hawaii Pacific University and Matanuska-Susitna College, as well as two semesters at North Idaho College.

• What if McCain was the Columbia/Harvard Law grad and Obama the low ranked Academy grad?
• And Palin had a BA and JD, while Biden had gone to four schools to get a journalism degree?

Would the polls be as close as they are, if the reality reflected the reverse circumstances pondered in the questions? Is there much doubt who would hold a commanding lead? I doubt it!

This is what racism does. It colors perceptions, covers up, rationalizes and minimizes positive qualities in the majority candidate and emphasizes negative qualities in the minority candidate when there is a color difference. And it's wrong!


Education isn't everything, but this is about the two highest offices in the land as well as our standing in the world. And re the ten other canidates-- would voting for one of them even count?

So, another question : How does Sarah Palin's $ 150,000 + wardrobe for television make you think that she is really prepared to help the nation's leaders reduce our financial budget? And does this not contradict her carefully manicured but unreliable image as a "common woman," a "hockey mom"? (Maybe a "hockey mom" covered with diamonds!:) And her political party is paying for it all. Does that mean that voters can look into their own future and expect Republicans to pay for it too?

From mud slinging to shopping sprees, what seems to be grey is actually very black and white. This clarity of the history of the candidates is a carefully guarded Republican secret.
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A Very Good Read

Thanks to Barbara Baty.

The Choice
October 13, 2008
The New Yorker

Never in living memory has an election been more critical than the one fast approaching—that’s the quadrennial cliché, as expected as the balloons and the bombast. And yet when has it ever felt so urgently true? When have so many Americans had so clear a sense that a Presidency has—at the levels of competence, vision, and integrity—undermined the country and its ideals?

The incumbent Administration has distinguished itself for the ages. The Presidency of George W. Bush is the worst since Reconstruction, so there is no mystery about why the Republican Party—which has held dominion over the executive branch of the federal government for the past eight years and the legislative branch for most of that time—has little desire to defend its record, domestic or foreign. The only speaker at the Convention in St. Paul who uttered more than a sentence or two in support of the President was his wife, Laura. Meanwhile, the nominee, John McCain, played the part of a vaudeville illusionist, asking to be regarded as an apostle of change after years of embracing the essentials of the Bush agenda with ever-increasing ardor.

The Republican disaster begins at home. Even before taking into account whatever fantastically expensive plan eventually emerges to help rescue the financial system from Wall Street’s long-running pyramid schemes, the economic and fiscal picture is bleak. During the Bush Administration, the national debt, now approaching ten trillion dollars, has nearly doubled. Next year’s federal budget is projected to run a half-trillion-dollar deficit, a precipitous fall from the seven-hundred-billion-dollar surplus that was projected when Bill Clinton left office. Private-sector job creation has been a sixth of what it was under President Clinton. Five million people have fallen into poverty. The number of Americans without health insurance has grown by seven million, while average premiums have nearly doubled. Meanwhile, the principal domestic achievement of the Bush Administration has been to shift the relative burden of taxation from the rich to the rest. For the top one per cent of us, the Bush tax cuts are worth, on average, about a thousand dollars a week; for the bottom fifth, about a dollar and a half. The unfairness will only increase if the painful, yet necessary, effort to rescue the credit markets ends up preventing the rescue of our health-care system, our environment, and our physical, educational, and industrial infrastructure.

At the same time, a hundred and fifty thousand American troops are in Iraq and thirty-three thousand are in Afghanistan. There is still disagreement about the wisdom of overthrowing Saddam Hussein and his horrific regime, but there is no longer the slightest doubt that the Bush Administration manipulated, bullied, and lied the American public into this war and then mismanaged its prosecution in nearly every aspect. The direct costs, besides an expenditure of more than six hundred billion dollars, have included the loss of more than four thousand Americans, the wounding of thirty thousand, the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqis, and the displacement of four and a half million men, women, and children. Only now, after American forces have been fighting for a year longer than they did in the Second World War, is there a glimmer of hope that the conflict in Iraq has entered a stage of fragile stability.

