The eminent delay of Health Care Reform (HCR) is found in the oxymoron called the "trigger." If this country is ever helpless it is now as it continues to feebly mush through economic mediocrity. The “trigger” is like a double edge sword, it cuts both ways, and can be used against its proponents, but it has an onerous tone to it.
If it is accepted it will never be squeezed, and it will destroy HCR. If it is not accepted it can be used to raze its proponents. There is an often quoted allegory: The bitter enemy of the right intention is the best intention, and anything that excludes the public option from HCR like the health care “trigger” is exactly that – a best intention.
President Obama, do not be bluffed by the hand of the opposition they are good at throwing a bluff and then are better at bargaining for compromise in their favor. You have the better hand – a Royal Flush – your Ace in the hole is the people - you’ve got the majority of the country behind you in favor of HCR, and it was the reason we elected you – to bring change to Washington despite their intransigency. You have Joe Biden, Speaker Pelosi, and the Congress we gave you.
Do not be afraid it has been forty years since we have tried to get HCR and if you don’t pass it now it will be another forty years and a possible war before we break the strangle hold of inequality, privilege, and disparity. The Civil War gives us that example. Put politics aside, and err on the side of the people and you will never go wrong.
They’ve done it since the revolution, when the southern conservatives won a political victory against slavery and then secured and strengthened it with sanctions during and after the Revolution it took almost eighty years to rescind slavery. The tactic is the same incite anger, and revolt by scaring the congress to acquiesce to their demands.
Pull out all the stops get Vice President Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Speaker Pelosi and call on your Surgeon General to speak up for HCR, call on some of the iconoclasts of industry to call for HCR, call on renown political writers to advocate for HCR, call on movie stars to rally for HCR, as a matter of fact create a commercial Like MTV’s – I want my MTV – that says, “I want my Healthcare.”
Better yet organize a National Health Care Rally for Monday October 12, and call on the millions of your supporters to descend on the Nation’s Mall in a call for Health Care reform.
Take Courage President Obama – Stand by the Cause!
Sincerely,
Charles Wheeler "Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed." - Abraham Lincoln
Moreover, included in the US measure is the highest ratio of defense spending to GNP of any advanced nation. This means that excluding defense, we have by far the smallest public sector plus transfer system, in relation to GNP, in the developed world. Moreover our public sector has grown more slowly than that of any other developed nation. Could it be that many of our problems arise because our government is spending too little, in relation to GNP, rather than too much? Can we really manage the problems of a modern economy with less government participation than other nations require? Our social and economic statistics do not paint an encouraging picture.These issues call for analysis and interpretation. Yet in public political discussion it is all too commonly assumed that government spending must be reduced further. However, recent studies have provided evidence that public investment in education, R&D and infrastructure will add more to future GNP than private spending, and further is likely to stimulate private productive investment. Far from trying to curb or cut government spending, the Clinton Administration needs to do just what Professor Friedman apparently fears—"…deliver…little if any deficit reduction, but instead [provide us with] a big increase in domestic spending, financed by a combination of new taxes and defense cuts…"
Moreover, included in the US measure is the highest ratio of defense spending to GNP of any advanced nation. This means that excluding defense, we have by far the smallest public sector plus transfer system, in relation to GNP, in the developed world. Moreover our public sector has grown more slowly than that of any other developed nation. Could it be that many of our problems arise because our government is spending too little, in relation to GNP, rather than too much? Can we really manage the problems of a modern economy with less government participation than other nations require? Our social and economic statistics do not paint an encouraging picture.
These issues call for analysis and interpretation. Yet in public political discussion it is all too commonly assumed that government spending must be reduced further. However, recent studies have provided evidence that public investment in education, R&D and infrastructure will add more to future GNP than private spending, and further is likely to stimulate private productive investment. Far from trying to curb or cut government spending, the Clinton Administration needs to do just what Professor Friedman apparently fears—"…deliver…little if any deficit reduction, but instead [provide us with] a big increase in domestic spending, financed by a combination of new taxes and defense cuts…"
DR. FREIDMAN RESPONDED:
I supported President Clinton's deficit reduction package (indeed, I argued in these pages for a more aggressive program than the President's) not merely because I believe increased investment is essential to achieving productivity growth and with it a rising standard of living but also, and importantly, because I share the President's assessment that on average the US economy will be near to full employment during the period in question.For example, I suggested in Day of Reckoning that President Reagan's tax cuts and greater military spending not only did not crowd out US private investment during the high-unemployment years of 1981–1984 but probably crowded in some investment by increasing overall economic activity and hence people's incomes and their demand for many products. In the end, I was therefore pleased that Congress passed the President's program. No one likes paying higher taxes, of course, or doing without the programs curtailed by cuts in government spending. But I believe that reducing the government's borrowing, and so increasing our country's investment, is the surest way we know to begin to correct the dual problem of declining average living standards and widening inequalities about which I have previously written here.
I supported President Clinton's deficit reduction package (indeed, I argued in these pages for a more aggressive program than the President's) not merely because I believe increased investment is essential to achieving productivity growth and with it a rising standard of living but also, and importantly, because I share the President's assessment that on average the US economy will be near to full employment during the period in question.
For example, I suggested in Day of Reckoning that President Reagan's tax cuts and greater military spending not only did not crowd out US private investment during the high-unemployment years of 1981–1984 but probably crowded in some investment by increasing overall economic activity and hence people's incomes and their demand for many products.
The answer is... not to stop government spending but to stop government borrowing, and reign in the government bureaucracy, which the Bush-Republicans created. They sold out our nation, our nest egg's and our children inheritance to foreign banks and foreign countries, and placed our overall security on the most untenable ground ever.
What President Obama needs to do is stop government borrowing to attack the deficit, and pay off the foreign debt, ASAP. President Obama must continue his full court press and pass the twin reform of both the energy and health sectors and achieve the economies of scale and energy indepence that are so large a part of our present and future GNP. President Obama must continue to invest heavily, and even take a more aggressive approach to implementing the public investment in education, R&D and infrastructure that will add more to future GNP than private spending will ever accomplish on its own, and which is further likely to stimulate private productive investment well into our childrens future.
The most demoralizing threat to any country is the destabilizing influence of terrorism, and its unlawful coercive intimidating force. The most de-humanizing factor people experience in a country beset by terrorism is the unbridled fear of the unlawful use of that force to threaten the extermination of any country’s existence by radical partisan elements within or outside of its borders.
Force, at a more basic level is divided as a force unto life and a force unto death, and devoid of the forces of theology, ideology, or philosophy the force of biology concludes a premium of life over death. The force of annihilation exerted against the force for life creates a push and pull natural of all life and death struggles and when terrorism leads the charge for death anywhere and everywhere, the “Force for Life” can build a framework where there is a shared understanding and definition of terrorism and where we can begin an exchange of ideas and open a channel of communication that prevents death and our wholesale extermination.
Force for Life can become the framework for where living secure, healthy, and prosperous lives in congruence with our environment, our societies, and cultures is based on our mutual existence. Force for Life requires us to exist and prosper, and to live out a natural course of life, and in living that natural course of life we discover a present necessity to establish an equilibrium that involves interdependence for co-existing to achieve the self-preservation, self-determination and autonomy innate to the Force for Life.
The framework for security in the Middle East and hence the world begins with accepting the premise of the Force for Life; here the world community agrees to the eradication of terrorism everywhere and anywhere. Where the world community also agrees on a Consensus of Nations of 12 signatory countries, the United States, United Kingdom, France, Spain, Canada, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Turkey, Syria, Jordan and Iraq to chartering a Military Tribunal on Terrorism similar to the “Tribunal” at Nuremburg, “…for the just and prompt trial and punishment of…” major world terrorists, in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where al-Qaeda and the Taliban got their start, to be known as the Kandahar Tribunal. Furthermore as part of the reconstruction of Afghanistan a construction of a super maximum prison for the detaining and imprisonment of convicted terrorists will be built.
Under the Consensus of Nations, a Kandahar Treatise for Security would be drafted to establish first a viable security for the region, to promote the common good, to establish social stability, and to secure, self-governing states of Lebanon and Palestine.
Whereas, the Consensus of Nations recognizes the new nations of Lebanon and Palestine, but will also provides significant assistance, in the promotion, of regional security, to weaker states.
Whereas, Lebanon establishes its current borders, and Palestine and Israel sign a 50/50 compromise forming a parallel that starts at the Jordan Border and passes through Jericho following highway 1 as it extends to the Armistice of Agreement Line of 1949 just north of Jerusalem.
Whereas, the new Palestine State would inhabit all the lands north of that demarcation ceding and vacating the southern cities to Israel and thereby requiring Israel to halt, vacate all Israeli settlements in the new Palestine state.
Whereas, requiring the new Palestine state to halt, vacate all Palestinian settlements south of the new southern border of the Palestine state.
Whereas, the Consensus of Nations would raise the capital, and resources necessary from the world community, to facilitate the move and repatriation of people and lands between Israel and the new nation of Palestinian.
Whereas, the Consensus of Nations would establish a binding, equitable “Treatise on Water” by establishing equitable rates and agreed distribution of water resources between regional signatory countries of the Consensus of Nations.
