A Quick Look at the News of the Day. Perhaps a fast rant or two...if I have time during coffee...
Or sometimes
We just skip the news and talk about feelings and crap.
From the very first moments of President Barack Hussein Obama's speech last night (which I watched this morning on the NYTimes website) I felt fortunate that we have this man as our president at this time.
One of the Republican talking points during the recent campaign was that eloquence is not action...but it has always been my belief that eloquence is the primary quality a leader must have...especially in troubling times. Without the ability to express ideas, not only clearly, but in a way which invites an emotional and energic positive response, a leader of a free people can do nothing.
The President, started his speech last night by saying that:
... while our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken, though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before.
The weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation. The answers to our problems don't lie beyond our reach. They exist in our laboratories and our universities; in our fields and our factories; in the imaginations of our entrepreneurs and the pride of the hardest-working people on Earth. Those qualities that have made America the greatest force of progress and prosperity in human history we still possess in ample measure. What is required now is for this country to pull together, confront boldly the challenges we face, and take responsibility for our future once more.
This is precisely the note of hope that the nation must keep top of mind, as we enter a period of reduced luxuries and harder work...and we must remember that, though our collective labors, we WILL return to prosperity.
The President also invited us to look back into our recent past, and realize that we are now reaping the bitter fruits of the crop we sowed - starting as long as twenty years ago. As a people, we chose not to break our addiction to forgiegn oil and cheep goods, and we turned to leaders who promised us easy answers:
The fact is our economy did not fall into decline overnight. Nor did all of our problems begin when the housing market collapsed or the stock market sank. We have known for decades that our survival depends on finding new sources of energy. Yet we import more oil today than ever before. The cost of health care eats up more and more of our savings each year, yet we keep delaying reform. Our children will compete for jobs in a global economy that too many of our schools do not prepare them for. And though all these challenges went unsolved, we still managed to spend more money and pile up more debt, both as individuals and through our government, than ever before.
In other words, we have lived through an era where too often short-term gains were prized over long-term prosperity; where we failed to look beyond the next payment, the next quarter, or the next election. A surplus became an excuse to transfer wealth to the wealthy instead of an opportunity to invest in our future. (Applause.) Regulations were gutted for the sake of a quick profit at the expense of a healthy market. People bought homes they knew they couldn't afford from banks and lenders who pushed those bad loans anyway. And all the while, critical debates and difficult decisions were put off for some other time on some other day.
Well that day of reckoning has arrived, and the time to take charge of our future is here.
Now is the time to act boldly and wisely -- to not only revive this economy, but to build a new foundation for lasting prosperity. Now is the time to jumpstart job creation, re-start lending, and invest in areas like energy, health care, and education that will grow our economy, even as we make hard choices to bring our deficit down. That is what my economic agenda is designed to do, and that is what I'd like to talk to you about tonight.
Both the reminder that, as a Democracy and a people, we put ourselves in this place, and by inviting us to remember that, through our focus and hard work, we will raise ourselves out of it, President Obama is following in the great tradition of our best orators (who, not coincidentally, have been our best leaders) Kennedy, Churchill, and Franklin Roosevelt.
Election Day 2008 is history, and WOW! What History it is! An awe-inspiring milestone for our country. Throughout this election, I haven't given too much thought about the role of race except when it became a campaign issue. Personally, I would have voted for Barack Obama if he had been purple with bright yellow spots....he was the right person at the right time.
But as I sit here this morning, still trying to take it all in- I am amazed to think that the day has come when part of Martin Luther King's Dream has come true. Yesterday, the nation as a whole overwhelmingly judged a man based on the content of his character, rather than the color of his skin.
ONCE MORE UNTO THE BREACH
It was back to DFL Volunteer Headquarters yesterday for one last day of door knocking. Minnesota has same-day registration so there is a potential set of would be voters who may not have made up their minds even yet to vote. The Olmsted County Democratic-Farmer-Labor party was out in force yesterday to persuade them.
In the mid-afternoon, I found myself in Stewartville...about nine miles outside of Rochester. This little town is evocative of hundreds of small towns across the nation...in some ways, it seemed there was no more appropriate place to be yesterday than right in the heartland of the country.
My partner for the day, Diane and I kept working on into the evening. The polls didn't close until 8pm- so if there was a chance we could get one more person out to vote for Obama, Franken, and Walz- it was worth knocking.
And there were a few great moments. In Stewartville, I met a woman coming toward me talking on her cell phone: "Sir?" She said to me, "who are you campaigning for?"
"I'm out for Obama, Al Franken, and Tim Walz- DFL!" I said.
She spoke back into her phone: "Yeah, that's what he said. Walz and Franken. Yeah...I thought I was seeing double. No. No. He's out here right now."
She put the phone to her palm and spoke to me again: "My girl-friend is a Republican. They quit yesterday." She seemed hurt. Almost as if I were cheating or something. I have to admit, I hadn't had a chance to speak with any undecided voters, but it felt good just to be out- keeping the pressure on.
"Well, it ain't over till it's over. So, we're still out today. Good Luck!"
I also met a woman who had voted already. She took great pleasure in telling me about her brother-in-law. A life long Republican, he finally soured on George W. Bush and told his sister-in-law that he had become a "Gopher" (spelled: GOPer)- meaning, a FORMER Republican. I met quite a few voters who had changed party's (at least this once) because of George W. Bush.
In the end, every single person I talked to HAD voted...and Minnesota seems to have kept it's title as the state with the highest voter turnout in the nation. Reports are that 3 million of 3.7 million eligible voters went to the polls yesterday.
When we returned to volunteer headquarters...the place had been cleaned up top to bottom-- it was amazing to think that, a few hours ago, this room had been full of food, coffee, fellowship, energy and a drive to work for this country. Now, the remaining staff and volunteers were sitting in a tired circle...allowing their batteries to recharge a bit before heading over to the Marriott and what we all hoped would be a victory party.
Endgame
And in the end...well...you know how it ended. What an amazing day for the United States of America and for our friends and allies around the world. I met so many people in England who had great regard and affection for America, but who had wondered for the last eight years what had happened to their old friends and who passionately pinned their hopes on this race. One young British lady said she literally wept for joy this morning.
