Individual Liberty—Progress—Humanity—Ethics—Rule of Law
"...if by a liberal they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people—their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, their civil liberties—if that is what they mean by a "liberal," then I am proud to be a liberal."
Our correspondent in NYC sent us this piece from The American Conservative, which in its own unquestioning way announces that the plans are being implemented up to the GO order from Bush for a limited (surgical) strike into Iran. What makes them think any strike will result in limited response? Do they care?!
And you thought it would happen in October!
You might consider buying an electric car as gasolne will be $10/gal within weeks of such an exploit.
Perhaps the oldest saw in the political handbook is that "all politics is local." It is true eternally in one sense, at least. We vote locally and the results of all our votes are tallied and given meaning locally. The Electoral College is the last vestige of "localism" nationally; it assures us that the so-called popular vote is discriminated into at least its states, where who knows what transpires between the flick of a lever or the punch of a chad.
Recently, I have become embroiled in local politics; you know: Sheriffs, County Recorders, County Attorneys, Superintendants of Schools, state legislative district Assembly and Senatorial candidates, and the like. Yesterday I met a Democratic candidate for the state Corporation Commission, a body almost owned lock, stock, and spreadsheet by the Republicans for decades, maybe centuries. Her name is Kara Kelty, so if you see that name on any ballot vote for her. She is about 40 years old and holds the same ideas espoused here about corporations, namely, that so-called free-market forces are fantasies and that corporations need regulations like infants need their diapers changed—often!
Just in case you missed this, the editors of the NYT this morning are calling for reevaluation of ethanol. The Iowans are going to croak, but that's better than millions starving instead. This will, of course, bring about even more agro-corporate welfare ideas, and it will give us all a chance to reject them. As we learned on BMJ a few weeks ago, farm policy in the U.S. no longer protects the small farmer and is, instead, a welfare payment to corporations like Conagra and others. We need to get real about this!
Much has been made about Obama's lack of "experience". What exactly constitutes the sort of experience that we need a President to have in order to be elected to the highest office? I have yet to see a list of requisites, and if there were one I am sure that half the men who have attained the office of President never would have.
It seems, in my limitd view, that Obama has not had any less or any more experience than most politicians when they decide to seek public office. The old saying...Everyone needs to start somewhere...surely holds true in this case.
Obama has paid his dues, to some degree and he is promising to be an agent for change which is more than most politicians I have heard from. I have not heard promises of moral restoration in Washington, nor have I been invited to read his lips. I have not had to hear him expound on not being a crook, nor have I been treated (mistreated?) to folksy dumbed down humor, even though he is a much better communicator!
Jo Becker and Christopher Drew have an article in the NY Times , which chronicles Obama's rise to the position he now holds, United States Senator and in the race of his life for the Presidency.
I have been wondering about John Edwards and his endorsement. A leak yesterday on Morning Joe, MSNBC's thriving morning show featuring one-time Republican Congressman, Joe Scarborough, suggests that John Edwards voted last week in North Carolina for Barack Obama, but that his wife Elizabeth voted for Hillary Clinton. The problem of calculating the effect of this split is not the problem though. When John commits his 19 delegates to Obama, Elizabeth will agree and, with the Clintons progressively nasty racism mounting, it will be easy for her. The immediate question is "when?"
The calculus of confrontation is this: Democrats are getting multi-millions of dollars of exposure for their candidates by prolonging the effort. The limits of the exposure are, of course, that the candidates keep it civil and that they challenge one another on issues, thus explicating the Democratic positions without commiting the Party to anything except accepting ultimately the leadership of one or the other. In other words, as Senator Biden said some weeks ago on the Capitol steps, (paraphrase) "it's okay, we are getting invaluable time in the media and they are not really hurting one another."
The thing the Democrats who are super-delegates are missing is that the voters do not see it the politicians' way. We get drenched in political advertizing anyway, so any less is a bonus. What voters see is the cuts, some drawing blood, on each candidate, but more than that we see the cuts on ourselves, on our ability to make rational and effective arguments for our candidates. We lose hope that politics can raise itself up to our level of civility ... which may not be much, but it is higher by far than the cynical crap in Washington ... and elsewhere.
