Why We Must Allow The Bush Tax Cuts to Expire

It was a time when higher taxes did not sink the economy. Instead, after Clinton passed a tax increase in 1993, the economy enjoyed an epic era of economic prosperity with over eight years without a recession in sight highlighted by an unemployment rate that fell below 4 percent - a level no one thought possible only a few years earlier. - Jules Kaplan/The Hill

Despite the propaganda from both the Dems and the wing-nuts the economy will not suddenly come crashing down if the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire. The reason most people on both sides want to keep some form of the tax cuts is because they have a vested interest in their continuation. Many of the television pundits and reporters who have been covering this story have not called for letting all of the tax cuts to expire even though letting them expire is what is best for the country as a whole. The reason is because we have all become special interest groups who are choosing our own interests at the expense of the country. Does anyone remember “Country First”?

There are two reasons why I believe we should let all of the Bush tax cuts expire. The first reason is because as long as all of the tax cuts are connected then all of the tax cuts can be held hostage. As long as the middle-class tax cuts are directly connected to the higher rate tax cuts then the wing-nuts can continue to hold the entire tax cut process hostage into perpetuity. If all of the tax cuts were allowed to expire then the Congress would have a clean slate to create targeted tax cuts if that is the direction they want to go in. Every objective economist has stated that tax cuts are the least effective method for stimulating the economy and yet we are still having this debate. Because of decades of tax cut propaganda by the wealthy it has almost become political suicide to even discuss the removal of tax cuts regardless of their effectiveness. Every time anyone (ever) proposes allowing these or any tax-cuts to expire they will immediately be accused by the wing-nuts of raising taxes, is this a great strategy or what?

The wing-nuts under George W. created the perfect trap for all future Congresses despite their political makeup. By combining the tax cuts, no Congress will be able to separate them without catching the full wrath of the wing-nuts and their minions as demonstrated by the recent debate. Remember when the tax cuts were enacted it was because we had a surplus and the wing-nuts argued that same old tired argument from the 80’s; that the “people” knew better how to spend their money than the “government bureaucrats”. So tax-cuts were good during good times was their argument. Here is where the circular argument begins and why there can be no negotiation with these clowns. Now that the economy is bad they argue that tax-cuts are needed to stimulate the economy. So the previous 10 years of tax-cuts did not stimulate the economy, but now magically they are going to start stimulating the economy. My question to these wing-nuts is simply this, “When is it a bad time to give tax-cuts?”

By allowing all of the tax cuts to expire you diffuse the hostage crisis we currently find ourselves in by removing the incentive or reward for maintaining the crisis. To allow these tax cuts to expire of course would require political leadership and the courage of one’s convictions to be able to withstand the echo chamber and the false meme that is being propagated by the wealthy. The President should tell the wing-nuts that as a matter of principle he does not negotiate with hostage takers and to prove it he is willing to allow all of the tax cuts to expire. I have yet to see that sort of strength and leadership from this White House so I am not holding my breath.

The second reason for not extending all of the Bush tax cuts is because of all the folks who have benefited from the economy the last few decades the wealthiest have seen the largest increase in wealth since the gilded age. So while the majority of Americans have seen their wealth shrink and personal income stagnate the top earners have continued to see theirs expand. One of the fundamental values extolled by the wing-nuts is fairness except of course when it comes to paying one’s fair share. The federal revenues derived from personal income taxes and payroll taxes are at 15% of GDP, the lowest it has been in a decade. If all of the Bush tax cuts were allowed to expire the revenue would grow to 21% of GDP by 2020 or at the percentage of GDP they were during the 90’s.

The common argument among the wealthy is that because only 47% of Americans actually pay federal income tax they are already shouldering the bulk of the tax burden but that argument belies why we have income taxes in the first place. You may want to re-litigate the whole income tax argument or you may disagree with the concept on philosophical grounds but that does not afford one the luxury of ignoring the law of the land. We must decide (I thought we had already) if we are a serfdom society or we are the nation created by those founding fathers that the wing-nuts are always so quick to quote, except of course when it doesn’t fit into their narrow definitions of “conservative constitutionalism”. What the hell does that even mean?

If we are serious about fixing the mounting problems that are threatening our country then the first step towards demonstrating that resolve would be to allow these tax cuts to expire and begin to increase revenues. History has shown time and again that the doomsday scenario of raising taxes and wrecking the economy has never materialized and in fact the opposite has occurred when we have left the wealthy and the corporate interests to their own devices they have wrecked the economy. I hate to break the news but the free ride is over America. The decade of waging two wars, increasing entitlements through giveaways to drug companies and oil companies while at the same time cutting taxes is over. The time has come to face the music even though the sun is shining through and we are hung over and revolted by the partner laying next to us it’s over. It is now the morning after in America.

Bush said despite that current prosperity, “It’s time for a change” in Washington. “Some say [the economy] is doing pretty well - well it may be,” he said. But “People need more money in their pocket, as far as I’m concerned.” – George W. Bush

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Republicans Do Not Have To Win

The election of 1994 only reinforced the strategy of no. Why help the majority pass legislation when you can stall until voters, frustrated with gridlock, throw the other side out? Once out of power, Democrats went to school on the GOP delaying tactics. - Robert Schlesinger

As I look over the Republican strategy of the last year and its impact on the electorate one thing is abundantly clear. The Republicans do not have to win at anything, because even when they lose they win according to their scorecards. The Scott Brown election in Massachusetts has been presented as this massive shift in the public’s desire for President Obama’s “changey, hopey” message. While the Scott Brown election was troubling, I think in the long run it will be beneficial to Democrats. It will be beneficial to Democrats because I think it has exposed the absurdity of this super-majority being necessary to govern and to pass any legislation.

Already we are beginning to see stirrings from Democrats about changing the Senate rules and for good reason. The Republicans have turned the filibuster into their own personal veto. Election results have become invalidated and the democracy that so many Americans grew up believing in has become dysfunctional. And as long as nothing gets done then the minority party can claim that the majority party is not responding to the wishes of the American people. By employing this strategy the Republicans have given fuel to the directionless populist movement known as the “tea-baggers”, who’s only common thread appears to be that they are against government and who can blame them. My belief is that what many of them are against is a government that is broken with no possible remedy in sight.

Even folks who previously believed in the power of government to affect positive change in the lives of people are on the ropes after the whole health-care debacle. Unlike many of the right-wing conservative talking heads I do not think that the way to move forward is to go backwards. This strategy plays right into the hands of their obstinate politicians who only have to prevent government from working to win and not actually get anything done. The Democratic strategy moving forward should be to make democracy work again not by trying to continue to seek bi-partisanship with a group that has no intention of working with you, but by changing the rules to allow our democracy to work. What many Americans just want to see is action being taken even if that action is wrong.

The American public is not that concerned with ideology as much as we are being told. There are segments to the extremes of both parties that hold those entrenched ideological positions but most Americans are pragmatist and they just want to see that something gets done. They want to believe that somebody is listening to them and responding to their concerns. If the Democrats are not able to provide them with that then they will suffer great loses in November. The truth is that for the long-term future of America this strategy of breaking our democracy holds dangers that the politicians and strategists of today are not concerned with and that is dangerous. If we continue this cycle of each party getting elected and no one accomplishing anything then the future of our whole democracy is at stake. Eventually the country will become ungovernable and maybe that is the goal of the Republicans.

A good example of this phenomenon of just do something is George W. Bush even in the midst of his wrecking the country he continued to score fairly high marks until the end. Those marks were due in a large part I believe to his ability to appear to be getting things done, they may have been the wrong things but they were getting things done. If the Democrats have any chance of salvaging this November they had better get down to the business of making government work again. I say this not because of its short term benefit of keeping them in power but because of its long-term benefit and that is because it is the right thing to do for our nation.

Scorched earth campaigns may win you the battle, but it leaves the land barren and unfruitful for a long time and with the current state of our nation is this something we can afford?

In the first 50 years of the filibuster, it was used only 35 times. But the last Congress alone had 112 cloture motions filed, plus threats of more. This is the tyranny of the minority. - Peter Fenn

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A More Decent Society

Reform would make us a more decent society, but also a less vibrant one. It would ease the anxiety of millions at the cost of future growth. It would heal a wound in the social fabric while piling another expensive and untouchable promise on top of the many such promises we’ve already made. America would be a less youthful, ragged and unforgiving nation, and a more middle-aged, civilized and sedate one. – David Brooks; NY Times

I never thought I would see the day when I would agree with David Brooks, the syndicated Conservative columnist from the New York Times. But when you’re right, you’re right. This health care debate is about the values we hold as a nation and those things we think are important. However, after that point our views are markedly different. You see Mr. Brooks believes that wealth should only flow upwards from the middle and lower classes to the wealthy. He believes that by taxing the wealthy we stifle future growth and make ourselves a less vibrant nation. I would be curious as to how he would explain the Bush tax-breaks for the wealthy and how removing the regulations from Wall Street made us a more vibrant nation?