The indirect costs, both of the war in particular and of the Administration’s unilateralist approach to foreign policy in general, have also been immense. The torture of prisoners, authorized at the highest level, has been an ethical and a public-diplomacy catastrophe. At a moment when the global environment, the global economy, and global stability all demand a transition to new sources of energy, the United States has been a global retrograde, wasteful in its consumption and heedless in its policy. Strategically and morally, the Bush Administration has squandered the American capacity to counter the example and the swagger of its rivals. China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and other illiberal states have concluded, each in its own way, that democratic principles and human rights need not be components of a stable, prosperous future. At recent meetings of the United Nations, emboldened despots like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran came to town sneering at our predicament and hailing the “end of the American era.”

The election of 2008 is the first in more than half a century in which no incumbent President or Vice-President is on the ballot. There is, however, an incumbent party, and that party has been lucky enough to find itself, apparently against the wishes of its “base,” with a nominee who evidently disliked George W. Bush before it became fashionable to do so. In South Carolina in 2000, Bush crushed John McCain with a sub-rosa primary campaign of such viciousness that McCain lashed out memorably against Bush’s Christian-right allies. So profound was McCain’s anger that in 2004 he flirted with the possibility of joining the Democratic ticket under John Kerry. Bush, who took office as a “compassionate conservative,” governed immediately as a rightist ideologue. During that first term, McCain bolstered his reputation, sometimes deserved, as a “maverick” willing to work with Democrats on such issues as normalizing relations with Vietnam, campaign-finance reform, and immigration reform. He co-sponsored, with John Edwards and Edward Kennedy, a patients’ bill of rights. In 2001 and 2003, he voted against the Bush tax cuts. With John Kerry, he co-sponsored a bill raising auto-fuel efficiency standards and, with Joseph Lieberman, a cap-and-trade regime on carbon emissions. He was one of a minority of Republicans opposed to unlimited drilling for oil and gas off America’s shores.

Since the 2004 election, however, McCain has moved remorselessly rightward in his quest for the Republican nomination. He paid obeisance to Jerry Falwell and preachers of his ilk. He abandoned immigration reform, eventually coming out against his own bill. Most shocking, McCain, who had repeatedly denounced torture under all circumstances, voted in February against a ban on the very techniques of “enhanced interrogation” that he himself once endured in Vietnam—as long as the torturers were civilians employed by the C.I.A.

On almost every issue, McCain and the Democratic Party’s nominee, Barack Obama, speak the generalized language of “reform,” but only Obama has provided a convincing, rational, and fully developed vision. McCain has abandoned his opposition to the Bush-era tax cuts and has taken up the demagogic call—in the midst of recession and Wall Street calamity, with looming crises in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—for more tax cuts. Bush’s expire in 2011. If McCain, as he has proposed, cuts taxes for corporations and estates, the benefits once more would go disproportionately to the wealthy.

In Washington, the craze for pure market triumphalism is over. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson arrived in town (via Goldman Sachs) a Republican, but it seems that he will leave a Democrat. In other words, he has come to see that the abuses that led to the current financial crisis––not least, excessive speculation on borrowed capital––can be fixed only with government regulation and oversight. McCain, who has never evinced much interest in, or knowledge of, economic questions, has had little of substance to say about the crisis. His most notable gesture of concern—a melodramatic call last month to suspend his campaign and postpone the first Presidential debate until the government bailout plan was ready—soon revealed itself as an empty diversionary tactic.

By contrast, Obama has made a serious study of the mechanics and the history of this economic disaster and of the possibilities of stimulating a recovery. Last March, in New York, in a speech notable for its depth, balance, and foresight, he said, “A complete disdain for pay-as-you-go budgeting, coupled with a generally scornful attitude towards oversight and enforcement, allowed far too many to put short-term gain ahead of long-term consequences.” Obama is committed to reforms that value not only the restoration of stability but also the protection of the vast majority of the population, which did not partake of the fruits of the binge years. He has called for greater and more programmatic regulation of the financial system; the creation of a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank, which would help reverse the decay of our roads, bridges, and mass-transit systems, and create millions of jobs; and a major investment in the green-energy sector.

