The Daily Kos has a set of graphics about the Presidential debates that brought home the results to me. The responses to the debate categories were broken down by Republican, Democrat, and Independent. In evaluating the candidates, you'd expect the partisan approvals by the party-affiliated responders. But the base hasn't decided a presidential election in years. The Independents must break your way if you want to win. And even with the Dems so far outpacing the Republicans in voter registration, the Independents will be decisive. What the graphics made clear to me, even though I have heard the info already many times, is how out-of-step the Republicans are with the direction of the country. It gives me hope I mostly dare not allow myself to contemplate.
See for yourself:
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Afraid to Hope, Yet Hoping
We the People at Palin's Hat Shop
The Washington Post has reported on yet another ethical lapse by Governor Palin. Apparently, state officials in Alaska are forbidden by law from taking sides on ballot initiatives. Palin bit her tongue about a conflict between mining and fishing industries, but put up partisan info on her government website. When the fisheries complained, she was ordered by the courts to remove the info. She did and then called a press conference, explained that she was "taking off her governor's hat" and told them that as a private citizen she was against the protections for fishing. The next day full page ads in the papers carried her picture announcing Governor Palin (not private citizen Palin) was against the initiative. It failed.
As former Governor Tony Knowles told the Post:
"She says, 'I'm going to take off my governor's hat,' but the only reason the press was there was that they were called to a press conference by the governor. Being governor is not a costume -- you either are the governor or not."In honor of Sarah Palin's discovery that laws only apply to those wearing the appropriate hat, I would like to celebrate the ways in which this discovery could make all our lives easier.
"I took off my teacher hat and cursed out a fifth-grader. And then I went back to being a caring instructor. But I'm only human and the kid was getting on my nerves."
"I took off my employee hat and took a nap. My boss started to yell at me, but I showed him that hat on the rack and he was suddenly embarrassed. You can't just scream at people unless you're their boss. He apologized and just to show no hard feelings, I put my hat right back on and got to work."
"I took off my law-abiding-citizen hat and robbed a bank. Just for a minute, and then I put that hat back on. Now my finances are peachy and I want all the laws enforced, as any law-abiding citizen would."
Fox Fixes the Debate
A reader of Talking Points Memo noticed Fox News playing around with the debate footage. They flipped the debaters positions on a split screen so that it looked like McCain was addressing Obama and that it was Obama who was looking away from McCain.
Fox should explain that when they say "fair and balanced" they mean that they will actively 'balance' reality so that it meets their idea of fair.
Post Turtle Palin
TPMcafe has a funny Palin story that reads like a classic joke. A 75-year-old rancher is talking to his doctor and the subject of Palin comes up. Enjoy.
The old rancher said, "Well, ya know, Palin is a 'Post Turtle'".Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him what a 'post turtle' was.
The old rancher said, "When you're driving down a country road you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top - that's a 'post turtle".
The old rancher saw the puzzled look on the doctor's face so he continued to explain. "You know she didn't get up there by herself, she doesn't belong up there, and she doesn't know what to do while she's up there, and you just wonder what kind of dummy put her up there to begin with".
Saturday, September 27, 2008
$700,000,000,000.00 and Counting
While we are all gritting out teeth and accepting the inevitable bailout of unregulated banking in the mortgage sector, the credit card sector is still completely unregulated. Congress is trying to address that in separate legislation at the same time they are proceeding with the bailout by writing some pretty tame limits on how credit card issuers deal with consumers. Mostly the legislation is about notification. It has no caps on interest or fees charged, just on how much time the lenders give you. And guess what. The banking industry is pushing back, saying this time of crisis (that their own desire to conduct business unfettered created) is no time to make it harder for consumers to get credit. And by extension, for lenders to continue to make the obscene profits they have been raking in ever since the Supreme Court overturned all the state-level laws controlling interest rates and penalty fees, leaving them free to charge as much as they can bleed from desperate, bad risk consumers. They hang their heads and accept that the free lunch is over in mortgages, but don't see why they should have to put up with consumer protections on credit card debt. After all, if the situation gets too rough, the government can just bail them out again.
Monday, September 22, 2008
McCain Camp Goes To War With New York Times
Notice in the article that the campaign strategist, Schmidt, doesn't address the merits of the accusations. He attacks the paper and somehow makes the conversation about the liberal media.
Davis at least admits he worked for Fannie & Freddie but claims he didn't lobby–he just met with his friends in Washington who worked for the government. Right. And I don't teach school, I just go every day to a classroom where there are students and talk to them about stuff.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Reality's Liberal Bias
The chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben S. Bernanke, and the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., have thrown their party's theories aside and dived into the financial crisis determined to avoid the mistakes that turned a depression into the Depression. The New York Times chronicles in its business section (here) how the "professor" prevailed against the "banker," the crisis returning us to a valuing of intelligence over savvy, of education over "gut." All the adolescent absolutism and macho aggressiveness of laissez-faire business dealings so beloved by the Republican Party have been shown once again to be neither wise not prudent. I can only hope that people will see that, in a real world, the only things that work for long are "nuanced" and the "complex," awake to history so that we don't repeat it and educated in how to see beyond the end of one's ambition.
