April 2008 - Secular Humanity

Every election I wait - will this be the one where real issues are what decides the election? When fear and hate mongering aren't the main motivating factors for so many voters? An election that brings out real debate instead of sound bites? When average Americans finally wake up and stop voting for their own economic demise? Will the youth vote actually show up? Will a decent majority of voters even bother? Up to this point I have always ended up disappointed. More than a few Americans have cast their vote based on nothing more than fear of homosexuals or concern about public displays of the Ten Commandments. While the country has been pushed inexorably to an autocratic for profit enterprise benefiting a very select few. Will the election of 2008 finally be different?

There is a candidate who has tried to shift the paradigm into the realm of real issues and away from idiocy. His name is Barack Obama, and he is the best hope America has had in decades for real change and movement meant to reverse the destructive politics and policies that have so endangered the country. Barack Obama has refused to take corporate money and has refused to engage in the politics of personal destruction. He wants this election to address the concerns of Americans more than the results of cheap manipulations. But will it happen?

Right now Obama is embroiled in the Reverend Wright controversy that doesn't seem to want to die. What Reverend Wright says now and has said in the past is having a direct effect on Barack Obama. Funny, the equally offensive comments made by supporters of McCain like John Hagee and company don't get nearly as much scrutiny. Obama is being hit by the right and the Clinton campaign. What politicians (and Americans) could learn from the "pastor problems" is that they make a mistake when they hitch their wagon to the religious. Sure, it works if you are trying to appeal to the fundamentalist base - and the damage done to America by politicians pandering to that base is very apparent.

What the Obama candidacy does is to ask us to move beyond that. To stop choosing who we would want to lead us by criteria like religious litmus tests or vague references to their patriotism. America is facing some big challenges in the coming months, from a looming depression to a military increasingly mired down in an occupation to skyrocketing and broken health care to an abandonment of civil liberties and ethical behavior. We cannot afford to let those who would fool us again to do so.

Barack Obama is a candidate unlike any in recent memory. He has refused to go down the same old muddy road and instead moves ahead with dignity and grace. While the right - and unfortunately, the Clinton campaign slog through the same bad politics. We need to become smarter than that, America. We need to vote for a president who will be a steady and strong leader in the deepening storm that swirls around us. We need to think, and not be manipulated by fear and fright.

C,mon, America - the world is watching. Are we smart enough to see through the fog?

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Why vote conservative?

April 20th 2008 16:07

Every election cycle in America some people go to the polls and vote for their lives and the lives of their families to be adversely affected. Especially since the Reagan presidency, this group has been voting in a way that has seen their real earning power drop by more than 20 percent while health care costs have skyrocketed. And a good deal of the blame for what has happened goes straight to the voters who have been duped into supporting candidates that helped to make this happen. Compared to the myriad failures of the American conservative movement there is a resounding success in the continuing effort to concentrate wealth in the hands of their constituent aristocracy.

Some numbers....
1.In 2001 the top one percent of Americans held one third (33.4%) of wealth in America, while the bottom 80 percent held around 15 percent.
2. When you look at financial wealth (money holdings) the disparity is even greater, 40 percent vs. less than 9 percent.
3.Since 2001 estimates are that the disparity has grown to the point where the top one percent now holds around half of the wealth of America.

What this means is that the top one percent holds half of what runs America, financial wealth. And the top 10 percent have almost all of it. This is the money that has so corrupted Washington that no one but the top select few are having their interests addressed in any meaningful way. That's why there is little concern coming from the powers that be concerning rising food and fuel prices. Did you know food and fuel aren't even used as components in computing the inflation rate? Why do you suppose that is?

And while wealth is more concentrated, costs are more spread. For example, food. Because you are rich doesn't mean you have to spend more to eat. Of course you will, but that's personal choice. A rich kid and a poor kid still need the same good diet to grow properly. Another example, gas. A working man might be spending 50 dollars a week just getting back and forth to work. Paris Hilton might spend 50 dollars in gas bar hopping in LA on one night and not miss it. Meanwhile, the guy trying to support his family still needs to get to work every day. The top few don't care if a visit to an emergency room costs 10 bucks or 10 thousand, if they need to go. What about the family of that working guy whose company dropped health care?

