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What I Want To Hear Now
Before we heard that Americans were doing okay and that what everybody wants is to be rich, and before we heard about the 3 or 4 homes and 3 or 4 investment properties, we knew there was an apartment on the east side of Houston where 4 or 5 kids stayed home alone, watching TV and playing with a kitten that had diarrhea.
The apartment is filthy, and the kids have sores on their arms, legs and faces, and they didn't eat today, and John McCain doesn't know about that apartment. He's never been to it or to one like it.
But Barack Obama has.
And before we heard that Barack Obama signifies nothing more than celebrity, a cool friend or a fad, there was a family living in a car, and everything they still owned in the world was in that car or on the sidewalk by it, and there was an old woman sleeping in a subway station in Brooklyn, and John McCain didn't know those people. Oh, he's read about them and seen pictures of them all right, but he's never been close enough to them to hear them and smell them and touch them.
But Barack Obama has.
And when John McCain was languishing in a Vietnamese prison. When he was tortured. When his love for America and his faith in America pulled him through, was it the America of those kids and that kitten and that family and that old woman in Brooklyn he was thinking of? Was it them he was fighting for? Is he fighting for them now?
Barack Obama is.
I believe Barack Obama has seen crushing poverty right here in America. Now I want to hear where and when.
When is Barack Obama going to tell me what he has seen? With his own eyes. In a way that makes me give a damn.
Comments (213)
For what it is worth, I'm fairly sure that when he got Edwards endorsement, he did a poverty tour and did bring these things up, but that does seem like a long time ago.
It would be good to bring it up again.
Rec'd.
August 24, 2008 5:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Billy, were you ever on food stamps as a child?
Can you say the same? Would you admit it?
Obama has.
So now you expect him to tell you about some third-person experience, about something he has seen as if looking in from outside?
He has actually lived on the dark side of the welfare roles, not as a casual, elite observe but as one of us who once knew what food stamps looked like because they were sitting on our single mothers' dresser.
Obama owes you nothing, you owe us all the benefit of your intellect by actually understanding what should be painfully obvious. Obama knows what it is like to need help form the rest of us.
Seriously, have you just not read about his mother being on food stamps? Do you assume he was blind to his own scenario?
Seems as if you are the one who needs to prove something here, that you are smart enough to read the reality of Obama's experience, and not infer that somehow he owes you a perspective that is, at least to those of us who have shared it, no secret and no shame.
August 25, 2008 11:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
"What I want to hear now" is Billy saying either "yes, I knew what it is like to be on food stamps as a child" or "well, JEP, you are right, it is quite arrogant of me to demand answers from someone who has actually been there, when I have no idea what it is like..."
Contrition is a bitch... downright impossible for some.
August 25, 2008 11:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'll go you one better. I've been in the position of the mom who had to have foodstamps to feed her kid. Now crawl off of my thread.
August 25, 2008 11:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
Billy, a penny for a thought: how did you feel when Bill Clinton changed the welfare system?
August 24, 2008 5:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
I was opposed to changing the system without a complete commitment to full employment.
August 24, 2008 7:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
What were you in, the 1st Texas Commie Dupe Brigade? I was in the 417th British Bone Idle Expeditionary Force for a while back there. More seriously, think there'll be any proposals for the 4 day work week? I see a lot of municipalities & schools are adopting it.
August 24, 2008 8:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Me, too. I'd like to hear it on a very steady basis starting January 20.
August 24, 2008 6:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fair enough, Billy. I'll be anxious to hear if he addresses your concerns.
August 24, 2008 6:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good questions, and if Obama is ever going to turn into a real person, instead of a made-for-TV personoid, this would be a good place to start.
But Obama is probably already plotting his next triangulation with David Plouffe and David Axelrod, and they still think he can bullshit his way into the White House.
August 24, 2008 6:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're right, Billy. Obama needs to address the issue of poverty, and address it more strongly than he has. It's an issue that's become not strictly an issue of the text-book impoverished, but of many, many "average" Americans.
Many people have lost their homes, their jobs, seen their wages cut, are living paycheck to paycheck, barely able to afford food to put on their one table to feed their kids. And you know, it's gotten worse.
Do you pay the electric bill or the gas bill this month? Has McCain ever had to worry about those kinds of dilemmas?
