Footprints
Charles
Degelman
Election
The Aftermath
12/20/09
Five Healthcare Surprises
Surprise! The healthcare debate is full of surprises.
Surprise #1: Why are we debating over the basic human right to health and well-being? No other industrialized nation in the world argues about healthcare yet most Americans take the conflict for granted.
Surprise #2: As the contractions increase and the possible birth of a healthcare bill draws near, left/progressives who demanded healthcare legislation are crying betrayal! By whom? The Republicans? The insurance companies? No.
Surprise #3: Left/progressive objections to the current bill seem to focus on a betrayal by Barack Obama, the man we elected to office just 14 months ago, a man who – in eleven months – has helped (1) push U.S. healthcare reform further than it has progressed since its 1912 introduction and (2) helped jam this tattered bill through the shards of the most dissembled U.S. government in history.
Surprise #4: Left/progressive calls to kill the healthcare sellout fit nicely with the objections of Republicans who don’t give a damn about their constituents well-being and only want to kill the bill to destroy Barack Obama.
Surprise #5: Barack Obama, like FDR, was put in power to save capitalism. So why, as with FDR, are corporate oligarchs so hungry to pull him down? Health-wrecker Joe Lieberman grins with glee, John McCain suppresses a giggle as Howard Dean condemns the Senate bill. Is it time to join Lieberman, McCain et al in their efforts to disembowel the moderating Obama administration? Are we ready for what might follow?
Besides all that... How can we be so naïve?
•Did we think we were electing a socialist for President? A revolutionary?
•Did we think the Democrats were going to morph into a unified Left-wing advocacy machine?
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•Do we wish to join the millions of previously complacent Americans who -- after being first-bit by a predator economy -- cry “We want change! Now!” as if 40 years of deregulation could be reversed with the flick of a bailout?
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•Did we think – after U.S. health initiatives have been stifled, red-baited, criminalized and tangled in legislative traps and trivial scandals since 1912 – that our demands would be nurtured by a government capable of banishing the healthcare industry?
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•Did we think the U.S. government was capable of banishing the healthcare industry?
•Did we think that the flow of money from the taxpayer to the private sector would stop when Dick Cheney rumbled and grumbled his way out of the White House in his wheelchair?
Please, lefties. Tom Harkin, one of those capitulating Democrats who helped fight whatever frustrating, wishy-washy battle Congress dared fight for government-run healthcare said this about the healthcare reform bill: [It’s a] “modest home, not a mansion. …a starter home. It has a good foundation, it covers 31 million Americans. It has a good roof for protection… cuts down on abuses, and provides the biggest infusion of … prevention and wellness that we’ve ever done. It is not the end of health care, it’s the beginning.”
There will be more surprises but right now...
Is it so surprising -- so outrageous -- that this Senate bill is where we’re at – not where we want to be?
# # #
09/07/09
What Marx and Lenin [still] have to do with Healthcare and Finance Capital
President Obama's wavering stance on a public healthcare option is a great disappointment to many. Why wouldn’t they push their agenda on healthcare reform when the Prez, Congress, and the Democratic Party have been given the most power of any exec-legislature since LBJ ruled Congress and the Presidency?
Despite his political capital, Obama seems unable to lead the greatest healthcare opportunity since WWII. Nor is he forced forward by a Democratic party whose timidity flies in the face of its strength. Why?
Perhaps because Obama, well-intentioned as he is, was positioned in a multinational political environment larger and older than the new world we created when we elected him. He swims, knowing or unknowing, in an environment created by (1) the glacial forces of social and economic evolution and (2) an amorphous multinational oligarchy that has its own interests to protect.
The American branch of this oligarchy consists of two groups:
The Sunbelt power bloc, fronted by Reagan, the Bushes, and Middle-East oil interests – this block believes in grabbing whatever it can before capitalism collapses like a crumpled Coke can.
The Northeast power bloc, fronted by the succession of Kennedys, Kerry, Gore, the New York Times, the Dodds and Schumers, most of the Europeans – this bloc believes that they can make more money if we to let collapse as slow and easy as possible.
This bloc positioned Roosevelt to turn a Depression-ravaged United States away from revolution. Good move: good for the people, good – despite an out-of-it Supreme Court – for business. Now the bloc has positioned Obama to do the same – create just enough change to hold the chaos at bay.
Paradoxically, both blocs understand (or sense) the basic tenets of two economist/philosophers who have fallen out of fashion: Karl Marx and V.I. Lenin. Although writing 80 years apart, Karl and Vladdy measured the contradictions of free-market capitalism and successfully outlined the final stages of the capitalism in which we now live. Whether they are in Dallas, Dubai, Boston, or Zurich, many of the oligarchy guys know, smell, suspect that Marx and Lenin are still onto something.
Capitalism in its imperialist stage (here since WWI), said Marx in 1848, will eventually lead to socialization. Why? Because to be most efficient, production has to be organized and finances managed. The profit motive, he wrote, “drags capitalists, often against their will and consciousness, into a new social order,” an undesirable transition from city-state, free-market competition to complete global socialization.
How does this work today?