Deregulation and Privatization - Terrible Twosome
Can you imagine if the Republicans had gotten their way during the Clinton years and if Social Security had been privatized and was dependent on the very financial institutions now collapsing? And McCain wanted to put your health insurance in the same pocketbook. Sure it sounds good: you make your own choices and have more control. But this is the same rationale my dad made for not wearing a seat belt: he imagined he could throw himself out of the way of the accident, never mind the physics of 2 cars moving at 65 miles per hour. It sounds good, but the laws of physics are not amenable to personal ideas.
Privatization and deregulation are masks for corporate greed. Talk about government taking over health care and the cry against "socialized medicine" goes up and people figure if it's like the old Soviet Union and must be bad. But what are these bailouts but all the bad parts of socialism - no responsibility, taxpayer supported fat cats - without any of the benefits. Unregulated businesses make tons of money taking foolish chances for quick profits knowing they will receive bailouts when their house of cards collapses. The Republican Party, for all its "free market" posturing, only wants government to stay out of the way of its own greedy backers, but when they overreach, they expect we-the-people via our government to bail them out WITH NO STRINGS ATTACHED. No regulation. No personal responsibility. So you and I essentially buy the failed banks' bad debt. Then the Republicans will say we need to let the private sector handle money, and so some corporation will buy the failed banks at pennies on the dollar for what we paid to help them. We eat the loss and the private buyer reaps the rebound profits. This is socializing risk and privatizing profit.
But when individual taxpayers fall on hard times, all the babble is about personal responsibility and letting the market correct itself through foreclosures. There is no bailout for you, the taxpayer, even as you foot the bill for the banks. Not even bankruptcy will clear your debts now or ever.
Banking on Health in a McCain World
You better stay healthy if McCain gets elected. McCain was quoted recently in a business magazine, Contingencies, saying that the way to fix health care was to use the deregulated banking industry as the model.
"Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation." (full article here)
To be fair, this isn't just McCain. It's the whole big business arm of the Republican Party. The Reagan Revolution deregulation and trickle-down tom-foolery have left us all holding the bag.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Palin Quoted Racist
Sara Palin quoted Westbrook Pegler in her acceptance speech, "We grow good people in our small towns, with honesty, sincerity and dignity."
The writer a person quotes approvingly is likely to be a writer that same person reads and enjoys, especially if the quote is not some famous old saw or the words of an emblematic public figure. Like is drawn to and values like. So it says a lot about Sarah Palin, her reading habits and her taste in thinkers when she quotes a writer.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. had these words to say about Pegler, the author of that quote.
Fascist writer Westbrook Pegler, an avowed racist who Sarah Palin approvingly quoted in her acceptance speech for the moral superiority of small town values, expressed his fervent hope about my father, Robert F. Kennedy, as he contemplated his own run for the presidency in 1965, that "some white patriot of the Southern tier will spatter his spoonful of brains in public premises before the snow flies."
It might be worth asking Governor Palin for a tally of the other favorites from her reading list.
Hunting Bulwinkle - Palin's Idea of Sport
Paul Theroux brought me Thoreau on hunting moose today here and I am now ashamed that on hearing about Palin's love of moose hunting, I didn't question the 'sport.' Where is the sport here?
All this talk about moose hunting! It is as though, because of the animal's enormous size and imposing antlers, bringing one down is a heroic feat of marksmanship. Nothing could be further from the truth. As Henry David Thoreau wrote in "The Maine Woods," killing these big, gentle, myopic creatures is more "like going out by night to some woodside pasture and shooting your neighbor's horses."Theroux goes on to make a parallel between hunting style and political style. And when I understand how moose hunting involves no skill or bravery, but just brute force inflicted on something bigger yet peaceful, I fear Palin even more.
Thoreau's descriptions of the moose he saw in Maine are inspired and fanciful. "They made me think of great frightened rabbits," he wrote.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Survey Says...
So many people are writing about how the poll numbers they are seeing cannot be correct. I, too, am weirded out by them and have been trying to figure out how these stats can be true. One of my friends suggests that poll answerers are a self-selecting group, and that folks like my friends or like me do not answer them. So today, I took my first poll in over 10 years.
The last poll I took was a push-poll in Seattle, a "poll" designed to promote a big pro-big-business renovation project. I was so angry at the sly, slanted questions that I wouldn't finish the poll and swore never to take one again. But I see how polls are used to drive the public opinion and news coverage, and so, like voting, I want to make sure my voice and the voices of people like me are included in the data.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Palin Budget Cutting-Folks-Off-At-The-Knees and Giving Herself the Keys to the Chevy
As reported in the New York Times, Palin's style of budget cutting has all the empathy of a Mafia don.
The mayor quickly fired the town’s museum director, John Cooper. Later, she sent an aide to the museum to talk to the three remaining employees. “He told us they only wanted two,” recalled Esther West, one of the three, “and we had to pick who was going to be laid off.” The three quit as one.Budget problem solved.