Whereas, the Consensus of Nations would halt the proliferation of Nuclear Arms and Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Middle East Region, and plan for a progressive timetable for the elimination and dismantling of existing nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East, Asia and around the world.
Whereas, the Consensus of Nations would use the structure of the “Treatise on Water” to further review, enhance, and facilitate trade between member nations, and the world at a specific time and date.
President O’s First Major Flip-Inside the Bubble
May 13, 2009 Tampa, Fl
We are seeing the full effect of the Bubble. Where are all the President’s advisors on this and who has his ear, let alone his mind, and heart? Today’s White House news conference stated that the President O. seeks to review and delay the eminent exposure of the pentagon’s file on pictures of torture, based on National Security reasons.
It goes against the courts approval to release the in-famous torture pictures, and smells of Bush era smoke screen tactics, but moreover his delay screams of power (his corrupting Presidential power) the same power he campaigned against, which opposses honest law and due process.
It raises immediately these questions: The president is impinging First Amendment rights by not abiding by the courts decision by raising a legal position outside of the original FOIA rules, thwarting First Amendment rights which prohibits against government intervention in FOIA approved releases?
What is different now as opposed to when the Abu Ghraib pictures were released? Where we actually made less safe when those pictures were released or were we made more aware of the damming injustice of torture? No, we were not made less safe! The war raged on.
But we were alerted to injustice! Again, the real questions are: Who is President Obama listening to and who made him flip on the issue, and why? The President’s Flip on the issue resembles Bush tactics to skirt the law and impinge our constitutional rights for unknown or vague National Security Interests.
The President’s release of this change of position raised more questions, created more doubt, and made people more leery of his Presidency, and wasted a considerable amount valuable political trust/capital from his contract with the American People. Was it worth it?
The report of our own soldiers killing their own out of rage and post traumatic stress disorder has marked the immediacy of ending an unwarranted war, but also marks the importance of coming clean with our sins against humanity and our selves.
Since transparency is more about being honest and forthcoming his White House press conference May 13, 2009 created big sink holes in his promise of transparency, honesty, and integrity by being vague, and incoherent, by ineptly using borderline statements that seemed to skirt the issue.
Whether the release of the pictures makes it less probable or more probable for future picture taking is irrelevant of the main verity of being transparent with the American Public.
As a matter of opinion video graphing and picture taking should be codified as a requirement in the interrogation process across every level of government, including the CIA, FBI, and destruction of those tapes should be made a federal offense punishable by federal law because it keeps everyone honest.
Giving President O the Benefit of the Doubt
“Pragmatic” is President O.’s new middle name, but how it is delivered to the American Public is in serious need of review and it is now remanded and relegated to the President to fill in the craters he and his staff have created. First it must be made clear to the American’s why the President chose to “Flip” on this issue, and it must be advocated from a point of responsibility.
“Discretion is the better part of valor”, and according to wise counsel of Proverbs: “It is good to be brave, but it is also good to be careful.; If you are careful, you will not get into situations that require you to be brave.”
First, be honest with the American people by making it clear that this is not a political ploy or a play to rouse partisan bickering, but an honest and careful examination under our moral and legal standards.
It must be made clear that he is not playing cat and mouse politics with the Constitution against the veil of National Security agency to avoid the serious scrutiny and impact these pictures represent to the moral psyche and healing of the American conscious. He must release them, and tell the country when he will.
It is also not clear how National Security would be negatively impacted by the release of these pictures, as compared to the release of the Abu Ghraib pictures. But moreover it must be made clear that he is not stepping in the way of legal justice by using a seemingly arbitrary decision to tact the delay of the release of the Pentagon’s pictures of torture through a legal ploy.
Second on that basis the President should advocate that he felt it would be inappropriate to release the pictures on Memorial Day, and give our service men and women a black eye when it should be a day of reconciliation and honor to fallen heroes of all branches of service and security.
Third, and most importantly he must uphold and honor the value of the constitutional First Amendment without abdicating our country’s sins by using National Security as a convenient veil to hide the truth, of the injustice of torture.
Anything intended to be transparent or anything that “hems and haws” or that seems illicit or anything that falls into a casting shadow of doubt becomes obscure and un-transparent, and loses all the effect of honesty.
Take counsel from Frederick Douglas:
“He is a lover of his country who rebukes and does not excuse its sins” Frederic Douglas
“He is a lover of his country who rebukes and does not excuse its sins”
Frederic Douglas
Avigdor Lieberman's tough words underscores the worst and the best of Israel's fears and expectations. Eminent War is something all humans fear but when backed in a corner by continuing threats from Iran, and neighbors, Israel will not back down, and in turn that creates a fear in the Arab/Muslim diatribe.
Israel acts out of fear of annihilation for they have a stark and vivid memory, of an attempt, of once being exterminated.
But looking closer Avigdor Lieberman's "bark may be louder than his bite at the moment." The tough language is not a threat to any other nation but underscores the nature of the kind of negotiation, and foreign policy that Israel is returning to and which is prevalent in the Middle East known as "Tough Bargaining."Avigdor L. statements are no more than a declaration to say that their is a "New Sheriff in Town." He is distinguishing himself from the Foreign Ministry of Tzipi Livni, and the failed Annapolis approach. However in a war prone region his words can be taken as a threat.More importantly, it introduces A. Lieberman to the world in a big way by breaking from the slave mind numbing tone of protocol, and failed concessions. Although this might be a reach; He maybe also positing himself for a future spot as prime minister.If he was thinking Prime Minister spot he may have thrown that opportunity "Out the Window," but that will all depend on his acumen and ability to reach a real two-state solution. Herb Keion further analysis Avigdor Lieberman's comments when writes at the Jerusalem Post, in his article titled: Analysis: Avigdor's accent, Arik's voice
But, again sounding like Sharon, Lieberman said that the road map must be adhered to by the letter, and it must be implemented phase after phase. What this means is that negotiations for a final agreement are to take place at the end of the road map, not at the beginning: not before terrorism is eradicated, not before Palestinian institutions are created, not before the Palestinians show real security capabilities.
Read the Headlines:
The New York Times Reports:
Obama Tries to Rally Nation to His AgendaBy PETER BAKERPublished: March 24, 2009 WASHINGTON — President Obama tried to rally the nation behind his ambitious agenda Tuesday night, hoping to channel outrage at Wall Street excess into support for changes in tax, health care and energy policy that face skepticism even within his own party in Congress.
Obama Tries to Rally Nation to His Agenda
By PETER BAKER
Published: March 24, 2009
WASHINGTON — President Obama tried to rally the nation behind his ambitious agenda Tuesday night, hoping to channel outrage at Wall Street excess into support for changes in tax, health care and energy policy that face skepticism even within his own party in Congress.
The Washington Post Reports
President Pleads For Patience on Recovery EffortsHe Points to 'Signs of Progress'By Michael D. Shear and Scott WilsonWashington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, March 25, 2009; Page A01President Obama asked the American people for patience last night as his administration struggles to balance a surge of populist anger at Wall Street against the need to assist some of the financial institutions that helped create the economic crisis
President Pleads For Patience on Recovery Efforts
He Points to 'Signs of Progress'
By Michael D. Shear and Scott Wilson
Washington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, March 25, 2009; Page A01
President Obama asked the American people for patience last night as his administration struggles to balance a surge of populist anger at Wall Street against the need to assist some of the financial institutions that helped create the economic crisis
Reasons for Failure: Not all Lost, but Need to Re-Double Efforts:
1.Opponents sidetracked the President Obama’s budget with noise from AIG bonuses in the News-Cycle, and LOST “PUBLIC SENTIMENT” FOR HIS BUDGET!
2. Re-emphasize and re-establish a clean break from problems of previous administration; name out President BUSH, and signal the BUDGET AS A NEW BEGINNING to tackle those problems.
3. The Public are not accustomed to an open discussion about the Budget.
a. Make the Budget discussion like bread and butter, life and death, kitchen table issues.
4. The White House Public Affairs Office (PAO) is operating and slumping in business as usual.
5. PAO has no clear focus for an Offensive.
a. Break up PAO slumping by bringing in mentality of the campaign.
b. “Everything is a Campaign in the White House”
c. IF PAO is Limited use OFA to launch joint AD campaign with DCCC.
d. Team up to inform public and engage their “Public Sentiment.” with PSA's.
6. The Message has not been made in clear and beneficial specific terms to the public.
a. Break down the consequences to the public even further.
b. Paint the picture of what will happen if these reforms are not passed.
c. Give affirming details of where our country can be with or without this budget. Make it
personal to arouse “Public Sentiment”
d. Paint a picture in words.
e. Create the demand for budget.
f. PAO needs to become “Disney Imagineers” and promote the President’s Agenda.
7. Public has no “Public Sentiment” what is missing President Obama’s media blitz?
a. Establish Media-Ad Blitz Offensive.
b. Public does not see how impacting this Budget can be.