You see what Mr. Brooks fails to divulge is that giving money to rich people has never stimulated anything except profits made from capital manipulation and not the profits made from manufacturing anything. The goal of the wealthy is not to spend money but to hoard money; this is how you get to be wealthy by not spending your own money. His premise that if we continue to funnel money upward that this will insure the future growth of this nation is false and has historically been proven to be false. What has stimulated growth in our nation’s history have been those expensive promises that he and so many other compassionate Conservatives have been opposed to from their inception. It was not the robber-barons that made us a vibrant society; on the contrary it was those programs put in place that created the middle-class. If Mr. Brooks and his cronies had their way we would have two classes: the very wealthy and the rest of us.

But beyond the economic benefits of these “promises” there is also the moral imperative of a society to provide basic services to all of their people. Just once I would like to completely shut down this evil government for one week. For an entire week the government stops providing all the services it now provides and then see how these anti-government wing-nuts would respond. My guess is they would do rather well considering the have the funds to replace government services, but what about all of those folks without a pot to piss in or a window to throw out who turn out for these anti-government rallies? I remember during the Presidential campaign at McCain rallies when he would say Obama wants to raise taxes on those people earning over 250,000 dollars a year and there would be boos and then they would pan the audience and no one at the rally appeared to make over 50,000 a year and it was amazing to me to see their responses to policies that would benefit them.

Another thing that troubles me about the column is its inherent divisiveness. Mr. Brooks is attempting to appeal to the young to choose greed over compassion. As if money and the acquisition of stuff is all that defines a nation and a person and this conversation has come to dominate the health care debate in our country. What’s in it for me is the new mantra of our society. There was a time not long ago when sacrifices for our country was more than a bumper sticker; when having compassion on your fellow citizen’s did not have to be justified by a bottom line. It’s funny whenever we discuss helping the least of us we become suddenly fiscal hawks, but where were these fiscal hawks when Mr. Bush was funding two wars and giving tax-breaks to the richest among us? Why weren’t these expenditures scrutinized to the level that health reform has been?

The bottom line is that our systems are failing not just the least of us, but all of us and until we come to that conclusion jointly as people it will continue to do so. This debate isn’t really about right or left, rich or poor it is about what is best for us as nation. We have seen firsthand what the politics of greed has wrought us. Every twenty years we are brought to the brink of self destruction by a financial industry that puts profits not only before people but also our nation. But why should we believe our eyes when we can take the word of shrills like Mr. Brooks and believe beyond reality that the rich folks will take care of the rest of us once they get enough money. The only problem with that theory is that they will never get enough money and so it goes.

Wisdom: to live in the present, plan for the future, and profit from the past – Unknown
The Disputed Truth

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Bush/Obama Administration?

The average American looks up, they distrust politicians in general and they don't think they've been told the truth, and I think they got good reason. They've watched a Bush/Obama spending cycle that began with a stimulus package last year which failed at $180 billion, a housing package in August which fail--or July which failed at $345 billion, a Wall Street bailout at $700 billion, a Federal Reserve guarantee of $4 trillion; a stimulus package of $787 billion, which we're now being told weeks later isn't big enough, but which had to be passed so quickly no one could read it, because we had to get it out there immediately.[1]

I saw the new, old face of the Republican Party this weekend on a Sunday talk show and I was shocked at the new tact of the Republicans. According to Newt Gingrich the last eight years has been the Bush/Obama administration. Who knew? In an effort to once again fasten President Obama to the current economic meltdown the new strategy appears to be to unite him to the failed policies of the Bush administration. The once revered George W. has now been turned into a tax and spend liberal by the very same people who heralded his accent to power. These people have no shame. They are willing to throw Bush under the bus for the sake of some political advantage that doesn’t exist. Do they think that the public is so incompetent that they don’t know the difference between Bush and Obama for the last eight years? Here’s a hint Obama is the tall, dark one.

So are we to assume that the last eight years were not Republican run as we were led to believe by their policies and their utter failure? So Republicans were not the ones who put the economy and our nation on the road to a “China Syndrome”. You have to hand it to them though that is innovative. You attach the incoming administration not only from another Party but another galaxy to the previous failed administration which happened to have been from your Party. My guess is that the goal of this strategy is to try and reduce the amount of patience the American people will have with the new President since he has been in office for the past eight years and hasn’t done anything.

Now for those following at home here is the latest. Not only did President Obama not inherit this economy he actually caused the economy to crash as a member of the Bush administration. Theoretically he has not been in office for only two months after all so his policies don’t deserve anytime to work. After all they are the same big spending, big government policies of that other liberal stalwart George W. Bush. How Mr. Gingrich can expect any national political aspirations to be taken seriously following comments like these are beyond me. But considering no one on the panel gave them a second look maybe he knows something I don’t. The problem with Mr. Gingrich and all of his new and old GOP faces is not that they are new or old; it is that their ideas are old. The GOP continues to repackage their “new” faces with the same failed ideas. I mean to try and pretend that the Republicans outside of George Bush had nothing to do with what is happening in the country today is ludicrous.

Mr. Gingrich would rather join his other political cohorts and fiddle while the empire burns and continue to be apologists for the wealthy than pitch in and help. For anyone to say it is unfair for the taxes of the wealthy to be raised after decades of tax-breaks and inequitable distribution of wealth is completely out of step with the mood of the country. For anyone to argue against giving 95% of working Americans a tax-break they are out of step with the mood of the country and the polls attest to this fact. While Mr. Gingrich and the other ignore the polls munchkins continue to try and deny his popularity the President’s numbers continue to rise. Now the new line is that the President has popularity but doesn’t have credibility with the people. Let’s be clear it is not the President that doesn’t have credibility it is the bankers, politicians, and talking heads that have no credibility. The public is tired of hearing about bankers and wall-streeters who continue to take bail-out money and hoard it or continue to live in a culture of a by-gone era. The public is tired of politicians who refuse to understand that they are hurting and “Just say no” is not an option. The public is tired of media-types who live in a bubble telling them who is at fault and who to trust.

Mr. Gingrich there was no Bush/Obama White House and until the Republicans can acknowledge their role in this economic melt-down and begin to articulate a new strategy that addresses these problems they have no credibility with the public. The public is not willing to ignore the last eight years or pretend they never happened. Until the Republicans can acknowledge their failures they are doomed to repeat them, but not at the expense of this nation. You can’t start a fire and then charge the firefighters with arson. The best thing the Republicans can do to avoid another 50 years in the wilderness is to begin to help craft real legislation that will turn this economy around at least then the Democrats won’t be able to take full credit for the salvation of our country.

[1] http://www.scribd.com/doc/13090517/Meet-the-Press-March-8-2009-Transcript-and-Video-Link

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I Was Inarticulate

What ever slim chance Michael Steele had of recruiting young people and minorities to the Republican Party went out the window after Mr. Steele had to bow down and kiss the ring of Conservative “entertainer” Rush Limbaugh. Mr. Steele displayed all of the qualities that are despised by both groups when on Saturday night while trying to pal it up with D.L. Hughley he accused Rush Limbaugh of not being the head of the Republican Party and merely an incendiary entertainer. Just when it appeared that a Republican had the nerve to tell the truth to the ego maniacal Limbaugh and thus freeing the Party from extremists Mr. Steele within hours was prone before Limbaugh begging forgiveness as so many other so-called Republican leaders have had to do.

Newsflash – Rush Limbaugh you are an entertainer, you cater to a certain segment of the population who believes in your extreme characterizations and your simplistic analogies of complex issues. Here is the problem for the Republican Party, while the millions that Limbaugh holds sway over is enough to promote a radio show and enrich his pockets it is not enough to win elections. How can you reach out and expand the Party when you have to sell your soul to Limbaugh to hang on to the dwindling base? While the Republicans continue to await the second coming of Reagan the Democrats continue to shore up solid gains among Independents and moderate Republicans. Rather than recognizing the influence he has and using it for a real Republican examination of the state of the Party and the nation Mr. Limbaugh would rather use it to enrich himself and stoke his massive ego.

