Lucky White Girl

Don't be a tool! Why we should think twice before jumping on the Iranian "revolution" bandwagon

I have mixed feelings about all the hoopla in the West over the Iranian elections.  Let me say this first and foremost, as a non-Iranian, it’s not really any of my business who they elect.  Citizens of the United States, being residents of a superpower, are so used to having the political world revolve around them that we get arrogant.  We think of course we should have a say in who rules other countries and whose political process is or is not legitimate, as if our position as Ultimate Arbiter of Fairness and Democracy were undisputed!  Ha! Look at our own history of electoral fraud and –worse—our own complacency in the face of a stolen presidential election (circa 2000).

However, to the extent that I can separate myself from the interests of my own country (and I don’t think it’s so cut-and-dried as that implies) I can say I’m interested from a humanistic point of view.  I’m not an isolationist and believe this is the basis for all international solidarity (e.g. workers of the world, unite!)

Residents of the U.S. have to balance those two realities very, very carefully.  No, we don’t have a right to pass judgment on other countries or other people’s political processes simply because we live in the world’s superpower but yes, as members of the human family, we do have as much of a right –and an obligation— to stand against oppression and for justice and equality as anyone else.  We also have to remember that it’s extremely difficult for us to get all sides of a story in this country so we’re often lacking vital information.

I’m always down for supporting popular movements as democracy-in-action and if Mousavi is a good guy and has the support of the majority of the Iranian people then good for him and good for them and good for democracy if they win.  However, recognizing my own position within a geo-political superpower, I also know that my country has very specific geo-political interests at stake here.  Also, history teaches me that I come from a country with a sordid history of interfering in other countries’ internal affairs and usually not on the side of the good guys (sometimes it happens e.g. Aristide in Haiti, but, unfortunately more often than not we support the neoliberal capitalist candidates and policies that cause a lot of harm and oppression around the world). 

I’m suspicious of supporting a movement against the leader of another country simply because my country’s leaders don’t like him/her or because my countries interests don’t coincide with their election.  That’s not a valid reason for international solidarity.  Do that and you are in danger of becoming a tool of geo-political forces that are cynically bending popular opinion to their will. 

Don't be a tool.  Examine the facts as best you know them within the light of all the geo-political and socio-economic factors that come into play.  Then look at your history.  Look at what you know about the way the world works.  Then decide.  You may, like me, decide that you just don't have enough information to act.  And that's okay because you know what? If you're not Iranian, this is not your game. 

NPR, FYI: Cheney is not in power anymore

The media, even National Public Radio, continues to juxtapose the President's speeches regarding detainees in the "war on terror" with those of former Vice President and war criminal Dick Cheney. 

Cheney, whose speeches resemble the mumblings of a madman, has every right to his opinion but to place the two on equal footing is really offensive.   Cheney can write op-eds, go on the Sunday talk shows like any other pundit but we should not be hearing news stories structured like this: "Today the President said.... and former Vice-President Dick Cheney countered....".  This is not a campaign!  The President is not running against the former Vice-President.  Let's have a little respect, please.  What Cheney thinks might matter to an increasingly small number of right-wing wingnuts in this country but the fact of the matter is his views are irrelevant now and are certainly not equal to those of the President of the United States.

Stop giving this man airtime equal to the President's!

Here's a very thoughtful analysis from Umair Haque.

Giant (1956)

At work I've been doing a series of interviews with people who grew up in families that migrated and did agricultural work for a living, and who then went on to march with great labor leaders like Cesar Chavez  and dedicate their lives to fighting for farmworkers' rights. 

Two of those people --both of whom grew up in Texas and migrated in the Western migrant stream-- mentioned to me a 1956 movie called "Giant".  They said it was a particularly accurate depiction of the kind of racism they encountered when they were young.  I rented it and watched it tonight and thought I'd share some thoughts

Giant is clearly intended to be, at least partly, an anti-racist film.  It's the story of a young woman (Elizabeth Taylor) who marries a wealthy Texas cattleman (Rock Hudson) and moves from the East out to his sprawling half-million acre ranch.  She soon learns of her husband's unattractive views of the Mexicans who work on his ranch.  Her do-gooder patronizing ways towards the Mexican workers is a foil to his outright hostility.  There's also a young white man working for them (played by James Dean) who falls in love with the lady of the house.  When he strikes it rich (via oil) he becomes the family's arch rival.  Drama ensues when none of the children of the family do what's expected of them by their parents and one even takes up with the arch rival.

Despite the romance and drama of family and rival lovers, the relationship between the white people and the brown people in the story is at least a major theme  It's not just background music.  Multiple scenes depict discrimination and outright hatred towards Mexican Americans.

But it goes beyond being simply an accurate portrayal of a particular kind of racism in a particular time and place.  Without giving away the ending, I'll just say that the message of the film is clearly that this racist reality is ugly/mistaken/wrong.  It sends this message in a somewhat cheezy, crude way but hey, it's the 50s.  The fact that it's an anti-racism film at all goes a long way.  That's not to say that the film couldn't be better if it weren't so contrived in parts, but maybe you can't have it all.

