As the crowd received McCain's gracious concession speech and booed the mere mention of Obama, I wondered if such a thing happened with previous concession speeches.  I was able to locate video of George Bush's 1992 concession and John Kerry's in 2004.  Neither speech was accompanied by boos when the loser mentioned his opponent.  The boos last night I think said a lot about the McCain supporters and the nature of his overall campaign, in spite of the excellent speech he gave last night.

Anyone have access to other concession speeches to look for the same thing?  Comments welcome.

As the crowd received McCain's gracious concession speech and booed the mere mention of Obama, I wondered if such a thing happened with previous concession speeches.  I was able to locate video of George Bush's 1992 concession and John Kerry's in 2004.  Neither speech was accompanied by boos when the loser mentioned his opponent.  The boos last night I think said a lot about the McCain supporters and the nature of his overall campaign, in spite of the excellent speech he gave last night.

Anyone have access to other concession speeches to look for the same thing?  Comments welcome.

I wrote a few days ago that the United States is quite contemptuous of real democracy, as evidenced by its reaction to the most recent troubles in ramming through a status of forces agreement in Iraq.  Well, now the United States is engaging in behavior tantamount to political blackmail.  A long list of services being provided or supported by the United States has been submitted to the Iraqi government as in being in danger of discontinuation if the status agreement is not reached. 

Some might call this political positioning or tit-for-tat.  But the reality of the matter is much different.  That the U.S. invasion was a war-crime under the U.N. Charter and the Nuremberg Doctrine seems to be sidestepped by the mainstream press and, of course, American politicians from McCain and Obama on down.  What should justly accompany such a crime are not only punitive measures against the perpetrators but also massive reparations paid to the victims. 

The victims in this case are of course the Iraqi people.  Independent of any status of forces agreement should be clear recognition that the United States owes the Iraqi people much more than it has given, starting with a real democracy.  The border protection, the schools, the infrastructure, all the services the US military is threatening to take away if an agreement is not reached, are all at their base what should be considered the starting point for reparations so long as the Iraqi people, and not the US government, have control over their implementation.  To take them away at this point will simply yet another example of the United States not living up to its obligations under the UN Charter.

Holy shit!  Talk about spreading the wealth around.  Taking campaign donations from everyday Americans and giving $23K to a make-up artist over a two-week period!  That's more than the annual salary of your average social worker, who, by the way, probably isn't giving McCain many donations!  I didn't think Palin was so ugly as to need that much work, unless the make-up artist can work on her insides too.

As the (WMD) pretext for the U.S. illegal invasion of Iraq faded into oblivion, the Bush Administration resorted to the common refrain of invoking the desire to promote democracy in this troubled region.  The Iraqi elections held in 2005 were trumpeted by W. and his legions has irrefutable evidence that American aims toward democracy in Iraq were genuine and for all intents and purposes working.  They warned us, of course, that this fledgling republic would take some time to develop and that democracy is not always easy.  Nonetheless, democracy was indeed taking root and the American people should be proud of this primary result of the supreme American crime of aggression.

Of course, if American history is any guide, democracy promotion only goes as far as the new regime's willingness to cooperate with and adhere to U.S. demands.  Disobedience has long been the greatest sin among U.S. clients.  In other words, let the people decide so long as they decide the correct way.  This has been America's preffered style of democracy throughout the world.  Iraq is no exception.

But that democracy in Iraq is failing and perhaps real self-determination is sprouting, much to the dismay of the Bush Administration.  The latest news concerning the US-Iraqi Status of Forces agreement seems to indicate that the Bush Administration's initial plans for a permanent military presence in Iraq are being undermined by the will of the Iraqi government and by extension the Iraqi people.  Bush has long insisted that a fair reward for our 'rescuing' the Iraqi people from tyranny is a permanent U.S. military and economic presence in Iraq.  But the latest agreement to come out of negotiations, even with watered-down U.S. demands and concessions, doesn't seem like it will go too far due to Shiite opposition. 