This may not be a popular sentiment among all Democrats, but John McCain's speech last night was, as one person wrote on a friend's facebook page: a class act. He reached out and found what was best in America and her people. His speech reminds us that this man has been an amazing public servant and who has given so much to his country. One of the benefits of our Democratic Victory will be a chance re-express our admiration for this great American.
The hard work will begin today. We, as American's have just completed a tough and often bitter contest. I am reminded of Winston Churchill's guidelines for waging war and peace. He said: "In war, resolution; in defeat, defiance; in victory, magnanimity; in peace, good will."
In the past, when an election has ended we have not always found ways to achieve both Magnanimity and Good Will- for the sake of our country, I profoundly hope we can do it now.
Here in Minnesota, we've had some mixed results. Al Franken was trailing Norm Coleman by a mere 800 Votes as of this morning out of 3,000,000 votes cast, that is a razor thin margin. And there will be a recount.
In the sixth district, Michele Bachmann, who first drew fire by pawing George W. Bush during his State of the Union Address in 2007, and who again insulted all of America by declaring that people who didn't agree with her radical right views were somehow UnAmerican, managed to hang on to her seat despite heroic efforts on the part of the DFL to do the nation a great service and send her into political exile.
But here in Minnesota's first district, Tim Walz won handily and will return to Congress. I spoke with fellow blogger Jennifer who remembers that, when she first volunteered for the Olmsted County DFL, their offices were in an empty garage...and a grant from the state headquarters of $75 for a phone line was a huge deal. Tonight, as we gathered in the big beautiful ballroom of the Marriott, I could only take my hat off in respect to these people who have fought so hard and who have made a huge difference to their community.
As for President-Elect Obama- words all but fail me. Comments from friends have been pouring in and popping like celebratory fireworks...I'm tired, amazed, relieved, and happy. And I am so proud of the United States today.
Some news from Vermont travels slowly to the United Kingdom, and it is only now- thanks to a LONG overdue trip to Green Mountain Daily- that I've read about the assault on Governor Jim Douglas at this year's 4th of July Parade in Barrie.
I've gone from having a lot of respect for Jim Douglas to disagreeing with most of his political agenda for the state of Vermont. I will be glad when the Democratic Party comes up with a viable candidate who can show the skill and savvy to retake the Governor's chair.
But this incident is, frankly, deplorable. It is, plain and simple, an assault.
More than that, it is a threat to one of the most precious things in our state: Vermont Democracy.
I've always been amazed at how accessible our Vermont public leaders are. If you want to talk to a U.S. Senator, Congressman, or a Governor on the street- it's pretty simple...you just walk up and say hello.
That's how Democracy SHOULD BE and Vermont seems to do it better than anywhere else. The only status a public servant has, or should have, is that they are Primus inter pares- First Among Equals- by virtue of the respect shown to them by those who choose them.
Failing to show respect for the office and the one who holds it is also a failure to show respect to the people who elected him.
In theory, even the President of the United States is nothing more than Primus inter pares- but security issues have long since removed his (or her) person from the comings and goings of day to day life.
So to, in the larger states...that kind of isolation (I suspect) breeds arrogance in the minds of leaders, and tends to generate a sense of overawe on the part of the public...this, of course, is NOT Democracy at work at all.
The sad part is that, in the United States as a whole, we have shown that we MUST accept some degree of separation between office holder and public...Booth, Guiteau, Czolgosz,and Oswald gave us that bitter gift.
Think how different a Bush Presidency might have been (or even ask the question, would there ever HAVE been a Bush Presidency?) if the office had not become so shrouded by the needs of security.
In Vermont, however, we are fortunate enough to have avoided this paradigm, so far. But, in choosing to express, physically, that which could far better be expressed verbally- Matthew Manning, the Pie Thrower, has put our democracy at risk.
While there are some who seem to see him as a champion of freedom, I can't help but see him as a foe to democracy- some who wants to live in a world where you fight by throwing things rather than throwing words and ideas...
Democracy only works when we act like adults...a world in which things are thrown rather than ideas rapidly becomes a world in which everything is reduced, not to a question of right or wrong, but to a question of strong, or weak...
That is not Democracy, it is not even civilization- it is brutal, bloody jungle law- in which the only freedom enjoyed by those of us with average strength is the freedom to try and hide from predators. Not the world I would choose.
One Final Note:
Last but not least, it was politically stupid. Who winds up looking credible here: the Santa Claus clad Pie-Throwing maniac, pursued and thrown to the ground - or the Governor, who "calmly wiped the pie from his face" and kept marching in the parade...whom do you think most Vermonters cheered most?
All this action showed was that, no matter what you may think of his policies, Jim Douglas is, as a person, a class act- and that is part of the reason he keeps winning elections.
I just took a few moments to listen to Barack Obama's speech to the NAACP. Again, I am struck by his words...and his calls for, not just responsibility on the part of Big Business, or Government, but on the parts of ordinary AMERICANS.
So yes, we have to demand more responsibility from Washington. And yes we have to demand more responsibility from Wall Street. But we also have to demand more from ourselves. Now, I know some say I’ve been too tough on folks about this responsibility stuff. But I’m not going to stop talking about it. Because I believe that in the end, it doesn’t matter how much money we invest in our communities, or how many 10-point plans we propose, or how many government programs we launch – none of it will make any difference if we don’t seize more responsibility in our own lives.
Obama is right: as Americans we must begin to behave like Adults who are in charge of their own fates, rather than looking at the world as if we were tiny often abused children- played as pawns by mighty powers beyond our control.
McCain Supports Bush Call for More Off Shore Drilling
According the AP, John McCain has joined George W. Bush in a call for offshore Drilling in American coastal waters.
The American working class needs relief from high gas prices that eat into weekly pay checks, but common sense says that offshore drilling is not the way to go about providing that relief.
As Barack Obama said in his speech on the subject: "The politics may have changed but the facts haven't."
Only One Winner
There is only one group of people who would win from a change in the off shore oil drilling rules: BIG OIL.
