Priorities

Look at the underlying values of the two candidates, not the hype, not the spin from the media. What do you see? What do you feel? Is the direction we want to go driven by greed and compulsive individual accumulation? Do we want just another battle cry? Or is our future, and the futures of our children and grandchildren tied instead to a greater sense of seeing our country and our planet as a community?

Is our future tied to the necessity that we learn how to live with each other, that we learn to listen, that we develop and encourage cooperation and empathy?

Bill Quigley is a law professor at Loyola University, New Orleans. His work in New Orleans before, during, and the aftermath of Katrina makes him a courageous activist. Today he posted on truthout.org: Twenty Questions: Social Justice Quiz 2008.

Let's talk about the Test in terms of the priorities that the two major presidential candidates are bringing to the debate about the future.

OK, ready to take a preview of the test?

How many people were killed last year by terrorists? 22,000 and over half of these victims were Muslims in countries other than this one. How many people were killed by poverty and malnutrition? 25,000 a day!!!

So, are we going to vote from that fearful place, you know that place when you fantacize after watching too much television that the next time you drive to the mall, you might get blown up by a terrorist car bomb?

Or should we be voting to assure that we will be using our collective intelligence to end the unnecessary suffering and hopelessness most of the people on the planet experience because they don't have enough to feed their children?

Obama or McCain?

What proportion of the homeless are children? One in four. One in four!!! Now, everyone agrees, except for John McCain, that we have a housing crisis brought on by deregulation of the credit industry and greed. This is the same industry that once red-lined African American neighborhoods, preventing hard working families from locating fair and affordable credit. After deregulation, African American neighborhoods were targeted by unscrupulous mortgage brokers freed from restraints who were paid commissions based upon a percentage over credit adjusted rate. Credit adjusted rate is a race neutral formula that calculates a borrower's credit risk. Mortgage brokers in communities of color were paid to inflate the interest rates charged on home mortgages above credit risk by giving them higher commissions. And guess what? They were very race conscious in choosing in which neighborhoods to inflate the cost of credit.

Mortgage foreclosure brings about homelessness. 2.1 million foreclosures are expected this year. That means 2 million children will be dislocated.

In 1968 the Fair Housing Act was passed to protect people from discrimination in housing and mortgage lending. There hasn't been a fair housing suit brought by the federal government since 2000. Yet 2008 will be the year where the foreclosure rate of African American families will be the greatest in history. Where are the priorities of the Bush administration? Who has voted with Bush 90% of the time these last eight years?

Who will you vote for: Obama or McCain? Take the social justice test and take a look at the candidates' priorities.

Fighting Values With Values

From the tone of righteous indignation expressed in blogs like womenagainstpalin.blogspot.com and in all of the emails my friends and acquaintances are sending me, there is a mixture of fury and fear that the McCain-Palin ticket has stolen the paradigm of the strong, independent working mother and morphed it into an anti-choice, fundamentalist who believes that Creationism should be taught in the schools, that we should drill ourselves dry, that her daughter's pregnancy remains because she has a choice that she wants to take away from my daughter... . Need I say more?

George Lakoff, the guru of messaging and framing, has published an open letter to Barack Obama that I think all of us should read and heed. It's posted on truthout.org and it's called "Don't Think of a Maverick." For those of you unfamiliar with George Lakoff, he is a linguist who has spent the last five books trying to get the left to use messaging and framing as effectively as the right has been doing since Richard Nixon created something called the "Silent Majority."

Although we might think this election is about the issues, according to Lakoff, it's about values, not personality, but values. He commends Obama for his primary campaign against Hillary Clinton, because he used his story and his lack of Washington experience to illustrate why his presidency would more likely bring about "Change We Can Believe In."

Now, however, Obama has started sounding more like Gore - Kerry - Hillary Clinton --resorting to policy discussions and statistics, which can't compete against the vital, looks-great-on-television untrue but compelling archetypal rhetoric of the old man and the hockey mom whether with or without lipstick.