The Iraqi people have long wanted the United States out of Iraq.  Reliable polls taken since the fall of Hussein have clearly indicated as much.  And the Iraqi government's overall positions seems to reflect that opposition to the American presence.  That's not what the Bush Administration was hoping for.  The U.S. is used to getting what it wants when it intervenes in the affairs of another state.  As time goes on and a new administration enters the White House, it will be interesting to see if total withdrawal, military and economic, is what truly happens if the Iraqi people wish it to be.  Or, will a new (real or imagines) pretext for continued American intervention in the affairs of that soveriegn state surface? 

If we actually listen to the Iraqi government and people, giving up all rights of intervention and presence in Iraq while the country goes on its own self-chosen course, it would be a first for the United States.  And the preferred style of "democracy" will have been overthrown by a legitimate attempt at self-government.  Will we let that happen?  One can only wait and see.  But I hope so.  It's their country, and has been since before the invasion. 

Read this article, tell people, and be vigilant.  This isn't ACORN.  It's real and dangerous.  A repeat of 2004. 

With two weeks to go in this election, things are looking pretty good for Barack Obama.  He's up in the states that matter and is on the verge of winning some states that haven't voted Democrat in a presidential election in decades.  He has done well to warn his operatives and supporters not to coast to the finish line.  The last thing he wants anyone to do is become complacent.  That can hand the election to John McCain.  But all things remaining the same from here on, all signs point to an Obama win.  Thank your god.

But as a Pennsylvanian, as an American, I worry about racism.  The Bradley effect, as it is called, is still a very real possibility in states that have a long history of clandestine racism, that is, the kind of racial antipathy that looms beneath the surface and manifests itself in more hidden, more seemingly innocuous ways.  When many think of racism the first thought often turns to slavery in the South, Jim Crow in the South.  After all, those were the most obvious examples of this great scourge because they were always so apparent and in-your-face.  But historically many regions outside the American South have been no less racist in mind and in deed.  And because that racism has to the casual observer seemed more subtle, it has often been more dangerous.

I come from one of those "secretly" racist states.  Yes, Pennsylvania has a long history of anti-racism, from the birth of the movement for abolition among Quakers after the American Revolution to the fiery Radical Republican Thaddeus Stevens, who, in the 1860s, fought hard to help redefine the meaning of American freedom and to accord African Americans full citizenship and civil rights.  That history, however, is overshadowed by the fact that southcentral PA has the largest concentration of hate groups in the nation.  Pennsylvania, according to sociologist James Loewen, has the largest number of suspected "sundown towns" in the nation, more than the over 400 confirmed such towns in Illinois. 

(Sundown towns are communities outside the traditional South that between the years 1880 and 1920 used numerous pretexts to justify the expulsion of their African American citizens.  Black Americans were not permitted in these towns after sundown.  Many of these communities still have few if any African Americans living within their town limits.)

Many of you watched the video clip of Palin supporters in Johnstown, PA posted here at TPM.  That's just the tip of the iceberg here in Pennsylvania, in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and elsewhere.  I currently reside in southcentral PA where the communities west of Harrisburg, on the West Shore of the Susquehanna, are commonly referred to as being located on the "white shore."  My father, who has done some consulting work for a local union in western PA, relates that even though the union itself has endorsed Obama every person - and these are decent people too - he has talked to in that union has said openly that they simply cannot bring themselves to vote for a black man.  His neighbors have expressed the same sentiment.  Governor Rendell attested to the same phenomonon during the primary season, as did Congressman Jack Murtha just last week.  Many of these people would get upset if they were called racist, but nonetheless harbor racist attitudes even if they're ashamed of the label.

When voters go into the voting booth, will the Bradley Effect come into play?  This is the unknown of this election.  Take race out of the equation and I am convinced Obama wins and wins big.  Add racism and I'm a little less sure but just as hopeful.  And if Obama loses, we can certainly look at voter registration purges and other real voter fraud going on throughout the country.  But it would be naive and a big mistake to assume race had nothing to do with it.  I pray that Obama is able to jump this last hurdle and land safely on the other side.  If he does, it will be one more small but significant step towards marginalizing the racists of this country. 

 

I've been paying attention to presidential elections since I was in eighth grade. There's a common refrain one hears every election cycle. We heard it in 2000 and again in 2004. We're hearing it again now in 2008:

This is the most important election we've had in years.