American Drivers wouldn't even SEE this oil for years...so there are much better ways to help working Americans make ends meet.
And, when the oil finally DOES arrive, there is no guarantee that prices will go down. In fact, Americans watched for years as OPEC worked very well to keep Oil Prices UP by intentionally limiting the amount of oil they took out of the ground...if supply goes up, prices come down- if you want to keep prices up, you limit the amount of supply. After these boom times, anyone who thinks that the Oil Business is looking for ways to lower prices and profits is a complete sucker.
The Rest of us Lose
Who looses? Most of Us.
None of us see lower Gas prices anytime soon...if ever.
Fisherman, already waiting on empty boats for fish populations to bounce back, loose most hopes of returning to their jobs.
Working People in Coastal States who rely on Tourism loose when their beaches become blotted with oil bubbles, slicks and spills.
The alternative energy industry, which could help keep this country strong, is forced to wait again while people put off breaking their oil addiction.
We all loose as we continue to damage the planet's atmosphere through fossil fuel consumption.
Americans must resist economic panic. We need to look deeply at this issue and reject the short-sighted, crony capitalism as offered by Oil Man Bush and his would-be successor, John McCain.
I have to admit, I've been so busy lately that I haven't had time to consider Scott McClellan's newly published memoirs in which he reveals that Bush has lied about everything...wow...who knew?
However, others have been quick to form the response I would have had I been paying attention....
The neatest came from The New Republic, in a short piece written by Michael Currie Schaffer, entitled: What Didn't Happen.
In a series of mock headlines, Schaffer postulates the articles that MIGHT have resulted had McClellan been genuinely outraged by events, rather than than the loss of his job, or his desire to outrun the prosecution which (who knows, miracles can happen) might actually start putting the Bushies behind bars where they belong.
For Example:
WASHINGTON, Feb. 10, 2006--White House spokesman Scott McClellan abruptly resigned yesterday, accusing senior administration officials of misleading him about the CIA leak investigation.
Or:
WASHINGTON, Oct. 2, 2004--With President Bush locked in a close race with Democratic challenger John Kerry, his spokesman suddenly quit yesterday.
Scott McClellan, whose ties to the president go back to their days in Texas, told reporters that Bush's inability to acknowledge mistakes in the handling of the Iraq war demonstrated major deficiencies in the president's ability to be a successful leader.
In the end, of course, none of this happened and now that he's been forced out by his own, he is trying for a hero's welcome from the people he helped abuse, cheat and mislead...
One comment on the New Republic Story suggested that at least McClellan get some credit for coming clean, to which another replied: "I'd give him a lot more credit if he turned over the profits to maimed Iraqi war veterans"
There are many reminders in London that our two nations share a rich heritage, and enjoy an abiding friendship (however strained it may be from time to time). In front of the National Gallery is a small, but tasteful statue of George Washington, in Saint Paul's Cathedral, in the place of high honor behind the alter is the American Memorial Chapel, built by the people of the British nation as a gesture of thanks to those American service men who joined Britain in her fight against Nazi Germany, just off Parliament Square, a statue of Abraham Lincoln, erected at the behest of Queen Victoria, gazes across at the Mother of Parliaments. And, above the door at Westminster Abbey, you can see a statue of the Reverend Martin Luther King.
So given this deep nature of the friendship between the nations I was anxious to see the official expression of that good will, our American Embassy.
The American diplomatic mission to London has a long history. Benjamin Franklin served as a agent for the colonies, searching for a way to reconcile our differences with the Mother Country...our first Ambassador to the Court of Saint James (following the establishment of our Republic) was John Adams- named by some the "Atlas of Independence", and our second President.
The embassy is located in Grosvener Square, one of London's most fashionable addresses. I've been waiting to get a chance to go see it, expecting, perhaps a burst of pride when I came upon this little piece of home so far from home.
I expected a building worthy of the deep friendship between the Untied States and the United Kingdom. I expected a building worthy of the memory of Franklin and Adams. I expected to see a building that somehow called to mind the promise inscribed on Liberty's Tablet- give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free....I expected something elegant, because it's Grosvener Square after all, but something too that proclaimed a certain respectable pride in what it means to be an AMERICAN.
But as I approached the square, I felt the bottom fall from my heart. "Surely," I thought, "that cannot be it....please, tell me...that this is not the...." and then I rounded the corner and saw my little home state flag of Vermont; open, friendly, freedom loving Vermont, TRAPPED with all the other State flags behind a barricade.
The barricades are rather new... and of course we can blame that on 9/11...
But the building itself is...it is....well, in short, it is the ugliest building I have ever seen. It is a blight. A smear upon the landscape...if an architect had set out to confirm the worst stereotypes about America, he could not have done a better job. As a piece of propaganda, this building is an eloquent argument for the "other side" (whoever they may be at the moment.)
In short, it is a giant monolith- a huge concrete bunker (one could easily envision Hitler and Eva Braun huddled in the middle of it, waiting for the end). It has no face, but looks out upon the world with cold contempt (and, I think, a little fear- now reinforced by the barricades.) It is flat and without soul. Mechanical and Corporate. The windows recessed behind deep ribs of concrete... The perimeters are patrolled by men with automatic weapons.
I've never had a building make me want to cry before, and I've never in my life felt ashamed of my country. But the day I saw our Embassy in London was a very sad day....
After all, what does it say when Dwight Eisenhower- the liberator of Europe- is imprisoned behind a fence?
I have always loved Great Britain from afar. Some of my favorite things are British: Sherlock Holmes, Sir Winston Churchill, Rumpole of the Bailey, Shakespeare, Dickens, Lewis Carrol, Wind in the Willows, James Herriot, and Parliamentary Democracy- just to name a few.
It was with a little trepidation that I found myself preparing to spend a year in England- what if, upon closer inspection, I didn't like the place as much in it's modern form and up close...?
Not to worry. I've found the United Kingdom just as likable close up as she was from a distance, perhaps even more so. This would not be a bad place to call home, in point of fact.
But there is one problem. I can't help but wonder if England has gone senile.