On energy and global warming, Obama offers a set of forceful proposals. He supports a cap-and-trade program to reduce America’s carbon emissions by eighty per cent by 2050—an enormously ambitious goal, but one that many climate scientists say must be met if atmospheric carbon dioxide is to be kept below disastrous levels. Large emitters, like utilities, would acquire carbon allowances, and those which emit less carbon dioxide than their allotment could sell the resulting credits to those which emit more; over time, the available allowances would decline. Significantly, Obama wants to auction off the allowances; this would provide fifteen billion dollars a year for developing alternative-energy sources and creating job-training programs in green technologies. He also wants to raise federal fuel-economy standards and to require that ten per cent of America’s electricity be generated from renewable sources by 2012. Taken together, his proposals represent the most coherent and far-sighted strategy ever offered by a Presidential candidate for reducing the nation’s reliance on fossil fuels.

There was once reason to hope that McCain and Obama would have a sensible debate about energy and climate policy. McCain was one of the first Republicans in the Senate to support federal limits on carbon dioxide, and he has touted his own support for a less ambitious cap-and-trade program as evidence of his independence from the White House. But, as polls showed Americans growing jittery about gasoline prices, McCain apparently found it expedient in this area, too, to shift course. He took a dubious idea—lifting the federal moratorium on offshore oil drilling—and placed it at the very center of his campaign. Opening up America’s coastal waters to drilling would have no impact on gasoline prices in the short term, and, even over the long term, the effect, according to a recent analysis by the Department of Energy, would be “insignificant.” Such inconvenient facts, however, are waved away by a campaign that finally found its voice with the slogan “Drill, baby, drill!”

The contrast between the candidates is even sharper with respect to the third branch of government. A tense equipoise currently prevails among the Justices of the Supreme Court, where four hard-core conservatives face off against four moderate liberals. Anthony M. Kennedy is the swing vote, determining the outcome of case after case.

McCain cites Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, two reliable conservatives, as models for his own prospective appointments. If he means what he says, and if he replaces even one moderate on the current Supreme Court, then Roe v. Wade will be reversed, and states will again be allowed to impose absolute bans on abortion. McCain’s views have hardened on this issue. In 1999, he said he opposed overturning Roe; by 2006, he was saying that its demise “wouldn’t bother me any”; by 2008, he no longer supported adding rape and incest as exceptions to his party’s platform opposing abortion.

But scrapping Roe—which, after all, would leave states as free to permit abortion as to criminalize it—would be just the beginning. Given the ideological agenda that the existing conservative bloc has pursued, it’s safe to predict that affirmative action of all kinds would likely be outlawed by a McCain Court. Efforts to expand executive power, which, in recent years, certain Justices have nobly tried to resist, would likely increase. Barriers between church and state would fall; executions would soar; legal checks on corporate power would wither—all with just one new conservative nominee on the Court. And the next President is likely to make three appointments.

Obama, who taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago, voted against confirming not only Roberts and Alito but also several unqualified lower-court nominees. As an Illinois state senator, he won the support of prosecutors and police organizations for new protections against convicting the innocent in capital cases. While McCain voted to continue to deny habeas-corpus rights to detainees, perpetuating the Bush Administration’s regime of state-sponsored extra-legal detention, Obama took the opposite side, pushing to restore the right of all U.S.-held prisoners to a hearing. The judicial future would be safe in his care.

In the shorthand of political commentary, the Iraq war seems to leave McCain and Obama roughly even. Opposing it before the invasion, Obama had the prescience to warn of a costly and indefinite occupation and rising anti-American radicalism around the world; supporting it, McCain foresaw none of this. More recently, in early 2007 McCain risked his Presidential prospects on the proposition that five additional combat brigades could salvage a war that by then appeared hopeless. Obama, along with most of the country, had decided that it was time to cut American losses. Neither candidate’s calculations on Iraq have been as cheaply political as McCain’s repeated assertion that Obama values his career over his country; both men based their positions, right or wrong, on judgment and principle.