When we rebut the idea that McCain is a maverick, we are reinforcing the definition of McCain that he has invented for himself. That's the problem with Obama's new ad, which accepts McCain's definition of himself and goes from there. It sounds defensive and doesn't accomplish anything, says Lakoff. Instead, Obama needs to reactivate his "American Dream" story, which gives hope to those of us who have suffered during the last seven years, whether economically, by living in a state of fear, or seeing a future for our children that has less promise than our parents saw for us.

Rather than seeing the campaign as a battle about issues, which I certainly do, Lakoff urges us to see the campaign in terms of five factors: values; authenticity; communication and connection; trust; and identity. That's why so many working folks voted for Ronald Reagan although his position on the issues hardly favored them. We are back to 2000 when people claimed they preferred to have a beer with George W.,not Al Gore.

Lakoff cautions Obama to end the statistics, even though they are true, and to return to his compelling portrayal of a young man who rose from adversity to become a healer of our divides.

Because let's face it: between the two archetypes, I would rather elect a healer than another cardboard warrior.

The Benefits of Living in a Diverse World

Amidst the clamor of the presidential campaign, a study was released yesterday that showed the benefits of educating young doctors in a diverse, multi-racial medical environment, in schools with strong institutional support for diversity as a mission. The study was published in JAMA and found that medical students who were educated in diverse medical school classrooms felt better prepared to work in multi-racial communities. That doesn’t sound like rocket science, but there are nuances to the findings that support maintaining and promoting programs that open the doors for students of color.

Being a diverse population of students alone is not enough. White students attending medical colleges where the institutions truly institutionalized their commitment to diversity felt better prepared to practice medicine in multi-racial communities. The study might have found that white students self-select to attend those medical colleges because those soon-to-be doctors are already strongly committed to racial justice. And the study didn’t find that these students were more likely to become physicians in under-represented communities.

The strongest association appeared in schools where students perceived a positive environment for interracial interaction. White students in the most diverse medical schools were 42% more likely to strongly believe in equitable access to care (54.8% compared to 44.2%) - associations that became apparent as the proportion of under-represented minority students rose above the 60th percentile.

What does this mean? These kinds of studies reinforce the belief that diversity in education, especially when conducted in schools and colleges that infuse their mission with a goal of diversity, affect the attitudes of the students who attend. And those graduates bring these attitudes of understanding and desire to live multi-racially to their work, their families, and their communities.

We need to continue to keep the doors open for equal access to education.

The Warrior versus the Healer

There is a clear choice posed to the American people: an aging warrior or a vital healer. In this dangerous world where America has a choice to lead or to destroy, my choice is to go for the healer. I am voting for Barack Obama.

Dissecting their acceptance speeches left no doubt as to the tone of these individual candidacies. McCain used his soldier background, used the pronoun “I”, and ended his speech with repetitions of “fight”:

I'm going to fight for my cause every day as your president. I'm going to fight to make sure every American has every reason to thank God, as I thank him: that I'm an American, a proud citizen of the greatest country on Earth, and with hard work, strong faith and a little courage, great things are always within our reach. Fight with me. Fight with me. Fight for what's right for our country. Fight for the ideals and character of a free people. Fight for our children's future. Fight for justice and opportunity for all. Stand up to defend our country from its enemies. Stand up for each other; for beautiful, blessed, bountiful America. Stand up, stand up, stand up and fight. Nothing is inevitable here. We're Americans, and we never give up. We never quit. We never hide from history. We make history.

Click here to go to a transcript of McCain’s acceptance speech.

McCain’s speech goes straight to the heart of the traditional American archetype: the frontier cowboy whose imagery George W. so ruthlessly exploited. Remember, Bush didn’t have that ranch until he was getting ready to run for the White House. He created a façade of the ideal of the independent frontier man when in reality he was the scion of a New England elite family, educated in the finest schools in the Northeast, and a failed businessman, not once, not twice, but several times.