But what has enabled the very top to leach the wealth out of every other segment of American society? The idiotic policies of "trickle down" economics and the disaster that conservative fiscal policy has been ever since Reagan is the biggest culprit. Supply-side economics has never worked for anyone by the the privileged few, and never will. Rampant deficit spending coupled with tax cuts to the rich has been the formula that has transferred massive amounts of wealth to those who need it least. That this was accomplished is a testament to the power of propaganda and fear-mongering.

The leaders of the American conservative movement were able to convince huge numbers of people that it was a good idea to vote for them based on economic policy that hurt them and their families. How? Trumpeting the "free market" as a solution to everything, although unregulated capitalism is not free, but devolves into oligarchies and aristocracy.

But the biggest successes of the conservative movement has come on so-called "values" issues. From homosexual equality to birth control to abortion to where the Ten Commandments can be placed, conservative leaders have pandered to voters to enable the power grab. Essentially, the foxes were given keys to the hen houses. What these lightning rods have served to do is rally the support of voters while also blinding them to their own interests on other, more important issues. Have you noticed that these "problems" always come up, but are rarely "solved" by the right wing politicians? That's not an accident. Without these issues, they don't have enough base support to win elections.

The next big factor is fear mongering. Be it from the over-hyped and mostly imagined threats from Iraq used to justify an ill-advised (and illegal) invasion or the more recent anti-immigrant rants, fear motivates many voters. Fear of the entire Islamic world. Fear that the Mexican crossing the border is the reason the economy is crashing. Fear of those wide-eyed crazy liberals. If the "values" can get 'em to the booth, fear can seal the deal.

My hope is that enough people wake up that this election can be a watershed event and start to bring about real change. My "fear" is that it won't, and enough voters will be duped by the outright lies of the right that America plunges headlong into a future that will not be good for anyone, save a precious few. Time will tell, indeed.

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Who is the "Angry White Man?"

April 14th 2008 05:08

I first saw this when someone sent it to me in an email. I sourced it and sure enough it was written as a column back on February 9th in the Aspen (Colorado) Times Weekly. But alas, it took Rush Limbaugh to get the ditto-heads all around the country fired up. Those who think FOX really is a news channel and the Republican Party is actually concerned with their interests. The column has taken on a life of it's own thanks to remarks by Barack Obama about the bitterness in some.

What the article does (very well) is to highlight just how correct his comments were. As Obama said, he could have phrased it better. But the message is true. It is oh so refreshing to hear a politician speak frankly. The so-called "Angry White Man" as portrayed by Gary Hubbell in the original column is the epitome of the kind of misplaced anger that Obama seeks to address. Below is the original column that is circulating in email land, with my comments following.

In Election 2008, Don't Forget Angry White Man

by: Gary Hubbell, Aspen Times Weekly

There is a great amount of interest in this year's presidential elections, as everybody seems to recognize that our next president has to be a lot better than George Bush. The Democrats are riding high with two groundbreaking candidates - a woman and an African-American - while the conservative Republicans are in a quandary about their party's nod to a quasi-liberal maverick, John McCain.

Each candidate is carefully pandering to a smorgasbord of special-interest groups, ranging from gay, lesbian and transgender people to children of illegal immigrants to working mothers to evangelical Christians.

There is one group no one has recognized, and it is the group that will decide the election: the Angry White Man. The Angry White Man comes from all economic backgrounds, from dirt-poor to filthy rich. He represents all geographic areas in America, from urban sophisticate to rural redneck, deep South to mountain West, left Coast to Eastern Seaboard.

His common traits are that he isn't looking for anything from anyone - just the promise to be able to make his own way on a level playing field. In many cases, he is an independent businessman and employs several people. He pays more than his share of taxes and works hard.

The victimhood syndrome buzzwords - "disenfranchised," "marginalized" and "voiceless" - don't resonate with him. "Press 'one' for English" is a curse-word to him. He's used to picking up the tab, whether it's the company Christmas party, three sets of braces, three college educations or a beautiful wedding.

He believes the Constitution is to be interpreted literally, not as a "living document" open to the whims and vagaries of a panel of judges who have never worked an honest day in their lives.

The Angry White Man owns firearms, and he's willing to pick up a gun to defend his home and his country. He is willing to lay down his life to defend the freedom and safety of others, and the thought of killing someone who needs killing really doesn't bother him.

The Angry White Man is not a metrosexual, a homosexual or a victim. Nobody like him drowned in Hurricane Katrina - he got his people together and got the hell out, then went back in to rescue those too helpless and stupid to help themselves, often as a police officer, a National Guard soldier or a volunteer firefighter.