One odd thing about the movie is the god-awful makeup job on the "brown" people.  At first I thought they must be white actors made up to look Mexican (which was common back then but would've led to an interesting question: why would a director making a film about racism, not feel able to use non-white actors?).  But they did apparently use Latino actors.  Sal Mineo was in the cast (he was a sort of 1950s latin heartthrob so I hear, even though he was actually Sicilian).  Sal's character didn't look as bad as the others but the actress who played Juana is an actress named Elsa Cardenas who was born in Tijuana.  Why the need for mud-colored makeup then, you think?  Maybe they didn't look Mexican enough?  Here's a photo of her to the right.

Did they feel they had to uphold white people's stereotypes of what Mexicans should look like by making their skin darker?  Maybe they had only white makeup artists on the set who only knew how to do one shade of makeup ("ivory") and were completly flabbergasted when confronted with a larger palette?  Who knows?  It is interesting though, how a film so clearly conscious of race could still, also be so affected by it.  For a contemporary parallel perhaps consider the 2004 film Crash.

No magic number

It's been awhile, but I'm coming out of hibernation --briefly-- to say this: the celebratory reaction on the left to the announcement of Sen. Arlen Specter's switch to the Democratic party is not well thought out.  There is no magic number.  60 seats doesn't necessarily translate into 60 votes and Sen. Specter has once again confirmed that he remains opposed to progressive legislation that would make it easier for workers to unionize (the Employee Free Choice Act). 

And if the rumors that he was promised no challenger in the Democratic primary are true (can they do that? and if so, can they be held to that promise?), this is seriously problematic. What were they thinking?

A lot can happen between now and 2010.  Progressive ideas generally, not just the Democratic Party, are gaining sway in the midst of an economic crisis brought on by years of Republican rule.  To cede a valuable Senate seat to someone who's going to be Democrat practically in-name-only seems very short-sighted indeed.  If this is official Democratic strategy, it would indicate that these giddy majority days will be just another flash in the bucket instead of an enduring trend towards a more compassionate civilized country.  The Dems need to forgo the lure of gloating rights over this in the short term and think more long term about how to keep this country moving forward on a progressive agenda.

Obama's budget is smart investing

This past week the president laid out his budget for 2010.  It's based on three pillars: education, health care and energy independence.  Why those three things?  Because he knows that those things make up a solid foundation for a prosperous economy. It's not going to be cheap, it's not going to be easy and it's not going to be quick but if this president can pass this budget, or one more or less like it, I think we can turn this juggernaut of an economy around.

Our country's stubborn inability to pass meaningful health care reform has driven health care costs to record levels.  Are we getting state-of-the-art care for that price?  The World Health Organization has ranked the U.S. health system as 37th in the world in terms of access, funding, and quality of care.  37th!  What's up with that?  We're paying top dollar for mediocre health care!  47 million of us don't have insurance at all, who knows how much that number's going to grow with everybody and their brother losing their jobs.  What's wrong with this picture?

Our energy policy over the past half century has been just as insane.  Continue to rely on archaic, pollution-spewing fossil fuels?  Stick our heads in the sand and hope that global warming will just go away? Again, I think Obama's perspective on the world is too focused on the long-term to fall for that.  Here's a step in the right direction.

And even Republicans know that the next generation can't hope to compete in the 21st century without significant investments in education.

Does all this mean a huge increase in domestic spending? Hardly. I'm going to do something totally nerdy and link to something on the Office of Management and Budget's blog to explain (yeah, the OMB, has a blog!!).  According to the OMB, this budget is about a 3.2% increase over last year's.

I don't like everything this president has done so far.  I'm inclined to trust Nobel prize winning economists like Paul Krugman and others (as well as my own gut) that this whole "cash for trash" idea of the Treasury Department is a load of bunk (more about that later).  But the budget is another matter.  This is a damn good budget and a smart one, too, if you look at the long term benefits and not just the short term costs. 

Has it been awhile since you wrote your representatives?  Now's a great time.  All the rhetoric and legislative victories in the world don't matter if there's not money to advance a real progressive agenda in this country.  This is a progressive budget.  This is a New Deal for the 21st century.  Go.  Right now.  Write that letter. 

White History Year

Love this: Now that Black History Month is over, we now return to our regularly scheduled programming.

The problem with humans

If you had to narrow it down, the problem with human beings is this: we are notoriously short-sighted in our thinking.  We just can't think in large enough spans of time.  Ask us to think about any given concept over the span of oh, say, 50 years from now is a stretch.  100 is really asking a lot.  500?  Forget it.  At the same time our technological know-how has sky-rocketed so now we can do things, design things, build things, implement things --BIG things-- that certainly have those sorts of life-spans with the potential to still be affecting the world far off in the future. A friend of mine adds, "we can also break things, move things, change things on a big/long scale. Mountaintops.  Underwater background noise.  The ozone layer. Bazillions of barrels of oil."

