Category: Politics

By Posted on Posted in Politics, Social and Economic Justice

Greg Palast is one of my favorite investigative journalists, especially when it comes to theft-of-vote issues. But as a political thinker, he can be muddy. Yesterday, he released a column essentially saying he was voting for Obama despite his political reservations in order to make up for years of racial injustice. He called the article “Vote for him – because he’s Black,” and talked movingly about a favorite teacher who was hounded out of the system because he was black.

So, I’m going to do something that Dr. Bruce would think little of. I’m going to vote for the Black man.

Because he’s Black.

The truth is, I’m wary of Barack Obama. His cozy relations with the sub-prime loan sharks who funded his early campaign; his vote, at the behest of his big donor ADM corporation, for the horrific Bush energy bill.

But there’s one thing that overshadows policy positions, one thing he cannot change once in office: the color of his skin. The same as Mr. Bruce’s.

By Palast’s logic, the black dictator Robert Mugabe is a better choice than a visionary like Mikhael Gorbachev or Lech Walesa (both white males). should we vote for Sarah Palin because she’s a woman? While if all other things were equal, I might vote for the candidate who came from the more disenfranchised background, that’s not even a factor for me in this race. Because the candidates are far from equal. I vote for the candidate who I feel will do the most good–and sometimes, like today, that is not the one I most agree with.

True, I share Palast’s reservations about Barack Obama, and could add a few of my own. I wish he were as liberal as McCain and Palin paint him out to be. And if all I wanted to do with my vote was overcome historic injustice, I could vote for the Green Party. Not only Cynthia McKinney but also her running mate are both black and female, and her politics–or Ralph Nader’s, for that matter–are a lot closer to mine than Obama’s are.

I spent a lot of time thinking about whether to vote for McKinney, Nader, or Obama. I’ve often voted 3rd party and I still regret voting for Kerry instead of the Green Party’s David Cobb in 2004 (a decision I didn’t make until I was actually in the voting booth, by the way). And though I don’t have any illusions about how much change an Obama presidency will mean, this year, I’m not only voting Dem but I’m actually went up to my neighboring swing state (New Hampshire) and volunteered.

And I feel good about it.

If the candidate had been Hillary or some of the others, I would have voted 3rd party this year. So…why am I voting for Obama anyhow?

I really do see the country needing a unifying force right now, and a complete and total repudiation in the largest possible numbers of the last eight years And to me that means Obama this time, even with my significant reservations. And I do think that Obama is seriously motivated by a desire for social change, and is far more ethical and smart than the typical candidate. I want to support the Democrats moving for once in a good direction, after a series of centrist, bland, uninspiring and cowardly candidates who gave me no reason to vote for them, starting in 1988 with Michael Dukakis. The only exception was Bill Clinton, who was centrist but far from bland, at times inspiring, and willing to be controversial. Not surprisingly, he’s been the only Democrat to win in the past 20 years.

I think we are presented with a rare window, and if there’s an overwhelming majority plus veto-proof Congress, Obama may move left in the crisis, much as FDR did. After all, even LBJ and (on certain issues) Nixon moved way to the left once they were in office. I also think that while his vision is limited and his thinking somewhat too conventional, he is sincere about social justice. He’s also amazingly smart, charismatic, ethical, compassionate, and quick on his feet. He understands the need to do something about energy policy and climate change. He understands, form personal experience, the peculiar cultural and philosophical stew that is the United States electorate. He understands the power of good marketing and will be an effective salesman for his policies on Capitol Hill and in the public squares of American opinion. And he is by disposition well to the left of the Clintons, though nowhere near as far as I’d like.

And Obama is the only figure on the national scene who could actually be, as George W. Bush so famously claimed to be and then did the opposite, “a uniter, not a divider.”

He may actually be in a position to accomplish more change than we expect. He may actually be that transformative leader. Dare I call this the audacity of my hope?

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By Posted on Posted in Politics, Uncategorized

You’ve just got to wonder. What are these people thinking?

“When I started talking to them, it kind of became clear that they were kind of just telling people to leave that they thought maybe would be disruptive, but based on what? Based on how they looked,” Elborno said. “It was pretty much all young people, the college demographic.”

Elborno said even McCain supporters were among those being asked to leave.