His last name and religion don't matter. His background might be Italian, English, Polish, German, Slavic, Irish, or Russian, and he might have Cherokee, Mexican, or Puerto Rican mixed in, but he considers himself a white American.

He's a man's man, the kind of guy who likes to play poker, watch football, hunt white-tailed deer, call turkeys, play golf, spend a few bucks at a strip club once in a blue moon, change his own oil and build things. He coaches baseball, soccer and football teams and doesn't ask for a penny. He's the kind of guy who can put an addition on his house with a couple of friends, drill an oil well, weld a new bumper for his truck, design a factory and publish books. He can fill a train with 100,000 tons of coal and get it to the power plant on time so that you keep the lights on and never know what it took to flip that light switch.

Women either love him or hate him, but they know he's a man, not a dishrag. If they're looking for someone to walk all over,they've got the wrong guy. He stands up straight, opens doors for women and says "Yes, sir" and "No, ma'am."

He might be a Republican and he might be a Democrat; he might be a Libertarian or a Green. He knows that his wife is more emotional than rational, and he guides the family in a rational manner.

He's not a racist, but he is annoyed and disappointed when people of certain backgrounds exhibit behavior that typifies the worst stereotypes of their race. He's willing to give everybody a fair chance if they work hard, play by the rules and learn English.

Most important, the Angry White Man is pissed off. When his job site becomes flooded with illegal workers who don't pay taxes and his wages drop like a stone, he gets righteously angry. When his job gets shipped overseas, and he has to speak to some incomprehensible idiot in India for tech support, he simmers. When Al Sharpton comes on TV, leading some rally for reparations for slavery or some such nonsense, he bites his tongue and he remembers. When a child gets charged with carrying a concealed weapon for mistakenly bringing a penknife to school, he takes note of who the local idiots are in education and law enforcement.

He also votes, and the Angry White Man loathes Hillary Clinton. Her voice reminds him of a shovel scraping a rock. He recoils at the mere sight of her on television. Her very image disgusts him, and he cannot fathom why anyone would want her as their leader. It's not that she is a woman. It's that she is who she is. It's the liberal victim groups she panders to, the "poor me" attitude that she represents, her inability to give a straight answer to an honest question, his tax dollars that she wants to give to people who refuse to do anything for themselves.

There are many millions of Angry White Men. Four million Angry White Men are members of the National Rifle Association, and all of them will vote against Hillary Clinton, just as the great majority of them voted for George Bush.

He hopes that she will be the Democratic nominee for president in 2008, and he will make sure that she gets beaten like a drum.

-John McCain is not a "quasi-liberal maverick." There was a time when he had a slight independent streak, but of late he is right down the neo-conservative line. More war, more deficits, more tax giveaways to the rich...in short, increasing the myriad problems.

-The "Angry White Man" isn't nearly as widely represented as Hubbell suggests. And he is a racist. But even more so, he is a misogynist. He cannot fathom the thought of a woman as president. That's why the article expressly attacks Hillary Clinton even though Obama has very similar positions. He is right to say that his "Angry White Man" can be from any race. He is from many backgrounds too. But he is always is racist, he always is misogynist, and he is always easy to manipulate along those lines.

-Most important, he is just plain wrong. He decries welfare (the old "black woman in a Cadillac" that goes back to Reagan) even though welfare is not even close to what is busting the budget. America has over 800 military bases worldwide and a floundering economy as a direct result of the policies put in place in the Reagan years and followed (even under Bill Clinton, to a large degree) ever since. The two Democratic candidates (especially Barack Obama) see the folly and want to reverse it. The "Angry White Man" has seen his real earnings decrease by an average of one percent a year since Reagan. Do the math, that's over 25 percent. And he is duped into blaming the brown man. The Mexicans did it to him, not the economic policies that forced (and allowed) millions to try to feed their families. He is duped into thinking it must be Hillary Clinton's fault, even though the biggest growth in illegals came under Reagan and Bush.

-Last, I am an angry white man. Not in any way like Hubbell describes, of course. I am white, I am a man, and I am angry. I also like to hunt and hike, and a little sport now and then. But I am able to think for myself and to see the world through an open mind. Why am I angry?