And nuclear waste. Know what the half life of uranium 235 (the stuff in spent fuel rods from nuclear reactors) is? 704 million years. Here's a good fact sheet on it from the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research.  Know how many nuclear reactors the world has?  Over 400 in operation. 

What do we going to do with all this stuff?  According to Environment Canada, “true walkaway disposal methods are unlikely to be possible, given the long time periods (a minimum of 250,000 years) for which the longer-lived radionuclides would have to be isolated from the soil, air, and water." Source: Canada vs. the OECD: An Environmental Comparison.  Lord, have mercy!

All this I've said before. But another aspect of it struck me the other day.  George Lakoff --you know that guy who's so good at explaining the differences in how liberals and conservatives think and wrote that book, Don't think of an Elephant-- recently wrote a guest post on 538.com.  It's a great post, you should go read the whole thing; he's talking about "seven crucial intellectual moves that [he] believe[s] are historically, practically, and cognitively appropriate, as well as politically astute" but for now check out #6: systemic causation and systemic risk.  He says:

Conservatives tend to think in terms of direct causation. The overwhelming moral value of individual, not social, responsibility requires that causation be local and direct. For each individual to be entirely responsible for the consequences of his or her actions, those actions must be the direct causes of those consequences

They don't think about systemic causes (if they did, they'd be called "liberals") but what are the two most pressing problems facing our generation right now?  The global economic meltdown and global warming!   These things are systemic.  You can't think of them as a product of any one process; by their very nature they are systemic problems.  Lakoff says this causes some serious conundrums for conservatives but there's also this: what if --just what if-- having to deal with these two huge, systemic problems gets us humans to finally start thinking about the consequences of our actions in a larger time frame?  What if these two crises fundamentally change the way we think?  Wow!  How cool would that be?  That is, if we survive.

A nation of cowards

I was reading in the paper today that the U.S. is pulling out of the World Summit Against Racism because of the declaration's condemnation of Israel's occupation of Palestine and also some language about reparations that we didn't like.  I mentioned this to a friend of mine and let's just say that the conversation (if you could call it that) didn't really go well.

The issue of reparations hits closer to home for most people in this country than does the Israel-Palestine controversy and the idea that perhaps the enslavement of millions of black people by white people was so horrible, so inhuman, so utterly degrading and insidious that its legacy still remains with us two hundred years later and perhaps it's time to make amends --that idea is just so explosive that even friends --two white friends even-- cannot have a productive dialogue about it without getting angry and defensive. 

Last week, you may have heard, U.S. attorney general Eric Holder, issued a call for a national dialogue on race relations:

'To make progress . . . we must feel comfortable enough with one another -- and tolerant enough of each other -- to have frank conversations about the racial matters that continue to divide us.'"Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards," Holder said in a speech marking Black History Month to hundreds of Justice Department employees. "It is an issue we have never been at ease with and, given our nation's history, this is in some ways understandable. And yet if we are to make progress in this area, we must feel comfortable enough with one another -- and tolerant enough of each other -- to have frank conversations about the racial matters that continue to divide us."

He did NOT call for reparations.  He just called for a conversation (and by the way, I am so proud that those words came out of the mouth of a U.S. Attorney General! We've had a few cool Attorney Generals before so it's not unprecedented for one to speak so openly and honestly, but I'm not sure how common it is that they do so while still in office). 

I'm interested in the reparations question.   I can see why some (most?) white people don't like the idea, but I'd like to explore it.  I'm open to changing my mind on it, but if I do, it won't be because of the fallacious "slavery is ancient history" argument.  I lean towards reparations because I know that forgiveness is about more than just saying "I'm sorry".  It's about taking action to reverse the damage done to the injured party.

Well then, what about the Jews, you ask? Don't they deserve reparations for the Holocaust?  Yes, I think they do and Germany paid them.  (The controversy back then was that Israel accepting the money was the equivalent of forgiving the Nazis for their crimes). 

The point is not that money --any amount of it-- can make up for anything as horrible as slavery or genocide or the Holocaust.  Obviously it doesn't and it can't.  The point is this: when two communities engage each other in honest dialogue about a painful past, they begin to understand each other perhaps for the first time, and that empathy, that understanding is a powerful thing.  Then and only then can we truly feel sorry.  And then we want to not only say we're sorry, we want to act on it.  Forgiveness is not just saying "I'm sorry"; it always involves making amends, taking some kind of action to heal the relationship.

It took us (the U.S.) more than 200 years just to say we're sorry, we're officially sorry for slavery and even that was controversial.

None of this means I don't believe we haven't made progress in race relations.  That argument is a cop-out.  Nothing I've said denies how far we have come.  But it is true that Sunday morning is still the most segregated hour of the week and I know from personal experience that white people still have a hard time talking openly and honestly about racism and race relations.  We can never go forward, as a country or as individuals, as long as that's the case.

The mobius strip of empirical epistemologies.

