Republicans & Big Pharma

(By my count, there are still 24 Republicans in the Senate who voted for the drug benefit, including such alleged conservatives as Jim Bunning and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, John Cornyn of Texas, Mike Crapo of Idaho, Orrin Hatch of Utah and Jon Kyl of Arizona.) - Bruce Bartlett

While hypocrisy is not confined to one political party or the other what the Republican senators who are now defending Medicare and fiscal responsibility are doing is beyond the norm even by Washington standards. The Republicans who were standing at the podium with Senator John McCain should have been ashamed. While Senator McCain can stand up and say that he opposed the Medicare Part B plan and voted against it many of his Republican counterparts supported the largest public giveaway in decades. Medicare Part B was George W. and Karl Rove’s attempt to buy the seniors for the 2004 election by providing unfunded prescription drug coverage to seniors.

Not only did they simply attach it to a federal budget that went from a surplus to record deficits they also provided the pharma industry with millions of new customers without requiring any cost reductions or anyway to pay for it. For these same senators to now claim to be fiscal conservatives is laughable. Senator McCain is once again displaying why his “Country First” campaign slogan was empty rhetoric by allowing members of his own party to stand behind him as if they had shared his concerns about the Medicare legislation. If Mr. McCain was the “maverick” he claims to be he would speak out against the hypocrisy being displayed by his fellow senators. It is one thing to be against legislation that is seeking to be budget neutral on philosophical grounds, but not if you voted for the Medicare Part B legislation.

Somewhere in a cave between Louisiana and Mississippi some Republican strategist came up with the strategy that the way you prevent spending on social and domestic issues is by bankrupting the federal coffers through tax-cuts, fighting two wars, and drug giveaways. The thing we have to remember is that by starving social programs there are groups who benefit. If you can reduce the number of middle and low income kids going on to college then your kids have a better opportunity to attend a prestigious college and in turn you reduce the number of graduates that your kids will have to compete against for jobs. The same can be demonstrated for healthcare, jobs, and many other social programs that could benefit the masses. It plays out in the healthcare debate by rationing care to those who are unable to afford the high cost of health insurance thus insuring better healthcare for those who can.

Once again the Republicans are demonstrating their utter lack of regard for average Americans by attempting to block legislation that would begin to free Americans from the yoke that the insurance companies have placed around our national necks. To turn what is clearly a moral issue into a financial issue after you have given away the whole barn would be farcical if it wasn’t so criminal. The way you balance the budget is by spending all of the money? I guess it’s like the joke we had in college for balancing our checkbooks, “You’re not out of money until you run out of checks.” The Republicans have not only run out of money and checks but have also run out credibility.

How are these hypocrites being allowed to stand before the American people without the media presenting the complete story is unconscionable? The American people deserve a media that is willing to call out the hypocrites publicly especially on issues of this magnitude instead of this false objectivity that all voices are equal and all seek what’s best for the majority when in fact this is not true. It is one thing to be against legislation on principal, but you can’t selectively apply these principles when you are in or out of power. If when you were in power not only did you not hold your party to these principles, but you violated those principles you now hold up as sacrosanct then how sacred can these principles be? A famous Republican once stated that the definition of hypocrisy is the man who murders both parents and then ask the court for leniency because he is an orphan. This appears to be the strategy of the current Republican party they were against Medicare before they were for Medicare before they were against it and then for it, etc. etc. How ironic it is to see Republican lawmakers claiming that they are the defenders of a program they have for decades sought to eliminate.

Hypocrite: the man who murdered both his parents... pleaded for mercy on the grounds that he was an orphan. - Abraham Lincoln

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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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A Crisis is Only a Crisis?

“Character is not made in a crisis it is only exhibited.” - Robert Freeman

When is a crisis a crisis? Obviously in the Republican mindset it is whenever they decide it is. It is not based on evidence, facts, or the threat level as evidenced by the Iraq War. It is not based on the magnitude or the suffering involved as evidenced by Hurricane Katrina. It is not based on expert predictions or historical facts as evidenced by the current economic conditions. In what has to be the most bizarre strategy in the history of politics the Republicans have chosen to hope for economic disaster. That’s right, with the rest of the country and the world hoping that the Obama administration will succeed in turning the economic crisis around the Republicans have staked out the strategy and the position of gloom and doom. Not only have they expressed hope that this will occur which is bad enough, but they are also in the process of orchestrating our economy’s complete demise through their inaction or obstinacy.

Regardless of one’s political persuasion, we as a nation are in the midst of a national crisis the likes of which I don’t think any of us realize. When someone is in the throes of a calamity its magnitude I think can’t be measured until after the crisis has passed or dissipated somewhat because to acknowledge its size would be to face the hopelessness of the task. Many times individuals function on adrenaline during these times of crisis and do not fully appreciate the enormity of the moment. Whether we accept or understand the size of this thing most of us are willing to accept that this thing is big and we need to do something about it and do something now. This is a time when all Americans should be coming together to solve this crisis and get behind our President who was elected to lead us at this time. As I watch all of those Republicans on television posturing I can’t help but remember these same Republicans who stood in front of the American people prior to the Iraq War and spoke about how this national crisis dictated all Americans to come together and stop the “mushroom cloud”. We have since learned that those were theatrics and there was no imminent mushroom cloud. However, does anyone today believe that the President and the economists are posturing now? Does anyone believe that the unemployment, foreclosures, and business closings are theatrics just to pass some massive Democratic spending bill in an effort to change our way of life?

Based on the logic of the Republicans which demonstrates they have no logic is that the Democrats have created this crisis so they can create legislation to regulate our free markets, provide universal health-care, and supply everyone with a government job. I couldn’t imagine waking up every morning hoping for a return to the suffering of the Great Depression just so I could return to power. We have to remember that if the Obama administration is able to resolve this and the many other crises facing our nation the Republicans will be out of power for possibly decades. Their only hope is to prevent these efforts from succeeding through obstructionism and stagnation. They are essentially betting against the American people. The public should really take a moment and think about this; we have a major political party betting against the American people they were elected to serve. And not only are they betting against the American people they are actually doing things to undermine the efforts of those who are trying to do something about the crisis. This of course is all being done in the spirit of the loyal opposition.

If the Republicans succeed in bringing down the economy and the country what will there be left to govern? The good news is that you are back in power; the bad news is that our country lies in ruins. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out what the Republicans are doing and they must be held accountable for their actions. First of all they were on watch when this crisis occurred which they have not taken responsibility for. In my opinion if you cannot acknowledge your mistakes then you cannot lead in the future because you obviously have not learned anything from those mistakes which you haven’t acknowledged were mistakes. You then proceed to undermine those who are trying to correct your mistakes which you still have not acknowledged were mistakes. And to demonstrate that you have changed and learned from those mistakes which you have not acknowledged were mistakes your strategy for solving the crisis is more of the same things that created the crisis? Is there any credible person who still believes that tax-cuts are going to solve this crisis?