1. Explain what Lobby Controlled Legislators want to tear out of the Budget.
2. Identify Publicly Democrat or Republican influenced by Lobbyist money
3. Line up Publicly those opposed to the Budget and those For it
4. Campaign vigorously for Moderates
c. Create the Demand for the Budget through Traditional TV and Radio Commercials
1. Set Radio campaigns by influential well known “Einstein Type” scholars.
2. TV Campaigns Create MTV type ad saying:
“I want my Education,” “I want my Healthcare,” “I want New Energy,” “I want to be Out of Debt!”
3. Use Congresspersons and Senators to promote his Budget
4. Use More Analysts on All News shows to promote this Budget.
5. Send Out Mailers
8. The Political Hawks sense the President is on the Defense. The Pres. Is “Pleading” Congress.
He should be demanding it From Congress with the voice of Public Sentiment.
a. Why does he sound like he is begging? He does not have the full wind at his back
—There is NO PUBLIC OUT CRY for this
He does not have full “Public Sentiment.” Got it! (forgive my repitition and simple mind).
b. Big business is using all lobbying leverage on Moderate and Conservative Democrats
– They are pulling their money strings to rip (R.I.P.) apart and initiate Bills/Laws to destroy
his Budget.
c. Political hacks are crying louder and are taking the wind out the President’s proverbial sails.
d. Big Business/Washington Status Quo/ are banning together to divide the Democratic caucus.
e. Listen to Lincoln’s Loud words in his “House Divided Speech
"A house divided against itself cannot stand."I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free
"A house divided against itself cannot stand."
I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free
f. Obama government will not endure if the Democrats are divided.
g. AGAIN – arouse “Public Sentiment” for His Budget
h. Reid and Pelosi must work hard to keep Democratic Caucus United.
9. Reframe the Argument as a Public Demand based on “Public Sentiment!" with a MEDIA BLAST
a. Then President Obama and staff must re-double efforts about his Budget.
b. He alone can not win Public Sentiment. Everyone must rally and be a part in this effort.
"Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment, nothing can fail; without it nothing can succeed." - Abraham Lincoln
- Abraham Lincoln
ADD your reasons, offer your solutions and pass it on.
Want to see what change looks like? Real change?
Well, here it is. Last week, President Obama unveiled his budget—his blueprint for America—and it's ambitious, amazing, and unapologetically progressive. As Paul Krugman said, it will set America on a "fundamentally new course."1
President Obama called his budget "a threat to the status quo," and trust me, the status quo noticed. Oil companies, big banks and insurance companies are already mobilizing to stop it.2
Unfortunately, most folks don't realize how far-reaching and progressive the plan is—that's where we all come in.
Here are 10 really incredible things about Obama's plan. Check them out and then send them on to your friends and family so that millions of people will have the information they need to fight to make this vision a reality.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
The plan:
Can you pass this on to your personal network and then click here to let us know how many people you told, so we can track our impact together:
http://pol.moveon.org/budget10/?id=15687-14444884-.eXEbPx&t=1
Thanks for all you do.
–Daniel, Tanya, Peter, Justin and the rest of the team
P.S. Turns out there are way more than 10 amazing things in Obama's budget and we couldn't resist sharing just a few more.
1. "Climate of Change," The New York Times, February 27, 2009http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/opinion/27krugman.html?em
2. "Obama Calls His Budget Sweeping, Needed Change," The New York Times, February 28, 2009http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51201&id=15687-14444884-.eXEbPx&t=2
3. "Obama Offers Broad Plan to Revamp Health Care," The New York Times, February 26, 2009http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51202&id=15687-14444884-.eXEbPx&t=3
4. "Obama Expects Fight Over $3.55 Trillion Budget Plan," Bloomberg News, February 28, 2009http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51203&id=15687-14444884-.eXEbPx&t=4
5. "Energy Budget Is Sunlight After Eight Years of Darkness," Center for American Progress, February 26, 2009http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51204&id=15687-14444884-.eXEbPx&t=5
6. "The Economic Cost of War in Iraq and Afghanistan," The New York Times, March 1, 2009http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/weekinreview/01glanz.html
7. "Tax Cuts," The New York Times, February 26, 2009http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/washington/27web-tax.html
8. "Energy Budget Is Sunlight After Eight Years of Darkness," Center for American Progress, February 26, 2009http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51204&id=15687-14444884-.eXEbPx&t=6
9. "Student Loans," The New York Times, February 26, 2009http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/washington/27web-edu.html
10. "Obama unveils budget blueprint," CNN, February 26, 2009http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/26/budget/
11. "Obama budget would boost SEC, CFTC, FBI," Reuters, February 26, 2009http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51205&id=15687-14444884-.eXEbPx&t=7
12. "Obama's budget," Los Angeles Times, February 27, 2009http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51206&id=15687-14444884-.eXEbPx&t=8
13. "Student Loans," The New York Times, February 26, 2009http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/washington/27web-edu.html
14. "Health Insurance Stocks Dive on Medicare Advantage Cuts," The Wall Street Journal, February 26, 2009http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51207&id=15687-14444884-.eXEbPx&t=9
15. "Agriculture," The New York Times, February 26, 2009http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/washington/27web-agri.html
16. "Investing Wisely in Our Children," Center for American Progress, February 26, 2009http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51208&id=15687-14444884-.eXEbPx&t=10
17. "Obama Offers Broad Plan to Revamp Health Care," The New York Times, February 26, 2009http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51202&id=15687-14444884-.eXEbPx&t=11
18. "Obama Offers Broad Plan to Revamp Health Care," The New York Times, February 26, 2009http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51202&id=15687-14444884-.eXEbPx&t=12
19. "Setting 'Green' Goals," The New York Times, February 26, 2009http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51209&id=15687-14444884-.eXEbPx&t=13
Education should be "Our Sacred Cow." Cutting Education is a "knee-jerk" Reaction to balancing Budgets. It is a common Political Ploy. It is the common way of doing business in Washington. It doesn't Hurt them (the lawmakers) but it Hurts Our Schools, Our Teachers, Our Students. It hurts everyone.How else will this nation pull itself out of the whole. Education is money well spent. It is the best investment this governing body can do for its people. It is the best money an individual will ever spend. Cutting Education is Stupid.It is near sighted and ignorant of lawmakers to cut the Educational Budget allotment in this stimulus, when our schools are bursting at the seams with record high enrollments, and have record budget shortfalls during this recession!! EDUCATION NEEDS THIS MONEY NOW.Some Politicians are narrow minded and operate with "small thinking" when they cut our EDUCATION BUDGETS. Rather than approaching this from an open "Expansionist" point of view. How can we grow our nation with "small thinkers"??I'll say it again - If we cut our $700 billion dollar habit on dependence on Foreign Oil in one year we can re-coup what we spend on this bill.
We should be saying: It's time to invest in America! and all the money we invest will be used here, spent here, taxed here, and recycled here. It's time to spend on our nation and in ourselves!
Call your Senators and tell them to replace the money they cut for Education!!! and everything else they've cut!!! Today. Make them afraid of our voices.
It is astonishing that you have taken a purely political stance in your vote of "NO." It is clear where you and your peers stand in NOT helping America prosper.
Your group were only interested in appearing strong under a united NO vote, but it only showed how weak you and your peers are.
Your NO vote made you an embarrassment and have made you appear naked before the Nation and your Florida Constituents.
It is a shame that you clenched your fists and fain a smile at the extra and out of the ordinary extension of bi-partisanship that President Obama extended to you and your colleagues.
Remember the President knew he didn't need your vote to pass the Stimulus Package, but he went out of his way to get your input, and you failed.
President Bush did more to show graciousness and openness than you or your colleagues did.
You miss the point of the stimulus plan. You view it as spending. NO, it is an Investment. It is a down payment on the investment on the re-building of this country.
You have politicized Our desire to invest in America. What the Republicans for the last eight years have done is spend on other countries, wars, on the elite, giving tax breaks when it was not needed, and dug US into a hole. You created a climate of gluttony and greed and it exploded in Our faces.
It is time we spend on our selves, our nation, our cities, our schools, our universities, our infrastructure, and everything else that is crumbling in our Nation.
Our nation's mall needs to be the shining example of this country. Yes let's re-sod our Capital. It should be a kept like a jewel. Sod farmers in Florida, Georgia would be thankful for a 20 million contract. Yes, lets spend a few million dollars on contraception to keep our population from exploding like China.
It keeps our clinics and doctors employed, our pharmaceutical's operating. Let's keep our nation healthy and keep STD from becoming as dangerous as AIDS, but you view that as pork. No, it is an investment in ourselves.
You miss the point-a dollar invested in America is a dollar well invested in America. Ok lets use your term; A Dollar spent in America is a dollar well spent in America. No matter what it is-it is an infusion into the American economy, and that is what WE need.
You have used the carrot of tax breaks to create gimmicks to benefit a few at the detriment of the middle class just for purely political gain.
We are tired of receiving the bait and switch, and eating the crumbs you have been spilling off of your table, and drinking the drops of water that comes off your chins.
Tax breaks are like giving a starving person a fish it means death is staved off to another day.
We need good paying long term jobs/careers instead of tax breaks to spur this economy. Long gone are the jobs you can hold for thirty-fifty years.
Our businesses have exported out those type of jobs creating this volatile economic climate, and hence the instability on our economy.