This is the problem when you allow a “personality” to dominate a Party there is always the chance that the personality will begin to believe that he is the Party. If Rush was an elected official he would have his time in the sun and then fade away, but because he is an entertainer he can stay around for years and years without having to be right about anything. He is like the local weatherman he can be wrong 70% of the time and still be popular. Mr. Limbaugh can ignore all of those shows he did in support of the same spending and policies he now rails against when George W. Bush was in office. Limbaugh can have the best of both worlds he can say he was right on this issue or that and ignore all of the times he was wrong. He is like Carnac the Magnificent except he is a lot less funny.

The reason the Republicans can’t have a serious debate is that too many of them genuinely believe that they were right on all of the majority issues and that the vast majority of Americans are too stupid to know it. It is hard to base a winning strategy on we’re right and you’re stupid. The way you expand a Party is not by catering to a shrinking base you already have with more of the same rhetoric that was rejected resoundingly by the majority of Americans. I am not sure what polls these guys are reading but I heard Tom Delay say that the Presidents disapproval rating is at 40%. It is precisely this “alternate reality” that got the Republicans in the position they find themselves today. If we say something enough times to enough people then somehow it becomes true. The American public is becoming more politically savvy than they were in the 80’s and 90’s and the Republicans are failing to accept that reality. Twittering does not make you cool or technologically proficient. The issue is not how you deliver it, the issue is the message. It is the message stupid and right now the Republicans have none. They keep talking about all of these alternative plans and ideas they have and have offered yet no one other than them has seen them. Railing against the government and crying class warfare are not plans and ideas and while they may resonate with the “states rights” groups and the apocalyptic crowds they do not represent what many Americans believe.

Mr. Steele, the groups you claim to want to reach out to respect manhood and strength. What chance do you now see yourself as having after being “bitch” slapped by Rush Limbaugh? Having middle-aged white women calling “you da man” at an all-white country club is not cool and shows a certain callousness towards those you hope to reach. Mr. Steele being cool is not something you buy or something you can steal from someone like trying to co-opt slang for marketing purposes. It is an attitude, a feeling inside that says I know who I am and what I represent, you may not agree with it but here it is. Being cool is a quiet confidence that gives confidence to others. Right now Mr. Steele you represent the desperateness of the Republicans in that you are willing to say whatever you need to say depending on your audience. Mr. Steele you will never be the leader of anything until you stop being the “cool” black dude that you are not. It is easy to think you are the cool black dude when you are the only black dude in the room or the other black dude is Ron Christie or Clarence Thomas.

The other problem is the choice of words used by Mr. Steele during his apology. It is an historical fact that when whites want to give a complement to a black person they admire the first word out of their mouth is how articulate that person is. “He speaks so well.” So by Mr. Steele saying that he in fact was not articulate he is saying that the black dude was wrong, that he did not live up to the “articulate” complement of his benefactors. For many I am sure it will be similar to all of those whites who rented cars from Hertz felt after the OJ trial; sort of betrayed. I guess it is like Limbaugh said, “Get behind the scenes and don’t talk with the grown-ups, you’re not qualified.” I guess to Limbaugh Michael Steele is the epitome of Republican affirmative action, another unqualified black promoted because of race and not qualifications.

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A New Kind of Leadership

President Barack Obama’s summit today on fiscal responsibility did not magically repair the rancor between the Parties, nor did it magically fix the impending crash of our entitlement programs. However, what it did do was to signal a new type of leadership. He demonstrated a type of leadership that I have not seen from a President in my lifetime. What this summit did was it showed that President Obama has no intention of steamrolling the Republicans even though he has the juice to do that. He realizes that in order to solve the long-term solvency issues of this nation it is going to require getting the legislative branch to work together. President Obama demonstrated many times on the campaign trail and has stated since being elected that he is not afraid to listen to differing views and when they are reasonable to adapt his views to accommodate new ideas.

How refreshing it is to see a leader who is not so insecure that he is afraid to consult with even his rivals to craft ideas and positions that benefit all Americans. The lies and secrecy of the past I think have so enamored us that many can no longer recognize true leadership or have never seen it. President Obama has always surrounded himself with the brightest people and a free exchange of ideas and in the end has determined based on his principles and a sense of the situation what is the best decision. You may not agree with his decision but it would be difficult to argue with the process. So often in the past we have had Presidents who have claimed to be one thing (new Democrat, Compassionate Conservative, etc.) and once elected have turned out to be something else. Barack Obama campaigned as a pragmatic leader to the chagrin of many progressives and won because the public liked what it saw during those two years. They liked knowing that he wasn’t easily rattled nor would he make life and death decisions based on emotions and pettiness.

The speech before the joint chambers of Congress I think demonstrated to all who viewed it that we have crossed a new threshold in American politics. The strength of Barack Obama has always been his direct connection to the people of America. There is a genuine bond that has been missing and not manufactured like the George W. Bush outsider persona that was so patently crafted and false. I watched the speech on MSNBC and they had a running graph of Democratic and Republican voters gauging the speech and there was an extended time during the speech when you could not even see the lines. The lines of both had extended past the top of the graph which represented positive responses. As the President was introduced I have to admit that I had to fight back a tear at just the spectacle of it. And the truth be told despite the recent NY Post cartoon so very many Americans are basing their opinions on this President not on his race, but on his character. I just wish I knew how to extend this phenomenon to include all of American life and its people.

I couldn’t help but remember the sovereign tone of George W. Bush after his reelection stating that he had political capital and that he was going to spend it. I wonder what Mr. Bush and Rove now thinks about political capital after seeing the real thing. President Obama is a man of the people who speaks to and for the people of this nation. As his exchange with John McCain over the helicopter demonstrated he is at ease being who he is. There are no phony everyman metaphors that so defined our previous Presidents. He does not have the scripted craftsmanship of Reagan who as the great communicator never spoke without someone else’s words. After listening to his speech I can’t see how anyone can believe that he is not up to the task that we sent him to accomplish. He may not be able to do everything, but it won’t be for a lack of trying.

I know that I won’t agree with all of his policies or decisions, but I will never be able to disagree with his leadership. We as a nation have been given a reprieve from the secrecy and bullying leadership of the past. We have been presented with a thoughtful, articulate, and courageous man to lead this nation and although you may not have voted for him or even trusted him for that matter I doubt that anyone could deny that we made the right choice. He refuses to be sucked into the pettiness that Washington has fallen into, where people who disagree with 5% of a solution condemn the entire solution. I don’t know how long this is going to last but I want to enjoy the ride for as long as it does.

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A Rock And A Hard Place

As the Obama administration continues to try and come to grips with the many crisis’ that face our nation I can’t help but wonder what is going on in the mind of Republicans. They truly are between a rock and a hard place. On the one hand if the Obama administration is able to produce results and begin to make inroads towards resolving these myriad of problems it will surely keep the Republicans out of power for not just years but possibly decades and on the other hand if they continue to resist and obstruct the possible answers to these problems and succeed in collapsing not only our economic, but our social and political order where does that leave them? In my opinion they have only one choice. They must put the welfare of the American people first as they were elected to do.

I realize this flies in the face of everything the Republican leadership has been preaching for decades with their partisanship hyperbole and win at all costs attitude, but we are not dealing with politics as usual and I am not sure they are willing to accept this premise. How anyone can envision this as a winning scenario is beyond me. First you help to create the crisis and then not only do you do nothing to fix it but you actually try to derail the things that may reduce suffering and resolve the crisis. Do they really believe that people who are unemployed and hungry are going to be concerned with political dogma and right-wing principles? Yes, we brought the country down around us but we preserved our principles. Let it be said that it was these very same principles that created the atmosphere for this crisis we are in. When you are out of work and your home is being foreclosed on al Qaeda, minorities, and all the other fear tactics of the Republicans seem a lot less scary. Being homeless and not being able to take care of your family I think trumps all the other fears you may have had in the past.

Where were these "principles" when the Republican leadership embarked with George W. on the trillion dollar deficits from billions of dollars of surplus left by the Clinton administration? Just so we understand these "principled" men, when a Republican President was in the White House and they had control over Congress spending billions of dollars to reward wealthy people was not a bad thing but when it is a Democrat in the White House and the Democrats control Congress now spending billions of dollars to fix the crisis their spending habits created is now a bad thing. I’m sorry but I seem to be missing something in this equation. Principles are a funny thing. The reason they call them principles is because you stick to them no matter what the circumstances. If you claim to have a principal against committing adultery and then you commit adultery over and over then it is not a principle. It may be something you aspire to or something you talk about, but it is not a principle. It just amazes me how blatant the animosity of the Republican Party is towards the average people of America. And what amazes me even more is how we allow them to get away with it on "principles". It has become abundantly clear to me that many of these people have no principles or empathy for that matter for anyone but themselves.