No doubt this is probably true. Elections such as this one can be quite important, especially when the country has been guided in such a terrible and dangerous direction as it has in the last seven years. The significance of this year's presidential election cannot be understated. The stakes are too great. The future is too important to simply cast this off as just another election between, in the words of Helen Keller, Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee.

Quite often we place many of our hopes and dreams into one individual. This year for many of us that individual is Barack Obama. Many of us also pray that President Obama will also be fortunate enough to have a strong Democratic majority in both houses of Congress. If this happens, the country's tragic economic, social, and political trajectory will hopefully be reversed.

But putting too much hope in one person (or a group of people) in government is our biggest mistake. There are too many things that we should have no reason to believe will change under an Obama presidency (see my previous post on that issue). We must remember that, in the words of Frederick Douglass, "If there is no struggle, there is no progress.... Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will...." Douglass was speaking about the abolition of the vile institution of slavery in the United States. His argument has been echoed by participants and leaders of radical movements throughout history: The demand for change must come from the people through constant and vigilant struggle.

Voting is not what has made the greatest positive impact on the daily lives of Americans. It has not been the government or its leading officials taking the reins of leadership and directing the country toward a better, more humane course.

No, it has been the people, the very heart and soul and morale voice of the nation. Slavery was abolished not because Abraham Lincoln all of a sudden saw the light but because of the tireless and unpopular struggle of black and white abolitionists and the slaves themselves urging and fighting for America to live up to its ideals. It was not FDR and the national government, in the grips of the Great Depression, who led the charge for the right of workers to unionize, for a minimum wage, for safer working conditions. It was the labor movement, the people who put their livelihood and lives at risk to obtain the most basic of human rights. It was not President Woodrow Wilson or any one political party that led the way in granting women the right to vote but instead the over 100-year struggle among women who engaged in protests, petition drives, and acts of civil disobedience to show that women were equal to men and that they deserved the most fundamental of political rights in America. And in the 1950s and 60s, the people's movements beginning with the Civil Rights Movement and leading to the movements for women's liberation, American Indian emancipation, Chicano rights, and the end to a brutal and illegal war that propelled the government into action.

Yes, let us vote and be proud to do it. Let us hope and pray that a president Barack Obama (or John McCain, if you're so inclined) can help usher in a significant of positive change and transformation in this nation. But let us not forget that the real, deep, impacting changes we seek must be borne in our own desire to make a better world for our children and must translate into patient but vigiliant action. But be sure, once we leave that voting booth, the president-elect and the rest of the government must be held accountable. The people must lead in the direction we want this country to go, not the other way around. Otherwise, we may as well not vote at all.

In my previous admittedly stream of consciousness post, I made a couple of misstatements I think important to correct.  First, I used the term "lacky" to describe the corporate relationship to the government.  I should have referred to the corporations as the government's master, not lacky.  Thanks to a reader for correcting me, though somewhat angrily.

A second reader pointed to my use of the word socialism.  Indeed, I only referred to socialism because it is the word "conservatives" often use when opposing "liberal" domestic programs like national health care (i.e. socialized medicine).  The reader reminded me that was is happening with the corporate bailout is not socialism, that there is another word for it.

Frankly, that word is fascism.  It's no secret that corporations are fascist entities themselves, where decisions are made by a select few that can affect millions of people who have no say in the matter.  But this government-corporate "partnership" (for lack of a better term) is the epitome of fascism.  As Mussolini and his partner Giovanni Gentile wrote in 1932,

We are, in other words, a state which controls all forces acting in nature. We control political forces, we control moral forces we control economic forces, therefore we are a full-blown Corporative state (emphasis added).

Decisions (and their tax dollars) are being taken out of the hands of the people and given to the corporate criminals who created this whole mess, no doubt something that will further enrich them if the proper safeguards and oversight are not imposed. 

We are on the precipice of something quite dangerous.  Which direction will our government go?  What will the people, the governed who give their consent, do about it?

(Please excuse the stream of consciousness approach to this post.  It's somewhat of an unorganized rant.  I apologize in advance.)

So-called "conservatives," the ones who dominate the Republican Party and have creeped their way into Democratic circles as well, have a habit of insisting that they are fiscally responsible and for full, free, and unfettered capitalism.  The market knows best, they say.  Let the market fix things.  Don't give aid to the poor, the unemployed, the down-trodden.  They are where they are by way of their own faulty decisions.  If they are to succeed, they should have to compete in the free market like everyone else.

