The Ghost of Lee Atwater Haunting the Election

Make no mistake: although Lee Atwater is dead, and he repented on his death bed for his ruthless and amoral strategies for running the Bush I campaign and the Republican Party itself, there remain his protegees. Karl Rove, Tucker Bounds, and those whose names we don't know, but who owe their philosophies to Atwater.

Tonight I went to see a film called Boogie Man: The Story of Lee Atwater. Here is a link to the trailer.

The film is frightening, because the Republican Party, the party that has used family and Christian values as the key to its appeal to trick people into voting against their own economic interests, has been led by amoral men who do not believe in any higher power than power itself.

Go see Boogie Man. Go see Boogie Man before the election. Get scared to death, scared enough to actually stand on line for hours on Tuesday and vote. Scared enough to make some phone calls and canvas for a few hours over the weekend. Scared enough to drive friends, family, and even strangers to the polls.

If you recall, Lee Atwater was responsible for electing Bush I, by flat out lying about the role Bush I played as vice president in the Iran Contra scandal and running one of the most racist campaigns in the history of modern politics: recall the Willie Horton ad.

Atwater was crowned chair of the GOP as a reward after Bush beat Michael Dukakis, but soon afterwards was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. Before he became too ill, he was already spreading rumors about then Governor Bill Clinton whom he understood was the up and coming Democrat to beat. With Atwater dead, Clinton won in 1992, leaving Bush I with a single rather than a double term as president, and a younger Bush with a score to settle.

The seeds of deception were already sown, and for eight years Clinton was plagued by rumors, investigations, and the waste of $70 million in the Whitewater investigation that led to Monica Lewinsky, a blow job, and his impeachment.

The testing of Barack Obama, if he is elected, in the opening weeks or months of his administration, will more likely originate from the protegees of Lee Atwater's radical Republican Party than from any foreign powers.

I Wish It Wasn't True: Joe the Plumber is Now a Pundit

According to Keith Olbermann, Joe the Plumber has become a pundit! He is looking for a publicist, and today announced that Barack Obama hates Israel.

Reality tv has destroyed America, I swear.

Update: Joe the Plumber has a publicist, is negotiating a music contract, looking for a book deal, and thinking about running for public office. And even more alarming, he is traveling with the McCain "Straight Talk" bus tour through swing states.

Thirty Minutes of Obama Just Six Days Until the Election

Some pundits are claiming that Obama has purchased this time because he has too much money. Ron Popeil, the king of the “infomercial” thinks that Obama will be able to keep our attention for thirty minutes. As the McCain campaign spews out venom of the most horrendous kind—dvds that try to brand Obama as all hype, a socialist, a danger.

Obama has avoided the negative, focusing on issues not on attacking character.

Now he begins: Our problems are long-lasting, not just the result of the last eight years. What is real and lasting change? What will Obama do to restore the long term health of our economy?

What is our resolve to change this country? Rebecca, a mother, with an awful lot of children, lives in a Missouri suburb. Her husband is in need of an operation, but he can’t do it now, because the disability won’t be enough for the family to live on. She labels snacks so that her kids don’t eat too much. They are obsessed with making ends meet. There was a time when she didn’t have to worry about this stuff.

An economy that honors the dignity of work—when was the last time we heard work described that way?

Rescue plan for the middle class: cut taxes, business tax credit for hiring, eliminate tax breaks for sending jobs abroad, low cost loans for small businesses. This will grow the economy, right now, to restore fairness.

Workers earn their pensions. Americans don’t expect government to solve all of their problems, they want to retire with some dignity.

Common sense Midwestern sensibility, that’s what Obama brings to problem solving.

The retired couple in Ohio, who have lived in their home for ten years, work they did themselves. They have grown children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. Their medical bills have been rising—twelve medications per day for her. She doesn’t have medical insurance after he retired. To meet payments, they have taken equity out of their house. He now has to go back to work to meet their financial challenges. He is 72 years old and still working, because her hands are so gnarled from arthritis. This is heartbreaking. We all know too many people who haven't been able to retire because they can't afford to rest.

We have to do something about health care and jobs. First, let’s start with energy independence. Invest in alternative fuels and energy efficiency. Help auto companies retool and to help make these new cars affordable. Tap natural gas, clean coal, but call on everyone to conserve energy.

Spending cuts for government, too, not just for individuals.

We must change our policies in Iraq. We are spending more in Iraq now than we did in the beginning of the war. We need to invest this money in America, not in Iraq. Most innovation comes from small business. Exxon and Mobile doesn’t need government help. Small business does.

Juliana Sanchez is a widow. She has devoted her life to her kids. They live in New Mexico. She works at a school for at risk kids. Juliana has a second job, caring for a special needs child. She takes teacher training classes, and is raising her own children. “I feel like I can’t breathe even though I have to breathe.”

No education policy can replace an involved parent.

Obama was shaped more by his father’s absence than by his presence.

Obama sees education as a moral obligation. So do I.

We can create schools that work. Rigorous school reform can make schools work again. Scholarships to college can be geared to public service.

Health care, lower costs through technology. His mother died quickly from cancer. It was heartbreaking to go on that lonely path of illness and death. It taught me to seize the moment.

I want to do something about it. Which reminds me of my friend Vanessa’s sermon “someone oughta.” We oughta, with Obama as our leader.

Quality of Obama that is different: clear leader, immediate impact, changed the rules, works across party lines.

Third generation Ford employee: manufacturing jobs bought the American dream. Mark and Melinda, with cut hours, are now struggling to make ends meet. Their fathers got full retirement. Melinda was laid off. How will they survive?

We have to defend liberty. I will rebuild our military, renew direct diplomacy, refocus fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. These are sons and husbands who are fighting, we can’t forget that. How he thinks about war and peace: approaches these rationally.

We all have stories about coming from another country, working in a coal mine, in a factory: someday my child or grandchild will have a home.

Will Obama be able to heal this country? There are unusual good sides of this man that we need in this country now.

I will always tell you what I think and where we stand. I will listen to you when we disagree. I will ask you to be involved in your own democracy again.

Live from Florida: in six days, we can choose an economy that grows, we can choose to invest in health care and education for our kids, hope over fear, unity over division, change over status quo. One nation, one people. That’s what’s at stake.

In this last week, knock on some doors for me, make some calls for me, stand by my side. We will win this election and together we will change this country and we will change the world.

Extreme Positions: When Birth Control Is Banned

According to a huffingtonpost.com post by Cristina Page, dated October 29th, there are several races across the country where candidates are staking their claims to anti-birth control positions. That's right! This is way beyond being anti-abortion, which might even be understandable in light of the last thirty years of propaganda. But to be against birth control is extreme, radically extreme.

Let's define some terms: 80% of voters who consider themselves anti-abortion support access to birth control. So to consider birth control--condoms, pills, long-lasting contraception--as somehow evil is ridiculous, even among those people who believe that abortion is wrong.