My hope is that, with Biden, a working class kinda guy, that these kinds of issues can be addressed more openly, honestly, and forcefully. Unlike many other elections in our history, especially our recent history, this time, people actually care.
August 24, 2008 6:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey Chrono. I suspect that - as a result of the last 20+ years - it'll be very difficult to garner much positive support by directly confronting real "impoverishment." To talk of "poverty" as bluntly as Billy has, in 2008, raises a network of politically-risky associations - to blacks... drugs... welfare Mums... - that Obama will be pushed hard by advisors to steer away from. They'll say, "You can't change the whole national debate in one speech. And the really poor are either not going to vote, are gonna vote for God & Guns... or can be reached through other messages."
The way he CAN go in is precisely as you outlined Chrono - choosing between food and heat/gas; losing your house or car or job; needing health care; the failed protection of New Orleans; McCain's houses. This way in allows Dem politicians to make the same sounds as FDR, but without zooming in too too tight on those suffering most. Instead, the appeal will actually be to the under-pressure working class.
Which bothers me. Because Billy - like most of us here - knows there's a powerful, lived difference between being pressured middle or working class - and being chronically hungry, cold, tired and sick. Words like diarrhea, sores, stink - we veer away from those. And yes, this is a real moral issue for Obama, who - I suspect - HAS actually seen this, felt this. Personally, I'm tired of politicians following pollsters, the Right-Wing-Culture, the MSM - and trotting out tired references to the faceless stream of people that "spoke to them on the campaign trail."
I've give a lot to hear them come from the gut. Better yet, I'd like to see Biden & Obama recapitulate something like Bobby Kennedy's tour of '68 - hitting Appalachia, Bed-Stuy, Chavez's farmworkers. I'm afraid I may have to put up with more Wonderbread anecdotes first though. It's probably too audacious of me to hope for the FULL real deal as of yet. Which is more a comment on our culture, our media, our parties & pollsters than Obama perhaps, but still... one can dream.
August 24, 2008 7:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree. I don't agree with the way Billy's approaching it. But I agree with the sentiment of tackling the issue of poverty. That's all I was really getting at.
I also agree with the Appalachia tour. That would be truly amazing.
August 24, 2008 7:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
Kid, I got a pair of shoes older than you.
August 24, 2008 8:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hell Billy... you probably got dentures older than Chrono. Still.... take a look at the peepers on that avatar of his. Doesn't he remind you just a bit of your former self? ;-)
August 24, 2008 8:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Former?
August 24, 2008 10:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't understand why every time I comment on you, even if I recommend of post of yours, being completely respectable, you must revert to snide remarks and comments. If you truly find yourself to be wiser, or more intelligent than I simply because you're older, then I suggest you cease from doing so in the future. If you truly want any kind of respect, then give it, Billy. I'm sure in your vast years of experience you've learned that. Well, I'd hope you would have.
I'm sorry if you have a problem with my disagreeing with you on how to approach the issue. I'm also sorry you still own shoes older than I am. They must be in pretty bad shape. I suggest you buy a new pair.
August 24, 2008 8:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
LOL. If you want respect, stop missing the point. Here's an experiment for you. Go back and read the quinn. Pretend he's telling you what should happen won't. Then go read Neuromancer. Then lighten up. Act out your avatar. Get some sleep. I've got you slotted in for the third pom pom section tomorrow night. I need you to be on the ball.
August 24, 2008 9:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe I wouldn't "miss the point" if a) the point wasn't poorly communicated or b) the point wasn't horrible to begin with. It's a simple fact, Billy. I haven't disrespected you, but if you want act like a child and respond with disrespect, then there's not much I can do. You obviously have a problem with me despite what I say or do, so there's really no point to continue this.
I truly hope that all your years on this planet have provided more than what you've shown me of yourself, because otherwise, I pity you greatly. =)
August 24, 2008 9:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't get down on the Eskimo. US isn't his first language. I'll tell him to break it down so you can follow it next time. But you have to do your part. The message is a collaboration between the sender and the receiver. You make it up out of what he provides you to work with. So you have to take responsibility for making it up wrong. Noboby is talking about the so-called working class except you. You bring that to the conversation. We're just talking here about context. About what I've seen and you've seen and Obama has seen.
What is the most crushing poverty you've seen first hand? I've shared some of my experiences with you. I think Obama should share some of his. I don't think McCain has any to share.