Oh, if this conservative mantra only applied to their rich voting bloc, their corporate lackeys.  But it does not.  It never has.  It's free markets for the poor, but socialism for the rich.  And this banking crisis and the proposed bailout is but one more powerful example of this. 

What?  You want more money for education?  For jobs programs?  For clean water?  There is no money for those things, we are told.  We're mired in debt and can't afford to be spending like a 10-year-old whose just been given his allowance.    

But if a bank fails, if a corporation goes belly-up (for making preadolescent-like decisions), suddenly the heavens open and money comes pouring from the sky.  It's the same money it's always been: taxpayer money.  That money, the very wealth of America, is what gets redistributed on a daily basis.  (Psssst.  Don't say redistribution of wealth too loudly or you'll be labled a commie and that will be the end of the discussion.)  But this wealth doesn't usually get redistributed from the top down, anathema to any lover of so-called free markets, but rather the bottom up, which is precisely what is about to happen with these bank bailouts.  It's the same thing that happens with defense contracts and health research: Tax dollars get funneled in, profits go to a few.  Socialize the cost, privatize the gain.  Take $700 billion of taxpayer money to pour into the banking system so that their CEOs and higher ups can get rich again.

That's not free-market capitalism folks.  That's robbery.  Criminal.

So the next time a "conservative" extols the virtues of the free market, be sure (s)he's at least consistent.  What's good for the rich is good for the poor, or (not and) vice-versa.  

It's getting a bit tiresome listening to both presidential campaigns and their surrogates in the media tout experience as the paramount issue in this election.  Yes, one's experience in politics, in governing, in life shapes who a person is and how (s)he reacts to an array of situations.  Yes, there is no doubt that experience or the lack thereof can be the catalyst of a successful or failed presidency. 

But there is a greater truth: Experience alone does not a good leader and president make. 

To understand this fact all one needs to do is look at American history and our past presidents.  Many have been quite experienced in politics and international affairs upon running for office, while others left much to be desired in that arena.  For instance,

Experienced

Dwight Eisenhower
Richard Nixon
Martin Van Buren
Andrew Johnson
Abraham Lincoln
Theodore Roosevelt
Franklin Roosevelt
Warren G. Harding
Herbert Hoover
George H.W. Bush

Inexperienced

Bill Clinton (foreign affairs, anyway)
George W. Bush
Ulysses S. Grant
George Washington (as far as public office)
John F. Kennedy (in many ways)
Ronald Reagan (in many other ways)
Andrew Jackson
Woodrow Wilson

Say what you want about any of the above names.  Some were good presidents, some were bad.  Experience has brought us some of the worst policies in American history while inexperience has led to some of the best times the country has seen.  And of course, there can be arguments made about the above listed presidents to be placed in a different category depending on what issue we're talking about. 

So let's take the most recent, most glaring example.  The George W. Bush Administration is a fine representation of both experience and inexperience.  W himself had zero foreign policy experience and his tenure as governor of Texas, if you know anything about Texas politics and the role of the office of governor there, did little to prepare him for running the country.  So chalk this one up to inexperience.  But yet, Bush surrounded himself with some of the most experienced, seasoned political veterans with roots dating back to the Nixon and Ford Administrations.  The collective experience of those who counseled the president and no doubt crafted American domestic and foreign policy over the last 8 years can be considered unrivaled by any recent administration.  Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Armitage, Powell, Rice - all of them were active in the Ford Administration and many were part of both the Reagan and Bush I White House.

But if experience equals sound policy, then why have the last 8 years been such an abysmal failure?  Simple: The experience Cheney, Rumsfeld, and company have amassed over the last three decades has enabled them to create policies driven by economic and corporate greed, ideological madness, and attention to American aggrandizement regardless of the international and human consequences.  Is that the experience we want?

In the end, experience is but a small piece of the larger puzzle.  It's to what end that experience is used that is most important.  And frankly, if the last 8 years are any measure and experience is all that counts, please give me the least experienced candidate available.