“I saw a couple that had been escorted out and they were confused as well, and the girl was crying, so I said ‘Why are you crying? and she said ‘I already voted for McCain, I’m a Republican, and they said we had to leave because we didn’t look right,’” Elborno said. “They were handpicking these people and they had nothing to go off of, besides the way the people looked.”

Let’s hear it for those good old American First Amendment values of free speech and assembly, Senator McCain. Is this kind of profiling any less despicable than racial profiling?

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By Posted on Posted in Ethics in Government, Politics, Uncategorized
  • Good summary of all the race-baiting, commie-baiting, Muslim-baiting McCarthyistic crap coming out of many corners of the McCain campaign, most of it apparently condoned by both McCain and Palin: at least 13 separate incidents, including some real nasties, like the woman who made up the story that she was mugged and disfigured for supporting McCain and the robocalls to Jewish voters in Pennsylvania warning of another holocaust if Obama is elected (that one actually did get disavowed, but McCain personally endorsed a sleazy brochure that tried to tie Obama to 9/11). And several more dirty tricks, many targeting black voters, listed here.
  • Front-page story in The Times of London (owned by Rupert Murdoch, but still a reputable paper) has several Vietnamese involved in McCain’s capture/rescue and imprisonment denying that he was ever tortured–in separate interviews. American mainstream media has apparently been ignoring this story, and I’m not convinced it’s true, but you’d think the press would want to investigate, since the torture story has been the basis for his entire career. The closest I could find to corroboration was this anonymous report that claims to be from a fellow POW

    • According to a fellow POW, John McCain sustained some injures after ejecting over North Vietnam, but was never tortured or mistreated. Speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of what the new Republican Nazi Party might do to him and his family, he said, “Hell, they didn’t have to torture McCain. He talked incessantly. We didn’t nickname him “Songbird” because he was cute or had a pleasant voice…”

    I’ve known McCain for years and while he’s a lot of things, a straight talker he is not. Even though I was shot down twice in Vietnam, I wasn’t captured. The records show that most pilots did their very best to avoid being captured, and those who were, carried out their orders according the United States Military Code of Conduct, especially Article III. There is no record of John McCain trying to escape or aiding others in their attempt to escape. I also know that like me, McCain is one sick old man. He’s eaten up with PTSD and hate, and it’s not the North Vietnamese, North Koreans or even the Taliban he hates. He hates Americans for leaving him to rot in a POW camp. Evidently, the Pentagon didn’t believe McCain warranted being rescued to the degree that McCain believed.

  • McCain’s hypocrisy shows up on just about every issue. As one example, how about John McCain pushing Reagan to meet with terrorists without preconditions.

    In 1987, John McCain cast several votes in an attempt to force the Reagan administration to meet with RENAMO1, a guerrilla organization in Mozambique that State Department officials at the time described as a “terrorist group,” 2 without requiring that the group meet any preconditions.

    Oh, and how about Palin’s ties to a terrorist separatist group in Alaska–much less tenuous than Obama’s ties to Ayers?

  • The ridiculous and desperate attempt to pin vote fraud charges on Acorn, and by implication, Obama–while the Republicans continue the biggest disenfranchisement campaign in US history

    This is only the tip of the iceberg. I could chronicle this stuff all night. “Mr. Straight Talk” has some serious explaining–and apologizing–to do.

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    By Posted on Posted in Ethics in Government, Politics

    Dear American people:

    These are some names I’d love to see in the next President’s Cabinet. Who are your choices? Do you know visionary thinkers, with strong Green, ethical, and social justice credentials, who are also good administrators? Add your choices (or echo mine) in the comment section. (And speaking of ethics…Obama’s transition team has an excellent ethics mandate that is a welcome change from the corruption of the last couple of administrations–I expect to blog about it in detail when I get a chance.) Meanwhile, here’s what I’d suggest to Senator Obama, who might actually listen.

    Dear Senator Obama,

    On the strength of your call for change, your overall vision, your coolness under fire, and lots of other reasons–you are likely to become the next President of the United States. Here are some people who can really implement that change we will elect you to bring.

    Secretary of State
    Kofi Annan, former Secretary-General of the United Nations. (I could find nothing requiring that Cabinet Secretaries have to be U.S. citizens.)

    Secretary of the Treasury
    Hazel Henderson, futurist, ethicist, and Green economist. Alternative: Paul Krugman, Nobel Laureate and NY Times columnist.