Out at Heathrow, the nation's largest airport, they've just finished building an entirely new terminal. Yesterday, it opened for business for the first time and...
pfffft.
It fizzled. According to a BBC article, severe foul ups on several levels caused multiple back ups that resulted in 34 flight cancellations and a lot of angry people sleeping on the floor of the new 4.3 billion pound terminal.
This is the type of thing that seems all too common here. Personal experiences with hidebound utility bureaucracies (websites that urge you to use the telephone, endlessly looped phone messages that send you back to the website), and repairs that have to be done over and over again because neither material or workmanship seems up to the task the first time, combine with news reports of a dental care system so slow that people are pulling their own teeth rather than waiting, the collapse of a Public Private Partnership which has left parts of London's Underground in financial shambles, and a national rail system that grinds to a halt in autumn because there are leaves on the tracks. All of the above experiences begin to leave the long term visitor wondering if it's time to put the country in a home for the aged.
Personally, I hope not. This is, in many ways, a great country and a fine place to live...but I'm going to keep hoping that they begin to find ways to get their act together....
Besides, it gives me something less personal to worry about when I'm tempted contemplate the idea of Obama and Clinton tearing each other to bits while John McCain sneaks into the back door of the White House....
A few days ago, I started watching webcasts of the PBS documentary show: Frontline. As we enter the fifth year of war in Iraq, it has been both fascinating and frustrating to review this recent history and perhaps to better understand how we have arrived here.
In addition to the opportunity to watch, or re-watch, these episodes, Frontline provides extended transcripts of the interviews conducted for the program. Consisting of material that often wound up on the cutting room floor, these interviews can provide flashes of insight to those willing to peruse them.
In the Frontline film, "The Dark Side", Collin Powell's former chief of Staff, Lawerence Wilkerson was interviewed. While he spoke on camera about the tense relationship between the "moderates" (like Powell) and the "hawks" (Chaney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz)- but one of the most prescient things Wilkenson said is found in his extended interview transcript:
Carl von Clausewitz [says]... that you must make sure you identify the nature of the conflict you're in. You must. That's absolutely essential. If you misidentify that nature, you're not ever going to get back on the right sheet of music.
But from the beginning, Wilkerson implies, mistake the nature of the conflict we were involved in against Al Qaeda. Their impulse was to see it as a new version of the Cold War against the Soviet Union- a struggle which had shaped their careers molded their personalities.
[Cheney, Rumsfeld and others bought the notion] that Al Qaeda has the capability to destroy the United States of America, its institutions, its very being, much as a 20,000-plus nuclear-tipped missile [arsenal] had the capability to had we gone to war with the Soviet Union and everyone unleashed his full panoply of weapons. This is ridiculous. This is utterly ridiculous. It begins marching you down in your decisions this road that is full of dangerous and even inept decisions, because we're not in an existential conflict with Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda doesn't even remotely have the capability to bring the United States down...[T]his is a conflict of ideas; it is not a conflict of bombs, bullets and bayonets. ...
Wilkerson describes a briefing he received from a CIA agent. If Al Qaeda was the top of a pyramid, then, at the base, are ordinary people throughout the Islamic world, who, while they do not personally advocate killing (and especially not the killing of fellow Muslims) nevertheless "went into mosques all around the world and put shekels, dinars, dollars in the second box, knowing full well that the second box was not for charity; it was not for the mosque; it was for Al Qaeda or Al Qaeda-like organizations."
How many people are dropping money in the box, wondered Wilkerson. The answer came back: Between 40 and 100 million people around the world. Those people, Wilkerson says, are:
the center of gravity of this war, and you don't get at the center of gravity by killing it or by killing others. You get at that center of gravity by proving to them your ideas: that democracy is the best form of government; freedom is the best human condition; and market economies, open, free trade is the best way to prosper in those systems of governance; and violence and killing people is antithetical to that. That's how you win that conflict. It's a conflict of ideas. You have to capture the hearts and minds of those people who are putting the shekels, dollars, dinars in that second box in mosques all over the world. You don't do that with bombs, bullets and bayonets.
This is not new, of course, this has been part of the debate (such as it has been) in the United States for a few years...but it is chilling to think back on five years of violence and death- resulting, perhaps in a weakened America, all arising from the acceptance of a false premise about the nature of the conflict in Iraq.
I wrote this post in response to something on Green Mountain Daily, but it occurred to me that I could post it here as well, since I'm pressed for time today.
There are those who would argue that eloquence, by itself, is mere noise. I do not agree.
There are actually few other acts that a leader in a democratic society can perform that are more important than eloquence.
Lincoln, Jefferson, Franklin Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, are all remembered, first and foremost, for their eloquence.
It is eloquence which is used to engage the people in a dialog and, ultimately, to exhort those same people to action, to inspire hope within them, or to help them change the way they see themselves and the world.
This power can be used for good, or ill. Leaving aside the examples of history's demagogues, like Hitler, who used their eloquence for great evil; we can find other, much less dramatic examples, right here at home, to show the damage that eloquence can do.
Ronald Reagan used eloquence to begin pulling down the social safety nets, government regulation of capital, and to destroy the health of the middle class, that FDR's eloquence had helped to shape.
Even more recently, George W. Bush has used what some have called "plain speaking" to propel this country into a needless war.
His words may have been false, but they were, in their own odd way, eloquent. Eloquent enough to move America to support a massive level of action in Iraq. It is hard to make the argument that Bush's words lacked substance...in fact the deaths of thousands of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians testify to just how brutally substantive they were.
I would suppose that test of true eloquence is the affect it has on those who hear it.
I can speak only for myself, but Barack Obama's speech Tuesday made me feel proud. It reminded me that we have mountainous problems in the United States...but it also reminded me that we have been working to solve those problems from the moment we banded together as a nation. It also reminded me that we have come far, very far, from where we started...and, for the first time in a long time, it made me look forward to the task of going further, of building upon what we have inherited, rather than feeling despair at what we are loosing.