The primary has gone on long enough. Super-delegates should read the results and go for Barack Obama, before the Clintons make us all ashamed of our Party.
As predicted, Hillary's hope that Barack Obama would stub his toe and fall has doubled back on itself, and it is she who has made the fatal political gaffe, the mistake that will remove her from national Democratic politics permanently. It is a grievous error and completely within the tradition of her thought and action. It is not misspeaking; it is a deliberate act of intolerable racism, designed to appeal to the very worst in White racism. Derrick Z. Jackson in the Boston Globeexplains.
Wow! Oh those cunning Super Delegates! Even with her slimest of victories in Indiana this past week, and her vowing to stay in the race, it looks as though the end may be near. Super Delgates have taken to Obama like bees to honey and he has taken the lead in that area. Hillary needs a reality check.
And while we are on the subject of this campaign, this quote of Barack Obama's from speeches he made after North Carolina and Indiana, is worth noting here. This is the biggest issue we face. Making that choice to either have business as usual or to move forward into the 21st century and have a President who will bring us back to world prominence and respect.
Quotes of Note
"Don't ever forget that we have a choice in this country. We can choose not to be divided; that we can choose not to be afraid; that we can still choose this moment to finally come together."
--Barack Obama, to supporters after primaries in North Carolina, Indiana (Boston Globe)
On this I do not agree, but there may be scores of people out there who do. This editorial in the Charleston, W. VA. Gazette states, a "dream ticket" of Obama and Clinton would be a good thing. I understand that it would keep her supporters on the Democratic side, but I think her coziness with the "good old boys" of DC is not exactly the dawn of a new day. What say you?
Bill Moyers Journal this week features an extended conversation with Philippe Sands on torture conducted by the U.S. government. If there is one point that stands out from the several important ones made by Sands, it is that no high officials are taking either personal or official responsibility for the violations of international and American law and traditions extending back over 165 years. Sands tells Moyers that the lawyers like John Yoo, David Addington, and several others are clearly in the direct line of decision making with regard to the violations at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base and in Abu Ghraib.
The program ends with an interesting piece on the California Nurses Association, a group that has decided that nurses are exactly in the right position in the medical system to "demand" equal treatment for all. They have made VP Richard Bruce Cheney the posterboy for all that is wrong and inequitable about the American health care industry ... not system ... industry!
That sounds like a line my teenage granddaughter would use when talking about a failed romance, but in this case they are the words of David Michael Green in his Regressive Antidote column.
And, in this case the words are being used for a failed romance. Hillary just does not bring the blush of love, youthfulnes and promise of change to her campaign the way that Obama does in his. The problem is someone needs to let her know the relationship is over .
The editors of the NYT and Boston Globe columnist Scot Lehigh today are calling for Hillary Clinton and her campaign to look to the future—her future—as the goal, not the Presidency, which is a very improbable, implausible, future for her. I like the Times telling her that she has the right to run, but that running mean will destroy her not her opponent. I like Lehigh noting that the so-called "dream ticket" is very unlikely. Clinton is, as he says, the old regime and represents everything Obama is fighting against. Her only real chance is to find a home as a respected Senator and do her thing from there. If she does not exit gracefully, that too will be foreclosed!
Our reader in NYC points out this article in USA Today the title of which is a slick play on words "Clinton makes case for wide appeal," suggesting (a) that she made her point logically and effectively, which she did not, and (b) that there is a case, facts and votes, which there is not.
Senator Clinton's blunt remarks about race and class are, in fact, just the sort of verbal stumbling she is hoping will come from the Obama campaign and trip up his campaign. The reality is that she is the one stumbling and making an ass of herself. It really is time for the super-delegates to get off the fence and declare themselves. Another month of Clinton will just serve to alienate her hard-core support from the rest of the party!
"There exists a shadowy government with its own Air Force, its own Navy, its own fundraising mechanism, and the ability to pursue its own ideas of national interest, free from all checks and balances, and free from the law itself."
Today Slate is running an interesting piece on campaign finance and what happens when a candidate loans his or her campaign a substantial amount of money. I wish this posting were on Instant Messenger so you could tell me what thoughts ran through your mind as you read the essay. For me ... (see overleaf) ...[you might want to read it for yourself first] ...