August 24, 2008 10:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
I know how you feel!
August 24, 2008 10:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
That's to Billy of course. All the uncritical ra-ra-ra really gets on one's nerves.
August 24, 2008 10:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
And your point is?
Age doesn't always equal wisdom (John McCain) and I think we should all think back and try to recapture some of our youthful passion, before we got knocked down so many times that it only seemed smart to quit caring.
August 25, 2008 11:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
"the really poor are either not going to vote, are gonna vote for God & Guns... or can be reached through other messages."
quinn, I can't believe you get away with the stuff you get away with. If I said something that cynical, they'd ride me out of the echo chamber on a rail. Haha!
Hope you had a good vacation. Where'd you go? Euthenasia?
August 24, 2008 9:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
What with two weeks of rain & all, was a good chance to dial up some Gibson (though Stephenson's 'Snow Crash' gets more rereads from me.) That, and experience Nova Scotia's farmlands being turned from apple-growing to (quite successful) vinyards & wineries. Good thing I don't believe in Climate Change, or I'd have found it worrying.
August 24, 2008 9:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Heh. You don't believe in climate change. Interesting.
August 24, 2008 10:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
quinn, if you answer that moron ...
August 24, 2008 11:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Naw, I read what he said. Was just checking his profile to see if he started all his comments with words like "pedophile." You open up an issue that's only about 40 years overdue & vastly more important than 98% of the shit we read every day... and this is crawls out. I donno, man. Wit-free, self-righteous & no fucking class. Welcome to the progressive blogosphere I guess. Makes me wish I was back on the farm. Animals got more manners.
August 24, 2008 11:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
Quinn, I hugeley disagree with you here.
The big reason Obama can't tackle poverty is because he ran against the Clinton record of the 90's, when he cut black poverty by a third, and violent crime fell to 1/3 of its 1992 level. The only responses from Obama's base on this is the high incarceration rate of blacks (a sad side-effect, as much related to 3 strikes and marijuana persecutions than real need), that welfare reform was somehow bad, and that the internet was the real cause of success (as if that would have trickled down to poor minorities naturally). Obama womanists for some reason can't even allow themselves to admit that the decrease in gang activity, rape and home violence in poor neighborhoods was an enabling turn for minority women.
So instead we're stuck with the Mother Theresa model of poverty - wail about how terrible poverty is, wipe some asses, collect your money and do nothing about it. Please, no more tours of Appalachia. This is 2008, not 1958.
August 25, 2008 2:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hey Des - Below, at 11:31. I didn't want to draw any more attention here to the fact that you misspelled hugely. God, that's gotta huret.
August 25, 2008 11:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
That's nonsense.
If anything Obama is following Clinton's anti-poverty politics to a tee: which is to focus not on the poorest poor, but on the "middle class". the theory being what is best for the middle will help everyone.
Clinton had no significant anti-poverty policy, and yet it is true that in a good economy that is producing many jobs, the poor definitely do better. The key is to have an economy that is growing braodly and that is creting jobs. Bush has an economy that was growing, but whose gains went right to the top.
I have a hard time attributing falling crime rates to any specific policy. Putting a lot more people in jail probably made a large difference. Clearly there was a major change in the country that did not reverse itself during the last 8 years. People in poor neighborhoods are better off for having safer neighborhoods. Some people are worse off for having so many in prison.
I think the book is still out on whether welfare reform was actually an anti-poverty policy or a solution to middle class angst. clearly something much more major is needed by way of investing in the human capital of poor folk, and subsidizing their ability to work and learn.
Bottom line is that poverty improved substantially in the 90's and those gains were lost over the next 8 years. To pretend that the Clinton era found a solution, in policy or economic practice is too sanguine. The poverty rate was still way too high even at it's lowest point.
August 25, 2008 3:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
I anticipate that sort of campaign for re-election. He can't run as a true progressive populist right now and win. The frame is all wrong.
I agree with the direction you advocate for this election, though. People don't need to be reminded how much they are hurting right now - they need to see where we will go.
August 25, 2008 7:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
You are right, Chrono, and Billy Glad's right. This is a great post.
But, to white Americans, the very word poverty -- especially when it refers to urban poverty -- is something that calls black people to mind, the kind of black people white America fears and demonizes. And Obama obviously can't ride that train too far. Nobody can who's got an election to win.