I found the town hall meetings by the President to have been refreshing and insightful into what is going on in the real world. It allowed all of those politicians and media types who spend their daily lives living in the vacuum of Washington and influence to see how the average American is rooting for this President and how they want to come together to solve our national nightmare. Unlike the Republican town hall meetings and "impromptu" gatherings these were actually open to all and this President does well in this type of exchange with everyday people. We as a nation must begin to turn the heat up on the Republicans. They must be held accountable for their unfounded claims and their lack of empathy for the suffering of the people. It is one thing to have a difference of opinion or philosophy but it is quite another to be willing to sacrifice the American people to prove a point. We are not economic models or financial theories; we are real people who have seen our lives damaged by policies and greed from Washington to Wall Street. Just as the CEO’s should be held accountable so should the politicians who oversaw this fiasco. So long as we allow these people to operate with impunity for their actions there will be no incentive to change. So long as the Republicans are allowed to make their baseless claims and tired old arguments without fall-out there will be no incentive for change.

Change must become more than an election slogan. Although I have to admit it was one hell of a slogan, we the people must continue to press for change. There are going to come times when we will have to take to the streets to emphasize our deep desire for change and support of change. The hope is that we will become weary and go back to American Idol or Desperate Housewives and once again leave the politicians and titans of Wall Street to their own devices. We have the momentum to make drastic changes that will impact not only ourselves but especially our children. Will we be the next "Great Generation" and change a world or will we be remembered for "the Osbournes"?

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Conservatives Have Been Right More Often Than Not?

Conservative policies have on the whole worked — insofar as any set of policies can be said to “work” in the real world. Conservatives of the Reagan-Bush-Gingrich-Bush years have a fair amount to be proud of.[1]

When I read the editorial by William Kristol it seemed incredulous to me that anyone living on the planet earth the last few decades could make such a claim. The first thing that I was struck by was the intentional vagueness of his statements. How exactly were the Conservatives right about jihadist, crime. welfare, education, and the family? What specific policies are you referring to Mr. Kristol? It is precisely this type of revisionist history that has kept America from moving into the future. It is these delusional recollections of calling wrong right and losing winning that more and more Americans are repudiating.

Unlike Mr. Kristol who only has fond if somewhat dubious memories of Conservative positions I would like to present the real picture of the Conservative agenda and how it has played out in America and the world. And you can decide for yourselves how right they have been. The problem for Mr. Kristol and the other Conservative apologists is that after you remove the rhetoric and outright falsehoods all you are left with are the facts. And based on the facts I would hardly call the Conservative agenda a ringing success.


The jihadist – I am assuming here that Mr. Kristol is referring to al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist groups. If this is in fact correct then wasn’t it Reagan who began his administration by trading arms for hostages with one of the current members of the axis of evil? Wasn’t it Reagan and Bush who armed and help form al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan to fight the Russians? And wasn’t it Reagan and the first Bush who armed Saddam Hussein during the 80’s to make war with Iran? The only possible victory during this period was by the first Bush in developing the coalition to oust Saddam Hussein from Kuwait and having the good sense not to occupy Iraq. And let’s not forget the culmination of neo-con policies that led to the number of terrorist attacks increasing during the second Bush years and the creation of al Qaeda in Iraq. Then of course there’s that whole business of transferring attention and resources away from capturing Osama to invading and occupying Iraq. Yes sir, Mr. Kristol the conservatives were definitely right about the jihadists.

Crime – The right in crime I guess would be the ill-fated war on drugs that turned our police officers from members of the community into armed militias taking over the streets of our neighborhoods? Or maybe it’s the crime policies that have sought to privatize our prison system and has led to the largest incarceration percentage in the world? And again these policies culminate in the failed policy of George W. of politicizing the Justice Department so that instead of focusing on crime they were focusing on bogus voter fraud cases attempting to suppress the voting rights of many Americans.

Welfare – Conservatives have always viewed Social Programs as transferring wealth from the rich to the poor. These so-called Christians did not feel an obligation to provide for the neediest of their fellow citizens. They often would resort to racially charged rhetoric about “welfare queens” rather than any real data or facts to back their positions. You see it is easier to shirk your responsibility if you are able to demonize your victims. The problem I have with the Conservatives is not necessarily with their philosophy, but in how they apply it. They expect everyone else to pull themselves up by their boot straps, but then they refuse to provide any boot straps. Of course what Mr. Kristol failed to mention is where would we be today if W. Bush had been able to privatize Social Security?

Education – How the Conservatives could have been right on the department they wanted to abolish is beyond me. Are we to assume that replacing public education with vouchers has been an effective policy? Or how about pricing middle-class and poor children out of college by reducing grants and raising the cost of student loans? The Bush administration’s No Child Left Behind was an attempt to bankrupt public education by creating these standards and then not providing the funding to bring about any real change. It is one thing to identify failing schools; it is another to come up with solutions to failing schools.

It is precisely this selective amnesia by partisan hacks that have prevented this country from advancing past the same cultural arguments for the past 30 years. No, Mr. Kristol the Conservatives have not been right and once you begin to get back on your meds you will be able to see that in fact they have created fear, division, and strife for years to come.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/26/opinion/26kristol.html?hp

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The Sleeping Giant Has Awakened

As I have watched the early hours of the new Obama administration taking charge of the levers of power one thing is apparent. From the massive turnout at the inauguration to the overwhelming receptions being received by his cabinet it is clear that the most damage done by the Bush administration was not to the general public, although we were damaged severely but to the apparatus of government. For eight years the Bush administration worked to try and dismantle the government from the inside.

It has been the goal of every Republican administration since the “New Deal” to try and undo its social framework and safety nets created by the Roosevelt administrations. From its over-reaching policies of Food Stamps for the poor, Social Security for the old, and that communist inspired doctrine of equal pay for equal work they have tried to sabotage them. Each and every Republican administration has had the goal to a varying degree and a platform to undermine the “New Deal” which the Republicans have always viewed as unconstitutional and unnecessary. From Reagan’s “New Federalism” to George W’s. attempts to privatize Social Security the pattern is clear. What most Americans don’t realize is that George W. almost succeeded in the long sought after Republican goal of dismantling the “New Deal” not through legislation, but instead by bankrupting the federal government. Why else would anyone in their right mind in the middle of two wars give out tax-cuts to the wealthy if their goal was not to bankrupt the government. There was a day when the Republicans supposedly stood for fiscal conservatism, not any longer. Think about it; if you can’t shutdown a department through legislation the next best thing to do is to bankrupt the government. If there isn’t any money for those departments then they can only perform their missions on a limited basis or not at all. There would be no money for regulatory agencies, education, or for Medicaid/Medicare. Instead of using a scalpel the Bush administration was using a chainsaw to gut the federal government. He was going to starve the programs designed to help the poor and the middle-class while at the same time feeding the greed of the wealthy through deregulation.

If we look at the record it is abundantly clear what the plan was. He would provide tax-cuts for the wealthy, fight two wars, and allow the greed of Wall Street to go unchecked. All of this of course would strain the federal government to the breaking point. Because of our “war posture” we couldn’t cut defense spending leaving our domestic programs as the only way to cut spending. The result is we starve these programs to death. George W. leaves behind the biggest foreign and economic fiascos in the history of this country. Do not be fooled. I originally thought it was due to sheer incompetence, but as all this plays out it is something more ominous. We have all assumed that Bush was just a likeable bumbling fool with good if not misguided intentions. I now disagree with that assessment because underneath that persona of ineptitude hid a conniving and sinister man with a definite agenda.

Not only was his goal to bankrupt the government, he also sowed the seeds of distrust and bad morale in the institutions of our government. Shortly after the Iraq War began he allowed the Defense Department in the person of Donald Rumsfeld to take over the State Department ending a long tradition of diplomacy as an even partner with defense. He politicized and morally bankrupted the Justice Department through the use of torture and domestic surveillance programs. Instead of appointing competent bureaucrats he appointed political hacks evidenced by the FEMA response to Hurricane Katrina. These are just too many coincidences. No one is this incompetent and rises to the most powerful position in the free world.