It is time for us who are suffering to punish those who are indifferent to our suffering. The Republicans are so desperate that any change in the polls no matter how insignificant to the overall situation considers it a victory. Remember how the McCain campaign reacted to the spikes in polling for Sarah Palin and Joe the plumber they tried to build their campaign around them. Theatrics is not a strategy. I have often envied the people of Europe and their willingness to take to the streets and protest in large numbers their dissatisfaction with their leadership. We in America have become so selfish that if it an issue doesn’t impact us directly we tend to ignore its effects on others, i.e. Iraq War, health-care, etc. We are in a crisis and we must let those in Washington know that whether they believe we are in a crisis or not, we believe we are in one and we want immediate action. The Republicans believe that now the election is over we will go back to sleep and they can rally their more vocal base and bushwhack the election; they must not be allowed to do so. A crisis is a crisis when we say it is.

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They Just Don’t Get It

“In record numbers, Americans voted on Tuesday for a skillful presidential nominee promising change, but "change" should not be confused with a license to raise taxes, drive up wasteful government spending, weaken our security, or give more power to Washington, Big Labor bosses and the trial bar. Americans did not vote for higher taxes to fund a redistribution of wealth; drastic cuts in funding for our troops; the end of secret ballots for workers participating in union elections; more costly obstacles to American energy production; or the imposition of government-run health care on employers and working families.”[1] – John Boehner

Did this guy see the same campaign and election that I saw? In the campaign that I saw President-elect Barack Obama laid out in no uncertain terms what his agenda was and what he wanted to accomplish. There were no hidden innuendos or code words; he stated as a matter of fact what he felt the government’s role was and how he planned to implement that role. And despite Mr. Boehner’s claims to the contrary, the majority of the American public voted to accept this candidate and his agenda. We have seen for the last two election cycles the electorate’s repudiation of the Republican ideas and their tactics and yet they continue to believe that nothing has changed. Many of them feel that the reason they lost was because they weren’t right of center enough. If this continues this Party will be replaced by another one and they will become strictly a regional and rural Party.

My belief is that the Republicans in the Congress are going to become obstructionists as they were during the 90’s. They are exposing to the American people that they are devoid of original thought and so rather than propose they merely condemn. In the current political climate I don’t think the people are going to be responsive to that type of politics. I just hope the Democrats do not respond to this election as they did after the 2006 election with fear and trepidation. If the Republicans goal is to remain adrift in the wilderness then this is the way to do it. Mr. Boehner wrote of Republican ideas to solve the economic crisis but from what I and many of my fellow citizens heard trickledown economics is not going to sell. I think the majority of people are tired of being trickled on, I know I am.

Maybe I am crazy but I thought if you ran on a platform and you won by an impressive margin then you get to enact that platform. Mr. Boehner obviously feels that the margin of victory wasn’t convincing enough. What he refuses to see is not necessarily in the raw numbers of how many, but in who voted for whom. The Republicans may have won the cultural debate but they have lost the intellectual debate. Many of the so-called Reagan Democrats and moderate Republicans voted for President-elect Obama. He won in the 100,000 income group, the 200,000 income group, and with the suburban voters. I have never agreed with the Reagan Democrat lie, those voters are just socially conscious Republicans. If it were not for the die-hard Southerners who many as we know voted on issues besides competence in this election, the rout would have been unprecedented.

President-elect Obama was able to forge a new majority that resembles more of how America resembles. The country is changing and someone forgot to tell the Republicans. President-elect Obama won the Latino vote, the advanced degree vote, and the urban vote. America is becoming darker, smarter, and more urbane and the cultural warfare argument has lost its appeal among these voters. What the Republicans don’t realize is that there are more “other” Americans than there are “real” Americans and that base is shrinking all the time. It’s funny how the Republican apologists have settled on two causes for their defeat and they are the economic downturn and Governor Sarah Palin. I disagree on both counts. While an impending depression does have a tendency to hurt the incumbent party I don’t think that the downturn in and of itself caused the campaign melt-down of Senator McCain. Many point to his small lead in September that vanished with the news of the melt-down. This idea completely ignores two very important facts. The first is that the policies of the Republicans led to this debacle. It wasn’t like this was the result of some unpredictable calamities. The second is that it ignores the response of Senator McCain to the crisis. As far as Governor Palin is concerned granted she was a Hail-Mary but let’s face it McCain was going to lose anyway. This was not the election for two pasty old white dudes to win. That was not what the country was looking for.

So it is my hope that Republicans continue to live in their alternative reality of phony outrage and crisis’s while we continue to offer the new America “a change they can believe in”. I use to think these people were bad people but that is not the case. They just don’t get it and I am not sure they ever will.

[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/06/AR2008110602568.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

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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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The Reverse Bradley Effect

Now that we are seeing the numbers and the trends from the election, I think I can finally go public with an idea I had two weeks prior to the election. As many of my colleagues and news media types were debating the “Bradley Effect” I was telling all who would listen that there would be a reverse effect. The reverse Bradley Effect is when white Republicans and independents would tell pollsters that they would not support Barack Obama and then got in the voting booth and did in fact vote for him. I guess their black side over-ruled their white side.

It is one thing to suggest such a phenomenon it is another to provide evidence of such. I do not only believe that Obama gained among the higher middle-class normally Republican voters I also believe that his race allowed some Republican suburbanites to take part in an historic moment by helping to break down the racial barrier for the Presidency. How can anyone Democratic or Republican after watching the McCain campaign make overt attempts to keep the nation divided not be moved to strike a vote for freedom and unity of an ailing nation. I have spoken with moderate Republicans who stated that given the eventual loss of McCain and the “real America” branding of the Republican Party by Governor Palin they were able to in good conscious to break with the Party and vote Obama. General Colin Powell was the beginning of the exodus of moderate Republicans that abandoned the sinking ship that is becoming the Republican Party.

Senator Obama not only got the majority of the 100,000 dollar income group, but also the 200,000 dollar income group. These voters have notoriously supported the Republican Party since the days of Reagan and despite the McCain camps socialism alarms the majority of them switched to Obama. Last night was a great night for the Democrats but more importantly it was a tremendous night for President Obama. I think this election began as an anti-Bush campaign but as the campaign continued it became less of voting against Bush and more about voting for Obama. Even though last night’s overwhelming victory for Obama was a complete and total repudiation of the Bush years even by some Republicans, it was more than that. I think we should not completely focus on the negative aspects of this election but look to the positive opportunities that this election provides us. For the first time in a generation we have the opportunity to put the past political, cultural, and social wars behind us. In order to do this we will all have to kill our sacred cow issues and begin to seek common ground. What can we agree on in all issues?