In Colorado, there is a ballot initiative, number 48, that aims to grant "personhood" to a fertilized egg. A Colorado House race is pitting a Republican who favors the initiative against a Democrat who doesn't. A fertilized egg as a person?

Washington State has a challenger for the position of governor who wants to allow pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control pills if such medication offends their conscience.
Why?

A Virginia House race also swirls around the radical idea that contraception is wrong. As do races in New Hampshire, New Jersey, and Ohio.

Read the article and then let's figure out how to end this madness. Seeing Sarah Palin's pregnant teenage daughter should be enough to remind us that we need to make sure that young people have access to medically accurate, and age appropriate, information about how their bodies work, and of course, access to affordable birth control.

More after the Obama Infomercial!!!

Protecting Your Vote in New York--My Name Isn't on the Polling List

I got a call yesterday from Arlene, a friend whose son can't find his name on the New York State electronic registration website. The site provides a way to look up your name and find the right polling place. Everyone should check the site to make sure you know where to vote and to anticipate any problems with voting.

What happens if your name isn't on the list? You still have the right to vote and must go to the polls in order to preserve it.

First, there is a backlog in processing voter registration forms that were received timely by October 10th by mail or October 11th if in person. Men and women honorably discharged from the military or who have been naturalized as American citizens had the right to register to vote in person until October 24th.

According to sources, although the main registration lists will be printed this week, supplemental lists are also being prepared, which should be at the polling places, in the books, but not necessarily integrated into the main alphabetical listing. In other words, these late names will be placed in the roll books behind the main alphabetical listing.

Go to the polls! That is the most important thing. You must show up at the assigned place, the place where you are supposed to vote, and have them look in the main alphabetical listing and the supplemental. If your name does not appear, you still have the right to cast an affidavit ballot. N.Y. Elec. Law. sec. 8-302(3)(e)(ii).

You will be asked to explain how you registered, when, and where in the affidavit ballot. Be sure to fill it out and cast it. Otherwise, your vote is lost.

A Day Without Anxiety

I was on the road most of the day, driving up to New Haven for a meeting, and therefore without internet, without fifteen minute interval glimpses at nytimes.com.

Driving back in rain and traffic, I wondered: Why am I so relaxed? Why don't I feel like I'm about to have a heart attack a week before the election?

It's because I didn't know that the stock market continued its manic behavior. I didn't know that McCain and Obama were just 100 miles apart. I didn't know that General Motors was begging for a federal loan so it can buy Chrysler. I didn't know that two white supremists were picked up with plans to hurt Obama. I didn't know that consumer confidence was at an all time low. Or that the insane docu-propaganda film "Obsession," which I've seen on John Hagee, the tele-evangelist's, Sunday morning hour, was released to thousands of Jews in Pennsylvania.

No, I feel sane, but soon I will be watching Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow, and I will return to my hyper state!!!

It's Time to Get Serious About Getting Out the Vote

The daughter of the woman who works with me stood on line for four hours on Saturday in order to exercise her right to vote. She is young, she is African American, she lives in Georgia, outside of Atlanta, which has early voting. For states with early voting-- 30 states permit some form of early voting--the lines have been long and the turnout has been sensational. Florida, of course, made its early voting as difficult as its balloting was in 2000, the year of the hanging chad. Despite its efforts to suppress, by Monday evening already a million people have voted there.

Here are some worrisome facts: In 2004, according to the November 10, 2008 issue of The Nation, the anticipated surge in young, minority, and low-income families never happened despite enormous registration efforts.

"Turnout among black and Hispanic voters trailed that of whites by at least 7 percent; people earning more than $50,000 outvoted those making less than $20,000 by 34 percent and 72 percent of Americans 55 and over showed up at the polls, compared with only 47 percent of 18-24 year olds."

There is a way to remind the reticent voters in your life that they have to put themselves out this year. MoveOn.org's political action committee has a fabulously funny video to get the message out that every vote counts. It creates a phony news report that the election was lost to McCain by a single vote. You can personalize the video to your younger friends, first time voters, kids, nieces and nephews, anyone who might think waiting on line for four hours to exercise the right to vote is just too much to sacrifice. Click here and join the almost 7 million people who have personalized this video.

Voter Protection in New York State and Beyond--November 4th

Today I spent the day in training to be a poll watcher on November 4th, Election Day. We were a group of lawyers, and will be assigned to voting precincts where there are newly registered voters, mostly Democrats, whose new registrations might be challenged.

First, I wanted to share with you the New York State Voters' Bill of Rights, written by The New York Democratic Lawyers Council. This information is available for download at the New York Democratic Lawyers Council, on the right hand side of the home webpage.

Anyone in New York State can check to see if s/he is registered and where to vote by going to the official New York elections webpage.

Polling places are not changed this close to the election! Do not be fooled by flyers and robocalls that might say otherwise.

The ACLU has a state by state voting guide to assist with voting regulations that have been implemented since the federal government passed HAVA--Help America Vote Act--another example of Bush sponsored legislation that does exactly the opposite of what it seems to mandate.

Or you can check out the rumors portion of the Obama site.

Let's get to the New York specifics:

1. First time voters do not have to show identification unless it says "ID required" next to your name in the registration book at your voting place. However, bring ID just in case.
2. New York accepts as ID: current and valid photo ID; current utility bill or copy; bank statement; government check, paycheck, or document from a government entity indicating your name and address.
3. You have the right to vote even if challenged by a poll watcher or poll inspector by machine or by affidavit ballot.
4. If your name is not in the registration book, have them check to make sure there haven't been spelling or transposition issues. Also, have the election officials check to make sure that your current address is actually assigned to this voting place. Your affidavit ballot will not count if you are at the wrong voting place. The election officials have to tell you whether you are at the right place based on your address. Also have the election officials check the back of the book to make sure that late registration voters were not added in supplemental alphabetical lists.
   
5. If you are in foreclosure and haven't yet established a new residence, you may vote in the voting place where your former home is located.
6. You are entitled to time off from work to vote if there is not a four hour period before or after work in which you can vote.
7. Under New York law, you may not wear a campaign button into the protected zone around the polling places.
   
8. You have the right to vote so long as you are on line or in the voting place by 9:00 pm on Election Day. The poll must stay open to accommodate you.
   

The Cruelty of Desperation

Pennsylvania seems to be the lightning rod for racism in this presidential campaign. First, Hillary Clinton began to effect a hillbilly accent while campaigning there during the primaries. Then John Murtha insulted his own constituents by calling them racist, and John McCain got tongue-tied trying to use the Murtha insult to ingratiate himself with another crowd of Pennsylvanians.

Then Friday rolls along and a young, unhinged McCain campaign worker self-mutilates herself with a backwards "B" and the McCain campaign shows its true colors.

Peter Feldman is the McCain Pennsylvania communications director who went to two television stations with the story that the worker had been mugged and mutilated by a vengeful Obama supporter, who just so happened to be black. Click here for the talkingpointsmemo.com story.