In Marx's scenario: Monopolies (They're baaack!) eliminate competition on order to gouge consumers and workers. Next, free-market policies (try deregulation) result in the overproduction of some goods, and underproduction of others. These laissez-faire policies, said Marx, encourage economic crises such as inflation, slumps, and depressions. Gosh. Don't they now?
For example, caught in capital’s rollercoaster, working people have been forced to accept lower wages or, worse, to become unemployed. In Marx’s terms, they become “pauperized.” When these paupers, let’s say the folks working at Wal Mart, stop shopping at Wal Mart because they can no longer afford – given their low wages – to buy the products at Wal Mart, capitalism is, in Marx’s terms, "sowing the seeds of its own destruction.”
By 1916, Lenin had refined Marx's self-destruct prediction. Lenin theorized that bank capital would merge with industrial capital to create “finance capital.” Like particulate matter in deep space, finance capital clusters into financial globules called corporations. (Lenin called them "associations.").
Next, Lenin predicted, in its search for profit, the export of capital would replace the export of products, i.e., the things we make. In our lives, the auctioning-off of American industry (cars, ships, televisions, washing machines, everything) – for a cash-only profit -- to Japan, Korea, Europe and Southeast Asia has followed Lenin's recipe of an economy based on selling -- not the things that we once produced -- but of finance and labor value.
Under Lenin’s prediction, we watched from the 1970s as the industrial economy was replaced by a service economy (like… waiters selling service to other waiters). Service was replaced by an information economy (How much data can you sell?) and, when that failed, by an economy based on inflated real estate values. Ka-boom! Or rather... crumple and freakout.
Simply put, both these old economists predicted that – sometime soon – capitalism would eat itself. So...where are we now on the Marx/Lenin food chain?
We've got Obama, trying to hold the pieces together. That's his job. And healthcare? A public option would -- as did Roosevelt's reforms -- put a modest modicum of money and power back in the hands of the working and middle classes. That would be good, given that our President is trying to follow the "let's let things go down easy" philosophy.
So yes! Healthcare reform would be a great way to save us – for a time – from an inevitable collapse and rebirth of a new system, a system as different from capitalism as capitalism was from feudalism.
Going down easy would be fine. I'm not in favor of violent revolution, the chaos that breeds it, or the suffering it inflicts. And in a nation that can no longer boast an industrial, technical, or production economy, that collapse will be a horror.
So I try not to be surprised or disappointed or to blame Obama alone. No! A waste of time. Obama receives no marching orders from The Oligarchy. He is not a pawn in a grand plan or conspiracy. No. He and Congress are – as they have been for a long, long time – part of a desperate attempt by the oligarchies – riddled with greed and stupidity – to save a system that is sliding -- very slowly, inexorably, albeit cruelly -- into oblivion.
All that being said, it’s right on to tell Obama and Congress – now and often -- to get off his and their compromised asses and fight.
As much as it’s good to know and understand Marx' and Lenin's predictions, forget the glacial onset of capitalism’s final stage. We need healthcare now.
Peace,
Charles Degelman
# # #
08/22/09
Break with the mediocre past... please.
The timid Dems have the power. Time to fight. Tell Obama to drop this touchy-feely bipartisan pander. Take a chance on the consequences. No one else has, not in over 50 years of post-war healthcare struggles. Tell him the Republicans are not going to negotiate squat. Please butt kick these folks. Can’t be no pressure drop now. Here’s a letter to the Pres:
Dear President Obama:
I was gratified to read in today's Bloomberg News, "Obama May Abandon Effort to Reach Health Deal With Republicans."
Whether it is a leak, a well-scheduled strategy or a rumor, I implore you, Mister President. Break with the mediocre past. Seize the time, the time to fight.
Millions of us feel this way. You have seen the pro-public option percentages (77%), know the real need is there for a public option. Republicans are not going to negotiate squat. They want to see you fall regardless of the consequences to their constituents. But as you say, President Obama. This is not about you. It's about the desperate needs of the American people.
Drop the touchy-feely bipartisan pander. Take a chance on the consequences. No one else has, not in over 50 years of post-war healthcare struggles. Please butt kick these folks. Can’t be no pressure drop now. Take the power, please.
Best regards,
Charles Degelman
Los Angeles
Its your turn. Write Obama. Then...
Call your trembling Dem Congresspeople and urge them, too, to break with the mediocre past. Take the power. Let's see where it takes us.
08/20/09
A Middle-of-the-Road Missive
We all knew it from the beginning, didn't we? That we knew Obama was the best -- by a long shot -- but that, after we elected him, we would have to hold his feet to the fire? C'mon. We did. Don't be disappointed. Remember. It was only last fall. Today...
It's pretty simple isn't it? The reason corporate medical -- and therefore Congress -- doesn't want a public option is that they know -- when the American people find out how it will really work -- the public over the private choice will be a no-contest, over-the-top, landslide victory.
But we do have to butt kick these folks. Here's a middle-of-the road missive to President Obama. Don’t be embarassed. Write him. Tell him to fight. Write your trembling Dem Congresspeople. Can’t be no pressure drop now.