To the Honorable Senator from Illinois Barack Obama:

For the first time since I turned 18 years old, I am excited about a presidential election.  For the first time I believe there really is hope that this nation can transcend and overcome the many ills that plague our society.  For the first time I am eager to see what our country will do to help change the world for the better.  For the first time since I have been able to vote, Mr. Obama, I have been inspired by a presidential candidate.

But I am also worried.  I am worried that this feeling of inspiration and hope will be as short-lived as the positive rhetoric of campaigns often are.   I fear that that once you enter the White House (and I pray you do) the realities of Washington politics will overtake you, that you will forget what brought you to the presidency.  I worry that negative special interests, powerful as they are, will find their way to your doorstep and convince you to abandon your most basic ideals in the name of political expediency.  And to be honest, I do fear that the many speeches you delivered during your campaign will not translate into real, committed action and that your inexperience in government will be as much of a vice as it was for John F. Kennedy, a man who meant well but gave in too readily to the forces of Washington.

And while these are certainly things that I fear, I am also afraid that you will ignore the many issues most other politicians ignore, thus showing no marked difference between you and your predecessors.  Please do not forget the millions upon millions of impoverished and working poor on whose backs the wealth of corporate America is amassed.  Remember to fight for a real minimum wage, a living wage, that allows poor Americans the ability to not only make ends meet but to secure a better future for themselves and their children.  Please do not ignore, like so many before you, the up to one million homeless Americans, many of them children, that wander the streets every night.   I beg you not to forget the economically and socially isolated people of Appalachia, whose lives for generations have been separated in many ways from the progress of America.

Please, Mr. Obama, do not reduce debate over America's education system to how our children, these young, vibrant human beings, can serve America's corporations.  They deserve better.  They deserve a quality education for its own sake and no other.  They have a need to be uplifted, to be empowered to make their own decisions in order to be not servants of the system but the pilots of their own destinies.  Mr. Obama, please remember the gross inequalities in America's schools that perpetually separate the haves and the have-nots and that has helped create a semi-permanent underclass in the supposed land of opportunity.  Please fight to end the segregation of America's schools and to ensure that all schools, regardless of where they are and who attends them, are funded equally and fairly in this supposed land of equality and justice.  And speaking of justice, I ask that you seriously reconsider the immoral and unfair practice legalized murder committed in the name of justice, the death penalty.

Mr. Obama, I beg that you radically alter as president America's approach to foreign policy in ways that would make all of your predecessors shutter.  This country has long trumpeted itself as being the upholder of democracy, the beacon of light for the rest of the world, while at the same time overthrowing democratically elected governments worldwide because it was in our economic interest to do so.  The United States has been the self-proclaimed supporter of human rights while committing or supporting massive atrocities, directly and indirectly, across the globe, from Nicaragua to Indonesia, from Israel to Cuba.   I pray that you understand that we cannot have it both ways.  Please help lead America toward realizing its ideals by withdrawing any support of regimes and policies that undermine the belief that all human beings have the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Do these things, Mr. Obama, and you will go down as the greatest president this country has ever known.  You will have done more for more people worldwide than any one president before you could have imagined.  And know that if you lead in this way, the fact that you will be the first African American president in American history will be a meaningless subscript.  You will have the real, deepest support of not only the majority of Americans but the majority of the world, something no president has ever been able to achieve.

One can only hope and pray that things will be different if a Democrat, whether Obama or Clinton, wins in the general election in November. I'm pretty sure that there are some things that will no doubt change for the better. After all, how could things get any worse than what we have had under Bush II?

If a Democrat wins, over the next four years we might get our Constitution back with a complete change or even repudiation of the USA Patriot Act and an end to secret, warrantless wiretapping and spying on American citizens in the name of security. I have no doubt that those ridiculous signing statements that President Bush has used to defy over 750 laws enacted since he took office will greatly diminish and the office of the President of the United States will no longer see itself as an independent branch of government not accountable to anyone but itself. President Obama or Clinton, I am sure, will open up and cooperate with Freedom of Information Act requests in ways consistent with the intent of the law rather than block access and impose more government secrecy as has been done over the last eight years. Further, a Democratic president probably will actually pay attention to the real phenomenon of global warming and pay heed to science in a way that logical and reasonable people should. Likewise, No Child Left Behind, the most ridiculous piece of education legislation to come out of any governmental body in American history, will more than likely be radically amended or entirely scrapped in favor of more useful and empirically-based reform that truly does put American children first. And I hope, no matter what Democrat wins, we will see a reversal of the massive deregulation campaign of the George W. Bush's administration in all areas, particularly concerning the environment and worker safety standards as well as the economy. We might even see a couple Supreme Court justices appointed to help move the High Court back towards the center, protecting Roe v. Wade and ensuring that the Court itself does its job at protecting the rights of all Americans.