Tax breaks are great when a person is making money and is gainfully employed, that spurs investment, but when the majority of people are unemployed, or are under employed, we get what we have today, deflation and a looming depression.
Receiving a tax break with our current economy just delays the in-inevitable; a horrible depression racked with disease, crime, poverty, and futility.
We are in the Golden Hour of reckoning, and our nation needs a massive infusion of Capital Work projects. We don't want to squander our resources or our planet, but you have done that.
NPR reports: Even as the Fed wants to use all tools available to battle the crisis, it is mindful that there are dangers: the potential to put ever-more taxpayers' dollars at risk; sow the seeds of inflation in the future; and encourage "moral hazard," where companies feel more comfortable making high-stakes gambles because the government will rescue them.
Our Federal Reserve Bank is at its brink, and there is nothing it can do anymore to fix this crisis. Nor do WE want or expect them to squander our money over to bad. It is time for huge government intervention in the form of public works programs, and long term job creation.
We have seen The Industrial Revolution—1771; The Age of Steam and Railways—1829; The Age of Steel, Electricity and Heavy Engineering—1875; The Age of Oil, the Automobile and Mass Production—1908; The Age of Information and Telecommunications—1971. What age will be known for? The age of greatest social-economic catastrophe; what age will we usher in?
The American people should not shoulder or encourage bad business practices for the sake of the whole. No, those businesses should sacrifice for the whole.
We are now battling a three headed snake: the housing crisis, the bad credit market, and a crumbling financial market, and to kill it we must chop off its heads and break up its body into several pieces so that it never rears its ugly heads again.
You don't understand that WE want to rebuild America, WE wan to re-invest in American technology, WE want to build a transportation grid that DOES NOT use fossil fuels.
WE want to contribute to the energy grid and with a solar panel on every home in America we can, but that is not politically expedient to you because your vote has been bought by those entities that want to keep this country hostage to eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century cronyism.
Your view is myopic. Republican and Democrats spent us into this recession. You are used to spending on pork, but when we want you to invest in America, you VOTE NO.
We hear YOU. But, if we were to stop buying 700 billion dollars worth of fossil fuel, we would in one year pay off this minuscule stimulus plan.
Rather than joining the thinking and saying OK what can I do to spur the economy in my state, and how can I invest in Florida wisely and with transparency through this stimulus plan-YOU have opted to VOTE NO. Nothing will come our way because of your NO VOTE. It is stingy thinking.
We will remember your NO VOTE, and when it comes time for re-election we will VOTE NO for you.
" I wrote my Congressman. My hope is that it spurs you to write yours.Sincrely,Charles Wheeler"
" I wrote my Congressman. My hope is that it spurs you to write yours.
Sincrely,
Charles Wheeler"
The Rebuilding of America by President Obama will require “Guts” by himself and politicians to reinvest in “Trillion Dollar” terms, and in the legacy terms of long term thinking and planning. Let’s face it the nation knows our country is in dire straights. The nation has just undergone a multi-system trauma, and we are bleeding economically with no end in sight. We need resuscitation.
According to the US House of Representatives Committee on the Budget, report dated February 4, 2007, Bush inherited a 5.6 Trillion Dollar ten year surplus, and the Bush’s Republican policies took the nation’s coffers to a 8.8 trillion dollar nose dive into the red, ending with a 3.2 trillion dollar deficit, and we are arguing over a measly 825 billion dollars.
The Golden Hour
Poetically, “We” are at deaths door and there is no bright light at the end of the tunnel. The end of our republic is near, and congress is operating in the twentieth century of stinking thinking, partisan short-term positioning for the 2010 elections, and not in the long term survival of the nation. If we all survive this trauma then that means both the Democrat and Republican will survive.
If “We” as a nation were a patient loosing blood at the rate of economic loss-one would know we are about to die-and so it is with our economy and our nation. Our economy is critically injured and “We” have arrived at the critical juncture between life and death called the “Golden Hour.”
R. Adams Cowley, MD, from the University of Maryland states, "There is a ‘Golden Hour’ between life and death. If you are critically injured you have less than 60 minutes to survive. You might not die right then; it may be three days or two weeks later -- but something has happened in your body that is irreparable." The University of Maryland (http://www.umm.edu/shocktrauma/history.htm), tribute to Dr. Cowley also states,” the “Golden Hour” emerged based on the importance of speed and as well as in the skill in operating procedures.”
Doing nothing and not using skill in the “Golden Hour” of the implementation of our “stimulus procedures” or of deploying the stimulus package would be tantamount to negligence. It can mark the beginning of the end for President Obama’s presidency if he allows the Republicans to keep him in the mire of short term thinking, and partisan politics. If we don’t get this right we will be squandering the “Golden Hour” we have to infuse the economy with the Trillions “We” need to keep us from falling into irreparable damage, and it will be the Republican’s who will be at fault, if they keep blocking or delaying this measure.
It is Time We Invest in Ourselves.
President Obama has reached out during this economic catastrophe, and continues to reach out not to further the Democratic agenda, but because he knows why he was elected, to save the nation from economic catastrophe. President Obama is thinking of America’s best interests and its survival not politics-he wants this to work, and “We” know this. “We” the people also see who is undermining his efforts, and we will let our voices heard in the poll booths. Speed and skill is needed to pass this stimulus package and “We” understand that we need to invest “Trillions” not billions.
“Billion dollar” thinking ended when our governments budget reached the Trillions, and our GDP hovers in the Trillions, and John Boehner arguing over “Other projects included in the stimulus proposal are: funding for contraceptives, $50 million for the National Endowment of the Arts, $44 million for repairs to the U.S. Department of Agriculture headquarters, $200 million for the National Mall, including $21 million for sod, and $400 million for "national treasures," is chicken feed. It is small thinking compared to the trillions we need to get this right.
Just to get the economy to base we have to spend at least 3.2 Trillion dollars just to break even. Let’s put this in real terms and think in terms of economies of scale. What will do the most good for the most people? If we stopped spending 700 Billion dollars on imported oil in five years we would recoup the 3.2 Trillion needed for a real Stimulus Plan, and one year to recoup the paltry 825 billion Congress is now working to pass.
Investment vs. Spending
Some Republican’s and people like John Boehner are stuck in the twentieth century. President Obama has repeatedly stated that he does not want pork, and some Republican’s are screaming “bloody murder” because we want to repair our Department of Agriculture, make our National Mall a jewel to see and visit, avoid a population explosion like China, support the Arts-our culture and our “national treasures,” but it is obvious they have not travelled the country and have seen our decaying cities like Detroit, Philadelphia, or our crumbling infrastructure-they live in a bubble.
Cities like New York seem “Old World” compared to Beijing, Madrid, Paris, Dubai, and Shanghai and Singapore. Philadelphia gave birth to the American Revolution and American Independence, and Philadelphia should be a showpiece of early American history, because they made the hard decisions despite politics, but the unfortunate thing is it is not. Today, it is run down and worn out. Our founding fathers legacy to us was to provide the framework in their long term thinking to see who and what we are today.
Our legacy can be that at the “Golden Hour” of our greatest needs our generation made the hard decisions to invest and see our country thrive and prosper well into the 23rd century. If our economy was a person it will take action, the right medication at the right time, and right now we need a massive infusion of 3 Trillion Dollars “stat.” Like blood we need it typed and crossed and ready to go.
The Republican’s view this as “Spending” and this is where they miss the mark. “We” see this as an “Investment” to a more prosperous nation. “We” need the stimulus package skillfully constructed and know it is the foundation of the figurative house President Obama is gutting and rebuilding. Like President Truman reconstructed the White House President Obama will be carefully and skillfully re-constructing our nation.
“We” are Patient but Exacting
“We” the people know this will take a long time to recover and we are willing to “hunker down for the long haul” if we have accountability and transparency. “We” are willing to forgo immediate tax relief if the foundation we set today will carry the nation to long term prosperity. “We” can shoulder the current tax burden if there is fiscal responsibility in the “Investment.” “We” can endure austerity if Congress and the states and our nation’s cities are willing to implement an austerity plan with us and use performance measures to improve government.
We have seen runaway spending in the Republican lead era of the eighties and in the Bush era and that is what Politicians have become accustomed to when they take power. We have seen the resurgence of the $5,000 dollar toilet seat, the crazy junkets, the gaudy spending of the rich and famous. “We” are willing to go “Quid pro Quo” but only if what is required of “Us” is not squandered by short term thinking, and unmeasured and unbalanced double standards.
Tax Breaks and tax relief have become political ploys and gimmicks to gain our vote, and we are tired of short term political efforts to reduce taxes when it just digs the nation into a bigger grave. All tax incentives should be removed from the stimulus package and be discussed when the tax reconciliation period ends in 2010.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities published this article titled: JOINT TAX COMMITTEE ESTIMATE SHOWS THAT TAX GIMMICK BEING DESIGNED TO EVADE SENATE BUDGET RULES WOULD INCREASE LONG-TERM DEFICITS; By Joel Friedman and Robert Greenstein. The Minutiae of tax reform can be discussed when the Bush tax cuts expire. Right now, the patient needs a massive 3 Trillion dollar infusion not a prescription on tax policy or a paltry 825 Billion.