Dear Mr. President,
I watched your Montana town hall meeting and was -- once again -- reassured and moved by your presentation of the health care issue, your heartfelt interactions with your constituents, the specific answers you gave to peoples' questions. "There's Pres Obama's community-organizer 'chops' coming to the fore," I thought. Fantastic!
I voted for you, not because I am on the Left, not because I believe you are on the Left, but because you carried the promise intimated -- just last week -- at a Montana town hall meeting that you would deliver workable legislative reform including that of our healthcare system.
I know it took years for Presidents Roosevelt and Johnson to push reform through the legislature and past the Supreme Court (Roosevelt even tried to "pack" the Court that was slamming his completed reform bills.)
But that was then and this is now.
We don't have the luxury of a three-year struggle; not now in an economy that has no production base; with a reckless, radical and reactionary Republican Party and right wing, mired in their own self-destruction, and with a corporate media capable of exerting the most sophisticated power of disinformation ever known to humanity.
You need to fight now, Mister President. Please.
Stop the capitulation to a bi-partisan dream that will never become a reality in these dangerously reactionary times.
Understand the damage you will do to the American people and to your Office.
I do not appreciate using labels, but if you continue to act stereotypically by responding respond to the needs of corporations and not the people, I will be forced to consider you... [gasp! Dare I say it ???] a corporate liberal.
You are the best ever, Mister President, but you are in grave danger of betraying -- no, not the left, not the progressives -- You are in danger of betraying the American people. You know what we need -- a public healthcare insurance option. Please don't pretend otherwise. It will only read as disingenuous.
With my highest hopes for your actions on this critical health care reform element, I send my best regards,
Charles Degelman
08/13/09
Commentary: Up Against the Woodstock Wall
In the midst of today's culture wars (the town hall disruptions, the death panels and the fear-driven panoply of behaviors), I want to respond to a milestone in an earlier culture war... Woodstock.
Yes, there is room for nostalgia re the magical convergences of freaks (a good word back then) who came to celebrate... like, whatever. At Woodstock, there was as much joy, good music, and misery as there was mud. But, as Abbie Hoffman said, “nostalia is for the middle class," and lurking beneath the media's current Woodstock adoration lies a scenario from an earlier American culture war.
For many, Woodstock served as a harbinger of co-option, a cynical but effective weapon that the mainstream leveled at the counterculture and the New Left during the uncivil wars of the 1960s and 70s.
Woodstock was sold using the same imagery and rhetoric that characterized a "free in the park" spirit generated by the Diggers, the Grateful Dead, The Merry Pranksters, the Hog Farm.
Free in the parks inspired droves of Americans to stage monumental concerts that helped sling alternative rock n' roll light years ahead of commercial music and established liberated zones for anyone who wished to shift their mindset... for free.
Nobody made money from "free in the park." Musicians and performers contributed their art while others donated, hustled, and manufactured free food, water, sanitation, electricity and medical aid.
In contrast, Woodstock was the brainchild of promoters who made a big money off people they could not accommodate, serve, or protect.
It was a short hop (August to December) from Woodstock to Altamont (See also “Gimme Shelter”), a last gasp for the free concert movement. Promoted by the Rolling Stones to compensate for the pricey, big-arena madness of their 1969 concert tour, Altamont was intended to be free and accessible to all but plunged into infamy when the Hells Angels -- in the name of “security” --murdered a man within 10 feet of the stage.
By the end of Woodstock and the tragedy of Altamont, America had turned apocalyptic. Nixon was President. One senator and dozens of civil rights activists had been murdered. CointelPro had launched the largest government-sponsored violation of privacy ever perpetrated upon American citizens. The light at the end of the tunnel in Vietnam turned out to be the light of an oncoming train. Was it worse than today? Who can say? Comparisons pale.
# # #
07/07/09
Reflections on a Master of War
During Mcnamara’s most powerful and destructive days, I remember observing, voice dripping with despair that -- after creating all his horror and mayhem -- LBJ’s Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara and “architect of the Vietnam War” would die in bed, a grim reflection of the blind universe in which we live.
McNamara died peacefully, in his sleep, on July 6, 2009.
The only justice was th McNamara’s “peaceful” death was eclipsed by a celebration of Michael Jackson’s life, an artist who -- for many -- lit that same blind universe. [More on that later.]
In order to revisit McNamara’s life, I avoided the obits in The New York Times, etc. Instead, I revisited a review written in 1995, after McNamara published In Retrospect, a sloppy, myopic, sentimental, and limited reflection on his life and... McNamara's War.
I offer this review as my own obituary for the Master of War.
12/28/08
The Ponderings of an Innocent
The New York Times recently announced that the Chinese helped create the current financial bubble by "lull[ing] U.S. consumers and leaders into complacency..."
Wow. Really? How'd they do that?
In the '70s, when the whole Rust Belt thing hit, it occurred to me that we just sold all our factories to the Japanese. Now how do we make a living?
Then I learned that unemployment was only temporary because service had become the new industry. Whew, I thought. Saved by the service-industrial complex but...
If everybody is serving other people, do they (1) use the money they earned by serving people to (2) pay the people that are serving them now? Seemed as if it would take a lot of burgers, vacations, and tourists to keep the economy rolling.