I was thinking last night and this morning about those sorts of empirical epistemologies that think that everything in this world can be measured and objectively observed from some neutral god-like standpoint unaffected by time and place and culture.

You already know, probably, that I don't think that's an accurate picture of reality.  I think reality is much more complex than that worldview allows for.  But it is *a* picture of reality.  One way of viewing the world among many.  Certainly some things can be measured and the measurements help us understand them better.  But it's always going to be a limited view (I don't think a complete view would be possible).  It's like if you only had one eye, your brain would never learn depth perception right?  You have two and your brain does learn depth perception and you view of the world is a little more complete.

But what happens if one way of looking at the world (in this case empirical epistemologies) is elevated above all others, and it's seen as the only valid way?  Then that view of reality, the dominant paradigm, gets weighted more than the others and any thing (theories and the people who love and promote them) that operates within that view, is going to be more promoted in such a society than those that don't.

That particular artificial construction of the world becomes the world itself... it gets reified (it becomes real).  And then theories are tested against that world and it becomes self-validating, it only ever gets tested against itself.  The world is the theory and the theory is the world.

This stops knowledge in its tracks.  All of a sudden instead of understanding the world better, we understand only our own paradigm better.  And we take action and build institutions based on those theories, which further reifies it and on and on again in an endless cycle.

But what do I mean "instead of understanding the world better"  --isn't that an empirical statement? assuming that there is a world out there to be understood?  It is, isn't it?  Which can only mean one thing: there is no world.  There is only theory.

What is terrorism? Bill Ayers, Sarah Palin and the Politics of Fear

Bill Ayers is finally speaking out.  He's been interviewed recently by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! and Teri Gross on Fresh Air.  Now he has a great Op-Ed in today's New York Times.  I can understand why he didn't want anything to do with the media during the election but I'm glad he's out there now to provide us, finally, with a truthful response to Sarah Palin's outlandish charges of "domestic terrorism".

By now you should know that the facts are that, unlike the U.S. government, Bill Ayers and the Weather Underground never killed or harmed anyone during the Vietnam War and never intended to.  Their goal was to call attention to the atrocities being committed in our names.  They committed destruction of property, yes, and I can understand that that is, to some, a crime (albeit a relatively minor one).  Their method was imperfect but their only real mistake was immaturity and naivety, not immorality.

It's worth thinking about the insidious innuendos behind Palin's use of the Bill Ayers bogeyman during the election and why such fear tactics were, rightly, rejected by the majority in this country. 

There's something grossly deranged about a society that can so easily get so many of its people to value inanimate objects over animate ones. 

They won't call it that of course but what else is it when the destruction of property in the U.S. elicits more outrage than mass killings in far off countries?  The U.S. government and its allies in the south killed millions of people during the war in Vietnam.  Sarah Palin in all her "outrage" over "terrorism", however, had nothing to say about that.  It was the guy who blew up desks and trash cans in offices who was the real terrorist. 

Hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. were attracted to Sarah Palin's chirpy fascism during the campaign.  That should not be surprising.  People are often distracted, at least temporarily, by superficial "beauty".  But most of us have seen enough movies to know that when someone so readily plays people's basest fears and insecurities to their own advantage, they're usually cast in the role of the villain and you know they're going to lose in the end.

As Bill Ayers said, "Demonization, guilt by association, and the politics of fear did not triumph, not this time. Let’s hope they never will again"

Thinking of shopping at Wal-Mart this year?

Watch this video before you do:

Just say No! to Wal-Mart

How much influence does the President really have?

A lot of people are asking whether Obama is really going to change Washington or if Washington will change him.  Here are some of my thoughts on that:

The Presidency is bigger than any one person; it's just one part -albeit a very powerful part-- of the "filty rotten stinking system" (as Dorothy Day called it) in which we live.  Which is why nothing short of a real old-fashioned revolution (i.e. from-the-ground-up movement to overthrow the current government) will ever really bring about fundamental change in this country. 

[Make no mistake: despite my enthusiasm for the Obama administration I (still) believe that.  It's what my conscience demands.  I cannot give 100% support for a system that results in such huge economic disparities between the haves and the have-nots (such as we have not seen in this country since the 1920s), locks up such a large percentage of its population (primarily black men), and continues to attack and invade other sovereign nations (talk about a "rogue state"!).  This system is immoral, corrupt and dangerous to the majority of the world's people.  Indeed, it should be overthrown.]

That said, I think that the past eight years have showed us just how much influence (for better or worse) an individual President can indeed have.  Putting G.W. behind the wheel was probably the most disastrous decision the people of this country have made in a hundred years (longer?).  He nearly crashed us and it's going to take some time (and lots of money) to undo the damage.  Obama can be as influential as Bush was just hopefully in a positive way instead of a negative way.

So do I think Obama will change Washington or will Washington change him? Yes. I do (think both).

Some righteous hurt about Proposition 8

wow this is the best commentary on Proposition 8 I've heard.  damn.  you go Keith!