“We” need Home Values stabilized. Our colleges and Universities need funding. “We” need a plan to create jobs that is part of the “Investment” in America. “We” need our manufacturing sector restored. “We” need to see our infrastructure, and our cities rebuilt. “We” need mass transportation and electrical grid re-configured. “We” need to bring train travel into the 21st century by creating new hubs of 300-400 mph Maglev trains. But more than anything “We” need the government to think in the terms of economy of scale that “Trillion Dollar Thinking” can do to create opportunities, by demanding our economy to be off of fossil fuels, in the next five-ten years. Here is where the nation and our businesses can create the opportunity in “New Industry,” but first we need resuscitation.
President Obama and his incoming staff will inherit daunting and extra ordinary challenges that will require both peak and optimum mental and physical performance from his staff and his cabinet.
President Obama is known for his physical and mental strength because he works at being fit physically, and mentally. He is known for working long hours into the night calling his staff at 11pm and working on speeches and reading, sometimes until 2 am.
The White House is expected to revolve around this schedule, by all accounts his Chief of Staff; R. Emanuel can burn the candle at both ends. He is often calling his staff as early as 6 am, and working late into the night, as well. Coming of a grueling campaign schedule, enduring the transition, and then stepping into power Pres. Elect Obama may find his people cascading like dominoes.
A partial answer to maintain peak mental performance can be the Obama Power Nap! The second equation to this conundrum is requiring a series of physical activities for White House Staff, where staff can choose any number of physical activities that allows them 30 minutes of aerobic activity each day.
The Power Nap has it origins in the siesta, but is far from being a siesta, in its truest form; the Power Nap is truly American. Imagine a nation that works out for 30 minutes, eats for 30 minutes, and naps for 30 minutes, and produces more, while combating fatigue, in an hour and half lunch break.
Unlike, a siesta in Spain, Mexico, and other Latin American countries a siesta shuts everything down for 3 hours that is un-American. “The siesta for shops and businesses is from approximately 2pm until 5pm while bars and restaurants close from about 4pm until about 8 or 9pm, according to about.com.”
The answer: The Obama Power Nap! A nap after lunch is proven to improve your performance according to research web site Health, they say:
Therefore it is true; a nap after lunch can improve your performance. There is a wealth of evidence and research to support the validity of this claim. Napping is a very effective way of combating fatigue and lifting productivity in the work place. Only 15 minutes can lift someone's performance and concentration levels greatly. "We actually have a dip in our core body temperature rhythm after lunch and that coincides with the sleep patch we have after lunch. And that happens even if we don't eat anything at lunchtime. So we're physiologically programmed to slow things down in the early afternoon," says Adelaide-based sleep researcher, Dr Sally Ferguson. So, it is no surprise then that over 60 percent of workers are actually sleep deprived. Most other animals on the planet nap and humans have not evolved past this basic need.So, it is no surprise then that over 60 percent of workers are actually sleep deprived. Most other animals on the planet nap and humans have not evolved past this basic need.People are not getting nearly enough sleep at night and it's causing us to be less effective at work and bringing with it a whole host of health problems, which ultimately can lead to increased costs for businesses.New York entrepreneur Arshad Chowdury has come up with the ultimate corporate kip — nap pods for rent."For the last 50 years in the western world we've been working longer hours and sleeping less every single year. This is the trend that's not going anywhere and something has to give," says Arshad.If you nap for more than 20 minutes during the day, you'll slip into the deep sleep cycle, which means it'll take you longer to recover so a nap pod is designed to induce faster sleep by recalling your favorite nap settings, from music to contour preferences. By the time you freshen up after your nap, you'll be in and out in just 30 minutes.According to Arshad, one in three Americans nap and he thinks this holds true for much of the western world. Therefore if we are given the opportunity to take a nap during the workday, one in three of us would choose to. He says, it's things like work culture that actually prevents us from doing so. Nap pods are making their way to Australia.
Therefore it is true; a nap after lunch can improve your performance. There is a wealth of evidence and research to support the validity of this claim. Napping is a very effective way of combating fatigue and lifting productivity in the work place. Only 15 minutes can lift someone's performance and concentration levels greatly.
"We actually have a dip in our core body temperature rhythm after lunch and that coincides with the sleep patch we have after lunch. And that happens even if we don't eat anything at lunchtime. So we're physiologically programmed to slow things down in the early afternoon," says Adelaide-based sleep researcher, Dr Sally Ferguson.
So, it is no surprise then that over 60 percent of workers are actually sleep deprived. Most other animals on the planet nap and humans have not evolved past this basic need.
People are not getting nearly enough sleep at night and it's causing us to be less effective at work and bringing with it a whole host of health problems, which ultimately can lead to increased costs for businesses.
New York entrepreneur Arshad Chowdury has come up with the ultimate corporate kip — nap pods for rent.
"For the last 50 years in the western world we've been working longer hours and sleeping less every single year. This is the trend that's not going anywhere and something has to give," says Arshad.
If you nap for more than 20 minutes during the day, you'll slip into the deep sleep cycle, which means it'll take you longer to recover so a nap pod is designed to induce faster sleep by recalling your favorite nap settings, from music to contour preferences. By the time you freshen up after your nap, you'll be in and out in just 30 minutes.
According to Arshad, one in three Americans nap and he thinks this holds true for much of the western world. Therefore if we are given the opportunity to take a nap during the workday, one in three of us would choose to. He says, it's things like work culture that actually prevents us from doing so.
Nap pods are making their way to Australia.
A wise Pres. Elect Obama will see the benefits of a “Power Nap” and Nap-Pod’s may make their way into the White House especially if the grueling schedule continues, and if he wants to keep his staff from flailing, and falling like flies.
It means: Inspiration to me!
Intangible yet real, it springs from a persons deepest core. It is a feeling that emanates from the sub-conscious to make you aware of the achievable. It is the amorphous inducing substance that makes you sob, smile, and shout all at the same time.
It means in essence that I have entrusted my life, the well being of my country, and of future generations into the hands, mind, and heart of the incoming President.
The inauguration means I have given him my trust: Which has my unselfish care for change, and it carries my charge, custody, and confidence with the positive expectation of our hope.
The test balloon has been floated, and Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State is being fleshed out in the public while the transition team thinks over who would be the best and the brightest as Secretary of State, and other cabinet posts are being vetted behind the scenes. The great benefit of such a leak is that it works to publicly vet highly public figures like Senator Clinton. But if more leaks of less notoriety follow then staffers and transition team members, the transition process, and the Podesta team is in danger of showing to be weak, suspect, and undisciplined.
Change was the platform that Senator Obama ran on for President. How can he epitomize change when in essence he is re-creating or creating a third Clinton Cabinet? One of President Elect Obama’s favorite saying by MLK is “The arch of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” Obama’s MLK quote addendum can be, “The arch of change is long…” “…How long, not long…” in other words change won’t be much, if he continues down the same well travelled path. If he continues doing the same things over and over again and can we expect a different result or do you think we will get change as he promised?
Speaking in the wisdom of others President Elect Obama and his transition team should consider these wise words:
We are most effective as a team when we compliment each other without embarrassment and disagree without fear. - UnknownWhat we need to do is learn to work in the system, by which I mean that everybody, every team, every platform, every division, every component is there not for individual competitive profit or recognition, but for contribution to the system as a whole on a win-win basis. - W. Edward Deming Individual commitment to a group effort, that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work. - Vince Lombardi The ratio of We’s to I’s is the best indicator of the development of a team. - Lewis B. Ergen The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime. - Babe Ruth Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success. - Henry Ford Build for your team a feeling of oneness, of dependence on one another and of strength to be derived by unity. - Vince Lombardi It is better to have one person working with you than three people working for you.Dwight D. Eisenhower It’s easy to get good players. Getting them to play together, that’s the hard part. - Casey Stengel
We are most effective as a team when we compliment each other without embarrassment and disagree without fear. - Unknown
What we need to do is learn to work in the system, by which I mean that everybody, every team, every platform, every division, every component is there not for individual competitive profit or recognition, but for contribution to the system as a whole on a win-win basis. - W. Edward Deming
Individual commitment to a group effort, that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work. - Vince Lombardi
The ratio of We’s to I’s is the best indicator of the development of a team. - Lewis B. Ergen
The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don’t play together, the club won’t be worth a dime. - Babe Ruth
Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success. - Henry Ford
Build for your team a feeling of oneness, of dependence on one another and of strength to be derived by unity. - Vince Lombardi
It is better to have one person working with you than three people working for you.Dwight D. Eisenhower
It’s easy to get good players. Getting them to play together, that’s the hard part. - Casey Stengel
Lincoln’s chutzpah in selecting “a team of rivals” was overstated he had to do a lot of convincing and endured countless hours agonizing and analyzing ways to prove his leadership, to his team of rivals. He had to undo distrust, disdain, and contempt, from discordant factions within his cabinet which he accomplished. The downside is that dissonance spilled over to his military leaders, and that almost became his undoing. It was evident with the lackluster insubordination he received from generals like McClellan. President Elect Obama absolutely can not waste time undoing the disparagement, nor does he have the time, treasury, or life to spare from hidden dissension from his cabinet or from commanders on the field as President Lincoln did.