The McCain campaign pushed back and claimed the hoax story was spread by bad reporting, and could not be linked to the campaign. However, Keith Olbermann found to the contrary.

Now this same Peter Feldman appears to be connected to an outrageous email distributed to 75,000 Jewish voters in Pennsylvania. The email suggests that a vote for Obama is a vote for a second Holocaust.

Although the GOP tried once again to distance itself from the email blast, the consultant responsible for creating it, says otherwise, and the "otherwise" includes reference to the same Peter Feldman.

This is why I adore talkingpointsmemo.com: Josh Marshall is a determined journalist working through the medium of the Internet.

Which leads me to conclude that the cruelty inherent to feeling desperate is another one of those human traits that make self-rule and participatory democracy very difficult, indeed. Using fear to persuade, the legacy of Lee Atwater, who regretted these very tactics on his deathbed, has been kept very alive by Karl Rove and his protegees. It's a dreadful way to campaign and rule. The Democrats under Obama's leadership have resisted this streak this time. We have to figure out a way to return politics to a less devisive tone, so that it isn't about vanquishing the enemy, it isn't about pro-America and anti-America. It's about making a better and sustainable future for ourselves, as one nation on a very crowded and stressed planet. It's about balancing individual and community, and enlarging the definition of community to encompass the world.

A Day at the Theater

We trooped into Manhattan to see two plays, one matinee and one evening. I enjoyed both with reservations, although not everyone did.

"Mouth to Mouth" by Kevin Elyot and directed by Mark Brokaw is a disturbing yet intriguing play, skillfully crafted, albeit with flaws, about, what else: a dysfunctional family. It's English, at least, and not American. It's playing at The New Group through December 27th. Here's what was good about the play: its structure made the revelations of each character surprising, sometimes believable, sometimes a bit contrived. I can't tell you much about the plot, because of how everything is buried into the structure of the play. However, there are two performances to watch. David Cale plays Frank, an ailing friend of the family, whose face and features are quite mesmerizing, making the opening scene where he gives a long and indecipherable monologue to his woman friend who doesn't speak, seductive and engaging. And then there is Christopher Abbott, an actor on the move, who plays the young boy Phillip, whose age, sexual orientation, and motivations remain ambiguous throughout.

What's wrong with the play? It needs editing. There is a dreadfully long and rather boring scene towards the middle of the play that goes well beyond where it needed to go in establishing characters. And there is some tedious overacting by Lisa Emery who didn't need to incorporate a stutter into her later scenes. Her face is so transparent that her sorrow was quite evident. My husband found the play too slow, too ponderous, and like a chef who doesn't quite know what is wrong with a recipe, just throws more butter in, he found the playwright to have done the same with red herrings and loose ends. Stu and I liked the play the best; Ginger and Jordan were luke warm, although Ginger was more intrigued by the structure than Jordan was.

"Boy's Life" by Howard Korder, directed by Michael Greif, is at Second Stage. First premiered in 1988, it still has a lot to say about young men, their desperation to get laid, their inability to connect with each other, and the cruelty that too often accompanies close relationships among heterosexual men. The staging was inventive, with modules of scenery moved by cast members. The writing was authentic and the acting, well, the acting was superb. Rhys Coiro, who played the crazy director of "Queens Boulevard" and "Medellin" on "Entourage" plays Jack, the "kingpin" of the threesome, with a sharp sarcastic wit and demands of loyalty that certainly appeared familiar to all of us. He is the withholding, judgmental, underachiever who makes everyone's life miserable. Peter Scanavino is Don whose vulnerability is both endearing and pathetic. And Jason Biggs plays Phil, the neurotic worrier.

Entertaining, authentic, a very honest play about young men who have been raised just to be boys, this play provides insight into men that we often don't see in theater.

Sarah Palin Unleashed, Racism Unleashed

There are signs within the shattering McCain campaign that there is much controversy about the proper role of Sarah Palin in the waning days until the election. One camp believes that she is the cause of McCain's decline. The other camp says she needs to be unleashed.

Palin is already tugging at her leash. Last weekend, much to the dismay of her handler, she held an impromptu Q & A with local reporters while deplaning in Colorado Springs. But let's remember that Colorado Springs is the epi-center of the radical right Christian movement, the world of mega-churches and James Dobson.

Read the analysis in Politico.com.

And then there is the issue of the unhinged campaign worker in Pittsburgh who falsified a police report that she had been mugged and mutilated by an Obama supporter. Rather than just let the incident play out, the McCain Communications Director in Pennsylvania, was briefing the press, telling reporters that the attack was a blatant retaliation for her working for McCain and that the "B" carved into her cheek stood for "Barack." Police became suspicious because the "B" carved into her cheek was backwards, a sign that the unstable young woman had carved the "B" herself. In a mirror!

That any campaign attracks weird and unstable people isn't surprising. It happens all the time. But for the McCain campaign to make this into an issue, to spread the word that a young white woman was attacked by an angry African American man was pure and utter race-baiting. And in a state where accusations of racism are becoming commonplace: first John Murtha and then McCain's botched attempt to use Murtha's comment to his advantage, but getting tongue-tied, he ended up agreeing with Murtha that Western Pennsylvanians are racist.

Read the hoax story and see the press that was preserved by talkingpointsmemo.com, the result of the McCain campaign's briefings.

John Moody, VP at Fox News, said that if the story turns out to be a hoax, then McCain is sunk because of its opportunistic and rash decision to connect itself with the story. Read this post from the Huffingtonpost.com.

Endorsements

There is a growing list of Republican stalwarts who are endorsing Barack Obama for President. the most impressive for me, at least, was the seven minute monologue by Colin Powell, the former Secretary of State under George W. Bush. There might be personal motivations for his endorsement, as eloquent and thoughtful as it was. Powell might have seen an opportunity to distance himself further from the failed policies of the Bush administration, its failed war on terror, its failed war in Iraq and Afghanistan, its ruthless denial of civil rights and civil liberties.

But what is Charles Fried's motivation? Charles Fried is the former Solicitor General for the United States under Reagan and now a professor at Harvard Law School. He asked that his name be removed from several McCain committees, and publicly announced that he had voted for Obama by absentee ballot.

Christopher Hitchens, the author and columnist, also endorsed Obama, calling Sarah Palin a "disgrace."

Christopher Buckley, the son of William F. Buckley and founder of The National Review, endorsed Obama in The Daily Beast and was fired from the magazine his father started.

Lincoln Chafee, the former Senator from Rhode Island, one of the last moderates in the Republican Party, has supported Obama since well into the primaries.

Then there are the newspapers:
The New York Times ran a thorough and unreserved endorsement on October 23, 2008.

Washington Post wrote its endorsement on October 17, 2008, again without reservations.

Way back in February, the Los Angeles Times endorsed Obama.

And did I mention the Chicago Tribune, endorsing Obama, the first Democrat in its history?