Regardless of the issue whether it is abortion or the war there are ideas that we can agree on and begin to work out from there. I think we all can agree that there are too many abortions in America. Okay from there what can we do to reduce that amount? We have to take the demagoguery out of these issues and look to come together to seek solutions. For too many years we have chosen partisanship demagoguery over common sense. Rather than basing our acceptance of ideas on the merits of the idea and what is right for America regardless of who proposes it, we have been focusing on the source of the idea. We have the opportunity to marginalize the intolerance that has too often led to so many of our problems being embedded and mired in inactivity. We are still fighting the same issues year after year with no solutions. In a democracy no one is going to get everything they want exactly the way they want it. We must learn to compromise.

Last night could be a do-over for America. Once again we have the good will of the world and amongst ourselves similarly as we did after the 9/11 tragedy. We have the opportunity to use this time to reach out not only towards each other but to the rest of the world. The world has been holding its collective breath waiting for this election and the result was more than they could have expected. But this period of good-will is not eternal but will be based on the policies of the new President. If President Obama does not change the policies of the last administration it won’t matter what race he is or what symbolism this election may have signified. President Obama should very early in his administration make a gesture to the world either through his selection of his cabinet or with a gesture of goodwill through diplomacy. Wow, wouldn’t that be a novel idea diplomacy instead of unilateralism; cooperation instead of isolationism. I think in the end the American electorate had had enough of the obstructionist politics of the past and chose some redemption and hope over fear and divisiveness.

Just in case there was any doubt in the new America green trumps black. Thanks to the bankrupt policies of the Bush administration and the financial meltdown Americans showed that they were willing to trust someone with a plan regardless of their race. This has not always been the case. According to pollsters last night was suppose to be a long night with an election that was expected to be too close to call. “The Mac is back!” If Barack Obama had underperformed the poll numbers we would have been inundated with the “Bradley Effect” theories and calls of closet racism. Since he outperformed the polls then there has to have been a reverse “Bradley Effect”. Many of those polled who responded with support for the white guy actually voted for the black guy. It won’t be long before the job of pollster goes the way of blacksmith. Rather than this election vindicating them it further exposes the inherent flaws of the process. Remember the week before the election when the McCain pollster publically leaked their internal memos and numbers showing a “tightening” of the race?

While the election of Barack Obama does not signal the end of racism or partisanship it does demonstrate that the American public has developed a pragmatism and a willingness to move pass some prejudices of the past. How many could have predicted that there would have been a reverse “Bradley Effect”? I remember posting an essay on the major liberal blogs stating how I felt John McCain had lost this election and it was met with derision and requests to have it deleted. I even predicted that the election would be called at 10:00PM CST again many feared “jinxing” the results to speak of a victory let alone a resounding victory. We have traveled a long way as a nation and yet we have many miles to go before we sleep. Faith and hope has won out over fear and that is something we all can celebrate.

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How McCain Lost This Election

After tomorrow there will be plenty of talk from political pundits and talking heads that are probably a lot smarter than me about what went wrong for John McCain and the Republican Party. Despite the latest predictions by the McCain camp that he is “surging” this election will be called by 10:00PM CST for our next President Barack Obama. So as we await the results of the most historic election in our nation’s history I would like to offer the Republicans my take on what went wrong.

This election would have been difficult to win for the Republicans in the best of circumstances, but I think there were two over-riding issues that spelled the eventual defeat of the Republicans. One could have been avoided; the other was a runaway freight train that many underestimated and still do. Many people will say it was the economy that was the McCain downfall but I don’t buy it. While the economy has helped to highlight McCain weaknesses and vulnerabilities they have only helped to increase the lead Senator Obama already had. There will be those wing-nut Republicans who will claim that McCain wasn’t tough enough on Obama as evidenced by the last second Reverend Wright commercials that have been appearing thanks to the RNC. Again this is ludicrous considering that the more McCain went negative the more his poll numbers fell.

The first issue and I think the one that could have been avoided was the McCain that came out of the primaries and the Convention was not John McCain. In order to secure his Party’s nomination John McCain had to change from the independent thinker and likable guy to the ideologue and far right-wing champion. Remember who he was running against in the primaries? The guy’s that gave him the most trouble were Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney both were tacking hard right. It was during the primaries that John McCain lost himself and became someone else, someone barely recognizable by those who knew him before and liked him. All of his previous positions were “transformed” (flip-flopped) to appeal to the ever more rabid Party base that the Republicans are becoming. There were the Bush tax-cuts, torture, and immigration to name a few. While his campaign stated that he became more enlightened the rest of America didn’t see it that way. The final anti-McCain decision was Sarah Palin. The real John McCain would have chosen Joe Lieberman as his running-mate.

John McCain coming out of the convention wasn’t running against Barack Obama; he was running against John McCain. This is not to say that either John McCain would have won the election, but at least he would have been true to himself and the American public would have sensed that. Watching this John McCain campaign was at times excruciatingly painful to those who respected him in 2000 during his Presidential run. He never looked comfortable and his campaigning often times looked laborious and agonizing for him. The miscalculation of his handlers was that he could run as a maverick at the same time he was running as a base candidate and the two could never be reconciled in the candidate’s mind nor in the publics. It was this contradictory campaigning that prevented them from presenting a coherent message and instead settling for gimmicks.

The second and I think larger issue was that the McCain campaign fell into the same trap as the Hillary Clinton campaign fell into and that was they underestimated the electorates deep desire for change from the past. This required more than just a change in faces but more importantly in the tone and tenor of the candidates. This blunder was evidenced in the failed strategy of the McCain campaign in the first two months concerning experience. The McCain camp wasted valuable time on a strategy that became moot once they selected Sarah Palin as VP nominee. For some odd reason the McCain camp felt confident in a strategy that had failed the vaulted Clinton machine, I guess they figured they could do it better but the results were the same. They never had a true understanding of the depth of the Bush debacle in the minds of voters. They ran the Bush campaign of 2000 that defeated McCain never realizing that the country had tired of this sort of slash and burn tactics.

They underestimated the degree of discontent not only from Democrats but moderate Republicans and Independents as well. This was the year for McCain to have run his campaign from 2000 and not Bush’s. The change dynamic trumped the experience, Commander-in-Chief, and scary black man arguments. Instead of incorporating the change meme the McCain campaign chose to run a base campaign in a change year. As the economic situation became more and more volatile and perilous it only went to reinforce the instability and lack of coherency from the McCain team. Because he was running a base campaign Barack Obama was able to tie John McCain to George W. Bush and once he was able to do that thanks to McCain’s help this election was over. Since he was required to change his previously held “maverick” positions to shore up his base he began to talk and act like George W. It wasn’t a hard sell to complete the transition from Bush to McCain.