But there is a new day in America. Those of us who have been sleepwalking and living a nightmare for the last eight years have finally stopped hitting the snooze button. All over America millions are getting up and starting the task of remaking America. We are restoring more than just our physical infrastructure we are also restoring our moral infrastructure as well. And judging by the reception Secretary Clinton received upon her arrival at State it is long overdue. I would venture to guess that the reception to Secretary Holder will be just as dramatic at the Justice Department. This nation, this government with all its citizens and employees are awakening to the call for change. I don’t think we realized the strain that so many of our federal employees were toiling under with the Bush administration. I think now that the national nightmare is over there will be a litany of revelations from current and former employees of the many illegal and immoral deeds done by the Bush administration in the name of security.

The alarm has sounded. The call to action has been made. I believe that there will be an outpouring of spirit and volunteerism the likes of which this nation has never seen. I caution the Republicans still standing you do not want to be on the wrong side of this tidal wave. Once the sleeping giant awakens there is often backlash, anger, and frustration. We are heading in a new direction and foolish is the man who thinks that he can stop it or reverse it.

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President Obama’s Agenda

It is amazing to me how the Republicans and all of their right-wing friends are trying to minimize the total repudiation they and their policies received at the hands of the electorate. According to these “objective” viewers there was no political realignment. The fact that Obama carried states that hadn’t been carried by a Democrat in years and put into play states that had been lost to Democrats for a generation does not mean that there was a redrawing of the electoral map according to these illustrious men. Their goal is simple to try and keep President Obama and the Democrats from enacting any sweeping legislation, instead hoping that they stay small and do little if anything. My guess is that they hope by trying these scare tactics and keeping the Dems thinking small that in four years if they accomplish little or nothing the Republicans can highlight how a majority Party did nothing to help the voters that elected them.

The Republicans contempt for the intelligence of the American people is infinite. It was only a few years ago that a man who garnered 271 and 286 electoral college votes in two successive elections had a mandate to suspend Habeas Corpus rights, expand government with giveaways to his cronies, and privatize Social Security with their blessings. So I guess based on their logic you only have a mandate and realignment if it meets their criteria and supports their agenda. This talk is why they are becoming more and more irrelevant. I am all for enlisting the support of all Americans for the monumental tasks that we face, but you don’t just get your butt kicked and then try to drive the car; you are lucky to be in the car! What these clowns refuse to see is the same reason they have lost touch with the majority of the American voters and lost the election. When it comes to the major issues facing the American public, they’ve got nothing. This is not the country they thought it was and they can’t accept it.

If I were advising President Obama and the Dems I would advise them to go big and go fast. Strike the iron while it is hot. I would begin with a stimulus package for the poor and the middle-class. I would force the banks to use the bail-out money for what it was designed for to make loans, not to buy other banks. I would then resubmit the SChips healthcare program for children. I would propose funds for states and local governments to ride through this economic crisis and to begin to do the badly needed infrastructure repair. I would look to pass the union registration legislation. I would begin to realign our armed forces to reflect the true nature of the dangers we face. I would invite the UN back into Iraq and give them some real authority to help and stabilize that government. I would then send my diplomats to embark on a worldwide tour to reassure the world that we do respect the world and want to be a part of it again. I would state unequivocally that the United States does not condone torture against anyone. I would enact a 10 year energy plan to make us completely oil free by 2019. I would reinstate and expand the Pell Grant program to help families pay for college for those who are willing and qualified to go. After consultations, I would develop a program to provide healthcare for the millions of Americans who currently don’t have it.

I know that this is a lot to chew on, but we have to remember what George W. and his greedy assed friends have left us with. We must mitigate the vastness of this Depression that we are facing, not wait until we are in the middle of it but while we can make a difference. I also understand that this still leaves plenty of other badly needed things unaddressed, but that was only the first day. We must not allow the naysayers and the small minded to diminish the scope of the critical programs that we need. Of course there will be shouts from the Right about the deficit and big spending liberals, but we must remember we have tried it their way and it didn’t work. A temporary allowance of deficit spending in the middle of a “recession” is not abnormal. Of course they would want us to do nothing because they will be able to ride out the storm and they could use the pain of those who would truly be suffering to rise back to power.

We also have to remember that this generation cannot sustain suffering. If this were a couple of generations ago we would just roll-up our sleeves and get it done, however this generation has not known suffering and hardship and frankly I don’t think they could handle it. They will require more support and coddling than their grandparents. So, there is much to be done and doing it piecemeal is not going to do it. We must strike hard, strike large, and strike fast…

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And The Winner Is…That One

It is now officially over. The name calling, the fear mongering, the divisive tactics, the shopping sprees and most importantly Joe the plumber’s fifteen minutes of fame. If McCain had won could you imagine the exposure this guy would have received? He would have been credited with McCain’s victory and maybe would have been offered a cabinet level position. He would have written a book about nothing, he would have made a record about nothing. Let’s face it the guy himself was fond of saying that he knew nothing. America has spoken and the winner is…That One! And the loser is the politics of the past still fighting the cultural wars of that past.

The true winner though is not Barack Obama. The true winners are too numerous to name, but I will name a few. The true winners were Ann Nixon Cooper; the oldest black voter and Sister Cecilia Gaudette; who hadn’t voted since Eisenhower both of whom are 106 years old and both stated that Obama’s win would begin the process of change that both have been waiting for. The true winners are the billions of people throughout the world who along with millions of Americans who all held their collective breaths on November 4th to see if America would fulfill its own promises of freedom and equality. The true winners are our children both black and white who can now dream of a better world no longer shackled to the past by generations of missed opportunities and unfulfilled potential.

The election of Barack Obama will not magically eliminate the centuries of pain and fear that was America before November 4th, but what it has done is to provide hope that we as a nation have made progress toward the ideals that this nation was founded on. As we celebrate though I am reminded of a quote by Kate Caro; President of the Liberal Women’s Network. She stated at their inaugural dinner that “Women will only have achieved true equality when there are as many mediocre women in positions of power as there are mediocre men.” You can fill in the word women for any number of groups seeking equality in America. I found this quote interesting in the context of this election where we have the President-elect completing his undergraduate work at Columbia and then going on to earn his law degree from Harvard where he was the first black president of the Harvard Law review replacing a President who by his own account was an average student at best while attending Yale undergraduate school and earning an MBA from Harvard. By all accounts George W. Bush was not a particularly ambitious man and prior to becoming Governor of Texas was not a very successful businessman. George W. Bush is the definition of mediocre.

So while we have made some progress does anyone doubt that if Barack Obama had had the same educational and personal background of George W. Bush that he would have even been considered for the nomination? I seriously doubt it. So until we have the day when a mediocre black or female is elected to the highest office in the land as so many white men have been based on some other criteria than qualifications then we have a ways to go. Remember that even Senator John McCain was no intellectual giant. The true winner in this election was intellectual curiosity. The thing that troubled me the most about the McCain/Palin ticket was not that they didn’t know anything, it was their contention that knowing in itself was bad. That somehow true virtue laid in ignorance and based on all the red on the election map we have some work to do in that area. With so much of the world exceeding us in educational standards the last thing we need to be promoting to our children is ignorance is bliss.

The true winners are all of those black Americans who fought alongside their white counterparts for the right of self determination in this new world from the old. The real winners are all of those Americans who recognized the injustice of enslaving one another and fought to conclude the practice and preserve a nation. The true winners are all of those Americans who witnessed the injustices of Jim Crow America and left their families and homes to protest the exclusion of a whole race of people from daily American life. The true winners are all of those men and women who died for the freedoms that so many of us take for granted. The true winner is the Constitution and all of those who seek a more perfect union. The true winners are all of those who were not able to live to see this day when all of their hard work and sacrifice culminated in that bright shining moment of the election of Barack Obama.

Many people have asked me as a black man what significance does this election play in how I see the country. I am always torn in my answer because while this was a day of immense pride for me as a black man, it also made me proud to be an American. It allowed me to feel vindicated for the hope that I held on to despite all of the naysayers and cries of foolishness. For the past eight years I think for many Americans it was hard to be proud of our nation, I think some of the pride is being restored as we see the world celebrate with us in this historic moment. We must not forget that this is just that; a moment. I think men like Jeremiah Wright and his white counterparts weren’t afraid that America would not be able to elect a black man President their biggest fear was that America could and then what? To those who have become embittered and enraged hope is like kryptonite. America has spoken and the winner is…That One!

