Maybe I'm feeling bitter today, but I wonder what will be said and done when President Obama meets with the Boy Scouts this afternoon to hear their State of the Nation annual report.  Will he have the guts to refuse the honorary presidency of their organization?  Will he suggest that government funding of BSA end if they don't make some changes (None of the funding is explicit, but it's there, in the use of government facilities for free or nominal charge, the military's support BSA, and so on.)  Will he even mention the way in which BSA systematically discriminates against homosexuals and non-religious people? 

Of course he won't.  He'll do nothing, have some happy pictures with cleancut young kids, and go on his merry way.  Blah.

I'm glad that I have daughters.  Go GSA!

I've never been able to understand the level of US support for Israel.  Can anyone give me a decent reason why our government does so so unquestioningly?  What possible consequence can rational criticism of the clearly flawed behaviors of a tiny country have on one of the most powerful nations on the planet?

I'm not talking about historical support, the nation's founding.  That makes sense.  The Holocaust was awful and a whole lot of Jewish people wanted a new place to live other than central and eastern Europe, and honestly, much of the world wasn't particularly keen on a lot of Jewish immigrants.  The Zionist movement got them installed in the Middle East and thus was born modern Israel.

I know that Jewish people in the US make up a significant constituency in Florida and a few other states, and I'm also aware of a small group of religious fundamentalists who want Israel to rise again so that the end of the world can come.  Beyond these groups, I can't figure out why we've hitched our train to Israel so securely.  In spite of Israel's actions, we have far better relations with them than a country like France, who did nothing more than say, "Hey, I don't think it's such a good idea to go attacking Iraq."  It just doesn't make sense to me.

I'll use a parallel situation as comparison.  100 years in the future, the US government has been toppled after joining the losing side of a major war.  The Lenni-Lenape natives, spread across North America by past aggression from foreign governments, band together and push to be returned to their historical homeland.  Through political pressure, and because nobody really wanted them around, they were granted their wish and were installed in New Jersey.  Once the Lenni-Lenape nation is founded, its government (strongly supported, financially and militarily, by foreign powers) crushes the resident population, takes their possessions, and forces them into camps.  If you lived in Trenton and this happened to you, can you not imagine fighting back?  Moreover, if you were the foreign power that had helped create the Lenni-Lenape nation, would you continue supporting them?  Following this, a series of border disputes and quick wars creates a nation despised by its neighbors (rightly or otherwise) that becomes more and more insular and dependant on foreign aid (particularly military aid.)  Small groups of militants from Atlantic City begin blowing up Lenni-Lenape buses and in response, the government bulldozes neighborhoods.  The problem goes on and on and on, with no clear resolution in sight.  Aggression, begetting aggression, begetting aggression.  Why would anyone continue to support the Lenni-Lenape without question?

I live in Indiana, and I'm cautiously optimistic about the chance of the state going blue this election.  I have some concerns, however, regarding an early resounding victory for Obama.  My worry is that down ticket items like Prop 8 in California the congressional races will not receive the vote that they might have in the West because people won't bother to vote once Obama wins. 

If you knew that your candidate had already won (barring some massively unlikely turn of events where California goes red or something similar), would you wait in a three or four hour line?  Perhaps, but you are also reading political blogs.  Would your neighbor?  Would the mom with two little kids to take care of?  I know that Republicans are pushing people to vote in spite of their almost sure defeat in the presidential election, and that they would know that their fight was lost just as early as we'd know ours was won, but those long lines somehow seem to happen in the liberal areas more often than the conservative.

I want Obama to win convincingly, by a large margin both in the popular vote and the electoral, and again, I'd love to see Indiana go blue, but I also want both houses of Congress to go strongly for the Dems, and Prop 8 makes me sick to my stomach.  I guess I'm left with hoping that the enthusiasm I have seen here sustains itself across the country and that Obama's supporters feel a need to help him win resoundingly across the country. 

I live in a relatively well-off section of Ft. Wayne, IN.  It's certainly urban, but it's not a place that has seen much in the way of Obama activity.  The signs are here, but badly outnumbered...  I was heartened when I got to the poll this morning at 6:02.  There was already a line of about 40 people, many talking happily about voting and slipping in last minute Obama/Long-Thompson (IN Dem governor candidate) references.  There were a lot of folks wearing blue shirts too, and only a few red (Yes, people wear blue shirts more than red in general, but let me be happy about it!)  It was a wonderful thing to see, and gives me a lot of confidence regarding the state.  I don't know if it will actually go Obama's way, but the possibility is heartening.

By the time I got out of the precinct 45 minutes later (only 3 voting machines) the line was at least twice as long, still largely populated by blue shirters.

Following an Obama rally in Sunrise, FL, a reporter asked a woman named Peggy Joseph about her experience.  Twenty six seconds of the interview are shown here, and I've been unable to locate any more.  The final ten seconds or so are what the right is making hay over.  [I was going to link to a blog or two with the video instead of YouTube, but I won't play party to giving the scum involved a few cents worth of advertising revenue for the hits they might get as a result.  If you really want to know what their specific 'arguments' are, just google Peggy Joseph and you'll find plenty in a hurry...]

 

Reporter: Peggy Joseph took her daughter out of school early Wednesday for this; her emotions ran high following Obama's speech.

 

Peggy Joseph: It was the most ... memorable time of my life.  I, I was ... It was a touching moment.

 

Reporter: Why?

 

Peggy Joseph: Because, I never thought this day would ever happen.  I won't have to worry about putting gas in my car; I won't have to worry about paying my mortgage.  You know, if I, if I help him, he's gonna help me.

Across the Internet, conservative bloggers are labeling her Obama's 'Joe the Plumber.'  The argument generally goes as you would expect: She is an ignorant Black woman with no job who genuinely believes that Obama is going to hike taxes and write checks to poor people, or with the added twist that she is currently employed and intends to quit her job to go on Obama's upcoming super-welfare (she does have a mortgage after all, so she must have had a job at some point, right?)  It's the standard welfare queen argument that has become a cornerstone of the 2008 Republican campaign in the guise of 'socialism.'  The argument is absurd and loathsome to put it simply.  It is no more valid than the idea that the Republican party is peopled entirely by religious extremists and decrepit old White guys who roll around on piles of money earned through the sweat of their underlings. 

Are there completely moronic people who honestly believe that Obama is going to just write everyone a check?  Of course.  Are there loonies on the other side who want to actually kill Obama because he's a Muslim, terrorist, socialist, etc?  Of course.  Consider instead the possibility that Peggy Joseph is not an idiot, that she is not a welfare queen transported to the year 2008, and might just be a responsible citizen who was quoted out of context, or at least without any followup whatsoever.  I've got to say, I agree with everything she said in the last few seconds.  Here is my argument for her statement making sense.

I am glad that Barack Obama is going to win because I won't have to worry about putting gas in my car or paying my bills.  My lack of worry is NOT because I think he's going to pay me directly.  It is because I won't have to worry about losing my job (or perhaps in Peggy's case she doesn't currently have one and thinks it would be easier for her to find employment.)  If John McCain wins, I do not think that he will handle the current economic situation well.  He will continue the destructive economic policies that have driven the worlds' economies to their knees.  He will dramatically increase the likelihood that Peggy and I will lose our jobs, and once lost, they will be much harder to replace and will pay less.  If I help Barack Obama with my vote, he will help me with improved economic security.

In case you're curious about my employment status, I'm a gainfully employed professional and, with a short break to take care of my daughter when she was an infant, have been since I was old enough to have a job.