Then of course there is the candidate himself, Barack Obama has always been believed to be too soft to handle the rigors of a Presidential campaign or that he was too cerebral to connect with the voting public. However, after 8 years of a guy who people felt comfortable having a beer with wrecking the country that criterion was no longer as important as it once was. People realized that maybe that guy sitting next to me on the bar stool may not be the guy I want handling the country in a crisis. The Obama team ran a masterful campaign avoiding the missteps that befell many of the other campaigns. The McCain camp had to manufacture gaffes to feign false indignation and try to rally the base, again running a base campaign.

The bottom line is that John McCain lost this election badly because he lost himself. You can’t run against yourself and win.

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The Magic Negro and Other Hollywood Myths

That's where Black characters are brought in to serve as noble, wise, many times suffering, "guides" to specifically help the main White character understand or transcend some deep metaphysical concept, trauma or life challenge.[1]

As we get closer to the historic election of Barack Obama as the first black President of the United States I can’t help but be concerned about a phenomenon that I sense is gripping the nation in general and many blacks in particular. This phenomenon made famous by various Hollywood films such as Bagger Vance, The Green Mile, and many others throughout the years creates a mystical black character who is able to transcend the realities of life and help a white character overcome some challenge or trauma. Looking at our current national situation I don’t think Hollywood could have scripted this any better. If there was ever a time for a “magic Negro” now would definitely be the time.

However there is just one small problem. There are no magic Negroes. Barack Obama is not a magic Negro. He is about to inherit a country that is at war on two fronts, an economy that is teetering on the “Great Depression”, a corporate culture that rewards greed and quick profits to hard work and sustained growth. A country that has lost all of its prestige in the world and now has to rely on bullying tactics and torture. A country with a growing healthcare crisis and is about to experience high unemployment and home foreclosures. A country that will be struggling to come together and come to grips with having a black man-magical or not-leading it. Thanks to the McCain camps scorched earth win at all costs last minute campaigning there will be many Americans who will resent the authority of President Obama. Come to think of it why would anyone in their right mind want this crappy job?

The thing we must all remember is that voting for Senator Obama is the easiest thing we will have to do. The real work will come after he is elected. Make no mistake despite the disintegration of the Republican Party right before our eyes, the corporate task masters will have no problem finding lackeys to espouse their agenda; nor will there be any shortage of proponents of the status quo. Corporate America is not going to wake up on November 5^th and decide that greed and malfeasance are no longer in vogue, racism is not going to magically disappear and we will stand around the national campfire singing Kumbaya hand in hand, nor will there be reparation checks showing up in the mailboxes of all mistreated minorities.

The forces of resistance and intolerance will not be so easily defeated by just an election. The election is only the first step towards the bigger goal of transforming this nation. Those same people who have decided to volunteer in record numbers and to come together for a common purpose greater than themselves cannot go home after the election as if the election were the end all to be all. No, we must continue to organize, to communicate with one another in a common purpose and to press our newly elected officials to change the toxic political climate in Washington and to once again allow government to serve, protect, and aid its people; all of its people not just the wealthiest ones.

I realize it has been a long campaign and many of us would like to just go home and get back to normal after the election, but if we do then all of the change and hope we have been striving for will be for naught. Barack Obama is just one man; a very powerful man but one man just the same. Alone he can do very little; he is going to need our continued hard work if he is to take this country into the next generation and into the next century. It won’t do any good for him to open up opportunities for higher education if there are no students prepared to take advantage of them. It won’t do any good for him to generate new jobs in the “Green Economy” if there are no people trained to do them. Regardless of how much he does without personal responsibility and self-motivation it won’t matter. Things can only get better and progress not from Washington to Main Street but from Main Street to Washington. We must be the change we want. Change always occurs from the bottom up, never from the top down.

If the change we need is more than just a slogan to you then it will be after the election that your hard work will be needed the most. We must begin to use that driving force that allowed us to register so many new voters and become competitive in states that haven’t been competitive for a Democrat in a long time as well as winning some of them. We must use it to go out into our communities and help to provide opportunities for all Americans, to provide a quality education for all of our children, to provide healthcare for all Americans, to tear down the barriers that have kept us from becoming one nation. We must not allow symbolism to triumph over substance. If after the election nothing changes, then nothing changes. This election could be the launch pad for a rebirth of our nation, a nation that actually tries to live up to its principles.

No my friends Barack Obama is not a magic Negro, but each one of us has a little magic and we can all make a difference in the lives of our fellow citizens if we take the time to reach out to others.

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[1] http://www.counter-racism.com/articles/newspaper/themagicnegro.html

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Barack Obama Is Not A Christian

"The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting;
it has been found difficult and left untried. - GK Chesterton

"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians.
Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." - Mahatma Gandhi

Despite all evidence to the contrary it appears that Barack Obama is not really a Christian. He is not a Muslim, but he is not a “real Christian” in “real America”. As part of the McCain campaign’s effort to “move voters away” from Barack Obama by any means necessary they have begun to employ a familiar refrain made popular by a Democrat. Senator John Edwards coined the phrase that there were “two Americas” to highlight the disparity between the wealthy and the middle-class and poor. Somehow I don’t think he envisioned it being used like the Republicans are using it. You see according to them there are two Americas all right, one that is real and one that is “not real”? The real America is patriotic, hard-working, God-fearing, and lives in the rural areas of our country. They haven’t quite defined what values that the “other” America has but one could imagine that they would be the opposite of their values.

Barack Obama wants to share the wealth, according to these real Americans this is communism. According to real Americans the doctrine of helping those less fortunate is not what the Bible really means. What it really means is that we should help ourselves. That thing about the rich man and the eye of a camel doesn’t apply to us. God wants me to have all the desires of my heart. God wants me to be rich and happy. If God wanted them to have stuff he would have given it to them. So what real Christian would want to share the bountiful blessings of America with those poor misguided individuals? That part about God not being a respecter of persons doesn’t really mean that it doesn’t matter what you own or what you have, but what you do for others.

Barack Obama wants to end the war and make peace with our enemies. The god in real America does not want peace. The god in real America wants conquest and domination, thus his belief in weapons of mass destruction.

Barack Obama wants to unify our nation through inclusion. He believes that people all over the country are Americans, whether they live in cities, towns, or the suburbs. Regardless of their race, religious denomination, or social status they are all “real Americans” and are patriotic. The god in real America doesn’t want unity. He wants discord, strife, and chaos. The only real Americans are the ones living in rural America.