So the hard times talk he's confining himself to right now is working class and middle class hard times talk. And that's how it goes, because this kind of poverty, being out of work because times are bad calls to mind the Great Depression and the Greatest Generation and that's all right. There are semi-heroic myths attached there. So Obama's safe with that kind of talk.
But he really can't scare off the working and middle classes with talk of the people who have it even worse. Truth is, they don't really like the people who have it worse -- for chrissakes some of them still resent LBJ for trying to help the abjectly poor. Because the working and lower middle classes still do believe in the Welfare Queen myth and they think social programs take away from them. It's a large part of why they go Republican so much of the time and vote against themselves. Because they feel that's better than giving away what they think is being taken from them to the other.
It's all actually a bit strange, because there is of course a great deal of poverty among non-urban whites, the people you find in rural and shuttered ex-industrial upstate NY towns as well as Southern Appalachia, and Jim Webb tried to speak to these people's problems, and I think Obama knows who these people are too. Very much so.
But their white brothers and sisters don't seem to care much about even these people, don't want to hear much about them either -- albeit they don't find white trailer park poverty as threatening as the urban black variety.
It's a tough problem. Charity not only seems to begin at home in America. It stays there.
August 25, 2008 12:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, they do. One of the things about Clinton was that he got that. Remember the hoohah about Hillary Clinton saying that as far as Reagan democrats were concerned Bill should just "fuck 'em," forget about them, not try for their vote.
Bill knew better. He was one of them, and understood that quite of a bit of the advances made for the abject poor was paid for directly from the backs of the working and lower middle class.
I'm hoping Obama gets that too. We can't win without them.
August 25, 2008 9:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well said.
August 25, 2008 10:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, I would too. And I'd like to see him retrace the Kennedy bus tour of Appalachia thereby force the damn press to see it too.
August 24, 2008 7:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm on-board with that one NCSteve - was writing the same thing as you spoke. How about we jam for an ON The Bus Tour, rather than the "Under The Bus" shite the MSM seems so taken with.
August 24, 2008 7:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why Appalachia? those people are lazy and shiftless.
Why not South Texas How about an Indian reservation in Arizona. Have you been to the Navajo rez in Arizona?
August 25, 2008 3:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
BG: This is a really good post! where did you see that "kids with sores and a diarrhea-riddled kitten" story? Was it an actual fact or a composite of what Obama might have encountered as an organizer? It'd be a really cool link if it's real!
To your point: I think that Obama needs to address poverty, but I think he needs to do it in a way that connects with a variety of demographics. Based on his life's experience, I think he needs to paint with broader strokes than you advise. It seems poverty manifests itself differently depending on the regional issues and demographics. Obama's experience was focused on the specific problems in the Chicago area where poverty disproportinately affects black Americans.
If he delves too deeply into specific anecdotes from Chicago, it could very well create a potential contrast when he clearly has no connection or experience with places like ... ummm, say ... the meth-riddled Trailer Estates of Las Vegas and even more blighted trailer/hotel "communities" sharing the area around Nellis Air Force Base. Then there's Appalachian poverty, ailing industrial poverty, etc. each with their own demographics and causal factors (all with the overarching problem of GOP mismanagement).
With all the racial BS, it would suck to establish the implication: "Obama knows 'black' poverty well, but what about the rest of us?" It's a BS frame to be sure, but BS sells just fine. Keeping general on poverty avoids making the poverty issue an opening to paint Obama as the "other".
If Obama manages to convince America that he is a leader for the broader "American Family", he wins. If the GOP can convince voters Obama cares for a specific sub-group more than others(ethnic or religious), it gives McCain a shot.
August 25, 2008 7:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd guess that just like 2004 anyone who wants to talk about poverty is going to be locked in a closet until after the Denver convention for fear the dreaded "l" word might be spoken aloud.
August 24, 2008 7:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not locked in a closet. They'll just lose. Notice how Edwards fared in the primaries.
And I don't think JFK's Appalachian campaign was in any way one that was meant to expose the poverty of the region. He went down to win the region over and get their votes, though he no doubt learned a lot in the process.
But it really was LBJ who had a fire in his belly when it came to the poor. And it's one of the reasons the Democratic brand started on its way out after him.
When it comes to poverty, compared to LBJ even Edwards is a poseur.