I am angry that some closed-minded individuals choose to allow their insecurities and ignorance to be warped into a political movement. I am angry that thugs masquerading as members of the executive branch are allowed to run amok because they have distracted and scared enough people. It isn't the black person, the brown, the woman, the immigrant - or any of the other imagined threats to the "Angry White Man." It is his own ignorance, his own misguided belief system. He doesn't realize that every time he votes in favor of modern conservatives he is voting against his own self-interests, and those of his family. The "Angry White Man" needs to refocus his anger where it belongs.

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Dick Cheney and Sunglasses

April 12th 2008 05:02

Possibly the only man more responsible for the current debacle that is the American executive branch than George Bush is in the news again for something he shouldn't be. The same guy that shot his friend in the face while hunting virtually tame quail now has a photo of himself going around that is raising some questions. Unlike all the other write-ups about this I have seen, you won't find a link to the photo here.

Speculation ranges from a hand holding a fishing rod to a naked woman and even to an alien being. To borrow a phrase from our wonder V.P. - "so

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You can drill in ANWAR when I can ban NASCAR!

April 11th 2008 02:05

If you get your "news" from FOX and Rush and all, you might be of the opinion that all we need to do to solve our energy concerns is to drill, drill, drill. That and mine more coal and build more nuclear plants. You know, all the non-sustainable practices that got us here in the first place. Most progressives favor a different approach. Whatever ideas they may hold it's a good bet liberals and progressives aren't in favor of putting an oil well every place they can stick one.

We could have been off of foreign oil by now if we would have stuck with the alternative initiatives began by Jimmy Carter. Instead, we let Ronald Reagan lead us down the road of more consumption and less foresight. We as a country decided to just let things trickle down and everything will be OK. Well, turns out not to be the case. Now our hole is deeper and the neo-cons just want to keep digging. Thinking people demand more. But until alternatives are in place, what can we do to help bridge the gap? There are choices

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Socialism, American style

April 8th 2008 02:54

Privatize the profits, socialize the losses - that's the way big business works in America it seems. The latest example comes from the testimony of oil industry executives in front of Congress. Big oil stuck by their guns, claiming they were doing what they could to help ease oil prices and find new energy sources. They also want the tax breaks given them by Cheney and company to continue. For Exxon, it's about 18B over ten years. The same company that made more than any corporation in the history of the world last year. Yea, that's the one.

The quick bail-out of Bear Stearns is yet another one. Companies that knew full well they were taking risks and pushing bad loans in a near Ponzi scheme are looked after, as long as they are big enough and they are significant in their "contributions." What it means to get into financial trouble in America is far different for those who are part of the club. And if you are a CEO, there is virtually nothing that can happen to keep you from millions

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Will McCain choose Jeb Bush?

April 6th 2008 19:30

Arizona Senator John McCain has a Bush problem. He needs the money machine to help keep his candidacy afloat, especially when he comes up against the organizational and fund raising power of the Obama campaign. And he faces the problem of a lackluster right wing electorate and poor fund raising chances because of George Bush. So what's he to do?

McCain has already demonstrated that he has no problem in leaving any principles he might have had by the wayside in the name of political expediency. From criticizing the "Christocrats" to embracing them and their religious agendas to supporting Bush in sanctioning torture. McCain has gone from "Maverick" to "kiss up." And since 2004 he has been doing just that with the Bush family. With the endorsements out of the way, it would seem that the rifts have all been healed and the McBushCain train is ready to roll. Might Jeb be the icing on the cake

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How can average Americans support Republicans?

April 1st 2008 03:13

The questions surrounding liberal and conservative thought and what each of those terms has come to mean over the years are always open to debate. What is impossible to deny, however, is how damaging to the American middle class the policies of the Republican Party have been. Since the inception of the so-called "Reagan Revolution," the dismal failure or Reaganomics to deliver for anyone but the very rich is apparent and provable. Of course there are exceptions. There are those who either through good luck or hard work (usually a combination of the two) have prospered. But for the majority, the trends have been the other way.

America had always been about the next generation being able to do better than those who had come before. The neo-conservative movement put an end to that and created an environment that puts more people on the edge than ever before. At the same time, other countries have pushed forward agendas that have been more socially aware and their middle classes have benefited. It's not, as many will suggest, anti-American to say so. To admit that there may be somethings we can learn from other countries whose educational systems or health care systems out strip ours is more noble than to cling to hot-blooded nationalism no matter what the evidence

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