Barack Obama wants to provide healthcare to all Americans as a right. The god in real America believes that healthcare is a privilege to be given only to the wealthy.

Barack Obama wants to end our dependence on oil and stop the destruction of the earth. The god of real America loves oil and oil companies. He wants to drill more holes and destroy more land. He doesn’t seem to really care much about the earth though. I guess he can always make a new one.

You see Christians in this real America have a different interpretation of the teachings of Christ and anyone who does not share their interpretations completely are not Christians. You see when the Bible says to love your neighbors the real Americans know that really isn’t what it means. What it really means is to love your neighbors if they look, talk, think, and believe as you do. If they do not then they are not real Christians and therefore this doesn’t apply to them. In real America the Church rather than leading the society to understanding the principles of Christ they allow the prejudices of society to infect the Church. They claim religious persecution but how can this be possible when 90% of the people in America claim to be some form of Christian. This false persecution claim is outrageous when you are following the world that is supposed to be persecuting you. The world loves its own. If they want to see persecution they should try to live up to the principles of Christianity. Or better yet be a Muslim in America.

According to these real Americans God loves America. It is His favorite place to be. My question is that if God so loves America so much why isn’t it mentioned in the Bible? The reason it isn’t mentioned as well as any other country is because God doesn’t have a country, He has people and they live all over the world. According to these real Americans God values some humans over other humans and so they are justified to do the same. That stuff in the Bible about equality, tolerance, and peace only relates to those humans who God has chosen over the other humans. Barack Obama believes that all people are equal and have value to God. This disqualifies him from being a “real Christian”.

So Barack Obama is not a real Christian. Thank God for that!

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Of Course He Would Support Obama

After receiving the stunning news that General Colin Powell was going to support and vote for Senator Barack Obama the few GOP backers that McCain still has were quick to the airwaves with their pathetic attempts at damage control. Make no mistake that even though the Republicans tarnished his image and damaged his credibility to sell the Iraq War, Colin Powell remained the consummate solider and never once spoke out against this act of betrayal by the Neo-Cons. While he discontinued vocally supporting the war, he remained a loyal member of the party. I on the other hand would not have been so gracious to the people who bent me over to take one for the team. And now even after remaining silent about all the deceptions, lies, and misdeeds once again the GOP heaps another pile of crap on Powell.

The spin from the RNC and their shrills is that of course General Powell would support Senator Obama *wink *wink. You see General Powell was never really one of us. It’s like I’ve always said you know what the state troopers in Alabama call General Powell? A ni**er. So after he falls on his sword to advance their causes and now that he has outlived his usefulness the truth is being exposed. You see of course General Powell would support Barack Obama, he’s black isn’t he.

Whether you agree with his remaining silent and being loyal, you have to respect his sense of duty even though it was misplaced. Many Americans still regard General Powell as a hero and a professional worthy of respect so his supporting Senator Obama was huge. Not only was his support big but the reasons for giving that support spoke volumes about what other moderate Republicans are thinking. According to General Powell, Senator Obama possesses the necessary intellectual curiosity, demeanor, and judgment to be President. He cited the current economic crisis and the Senator’s steadiness during the last 7 weeks as evidence of his readiness to lead. He stated that while he didn’t have all the answers (Who among us does?), he was thoughtful in his responses and was willing to consult with those who did. General Powell went through a list of characteristics that separated Senator Obama from McCain that included judgment, temperament, and intelligence.

The biggest bombshell for John McCain was not his reasons for supporting Senator Obama but his reasons for not supporting McCain who has known for years. General Powell contrasted the behavior of McCain during the last 7 weeks and the erratic strategies of his campaign. He also leveled concern at the direction the Republican Party has taken in the last 8 years culminating in the campaign of John McCain and his selection of Governor Palin as his running-mate, a person clearly not ready to assume the Presidency. General Powell gave voice to a growing concern among many suburban Republicans who feel that the Party has been tilted to far to the right by the conservative wing of the Party. Despite the public face the Republican Party is not unified, we are watching it war against itself in front of our very eyes. If it continues to veer more and more to the right and ignore the moderate and suburban voters in favor of the rural and small town voters it will no longer continue to be a major Party in American Politics.

There are times in all of our lives when we have the opportunity to define the kind of people we are and what we truly believe in. John McCain is at one of those periods. As I watched video of some of his supporters waiting in line to attend one of his rallies I could not believe the vile things they were saying about Senator Obama. I understand wanting to support your candidate and your team and I understand that people can have policy and philosophical differences with candidates, what I cannot understand are these rabid and vicious personal attacks against Senator Obama. John McCain is fond of saying he is willing to put “country first”, well he has the opportunity to do just that. While my suggestion would be for him to just withdraw from the race, I am not counting on that happening. What he can do though is something just as important. He must remove the toxic partisanship from this election.

If I were advising John McCain I would have him go before a national audience and state clearly and unequivocally that we must stop the toxic political discourse that is engulfing this election. That while he and Senator Obama have real policy differences they must not be an excuse to demean and dishonor him or any other American with whom we disagree. He needs to state that this type of behavior is reprehensible and will not be tolerated by all respectable Americans. I believe that if he were to do this it would not only raise his respect among voters, but it would also allow him to keep his legacy intact. After the election McCain is going back to the Senate and if he allows this type of behavior to continue then he will be toxic in the Senate. He would lose any chance he had to have any influence with his colleagues (except Joe Lieberman of course) or the American people.

Senator McCain it is now time to truly put America first.

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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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I Just Can’t Put My Finger On It

Lois Coar, the mother of two grown children, supported Mitt Romney this year and is undecided for November. She cannot see voting for Obama -- "not because he's black, but I just can't put it in words." She likes McCain as a person, but "I can't understand why he keeps talking about this Ayers guy" -- William Ayers, the 1960s radical who became an occasional colleague and supporter of Obama in Chicago. "He should be focusing on the economy and real terrorists; that's what people worry about," she said.[1]

If you are white and you do not consider yourself a racist, a wing-nut, or rich and your answer for not voting for Senator Barack Obama is, “It isn’t because he’s black, but I just can’t put my finger on it.” I have sad news for you; it is because he is black! I read this response and I was immediately struck by the number of people who share this same sentiment. With our economy experiencing a “China Syndrome” meltdown, the war in Afghanistan on the verge of defeat, and a whole host of other problems besetting this country anyone who would even consider supporting the Republican brand in this election needs to have their voting rights revoked. What this election has finally shown is just how bankrupt the Republican Party is, of course after they have bankrupted most of the free world. I mean there are only so many ways you can screw the public and get away with it. The sad part is that there are still those who would allow the divisiveness of race to keep them from supporting an obviously more qualified candidate.