Obama brings a more global stance to the campaign that we are a citizen nation of the planet. I have equated his language throughout the primary season as “spiritual feminist.” We are all connected, we rise and fall together. The sense of community, healing, and working together so that solutions to the historic problems plaguing our country and exacerbated during the last eight years can be developed by real citizen engagement. Only by tapping the intelligence, energy, and commitment of the everyone can we solve the problems of the world. We must do this by finding common ground, ending the polarization.

America, our work will not be easy. The challenges we face require tough choices, and Democrats as well as Republicans will need to cast off the worn-out ideas and politics of the past. For part of what has been lost these past eight years can't just be measured by lost wages or bigger trade deficits. What has also been lost is our sense of common purpose our sense of higher purpose. And that's what we have to restore. We may not agree on abortion, but surely we can agree on reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies in this country. The reality of gun ownership may be different for hunters in rural Ohio than for those plagued by gang-violence in Cleveland, but don't tell me we can't uphold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals. I know there are differences on same-sex marriage, but surely we can agree that our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters deserve to visit the person they love in the hospital and to live lives free of discrimination. Passions fly on immigration, but I don't know anyone who benefits when a mother is separated from her infant child or an employer undercuts American wages by hiring illegal workers. This too is part of America's promise the promise of a democracy where we can find the strength and grace to bridge divides and unite in common effort.

On August 31st, I annotated Obama’s acceptance speech.

Women Say No to Palin

If you haven't seen this, read further and take a moment to respond:

Friends, compatriots, fellow-lamenters,

We are writing to you because of the fury and dread we have felt since the announcement of Sarah Palin as the Vice-Presidential candidate for the Republican Party. We believe that this terrible decision has surpassed mere
partisanship, and that it is a dangerous farce on the part of a pandering and rudderless Presidential candidate that has a real possibility of becoming fact.

Perhaps like us, as American women, you share the fear of what Ms. Palin and her professed beliefs and proven record could lead to for ourselves and for our present or future daughters. To date, she is against sex education, birth control, the pro-choice platform, environmental protection, alternative energy development, freedom of speech (as mayor she wanted to ban books and attempted to fire the librarian who stood against her), gun control, the separation of church and state, and polar bears. To say nothing of her complete lack of real preparation to become the second-most-powerful person on the planet.

We want to clarify that we are not against Sarah Palin as a woman, a mother, or, for that matter, a parent of a pregnant teenager, but solely as a rash, incompetent, and all together devastating choice for Vice President. Ms. Palin's political views are in every way a slap in the face to the accomplishments that our mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers so fiercely fought for, and that we've so demonstrably benefited from.

First and foremost, Ms. Palin does not represent us. She does not demonstrate or uphold our interests as American women. It is presumed that the inclusion of a woman on the Republican ticket could win over women voters. We want to disagree, publicly.

Therefore, we invite you to reply here womensaynopalin@gmail.com
...with a short, succinct message about why you, as a woman living in this
country, do not support this candidate as second-in-command for our nation.

Please include your name (last initial is fine), age, and place of residence.

We will post your responses on a blog called "Women Against Sarah Palin," which we intend to publicize as widely as possible. Please send us your reply at your earliest conveniencethe greater the volume of responses we receive, the stronger our message will be.

Thank you for your time and action.
VIVA!

Sincerely,

Quinn Latimer and Lyra Kilston
New York, NY
womensaynopalin@gmail.com

American People Want Religion Out of Politics

The 2004 presidential election brought religion into the forefront in Patriot Churches, recruited by the Republican Party. Sunday sermons focused on "values" issues like, abortion, evolution, and gay marriage, including references to the pseudo-historical record that America is a Christian state despite the First Amendment. How could anyone vote for a candidate who disagreed with these issues and still be a good Christian? It was a successful way to engage the Evangelical right.

The polarizing impact of Patriot Churches stopped all political dialogue, an essential aspect of democracy, since any compromise was a direct highway to sin.

Now the Pew Research Center in an August 21, 2008 release finds "Some Americans are having a change of heart about mixing religion and politics." And the people who have had this change of heart are mostly conservatives, the very people who got caught up in the waves of Evangelical fervor. "Four years ago, just 30% of conservatives believed that churches and other houses of worship should stay out of politics. Today, 50% of conservatives express this view."