August 25, 2008 12:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Senator Obama is not one of those Peggy Noonan "Thousand Points Of Light" bullshiters like the Republicans are. He has walked the talk, and he has worked to empower the inner city underclass. He belives it is better to teach them how fish in the Political decision makers ponds.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/obama/1123167,CST-NWS-org24.article#
Excerpt:(Use link to read more about how he organized and tutored the downtrodden in how to get results.)
"But some of the residents Obama worked with on the Far South Side remember Obama motivating and empowering them.
“He took a busload of us parents down to Springfield to lobby for school reform,” said Loretta Augustine-Herron, a board member who voted to hire Obama for his $10,000-a-year post. “We had a bunch of nay-sayers on the bus, saying ‘We’re going down here for nothing -- they’re not going to listen to us.’ On the trip down, he trained all of these people to lobby, what to do, what to expect, what to say.”
The school reform legislation that created Local School Councils of parents, teachers and neighbors with the power to hire and fire principals became a national model for local control of public education.
“We hit the halls,” Augustine-Herron said. “We had our hit list of people we needed to see. They started coming out. We started telling them what we needed what we wanted. You can’t imagine the empowerment in this whole thing. By the time we finished, everybody was just totally up, believing in themselves believing we can and did make a difference. On the way home it was like a different group of people. They went down skeptics and came back believers.”"
August 24, 2008 7:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
That was a great story and I'm so glad to hear about nuts and bolts that Obama has done. I'd like more of this out there.
August 25, 2008 11:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Edwards had both Hillary and Obama commit to an election poverty tour before making his endorsement, so I'm sure we'll be seeing him talk about these issues anytime now.
August 24, 2008 7:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey Dij. Had forgotten about the Edwards (he-whose-name-must-no-longer-be-spoken) commitment... which might now cause some additional difficulties, eh?
August 24, 2008 7:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Quinn! Welcome back to my 2nd favorite Canuck. Right behind Bryan Adams :) You've been missed!
August 24, 2008 7:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
We traded Adams to Britain a few years back - for Elvis Costello (and a couple of bronze medals.) Which would now make me... your #1 favourite resident of Canuckistan! Yes! Asstastic!
August 24, 2008 8:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Careful, we'll send your ass off to Assia, either Assyria or Madrass.
August 25, 2008 2:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Tongue in cheek alert for you sensitive types:
Didn't Senator Obama already kick off his poverty tour by asking for donations for the Senator Clinton campaign debts!
August 24, 2008 7:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Her e-mails are beginning to really irritate me. I mean unless she has Warren Buffet and Bill Gates on her e-mail list, almost everyone she's begging from has a net worth a lot lower than her own.
August 24, 2008 7:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
1st Note to Self: Idea for raising net worth - ASK FOR MONEY!
2nd Note to Self: More money boosts credibility & frees up time.
3rd Note to Self: Translate time/$/credibility into political career!
Me in 2012!
August 24, 2008 9:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
I like the new, kinder, gentler liam...
August 24, 2008 9:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't see how Obama gives a sh*t about the abject poverty and BANKRUPT Americans when he chose as his "pitbull" running mate one of the most faithful lapdogs of the Banks and Credit Card companies, Joe D-Mastercard Biden.
Don't try to explain this away, if it were McCain doing the same, choosing Biden as his VP, we would be holding his feet to the fire.
I'm happy that we're getting an Afreican-American candidate but he's no John Conyers.
August 24, 2008 10:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
You need to take a deep breath and relax. You have been ranting heavy duty in multiple threads for over 12 hours. Go have a beer.
August 24, 2008 10:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Why don't you or anyone give me a good answer instead of asking me to go away????
Perhaps if you don't have an anbswer, then DON'T ANSWER?
August 24, 2008 10:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are a very needy person. You ask nonsensical rhetorical questions then stomp your feet when no one knows how to respond because responding to such ridiculous loaded questions electronically is a waste of time. OK, you don't like Obama and you don't like Biden. There are other choices. We don't have to feed your unending need for self gratification and your desire to prove how self righteous you are. I have an idea for you, run for office.
August 24, 2008 10:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
There's nothing rhetorical about this question, it is sincere. Unless of course you already concede the debate. This thread is about poverty, and many, many Americans, especially those squeezed by the sub-prime meltdown and inability to refinance loans, raging inflation and plagued by the calls of debt collectors, they're going to ask this very question.