    Secretary of Defense
    Gene Sharp, America’s foremost researcher on nonviolent alternatives to military–shifting the focus to actually defending the country. Alternate: Cindy Sheehan.

    Attorney General
    Michael Ratner, head of the Center for Constitutional Rights and one of the leading lawyers defending against the radical right-wing abrogation of rights at Guantanamo and elsewhere.

    Secretary of the Interior
    Winona LaDuke, Native American (Ojibwe) and environmental activist, extremely smart. Nader’s running mate in 2000.

    Secretary of Agriculture
    Annie Cheatham, former director of Communities Involved in Sustainable Agriculture in Deerfield, Massachusetts, one of the most successful community organizations nationwide in promoting local, sustainable farming, and one that grew enormously during her tenure.

    Secretary of Commerce
    Judy Wicks, restaurant owner and founder of Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, a national group working to support local business.

    Secretary of Labor
    Alisa Gravitz, Executive Director of Coop America/Green America.

    Secretary of Health and Human Services
    Cynthia McKinney, former member of Congress from Georgia, strong crusader for the rights of poor people, for an economy based on peace and sustainability.

    Secretary of Homeland Security
    Juan Gonzalez, Pulitzer and Polk-winning investigative journalist, co-host of the award-winning news and public affairs show Democracy Now, New York Post reporter, former Visiting Professor in Public Policy and Administration at Brooklyn College, and former president of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, author of three books including one on the aftermath of the World Trade Center attack, who has covered both terrorism and police issues for many years. Alternate: Richard Clarke, former security advisor to President Bush.

    Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
    Ron Dellums, long-time Congressman and Mayor from Oakland, CA. Alternate: Rev. Jesse Jackson.

    Secretary of Transportation
    A mass transit advocate willing to learn from the amazing example of Curitiba, Brazil, which created a bus system as efficient as any train system, at a fraction of the cost.

    Secretary of Energy
    Amory Lovins, energy visionary who understands not only the need to convert to renewable, nonpolluting resources, but the need to do it in ways that come out of abundance and not deprivation–that actually increase business profitability AND quality of life. Has been on the forefront of this movement since at least 1975.

    Secretary of Education
    Senator Hillary Clinton: Smart, aggressive, and a long-time leader on education.

    Secretary of Veterans Affairs
    Michael T. McPhearson, Executive Director of Veterans for Peace.

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    By Posted on Posted in Politics

    Yes, he’s sold his soul to the devil and gone back on everything we used to think he believed in (even opposition to torture). But a recent article in Huffington Post makes me wonder if it’s all a front. Apparently McCain thinks he can start assembling his government after the election.

    The Democratic nominee has enlisted the assistance of dozens of individuals — divided into working groups for particular federal agencies — to produce policy agendas and lists of recommended appointees. As evidence of their advanced preparations, officials provided a copy of the strict ethics guidelines that individuals working on the transition effort are required to sign.

    John McCain, by contrast, has done little. Campaign spokespersons did not respond to requests for elaboration. But one official with direct knowledge, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, expressed concern with McCain’s approach. The Arizona Senator has instructed his team to not spend time on the transition effort, according to the source

    Hey, John–if you want to turn an aircraft carrier, you start the process before you get to the place where you want to turn.

    Meanwhile, a very well-researched piece in Rolling Stone claims that the nasty, no-principles, and incompetent McCain we’re seeing is totally consistent with his history: that his goal all along, even in his Hanoi days, has always been McCain first, and never country first, and his competence was always in doubt. He may have been the only airman ever to wreck three separate aircraft. Most airmen who are not sons of admirals don’t get the chance to wreck a second, let alone a third.

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    By Posted on Posted in Ethics in Government, Politics

    These two items from the Center for Media and Democracy may leave a real strong “eeeewww!” taste in your mouth. At least they did for me:

    1. The US Food and Drug Administration let an industry front group do its new consumer-information website–and the front group calls the effort “EthicAd”

    2. A supposed poll was actually designed to spread very negative lies within the Jewish community about Obama, according to Politico.com. You’d think McCain, having been targeted by similar disgusting tactics in the 2000 election, would have killed this effort by the “Republican Jewish Coalition.”

    Aren’t we better than this? Yuck!