I had heard that it was a strong speech. An elderly British man and I chatted about it last night- he had been impressed. A friend from Vermont, active in the Obama Campaign, to whom I expressed concerns about the Wright/Obama issue, emailed me as Obama's talk was being broadcast live: "This speech is incredible on so many levels... I hope you're getting or will get the chance to see it -- not just read it.."
Now, I've heard it for myself, complete, and in it's entirety, thanks to the magic of the internet. It got past the editorial gatekeepers of the sensationalist media, and I was able to judge it for myself. I agree completely with my friend...it was an amazing speech and it lifted my heart. Barack Obama gave the best reasons I've heard in my lifetime to justify my hope for this country, my pride in our history, and the work we have to do to move ourselves to where we would wish to be as a nation.
I urge you to watch the speech in it's entirety...I'll put up a link to the video at the end of this post, but in a world of sound bites, I'll choose a few that stood out for me:
Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety - the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger... The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.
And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community.
I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who... on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
These people are part of me. And they are part of America...
Barack Obama spoke of the kind of politics we have been practicing in this country:
We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.
We can do that.
But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.
And he spoke about the way politics could (and I believe must) be practiced in this country:
Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time."
This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children.
This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.
This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.
This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life.
This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.
This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should have been authorized and never should have been waged, and we want to talk about how we'll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.
I would not be running for President if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected.
Senator Obama spoke about the anger of Black Americans trapped by a past they did not make.
And he spoke of the Anger of White Americans are are tired of being blamed for an evil which they have not personally committed.
Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense.
He spoke of the anger on all sides of those who know that they are not reaping the just rewards of their hard work and he spoke of the dangers of allowing our anger at other Americans to keep us from joining together, as Americans, to overcome our shared problems.
"The path to a more perfect union," Barack Obama said, "requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper."
Our arrival at a better America will not be simple, nor will it be quick, but it can come. He said:
It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.
But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.
It is a great speech, and, for me personally, those are exactly the words that I, and I believe the nation, needs to hear. Not just as damage control for the Wright episode, but because we stand at a juncture in history where, with hard work, and with - to borrow Lincoln's phrase- a dedication to the unfinished work which our ancestors have thus far so nobly advanced, we can continue our forward journey.
Great rhetoric is not not enough, but it is where we start.
I love my grandmother's politics. She is one of the last of a vanishing breed- a White Southern Evangelical Christian who, nevertheless, has stayed passionately true to her New Deal roots and the Democratic party. This, despite having watched her family and her friends become seduced by the empty promises of Reagan, and conned by the false promises of Bush for an easy victory in a war we didn't need to fight.
So, when she told me that she was probably not going to bother vote for President this year...I was alarmed. This, I thought, is not good. Why not, I asked?
"It's been all over the news, " she said, "his preacher's been on the news shouting out: 'We don't say God Bless America- We say GOD DAMN AMERICA!'
"Now," my grandmother went on, "Obama says he didn't hear this, he didn't know, and he wasn't there when that preacher said that. But Alex? How can a man be your pastor for twenty years, and you not know what he thinks? How can you be friends with the man, the man preforms your wedding, baptizes your children, and you don't know what he thinks? It's just not possible."
"I can't vote for somebody like that, I can't vote for somebody who hates this country," my grandmother said. "And I can't much stand Hillary either. So I think I'm just going to stay home this year."
Our talk drifted to other subjects, but this stayed with me. Here in secular Europe, it was easy for me to miss the story...but I'm sure that CNN and FOX are having a field day with it at home.
And, before I had a chance to start catching up, I found myself wondering- could I vote for Barack Obama after this? If this were true, that Barack Obama's paster of twenty years could think this way, what inferences would I be justified in drawing about the candidate himself?
The subject of patriotism has always been tricky for those of us who stand anywhere from the center to the left.
On the one hand we feel contempt for the shallow, meaningless displays of patriotism adopted by right-wing charlatans: the cheap "made in China" American Flag lapel pin sported by Bush leaps to mind.
Even more, we truly despise the kind of "patriotism" that is used to cover up, excuse, or rationalize the acts of Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo. These are not the acts of patriots, but of thugs, killers, and villains.
But on the other hand, many of us are still proud of the history of the United States. We know that our country has held out the hope that all of mankind is created equal, and that people have a right to a free and open Government. We look back with pride on our nation's struggles to rid itself of the evils of slavery, we know that we have been constantly redefining and enlarging the definition of what it means to be a participating citizen of our Republic. We can look back with honor at our fight, alongside our gallant allies, against fascism. We can marvel at our ability to overcome those voices who clamored for "America First" and "Isolationism" to engage with the world and to push back, over the course of several decades, the long shadow of the iron curtain- and to do so in a way that did NOT bring about global conflagration.
I'm proud of all of that. I'm proud to be a citizen of a nation that has produced Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and Martin Luther King Junior.
Our country has engaged in great wrongs, both past and present, but our nation has also consistently worked to redress those same wrongs...and I have no doubt that, if we continue to cherish what we have been at our best, we will continue to find ways to atone for what we have done at our worst.
If we give up on that ideal, however, then we will have nothing left to fight for- there will be no standards to which we can hold ourselves and our leaders accountable.
Reverend Wright seems to have given up on that ideal. He seems to be one of those on the left who seeks to blame America for every evil, both foreign and domestic. While I can share the anger of the Reverend at many of the evils that he points out, I cannot share in his condemnation of the country.
America was, after all, the first nation on the earth to consciously set itself against such evils- evils which have been perpetrated by every society on earth. It is no wonder that we have not been completely successful, this country, is, in many ways, a miracle simply in the fact that it has held together- the fact that it has won so much justice for it's citizens, in spite of history's trends, is all but beyond belief.
Those are my feelings and they run very deep.
But what of Obama? Does he share the opinions of his pastor? If not, then how could he remain in this man's church and not be culpable?
I don't have an answer, and I must admit, my support for Obama is not as strong today as it was before I heard the Reverend Wright's comments.
But, if there is one thing I know, it is "NEVER TRUST A SOUND BITE". The ethics of today's partisan and sensation seeking media will never allow it to give up a good controversy in search of a more complicated and nuanced truth.