I presume none of us here are facing such pressures or we won't be blogging.
And no, explaining that the Banks are incorporated in Delaware does not make this a principled answer, it means that biden is beholden to the interests he represents over the interests of the average American. That's not acceptable when Republicans do it, then how is it that we can swallow this and cheer our candidates on? Are we so utterly lacking in principles ourselves?
August 24, 2008 10:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yep, more Non-Answers and Insults from you. Good luck SELLING this "You're needy idiots for having the gall to ask our Dear Leader such a question" to the millions of Americans out there and no doubt the Media.
August 24, 2008 10:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd guess the poverty issue is now officially bypassed for the "can handle invasion calls at 3am" issue, now that Russia's in Georgia. We're into the sprint to the generals now - Axelrod is focused firmly on the independents and undecideds, not on traditional in-the-pocket Democrats. That's why he can't talk to Hillary fans as well - any policy offers meaningful to them would only shift him back to the left, and right now he's trying to show he's not a liberal.
August 25, 2008 2:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Interesting. I read a couple of things lately I'm still trying to get my head around. The first was speculation that the convention was going to be aimed at blue-collar Democrats. The second was that the Obama nomination signaled a turn of the Party to the left, or back to the activist government tradition of Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson and away from the lesser government of Bill Clinton. What interests me about that is I thought Hillary Clinton would have been the "big government" President, not Obama.
August 25, 2008 8:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Is there an example of a successful campaign run on the basis of helping the other guy instead of appealing ot the voter's self-interest?
This was Bill Clinotn's major political innovation to get the Democrats to stop talking like the purpose of government was to help those few at the bottom, who are clearly not the folks who are voting, and make the great broad middle class the intended beneficiaries of government action.
August 25, 2008 3:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I hear your complaint about the credit-card legislation. Most of those companies are based in...Delaware. That state is soooo reliant on the jobs and tax income from those companies. If Biden didn't represent their interests, he'd be the former senator from Delaware.
I realize the likely answer to this will be "it's not in Americans' best interests." What I'd say is that the chyron reads, "Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE)", *not* "Sen. Joe Biden (D-USA)."
If your argument is that Biden should've voted against the Bankruptcy Act, even though it would have likely meant the end of his Senate career, I'd have to say that's an overly idealistic point of view - and I'd wager you couldn't find a non-retiring senator who would vote so starkly against his constituents' interests.
Finally, I don't see Biden doing a whole lot of economic policy advising. The VP, in the end, doesn't usually have as much direct policy influence as the top advisors do. (Cheney is a glaring exception, but he does what he does because Bush is a puppet.)
August 25, 2008 7:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Chrono--he's jealous of your youth and your wisdom.He's a crotchedy old fart. Ignore him. He gets off on getting people angry. Cheap thrills for the old codger. Ever see the old pedophile on Family Guy?
August 24, 2008 10:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
I can see a trend here, instead of giving a good reply, resort to name-calling - "pedophile", now that's classy.
August 24, 2008 10:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, the blogger lowers the bar with nasty attacks against certain people he doesn't like--e.g., Chrono. So, that's classy? No, it's not. Fight fire with fire. What good reply have you given to anything? You are a flame thrower and a Ron Paul supporter. Why are you even here if you support Ron Paul? This is a progressive site. I am sure there are other places where you will feel that people are answering you "appropriately."
August 24, 2008 10:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
"I have shoes that are older than you" is pretty classy, it's probably true too. "Pedophile"? That's inexplicable as there are YOUNG pedophiles and in the end, that's kinda low.
August 24, 2008 10:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am turning to Ron Paul after seeing how morally bankrupt this "Hope and Change Washington" movement has become.
August 24, 2008 10:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
How is ASKING a very simple question, how do you square the Bankruptcy Act with addressing the problems of Poverty in America, Flaming???
August 24, 2008 10:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Oh yeah. Ron Paul and his total conservatism. He'll really do a great deal for the poor.
August 25, 2008 1:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
One of Ron Paul's platform is to abolish the Fed altogether. That would immediately make everyone wealthier because it would stop the flooding of worthless paper money and put a roof on inflation.