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That’s Right Sarah, You’re Not in Alaska Anymore

"I love her -- she's just like me," said Pam Moore, a minister who attended the rally in Green on Wednesday. Moore dismissed the latest reports of the RNC-funded shopping: "They are just trying to find dirt, and it's sad that people are stooping that low."[1]

That’s right folks we are no longer in the real world, but we have been transported into the land of Reputian in the Land of Oz What has always amazed me about zealots; whether they be religious, political, or social is their incredible ability to suspend reality at a moment’s notice. In order to be zealous about anything one must be able to ignore the reality they are in and transfer themselves to another place. Reality and facts are the hobgoblin of all zealots; they destroy the carefully crafted myths being parsed on the simple. For the zealot any facts that contradict the false narrative have to be reasoned away with utter nonsense to maintain the sense of outrage.

The more I witness this zealousness in any context the more I realize that we have come to the place where it is no longer the spinner of the tale who is completely at fault, but some fault also lies with the hearer. In order for us to be defrauded we have to dismiss all empirical data and established fact and believe something we know is false. If someone comes to me and says they have a magic oven that turns 100 dollar bills into 1000 dollar bills and they are willing to demonstrate it to me. At that moment I have to become willing to take some pretty irrational ideas and make them plausible. So we go to the oven and he puts a hundred dollar bill in it and presto he pulls out a 1000 dollar bill. There are some really rational concepts I have to be willing to throw out the window to believe what he has just shown me. In addition I have to also be willing to overlook these documented truths in order to receive the gain he is promising me. So there has to be some overriding concern that allows me to ignore what I know to be true. In this case it would be my greed, but there has to be some perceived gain to make me want to disbelieve what I know to be true to believe what has been proven to be false.

Such is the case for anyone who still believes that Sarah Palin is Jane six-pack or any derivative of that meme. The problem for me is not that she spent 150,000 for clothes. This is America you can spend as much as you want for your wardrobe, hair-cut, or 7 houses. No, my problem is the hypocrisy of these people. Have they no shame? First you present a candidate with 7 houses and 12 cars to a nation suffering from the worst economic meltdown since the Great Depression (brought about by a man who also is abundantly wealthy) and claim that he represents the average “Joe” and understands your concerns. Then we send out a woman who claims to represent small-town America with its simple common-sense values and it turns out she has been spending 150,000 on wardrobe and make-up. I’m sorry but what hockey-mom do you know who has been able to get that “extreme make-over”?

The truly poignant part is what this type of hypocrisy not being only accepted but defended says about us as a nation. Are we so desperate to believe in something that we will believe in anything? If the curtain gets pulled back and you still believe the trick, then who is at fault? The people who are defending this from their hearts are not the rich, wealthy elite of the Republican Party but the average Joe’s, the ones who are making 40,000 a year. Think about this for a moment this woman spent 4 years of their salaries in a couple of months for clothes and they still think she is one of them. I guess then we have to wonder what “one of them” really means since it can’t be economic status?

Regardless of whether the con is for money, votes, or salvation there comes a point when the trick is revealed, fortunately there are enough of us who are not mindless zealots or “ditto-heads” who are willing to say look at your hypocrisy. The depressing phenomenon is the number of people who don’t care that they are being swindled as evidenced by George W’s 23% approval rating. What do these 23 percentiles see that I don’t?

My friends we are witnessing the end of an era. The days of Rovian campaign tactics are coming to an end. With the advent of the internet; the days of “swift-boating” to the masses has ended. The only ones that can be duped with false rumor and innuendo today are those who do not have or do not want the internet and thus have to be informed by the dupers. Today all one needs to do to debunk a false charge is to type Google in any browser. In effect they are ones who choose to be duped because it allows them to continue their feelings of false outrage and victimization complexes. What’s the difference between a zealot and Sarah Palin? It appears to be about a 150,000 wardrobe and some very expensive lipstick.

[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/22/AR2008102203346_2.html?hpid=topnews&sid=ST2008102300047&s_pos=

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Responsibility Or The Loss Of Credibility

One of the many things that trouble me about the wealthy in particular and the Republicans in general is their apparent lack of shame for their blatant hypocrisy. For decades the mantra of the wealthy and their Republican mouthpieces has been the lack of personal responsibility of the poor. According to these people the problem with liberalism is that they have tried to use the government to “bail-out” the bad choices made by these unfortunate individuals and if they would only exercise some personal responsibility they would be alright. It is not the business of the taxpayers to support the bad lifestyle choices of individuals.

While this analysis is wrong on so many levels, it is important with the current bail-out plans being discussed and enacted in Washington to discuss it on its face value. My question is, “If it has been bad policy in the past to “bail-out” bad personal choices and decisions for individuals why is it now good policy to “bail-out” these same bad decisions now being made by CEO’s and financiers?” It is precisely this type of hypocrisy that has helped to fuel the largest transfer of wealth from the public coffers to the wealthy in our history. Government payouts only seem to be in the interest of the country when they are being given to the wealthiest amongst us. There is something wrong with a system that takes the wealth of the middle and lower classes and gives it to the richest in the faint hope that they will not be greedy and will provide some return on those funds.

As the financial meltdown has unfolded around us it has revealed this strategy for what it is; another bankrupt idea of the wealthy and the Republicans being perpetrated against the American public. It was amazing to hear John McCain try to mock Senator Obama for his comments to “Joe the plumber” about “spreading the wealth”. Why wasn’t anyone mocking the rich during the many transfers of wealth to the rich by the Reagan and Bush tax-cuts? I guess it is ok to spread the wealth if it is going in an upwardly direction. This is just a further illustration of why the Republican brand has lost all of its credibility with the American public. Not only has this crisis reinforced their lack of principles and convictions but there has been a history of similar situations in the past. Here is a short list of some of the most egregious examples of their untrustworthiness.

No Nation Building – One of the first and costliest in a long string of credibility gaps was then candidate Bush’s pronouncement that he would not use the military to engage in nation building.

Weapons of Mass Destruction – Can any of us forget the infamous pronunciations of a host of Administration officials on this subject? Sorry General Powell

Trickle-Down Economics Work – Can anyone besides McCain and a diehard Republican supply-sider argue that this policy has bankrupted our economic system?

No Regulations/Let Markets Rule – Another aspect of the vaulted Conservative Republican agenda was the systematic dismantling of regulatory agency powers and budgets. Let the markets rule! How is that working out America?

What almost no one at the beginning of this process and many still have not been realized is the deep level of desire for change that is permeating through the American population. It is still my belief that I have shared for the last two months that this election will not even be close. By 10:30 on election night the winner will be known to all. This weekend has only increased my enthusiasm for the outcome of this election. On Saturday I attended the Barack Obama rally in Kansas City, Missouri and I have never witnessed a political event or any other event for that matter that carried the electricity or the enthusiasm that this event did. It was surreal to see red-necks and blacks sharing the same belief and hope in a political figure. There were about 70,000 people that showed up to just be a part of history. Maybe 5,000 people could actually see Senator Obama, so the other 70,000 were just there to hear him or to just be a part of history. One of the most often stated lines was, “We're making history or we are witnessing a history making moment.”

The other event that has increased my enthusiasm is that I was watching the Republican mouthpieces on the Sunday talk shows talking about the Obama Presidency. There are many Republicans who feel that the current Republican Party and its focus is an abomination to what the Republican Party stands for. When have you heard Republicans hinting, let alone saying publically that their Party needs to lose? The difference in this election will be two-fold. The first will be the influx of new voters that have been registered by the Obama campaign’s voter drives in many of the swing states. The other deciding factor will be the number of suburban Republican voters who will sit this election out. They won’t vote for Obama, but they are not going to support McCain either.

It is time for personal responsibility for all of us, not just the poor and the middle-class. Electing Barack Obama will be a major step towards that goal.

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You Call That A Debate?

Ever since the much anticipated on again off again debate between the two Presidential candidates, there has been a lot of concern from Democrats and pundits concerning the performance or lack thereof from Senator Obama. Many people feel that the debate was full of “moments loss” for the Senator to “take it to” McCain. Many felt that after the disastrous week McCain had that he was prime for a final knockout blow. It’s funny because I remember the week prior to the debate I was visiting my parents and jokingly said that if I were Senator Obama I would do something deliberate to anger John McCain and show that he was temperamentally unfit to be President. I had even jokingly and somewhat cruelly suggested that I would mention McCain’s adopted daughter that Bush had used to derail the McCain candidacy in 2000.

For the many people who feel that Senator Obama needs to go after McCain during the debates, I would just like to interject some thoughts from my own experience of being a black man working in a white world. The first thing that I would remind all of those people who are calling for Senator Obama to get tough with McCain is that they are already going to vote for Obama. What a supporter looks for in a candidate may not be what an undecided voter might find appealing. What many supporters don’t understand is the fine line that Senator Obama has to walk; despite all the pronouncements to the contrary we are still living in America where blacks are expected to carry themselves in certain ways when it comes to interacting with whites. While many people want to use Senator Obama’s historical candidacy as the death knell to our racist past there are many others who are not so willing to put our racist history to bed.

