Even though it will increase my taxes, I'm ready to support Obama's budget and work to overcome the pressure from the powerful interests against it. Health care, energy and education reform are worth the sacrifices required from all Americans. But I'm concerned about the way the administration is handling the banking crisis. The slow drip drip of taxpayer money into Citibank and AIG looks to me like we are just postponing the inevitable pain required to solve the bank and credit crisis. Many economists and blogs I respect suggest that until the banks are cleaned up we will follow the painful example of Japan. See for example blog written by Simon Johnson of MIT at http://baselinescenario.com.
Obama's economic team may have excellent reasons for choosing a different strategy, but in my opinion they have not done a good job of explaining their reasoning or their plan. I urge President Obama to join Simon Johnson, Planet Money and others who are doing an excellent job of educating those of us who until recently had little knowledge and less interest in economic theory. Once Obama supporters have confidence in the way the banking crisis is being handled we will be much better able to face those who oppose the budget or cry "socialism".l
I'm not much of a blogger but I received an incredible email today, 8/11/08 ,from someone I know to be a Republican, but who is also a friend and someone I generally respect. The email, and my response, is below. Feel free to use my response and change it as you like should you receive something similar. Also feel free to suggest other sources to refute the stupid or false assertions in the smear email.
Dear friends
The email you sent below has so many false statements, half truths and deceptive descriptions that I don't know where to begin. They are also blatant distractions from the real issues before us in this election. This country faces serious issues. Unless we get to work fast, we will leave our children: 1. A country in deep debt, with a crumbling infrastructure and fighting with the rest of the world for scarce resources, particularly energy. 2. A huge divide between the haves and the have nots, as well as the educated and the uneducated. Even if your children are among the lucky haves, their quality of life will be constantly threatened by the much larger population of have nots. 3. Millions of older Americans without the Medicare or social security they planned on. This group will be too large to ignore and like Bear Stearns or the Freddies, so large that a government bail out will be required to prevent a total collapse of our society. 4. The extreme social, political and economic fall out from climate change These and many other issues before us can not begin to be addressed if we continue to play politics as a "got you" game. John McCain and Barack Obama are both honorable Americans who care deeply about this country and its citizens. They disagree on many issues and we should press them to present their proposed solutions with honest straight talk. The character assignation below is evidence that the author seeks to have voters believe that Obama is somehow an 'other' to be feared and not trusted. I wonder why the same effort was not applied to an honest discussion of the issues? Can it be that the author is afraid that if voters really understand the issues, they would be more likely to vote for Obama? I can't take the time to debunk all the garbage below. But here is a link to a CNN report on Obama's school in Indonesia, which begins to reveal the the dishonesty below. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZ4v7iLnvrQ Here is a link to a Reuters Jan 2008 story which describes Obama's connections to Kenya and again reveals the dishonesty below. http://africa.reuters.com/wire/news/usnL08727241.html The truth is that Obama spent much of his early years with his mother's parents, his white grandparents, who passed on traditional American values. His white grandfather worked on oil rigs during the Depression, and then signed up for World War II after Pearl Harbor, where he marched across Europe in Patton's army. His white grandmother went to work on a bomber assembly line, and after the war, they studied on the G.I. Bill, bought a house through the Federal Housing Program, and moved west to Hawaii. This grandmother was and still is a Christian and had only one husband. The truth is that Obama spent much of his youth as a member of a white family shielded from much of the racial discord he would have experienced on the mainland in the 1960s. He spent much of his teens and early 20s reconciling the world of his white grandparents and the realities of his black identity and experience in the lower 48. As a result, he identifies with both his black and his white DNA, believes we have more in common than that which divides us and is uniquely able to understand both. If that otherness is frightening to you, I'd be interested in knowing why. His lack of experience is a valid issue. But I like what he has accomplished, without family connections and without family money, in stark contrast to Bush 2, Clinton 2 and even John McCain, who earned his independence from his influential Admiral father with his bravery in Vietnam. I also like his thoughtful intelligence. As evidence I urge you to read his October 2, 2002 speech against the Iraq war. Even if you support the decision to invade Iraq, you have to admire the depth of his understanding and thinking revealed in that speech. Full text of speech is here:http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Barack_Obama's_Iraq_Speech I could go on but will end my rant. I know many of you disagree with Obama's positions and I can respect that. Please help make this a campaign of ideas instead of lies and innuendo. Thanks for reading this far."
The smear email that prompted my response is below.