No worries! A newer, better information-technology complex replaced the service-industrial complex. "Gee," I thought. "Just how much information can people use?”
It turns out that you can't really support an entire nation on websites and digital impulses but hey, look how much money my house is worth! That was good news until I found out I don't have a pension anymore. Why?
According to The Times, my house is sort of irrelevant because it’s only a small part of a big bundle of loans, and I don't have a pension because a bunch of frugal Chinese people undermined the U.S. banking system by saving their pin money and lending it to the U.S. government...
Come again?
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/26/world/asia/26addiction.html?emc=eta1
# # #
12/21/08
The Wellstone Paradigm
Remember the plane crash that killed outspoken Minnesota progressive Senator Paul Wellstone just days before the 2002 mid-term elections?
A more recent, similar crash may re-cast the Wellstone tragedy as a model that happened again, only this time, a distinct twist colors the possibility of foul play.
The victim, Michael Connell, an experienced pilot flying in "unremarkable" weather, was an I/T specialist who may have played a role in the computer malfunctions that helped the GOP claim victory in Florida in 2000. As chief I/T consultant for Karl Rove, Connell was also hired to create a real-time computer data compilation for counting Ohio's votes in the 2004 presidential election.
Those aren't the only web sites Connell developed. He was recently subpoenaed by investigators looking into computer-based wrong-doings in both the 2000 and 2004 elections. <<< read more >>>
For more information on Paul Wellstone and the crash that took his life... <<< read more here >>> and <<< here >>>.
Wellstone was an enemy of the Bush Administration. Connell was a friend. Both died in similar plane crashes. Is it possible that in this time of retreat, the perps are protecting themselves...even from their own?
No...I wouldn't be surprised either.
# # #
12/13/08
Obama’s Cyberside chats
I've grown addicted to Obama's Weekly Address. Every Saturday morning, the guy appears on his web site, identifies a problem as a premise, supports it with specific examples (including causes and consequences), and lays out goals and strategies to address it ... all transported on the wings of real words and complete sentences and paragraphs.
Wow. Weird. Addictive. Perhaps suggesting that -- regardless of realpolitik doubts and misgivings -- change is possible? Who knows? Regardless, it happens every Saturday.
# # #
12/06/08
Bill Ayers and the Corporate Unconscious
These are strange times. One month after Barack Hussein Obama's victory, I can't believe the changes I see reflected in America's corporate unconscious -- the media.
It’s been happening for a while now: NBC’s Rachel Maddow explains the link -- or lack of it -- between dog-in-the-manger banks (white collar) and begging auto companies (blue collar). Keith Olbermann rages against the bigotry of California's Prop 8 and invites Michael Moore on the show to talk about bailouts, the auto industry, and the working class. And on the front page of today's New York Times (12/06/08), a gaggle of headlines nearly dispatched me to an eye doctor for emergency care.
Column one announced that President-elect Obama -- already leading the country -- has pledged to launch a massive public-works program designed to provide jobs for millions of stricken Americans by rebuilding our long-neglected infrastructures. Two feature articles discussed a Chicago workers' sit-in and examined what's wrong with employer-provided health care, i.e., people get laid off, they fall out of the health net. And column three featured a commentary by Chicago-based educator Bill Ayers, charter member of the Weather Underground, recently demonized by a desperate Republican campaign machine.
This is the corporate media. Am I dreaming here? But never mind them. What did Ayers have to say?
New York Times
The Real Bill Ayers
By William Ayers
In the recently concluded presidential race, I was unwillingly thrust upon the stage and asked to play a role in a profoundly dishonest drama. I refused, and here’s why... << read more >>
Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/06/opinion/06ayers.html
# # #
10/31/08
To prevent electronic voter-machine fraud from capturing your vote...
Avoid "straight ticket" voting. Briefly, straight-ticket voting allows voters to choose a party’s entire slate of candidates. Voters make one punch or mark on the ballot in order to vote for every candidate of that party for each office on the ballot. Straight ticket voting. Not a good idea because...Electronic voting machines can be easily programmed to "throw" your entire straight-ticket vote over to the uh...other Party.
Additionally...
Obama volunteers advise that, when voting, make sure you select Barack Obama’s name FIRST, then proceed to vote for each candidate separately.
If you do not select Obama's name first, your vote for president may not count. You canNOT count on getting this information or advice at the polls, so please inform others.
REMEMBER --SELECT OBAMA'S NAME FIRST AND DO NOT USE STRAIGHT-TICKET VOTING.
Snopes (among many others) verifies this: http://www.snopes.com/politics/ballot/straightticket.asp
Please pass this e-mail along, particularly to friends in states that have straight-ticket voter options: Alabama, Oklahoma, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Rhode Island, Kentucky, South Caroline, Michigan, Texas, New Jersey, Utah, New Mexico, West Virginia, North Carolina, and Wisconsin.
# # #
10/20/08
Republican focus on ACORN opens door to authentic voter-fraud capers
When the Republican party shoots from the hip at ACORN they neglect the voter-fraud skeletons that hang in their own closet. Thanks to this sloppy McCain Campaign hubris, the mainstream press is giving voter fraud and its long-term bell ringers some focus.