President Bush’s successor will inherit two wars and the realities of limited resources, flagging popular will, and the dwindling possibilities of what can be achieved by American power. McCain’s views on these subjects range from the simplistic to the unknown. In Iraq, he seeks “victory”—a word that General David Petraeus refuses to use, and one that fundamentally misrepresents the messy, open-ended nature of the conflict. As for Afghanistan, on the rare occasions when McCain mentions it he implies that the surge can be transferred directly from Iraq, which suggests that his grasp of counterinsurgency is not as firm as he insisted it was during the first Presidential debate. McCain always displays more faith in force than interest in its strategic consequences. Unlike Obama, McCain has no political strategy for either war, only the dubious hope that greater security will allow things to work out. Obama has long warned of deterioration along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, and has a considered grasp of its vital importance. His strategy for both Afghanistan and Iraq shows an understanding of the role that internal politics, economics, corruption, and regional diplomacy play in wars where there is no battlefield victory.

Unimaginably painful personal experience taught McCain that war is above all a test of honor: maintain the will to fight on, be prepared to risk everything, and you will prevail. Asked during the first debate to outline “the lessons of Iraq,” McCain said, “I think the lessons of Iraq are very clear: that you cannot have a failed strategy that will then cause you to nearly lose a conflict.” A soldier’s answer––but a statesman must have a broader view of war and peace. The years ahead will demand not only determination but also diplomacy, flexibility, patience, judiciousness, and intellectual engagement. These are no more McCain’s strong suit than the current President’s. Obama, for his part, seems to know that more will be required than willpower and force to extract some advantage from the wreckage of the Bush years.

Obama is also better suited for the task of renewing the bedrock foundations of American influence. An American restoration in foreign affairs will require a commitment not only to international coöperation but also to international institutions that can address global warming, the dislocations of what will likely be a deepening global economic crisis, disease epidemics, nuclear proliferation, terrorism, and other, more traditional security challenges. Many of the Cold War-era vehicles for engagement and negotiation—the United Nations, the World Bank, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty regime, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization—are moribund, tattered, or outdated. Obama has the generational outlook that will be required to revive or reinvent these compacts. He would be the first postwar American President unencumbered by the legacies of either Munich or Vietnam.

The next President must also restore American moral credibility. Closing Guantánamo, banning all torture, and ending the Iraq war as responsibly as possible will provide a start, but only that. The modern Presidency is as much a vehicle for communication as for decision-making, and the relevant audiences are global. Obama has inspired many Americans in part because he holds up a mirror to their own idealism. His election would do no less—and likely more—overseas.

What most distinguishes the candidates, however, is character—and here, contrary to conventional wisdom, Obama is clearly the stronger of the two. Not long ago, Rick Davis, McCain’s campaign manager, said, “This election is not about issues. This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates.” The view that this election is about personalities leaves out policy, complexity, and accountability. Even so, there’s some truth in what Davis said––but it hardly points to the conclusion that he intended.

Echoing Obama, McCain has made “change” one of his campaign mantras. But the change he has actually provided has been in himself, and it is not just a matter of altering his positions. A willingness to pander and even lie has come to define his Presidential campaign and its televised advertisements. A contemptuous duplicity, a meanness, has entered his talk on the stump—so much so that it seems obvious that, in the drive for victory, he is willing to replicate some of the same underhanded methods that defeated him eight years ago in South Carolina.

Perhaps nothing revealed McCain’s cynicism more than his choice of Sarah Palin, the former mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, who had been governor of that state for twenty-one months, as the Republican nominee for Vice-President. In the interviews she has given since her nomination, she has had difficulty uttering coherent unscripted responses about the most basic issues of the day. We are watching a candidate for Vice-President cram for her ongoing exam in elementary domestic and foreign policy. This is funny as a Tina Fey routine on “Saturday Night Live,” but as a vision of the political future it’s deeply unsettling. Palin has no business being the backup to a President of any age, much less to one who is seventy-two and in imperfect health. In choosing her, McCain committed an act of breathtaking heedlessness and irresponsibility. Obama’s choice, Joe Biden, is not without imperfections. His tongue sometimes runs in advance of his mind, providing his own fodder for late-night comedians, but there is no comparison with Palin. His deep experience in foreign affairs, the judiciary, and social policy makes him an assuring and complementary partner for Obama.

The longer the campaign goes on, the more the issues of personality and character have reflected badly on McCain. Unless appearances are very deceiving, he is impulsive, impatient, self-dramatizing, erratic, and a compulsive risk-taker. These qualities may have contributed to his usefulness as a “maverick” senator. But in a President they would be a menace.