The latitude that many whites accord each other in interactions is not the same they accord minorities during those same interactions. Senator Obama could in fact dissect McCain very easily with facts that are surfacing daily about the ruthlessness, incompetence, and gimmickry of the McCain campaign in the news media. But what many don’t understand is that even if he were to undress McCain publically during the debates he could still be viewed as the loser by many of the undecided voters. We must not lose track of what this election and many elections in this country have boiled down to; about 20% of all eligible registered voters. Who can gauge the mindset of these voters? I mean think about it; anyone with all that has gone on in this country the last 8 years who has not made a decision about what direction they want this country to go in at this late date how can you expect to know what is going on in their minds. The worse thing that Senator Obama could do is to offend those voters by being seen as picking on this poor old white man who has sacrificed so much for his country. Whether you agree or disagree with this narrative it is the one that many Americans accept as the truth.

This election despite the pundits and media talking heads pronouncements to the contrary is Senator Obama’s to lose. Would we rather he win the debate and lose the election? Wouldn’t it be a better strategy to let the news media continue to pound the McCain campaign with daily charges of incompetence and collusion with lobbyist? While I agree that if it were me I would do more to tie McCain to the current economic crisis and the past policies of the Bush administration during the debates, but despite his seeming ineptitude Senator Obama is rising in the polls; all polls. Many of Senator Obama’s supporters would like to believe that he will be judged by the electorate based entirely on his character and his competency. I beg to disagree. We must not mistake our own judgments for the judgments of others. There are some voters who are looking for a reason not to vote for Obama. They will vote for him, albeit reluctantly. As we get closer to Election Day the McCain camp will become more desperate and will begin to try more and more gimmicks and take even more risks, as they do so they will make bigger mistakes. These mistakes will not only derail their campaign but hopefully will take down other Republicans in the process.

To all of those who are watching every twist and turn of this election through the media’s microscope I would just like to suggest you “GET OUT MORE”. Turn off the television or the computer and go out to dinner or go to a movie. The media is not going to let this election become a landslide even if is. Think about it if people begin to view this election as being over the public’s interest goes down and media outlets lose advertising dollars. They will continue to try and peak the public’s interest in this election until the final vote hoping to capture every advertising dollar they can get their greedy hands on. Keep tuned to the future debates and watch how Senator Obama methodically exposes McCain for the fraud that he is, but remember how Mondale tried to expose Reagan and those results.

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A Palin In The Hand Is Worth Two Bushes

Is it just me or were there some conspicuous absences from the Republican convention? I got it; not only was there no one from the current administration, there was also no Cheney sighting, or no one by the name of Bush to be found. I can understand that George W. would not make an appearance due to the hurricane and all (Remember how hands on he was during Katrina and the aftermath). No one has done more to soil the Republican brand than he has, but I don’t understand why dad or Jeb wasn’t invited. The Party is trying to get as far away from the Bush’s as quickly as possible. It’s as though they never existed. The family that played such a giant role in Party politics and the elections the last eight years has been delegated to the sidelines.

Except for a one line acknowledgement during the acceptance speech of McCain, Bush was a non-entity at his own Party’s convention. I can’t remember when a sitting President was excluded from his Party’s nominating convention. My thinking is that if he was ostracized at supposedly the one event that contained his “people”, where will he be utilized during the campaign? Not only was the younger Bush sidelined from the campaign of John McCain, but it appears that the entire Bush clan has been asked not to participate. This says to me that the McSame branding of McCain is getting a lot of traction and should be continued to be hammered home in the coming weeks. The closer McCain can be tied to Bush the lower his numbers will be.

So what happened to the Bush legacy? While Democrats offered former President Clinton a main stage to make the case for their nominee, the Republicans completely dissed the Bush’s. It was just a few months ago that McCain was in dire straits and was in need of the blessings of George W. to placate the Party wingnuts. Since bringing Governor Palin on aboard it appears that McCain has once again sacrificed principal for political gain. The “Country First” mantra being put forth by the McCain campaign has no place in reality. If this were true then McCain would have followed his instincts and selected former Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman. Instead the “maverick” chose political expediency and selected in what is appearing to be a quick decision to appease the Party base and selected someone who was not even vetted prior to the announcement of her joining the ticket.

So where are the Bush’s? Will we see the Bush’s on the campaign trail or will they be “too busy” to play a role in this historic election? President Bush and his policies which Senator McCain supported 90% of the time are an albatross around the Republican ticket. I don’t think we will see any joint appearances with McCain and Bush anytime soon. Bush is kryptonite to McCain’s Superman. The problem with the McCain campaign scenario is that they can’t have it both ways, they want to project this tough maverick image, but at the same time they ignore the fact that 90% of the time this “maverick” has supported the Bush policies. I am no political operative or expert, but how can you claim to be an agent of change and support the policies of the most unpopular and arguably worst President in the modern era?

I can’t even remember seeing any of the Bush’s clan publically campaigning for the McCain campaign, will that change? I seriously doubt it. The Bush’s will stay on the sidelines this election, but who will not be on the sideline will be Karl Rove. Make no mistake the McCain campaign is beginning to resemble the Bush campaign with each passing day. It’s lack of discussion of the issues and focus on personality.

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Desperado

It is amazing to me how foolish politicians and the media types take us for. They would have us believe that the reason McCain picked Governor Palin for his VP was because he wanted to thumb his nose at conventional wisdom and display once again what a maverick he is. According to the narrative, he wanted to demonstrate his desire for change and desire to break with the Washington insiders whom he has been a part of for the last 25 years. Let’s be clear John McCain would pick Satan himself if he thought it would get him elected. His selection of Governor Palin was a desperate move by a desperate man.

John McCain and the Republicans campaign would have been on a fast track to oblivion in the fall if he had chosen another conservative white male and he knew it. While Governor Palin might be a nice woman and may even be competent, but her selection was a giant gamble by McCain and the Republicans to make a clumsy attempt to foster their own change theme. My question is this; if the Republicans really wanted to embrace change so badly where was Governor Palin at the beginning of the process? Why were their only primary candidates the usual suspects of middle-aged and elderly white men? For the unenlightened the Republican’s goal for this country is to keep the status quo and to fight any real change. Is it really any wonder that when faced with the drum beat of history that they would now select a woman? So since nominating another white male was certain death they select a conservative white female with homespun charm and a dialect that some rural and lower-class whites can identify with.

So while on the surface the choice looks like change the reality is more of the same; just in better packaging. It proves once again just how bankrupt the Republican Party is in that they cannot initiate anything new, they merely copy whatever the Dems do and claim it was their idea all along. An example at this year’s convention is the great American hero mantle being placed on John McCain. Where was this heroic mantra for the last two elections? These are the same patriotic Americans who turned a true war hero into a coward and a wimp and turned a coward into a hero. Sometimes the hypocrisy of these people is overwhelming to the senses. Don’t they have any shame?

Another example of the change without changing theme was the orchestrated procession at the convention prior to Governor Palin’s speech where the Republican handlers decided it might be a good idea to actually have some women in the same frame as the Governor; however there was only one small problem. They didn’t have enough women to fill the section. Evidence again that the majority of delegates to the Grand Ole Party’s Convention were majority white and majority male. As I watched the cameras panning the arena and I saw a smattering of minorities I couldn’t help but wonder how they felt. Unlike many of my fellow bloggers and liberal fire brands I don’t believe that all Republicans are evil. I just think they don’t get it.

In the majority of speeches I had the displeasure of hearing, including the VP candidate the mantra has not changed in seven years. It is still be afraid, be very afraid. As the delegates were interviewed they also echoed the same Party line. What this suggests to me is that they are this small group of people who all share this mass paranoia that not only the terrorists are out to get us but according to Rudy so are our former European allies. I suppose 8 years of fear was not enough to accomplish all of their goals. So many civil liberties to trash, so many people to torture, and so little time. It was surreal to hear the Republican VP nominee speak about smaller government and how Senator Obama wants to expand government to take away our freedoms. I have to wonder were these people on the same planet as I was the last 8 years? This smaller government would it resemble the smaller government that allowed the mortgage bankers to speculate us into a housing crisis, or the banking industry being allowed to charge extravagant fees for services, or the gas speculators that have driven the price of gas through the roof. They don’t get it, we don’t want smaller government we just want a government that works and does what we cannot do for ourselves.