It is reminiscent of the people on the Titanic after it has hit the iceberg and they are flailing around in a frigid ocean and refuse to get in the lifeboat because a black man is steering it. Well my friends my response to those folks is let them drink sea water. Anyone that stupid and stubborn probably deserves to drown. Anyone who had any doubts about John McCain’s judgment needs to look no further than his choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate. Fortunately there aren’t enough of those folks to prevent the inevitable from happening. Despite the Fox News poll that has McCain down by 2 points, this election is over. It won’t even be close. Anyone remember the Reagan revolution? We are about to experience the Obama revolution.

For his part, Reagan, the charismatic former Governor of California, repeatedly ridiculed Carter, and won a decisive victory; in the simultaneous Congressional elections, Republicans won control of the United States Senate for the first time in 28 years. This win marked the beginning of the "Reagan Revolution."[2]

McCain has run one of the worst general election campaigns in my memory. He has stumbled and fumbled every step of the way. I guess a campaign run by lobbyists isn’t the best campaign money can buy. Of course to be fair McCain did have a difficult task to overcome. All of the major issues in this campaign favored Obama and the Democrats and how hard is it to run as the agent of change candidate when you have been sitting in Washington for the last 25 years? Though most liberal journalists and pundits are too afraid to state the obvious for fear of jinxing the election, many of their Republican counterparts are already heading for the exits. Every day we are treated to another Republican mouthpiece laying the groundwork for a major Republican defeat. It’s as if the Republican Party is disintegrating right before our eyes. You have half the Party wanting McCain to go really negative and throw everything including the kitchen sink at Senator Obama and the other half watching in disbelief as this election becomes historic. The problem with going really negative is that the polls are showing it isn’t working, but more importantly the damage that it would do not to Senator Obama but to the office of the Presidency. And God knows we don’t need the office diminished anymore than George W. has already done.

The problem for McCain is two-fold. The first is that if Mr. Ayers were the American equivalent of Osama bin Laden as he is being compared, why is he still walking around a free man? Surely any man as dangerous as him would have to be on his way to Guantanamo not sitting in some mansion is Chicago dispersing 100’s of millions of dollars for educational foundations. Not to mention that Senator Obama was all of 8 when this Mr. Ayers was committing these acts of terrorism and probably not even in the country. It is hard to compare a man that we all see on television walking around free to a man that is living in caves while there is a worldwide manhunt for him; the symbolism kind of gets lost somewhere.

The second problem is that if this gets anymore negative then the McCain campaigns does something that we cannot allow in a democracy and that is too diminish the office of the Presidency. In other words you may disagree with the officeholder but the office is supposed to remain above the fray. You may not respect the man, but you must respect the office or anarchy will prevail. By personally attacking Senator Obama the way the McCain campaign has been doing then even if he is elected Senator Obama as President could not govern. This would be an intolerable condition for all of us. Not only would the man be tainted but also the office itself. I don’t have to follow any terrorist sympathizer, Muslim, or ni**er! Any President is only in command for a limited period, but the office must continue to hold its dignity and prestige regardless of its occupant. Let’s face it there will already be plenty of people who will resent Senator Obama as Commander in Chief, but we cannot tolerate any public ambiguity about who is in charge. Nor can we give any latitude to those voices of intolerance to reinterpret the law of the land.

If you dehumanize or devalue the person in such a way then the office is tainted. Mr. McCain is fond of stating that he puts country first, the final days of this election will allow him the opportunity to prove it based on the direction he allows his campaign to take. So, if the best you can do is I don’t know why I can’t vote for him, then I think we all know why and you are just unable to get honest with yourself.


[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/13/AR2008101302170.html?hpid=opinionsbox1
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1980

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The Financial Crisis Remedial Edition

For those of us who are not Nobel Prize winning or Ivy League educated economists here is the crux of the financial meltdown in terms we can all understand. Though there are those in the media and the McCain campaign that would have us believe that how we got to this point in history is unimportant I have always believed that those who fail to learn from their past mistakes are bound to repeat them. According to the endless line of economists that now appear hourly on our television screens the economic crisis is too complex for any of us to understand. I would like to take this opportunity to provide a simple explanation of this complex situation based on my own studies.

The financial meltdown by all accounts began with the mortgage crisis and this issue continues to fuel the loss of capital in our national and international financial institutions. So how did the mortgage crisis begin and how did it lead to our current situation? The mortgage crisis began with a noble concept, the concept was to try and provide home ownership to more Americans. It began with the Clinton Administration and continued with the Bush Administration’s “ownership society”. So how did such a noble idea lead to the financial meltdown of today? The problem is that when you open up a system flush with cash and do not provide the proper oversight the greed of some men will warp the good intentions of others. The market was flooded with capital but instead of providing the necessary oversight what little oversight that was present was removed.

The process began with the realtors; they sold houses that had inflated prices. Because of the housing market boom with the increase in capital and buyers the prices for homes were grossly inflated. A home that would have normally been valued at say 100,000 was sold at the inflated price of say 200,000. These inflated prices were based in 2 false assumptions; the first was that housing values always appreciate so that even though the prices were inflated the value would eventually catch-up to the price. The second was that the market was savvy enough to understand the intricacies of all of these new financing instruments or that the sellers did for that much. What we have since learned is that both of these assumptions were proven false. While housing values do historically tend to appreciate there have been times when they have not. Obviously like free booze at a wedding no one thought it would ever run out. It did. So we now have homes that are overpriced based on their true value, therefore any financial assumptions based on these values is flawed. It’s like you have a bank balance that shows 100 dollars when in actuality there is only 50 dollars in the account. It’s all good so long as you don’t have to pay more than 50 dollars.

The next domino was the so-called “sub-prime” buyers who the programs were originally designed to help. For those who have sterling credit and have had it their whole adult lives they have no concept of the thought process of those who do not share their credit ratings. If you have been turned down for credit for so long when you finally get the opportunity to get it, you don’t look at the terms. You are just happy to be able to buy something. Let’s face it folks our country runs on credit, without it you are considered unfit as a person. In the best of circumstances many of these “sub-prime” borrowers were put into homes with these new financing instruments they could not afford. Many of them were balloon instruments that provided affordable payments for a few years and then ballooned up to higher payments. This does not include those who were taken advantage of by predatory lenders. Many of these buyers could barely afford the payments they moved in with, so when the payments ballooned they were unable to make their mortgage payments. While this is unfortunate it doesn’t explain why our financial system went haywire. I mean we foreclose on those homes and resell them right? Wrong. Because these homes were not priced even close to their value all that inflated value was also lost with the original loan, because you are not going to be able to sell the home for that inflated price. So not only did the mortgage company lose the original loan they had an asset that was priced substantially higher than its estimated value. On a small scale these discrepancies could be off-set by other loans or fees; however on a massive scale there was no way to recoup all of these losses.