By contrast, Obama’s transformative message is accompanied by a sense of pragmatic calm. A tropism for unity is an essential part of his character and of his campaign. It is part of what allowed him to overcome a Democratic opponent who entered the race with tremendous advantages. It is what helped him forge a political career relying both on the liberals of Hyde Park and on the political regulars of downtown Chicago. His policy preferences are distinctly liberal, but he is determined to speak to a broad range of Americans who do not necessarily share his every value or opinion. For some who oppose him, his equanimity even under the ugliest attack seems like hauteur; for some who support him, his reluctance to counterattack in the same vein seems like self-defeating detachment. Yet it is Obama’s temperament—and not McCain’s—that seems appropriate for the office both men seek and for the volatile and dangerous era in which we live. Those who dismiss his centeredness as self-centeredness or his composure as indifference are as wrong as those who mistook Eisenhower’s stolidity for denseness or Lincoln’s humor for lack of seriousness.

Nowadays, almost every politician who thinks about running for President arranges to become an author. Obama’s books are different: he wrote them. “The Audacity of Hope” (2006) is a set of policy disquisitions loosely structured around an account of his freshman year in the United States Senate. Though a campaign manifesto of sorts, it is superior to that genre’s usual blowsy pastiche of ghostwritten speeches. But it is Obama’s first book, “Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance” (1995), that offers an unprecedented glimpse into the mind and heart of a potential President. Obama began writing it in his early thirties, before he was a candidate for anything. Not since Theodore Roosevelt has an American politician this close to the pinnacle of power produced such a sustained, highly personal work of literary merit before being definitively swept up by the tides of political ambition.

A Presidential election is not the awarding of a Pulitzer Prize: we elect a politician and, we hope, a statesman, not an author. But Obama’s first book is valuable in the way that it reveals his fundamental attitudes of mind and spirit. “Dreams from My Father” is an illuminating memoir not only in the substance of Obama’s own peculiarly American story but also in the qualities he brings to the telling: a formidable intelligence, emotional empathy, self-reflection, balance, and a remarkable ability to see life and the world through the eyes of people very different from himself. In common with nearly all other senators and governors of his generation, Obama does not count military service as part of his biography. But his life has been full of tests—personal, spiritual, racial, political—that bear on his preparation for great responsibility.

It is perfectly legitimate to call attention, as McCain has done, to Obama’s lack of conventional national and international policymaking experience. We, too, wish he had more of it. But office-holding is not the only kind of experience relevant to the task of leading a wildly variegated nation. Obama’s immersion in diverse human environments (Hawaii’s racial rainbow, Chicago’s racial cauldron, countercultural New York, middle-class Kansas, predominantly Muslim Indonesia), his years of organizing among the poor, his taste of corporate law and his grounding in public-interest and constitutional law—these, too, are experiences. And his books show that he has wrung from them every drop of insight and breadth of perspective they contained.

The exhaustingly, sometimes infuriatingly long campaign of 2008 (and 2007) has had at least one virtue: it has demonstrated that Obama’s intelligence and steady temperament are not just figments of the writer’s craft. He has made mistakes, to be sure. (His failure to accept McCain’s imaginative proposal for a series of unmediated joint appearances was among them.) But, on the whole, his campaign has been marked by patience, planning, discipline, organization, technological proficiency, and strategic astuteness. Obama has often looked two or three moves ahead, relatively impervious to the permanent hysteria of the hourly news cycle and the cable-news shouters. And when crisis has struck, as it did when the divisive antics of his ex-pastor threatened to bring down his campaign, he has proved equal to the moment, rescuing himself with a speech that not only drew the poison but also demonstrated a profound respect for the electorate. Although his opponents have tried to attack him as a man of “mere” words, Obama has returned eloquence to its essential place in American politics. The choice between experience and eloquence is a false one––something that Lincoln, out of office after a single term in Congress, proved in his own campaign of political and national renewal. Obama’s “mere” speeches on everything from the economy and foreign affairs to race have been at the center of his campaign and its success; if he wins, his eloquence will be central to his ability to govern.