"To those who voted for or supported this proposition, I have some questions: ...What is it to you? In a time of impermanence and fly-by-night relationships these people want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is your option. They don't want to deny you yours. They don't want to take anything away from you. They want what you want: the chance to be a little less alone in the world... The world is barren enough. It is stacked against love and against hope and against those very few precious emotions that enable all of us to go forward. With so much hate in the world, this is what your religion tells you to do?... This is what your conscious tells you to do?... You want to sanctify marriage, then spread happiness. You are asked now to stand on one side or another, on the question of love. You don't have to help it, applaud it, you just have to not put it out."

Well said, Keith, well said.

More than a slogan

This is still not the post-election blog entry I've been meaning to write but hey, there's plenty of analysis of the new president-elect out there, and much of it speaks my heart and mind these days (see for example, Eugene Robinson's column Morning in America). 

So no analysis from me yet.  Instead this is the kind of personal-political post that you've come to expect from this blog.  [If "Lucky White Girl" weren't such a damn pithy-and-memorable-yet-dead-on-accurate name for this blog it might be called "The View From Here" (la vista desde aca) because one of the main ideas of standpoint feminism is that one's understanding of the world is profoundly shaped by one's place within it, that is, by your socio-economic position which, in turn, depends a whole lot on the race and gender identity society plops on your head (which may or may not coincide with the one you yourself choose)]. 

So I'll just say that from my (feminist) standpoint, the view from here is just fine these days!  I've never felt this way before about a leader of our country, never felt a glimmer of hope for a future where maybe my country doesn't rule the world with a bloody iron fist, invading sovereign nations left and right, engaging in immoral wars and irresponsible fiscal policy and using and disposing of the planet as it sees fit for short-term convenience.  Maybe things can indeed change.

Coupled with this, is my own struggle with adjusting to life in this strange world that is Washington DC.  (Although how different the city seems now that I know the Obama family will be moving into the White House down the street!) and my recent vacation back home to Florida gave me time (not enough!) to reflect on my first year in the big city and wonder if it suits me or not.

I decided that if I'm ever going to feel at home here I'll need to develop a sense of place.  Easier said than done.  I have such a sense of place for where I grew up: the smell of recently trimmed lantana bushes, the light in the sky after a rain on a humid summer day, that classic arboreal mix of oaks and palm trees that formed the backdrop of my childhood --all that is gone here.  There are different things.  Things I don't know yet.  Cherry blossoms and cold weather.  This is the city of Presidents, about as far away from the cypress knees and black muck of Florida backwaters as you can get and I need to start feeling it, really feeling it.  Especially now that we have a new President. 

Obama reminds me of the best of our country's former leaders, Roosevelt (Franklin D.) or Kennedy, (in some ways one, and in other ways the other).  I've never really studied much domestic (U.S.) political history.  I might as well start.  So I'm reading Doris Kearns Goodwin's Pulitzer Prizing winning history of the Roosevelts called No Ordinary Time.  (Any thoughts on this book?)

For the first time, I feel really invested in my country.  Invested in the sense that I don't just see it as the place where it just so happens that I was born and if it gets too bad or ugly I can always leave for friendlier shores, but I feel, instead, that it's a place representative of an idea --democracy, progress-- that, surprisingly enough, turns out to be alive after all.  This is the road back to the embodiment of greatness that this country was on, in some ways (not in others), in the 1930s.  It's an idea I want to help make happen.

I know expectations are high for this man we just elected last Tuesday but this is a country so demoralized by eight years of the worst leadership in its history that I have to say we need this feeling of unbridled enthusiasm, of idealistic aspirations.  It's more than just a slogan, it's a prescription for a sick nation; yes, we can!  Democracy is not dead.  The dream of America is still possible.   And a great leader like Obama is going to be the one to bring us there.

Beautiful Day

I think last night was the happiest day of my life.  Being home with friends in Gainesville meant the world to me!  My face hurt from smiling so much.  I'm dehydrated from crying so much and I'm utterly exhausted from going on about 5 hours of sleep.  But I got to watch history being made with my friends at my side at the Hippodrome theater downtown.  The place was packed and everyone was shouting and laughing and whooping it up and after it was clear Obama was going to be our next president strangers hugged strangers and people literally danced in the street.  My friend Sand and I sat on the floor in front of one of the TV screens and watched Obama's acceptance speech with our arms around each other and tears in our eyes. Afterwards a crowd gathered on the corner of Main Street and University Ave waving Obama signs and cheering.  It reminded me of something a police officier once said about Gainesville celebrations: "our main objective is to keep people out of the trees and off the lamp posts".  The crowd was still there more two hours later.  We finally left a bit after 2 in the morning.

It's the dawn of a new era.  We have much work to do.

I gotta go catch a plane.  More later!  Congratulations everyone!  We all did a great job!

A crack appears in the wall of Empire

I've never seen people waiting in lines several hours long for EARLY voting.  1/3 of the electorate have already voted (including me --I waited about 45 minutes in Volusia County).  It just goes to show that when people with integrity run for public office, when it's not politics-as-usual, the people of this country do still believe in democracy and are excited about it.