Mr. Kristof makes an important point in his NYTcolumn today. Hillary is in the mold of Ted Kennedy refusing to back down and out of the race and, therefore, a real threat to the Democratic Party. His point is not new, but he points out a recent historical example of hubris and stubborn pride getting in the way. Maybe Ted was trying to exorcise Carter, purge him from the Party. Who knows! The point is that the Clintons really do not have a 2% chance, and the reason is that they are proving daily that their hubris and stubborn resolve goes beyond rationality and reason down into the nether parts of themselves. They are ruining all chances for Hillary to be on the ticket, and they seem satisfied that this is the case.
The editors of the the Washington Post this morning thought Russian President Dmitri Medvedev's inaugural speech remarkable enough to rate an editorial. Particularly they were impressed with Medvedev's rejection of the trend of "legal nihilism" in Russia and his pledge to put an end to it. At face value, nothing could be more important to the liberalization of the Russian political situation.
But, "legal nihilism" is a strange term to American ears where "nihilism" itself has fewer taproots into our culture and psychology. Nihilism seems vaguely anarchistic and destructive, ultimately ending in wholly unpalatable suicidal notions only touched upon by denizens of our own drug cultures. There is a sense that nihilism is about a world view that there is but one real and privileged reality and all else is nothingness. It has been a long time since I read Sartre, so my apologies if this sounds like him. It is not intended to.
Brent Budowsky, writing in The Hill, has an insightful piece about how the outcome of the May 6th elections has dealt a death knell to politics as usual.
That, coupled with Hillary's embracing of the Gas Tax holiday, and the statement that she would "nuke Iran," has made the American voter sit up and say..."enough!"
The title of this essay is a play on words. An article in the NYT this morning by a political operative named Dan Schnur, who worked for John McCain in 2000, suggests that (a) Democrats are panicked about the prolongation of the contest between Barack Obama and the Clintons, and (b) that the DNC rules on proportional division of delegates in the states is ... um ... childish. His essay is short and therefore readable.
But, yes, Democrats are antsy about the Clintons coming to their senses. Hillary's campaign is predicated entirely on the premise that Barack Obama will have a "train wreck" and she will be the last candidate standing. This is very unlikely, and with the perspective of the Wright troubles, even more unlikely that Obama will fall out of the sky. People understand politics and they will not be swayed by corporate media attempts to bring aid to the Clintons.
In a sleep induced haze very early this morning I thought I heard on the news the words that Hillary had quit the race for the White House. I was mistaken, alas, however, it seems that pressure on her to do so is growing daily.
It is hard to call it a day when you have sunk your heart and soul into an endeaver only to see the chances of your succeeding in reaching your goal dwindling away. But the wise thing to do is to admit defeat, wirhdraw gracefully and continue on in the arena where you can do the most good. In this case throwing your support behind the person who it seems obvious will be the people's choice.
With so much resting on the support of the super delegates it would seem that Obama has the edge. Anything can happen, that is understood, but it will not be good for Hillary, or good enough.
"Truth always rests with the minority,
and the minority is always stronger than the majority,
because the minority is generally formed
by those who really have an opinion,
while the strength of a majority is illusory,
formed by the gangs who have no opinion --
and who, therefore, in the next instant
(when it is evident that the minority is the stronger)
assume its opinion ... while Truth again reverts to a new minority."
Quote by: Soren Kierkegaard
(1813-1855) Danish philosopher
MSNBC news just flashed news that a diplomat from Myanmar says the death toll from the cyclone in his country may exceed 100,000 persons.
Relief efforts are mounting, but the Myanmar regime is a paranoid and hostile bunch and the whole world expects nothing but trouble from them as aid is provided. One cannot help but wonder whether a regime that had the welfare of its people in mind would have done something to prevent such a disaster?
Notwithstanding the preparedness of a struggling country, the huge death toll is a very sobering harbinger of things to come as planetary storms become more and more violent. Clearly the Burmese are innocent victims of climate change and will probably not be the last innocents to be sacrificed.