We cannot expect one man to heal every wound, to solve every major crisis of policy. So much of the Presidency, as they say, is a matter of waking up in the morning and trying to drink from a fire hydrant. In the quiet of the Oval Office, the noise of immediate demands can be deafening. And yet Obama has precisely the temperament to shut out the noise when necessary and concentrate on the essential. The election of Obama—a man of mixed ethnicity, at once comfortable in the world and utterly representative of twenty-first-century America—would, at a stroke, reverse our country’s image abroad and refresh its spirit at home. His ascendance to the Presidency would be a symbolic culmination of the civil- and voting-rights acts of the nineteen-sixties and the century-long struggles for equality that preceded them. It could not help but say something encouraging, even exhilarating, about the country, about its dedication to tolerance and inclusiveness, about its fidelity, after all, to the values it proclaims in its textbooks. At a moment of economic calamity, international perplexity, political failure, and battered morale, America needs both uplift and realism, both change and steadiness. It needs a leader temperamentally, intellectually, and emotionally attuned to the complexities of our troubled globe. That leader’s name is Barack Obama.

—The Editors

Relevant Facts Re Education of Candidates

Thanks to Chris Finer for this valuable data, which really puts everything in its proper perspective:

Look at the educational background of our candidates:

Obama:
Occidental College - Two years
Columbia University - B.A. political science with a specialization in international relations
Harvard - Juris Doctor (J.D.) Magna Cum Laude

Biden:
University of Delaware - Double major: B.A. in history and B.A. in political science
Syracuse University College of Law - Juris Doctor (J.D.)


vs.


McCain:
United States Naval Academy - Class rank 894 of 899

Palin:
Hawaii Pacific University - 1 semester - undeclared major
North Idaho College - 2 semesters - undeclared major
University of Idaho - 2 semesters - journalism
Matanuska-Susitna College - 1 semester
University of Idaho - 3 semesters - B.A. in journalism with specialization in sports reporting

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The Swiftboating of Barack Obama

Thanks to Mick Gallagher.
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Originally published in March 2008.
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The Swiftboating of Barack Obama
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by David Michael Green

If there’s anything I’ve learned about American politics over the past decade, it’s this: First, regressives will do anything – and I mean anything – to obtain power (the real purpose of which is to loot the public fisc of all items not securely nailed to the floor). And, second, just about everything they try works when employed against an American public possessed of stunning political immaturity.

It comes as little surprise, therefore, that two things happened over the last couple of weeks. One, that Barack Obama was swiftboated by means of a bogus inference in order to make him look like an angry black radical. And two, that a lot of dumb voters went for it.

It was pretty inevitable, really. I mean, the guy was getting rather, um, uppity, if you know what I mean. Winning elections and all. Mobilizing millions of voters. And so on. Plus he’s talking like he might actually, really, seriously, shut off the government teat of Iraq war no-bid contracts, NAFTA/WTO-based cheap labor, and massive tax transfers for the hyper-wealthy.

Read More

Register to Vote in Ohio!

Thanks to Mick Gallagher.

In Ohio, you know how few votes it can take to tip an election. You probably also know more than one Buckeye who isn't registered to vote.

The registration deadline on October 6th is fast approaching.

Tell your friends, family, and neighbors to check out our new, one-stop voter registration website:

http://oh.barackobama.com/OHregister

Our new Ohio registration site makes it easier than ever to get registered. Instead of tracking down the right forms, all you need to do is answer a few basic questions and you'll have everything you need to become registered. You can also:

-- Confirm your registration status
-- Apply to vote absentee

If you need to confirm that you're registered or you'd like to learn more, take a minute to visit the site right now:

http://oh.barackobama.com/OHregister

This race is too close and too important to stay home on Election Day.

If you take the time to register and vote -- and make sure everyone you know is registered as well -- we'll be able to turn the tide of the past eight years.

It's people just like you who will transform this nation.

Thanks for everything you are doing in Ohio,

Barack


Donate: https://donate.barackobama.com/wecan

McCain Meets Obama

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On Saturday, 081608, Senators John McCain and Barack Obama-- the two nominees for the office of president of the U.S.-- shared the stage of a large church in California. The event was presented as an "interview," but was actually more like a forum. The two men never met face-to-face; there was no real debate. The moderator asked the two the same questions; this tended to highlight the convergences between their conjectures re the future. This, deliberately or otherwise, down-played some of the most important distinctions that separate the platforms of the Republican (McCain) and Democratic (Obama) parties.