I'm in Gainesville at my friend Chris' house and woke up this morning to a note from him saying he "wondered how people felt the morning this country elected Kennedy to the Presidency".  Excitement is in the air all over today.  Last night watching him Live on TV I teared up thinking this man is our next president.  He doesn't have to be the most radical progressive out there, it's STILL a significant blow to my jaded view of the country I live in and I can't think of anything I'd rather have radically reformulated than that image of a country ruled by powerful white men with no thought for anything other than their own position.

Things are going to change in this country.  We're going to push back --waaaay back-- the threat from the radical right to make women's bodies the property of men, denying women the right to make such personal decisions for themselves as whether or not to have a baby.  We're going to stop coddling the rich at the expense of the poor, put the brakes on the growing disparity between the haves and the have-nots, have a slightly fairer tax plan.  We're going to stop catering to corporations who eat workers up and spew out the remains in pursuit of ever increasing profit margins.  We're going to enforce labor and environmental protection laws and the names of federal administrations are no longer going to seem so ironic.

Maybe we're going to do all this.   But maybe not.  There's a crack in the wall we can see light through, the possibility is there, if Obama is elected and Democrats get a majority of the Senate.  But we're not there yet.  The Democrats could help us do all this but they won't unless we hold their feet to the fire after the election.

So go out and vote today but then don't think it's over.  We can take back our country but this election is just the beginning.  The real work starts January 20th.

Middle class McCain supporters are voting against their own economic interests

Whew, I knocked on about 40 doors this afternoon campaigning for Obama in a middle class neighborhood in central Florida. There were lots of McCain signs out; this is a conservative little town and that apparently was a conservative little neighborhood.  Which is odd because it wasn't a wealthy neighborhood: small, modest houses, lots of late model cars in driveways.  Not people who looked like they made more than a quarter of a million dollars a year.  Unless they do, Obama's tax plan would benefit them way more than McCain's would.  And yet they are voting for McCain.  Why?

George Lakoff, author of Don't think of an Elephant, would say it's because the Republicans are good at framing their party platform in terms of values that people identify with that they've convinced them the Democrats are against: Family, Religion, Freedom.  Democrats are doing well this year for a variety of reasons but one of them is that they've heard Lakoff and have successfully countered that argument.  Democrats were obviously never against any of those things in the first place but now they're re-framing the debate.  This election is about Economic Responsibility, Community, Unity, Hope and, of course, Change.  Those are the values resonating with people this year and that's why Obama's going to win next Tuesday.

But still.  I'm amazed that some non-rich people support McCain.  Eight years of Bush's economic policies have devastated this country.  Greenspan has admitted deregulation may not have been such a great idea.  I heard today that the jobless rate might go as high as 8.5% soon.  People who had their retirement funds in 401K plans right now are screwed (great idea, eh? convince people that they don't need pensions but should instead gamble on the stock market for their retirement!)  Experts are talking long term recession and still --still!-- some people are thinking yeah, let's keep doing what we're doing!?  I don't get it.

Ok, so some people are always going to vote against their own economic interests no matter what. Maybe for the same reason poor people buy lottery tickets.  They're about as likely to ever be rich enough to benefit from Republicans' fiscal policies as they are to hit the jackpot but there's always the hope.  Joe the Plumber (who apparently doesn't make more than $250K/yr) hopes that some day he will be rich and when that day comes he wants to pay lower taxes.  hmmm...

I can understand when I pass a McMansion with a McCain/Palin sign out front but I don't understand when I see McCain signs in yards of people in the middle to lower economic classes.  Maybe they don't know...? 

Mysteries of middle class voters supporting McCain

Whew, I knocked on about 40 doors this afternoon campaigning for Obama in a middle class neighborhood in central Florida. There were lots of McCain signs out; this is a conservative little town and that apparently was a conservative little neighborhood.  Which is odd because it wasn't a wealthy neighborhood: small, modest houses, lots of late model cars in driveways.  Not people who looked like they made more than a quarter of a million dollars a year.  Unless they do, Obama's tax plan would benefit them way more than McCain's would.  And yet they are voting for McCain.  Why?

George Lakoff, author of Don't think of an Elephant, would say it's because the Republicans are good at framing their party platform in terms of values that people identify with that they've convinced them the Democrats are against: Family, Religion, Freedom.  Democrats are doing well this year for a variety of reasons but one of them is that they've heard Lakoff and have learned how to frame their platform in terms of valuest.   This election is about Responsibility, Community, Unity, Hope and, of course, Change.  Those are the values resonating with people this year and that's why Obama's going to win next Tuesday.

But still.  I'm amazed that some non-rich people support McCain.  Eight years of Bush's economic policies have devastated this country.  Greenspan has admitted deregulation may not have been such a great idea.  I heard today that the jobless rate might go as high as 8.5% soon.  People who had their retirement funds in 401K plans right now are screwed (btw, aren't 401K plans a great idea -- convince people that they don't need pensions but should instead gamble on the stock market for their retirement!)  Experts are talking long term recession and still --still!-- some people are thinking yeah, let's keep doing what we're doing!?  I don't get it.