So, it pays to dig a little deeper. Fortunately, the tools are at hand...a quick trip to You-Tube showed me another side of Pastor Wright. Here is a man who is shepherd to a flock which is sorely pressed by the world. The African American community suffers from economic destitution, from violence, from drugs, from disease, and yes, from prejudice...anyone who would deny that is just plain foolish (or worse).
Any leader of the African-American community is going to have to work hard to create an feeling of esprit de corpswithin that community. Because their problems are largely separate, their solutions and their rhetoric will have to be largely separate, too. Wright is preaching to his people that they are going to have to work hard, stay healthy, and stick together... I can at least follow him that far, and have no problem that Obama would follow as well.
I find it ironic to watch the clip of Sean Hannity castigating Jeremiah Wright on FOX: "This is on the website today....commitment to the black community, commitment to the black family, commitment to the black work ethic..." Here, by repeating the world black, Hannity is hinting that it is racist for Wright to be exhorting the black community to make these values their own.
Yet, the very next time someone brings up the poverty and destitution of the black community- exposed by Hurricane Katrina, for example- you'll hear the same old conservative song about how a community needs family values, thrift, and industry if they are to thrive. (Thereby implying that, since the African American community doesn't seem to possess these values, the rest of America has no obligation to help.) So, I give up, Mister Conservative, IS Wright supposed to help instill these virtues in his people or not?
Going back to You-Tube, we see another picture of Paster Wright. This time, he is telling his congregation about a free AIDS testing clinic at the Church. He is warning them of the dangers posed to the black community by AIDS, and he is showing, by example, how easy it is to be tested.
This doesn't look much like Church in my neighborhood, I have to admit, but I can respect it all the same. This is an involved and passionate Christianity, with a leader who is truly caring for his flock and leading by example. I can easily see how a political leader like Obama who wants to make things better in this country might take great inspiration from moments like this...
This video is long, four minutes and thirty seven seconds...exactly four minutes and seven seconds too long for a controversial sound bite.
Does it absolve Wright for his Anti-American comments? No. Does it go a long way to explaining why some, like Obama, might continue to attend his church despite disagreeing with what the Reverend says about our nation? Perhaps.
I've been so far unable to hear or read the context of the "God Damn America" sermon- but it can be noted that, if we go beyond the "God Damn" sound bite, we can hear that Wright is in some measure "damning" America for using the same violent tactics as Al Qaedia...he might be, in fact, urging his flock to do the Christian thing and turn the other cheek.
Still, this is a sentiment that could have been expressed in HUNDREDS of different ways...all of them would have been better...
...as one commenter on MyDD wrote: "Once you hear Reverend Wright, it makes it much more understandable as to why Michelle Obama has never been proud of this nation..."
I am still just as outraged at Wright's anti-American rhetoric as I was when I first heard it. I am still, like my grandmother, confused and angry about this. I'm sure that is true for many American voters.
Unlike my grandmother, however, I have yet to make the decision to stay home in November.
Senator Barack Obama is on probation with me...I am not going to dismiss him out of hand, he strikes me as worthy of more than that. But I will be very interested to listen to him for the duration of the primary fight and the campaign. I will not vote for a man (or woman) who does not share my vision of America, and who does not support my hopes for America.
I do not see the United States in the starkly negative terms of Reverend Wright. I do not see her as a rotten power structure that must be kicked over, attacked, and Damned. We have made mistakes, we need to recover from those mistakes. We have made promises...GOOD PROMISES both to our own people and to the world. We need to keep those promises.
As a nation, we are on a journey, and we are family...all of us, black, red, yellow, and white...anyone who doesn't share that vision of America, for whatever reason, cannot win my vote.
I had, and still have, high hopes for Barack Obama...but he MUST put this fire out.
Postscript
After finishing this, I wrote to a couple of Obama supporters I know. Neil ofWhat's the Point? sent me back a link to an interesting article in the Washington Post.
It's definitely worth the read, and reminds us of the divides that separate us as Americans. It is here. Here's a quote from the article:
"Things that might mean one thing in the church take on a new meaning when you don't see the full sermon, or understand the full context," said Dwight Howard, a theologian and a longtime Trinity member.
Said Cone: "There are moments for [Wright] when the anger, when the rage about what's happened to poor black people in the ghetto is so tough, so deeply painful, that he says things most whites would find off the charts and unpatriotic. But you don't preach in sound bites."
another quote that stood out:
If he were racist, Wright's friends ask, why would he arrange bus trips for predominantly white congregations to visit Trinity each Sunday? If he were racist, why would he have steadfastly maintained Trinity's relationship with the United Church of Christ, a denomination with only a handful of black churches?
"He's been a wonderful friend to white pastors, and he's gifted the organization financially," said UCC President John H. Thomas. "That charge is false."
So, as usual, the truth would appear to be, both from what I'm reading and what I'm seeing for myself on the You-Tube footage, more nuanced than the Headline Sound Bites make it out to be. Learning more is helping me settle down again.
But, of course, that's what scares me. The American people as a whole CAN learn- but we do NOT learn fast. If you doubt we can learn, look at Bush's approval ratings and attitudes toward Iraq. But it took us at least two years too long to absorb the truth that Saddam, while evil, had nothing to do with 9/11, that there were no WMDs, and that victory would be neither quick nor painless- and that Bush's "Mission Accomplished" speech only marked the end of the beginning rather than the beginning of the end.
I fear that, while Obama will probably regain traction as more people hear more of the story, this may be another issue on which our learning curve is just too long.
At present, I'm waiting to see Obama's speech. I've heard, both from friends here in England, and email correspondents at home, that it is good. I'm hoping that it will be effective.
We don't have a TV in England (it's expensive, about $300 US just to by the government license that allows you to have a TV for a year). Fortunately the web has gotten to the point where it can provide information and entertainment on almost the same level.
Lately, I've been catching up on years of "Frontline", the PBS documentary show. One of beauties of "Frontline" springs simply from it's depth of focus. Unlike other news magazine shows, which spend a hour on four or five stories (not to mention the commercial breaks), "Frontline" devotes a full hour to one story.