Some 99.99% of Americans do not know that the Fed is a PRIVATE Banking Entity, i.e., it is not a Federal entity, it does not belong to the government. Read "The Creature From Jekyll Island" - in effect, inflation is a monetary policy, the Fed loans out $trillions to the US government and its Wall St cronies, this makes a lot of people very, very rich, those guys right there at the top spending and laundering this money, which trickles down into the market as horrifying inflation which we, savers and wage earners, see as escalating prices, and our dollars are whittled to NOTHING.
The price of oil was $28 in 2000. It is now $115-$150 or almost 4 to 5 times what it cost then. This translates to 4 or 5 times more paper dollars pumped out by the Fed. And we're all sold a bill of goods, the media faithfully reporting that inflation is caused by increasing demand from emerging nations, etc. all bull....the global population has not increased 5 times within the past 8 years.
You and I pay an invisible tax far, far beyond our wildest imagination. This tax is called "inflation", and is caused by the insane pumping out of money so a very privileged top elite get to spend them before they flood the economy and we find our dollars are worth less and less because there's so much paper dollars chasing the same finite amount of goods.
August 25, 2008 9:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
I wish Ron Paul's supporters would devote half the energy they expend reading his books and other libertarian theory to reading history and governmental philosophy from a second point of view.
August 25, 2008 5:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Billy, what do you want to hear from McCain? Just curious.
August 24, 2008 10:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
You should have asked that question before you revealed the fact that you're a moron. There is just no way to spot the bar low enough for you to get over it. Just read the dialogue and keep your mouth shut. You're embarrassing yourself. I think my attitude toward McCain is clear to everyone here except you.
August 24, 2008 10:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Geez, you really scare me. Answer the question. What do you want to hear from McCain? You are playing the game of "trap Obama." Some of us might be tired of that because people like you will help elect McCain, and that will hurt people like me. It probably makes no difference to you who wins because you will be ok no matter what. It's just a game, right, not life or death, mortgage or no mortgage? I've been called worse than a moron, that doesn't bother me. You are consistently arrogant. You bully people, I've seen that over and over. Does that make you feel like a good person? What if I told you I had no college education, that I am a veteran, that I work two jobs? That I have a son in Iraq. Does that change how you talk down to me, you who pretends to care about poverty and important issues? Do you really think you know more than all of us? Not everyone on these blogs is as smart and educated and precious as you are. Some of are real people, and this election is not some mind game being played for your amusement.
August 24, 2008 11:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Out here, you're who you say you are, so I'll take your word for it. What I'd tell you is I've known people like you all my life. You don't listen to what people are saying and you've got a chip on your shoulder. "Trap Obama?" You just want to fight. ChronoSpark gives as good as he gets. He doesn't need your help and I don't need your insults.
August 24, 2008 11:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
And it's as if Americans are too stupid to know that Biden was the architect behind the widows-and-orphans Bankruptcy Act and what it means.
Goddamn it, I want an answer, how is this Hope and Change? Or have we changed our "sales pitch"?
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0312-03.htm
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jackson-williams/joe-biden-true-friend-of_b_120776.html
''Disadvantaged groups in our society disproportionately find themselves in bankruptcy courts as a result of economic discrimination in its many forms,'' said the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR) in an e-mail urging members nationwide to lobby their Representatives to reject the bill.
According to LCCR, divorced women are 300 percent more likely than single or married women to find themselves in bankruptcy court because of the combined effects of lower wages, reduced access to health insurance, and the financial strain of rearing children alone.
''The proposed bill would harm hundreds of thousands of women and children who are owed child support or alimony by forcing them to compete with credit card issuers and therefore making it less likely that support payments will be made to those in need,'' the group said.
African American and Latino home owners are 500 percent more likely than white homeowners to find themselves in bankruptcy court, it added, largely due to discrimination in home mortgage lending and housing purchases and to inequalities in hiring opportunities, wages, and health insurance coverage.
According to a recent Harvard study, around half of all personal bankruptcies are the result of illness or medical bills.
August 24, 2008 10:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
This election is about Obama. Who he picks as a VP is really irrelevant. I know you think it sends a signal, says something about his values, but others would say the signals are mixed. I think Obama knows some things about what's going on in America that McCain really doesn't get. It's a class thing maybe. Right now, McCain has the advantage of being comfortable with his status as a member of a rich and powerful class. Obama has to find a way to make who he is relevant, so that he can be himself.
August 24, 2008 11:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
What do you base this on, Billy? The Obama part, I mean.