Ok, so some people are always going to vote against their own economic interests no matter what. Maybe for the same reason poor people buy lottery tickets.  They're about as likely to ever be rich enough to benefit from Republicans' fiscal policies as they are to hit the jackpot but there's always the hope.  Joe the Plumber (who apparently doesn't make more than $250K/yr) hopes that some day he will be rich and when that day comes he wants to pay lower taxes.  hmmm...

I can understand when I pass a McMansion with a McCain/Palin sign out front but I don't understand when I see McCain signs in yards of people in the middle to lower economic classes. 

Explanation anyone?

Obama and the capital gains tax

I encountered a new scare tactic that the Republicans are using to frighten rich people about how much that crazy black radical's going to raise their taxes.  It involves the capital gains tax.  I learned a lot while researching it so I thought I'd share in case any of you come up against this. 

The capital gains tax is just what it says: a tax on whatever capital (profit) you gain during the tax year.  (This should tell you right away it's mostly a rich people thing.) Say you have some stock you bought at $1 per share and in 2008 you sold that stock for $21 per share.  Your capital gain/profit is $20 per share.  NOTE: It doesn't apply until you sell it.  It also applies to other things like real estate and such (although I think it doesn't apply to your homestead just investment properties --again, it's mostly for those wealthy enough to have investment properties, not your average Joe working at Wal-Mart.)

Before we go any further I should point out the obvious: Not many people are taking in a lot of capital GAINS right now.  Most people have capital LOSSES at the moment (just take a look at your 401K lately) so all this is moot.  But nonetheless...

The rumor goes like this: The current capital gains tax is 15%.  McCain wants to cut it 7.5%.  Obama wants to raise it to 28%.  Obama is a radical socialist!

Well here's the truth: The capital gains tax rate varies based on a variety of factors: how long you've had the asset that you sold and what income bracket you fall in.  If you fall into one of the lower income brackets say, in the "10% or 15% federal tax brackets (for tax year 2004, up to about $58K for married filing jointly, and less for others)" the tax rate is 5%.  If you're already quite wealthy though, and you make a lot of profit that year "Long-term gains are taxed at 15% if you fall in one of the higher income-tax brackets (e.g., 25%, 28%, and so on). [Source: http://invest-faq.com/articles/tax-cap-gains-rates.html].  So the Republican's argument is clearly aimed at the tax rate for capital gains for the wealthy, not for everyone who has capital gains.

But let's put this all in perspective.  It turns out that actually the rate on capital gains for the upper class was 20% throughout the 1990s.  Democrat Bill Clinton LOWERED it from its previous level of 28% which that radical socialist Ronald Reagan instituted in the Tax Reform Law of 1986.  Sorta blows up everything you thought you knew about Democrats and Republicans doesn't it?   It turns out that in this case it's McCain who's the radical who wants to lower this tax for the very rich to unprecedented levels.  The man would bankrupt the country. My, my, how it all comes into perspective now!

But I digress.  So how did this tax get to its current level of 15%?  Bush cut it down that far in 2003 to benefit his wealthy campaign donors so 15% is more an aberration than the norm.  But that's not all, this rate has a sunset provision set to expire in 2011 unless Congress renews it (not likely with the Republicans out of power).  So in 2011 the rate's going back up to 20% anyway even if Obama does nothing.  Hopefully though we won't have to wait that long.  Our government is 4 trillion dollars in debt thanks to Bush; they need the money.  Obama will hopefully raise the rate back up to where it belongs long before 2011.

What's the upshot of all this?  Even the well-off hardly have much to fear from an Obama presidency.  We're quite far from socialism here.

To even be worried about the capital gains tax at this moment when the economy's in the tank is and most people are losing money not gaining it, is just one more example of how out of touch Republicans are.

Putting on the historical blinders

Well, McCain has finally agreed to tone down the screeching rhetoric of his campaign and return to substantive issues (wonder if Sarah Palin will get that memo?). 

He's even gone so far as to correct some white people at his "town hall meetings" railing against that "Muslim" and shouting "kill him, kill him".  This is a long overdue and definitely welcome change in tone from the Republican side. 

I'm glad that Representative John Lewis (D-GA) spoke out over the weekend and warned, in his wise way, about the dangers of inflammatory rhetoric.  The man knows what he's talking about; his political consciousness was forged in the fire of the civil rights movement.  What amazes me is that he got criticized for drawing on the lessons of that era (the right is saying that by doing so he compared McCain to George Wallace-- another man who used powerful rhetoric to incite people's basest instincts).  That criticism irked me.  Attacking Mr Lewis is a classic case of attacking the messenger.  Why else were they quicker to jump on Lewis for calling McCain out on his inflammatory rhetoric than they were to criticize McCain or his supporters for the undercurrent of racism running through their campaign? 