And now for some humor: Catch Will Farrell as Bush endorsing a reluctant John McCain played by Darrell Hammond from SNL with Sarah Palin, of course it was Tina Fey, mugging for the camera.

Seneca Falls Redux 1848-2008

The first convention to seek the right to vote for women was organized in 1848 by Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Ironically it was the speech by an African American man, a freed slave, Frederick Douglass, that convinced the group of abolitionists and Quakers that it wasn't too radical to demand the right to vote for women.

After the Civil War when African American men were afforded the right to vote, leaving women behind, this first wave of feminism became marbled with racism, as is much of American history. Mott and Stanon, joined now by Susan B. Anthony, argued that if uneducated African American men had the right to vote granted by the Fifteenth Amendment, why shouldn't educated white women.

However, it was the second wave of feminism that brought together the various groups and finally secured the vote after western states advanced universal suffrage and Woodrow Wilson supported the right to vote for women.

This relationship between women and an African American man has reemerged in this election. According to Zogby's latest poll, women back Obama by a 20-point margin, 58 percent to 38 percent.

The third wave of feminism recognizes the difference between a woman and a feminist. Here is part of an intervew with Katha Pollitt, conducted by the German magazine Spiegel, about Sarah Palin:

SPIEGEL: Ms. Pollitt, there used to be a joke in the women's movement that equality would be achieved if a mediocre woman could have the same kind of career as a mediocre man. That's the case now with Sarah Palin. Are you satisfied?

Pollitt: No! Sarah Palin wasn't just picked because she is a woman, or because of her mediocrity. She is a fanatical opponent of abortion, and picking her is an attempt to get the evangelical Christian voters -- who they have been tepid about McCain -- into his camp. They might have voted for him anyway, but they might not have volunteered and donated and energized their friends and neighbors. That is different now because of Palin.

Thankfully women aren't buying Palin but are going for Obama.

Did You Say Regulation? You Don't Know From Regulation!

Every time I hear McCain or Palin putting down regulation as the cause of every working person's agony, like yours, Joe the Plumber, I think about: child labor laws, safer workplaces, anti-discrimination laws, minimum wage and maximum hours.

What's so wrong about those laws? They made every working person's life better.

As I mentioned before, I am reading Thomas Friedman's new book "Hot, Flat, and Crowded." During the eight years of Bush denial that global warming began with the industrial revolution when humans increased our burning of carbon-based fuels, (and not welcomed evidence of the "end of days"), we lost our leadership position to turn the coming environmental disaster around.

Al Gore tried to get our attention, but he was demonized by Republicans, and the entire subject of global warming became a political issue instead of a scientific one.

As the world's biggest consumer, we could have signed the Kyoto Protocols, voluntarily cut our own emissions, jump started some new green technologies, stopped producing SUVs and start building hybrids (instead of killing the electric car), thereby avoiding the export of all our money to the Middle East, especially to Saudi Arabia, that uses our money to keep women veiled, literally, and to export its weird and anti-modernistic brand of desert Islam throughout the Middle East and beyond so that there are more and more radical Islamists to hate us.

There once was a time when most Muslims were moderate, they ate dinner with their families at the same table, and their wives, daughters, and sisters were not forced to cover themselves, be escorted by male family members, and when they were free to go to school and work.

Unless we do something to reverse global warming, and this aggravates me about this presidential campaign, because no one is talking about it, we will be living in a very, very regulated state, the real scary kind that prevents riots, because of scarcity, famine, lack of fresh drinking water, and massive dislocation.

Global warming happens exponentially and faster than anticipated by scientists.

Like what we are seeing now in parts of Africa.

So let's understand that we are running out of time. America has to take a leadership role as the world's biggest consumer of everything, or else we will be the cause of the planet's demise.

Wrapped in Neiman Marcus and Saks

I had been admiring Sarah Palin's clothing and now I know why. My question is: if not for the media, would she have considered this $150,000 in Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, Bloomingdales, and Barneys clothing income? Already reporters have exposed that the perks of public office up in Alaska--her house, her travel with her kids, her daily stipend--haven't been considered as income.

This entitlement, this belief that public office is a way of getting rich, combined with the Republican belief that elections are all about crushing the enemy, are the bi-products of this age of Republican rule. Remember Tom DeLay? He destroyed compromise in the House of Representatives. However, in a democracy, the opposition should not be considered the enemy if bi-partisan compromise is necessary in order to keep the government doing its job: to protect, to preserve, to regulate against our less admirable qualities.

Thomas Franks in his latest book: The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule, informed us that Karl Rove intended to create one-party rule and to create new wealth from lobbying and privitization of government services. We see the impact of "no opposition." It's dangerous. It's wrong, no matter who is in power.

After this election, we must explore ways to communicate among ourselves once again, so that we can return civility to our nation. Civil engagement requires civility. Perhaps an economic depression, where we are all concerned about the basics--housing, food, fuel, jobs, education--will be the way to push aside the animousity surrounding abortion and gay marriage--returning these to private and personal decisions without government interference-- so that we can join our hands and help our neighbors survive this mess.

A Map of Sleaze

Although McCain is complaining that he doesn't have much money left, he is certainly spending his war chest on sleaze. And thanks to Josh Marshall at Talkingpointsmemo.com, there is now an interactive map that exposes the tactics in each of the battleground states.

Click on Florida, and one learns that flyers distributed in the state have these themes: Obama kills babies and botched abortions. Robocalls shout about Bill Ayers, Hollywood, and just who is Barack Obama, a thinly veiled code for "do we trust the unfamiliar?"

Click on Indiana and the fear tactics include kids in danger and the flimsy connection between Obama and Ayers. Somehow McCain forgets that Ayers is a professor of education and has associated with many Republicans.

My favorite is a campaign in Pennsylvania that characterizes Sarah Palin as a moderate.

Click through all of the states and one sees that McCain is concentrating his efforts in North Carolina with ten separate flyer and robocall themes.

Is it Election Day yet?

Diner Dash

It’s been another nasty day: the sliding stock market, the increased slime of the Republican campaign for the presidency, and basic work tensions.

So I decided to go out for lunch. I chose a diner in a white working class area near my office. I have choices here: I can go Latino, African American, or white. I wanted to eavesdrop on conversations and figured the diner would be a perfect place to put my finger on the pulse of a local community.

Fox News was on. The issue of Proposition 8 was about to come up. That’s the California ballot initiative that would reverse the California Supreme Court ruling that under that state’s constitution, same sex marriage must be acknowledged.

The lead was something like this: elementary school teacher hosts field trip of her students to her lesbian wedding. Nothing like San Francisco!

However, when the story actually aired, it was very different. A parent of a student in the teacher’s class decided to take her own child to the teacher’s wedding. This is not a field trip. This is parental discretion. How that got distorted into a what sounded like a field trip of the entire class to the wedding, well, it’s Fox. Need I say more.