1. FactChecking lies about ACORN
From FactCheck.org: There's no evidence of any such democracy-destroying fraud.
From Associated Press: McCain goes too far.
From the Washington Post's fact checker: McCain said that ACORN is perpetrating one of the greatest voter frauds in the history of the country. This is greatly overstating the allegations that have been brought against the group in recent weeks.
From CNN fact checker: "Our research is showing — this more looks like a fraud perpetrated on ACORN."
2. Republican Voter Fraud Capers...AND HOW TO PREVENT THEM!
Block the Vote: A Voter-Fraud Comic
by Congressman Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and investigative journalist Greg Palast
"I don't think the Democrats get it. All these new rules and games … could flip the vote to the GOP in half a dozen states." Rolling Stone Magazine is making this important investigative story available on the net in its entirety, free of charge.
Download 1) the Rolling Stone article, and 2) "Steal Back Your Vote," the Kennedy-Palast voter-fraud comic, and...
Look for and demand mainstream coverage of voter fraud. It's 'way past time to get the skeleton out of the closet.
# # #
10/3/08
Raising the white flag of surrender — to Medicare
Paul Krug
man
NYTimes 10/3/08
Unbelievable. Sarah Palin finished her closing remarks by quoting Ronald Reagan:
Palin: It was Ronald Reagan who said that freedom is always just one generation away from extinction. We don't pass it to our children in the bloodstream; we have to fight for it and protect it, and then hand it to them so that they shall do the same, or we're going to find ourselves spending our sunset years telling our children and our children's children about a time in America, back in the day, when men and women were free.
When did he say this? It was on a recording he made for Operation Coffeecup — a campaign organized by the American Medical Association to block the passage of Medicare. Doctors' wives were supposed to organize coffee klatches for patients, where they would play the Reagan recording, which declared that Medicare would lead us to totalitarianism.
You couldn't make this stuff up.
Source: http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/raising-the-white-flag-of-surrender-to-medicare/
# # #
09/17/08
A Conservative for Obama, or...
"My party has slipped its moorings. It’s time for a true pragmatist to lead the country."
"A Conservative for Obama" was written by Wick Allison, a former National Review publisher and current editor-in-chief of Dallas, a glossy publication embedded in the Bush Country megalopolis, affectionately known as the big D.
I believe Allison's position encapsulates the view of some Republicans who are not only rejecting the Bush > McCain pantomime as bad for for business but are also instinctively embracing Obama as a savior.
As Karl Marx theorized and Franklin D. Roosevelt demonstrated, if you don't back off the feeding frenzy from time to time, you won't have nuttin' left to capitalize!
Here is "Dallas'" editor-in-chief Wick Allison's brief editorial, "A Conservative for Obama."
# # #
09/11/08
Palin Speaks...Sort of
I was recently called upon to serve on a jury at the nation's largest courthouse, the Superior Court of Los Angeles County. I resisted at first, but, after listening to Sarah Palin and Charlie Gibson speak today on NBC, I am grateful for the experience.
In the trial, a sexual harassment case, the plaintiff (a single mother with two children) was clear in her responses to questions put to her by both plaintiff and defense lawyers. "Yes" and "no" predominated the questioning process when she was placed on the witness stand.
In contrast, the defendant, a 45-year-old male who was the CEO of a badly limping E-Z mortgage company, answered questions with a blizzard of words. It seems that he wished to obfuscate the realities of (1) his ignorance of the workings of his company; (2) the significant role this single mom played in the workings of ShadyMortgageCanogaPark, CA, and (3) the aggressive nature of the advances he had -- or had not -made toward the plaintiff, this woman.
Rough though it may be, Sarah Palin is on trial. She should be. She has no experience in a world that extends beyond five -yes, count 'em five - junior colleges in Idaho and Wyoming, a claim to be an aggressive soccer mom, an enthusiastic Christian, a mayorship in Wasilla, Alaska, and a meteoric rise to the governorship of a state that customarily refers to the rest of the United States as "back in the world."
People want to know: Is Sarah Palin capable to lead the nation, just as people wanted to know if the defendant in my jury trial experience was capable of running his business without abusing his power.
Today, I watched Sarah Palin playing the role of a person who does not know (1) how the company she wants to take over -- McCain is very ill and may die before he completes his first term -- has been doing business, not today, not yesterday, not when the Bush Doctrine was introduced (in September, 2002) and not when we are forced to account for the aggression we have pushed upon foreign nations. (2) She does not understand the significance of the role she is about to assume in terms -- not of her own cocky pathology -- but in terms of the greater good of the nation; and (3) she does not understand the consequences of her looking into the camera and saying “yes, Charlie, I am ready,” when she clearly is not ready.
As with the mortgage-hustling, womanizing defendant in the jury trial, Palin's language was vague and not artful. She is NOT a good hustler, and she won't cut it. Let her drown Charlie Gibson in -- his language -- "a blizzard of words." It won't wash, not even as a harassment tool.
She doesn't know what the Bush Doctrine is (primary tenet: pre-emptive strikes); she does not understand the balance of power in the former Soviet Union or its manifestation re: Georgia v. Russia; she did not know that she had contradicted her boss's position on yesterday's preemptive invasion of Pakistan.