Finally I couldn’t help wondering that something was missing from their attack speeches about how the country is in dire straits and how important this election is. Oh yeah I remember it was the small details like for 6 of Bush’s 8 years in office the Republicans had all three branches of the Government, that the reason we as a nation are being assaulted on all fronts might have something to do with the occupant of the Oval Office for the last eight years. Not to worry by the time November arrives you’ll be convinced that it was Senator Obama who invaded Iraq, raised gas prices, and authorized torture. So much for that gentlemanly discussion of the issues, I think we can kiss that idea good-bye. Desperate times calls for desperate measures.

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US President Missing In Action

As I watched the satellite pictures being beamed back of Senator Barack Obama’s world wind tour of the world or better known as the “Obama-Palooza Tour” by the Republicans and other haters, I was struck by the reception he received from the other world leaders and leaders at home. The purpose of the trip according to conventional wisdom was to see if Senator Obama could “appear” presidential. How does one appear presidential? Well, I guess for starters he wouldn’t vomit on the shoe of another leader, I would imagine he would not be confused about the countries or leaders he is meeting with, and I guess he probably wouldn’t try to cop a feel of some foreign dignitaries’ wife.

Here is the problem we are facing as nation, our President George W. Bush has through ineptitude abdicated the office of President and currently there is a void in power. This void is palpable and was visible at every stop that the Senator made. The world is also hungry for change. The world is anxiously waiting for America to once again assume her role as the beacon of the world and not the bully. The reception that Senator Obama got was overwhelmingly more responsive and congenial than the receptions for both President Bush or John McCain. If the test was to “appear” presidential then I think the Senator passed with flying colors.

There was a lot of talk about the Senator “negotiating” troop withdrawals in Iraq with the Prime Minister. This of course was merely a smoke screen to cover up the current lack of leadership on the part of the current administration. Let’s face it George Bush is the lamest lame duck President we have had in recent memory. He isn’t even wanted by his own Party’s nominee for anything more than fundraising on the campaign trail. With the current officeholder in a state of limbo, the world and the nation is looking for someone to step in and fill the void. Rightly or wrongly that someone today is Senator Obama, he has been thrust upon the international and national stage by events that were predictable and avoidable. The problem is that no one tried to avoid them.

Unfortunately we are a nation without a leader, maybe it is the cost of democracy with our revolving Presidency or maybe it is the result of a leader who was not prepared to lead. Either way we have to deal with the aftermath of a leader with no one to lead. It is almost as if everyone is holding their collective breaths for the day when George Bush can go back to trimming brush in Crawford, Texas and we can move forward again as a nation. Even many who were once Republican stalwarts are calling for a change in direction and for all intents and purposes that change appears to be Senator Obama. As we saw with the foreign tour many of the world’s leaders share and believe in the type of world vision and America’s place in it as does the Senator. The world can see the storm on the horizon waiting to explode if we continue down this path we are on.

The world is looking for leadership and for too many years America has not provided that leadership. We have promoted negotiations and fairness as weaknesses, instead of a carrot and a stick we have just being using the stick. Despite the Bush administrations last minute stabs at negotiations their moment has passed. They had over 7 years to conduct these negotiations and opted not to, no one is going take them seriously at this late stage in the game. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has logged more miles for negotiations in this last year than she did all of the previous years combined. We are currently set adrift for months until the election decides what direction we will take as a nation. Will continue with the failed policies of the 50’s and 60’s or will we embrace a new direction for the complex issues that face our nation and our world?

Whether you believe in it or even like it, you cannot deny that the Senator is gaining momentum and with it power. The thing about power is that those with it always want to be on the winning side, they are sizing up their choices and Mr. McCain is not inspiring a lot of confidence. Anyone familiar with athletics knows that once you get momentum on your side few things can stand in your way, but they also know that momentum is fickled. It can switch in a moments notice, you are riding high one minute and the next thing you know it’s gone like a jilted lover. Right now the momentum is clearly on the side of Senator Obama despite the current poll results. There is a feeling, an aura if you will that speaks clearly to those willing to hear it.

In my opinion, the Presidency is Senator Obama’s to lose. This doesn’t mean that the Republicans will concede without a fight. There is a lot drama to be played out and this will not be the campaign promised in the primaries. You remember the one based on issues and not personalities. The one were there would be no more “swift boating” and a gentlemanly discussion of the issues, ain’t going to happen. We mustn’t believe that we will not be needed in this election, that our efforts and our enthusiasm are unnecessary, the Republicans will be counting on our overconfidence. We must remain vigilant until the very end, we must close the deal. There will be many who at the moment where vision meets reality will have second thoughts, we must calm their fears and press our case. Unfortunately being right isn’t always enough in this world, we must also be persistent and unwavering in our commitment and our support.

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Fear Factor

Someone once described courage as not never being afraid, but going on in spite of the fear. As a nation and as elected officials we seem to be running dangerously low on courage. Oh we have the tough talk down, we have the posturing, but do we really have true courage? Since 9/11 when at least 2,985 people died from the terrorists attacks I think that what has been lost in all the hype is some perspective. While this was surely a tragedy, the population of the United States in the year 2001 was somewhere around 290 million people. Based on those numbers the terrorist attacks killed less than .02% of the population, yet since the attack we have responded by invading sovereign nations, torturing our fellow human beings, and gutting our Constitutional protections.

We currently have a sitting President with plummeting approval ratings in the last year of his failed presidency and yet he is still able to bully a frightened Democratic Congress still fearful of the “national security” question in the upcoming election. This President should not be able to get even universal health care passed at this point. But when courage is needed in the face of not only terrorism, but also tyranny, once again our elected officials can’t seem to find any. Because of these fears Democrats have caved on a number of issues trying to appear “tough” on terrorism. My question is what have we gained the last eight years with warrior sheep Bush in the White House being tough on terrorism? We must as a nation begin to demonstrate real courage by not allowing what the terrorists couldn’t take away to be taken away by the fear of terrorists.

Wiretapping orders approved by secret orders under the previous version of the surveillance law were set to begin expiring in August unless Congress acted. Heading into their political convention in Denver next month and on to the November Congressional elections, many Democrats were wary of handing the Republicans a potent political weapon.

The issue put Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, in a particularly precarious spot. He had long opposed giving legal immunity to the phone companies that took part in the N.S.A.’s wiretapping program, even threatening a filibuster during his run for the nomination. But on Wednesday, he ended up voting for what he called “an improved but imperfect bill” after backing a failed attempt earlier in the day to strip the immunity provision from the bill through an amendment.[1]

It is a sad day when even the presumptive nominee of the opposition party feels compelled by political expediency to succumb to the political reality that is now America. The thing that I can not understand is how can we as a nation ever expect unity when we can’t even look at the same information and agree on what we are seeing. It’s like looking at a man being lynched and someone calling it a suicide. We as the governed of this country must begin to exert some courage of our own and start demanding an end to this childish bickering and obstructionism. It is time for some truth and honesty about what is going on in the name of freedom.

If we continue to allow our freedoms to be eroded then the terrorists will have created another Tet offensive. In the Tet offensive in Vietnam the Vietcong engaged in an all out offensive throughout the South in an effort to demonstrate that no area was safe from their reach. While the offensive was a military disaster it was a political windfall for the Vietcong. It was the turning point of the war for many Americans because it showed the disconnect from what the government was saying and the reality on the ground. Do you think it mattered to the Vietcong that it was a political decision to leave their country and not a military victory?

In many ways we are encountering the same thing today with the war on terror. If we lose our freedoms then the terrorists have won. It won’t matter that it wasn’t a military victory, they don’t have the numbers or technology to accomplish a military victory. They will have won in the sense that we will live in a constant state of terror and we will no longer have the rights we are suppose to be fighting for. They will care less if our rights were taken by a jihad or loss to a fear mongering political class.

The real courage will not be found in Washington, they have proven over and over that many of them lack the courage of their convictions or they have no convictions. No my friends the courage must come from the people. Just as with the Tet offensive it was the grassroots movement that turned the tide against the war. It wasn’t the “dirty hippies” but just everyday folks saying enough was enough. They demonstrated the courage that was missing in Washington. They were willing to take to the streets to reclaim the idea of “government by the people”. We have never needed courage in this country more than we do now. Today we face the lost of our freedoms in the name of saving them.

Moral cowardice that keeps us from speaking our minds is as dangerous to this country as irresponsible talk. The right way is not always the popular and easy way. Standing for right when it is unpopular is a true test of moral character. - Margaret Chase Smith

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/washington/10fisa.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

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