I was pissed. I overheard a conversation between two very assertive white men, mid-thirties, who were talking about how dangerous Obama was. The third man was hesitant, and was trying to focus their attention on the inexperience of Sarah Palin.

Despite my best intentions, I jumped in like a mad woman: Sarah Palin has no knowledge, no education, and no ability to be the president of the United States. Haven’t we had enough with stupid presidents? That’s how we got here.

These men looked at me like I was crazy, and I was old enough to be their crazy mother, too!

At times like this, I wish I had the composure of Barack Obama.

Instability and Insecurity

Although Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com, has Obama with a 93.4% chance of winning the election, no one is feeling secure.

No one is feeling secure about anything.

With the stock market wildly gyrating over the course of a day, we have now grown accustomed to witnessing radical responses to small bits of information, often insignificant, often hyped. A little gaffe here or there shouldn't move an election, but we are all feeling so insecure, that nothing surprises me about the American electorate anymore.

There is something deceiving about the constant thermometer of public opinion. First, it becomes news, so people respond to how other people are feeling. Second, I listened to an interview on "All Things Considered" last evening where a pollster admitted that sometimes, because it is so much more difficult to get people to participate in a poll, the self selection process distorts the outcome. And now 15% of prospective voters only have cell phones.

Making sure that Obama wins the election isn't just about the election. It's about forging a new American ethic that is indeed a melting pot, a real melting pot, where we learn to work with and trust each other. Whenever I begin to feel pessimistic, I go to barackobama.com, not to listen to more speeches, but to see the crowds at Obama rallies. Those crowds, reflecting the great diversity of this country, this amazing experiment with democracy, keep me optimistic. For a while.

Remembering That Obama is Bi-Racial

According to fivethirtyeight.com, Obama has a 92.5% chance of winning the election. One person close to the election suggested that Obama could lose for two likely reasons: white people once in the privacy of the voting booth can't pull the lever, touch the screen, or punch the card for a black man, or African Americans don't turn out to vote. A combination of the two would surely defeat him.

McCain's use of nasty robocalls and Palin's speeches that continue the slimy insinuation that Obama has a more than passing acquaintance with Bill Ayers are coded messages: don't trust him, he's unknown because he is unfamiliar. Whereas McCain's negative ads are attacking Obama's character, Obama's ads that have been labeled "negative" are attacking McCain's policies, including the Obama ad that has McCain bragging that he voted with Bush 90% of the time. Sorry Andrea Mitchell from NBC, these aren't the same!

Now that Obama is taking time off the campaign trail to visit his ailing grandmother, perhaps Americans who are confused by the Republican slime will be reminded that Obama is bi-racial. His mother and grandparents raised him, and the complex creation of character that Obama traced in his first memoir "Dreams From My Father" comes from a bi-racial heritage. As Amin Maalouf writes in "On Identity" which I have been discussing here, we must leave behind single identities. They are the cause of genocide and violence. When I see the Obama crowds in West Palm Beach and St. Louis, most recently, I see a wave in my country that makes race less important, and a future together more important.

War As Corruption

No matter who ends up writing the history of the American invasion of Iraq, no matter whether it's five, ten, or one hundred years from now, it will necessarily include the lust for oil, the grab for Iraqi oil reserves, no matter how much "democracy" icing Bush and his cohorts wanted to put on the story back in 2003 or ever.

Here's a new fact to get angry over: According to Harper's Index for November 2008, the US government has paid Blackwater, the private security firm, $110,000,000 from federal small business contract funds!!!

According to its own website, Blackwater has operations domestically in: Moyock, North Carolina; Mt. Carroll, Illinois; San Diego, California; and Tampa, Florida. Internationally, Blackwater has offices in East Africa; Amman, Jordan; Baghdad, Iraq; Kabul, Afghanistan; and UAE. Blackwater claims to operate in nine countries.

Blackwater hardly qualifies as a small business, although it remains privately held and therefore not subject to many transparency requirements. But as we have seen time after time, this Bush administration doesn't understand the rule of law.

I'm currently reading Thomas Friedman's new book "Hot, Flat, and Crowded." If the Bush administration hadn't been in a delusional state about global warming and not quite so greedy to fill its own pockets with the proceeds of the sale of the last of the planet's oil reserves, we might not be in this global financial crisis. Instead the US could have shown real leadership, opening the doors to new sustainable technologies, recycling everything the consumer uses, finding alternative fuels, which translates into good jobs at home and abroad, trade with other nations, and a quieter planet. By sending all of our money to the Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia, we have succeeded in funding the very source of anti-modernist, misogynistic fundamentalism. We didn't need the Patriot Act to try to stop the flow of money to support terrorism, that's all we had to do was trade in our SUVs for hybrids.

Girls Against Palin

A link to a powerful YouTube video was just sent to me by my daughter who is in Prague, with young women and girls asking Sarah Palin not to "undo all that our mothers and grandmothers fought for."

Colin Powell--Played by Himself and by Jeffrey Wright

A group of us went to the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem this morning for the early service to "lay our burdens down." The anxiety racing through my body is nearing lethal levels, and I needed a ritual of release and optimism.  My friend Sylvette was generous enough to include a few of us in her Sunday morning at church.  We were seated up front and welcomed warmly by Rev. Dr. Calvin O. Butts, III, Pastor, and the men and women seated around us.  

We sang, we listened to a short sermon by Rev. Butts on the discipline necessary to maintain a healthy body and a healthy spirit.  He made us laugh, he made us listen. And we rejoiced in the beauty and elegance of the choir, especially some of the female soloists, adding our voices to those of the congregation in joyful communion.  

While we were in church, Colin Powell was endorsing Barack Obama on Meet the Press, in a seven minute monologue, presided over by Tom Brokaw.

Here is the link to the endorsement; you have to watch a short commercial from Boeing first.  

(Yes, the networks finally got it: they can post their own videos and sell more advertising time!)

When I got back from church, my husband and I watched Powell.  He deferred the actual endorsement when first asked by Brokaw. Instead Powell explained his decision-making process: that although both men, in his judgment, would make fine presidents, during these last seven weeks, some disturbing aspects have revealed themselves about John McCain and about the Republican Party.  He spoke about the inappropriate choice of Sarah Palin as the vice presidential candidate, the unsureness of McCain in the face of this economic uncertainty, and the narrowing of the Republican Party.

We wondered why Powell made the announcement today, until we sat through Oliver Stone's "W."

I don't recommend it.  It's agony sitting through.  One cannot write history while it is still happening.  The characters, all of whom we recognize and have watched for hours upon hours for almost eight years now, are mere parodies of themselves.  Bush is not a tragic character. He is a callow, narcissistic, ignorant, shallow, insecure man who never should have been president.  The script by Stanley Weiser is probably based on Ron Suskind's "The One Percent Doctrine"  and Jacob Weinberg's "The Bush Tragedy," both of which I've read, as well as Bob Woodward's several, which I haven't.  

Only heros can be tragic.  Bush never was and never will be.