Yes, these are the things of which I am almost certain will change at least in some part as a result of a Democratic victory in November.

Unfortunately, there are too many things that will simply not change due to historical forces, a lack of courage, corporate power, and the narrowness of what falls under the auspices of acceptable public discussion. Because of the history of the two political parties as well as the nation itself, I can say with near (and possibly cynical) certainty that more things will remain the same than will change, much to the peril of the world in which we live.

Under an Obama or Clinton administration, the United States will still lead the world in the incarceration of its own citizens. Today the United States has five percent of the world's population but 25 percent of the world's prison population. We will continue to execute innocent people in the name of justice and will sit with China and Iran as the top three murderers of its prisoners. The so-called War on Drugs will continue to be a failure due to the same short-sightedness that has filled our prisons. Millions of Americans will continue to live either below the (insanely low and outdated) poverty rate as set by the government or on the brink of falling below it. Millions more will continue to be classified as the working poor, not qualifying for public assistance and being forced to work two or even three $7/hour jobs. The gap between rich and poor will continue to increase as CEOs and high level corporate personnel refuse to pay their workers living wages while they themselves get million dollar bonuses. And our schools will continue to be at the highest level of segregation since 1968.

With an Obama or Clinton Adminstration, the world will still live in significant danger of a nuclear attack, most likely accidental. The United States will still be the world's leading trader of arms, as it has been for so many decades. We will still fight the so-called "War on Terror" primarily through the military, with an ever-constant willingness - sad as it might be - to impose our own terror on civilian populations in the name of fighting terror worldwide. Our support for Israel will be unwavering, no matter what they do, no matter what crimes they commit in the name of their rightful existence. (This does not excuse Palestinian crimes but rather holds Israel to the same principle we uphold for our enemies much more than we do for our friends.) We will still continue to outsource our interrogation to countries that torture, as this has been done by the CIA since its inception after World War II. And our world trade policies, the so-called free trade, will continue to dominate the IMF, World Bank, and WTO, causing millions upon millions of people throughout the world to live in abject poverty in favor of American corporations. Profit will still be the guiding force behind American intervention in the world.

So while I am quite hopeful that President Obama or Clinton will bring about some necessary changes in this country's policies, I have no reason to believe that the most necessary changes that affect the world the most, save climate change, will be implemented. Neither party has had the courage to do these things in the past. There is nothing that indicates anything different. I hope for all our sake that I am wrong.

Now that the Democratic Party's rules committee has given both Florida and Michigan half of their delegate votes at the convention, I can now comfortably say that Hillary Clinton has done a great job of trying to cheat her way to a win. Of course, she's going to lose, but she still cheated. She's insisted since February - when it became more apparent that she'd lose - that Florida and especially Michigan should count in full. Alas, that's not what she originally said or promised. And had she been far ahead of Obama by the end of February, I'm going to venture a guess and say she'd be mum on the whole issue.

Before any primaries were held, all the Democratic candidates, including Clinton, signed this letter stating that no candidate

shall not campaign or participate in any state which schedules a presidential election primary or caucus before Feb. 5, 2008, except for the states of Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina, as “campaigning” is defined by rules and regulations of the DNC.

Hillary Clinton indeed signed this document. I've seen it myself on MSNBC. For those who don't believe it, Clinton's own Web site still has her pledge posted in her press release section.

We believe Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina play a unique and special role in the nominating process.

And we believe the DNC’s rules and its calendar provide the necessary structure to respect and honor that role.

Thus, we will be signing the pledge to adhere to the DNC approved nominating calendar.

So basically what we have here is someone who promised not to campaign in a place where she campaigned and has been crying foul because the DNC hasn't been letting her get away with it - but now it kind of is. That's called cheating.