Selecting Hillary is a dam good player but she can easily be considered either a bad or bold choice. Offering Senator Clinton the post creates obvious and not so obvious deliberations. First when you get Hillary you get Bill whether you want him or not so the questions to ask is do I want Hillary enough to get Bill? Keeping Hillary’s interest as Secretary of State will be enough for her to succeed, but keeping Bill Clinton engaged beside Hillary is the other challenge. You just can’t emasculate a person like Bill Clinton and not expect any drama, no on the contrary Bill Clinton must have something to do. What can Bill do at the side of Hillary if she is Secretary of State?
Hillary has a lot of good qualities she is hawkish and can be megalomaniacal. She has ambition and allegiance. She is smart and skillful, but her baggage trails like Zsa-Zsa Gabor’s. The question the transition team needs to ask is: Are they willing to re-hash and re-live the public drama of the Clinton’s and risk ludicrous embarrassment? Will she be able to devote her interests truthfully and completely to President Obama, or will divide them between hers, Bill’s, and President Obama?
Why fish in the same pond? Nixon was successful with Kissinger. Carter was successful with Brzezinski even though Brzezinski served as National Security Advisor. Clinton was successful with Albright. Why retread an old politician into a new role, when President Obama can have an assertive intellectual at his side to provide him with day-to-day advice and guidance on foreign policy decisions. How about Thomas Freidman for Secretary of State, he speaks and writes Arabic, and Hebrew. The point here is to think out of the box.
David Ignatius, of the Washington Post raised an even more cogent point, on MSNBC’s 1600 with David Gregory:
“Just to say one thing about this issue we are all talking about Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State in my conversations with foreign leader’s people abroad who are watching this amazing election. The sense of excitement they have about this new President, about his ability through his personality. His amazing history – to turn a page – to show the world a different face of America is crucial. The one thing I think for Obama should be careful about is not dissipating that opportunity by having a superstar as the Secretary of State. The game in the world right now is Barack Obama. It’s Barack Obama who has the ability to meet with people – make things happen, and go through doors that wouldn’t exist but for him, and if he gives it – if he sub-contracts that to Hillary Clinton, I worry that the impact he could have might be lost.”
"So, over the course of the many years I have had discussions about the "marriage" v. "civil union" and most GLBT's I have talked to about it feel that it must be marriage or nothing." Cindy Jaffe
Why does the GLBT insist it must be marriage or nothing? Isn't that being narrow minded?
Wouldn't that be like an African American insisting on wanting to be called white when he/she is black when arguing for equal rights? Isn't the objective equal rights for all involved? That is what I support. I think the country has arrived at a decisive juncture.
The majority's message is "marriage" as a label is a term they want to keep defined as the union between a man and a woman. The GLBT community wants to change the label "marriage" and redefine it as a term used in GLBT relationships and want to force the change politically and socially, as in "it must be marriage or nothing." And that to the majority is a violation/usurpation of what has been traditionally a man/woman term not a GLBT term.
Isn't that kind of stance one that incites violence and unrest? The majority think the GLBT are treading on the majority's ownership of the term "marriage." That is the stalemate we have now. It is not so much about equal rights but more a fight on the definition of marriage, and who owns it.
Now if one was arguing to redefine marriage then the amendments that have passed recently in so many states is a push back by those who want to preserve the term "marriage" between a man and a woman.
Being new to this discussion I would argue that if these amendments strip away the label "marriage" from the GLBT, and equality under the law, then the fight should be to restore equal rights under the law for the GLBT, and not so much to force a change in the definition of the label "marriage," in society and the courts of law.
The issue is that the term "marriage" for thousands of years has been an institutionalized and established by and between a man and a woman. If it had been institutionalized to include GLBT, during that same time period until now then we would not have the institutional issues we are facing today.
What is required now is an agreement to disagree on the definition of "marriage" as an issue. The important part of this discussion is to ensure equal rights under the law for all in the GLBT community. The majority feel marriage belongs to them, but the battle must be ensued on the basis of attaining equal rights for all in the GLBT minority movement.
Ceding the definition of "marriage" as the union between a man and a woman is not a loss, and of little consequence. GLBT losing the rights and benefits a man and woman receive in their unions is an justice, and is trajically a loss.
It is important as long as the GLBT community want to have a homologous long lasting relationship with one person for the rest of their lives that they should receive equal rights benefits under the law.
Couldn't GLBT still have partnerships or unions with equal rights under the law without legally calling it a "marriage," and still call it a "marriage" within the GLBT community? Why couldn't the Federal Court create a mandate to all states affording civil unions the same rights under the law as a marriage between a husband and wife?
Gaining equal rights is after all the struggle.
John McCain is using reverse psychology and is arousing empathetic sentiment to close in and overtake Senator Obama with voters. He is again making the election one about choosing between characters, him and Obama, rather than one of choosing a presidential candidate based on the issues.
Historically America’s penchant for the underdog will underscore and over take any lead Senator Obama may have in the Polls, this is what he is doing by going on these popular shows like SNL and Letterman. Expect a close to matching effort in an across the board voting.
Despite Senator Obama’s groundwork of GOTV this is still in large part a defensive play to ensure electoral votes. The ground work as important and vital as it is leaves open winning the electoral vote of undecided voters, in swing states, as more crucial and important. It is the offensive part of the campaign that needs to be ignited in the last hours to score points, and win independent voters.
Because of the historic nature of his candidacy Senator Obama must win in a landslide, no less is required. The polls are fickle as much as voters are transient in their thoughts; hence, the urgency of the now is not only for the GOTV but for the undecided voters.
News, and media coverage now is not so much about Obama’s lead in the polls but more about McCain’s last minute surge in the minds of undecided voters. The battle we now have is in the minds of the battleground states. Leads of 9, 10, 11, points should not be taken as leads despite all calculations, because some of the undecided vote ranges within the same spread. Likewise, leads of 3, 4, 5 points also fall within the margin of error, and discounts his lead.
People are listening carefully to what the pundits are posing and it is the penchant of undecided voters to go against that predictive grain. Right now, what needs to happen beyond the gut wrenching work of the grass-roots campaign is the stirring of the undecided voter, to a new zeitgeist level.
What has recently stirred the populace in the same level of enthusiasm towards Senator Obama has been the crash of Wall Street. It represents some of the same stirring but on an almost ephemeral level. Some of its initial fervor has worn off.
What then will electrify the remaining electorate in these last two days to tilt the balance in Senator Obama’s favor? It can be a call to action in unexpected states like Montana, North Dakota, Nevada, Georgia, or it can be a declaration, of an issue.
McCain and his Neo-Republican supporters on the same hand realize they have no standing on the issues, and are making the last days an issue of character. Here is where most independent voters choose to vote on, character. Senator Obama needs to point out the rift in the Republican party. It is split between Neo-Republican’s and moderate Regan Republican's who have come over to Obama because they agree with Obama on the issues. If left untouched the remaining independent voters will be swayed more by McCain's character attacks than by the issues.
The small shift by McCain and the Neo-Republican’s to focus on character can cause a great electoral shift, and an important part and aspect of sailing in these electoral winds is to keep the campaign in trim moving to elect Senator Obama.
It must be a valid declarative point that is so simple and poignant that it takes the focus off character and brings it back onto the issues. It must allow Senator Obama to call for justice, and it must be framed as “the straw that broke the camels back.” Truman did this when,
He electrified the audience when he said, ‘Senator Barkley and I will win this election and make the Republicans like it–don’t you forget it.’ It was the first time during the convention that anyone had spoken of actually winning. Truman then praised the higher wages, higher farm income, and greater benefits for Americans he claimed as Democratic accomplishments, and went on to condemn the Republican Congress. He spoke with scorn of the recently adopted Republican platform, contrasting the programs it contained with congressional inaction on similar programs he had proposed.Truman roused the convention to a standing ovation when he announced his intention to call Congress back into special session to ‘ask them to pass the laws to halt rising prices, to meet the housing crisis–which they say they are for in their platform.’ When this special session did convene it accomplished little, as Truman expected, but it gave the president a campaign issue. The country’s woes, he asserted, were the result of the ‘do-nothing’ Republican Congress.
He electrified the audience when he said, ‘Senator Barkley and I will win this election and make the Republicans like it–don’t you forget it.’ It was the first time during the convention that anyone had spoken of actually winning. Truman then praised the higher wages, higher farm income, and greater benefits for Americans he claimed as Democratic accomplishments, and went on to condemn the Republican Congress. He spoke with scorn of the recently adopted Republican platform, contrasting the programs it contained with congressional inaction on similar programs he had proposed.
Truman roused the convention to a standing ovation when he announced his intention to call Congress back into special session to ‘ask them to pass the laws to halt rising prices, to meet the housing crisis–which they say they are for in their platform.’ When this special session did convene it accomplished little, as Truman expected, but it gave the president a campaign issue. The country’s woes, he asserted, were the result of the ‘do-nothing’ Republican Congress.