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    By Posted on Posted in Politics

    For months, of course, the McCain campaign has been an embarrassing collection of blunders, bloopers, mean-spirited ad hominem attacks, and recantation of everything he used to claim to stand for. But the last few days make me wonder if he and his advisors could pass a sanity test administered by a competent psychiatrist:

  • This absurd and desperate ploy to cancel both the presidential and vice-presidential debates on the grounds that McCain wants to roll up his sleeves and save the economy–the same economy that he said just the other day ws fundamentally sound. Does anyone really believe this is not just a pathetic attempt to duck out on the challenge form a better informed and more articulate opponent who can clean McCain’s clock on the economy and seems to actually have a better grasp of McCain’s supposed area of strength: foreign policy
  • Acting like the press, once a strong sector of McCain support, is some kind of enemy to be starved of information–and then being surprised when the press turns negative
  • Claiming that an initiative Obama supported to help children differentiate between appropriate and abusive touch was “sex education for kindergarteners”

    Conservative columnist George Will today said that McCain has been acting like a “flustered rookie” and that he’s not fit to be president. And Will noted that McCain’s peculiar idea to replace SEC Chair Chris Cox with Andrew Cuomo even attracted the ire of the Wall Street Journal:

    “McCain untethered” — disconnected from knowledge and principle — had made a “false and deeply unfair” attack on Cox that was “unpresidential” and demonstrated that McCain “doesn’t understand what’s happening on Wall Street any better than Barack Obama does.”

    But the best commentary I’ve seen was a scathingly hilarious piece by Bob Cesca on Huffington Post called “McCain’s foreign Policy: Blurt Out Random Crap.” I would not want to get on the bad side of this guy.

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    By Posted on Posted in Politics

    Okay, so it’s bad enough that McCain picks a running mate who has only been out of the country once, visiting her state’s reservists–and has the chutzpah to claim Ireland as a place she’s visited because her plane paused to refuel there. And it’s horrendous that someone running for VP had no clue what the Bush Doctrine was and shows amazing ignorance of the situation in Iraq. Presumably she’d have a year or so to get up to speed before McCain’s heart gives out–or maybe he’ll be lucky like Cheney and actually live out his term.

    But McCain…McCain is supposed to be the big foreign policy hotshot. This is supposed to be his core strength. Well, I am not impressed! He’s made at least three HUGE gaffes this campaign:

  • Had to have Joe Lieberman whisper loudly in his ear that he didn’t really mean Al-Qaida, just extremists (even Fox News picked up that one!)
  • Actually said, with a straight face,“In The 21st Century Nations Don’t Invade Other Nations.” John, my dear–has anyone ever mentioned Iraq or Afghanistan to you? Both invaded in the 21st century–by the U.S.
  • When asked by a reporter if he would meet with Spain’s Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, McCain said no, and didn’t seem to know who the reporter was talking about, even when she clarified it. He seemed to think it was something in Latin America. Either he’s really ignorant or so arrogant as to start destroying relationships with Europe even before the election. Of course, he has a history of this sort of thing in the run-up to the war, as the citations in the above link prove.

    Maybe I should run my dog for president. He understands a few things about foreign policy that McCain and Pallin apparently don’t: Start a conversation with diplomacy: in a dog’s case, sniffing butts. Ask for what you actually want, and not what your pollsters tell you. Being friendly wins you friends. And in imitation of Theodore Roosevelt, speak softly and carry a big stick–he likes to run down the mountain with his mouth wrapped around logs of six or eight feet.

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    By Posted on Posted in Ethics in Government, Media Ethics, Politics, Web 2.0/Social Media

    A certain popular website, that I will not name or link to, posted a bunch of Sarah Palin’s government-related e-mails posted through private, non-government, non-archived accounts.

    This is, to put it mildly, not according to Hoyle, and especially because there was even a conversation about how to keep prying eyes away from these posts by using “private” email.

    Of course, as Palin found out, e-mail is never really private. It’s not a secure medium. It’s also not particularly reliable. and you shouldn’t expect to have any privacy.

    However…while Palin had absolutely no right to conduct state business over non-government e-mail–and certainly no right to delete the emails and the account and thus destroy evidence of possible wrongdoing in the Troopergate scandal, I have just as big an ethical bone to pick with the site that unmasked her.: it listed the emails of her correspondents, in big print, and in hackable form.

    I’m sorry, but it is not anybody’s right to have the personal e-mails of her kids and others who corresponded with Sarah Palin. These people will have to go through a lot of time and trouble to change their addresses, notify correspondents, etc.

    Palin was wrong. But so was this website.

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