Both men performed splendidly. Their answers were to the point, clear, and they both spoke from lucid minds. Their presentations were very similar. But the substances of their replies separated them: John McCain still supports an endless war, which he once said could last "another hundred years." He thinks that the war in Iraq, shamefully initiated by the U.S. against a small third-world country, can be "won with honor." (Shades of Viet Nam!) He was terribly challenged to define the "rich," while Obama rather quickly and neatly defined the group as a family earning over $250,000-- a cool quarter of a million per year.

McCain obviously wants to continue the tax-breaks given to the rich, and, reversing years of his own record, spoke in strong support of commercial drilling for oil in off-shore areas of America. McCain seemed smooth and relaxed, but you could easily tell that his message was designed for the large audience; it lacked the very personal marks of a more personal conversation used between Obama and the narrator. To "warm" up his rather cool way of speaking, sometimes, almost aloof, McCain used the affectation "My friends" several times during his one-hour address.

As usual, McCain tried to distance himself from the ingloriously unpopular George Bush, but, as usual, again, he managed to come across, in several policy-areas, as the same ol' "McSame."

If the United States is at all serious about getting rid of the terrible, hideous, nightmarishly incompetent government of the past seven years, we cannot afford a "bush-clone," or even a "bush look-alike." Obama is right when he identifies change-- and major change-- as the greatest need of our country, and our planet.

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A Book Worth Reading

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The Audacity of Hope, by Barack Obama, is a concise summation of some of our country's greatest challenges, and possible solutions. The writing is both sophisticated and simple; it reviews matters with some in-depth precision, and tries honestly to look at all sides. In most cases, the two extremes of far left and far right will be set up, and then, the author will recommend a more centrist or moderate course, near the "middle," avoiding both dangerous extremes.

Altogether, the author thus comes across as a moderate rather than a "liberal," even though some of his ideas are definitely progressive. He is future-seeing, with an eye towards the possibility of maximizing new technologies in our search for solutions. He is thoroughly aware of the places of religion, racism, economics, and ideology in politics and in national affairs. He is aware also of the bumbling and incompetence of the bush administration, although not harshly or repeatedly so.

In sum, this thorough and well thought-out book was produced by a mind that has been educated, and that reflects also a deep and personal concern for the world in which his young daughters will have to grow up. The result is a work that is tender in places, highly selfrevlatory, compassionate, and passionate. The facts are in place, and the overview quite balanced. In this world, in which it might be argued that few books are worth reading, this one is an exception, for it is an exceptional book, written with lucidity, wisdom, and expanded awareness of the need for change.
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The Election: A Few Considerations

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Either of the Democratic candidates would be far superior to the lunkhead, deadhead, and cementhead that has "bought" with daddy's help, the office! McKane looks like a genius when compared to bush, but so does the average vegetable.:) And if there is a lifeform lower than bush-- and this is incredibly debatable-- it is a bush wannabe, like mccain.:)

I like hilary and obama. Either will be fine. One reason that Obama was chosen is that Hilary is a scorpio-- sometimes difficult to get along with, and often, reticent to forgive. Obama is a leo-- often stuck on the self, or conceited.

Nobody is ever "perfect," of course.:) But what really tilted the scales for us was not the sunsigns, but the "jupitersigns." The jupitersign influences dealings with the public. Hillary's is sagittarius-- often, not very responsible. Obama's is aquarius-- the futuristic or technological thinker. With the neoenergic systems that we will have to develop, to move towards energy-independence, aquarius is simply a better sign.:)

We are both in fullest agreement that the numbskull, the incompetent pretender, needs immediate replacement-- and badly!:) Our country just might be able once again to lift its collective head, and it might no longer be an "international shame" to be an American!:) Let us, at any rate, hope and pray so!:):)
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This Election

030808 Sat,

Dear Friends, Buds, and Pals,

I have decided to endorse Barack Obama because I feel that he is not corrupted by being "owned" by corporate America. He seems genuinely interested in truly serving the people.

Love,

Shi