According to her responses, Palin’s foreign policy strategy is based on not blinking: good for bar fights and eye-to-eye encounters with mooses (meese?) but not necessarily effective with foreign powers.
As an international expert, she has traveled to Canada and Mexico and went once to Kuwait, a trip that she said "changed my life," although she could not elaborate on what those changes were.
It would be very difficult, even given the dreaded flatspots of this nation’s ability to think critically, to believe that Sarah Palin is going to hold sway for long.
As an epilogue: In the sexual harassment trial that I served on, the jury -- men, women, of all classe -- found the defendant guilty. After the verdict was delivered we were also notified that the plaintiff (the single mom) had taped a final conversation with her harassing boss -- before he fired her -- in which he admitted to sexually harassing her and that her objection to his advances was his primary motivation for firing her. The tape was thrown out as evidence because the defendant did not know that he was incriminating himself, but he was found guilty nonetheless.
Tonight, Sarah Palin also incriminated herself as a perpetrator of harassment -- of the American people. It can't be thrown out of court -- as the rest of Gibson's interviews cannot be thrown out of the public eye -- because she willingly entered into this harassment scheme -- without "blinking."
She’s “ready.”
Will she be “ready” for the debates with Senator Biden? Will she be “ready” to shore up McCain’s flagging energy? As with the diverse jury members of that sexual harassment trial in Los Angeles, don’t sell the American people too short on knowing what is bullshit and what is not.
I moved on, after the jury trial, to resume life. Now, we must move on, past Sarah Palin. There are bigger fish to fry without contemplating the meaning of lipstick, the balls it takes to shoot moose or wolves or to drill for oil in national wildlife preserves. This woman is “ready” to abandon her post as Governor of Alaska for the chance of a lifetime. Should we allow her own particular form of harassment -- thrown upon her in the temper tantrum of a dying man -- to intercede in this critical election?
As a Sarah Palin antidote, I offer this brief commentary by NYTimes columnist Gail Collins: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/opinion/11collins.html?em.
Peace,
Charlie Degelman
# # #
09/07/09
The Palin Choice: The Reality of the Political Mind
Monday 01 September 2008
by: George Lakoff, Daily Kos
This election is about realities. But the election campaign depends on the political mind-how people understand the candidates and the realities. Democrats have mostly criticized Sarah Palin as unqualified to deal with the realities we face as a nation. But the choice of Palin had to do with the way the political mind works in elections. In dealing with the McCain-Palin ticket, Democrats must take the way voters think into account, in addition to the external realities.
This election matters because of realities-the realities of global warming, the economy, the Middle East, nuclear proliferation, civil liberties, species extinction, poverty here and around the world, and on and on. Such realities are what make this election so very crucial, and how to deal with them is the substance of the Democratic platform .
Election campaigns matter because who gets elected can change reality. But election campaigns are primarily about the realities of voters' minds, which depend on how the candidates and the external realities are cognitively framed. They can be framed honestly or deceptively, effectively or clumsily. And they are always framed from the perspective of a worldview.
The Obama campaign has learned this. The Republicans have long known it, and the choice of Sarah Palin as their Vice-Presidential candidate reflects their expert understanding of the political mind and political marketing. Democrats who simply belittle the Palin choice are courting disaster. It must be taken with the utmost seriousness. << read more >>
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George Lakoff is a linguist who has written extensively on the emotional and intellectual gear-turning of the American political consciousness.
In the context of the Lakoff' article: while Frank Rich was making a heady case for the dangerous -- and typical -- impulsiveness of McCain's choice of Palin (I consider Palin to be McCain's first temper tantrum of his candidacy) deep in the bowels of the New York Times, MSNBC was running a profile on the handsome, warrior-clad airman John McCain suiting up to bomb Vietnamese villagers from the cockpit of a wicked-looking jet fighter.
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09/07/08
The Good News
According to Sunday's Orlando Sentinel, young people, mobilized by growing opposition to a foreign war, an unpopular president, and energized by a youth-oriented presidential candidate are registering to vote in unprecedented numbers.
"For the past 40 years, ever since Bobby Kennedy, young people haven't been as active in politics," said Cutipa-Zorn, who will turn 18 in time for the November presidential election. "But it's a very big difference this year than any other year."
Source: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/community/news/ucf/orl-lidyouthvote07x08sep07,0,4470616.story
Here's how the statistics shake down...
Voter Registration Figures Indicate Bad News for McCain Campaign
by Liberal Youth
Sat Sep 06, 2008 at 04:24:40 AM PDT
The registration trends are in. If McCain is counting on a base turnout strategy, these numbers tell the story of why that will just not work. In contrast these numbers are good news for Obama and a demonstration of why the GOTV efforts that Obama is laying the foundation for will have such an important role. The dems are killing in a number of key states and if they can get these voters to the polls he will have an advantage.
The key states here are Colorado, North Carolina, Nevada, Florida and to a lesser extent Pennsylvania and Iowa. The dramatic differences in these states are especially bad news for McCain because each of these states are considered swing states vital for a victory in November. <<read more>>
Here's hopin'...