The media's attention on Sarah Palin should not distract American voters from these hard facts: she is a fundamentalist Christian who believes that Creationism should be taught in schools as if it is on equal footing with evolution.

There is no longer a gap in how Democrats, Republicans, and Independents perceive the role of religion in government: over 50% of each say "Keep government and religion separate."

Have we lost the ability to think before we vote?

Yesterday I went to the hair dresser. I spoke with two women there about the election. Both said the same thing: they are leaning towards Obama, but haven’t made up their minds yet. One said that she felt there was a different vib at the Democratic Convention; there was joy and a genuine emotional connection with Obama among the delegates. She also noticed that who was at the Democratic Convention was very different from who was in St. Paul the next week. She wants to be methodical in her decision making this time around. She takes her voting seriously. This is a good thing. The process she has devised for informing herself starts with the vice presidential candidates. She began with the question: who do I like better.

The other woman at the hair salon is attracted to Palin, likes her chutzpah, likes that she is straight-talking, that she has bucked the “guy” system, that she has the confidence to deliver a punchline flawlessly. She finds Palin sexy, full of that frontier spirit. “I like strong women,” she said.

She asked me if I would ever vote for a Republican for president. I told her that it was difficult for me to ever support a Republican because of what their party platform says, especially this year when the platform is more extreme than ever. She hadn't gotten that far yet in her deliberations. Compare it with the Democratic Platform. They represent such different visions for America.

Looking at the post-television presidents, has the delivery of political messages in pseudo town meetings, YouTube videos, and living room interviews obscured the issues so that we vote for who we like instead of what they stand for? Is this how we have been manipulated into voting against our own self-interests?  Rick Davis, McCain's campaign manager, recently said, "This election is not about issues.  This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates."

Would Abraham Lincoln ever get elected now, or would he be considered too intellectual, too tall, and just too ugly?

The first televised debate between presidential candidates was in 1960 between John F. Kennedy, Jr. and Richard M. Nixon. On the visuals, Kennedy won, but not on content. Clearly, no matter how much one disputed the principles of his career, Nixon certainly had more experience. Kennedy, like Obama, was intellectual, charming, and very telegenic.

Looking at the elections since 1960, the more photogenic candidate has not always won. Not at first. It took a few election cycles before the influence of television and advertising affected election outcomes, no matter what the platform or the pressing issues of the campaign.

1964, 1968, and 1972: those elections were fought and won as the Republican Party began its campaign to win the white southern vote through a deliberate, cynical, and racist strategy. Afterall, in the wake of massive civil rights marches and the assassination of JFK, Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat from Texas, had used his enormous power to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, two of the most effective pieces of legislation ever enacted.

Perhaps it began with Ronald Reagan, the first actor as president, the first modern president who personally didn’t have the intellect himself. Ronald Reagan became the spokesman for America as he had been for General Electric in the days before he entered politics. He knew how to deliver a speech that was written by someone far smarter than he was.

And then there was Bill Clinton, the ultimate seducer, the man who still knows how to create a sense of intimacy while speaking to 34 million people across satellite, cable, and antennae.

People didn’t vote for Al Gore because they thought he was too stiff. People didn’t vote for John Kerry because he was too wooden.

Will they vote for Obama because of his relaxed and conversational approach to explaining himself to America? He looks better on television than John McCain for sure.

What people say should be more important than how they say it, but the electronic age has made us more susceptible to underlying messages that yank at our emotions instead. Everything is framed to connect with our unthinking parts. How can we break through the fog? Democracy demands that we think before we vote. Can we sustain a democracy?

Procon.org has greatly expanded its coverage, and now includes a section that compares the views of the candidates, presidential (and all of them, including third party candidates) and by September 19th, vice presidential, too, on 65 topics. Pass on the link to folks who want to be informed but aren't sure how to get what they need to make a deliberate decision.