Colin Powell is a tragic hero and I suspect that the release of the film "W" might have affected the timing of his extraordinary endorsement of Barack Obama.  Jeffrey Wright portrays Powell as the only hero, the man whose integrity and stature were destroyed by the greed, paranoia, and incompetence of the Bush administration's decision to begin a preemptive war against Iraq.

Powell called Obama "transformational."  I agree.  When I see the faces of the men and women and young people at Obama rallies, I see the faces of all of America: all colors, all shapes, all classes. When I see the faces at McCain and Palin rallies, I only see white people who appear to be angry and unhinged.  

I want this country to enter the third millennium ready to be a member of a global community of nations, where we embrace each other and don't rely upon simplistic or singular identities.  

That is the promise of Barack Obama: look at these rallies and see what might be possible if we open our hearts and minds.

 

Saturday Night Live--Palin Appears Twice

I would have preferred that Sarah Palin not get the spotlight on Saturday Night Live as she did last night, not once, but twice during the show. To counter her appearance, Obama released a new television commercial later in the show to appeal to ordinary women voters.

The opening sketch where it was eerie to see just how much Tina Fey looks like Palin, the set up was the press conference Palin has never subjected herself to. Then Alex Baldwin, Fey's co-star on 30 Rock, mistakes Palin for Fey, and ends up revealing her code name "Caribou Barbie."

Here's a link, just in case you missed it.

For those of you who went to sleep, you missed the second appearance on "Weekend Update," the feature with Amy Pohler and Seth Meyers. There Palin appeared once again as herself and decided not to perform the planned skit, allowing Pohler, who is very pregnant, to do the very funny, mockingly funny rap. Here's the link.

Now just how "pro-American" is Saturday Night Live? According to Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com, the real "pro-American" areas where Palin has held rallies are whiter than the U.S. average. SNL, of course, has a very white audience. How do we know? Just look at the audience when the camera pans. Is "pro-American" Palin's code for Republican white voters? I suggest it is.

More on Identity

While waiting to see how Sarah Palin presents herself on Saturday Night Live, I want to return to Amin Maalouf's "On Identity." He wrote this essay because identity appears to be the cause of the great genocides of the twentieth century; Germany and the Holocaust, Lebanon, Israel and Palestine, Rwanda, Yugoslavia, Darfur, Iraq among the Shiites and Sunis, India and Pakistan. His examination of identity illuminates how dangerous each of us becomes when we get stuck in a primary identity.

After each ethnic massacre we ask ourselves, quite rightly, how human beings can perpetrate such atrocities. ...When an otherwise normal man is transformed overnight into a killer, that is
indeed insanity. But when there are thousands, millions of killers; when this phenomenon occurs in one country after another, in different cultures, among the faithful of all religions and among unbelievers alike, it's no longer enough to talk of madness.

Add threat to the situation, add threat to the tribe, and what happens:

...if the men of all countries, of all conditions and faiths can so easily be transformed into butchers, if fanatics of all kinds manage so easily to pass themselves off as defenders of identity, it's because the "tribal" concept of identity still prevalent all over the world facilitates such a distortion.

We can slice our identities, or we can view ourselves, like the vast number of people who have moved from their origins, as a combination of identities, molded and changed by experience.

[Tribal]... is a concept inherited from the conflicts of the past, and many of us would reject it if we examined it more closely. But we cling to it through habit, from lack of imagination or resignation, thus inadvertently contributing to the tragedies by which, tomorrow, we shall be genuinely shocked.

By the way: While flying back from Chicago, I watched Barack Obama's speech at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Dinner on Thursday night. He looked adorable in his white tie and tails, but more importantly, he was so cool and endearing in his delivery. Contrast that to how uncomfortable McCain was in trying to respond to Obama's jokes without exploding from his anger.

An Observation About McCain's Attitude Towards Palin

An interesting observation from my friend Cece to a comment made by John McCain about Sarah Palin during the last presidential debate:

I had a reaction to something in this last debate that I haven't heard from anyone else. When McCain was praising Palin and kept saying, "I'm so proud of her," I found it to be very paternalistic, as if he was speaking about his grown-up little girl. I thought it betrayed his inner knowledge that she's basically a weak candidate, that she needs special handling, and that she's under his protective wing. She's a brazen woman in many ways, but shows an immaturity in her hostile over-confidence, and he has to know that.

Beyond Single Issues

Flying to Chicago yesterday I sat next to a fifty-ish woman, a nurse by training, who was coming from Virginia to attend a conference with some of the young men with whom she works. She was playful and teased me, claiming that the two young men seated behind us were both her sons: one was African American and the other was white.

After she slept for an hour, we began a conversation about the state of the economy as we watched the stock market roller coaster on the DirectTV CNN coverage. We shared how we both realized that our retirements were now greatly delayed. She is married to a dentist and together they go on medical missions to Central America. She and her husband had been looking forward to spending their retirement doing medical missions in developing countries.

She volunteered that she wasn't happy with either candidate--Obama or McCain.

I volunteered that Obama's community organizing work had been greatly influenced by the Christian theologian Reinhold Niebuhr.

"How can Obama be a Christian and still believe in abortion?"

I didn't immediately respond to her comment, because I wanted to make a point. Instead I went back to the economy, and we shared our mutual concern about the displacement of families, the food insecurity too many children are experiencing, the loss of jobs, the loss of government services.

She defended George Bush and said that it is unfair to blame him, because this economic collapse just so happened to have occurred during his administration. She threw out Fannie and Freddie as being to blame, of poor people buying homes they couldn't afford.

I suggested that Bush had made very poor appointments, that throughout the federal government, professional departments had been politicized. The best people were not in positions to regulate mortgages and the sale of securities, and ward off the chaos. I also explained how mortgage companies targeted communities of color and exploited people's naivete by convincing them that their new homes that they couldn't afford would continue to gain value, thus protecting their investments.

We both agreed that this economic crisis was caused by greed.

That's when I told her that I believed in choice, that my husband serves on the board of a local Planned Parenthood, and that our daughter is an escort.

"You like me, don't you?" I asked. She nodded. "See we both care about our communities. We don't have to agree on everything. But a single issue shouldn't prevent us for working together to make our communities better."

She didn't punch me.

On Identity

Amin Maalouf is a Lebanese-born writer who moved to France when he was 27 years old. He writes in French although he speaks fluent Arabic. He is a Christian, not a Muslim. With the incisiveness of a philosopher, Maalouf discusses the inquiry into and the dangers of identity. I am reading his short, but intense book “On Identity,” because in this wildly coded presidential election, we are experiencing America’s brand of identity politics.

“The identity a person lays claim to is often based, in reverse, on that of his enemy.”