The final domino was that we allowed Wall Street to bundle these mortgages into securities and sell them. There were two problems with this idea. The first of course was that the price of the assets being held was inflated compared to their actual value. The second was the inherent incompatibility of the concept of using mortgages as securities. Let’s think about this. We sell securities in businesses; the main purpose of a business is to make money or to make a profit. The main purpose of a mortgage for most Americans is to provide a home for their family. While there are those who use their mortgages and homes to generate income and profit, this is not the case for most Americans and especially those who were in the “sub-prime” category. Many of these folks were first or second time home buyers who lacked the savvy to do so. So we have these massive security instruments tied to over-priced assets and to make matters worse we have these CEO’s and other officers who were aware of these pitfalls and pushed the situation to the brink. They not only continued to buy and sell these worthless instruments they leveraged their companies or borrowed against these assets that they knew were over-valued or in many cases questionable.

So you see on paper it all looked good. Everyone was making money and no one cared about the consequences. Then of course the day of reckoning arrived, they could no longer continue to count these worthless assets on their balance sheets. So now after all the profits have been made and all the inflated value has been sucked out of these assets these clowns come to the American public with these predictions of Armageddon if they are not rescued. They want to sell us all of these worthless assets at a profit. Do not be fooled if your home had value before this crisis it still has value. Those who should be worried are those who refinanced or bought overpriced homes in the first place. These are the homes that are seeing their value diminish as they should. Senator McCain wants us to come in and continue to prop up these over inflated homes to protect the banks. Why should I be asked to prop up the value of these people’s homes?

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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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Keep Their Heads Ringing

"This election is not about issues," said Davis. "This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates."[1]

So once again this election won’t be about the issues from the Republican standpoint. I’m shocked! I can’t understand why they wouldn’t want to run on the issues. We haven’t had a campaign debate about the issues in the last 20 years. The Republicans have gradually moved the electorate away from the issues and have made each election a referendum on some social issue beginning with the Nixon southern strategy. At that point it was a referendum on law and order and the civil rights movement. At which time the American voting public voted resoundingly against progress.

In each subsequent election since then they have sought to divide our nation. You see the only way the Republicans can win is if they are able to divide us because there aren’t a sufficient number of fringe elements to sustain their policies or issues. You see when you only cater to the top 5% of the population it is hard to get elected; a conundrum to say the least. So how can a Party that caters to the wealthiest of Americans get elected and sometimes even maintain a majority? They have done it through deception and the age old strategy that the wealthy have always relied upon divide the masses. Throughout the years the Republicans have developed ingenious methods to carry out their strategy.

The most successful and nefarious plan has been the false “American Dream” scenario, where anyone in America can become rich and thus be in need of the Republicans policies that protect the wealthy. They have managed to convince a significant number of Americans that they too can someday be in the top 5% if they continue to support the Republican “trickle down” and supply side economic policies. So you have Americans earning 30,000 dollars a year voting with those making millions as if their interests were identical. What do I have in common with Bill Gates? How are our interests compatible?

The second strategy has been the race card or “white privilege”. In this scenario the scheme is to convince a majority of white voters that no matter what a black or minority has the white will always be better. Not only will they always be better, but the Republicans will be the ones to protect the tribe. They will be the ones to keep the other tribes in their places and thus protect the centuries old doctrine of white male dominance. This plan is supported by false studies that link all of the white societies problems to blacks and immigrant populations. Affirmative action, loose immigration, and social programs are all viewed as attacks against whites. While the race card has lost some of its appeal make no mistake there are still many proponents and believers in this strategy.

The third strategy is the red state/blue state, rural versus city, north versus south, pro-life versus pro-choice, etc. What the Republicans have been successful at is turning elections into cultural wars. So instead of having a discussion about universal healthcare we get gay marriage. Instead of a discussion of how the Republicans have turned one of the largest surpluses into one of the largest deficits, we get hockey moms and pit bulls. Instead of debating why we have not made any progress towards energy independence in the last 30 years, we get the most liberal Senator ever.

According to McCain and the Republicans Barack and Michelle Obama are not “our kind of people”, they don’t represent our America values. They are elitist and represent “the selfish” Washington interest. The Republican strategy has become if you say something enough times on enough TV programs then it’s true. John McCain and Sarah Palin are reformers because we say so, they’re records are immaterial. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are supporters of terrorism and are unpatriotic because we say so, regardless of their records of service to their country. Publically they are calling them elitist, but behind closed doors and Republicans in the south are referring to them as uppity. Calling a black person uppity is tantamount to a racial slur because usually following it comes the N word. Again we must keep them ni__ers in their place and that doesn’t include the White House.

I am coming to the belief that for whatever reason people in America no longer care about the truth. It seems that the more of the truth about Governor Palin surfaces the more her appeal rises. It’s almost as if we are living in some bizarro world where everything works in reverse. Lies become truth and truth becomes lies. The more this woman is exposed as being a fraud the more popular she becomes. The more she repeats her spiel of five convention lines, the more McCain’s numbers rise. Why should the Republicans change now these same tactics have worked and been honed for the past 20 years, culminating in the rise of George W.

The frustration with this process is seen in the faces of many Americans, but I am not sure there are enough people to reverse this trend. We have entered into a very dangerous area in a democracy. We are being mocked by leaders and citizens of other countries for the soap opera that our elections have become. Many foreign journalists have discussed how instead of focusing on issues our candidates and campaigns are debating cosmetics and farm animals. We have allowed our campaigns to become a cacophony of sound bite politics. The difference between the Republicans and the Democrats is that the Republicans have figured out that the majority of the electorate are not political junkies who research platforms and white papers of the issues. The Democrats still believe that the majority of voters actually follow the details of campaigns. The Republicans know that the majority of voters rely on sound bites and pundits. Because of this knowledge they craft their campaigns to capitalize on the short attention span of these voters. They develop false catch phrases and repeat them incessantly relying on the electorate’s laziness to pull it off. If you hear something enough it has to be true; remember if they say it on TV it has to be true. And they have every politician, pundit, and Party official repeating the lines over and over. This repetition of falsehoods is enough to “keep their heads ringing”.

[1] http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/09/mccain_manager_this_election_i.html

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New and Improved

A long time ago marketers figured out that in a consumer driven society the quickest way to sell a product is to put the “new” label on it. It doesn’t matter if the product has changed or not. A case in point is how many “new” Cokes have there been? Every couple of years we are treated to a new release of Coca Cola under some new ad campaign and packaging. Marketers have learned that the majority of Americans will buy anything so long as it is “new” just because it is labeled “new”. New and improved, under new management, and advanced formula are all familiar refrains of the marketers and have proven time and time again to be successful in attracting consumers. Unfortunately here in America we elect Presidents the way we buy products based on slick marketing and fancy packaging. Few of us have the time or the desire to investigate the people we elevate to the highest office in the land. The amazing thing about this is that we have just had the longest primary season ever and yet there are many people who claim they no nothing more about the candidates than what has been dished out by the tabloid journalists.