Furthermore, the premise of their criticism is itself problematic.  Criticize someone for making a historical comparison?  Here's why that bothers me: it's a denial of the old saying about those who don't learn from history being doomed to repeat it.  It's true and that's why conservatives avoid encouraging people to draw historical connections. 

Spin usually can only last so long.  It might be socially acceptable to hate X group of people today but 20 years from now?  There's no controlling the rationality and perspective that comes with the passage of time.  Eventually even people who couldn't see the ugliness of historical events as they happen, can usually see it decades later (which is why we so often erect monuments to past mistakes while contemporaneously committing the same mistake).  Given that, the only thing they can hope for is to get you to see absolutely no connection between contemporary events and anything that ever happened in our past.  Everything is isolated and has no connection with anything else.  Only if you can look at the world in this way, does the conservative viewpoint make any sense at all. 

All I can say is well, good luck with that.  I'll keep looking at the big picture.

Congratulations to one of my favorite economists!

Paul Krugman, Princeton University professor and columnist for the New York Times has won the Nobel Prize for Economics!   Congratualtions Mr Krugman!

Getting ready to watch the debate and was reminded that I haven't posted anything for the last debate.  Even the hilarious Sarah Palin debate flowchart.  I've been overwhelmed and discouraged lately and needed to take a little break.  Hopefully will be back soon.  Enjoy tonight's debate y'all!

Should I fear for my country?

I watched Obama's interview on Face the Nation yesterday and thought it was quite reasonable and good.  I didn't think anything more of it until this morning when I read an email from my mom.  

The email was a bald-faced lie about a completely made up "interview" Obama supposedly did on another Sunday talk show in which he "said" some outrageous quote meant to scare people.  I couldn't believe it!  The author just made the whole thing up from beginning to end and people like my mother bought it hook, line and sinker because it seems like something that "crazy Muslim radical" would say!

I told her that the thing was a complete farce and then pleaded with her: "Mom, this election is important, could you at least TRY to get the facts?"  

I can respect someone voting for McCain because they're wealthy and he would lower taxes for rich people or because they support the war in Iraq but to vote for him based on outright lies about Obama, that just deserves no respect at all.  That deserves pity.

If this is how some people get their "information" (or more accurately misinformation) then I truly fear for our country but honestly, after my day of canvassing in Virginia last Saturday, I sincerely believe that my parents are part of a small outlying faction of fanatical wingnuts and most voters are acting more responsibly/rationally this year. 

On a personal note, it does make me sad and worried for my folks.  I don't want to have delusional far-right extremist parents!  Conventional, conservative, small town Republicans I can live with and understand and even respect.  Delusional wing-nuts spreading outright lies and misinformation, is another matter.

UPDATE: Here's a link to the article on Snopes.com debunking the email hoax.  It's not even a new one.  It's from a year ago. sigh.

UPDATE: Maybe I shouldn't worry so much.  Apparently it's not just my mom.  The Republican party generally is being wracked by reactionary fear politics.  See this article in the Politico.

I did this! You can too!

I just went out and went door to door in Virginia asking people to vote for Obama.  It was exhilarating.  I'm going try to do it every weekend from now until I go back home to Florida and then I'm gonna do it in Florida.  Hey, if I can do this, ANYone can do it.  Here's a video about how easy it is to go door to door in your own neighborhood.  Don't wait for someone to call you.  Get out there and GET INVOLVED!

Trust me, you'll feel great about participating in this historic campaign.  We can do it!!

Who is John McCain?

A former fan of John McCain and author of a book about him (Citizen McCain) now has second thoughts.  Elizabeth Drew has an article in Politico this morning.  I'm especially interested in the character of political candidates --integrity matters with me-- so I found what she had to say about McCain's character especially interesting:

[Political analysts] still believe that McCain won the nomination not because he gave himself over to the base but as a result of a process of elimination of inferior candidates who divided up the conservative vote, as these observers had predicted. (These people insisted on anonymity because McCain is known in Republican circles to have a long memory and a vindictive streak.)

I had already concluded that that there was a disturbingly erratic side of McCain’s nature. There’s a certain lack of seriousness in him. And he does not appear to be a reflective man, or very interested in domestic issues. One cannot imagine him ruminating late into the night about, say, how to educate and train Americans for the new global and technological challenges. (emphasis added).

There was a time when I thought McCain was a different kind of Republican.  No more.  At first I thought his choice of Sarah Palin was just a pathetic and ultimately ineffective ploy to lure women voters.  Now the more I hear Palin (who can see Russia from her house!) try to talk about foreign policy and imagine her "learning on the job" and experimenting with international politics in a nuclear age, I'm thinking the choice shows more than desperation --it shows a dangerous recklessness.  As Ms Drew concludes:

McCain’s recent conduct of his campaign – his willingness to lie repeatedly (including in his acceptance speech) and to play Russian roulette with the vice-presidency, in order to fulfill his long-held ambition [for the presidency]– has reinforced my earlier, and growing, sense that John McCain is not a principled man.

Indeed he's certainly not.