Every time John McCain or Sarah Palin asks the question: Just who is Barack Obama? in essence they are questioning his identity. They are eliciting caution, fear, and racial hostility from their white audiences. (There were only 36 African American delegates at the Republican National Convention.) As the son of a white woman and an African father, a man who left the family when Barack was only two, does Obama consider himself white, having been raised by a white mother and her white parents, or black, as he is seen by the world? In his first memoir, “Dreams from my Father,” Obama explains how he journeyed to his sense of self, to his identity as an African American man in the true sense of the word.

“…each individual identity: it is complex, unique and irreplaceable.”

Yet he has carefully avoided the issue of race throughout the campaign. With the one exception during the primary when he responded to the revelations about his then pastor Rev. Jeremiah Wright whose fiery sermons appeared on YouTube and then repeatedly on every major news network. That speech, as eloquent and touching as it was, appears to be his only major statement on race.

According to Maalouf, one of the dangers of identity, especially since most of us have complex and specific sources of identity, is that no matter what we say, we are questioned as to what is our one true self.

“It presupposes that ‘deep down inside’ everyone there is just one affiliation that really matters, a kind of ‘fundamental truth’ about each individual, an ‘essence’ determined once and for all at birth, never to change thereafter.”

By asking repeatedly who is Barack Obama, McCain and Palin are piercing into the depths of white distrust of African Americans, unleashing a rabid violence that is associated with the foreign, the unknown, the stranger, especially the dark skinned stranger.

For us to move forward, we must examine our attitudes towards race. We must understand how much we limit our potential, and the potential of others through our labeling.

"For it is often the way we look at other people that imprisons them within their own narrowest allegiances. And it is also the way we look at them that may set them free."

From Inside Hofstra University During the Debate Last Night

My friend Vanessa sent this message from inside Monroe Hall, not the main auditorium at Hofstra, but the spill over room where the audience was allowed to emote during the debate and respond to what the candidates were saying and not saying. Hempstead is a primarily African American and Latino area now, which is suffering even more, if that is possible, as the economy unravels:

So are "Joe the Plumber" and "Joe Six-Pack" the new "code names" for …? The Monroe Theater (not the main hall) where I watched the debate was on fire! We began with what was supposed to be an invocation---instead a dynamic young pastor from Hempstead gave opening remarks re: the appropriateness of the road to the white house passing through Hempstead: #of HIV-AIDS cases, # of foreclosures, unemployment, schools, etc...I think you get the idea: it was a take no prisoners framing of the conditions and Hempstead’s place in this historic event as a microcosm of what’s happening nationally! … None of the interaction in that room could have taken place in the main hall! I was where I needed to be last night!

The Choice 2008

For a calm and measured review of this extraordinarily long and complex primary and presidential campaign, lasting over 20 months, take a look at the PBS Frontline special: The Choice 2008.

I found it informative, contextual, and although I am wary of "instant" history, it took some of the hysteria out of the daily melodrama of this campaign.

In a conversation with Rebecca yesterday: She was in the laundry in her suburban town when a male customer came in and announced to the owner that he had lost his job.

The owner wasn't quite sure what to say, and tried to show some empathy.

The customer retorted: "It's going to affect you, too. I won't be wearing fresh shirts five days a week. I'll only be wearing tee shirts now."

"At that moment," Rebecca said, "I understood the concept of trickle down."

The Last Presidential Debate

We are sitting in our home--a group of friends, all educated, diverse, all informed--watching the debate and although there is still one person here who might vote for McCain, we definitely believe that Obama is showing a calm, presidential attitude that we miss. George Bush has been an embarrassment to this country. To watch and listen to Barack Obama speak brings some hope back to each of us. McCain is not just out of touch, he doesn't have the flexibility, creativity, or the lustre of ideas needed to solve the problems plaguing this country, especially after eight years of mismanagement.

Health care, energy sustainability, economic vitality, housing, education, alternative fuels, a woman's right to reproductive decisions.

We have noticed that Obama has gotten very gray during the course of this campaign. Given his background and health, we might wonder what is happening in McCain's body during these grueling months of the primary and presidential campaigns.

Finally McCain is looking at Obama, the first time, in the three presidential debates.

Our friend Runi's question--about the level of math and science education of US students--was included in the debate! And she is sitting here in our home!!!

There is nothing admirable about McCain as a presidential candidate. He might have once been a brave man who fought against the conventional in Congress. But he isn't there anymore, because he is too old, he is too brittle, and he wants this job too much. Therefore, he has made too many compromises that make his message murky and rigid.

Obama is young, inexperienced, but clearly the intellectual of the two. I have said this more than once: No one can take the ring of power without being affected by it. Obama is a student of Reinhold Niebuhr, the Christian theologian who wrote about the need for politics, and the limitations of reason, to press for social justice. Niebuhr wrote extensively about power. Even Frodo was tempted when he finally had his hands on the ring. Obama, will you resist the corruption of power? I hope so.

In Preparation for the Debate Tonight

I had to run a lot of errands today outside the office. It was really an escape from the frustration of errors in communication, little annoyances, constant interruptions. But every time I went out--to the bank, to the post office, twice to Staples--I got a chance to speak with strangers.

One woman was wondering around Staples, on the second visit, because she had lost her originals when she had come to the store to make copies. She began to tell me her tale while we were both waiting on line. I reached over and touched her arm.

"We are all under so much stress, it's no wonder, you misplaced your papers."

A flood of emotion came out of her. She is in her seventies. She is still married. Their entire savings has been eroded these last weeks: 40% drop in the equity markets in a single year. She looked at me with such fear that I left my hand on her arm a little longer.

In the post office, the clerk was telling me that everyone seems out of alignment, even her usual customers are curt.

On the way home from work, I stopped at a liquor store in a working class neighborhood. The store is known for its wine selection. A young man, I thought he was a kid, but he is 28 years old, was helping me choose a white for our debate party tonight; I am no expert on white wines. He offered me a wine from New Zealand. As he was walking out of the store carrying my case, he noticed the Obama magnet on the car.

"Didn't you see all of the right wing literature my boss keeps on the side when you first walk in? I'm the only Obama supporter in the store and everyone gives me grief."

Finally I stopped at a little Middle Eastern shop where I often get pomegranate juice, cashews, fresh breads, and pistachio nuts. The owner is from Iran. As I was gathering together treats for our party, the owner's friend told me that he doesn't trust Obama, that he doesn't look presidential. "He doesn't have the stature of a President," he said.

Then the man used the "n" word. I was so taken aback. I don't know where he is from, but I suppose he is from someplace in the Middle East.

I took a deep breath and said, "That's just American racism speaking."

As I was checking out, the owner who knows me, appeared concerned about his friend's comment. I responded to his worry. "My daughter is in Prague. How exciting for her, to be discussing the election, American politics, abroad, among young people from all over the world."

Then I looked at the man who had spoken so ill. "I trust our children more than I trust us."

Let's Laugh!!!