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09/07/08
"So Sambo beat the bitch." -- Sarah Palin
Remember the horror and incredulity most Californians experienced when they found out that Ronnie Reagan was running for President in 1980? Having watched the horror of his Governorship in California, Californians found it nearly impossible to believe he would be nominated... or elected. Millions of California jaws were dislocated when he won the Presidency.
Now, Alaskans are suffering a similar incredulity. Many are speaking out. Below, please find a letters written by an Anchorage, Alaska waitress who overheard the title quote uttered by Governor Palin when she heard the news that Obama had secured the Democratic nomination.
Alaskans Speak (In a Frightened Whisper)
LAProgressive
by Charley James
September 5, 2008
“So Sambo beat the bitch!”
This is how Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin described Barack Obama’s win over Hillary Clinton to political colleagues in a restaurant a few days after Obama locked up the Democratic Party presidential nomination.
According to Lucille, the waitress serving her table at the time and who asked that her last name not be used, Gov. Palin was eating lunch with five or six people when the subject of the Democrat’s primary battle came up. The governor, seemingly not caring that people at nearby tables would likely hear her, uttered the slur and then laughed loudly as her meal mates joined in appreciatively.
“It was kind of disgusting,” Lucille, who is part Aboriginal, said in a phone interview after admitting that she is frightened of being discovered telling folks in the “lower 48” about life near the North Pole.
Then, almost with a sigh, she added, “But that’s just Alaska.” << read more >>
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P.S. A Google news search on "Alaskans AND Palin" reveals that no American mainstream coverage of this story.-- CD
P.P.S. Question: Why hasn't Sarah Palin appeared on any mainstream interview shows yet? -- CD
09/05/08
Footprints: You Gotta Have Heart
For a week now, V.P. candidate "Barracuda" Sarah Palin has been hyped, stereotyped, and iconographed as a Republican dominatrix.
At the RNC, Palin’s Neo-Porn iconography was heightened through the unlicensed use of Heart's 1977 hit "Barracuda" as a stump song for the hapless Alaskan provincial who has been assigned the role of attack dog in McCain's campaign.
As with the Dixie Chicks, Heart's singer/songwriter duo, Ann and Nancy Wilson, are NOT to going to accept being exploited by a cabal of Fundamentalist-groveling freaks.
Use of 'Barracuda' for Sarah Palin nets GOP a Heart attack
BY NANCY DILLON
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Friday, September 5th 2008, 7:16 PM
The rock duo Heart is ... condemning the McCain-Palin ticket for using its '70s hit "Barracuda" as the theme for Gov. Sarah (Barracuda) Palin.
"Sarah Palin's views and values in NO WAY represent us as American women," Heart members Ann and Nancy Wilson told Entertainment Weekly after the song played at the Republican National Convention. Read more...
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09/04/08
The Other Reality
Here's another reality that most of us are all too aware of -- Republicans win elections with phony populism. Today, in The Nation, Bob Mosher wrote of Sarah Palin:
You might not think that averageness would qualify a person for the second-highest office in the land. But [phony] populism is how Republicans have won presidential elections for the last forty years. Palin is the logical extension of the cultural populism that has warped our politics--and for which the Democrats have, as yet, found no good answer....
It's all pure-T bullshit, of course: another "everyday" politician who's going to put the screws to every working person in America if she gets the chance. But so was Nixon's populism, and Reagan's, and Bush's. Americans fully expect bullshit from their politicians. And Sarah Palin, ... is frighteningly full of it.
Source: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters/354172/the_sarah_palin_show
Significant parallel: The Know Nothing Party of the 1850s was empowered by popular fears that the country was being overwhelmed by immigrants.
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09/04/08
Despite Predator Attacks, Polls Show No Bounce for McCain
For those of you who possessed the intestinal fortitude required to watch the Palin and Guiliani speeches at the RNC, I congratulate you for your courage and endurance. It's smart to know your enemy. For those of you who chose not to irradiate yourself with RNC predator-speak, I have enclosed a brief excerpt from an Obama campaign message titled simply "the attacks."
Last night, I saw John McCain's attack squad lie about Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Both Rudy Giuliani and Sarah Palin mocked Barack's experience as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago where he worked with people who had lost jobs when the local steel plants closed. Let's clarify something for them right now...
Community organizing is how ordinary people respond to out-of-touch politicians and their failed policies. Throughout our history, ordinary people have organized for change from the bottom up. Community organizing is the foundation of the civil rights movement, the women's suffrage movement, labor rights, and the 40-hour workweek. And it's happening today in church basements and community centers and living rooms across America. -- David Plouffe, Obama for America
Obama responded to the McCain team's demolition efforts by saying simply, "I've been called worse on the basketball court." Source: http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/2008/09/obama_responds_to_palin_attack.php
Despite the smack attack from the Republican SWAT team, this just in from Talking Points Memo...