This myopic focus allows them to trace a complex story thread, step by step, in a way that the viewer can follow and understand.
In addition, Frontline posts volumes of additional information and interviews on line...making it possible to delve deeply into the story- or sometimes beyond the narrative being focused on and into a separate but parallel lines of inquiry.
After broadcast, the shows are posted on line, where they can continue to be watched and used, rather than fading into the ether that is "yesterday's news".
This is probably the most important service the PBS program provides. Because it is often by going back and reading "yesterday's news" that we are able to get a clear grip on what is happening in our world today.
It is important to read "today's news" of course, but when we go back two, three, four years- we are often able to see in disparate events, which seem somewhat random at the time, a pattern which we did not fully recognize as it was unfolding.
I've been spending my last few evenings watching Frontline's reports about the War in Iraq- and I highly recommend them to anyone who can carve out a little time over the next few weeks - instead of turning on "American Idol" or whatever is on tonight, pull up a chair next to your computer and spend an hour- the picture will be a lot smaller, but the sound is good, and you'll find yourself rivited by TV that feeds you mind rather than sucks it dry.
I'm always the last kid on my block to see the really fun stuff. This may have something to do with the fact that I gave up watching TV back in 1992. Don't get me wrong, I like TV shows (about 3 or 4 of them) but I just got to where I couldn't stand the freakin noise anymore.
For the most part, I'm really happy with my decision. But it does mean that I miss out on great things others take for granted...like The Daily Show. Of course, if I had TV, I also have to listen to the news media that this clip is mocking.
Hey, maybe it's not such a bad trade after all....
Wow, I had a fun time with yesterday's blog entry- had a couple of people stop in and leave a comment. And I thank both readers for leaving their thoughts. It has helped me to start focusing more about what this primary race means (beyond the shear Horse Race aspect of it.) The comments are here, if you'd like to read them (or you can click the comment link at the end of yesterday's entry.)
This race is certainly about the politics of identity. To ignore that would be silly. The reaction to photos of Obama in African Dress proves that many see the Clinton Campaign as saying that America is not ready for a Black President. This primary fight is about Race. And this primary fight is certainly about Gender. A post by Monica Guzman at Seattle PI lead me to a Washington Post Article in which some feminist leaders claim that:"There are some people who promote Barack Obama because they want anybody but a woman. Would they like a white man instead of a black man? Of course. But they'll take a black man over a woman. I never thought, in 2008, that we'd still be dealing with this."
(This has been a debate over at Green Mountain Daily for sometime- with NanukFC challenging male bias every step of the way.)
But there is another dynamic going on here. The press, in it's attempt to see around corners, has given us a lot of demographic information about the two camps. In addition to race and gender, we learn that the Obama camp is dominated by the young, the educated, the technically connected and savvy- people well able to compete in a global, and technology driven economy. Clinton, on the other hand, finds her support among those who are dependent on the "old" economy- blue collar and service workers- according to an article on CBS News, these are the people who respond to Hillary:
Clinton surely knows that as she promises to lower the costs of going to college, offering debt relief for people who graduate and go into teaching, or nursing, or law enforcement. “And I want to say something about all the other people who don’t go to college,” she adds. “You know, most people don’t go to college and graduate. And these are the people who build the buildings that we live and work in. They keep the economy going. They do most of the jobs in our society. I want to pay more attention to you.” She promises job training and community college programs.
At the same time, we've seen, recently on Green Mountain Daily, an anti-Clinton you-tube screed called: "The Clinton Hillbillies". Which lampoons Hillary as a carpet-bagging fake, and, by inference makes the point that her supporters are a bunch of beer drinking, tobacco spitting in-bread morons.
This race is dominated by the question of who will get the historic honor of being the first (X or Y) to be the first (X or Y) President in American history.
But on another level, I'm wondering if we are witnessing the Democratic party making a choice about which type of American we want to serve and help- and, if so, I'm wondering if it's possible to enlarge the tent again?
It is very hard to ignore the primary fight from across the pond. Election results are front page news here in the UK. The bookstores are just as filled with U.S. Campaign biographies as the shops back home. People find that I am an American and are desperately anxious to learn if I know anything they don't, and eager to offer their opinion- which is always anti-Bush, and often pro-Obama. It is a reminder that whoever becomes President of the Untied States casts a giant shadow on rest of the world.
I woke up today, and learned that the primary fight goes on still. To me, this is a disappointment. I pretty much made up my mind about a year ago that Barack Obama was my candidate. A friend of mine emailed me last night, and said: I'm ready for the primary to be over so that we can focus on the issue at hand. (IE- throwing the bums OUT!) I couldn't agree more. I think that John McCain is going to be hard to beat and it's time to start.
But what really surprised me, upon reflection- was the fact that Hillary Clinton pulled off two wins yesterday.
To me, Obama seems like a clear choice. To most of the people I know, or read, back in Vermont- Barack Obama seems like a clear choice, too (or, if not, then he is TOO FAR TO THE RIGHT- there is that strain of Vermonter, too). In fact, to almost everybody I interact with on any given day, Barack Obama is the clear choice and front runner.
Nobody, but NOBODY thinks nominating Hillary Clinton would be a good idea.
And yet, obviously, a lot of people I've never heard from completly disagree with me. They got up yesterday, dragged themselves to the polls and Voted for Clinton.
And that Scares me.
I'm not scared because they voted for Clinton- I think she'd make a fine president. I just think Barack Obama would make an even better one.
No, it scares me because I realized that, once again, I don't know ANYTHING about what a LOT of my fellow Americans are thinking.
I don't need to agree with them, or they with me- but I should, at least, know where they are coming from...understand why they make the decisions they do.
Because if you don't even understand your opponent's position and why they take it, you have no chance to reason them out of it (or perhaps, to be reasoned out of your own, should it prove the weaker).
For another thing, if you don't understand why your opponents make the choices they do, it is very hard to empathize with them, and to build consensus.
If you don't know what drives them, you don't know how strong they are.
And that scares me...because this has happened to me before.
The first time I realized that there were oceans of people in America that I did not even remotely understand was on election night, 2000. It had never occurred to me to worry that Bush would even come close to the Presidency! I mean, the man was a joke, right, everybody knew it.