This week's The New Yorker has once again an exceptional piece, Beyond Palin by Hendrick Hertzberg, about the impact of negative ads on the presidential campaign. Hertzberg compares the negative ads released by the McCain and Obama campaigns and finds them hardly comparable. McCain is spending nearly his entire advertising budget on unscrupulous ads, whereas about one-third of Obama's are negative, but not in the same sleazy category of "untruth." (Not to be confused with "truthiness.") There is far more intentionality to the McCain-Palin sleaze.

But enough of this already!!! We need some humor, so here is a link to a site forwarded to me by my daughter, a college student, who is so filled with joy and optimism that even my despair can't affect her. Click around, click on things more than once. Enjoy the site: PalinasPresident.

Obama's Ohio Speech and Rescue Plan

While John McCain was busy complaining that the "liberal" media is portraying his campaign rallies as ugly--his rallies certainly are--and his character assassination of Obama as relentless--it is, Barack Obama was delivering a powerful speech in Ohio laying out his plans for an economic recovery.

For the full text of the speech, click here.

This morning in Virginia Beach, signs at the Palin rally said: Obama bin Lyin'. But that's just funny, right? NO! Later in the day at another Palin rally in Richmond, the signs called Obama a Communist and a Marxist.

Back to "it's the economy, stupid: the Obama plan is quite detailed:

• Real tax relief and incentives for investing in small businesses, the engine of American prosperity
• Jobs for Growth to reinvest in American infrastructure
• Investments in fuel efficiency technology for American carmakers to retool cars
• Tax cuts for seniors and middle income families
• Extend unemployment insurance benefits
• Suspend withdrawal penalties from IRA and 401 (k) accounts for folks under the age of 59.5 who are in need of cash now
• Suspend penalties for not withdrawing from IRAs and 401 (k) s for seniors who don't need to take the money out
• Homeowner mortgage foreclosure relief and assistance

The document is only seven pages long, and it deserves our attention. Read it.

After all of these years of Bush dumbing down the American public, we must begin to take the time and invest the effort to become better informed. Fear kept the American people ignorant and gave too much power to Bush and Cheney.

We have a choice: the tone of the Obama campaign appears to say that an Obama presidency would rely on the abilities of the American people, all of the American people, to discover and implement new and creative solutions to the problems facing this crowded and troubled planet.

Wouldn't that be a nice change? Are we willing to work together again?

The Loss of Pensions

As of 2006, only 13% of American workers can retire with a pension. A pension is usually calculated by a percentage of the highest base salary multiplied by the number of years of service. Pensions became more commonplace during World War II when federally-mandated wage freezes pushed unions into negotiating retirement benefits for their members.

The folks with pensions are government employees: police, firefighters, teachers, municipal, state, and federal workers. However, one goal of the radical right wing "free market" sector of the Republican Party is to privatize these services. Once privatized, there will be no pensions.

By the late 1970s, 60% of American workers had pensions.

Now major corporations refuse to offer pensions to their newer employees, in a further effort to end the benefit.

Instead 401 (k) benefits are offered, due to an amendment to the IRS code in 1978 that went into effect in 1980. The amendment allows for deposit of assets, with deferred tax consequences to the employee, by the employer with an employee contribution, if feasible. As fixed benefit pensions have declined, the number of 401 (k) benefits participants has increased. The latest number I could find was 47 million active participants. Originally devised for high salaried employees, the benefit is now offered across the board. Throughout the 2000s, employers complained that too many employees were failing to take advantage of contributing to their 401 (k) accounts. However, throughout the 2000s, middle and working wages were pretty much flat. Hence the lurching towards more and more credit.

When the market is booming, a 401 (k) offers employees investment options that can grow assets. Many 401 (k) plans are invested in mutual funds. However, as we saw in 2000, again after 2001, and currently, 401 (k) benefits can shrink precipitously, even when avoiding risky investments.

That's the reason why we should not privatize Social Security. Whereas Social Security assets at some points have earned as much as 12%, current investment rates are much lower, but still better than what we might get from a current day bank CD. Click here to see the investment rate changes.

Yesterday I was dancing down the aisle of my hometown drug store to Aretha Franklin singing "Think" over the public address system. An older woman cashier looked at me suspiciously. My friend Nicky in her very proper British accent intervened: "She's harmless."

I explained to the skeptical cashier that I needed to dance and sing to keep the anxiety under control. Then she told me her story:

"I am 70 years old," she began. "I know anxiety. I'm working two jobs because I'm taking care of my daughter who has had two strokes. What can I do? I have to take care of her. No one else will."

This shouldn't be!!! We need a safety net desperately.

Now one more thing to worry about: We must solve the impending crisis of older workers, protected by age-discrimination legislation, without the assets to retire, and how they might be precluding younger workers from making a living wage.

The Real Meaning of the Word Elitism

OK, let's look at a dictionary definition of the word "elitism." American Heritage Dictionary states:

1. The belief that certain persons or members of certain classes or groups deserve favored treatment by virtue of their perceived superiority, as in intellect, social status, or financial resources.
2.The sense of entitlement enjoyed by such a group or class.
3. Control, rule, or domination by such a group or class.

With this in mind, note that the key to understanding the meaning of elitism is "entitlement" resulting from membership in an advantaged group.

Let's look at George W. Bush: the third generation of service to the federal government. His grandfather, Prescott Bush, was a Senator from Connecticut. His father was president. He went to Phillips Academy, an all-boys boarding school in Andover, Massachusetts, then Yale University where he was a member of Skull & Bones society. Bush then went to Harvard Business School to become the first MBA president.

Despite the fact that Bush bought a ranch in the very un-chic area of Crawford, TX and built himself a very unluxurious house so that he could set up his photo-ops on the tractor and clearing brush, Bush was able to first run for governor and later for president because his father had been Number 41. That's elitism.

Now let's look at John Sidney McCain III. He, too, is the third generation to graduate from the Naval Academy at Annapolis. His grandfather Adm. John Sidney "Slew" McCain earned his four stars commanding a U.S. carrier force in World War II. His deeply ambitious father, Adm. "Junior" McCain, reached the same rank, commanding America's forces in the Pacific during Vietnam. McCain, like Bush, has been chasing the reputations of his father and grandfather, not quite making it.

This is elitism. No matter how much they pretend not to be, they have had the access to power, position, and money that only birthright provides. Barack "who is sane" Obama is the son of a teenage white mother, an African student father. He floundered, then began to take himself seriously, arriving at Columbia University where he received a bachelors degree, then Harvard Law School where he became the first African American editor of the prestigious law review. He earned everything.

So how does the corporate media allow the Republican National Committee, John McCain, and Sarah Palin to get away with calling Barack Obama an elitist?

How does the corporate media allow the Republican National Committee, John McCain, and Sarah Palin to get away with calling Barack Obama a terrorist? Remember it's Sarah Palin with ties to the radical Alaska Independence Party. Her husband was a member for years and she addressed its convention in 2008 via videotape hookup.

Ask yourself these questions, and then get angry: Call and email friends to make sure they vote; contribute to the campaign; send letters to the editor complaining about coverage; be informed.