In the same manner Bush’s last minute efforts to deregulate can be used by Senator Obama to call Congress back into special session to halt the Bush/Neo-Republican Congress deregulation of the rules to protect consumers, and STOP this travesty. A change in “These rules "will force Americans to choke on dirtier air for years to come, unless Congress or the new administration reverses these eleventh-hour abuses," said lawyer John Walke of the Natural Resources Defense Council.”
"...it is never too late, to side on the side of the American Public."
If allowed to pass it would take enormous effort on the newly elected president to undo the injustices and personal harm Bush will inflict upon his fellow citizens through his late term deregulation efforts.
The rules are in place to protect people and having them abolished will negatively affect almost every facet of American Life: This is a real cause to take up even, at this time; it is never too late, to side on the side of the American Public.
Carry this cause, bring it to the American people make it an issue, bring it to the forefront. Call on Pelosi and Reid and make it the issue of our time, and declare it the symbol of what is wrong with Washington, Bush, Cheney, McCain, and the Neo-Republican Congress.
"We want policies that promote prosperity, and do not encourage decay."
People want hope, prosperity, and new strategies in energy, and infrastructure not policies that chokes us with dirty air, and infects us with dirty water, and destroys us with an unlivable environment. We want policies that promote prosperity, and do not encourage decay; we want policies that promote the health and welfare of the nation. Frame and expose the destructive policies that the Bush/McCain and the Neo-Republican Congress have done in destroying America’s prosperity, by running us into the ground.
Make it an issue not about spreading wealth so much, but about protecting America, about making everyone wealthier, about lifting everyone to a higher level of prosperity. A richer middle class makes everyone in the country richer overall.
But more importantly take away McCain’s last minute character attack strategy of framing this election as a coronation of Obama, which leads to a corrective move by independents to vote against an “imperialistically framed Obama.” Make it more a referendum of the divisive policies of Bush/McCain and the Neo-Republican Congress. Make it a call to action, a call for change, a fulfillment of hope, a rebirth of America.
My story is rooted in the American immigrant story. My Love for America started 41 years ago when my mother immigrated to New York to join my father who had immigrated one year before. I was five and my sister was three, and I entered first grade knowing no english.
My parent’s education stopped at sixth grade, but that did not stop their dreams and aspiration for themselves or us (their children). My father and mother now own their own home free and clear, and are living the American Dream.
After a life of work they are proud to be American, and are thankful for the light and life this-their country has afforded them.
My father has always known that the only way to get out of the working class is education. Education of any sort, but how to accomplish that for his children was out of his grasp.
Here I stand forty one years later out of work but still a proud American, still hopeful of my future. I am not ashamed of my right of passage. It has spanned 41 years of my life.
I've endured the ridicule of public school antics, as a child. I was got caught in the mediocrity of an unguided life that comes from parents who are involved in financially keeping the family above poverty.
My parents worked four jobs, two full-time and two-part time jobs, for many years that almost destroyed our nuclear family. As factory workers blue collar, and domestics I give them credit for sticking together.
As a young adult I served my country in the US Navy, I became an emergency medical technician, and helped save lives, witnessed tragic deaths. I found myself medically helping babies, mothers, children, families, and my fellow service members and I loved it, and loved serving my country.
In my thirty's I became a volunteer for a religious organization for 17 years, and loved serving people of all races, colors, and religious affiliations.
My memory of politics goes back to when Nixon was caught with Watergate. I was 11 years old and found the issues intriguing and found them connecting to a certain part of my psyche. I found Kissinger inspiring as a Hispanic child, because he was Jewish. I got involved marginally with Carter's campaign.
"My future does depend on what happens in these elections. Now what I am and what I become will solely depend not on what I am not, but on what I can become."
Now at 46 I am more involved as this campaign, than ever before. Nor have my parents who are 75, and 68 been involved in the issues as much as we are now.
As immigrants/residents we felt like third-class persons, disenfranchised outsiders looking in. All we did and knew was work. Now as citizens we have a voice and have crossed the threshold of legitimacy and validity, in this country.
Living in America, as Latino's working, paying taxes, purchasing property, attending America's public schools, participating in every aspect of society and not voting has been dehumanizing.
I am a human now, I am American and I Love it. I have always been proud of being American. The interesting thing is that I have always been American, but because my skin color was brown I felt I wasn't.
My future does depend on what happens in these elections. Now what I am and what I become will solely depend not on what I am not, but on what I can become.
This is the hope this election has given me, this is the hope Senator Obama has given me, and my family, and this is the reason I support Senator Obama for president.
My father and mother and sister are all voting for Senator Obama. Come election night we will witness history. It would be mind blowing and beyond expectations if one of them would be able to witness firsthand with their son American Politics at its best, nevertheless our vote is for Senator Obama.
Senator Obama’s thirty minute address to the nation will tread new water, and break new ground. It is a brilliant idea; it carries a huge upside and a huge downside. The upside is obvious his presentation to the nation has to offer a vision of the future. The vision will frame his proposed policies and state of affairs to be employed in his presidency. Like a TV pilot for a new mini-series the 30 minute spot will be a prototype of his presidency. The thirty minute spot must serve not only as an introduction to his possible presidency, but it must establish it, and make its premise clear to the American voter. It must be the hook, of the campaign as in a story or a song.
The thirty minute spot must not be a recap of his stump speeches, or a regurgitation of the same, but it must give a general idea of the look and feel of his proposed presidency, and offer the voters a glimpse of what the nation will look like with him as President with the support of a strong democratic down ballot. He must offer a preview of the beginning of a cooperative congress ready to work for the good of the nation. He must paint a picture of the trust that the nation is about to place in his hands. He must propose, and determine as FDR “…to make every American citizen the subject of his country's interest and concern…”
The public must come away wanting to vote for Obama.
The huge downside is if the thirty minute address is regurgitation, or a recap, or a motiveless appeal the downside damage will be irreversible. It will be the turning point in the campaign. The country will turn off their TVs and switch the channels, and ignore his address, and will vote for McCain. It will be the October suprise McCain is hoping for. Senator Obama would in effect by his own error would choke and give the presidency to the waiting McCain/Palin ticket.
Furthermore, every gesture, every facial expression, every movement, every hand gesture, every breath, will be analyzed, and matched to every word for authenticity, and appeal. If the message misses, Senator Obama will be torn apart and re-analyzed and it will open him to irreversible criticism he will never be able to recover from.
Failing a lack of execution it could be the October surprise that hands the presidency to John McCain. But the even more important point to recognize is that the campaign will not get another opportunity to re-work the presentation, or re-draft its theme, for a future broadcast, as might a TV pilot.
The campaign must get it right the first time right out of the gate. Analysts, state that by this weekend voters will have decided in their minds who they will vote for on November 4th, and if Senator Obama fails to connect because of content, lack of substance, presence, emotion, or vision then the presidency becomes his to loose.
Senator Obama’s task will be to frame the morass, the mundane, and the mechanics of the McCain campaign and paint his presidency in clear believable, understandable terms, any person can grasp.
Note: Watch how the following people express their messages, compare and ask yourself if Senator Obama misses the mark (in tone, word, and action), if the answer is yes, then one must re-consider, the 30 minute spot now in the vault:
Colin Powell: As he expresses his views and when he endorses Barack Obama, note the movement of his body, the expression of his face, matches his words, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0bN-jnpQXA&feature=related Regan and Bush, Sr.: as they discuss taxes. Reagan holds his own against Bush in the grasp of details. Note Bush’s grasp of the details, as almost mechanical. Note Regan’s argument for reduction of taxes. But note Regan’s wrap up as he brings his argument home to the people. He uses “Phony decrease of taxes” to describe Carter’s proposal. Bush talks about our link with the world economy. Risk of loss of revenue vs Reduction of spending, sound familiar? Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edchtf9MS7g&NR=1 JFK: Watch Kennedy’s response, and use of his body, and his hands, his face, and his inflection of his voice. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNhMfBLBDGg&feature=related
Colin Powell: As he expresses his views and when he endorses Barack Obama, note the movement of his body, the expression of his face, matches his words, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0bN-jnpQXA&feature=related
Regan and Bush, Sr.: as they discuss taxes. Reagan holds his own against Bush in the grasp of details. Note Bush’s grasp of the details, as almost mechanical. Note Regan’s argument for reduction of taxes. But note Regan’s wrap up as he brings his argument home to the people. He uses “Phony decrease of taxes” to describe Carter’s proposal. Bush talks about our link with the world economy. Risk of loss of revenue vs Reduction of spending, sound familiar? Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edchtf9MS7g&NR=1
JFK: Watch Kennedy’s response, and use of his body, and his hands, his face, and his inflection of his voice. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNhMfBLBDGg&feature=related
Read Franklin Roosevelt’s second Inaugural address, as he speaks of change; and ask did Senator Obama paint the picture and make his case for President? As transformational as this election is we have been here before and it is the same struggle, only this time if we miss our opportunity, it will mark the beginning of the end, of the middle class and what we know as the American Way of Life:
“…Our progress out of the depression is obvious. But that is not all that you and I mean by the new order of things. Our pledge was not merely to do a patchwork job with secondhand materials. By using the new materials of social justice we have undertaken to erect on the old foundations a more enduring structure for the better use of future generations. In that purpose we have been helped by achievements of mind and spirit. Old truths have been relearned; untruths have been unlearned. We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics. Out of the collapse of a prosperity whose builders boasted their practicality has come the conviction that in the long run economic morality pays. We are beginning to wipe out the line that divides the practical from the ideal; and in so doing we are fashioning an instrument of unimagined power for the establishment of a morally better world. This new understanding undermines the old admiration of worldly success as such. We are beginning to abandon our tolerance of the abuse of power by those who betray for profit the elementary decencies of life. In this process evil things formerly accepted will not be so easily condoned. Hard-headedness will not so easily excuse hardheartedness. We are moving toward an era of good feeling. But we realize that there can be no era of good feeling save among men of good will."