Poll Tracker
Pres '08
Sep 4 GQR (D)
Obama (D) 49%, McCain (R) 44%
*
Pres '08
Sep 4 CBS
Obama (D) 42%, McCain (R) 42%
*
Pres '08
Sep 4 Gallup
Obama (D) 49%, McCain (R) 42%
*
Pres '08
Sep 4 Rasmussen
Obama (D) 50%, McCain (R) 45%
Source: http://tpmelectioncentral.talkingpointsmemo.com/polltracker/
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09/03/08
The Gray Lady Speaks
The most cautious, staid, and conservative of our uh... "Papers of Record" has spoken. She has drawn logical conclusions regarding Senator McCain's most recent -- and public -- temper tantrum, the choice of Sarah Palin as his Vice-Presidential running mate.
The New York Times
September 3, 2008
Editorial
Candidate McCain’s Big Decision
More often than not, the role of a vice president is a minor one, unless some tragedy occurs. But a presidential nominee’s choice of a running mate is vitally important. It is his first executive decision ... .
If John McCain wants voters to conclude, as he argues, that he has more independence and experience and better judgment than Barack Obama, he made a bad start by choosing Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.
Mr. McCain’s snap choice of Ms. Palin reflects his impulsive streak: a wild play that he made after conservative activists warned him that he would face an all-out revolt in the party if he chose who he really wanted — Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut.
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09/03/08
McCain Camp Battles National Enquirer Over Alleged Palin Affair
Huffington Post
September 3, 2008 07:42 PM
John McCain's presidential campaign is threatening a lawsuit against the National Enquirer over a print edition story the tabloid ran today alleging that Gov. Sarah Palin has had an extramarital affair with her husband's business partner.
The allegation would normally be dismissed by political observers as the random musings of a supermarket tabloid -- indeed, the McCain campaign said as much in its statements on Wednesday -- except that the paper has built up a reservoir of legitimacy following its earlier reporting on the John Edwards affair.
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/03/mccain-camp-battles-natio_n_123696.html
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09/03/08
Noonan Off-Mike Quips Make Mainstream News
The Washington Post, Newsweek, CBS, CNN, and dozens of other mainstream news outlets are airing Republican spin mistress and speechwriter Peggy Noonan's disparaging words about McCain's "cynical" "bullshit" choice of Palin for V.P.
As an interesting example of Noonan's own "bullshit," read an excerpt from her column in The Wall Street Journal today on the same topic:
"The Sarah Palin choice is really going to work, or really not going to work," she wrote. "It's not going to be a little successful or a little not; it's not going to be a wash. She is either going to be magic or one of history's accidents. She is either going to be brilliant and groundbreaking, or will soon be the target of unattributed quotes by bitter staffers shifting blame in all the Making of the President 2008 books. Of which there should be plenty, as we've never had a year like this, with the fabulous freak of a campaign."
Source: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/09/03/noonan_and_murphy_meet_the_hot.html
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09/03/08
Sarah Palin in the church “where I was saved.”
(from what?)
YouTube video of Sarah Palin talking to the congregation of her former church about our divine mission to invade Iraq, install a new Alaska pipeline, the need for Jesus, and the gift of prophecy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QG1vPYbRB7k&eurl=http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/
Charming, ain't she? But what was she saved from? And how did she justify charging the state of Alaska for the $700 reimbursement for this clearly churchy junket?
Thanks to Victor O. for this uh...revelation.
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09/03/08
Jewish Voters Beware
This just in via well-respected, bi-partisan blogger Andrew Sullivan at The Atlantic Online:
Andrew Sullivan writes...
The Right And Anti-Semitism
03 Sep 2008 12:30 pm
It's pretty amazing that Ben Smith's story that Sarah Palin actually sat in a church where a preacher declared that terrorist murders of Jews [last August 17] represent God's judgment against Jews for resisting Jesus ..., has been up for half a day, and no one is writing about it on the right and center-right. (If you find something I missed, let me know.)
Source: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/09/the-right-and-a.html
Ben Smith writes...
Jewish voters may be wary of Palin
9/2/08 6:53 PM EST
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Barack Obama has struggled for 18 months to lock down the support of a traditionally Democratic group, Jewish voters. In the past week, John McCain may have helped Obama with his Jewish problem by choosing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.
Source: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/13098.html
Given the rest of Palin's profile, anti-Semitism isn't too surprising, now, is it?
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08/31/08
Palin’s Mother in Law not certain...
In her campaign speeches thus far, Republican V.P. Candidate "Barracuda" (her nic at Wasilla High) Sarah Palin has rarely mentioned anyone by name except family members. Since family ranks so high in her priorities, let's hear how a family member refers to Ms. Palin.
New York Daily News
Sarah Palin's mother-in-law uncertain about how she'll vote
BY NANCY DILLON
DAILY NEWS WEST COAST BUREAU CHIEF
Sunday, August 31st 2008
[Faye Palin, t]he mother-in-law of John McCain's new running mate Sarah Palin, enjoys hearing Barack Obama speak and hasn't decided which way she'll be voting in the upcoming presidential election, the New York Daily News reported Sunday.
Faye Palin said the entire family was shocked by the news on Friday. "I'm not sure what [Sarah] brings to the ticket other than she's a woman and a conservative. Well, she's a better speaker than McCain," Faye Palin told the New York Daily News. "People will say she hasn't been on the national scene long enough."
Faye added "But I believe she's a quick study."
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© m.sowa