The latest instance of the new and improved marketing strategy is Senator John McCain. Let me get this straight Senator McCain spoke out throughout the primaries about how Barack Obama’s call for change was hollow and unnecessary, now this same Senator McCain is touting his own change theme. I’m sorry there are a lot of Americans who are gullible enough to believe that just because you label something new and improved that it actually is. Again, I’m sorry but from where I live this new and improved John McCain; he looks, acts, and sounds an awful lot like the old John McCain. The change he talks about bringing doesn’t appear like real change at all. I am still waiting for the McCain campaign and the Republicans to tell us where John McCain is different from Bush on the issues that matter; the war, taxes and the economy, healthcare, energy policy? You name it, where are the differences?

As for the “new kid on the block”, she is neither new nor improved. The more I hear her the more she reminds me of Dick Cheney in lipstick. Despite her homey delivery and I’m just like you salesmanship, she is acidic to the point of being scornful. The brand of politics she is espousing is anything but new, I thought this was going to be the election based on a discussion of the issues. It appears to me to be just more of the same with different faces, but the same game. And is it any wonder? Come to find out McCain/Palin are being advised by none other than Karl Rove.

Now that we see that Karl Rove is in the McCain camp it just shows that if McCain ever had any principals before, he has thrown them out the window. Isn’t this the same McCain who stated he would rather lose an election and stand on principal? Is it standing on principal to allow the man who not only defeated you back in 2000, but also authored the story that you had fathered a black child advising your campaign? I don’t think so! To me it is just a further indication of how McCain puts “Country First”, so long as he is elected that is.

It is amazing to me how much traction the Republicans are getting from this new and improved strategy. Are we that gullible as a nation? I mean you just can’t say anything. There has to be something said based in some sort of reality. Just because you say something everyday doesn’t make it true. Haven’t we seen this ploy before? If this ploy works then the myth of the independent voter is dead. This will prove that there are no independent voters, just left leaning Republicans. No one could be foolish enough to fall for the same thing election after election and claim to be duped. You make an error in judgment once that is a mistake, you keep making it over and over and it is now a lifestyle.

This election is too important to be decided by slick packaging and outright lies. The thing about democracy is “you get the government you deserve”. If anyone can look at these two candidates and not see a difference then they deserve what they get. No more “whining”, suck it up and take it cause when there was an opportunity to do better we chose not to. McCain and the Republicans are talking about running against the politics of selfishness, but the reality is that this is what they are hoping for. They are betting that instead of people looking to the future and the greater good of all of us, that the majority will choose the here and now and continue to rape and pillage the earth for short-term self interest.

Author Marianne Williamson said it very clear in her book, “A Return To Love”. She states that our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, but that we are powerful. That it is not our dark natures that frighten us, but the light inside of us, that we would choose to remain in darkness because coming to the light was too scary. Here in America we have the opportunity to begin the process of reaching out to our better natures, to put behind us the fear, the division, and rancor of the past. The question is will we? Are there enough of us who have had enough of this? Are there enough of us who are willing to put an end to this despite how new and improved or how pretty the packaging? Are there enough of us who are willing to sacrifice realizing that this free ride cannot continue without dire consequences. America like all great empires will not be destroyed from without; it will be destroyed from within by a population that has become greedy and self-indulgent. I pray to God that there are enough of us.

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The Most Liberal Senator Ever?

According to the Republicans, Senator Barack Obama is the most liberal Senator ever. As the Republican shrills made the talk show rounds the common theme was a familiar refrain. Senator_______ (you fill in the blank with any Democratic nominee) is the most liberal Senator ever. I am not a believer in déjà vu, but I can’t help but think I have heard this line before. Oh yeah now I remember; how about the last 20 years! It seems like whenever the Democrats nominate someone that person is immediately labeled the most liberal Governor, Senator, etc. ever.

You would think that the Party that has been in power 12 of the last 14 years would be running on issues and on all of their accomplishments. You would think they would be trumpeting the strong economy, the successful prosecution of the war, and energy legislative successes. Is there any wonder they are recycling the same campaign rhetoric of the last 20 years and ignoring the issues? The economy is in the worse shape in decades, the war is dragging on into its fifth year, and of course their answer to the energy crisis is more drilling and tax cuts for the oil corporations. Who wouldn’t run on those outstanding accomplishments?

Oh maybe those aren’t the best issues to run a campaign on so let’s look at the Republican platform surely that will include plenty of campaign issues to run on. According to their convention the issues the Republicans will be running on are eerily similar to the policies of the last 8 years. On tax policy they want to increase and even make permanent the Bush tax-cuts that the nominee himself has labeled as “tilted” towards the rich. On health care they continue to want to allow the market and insurance companies to drive the debate and craft the legislation, which translates into no universal health coverage. On energy they want to drill more holes and allow the gas companies to transition us into alternative fuels. On the war they want to continue the occupation and ignore Afghanistan and Pakistan, the real centers of the war on terror.

The Republican campaign strategy reminds me of the television ad for Verizon wireless where the neighborhood woman comes over and tells the couple that just moved into a home how the home is a cell phone dead zone. The couple explains that they have Verizon and their network. The Verizon spokesman comes out of the house and says the couple is good, and then the neighbor woman then says, “Well, you have crabgrass!” So I guess the Republicans are saying, “Yeah you may have the right positions on the important issues of this election, but you’re still the most liberal Senator ever!”

Of course another big Republican campaign strategy is their own change theme. John McCain and Governor Palin are agents of change .They are running against the “Washington establishment” and how they are going to shake up Washington. Once again rather than provide us with details of how they will address the important issues of our time, they provide us with these vague campaign slogans that do little in helping us to solve our everyday problems. In place of real debate and discussion of the issues we get the same ole politics of the past with the same ole name calling.

Remember when Fritz Mondale was the most liberal and then there was Governor Dukakis, and then John Kerry, and you get the picture. It amazes me how the media who is suppose to debunk and report on the false campaign narratives have allowed this to go on for 20 years. The next time a Republican talking head throws out this retread line it would be nice to hear a reporter remind them that they have been using this line for the last 20 years. But of course they will continue to explore the claim as if it were an accurate statement. Oh by the way how have the conservative politicians faired in governing our nation? And we’re all familiar with the purveyors of family values who ignore them for themselves. So if the choice is between the most liberal Senator or more of the same politics as usual maybe we could use with a little liberal change.

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