August 25, 2008 10:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, as eastside93 says about the Chicago South Side downthread,
"Having spent a lot of time on Chicago's South Side, I can say that Obama saw plenty of abject poverty there, especially in some of the worst places like Cabrini-Green and the Robert Taylors. It's not like he had to go hunting for impoverished people."
I just figure he has to have seen something that made an impression.
August 25, 2008 11:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Uh-oh. Billy's drinking the Kool-Aid.
He registered people to vote, Billy. He helped people get some asbestos cleaned up. That's it. That's all I can find out about his work on the South Side. He worked through other organizations who did the actual hands-on work.
I bet I've seen more on the South Side than he has. I'm serious.
August 25, 2008 11:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Oh, you some kinda Panka person. Next you'll be telling me Obama's mama got those food stamps when she was a student! Panka, Panka, Panka!
Seriously. He had to have seen something. You can't even ride a bus or subway without seeing something. I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one. He just can't figure out how to talk about it without risk.
I remember screaming at Hillary. Tell us what you see! And she would go out and say: I see you. But she never told me what it was she saw, and then she did the working ads and her campaign started to jell.
Obama will never be at ease around money and power the way McCain is. He'll constantly be trying to justify his existence.
If they had tried to get a shot of Bobby in front of the multitudes, they would have had to get down on the ground with him to do it. On the go. Walking. Coat slung over his shoulder. Looking into that kid's eyes.
August 25, 2008 1:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yep. That nails it - Bobby, Obama & Hillary. Precisely.
But Obama has one other chapter in his experience, one tough to reference directly, but - after which - there is NO way he wouldn't have not just seen, but looked for, and FELT, in Chicago. Namely Jakarta, from age 6-10. I've spent time in that world, and - certainly back then - you couldn't walk or breathe without seeing missing limbs, rotting bodies, hunger, stench & death. Forget the fact that his step-father worked for a big company, Jakarta is just one fucking BEAST of a city, and poverty is not kept hidden in one dark corner. But seeing that, not for a month or 6 mos, but living beside/around it for years, may have contributed to the sort of "cool" stance he appears to carry toward it today. You come to deeply hate the suffering, want to change it - but you HAVE to walk through it, laugh with people, and NOT work yourself into a daily rage or tears over it. i.e. You get over the shock/repulsion/rage that most of us feel when we first hit it. His mother's later direction of work also points in this direction - mentally tougher & more constructive than tears of rage, but often appearing more stand-offish. Now... if he can find a way to tap those experiences, that feeling, and translate this over to American life, he could tell a powerful tale.
August 25, 2008 1:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, Quinn - Jakarta city of death? 1965? Sure, some hunger, maybe some death, city of 4 million, but you think Obama had to be confronted by stinking death every day? I don't take this for a certainty by any means. His father was an oil manager, his mother taught English at the embassy, things weren't that bad.
August 25, 2008 1:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry Des, spades is spades. Jakarta city of death? Oh fuck yeah. I grew up in a North American area with the worst sort of Appalachian poverty - dirt floors, outhouses, enormous incest problems, bootleggers, guns, bad teeth, jail & prison for classmates (all but 2 of the boys from my Grade 3 class made that trip) - the whole oft-caricatured 9 yards. But Indonesia, Malaysia, that whole place, in the 60's & 70's? It was a world beyond - and believe me, my friends & I found NO way to avoid it. And we TRIED. A lot. People missing limbs or with rotting limbs, people not just missing teeth but with teeth growing out of the wrong parts of their faces, open sewers & sore-covered dogs roaming all around you, beggars everywhere and in bad BAD shape, nasty people with guns swaggering around, tiny ancient scrawny guys driving rickshaws to earn enough for food, swollen bellies. And you just could NOT avoid it. It wasn't even like South Africa, or other "developing world" places, which often seemed to cordon off this stuff. So ok, maybe it wasn't all day everyday. But let's be fair. Imagine you're a KID. You know how kids see. And you see this maybe once a week, even just in a market or on a drive or in the country, but repeatedly, for years... and there's just NO way you don't "get it." what you DO with it is another question. Hell, I donno, maybe Obama couldn't give a shit about 'em anymore, or blanked it all out. But I suspect not. It's in him somewhere. I'd just like to hear it, see it, come out, something about that world of the poor that really walloped him.
August 25, 2008 2:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
But Obama isn't running for president of Indonesia.