Well, the joke was on me. I'd just as soon it didn't happen again. And this time, the lack of mutual understanding isn't just between Liberals and the Right-Wing- it is within the same political party. We need to learn to talk to each other so that we can talk the rest of the country out of voting for John McCain.
So...please, as a favor, would anybody out there like to explain to me why you are supporting Hillary?
Post Script
I found some interesting articles on this subject.
The first is from a young reporter in Seattle who writes about what the Clinton Candidacy may, or may not mean to her. It's here.
The is another article from CBS news about Ohio voters. Working Class and feeling pressed, for them, it is, once again "The Economy Stupid".
The first comment I got on this post is also illuminating about why someone in "Obama's" demographic might choose to support Hillary as well.
My friend Kate, of Gourmet Knitting Disaster, sent me a link to an essay in Newsweek by Marc Gellman. Entitled "The Houston Gospels: Reconciling Faith And Reason", the essay makes the case that, despite efforts of the right wing to argue to the contrary, Religion alone is not a relevant argument for or against any particular policy. This is not to deny that religion should inspire a citizen to take an interest in, and search for,answers to, questions of public interest...but religion must represent a starting point, not an end.
Religion, Gellman argues, may pose the question (about abortion, war, welfare, etc.) but Reason and only Reason may provide an acceptable answer that is accessible to all Americans.
The solution for the problem of politics and faith is for religious people to come to the public debates with reasons that an atheist can understand. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. came to civil rights from the language of faith, but he spoke to America in the language of American values and unaided human reason. He believed that racial discrimination was a sin, but he condemned it as unjust and a violation of the Bill of Rights. This is why he won.
Of course, this is all very basic stuff- it should be something that budding young American citizens take away from High School civics class, along with their diploma.
However, in a nation where Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee are defined as Presidential Front Runners- then just listening to a dose of normal common sense is as welcome, and perhaps as necessary as a flu shot.
Readers know that, unless you are gazing upon my blog from the FAR right fringe, rip-and-read is not a home for wild-eyed lefty ideas. Unless you are a snake handling evangelical republican stock broker, I'm not all THAT Liberal...not much further left than, say, Harry Truman or Bill Clinton.
But as I sat here over my British Breakfast this morning, two news stories from home caught my eye and I couldn't let them pass without notice.
Both come from the Associated Press.
In the small town of Orme, Tennessee, the water has gone. According to an AP story by Greg Bluestein,this tiny (pop. 145) municipality is importing water from nearby Alabama by fire truck. Residents have to make the most of their mere three hours of running water each day.
Between 6 and 9 every evening, the town scurries. Residents rush home from their jobs at the carpet factories outside town to turn on washing machines. Mothers start cooking supper. Fathers fill up water jugs. Kids line up to take showers.
"You never get used to it," says Cheryl Evans, a 55-year-old who has lived in town all her life. "When you're used to having water and you ain't got it, it's strange. I can't tell you how many times I've turned on the faucet before remembering the water's been cut."
In a related article, as Southern States are being squeezed by the drought tensions over the water supply are beginning to mount. Orme's mayor is quoted by the AP as saying: ""I feel for the folks in Atlanta. We can survive. We're 145 people. You've got 4.5 million people down there. What are they going to do? It's a scary thought."
The Tennessee mayor is not the only alarmist, it seems. In fact, in a separate article, the AP reports the conclusions of a recent report issued by the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Center for a New American Security.
According to the article, climate change:
Left unchecked, "the collapse and chaos associated with extreme climate change futures would destabilize virtually every aspect of modern life," said the report, comparing the potential outcome with the Cold War doomsday scenarios of a nuclear holocaust.
The report, according to the article by Arthur Max, postulates that a shift in the world's climate will give rise to bitter and bloody conflicts for water resorces, a scrabble for land, as sea levels rise, increased immigration to the United States (and conservatives, take note, these immigrants will NOT be coming because we offer political freedom- but because they want our water and our dry land- it's your worst xenophobic nightmare come to life), and a proliferation of new diseases born of malnutrition, and nasty diseases able to expand their range...imagine, the return of malaria to Pennsylvania...won't that be fun?
Clearly, it is time (past time, actually) for us to start planning for this change. We will need to reduce our dependence of nonrenewable energy (which would have the extra benefit of depriving the middle east of the power it now holds over us) and putting systems of transportation, distribution, and conservation in place that will help us cope, and compete in this new, and unpleasant world.
Again, please take note, I don't make this argument out of some fuzzy "We are the World" bunny-hugging perspective. Personally, I want the United States to remain number 1. I don't want to see us fall far behind. I bear the rest of the world no ill will, but at the same time, I've no desire to live in a world where the culture of Saudi Arabia, China, or Russia is calling the shots. I'm very happy, overall, living in a world which is run according to the principals of the Western Enlightenment. The fact that we are able to indulge in this luxury is due only to the fact that we are at the top of the economic heap. Thus, I'd like to see us stay there.
Still, I have no doubt that, if this report becomes news at all, rather than seeing as a call to Arms to save the American way of life by making needed changes, the Rush Limbaugh crowd will develop a counter argument which enables their voters to discount it and go back to sleep.
I was born in Orlando Florida
in 1969. I moved to Vermont in 1979- arriving with a thick Southern Accent.
After a long search for what I wanted to do when I grew up, I decided not to grow up at all.
I produce Radio Advertising and do voice-overs for a living.
In my free time I read a lot of American History and current Poltics-- I keep wondering: from where we started, how did we wind up here?
I now live with my wife and (too) many cats in Minnesota.
If you like Rip and Read, check out MWMB: The Podcast. Alex and his ex-brother-in-law are no longer in the same family, but they've carried the post thanksgiving dinner arguments onto the internet. Don't turn to elitist commentators, we are are your source for HOMEMADE Rhetoric!
From the very first moments of President Barack Hussein Obama's speech last night (which I watched this morning on the NYTimes website) I felt fortunate that we have this man as our president at this time.
If you like Rip and Read, check out 