But Slashin' Sara doesn't only cut costs. When it's important, she finds the funds for vital equipment like a new white Chevy Suburban for her own use.
Ms. Palin ordered city employees not to talk to the press. And she used city money to buy a white Suburban for the mayor’s use — employees sarcastically called it the mayor-mobile.
You have to admire such moxie. But you don't have to vote for it.
Palin's Call to Embrace the Dark Side of Our Nature
Deepak Chopra wrote a column called Obama and the Palin Effect that explains the appeal of Palin. Instead of looking at the facts of the candidates or the role of the press, he looks at the unconscious emotional dynamics at play in the electorate. The press may be promoting the idea that the McCain Republican campaign is once again outfoxing the Democratic machine, but the real culprit is found in the American psyche and how people may wish for change in the abstract while being terrified about losing the little they have should change really happen. It is the call for change that is triggering this fear; the Republicans are simply fanning the flames and capitalizing on it.
In her acceptance speech Gov. Palin sent a rousing call to those who want to celebrate their resistance to change and a higher vision.Here lies the the key Bill Clinton's, and to a lesser degree, Hillary Clinton's success. They did not just inspire people to their cause; they simultaneously soothed the fears that their call for change evoked. Folksy and friendly, they reassured the populace that the changes that were coming would not ask anything of them and give everything to them.
Look at what she stands for:
--Small town values -- a denial of America's global role, a return to petty, small-minded parochialism.
--Ignorance of world affairs -- a repudiation of the need to repair America's image abroad.
--Family values -- a code for walling out anybody who makes a claim for social justice. Such strangers, being outside the family, don't need to be heeded.
--Rigid stands on guns and abortion -- a scornful repudiation that these issues can be negotiated with those who disagree.
--Patriotism -- the usual fallback in a failed war.
--"Reform" -- an italicized term, since in addition to cleaning out corruption and excessive spending, one also throws out anyone who doesn't fit your ideology.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Palin Poor Judgement and Abuse of Power Evidence Keeps Comin'
Todd Palin Subpoenaed in Troopergate
Palin, cast at last week's Republican National Convention as a supportive husband, oil rig worker and championship snowmachine racer, has emerged in the days since as also a powerful figure in his wife's administration. Despite holding no government position, he attends official meetings and is copied on e-mails concerning state business. (italics mine)
Whatever the outcome of the Troopergate investigation, the fact that a governor gives an unelected spouse surrogate power in running the government reveals a Mafia mentality management style. How would you feel having your government job overseen not only by your boss but the boss' husband? I remember the public outcry over Hillary being in charge of the health care task force under Clinton which was at least above board and in her area of expertise. But this kind of shadow power given to family members in government is just creepy.
Saturday, September 06, 2008
When Elephants Forget
The elephant and the donkey. Republican and Democrat. Elephants are supposed to remember. Remember when you opposed integration - of the military, of baseball, of schools? You were angry and resentful. Remember that? All the liberals you hated and now you have to admit, it was the right thing to do.
Remember when you said going after Osama bin Laden was a Clinton ploy to draw attention away from the Monica Lewinsky scandal? How you spent our national will on an impeachment instead of stopping a terrorist? The terrorist who masterminded 9/11? Do you feel at all responsible? Clearly not, as you still insist your party keeps us safe where we Democrats would not.
Time and again, you sneer and gleefully block the liberal bogeyman, and end up harming this country while you moan about how much you love America. And time and again, when the liberals do get in power, yes, they bring about change that you only later admit was fair, but they also bring higher net paychecks to your bank account, lower taxes on working people, and general prosperity for the country. Always.
Maybe we should trade symbols. You take the donkey. You sure seem stubborn enough. You ignored the hated liberals and gave Bush a blank check and now you won't admit you prefer seeing American young men and women kill and die or come home broken by a criminal war than admit it was criminal, that you fell for his lies because because you wanted to. You probably still deny it. But I promise you, like an elephant, I will remember.
Friday, September 05, 2008
Palin's Gives America the Finger
My mother told me long ago, "when you point a finger at someone else, you are pointing three back at yourself." The Republican playbook runs the 'finger-pointing, name-calling' game and wins with it time and again. The names work for the simple reason that there is truth behind them. Not the truth of the accusation. The truth is in the accuser.
And so it is that the shockingly joyful response to Sarah Palin's snide speech reveals the flaws of the party members and un-self aware independents who cheer her. Palin points a finger for them, and they join in enthusiastically, because they are three times more guilty than the Democrats of every single accusation she makes. Yet the jiu-jitsu of projection allows them to believe they are happily innocent in their righteous hatred of their enemies.
I don't blame Sarah Palin. I blame every Republican and Independent who votes for people like her. They are the ones who refuse to take the schoolyard truth from their own hands and see where most of the fingers are pointing.
When my niece was a toddler, if you asked her who licked the frosting off the cake or drew with crayons on the wall, she would reply, "I can't know that." My niece grew up and now takes responsibility for her errors, even the ones made in good faith. She has become an adult. The Palin cheering crowds are emotional toddlers willing trade their country and mine for their own illusion of innocence.