“…Our progress out of the depression is obvious. But that is not all that you and I mean by the new order of things. Our pledge was not merely to do a patchwork job with secondhand materials. By using the new materials of social justice we have undertaken to erect on the old foundations a more enduring structure for the better use of future generations.
In that purpose we have been helped by achievements of mind and spirit. Old truths have been relearned; untruths have been unlearned. We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics. Out of the collapse of a prosperity whose builders boasted their practicality has come the conviction that in the long run economic morality pays. We are beginning to wipe out the line that divides the practical from the ideal; and in so doing we are fashioning an instrument of unimagined power for the establishment of a morally better world.
This new understanding undermines the old admiration of worldly success as such. We are beginning to abandon our tolerance of the abuse of power by those who betray for profit the elementary decencies of life.
In this process evil things formerly accepted will not be so easily condoned. Hard-headedness will not so easily excuse hardheartedness. We are moving toward an era of good feeling. But we realize that there can be no era of good feeling save among men of good will."
"For these reasons I am justified in believing that the greatest change we have witnessed has been the change in the moral climate of America…”
Among men of good will, science and democracy together offer an ever-richer life and ever-larger satisfaction to the individual. With this change in our moral climate and our rediscovered ability to improve our economic order, we have set our feet upon the road of enduring progress. Shall we pause now and turn our back upon the road that lies ahead? Shall we call this the promised land? Or, shall we continue on our way? For "each age is a dream that is dying, or one that is coming to birth."Many voices are heard as we face a great decision. Comfort says, "Tarry a while." Opportunism says, "This is a good spot." Timidity asks, "How difficult is the road ahead?" True, we have come far from the days of stagnation and despair. Vitality has been preserved. Courage and confidence have been restored. Mental and moral horizons have been extended. But our present gains were won under the pressure of more than ordinary circumstances. Advance became imperative under the goad of fear and suffering. The times were on the side of progress. To hold to progress today, however, is more difficult. Dulled conscience, irresponsibility, and ruthless self-interest already reappear. Such symptoms of prosperity may become portents of disaster! Prosperity already tests the persistence of our progressive purpose.
Among men of good will, science and democracy together offer an ever-richer life and ever-larger satisfaction to the individual. With this change in our moral climate and our rediscovered ability to improve our economic order, we have set our feet upon the road of enduring progress.
Shall we pause now and turn our back upon the road that lies ahead? Shall we call this the promised land? Or, shall we continue on our way? For "each age is a dream that is dying, or one that is coming to birth."Many voices are heard as we face a great decision. Comfort says, "Tarry a while." Opportunism says, "This is a good spot." Timidity asks, "How difficult is the road ahead?"
True, we have come far from the days of stagnation and despair. Vitality has been preserved. Courage and confidence have been restored. Mental and moral horizons have been extended.
But our present gains were won under the pressure of more than ordinary circumstances. Advance became imperative under the goad of fear and suffering. The times were on the side of progress.
To hold to progress today, however, is more difficult. Dulled conscience, irresponsibility, and ruthless self-interest already reappear. Such symptoms of prosperity may become portents of disaster! Prosperity already tests the persistence of our progressive purpose.
More Importantly Like Roosevelt Senator Obama must express what he see’s America to be:
Let us ask again: Have we reached the goal of our vision of that fourth day of March 1933? Have we found our happy valley?I see a great nation, upon a great continent, blessed with a great wealth of natural resources. Its hundred and thirty million people are at peace among themselves; they are making their country a good neighbor among the nations. I see a United States which can demonstrate that, under democratic methods of government, national wealth can be translated into a spreading volume of human comforts hitherto unknown, and the lowest standard of living can be raised far above the level of mere subsistence.But here is the challenge to our democracy: In this nation I see tens of millions of its citizens--a substantial part of its whole population--who at this very moment are denied the greater part of what the very lowest standards of today call the necessities of life.I see millions of families trying to live on incomes so meager that the pall of family disaster hangs over them day by day.I see millions whose daily lives in city and on farm continue under conditions labeled indecent by a so-called polite society half a century ago.I see millions denied education, recreation, and the opportunity to better their lot and the lot of their children.I see millions lacking the means to buy the products of farm and factory and by their poverty denying work and productiveness to many other millions.I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.It is not in despair that I paint you that picture. I paint it for you in hope--because the Nation, seeing and understanding the injustice in it, proposes to paint it out. We are determined to make every American citizen the subject of his country's interest and concern; and we will never regard any faithful law-abiding group within our borders as superfluous. The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.
Let us ask again: Have we reached the goal of our vision of that fourth day of March 1933? Have we found our happy valley
?I see a great nation, upon a great continent, blessed with a great wealth of natural resources. Its hundred and thirty million people are at peace among themselves; they are making their country a good neighbor among the nations.
I see a United States which can demonstrate that, under democratic methods of government, national wealth can be translated into a spreading volume of human comforts hitherto unknown, and the lowest standard of living can be raised far above the level of mere subsistence.
But here is the challenge to our democracy: In this nation I see tens of millions of its citizens--a substantial part of its whole population--who at this very moment are denied the greater part of what the very lowest standards of today call the necessities of life.
I see millions of families trying to live on incomes so meager that the pall of family disaster hangs over them day by day.I see millions whose daily lives in city and on farm continue under conditions labeled indecent by a so-called polite society half a century ago.
I see millions denied education, recreation, and the opportunity to better their lot and the lot of their children.
I see millions lacking the means to buy the products of farm and factory and by their poverty denying work and productiveness to many other millions.
I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.
It is not in despair that I paint you that picture. I paint it for you in hope--because the Nation, seeing and understanding the injustice in it, proposes to paint it out. We are determined to make every American citizen the subject of his country's interest and concern; and we will never regard any faithful law-abiding group within our borders as superfluous. The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Franklin_Roosevelt's_Second_Inaugural_Address
“Tell me what company you keep and I’ll tell you what you are” - Cervantes
David Brooks wrote an op-ed for the New York Times entitled “Thinking About Obama.” He begins with “We’ve been watching Barack Obama for two years now, and in all that time there hasn’t been a moment in which he has publicly lost his self,” and ends with, “But over the past two years, Obama has clearly worn well with voters. Far from a celebrity fad, he is self-contained, self-controlled and maybe even a little dull.” And he posits the following: “It could be that Obama will be an observer, not a leader. Rather than throwing himself passionately into his causes, he will stand back. Congressional leaders, put off by his supposed intellectual superiority, will just go their own way. Lost in his own nuance, he will be passive and ineffectual. Lack of passion will produce lack of courage. The Obama greatness will give way to the Obama anti-climax.” Dull might be a correct description if you are not a careful observer of Barack Obama, but Brooks offers a more ominous conclusion, an eventual Obama loss. In the end, using a baseball analogy one could say he “choked,” if nothing is done to change the current trajectory of the campaign.
Dull or Determined
People like Mr. Brooks miss what has made Senator Obama successful; it is the achievements and love of his family. First his mother nurtured and guided his disposition by inculcating three things into him: discipline, high expectations, and her example: she became an anthropologist, wrote an 800-page dissertation on peasant blacksmithing in Java, worked for the Ford Foundation, championed women's work, helped bring microcredit to the world's poor, according to Janny Scott of the IHT. His father’s example of oratory and intellect fueled his search and command of knowledge and challenged him to attend his father’s Alma mater: Harvard. While he lived with his grandparents, he witnessed his grandmother’s Midwestern uncomplaining work ethic; while she climbed the corporate ladder this helped fuel his determination, to toil without complaint.
Or if you were an observer of Obama you would of noticed the signs of aging on Barack Obama’s face, in the week following his successful foreign trip. He came back with bags under his eyes, wrinkles in his face, and aging caused by thousands of miles of travel, and little sleep. If you would have looked closely at Senator Obama’s speech at the American Foreign Legion you would have noticed his rigid stance, his expanded chest, and his cupped hands behind the podium, and would of heard the firmness of his voice, at the questioning of his patriotism. You would notice the white hairs growing, while he travels almost tirelessly across the trail of the stump. It has been these values that have brought him almost unflinchingly through the turmoil of these last two years.
Class Warfare
The bet out on the circuit is: Senator Obama chokes and loses in the last days of the election. Wisdom of the Obama campaign will have it otherwise. The hidden often overlooked ground game and strategy of the electoral map is sometimes overshadowed with the highly visible action game of the stump. Senator Obama rises to the occasion when he is challenged with excellence. He rose to challenge and won the hard fought and hard won democratic primaries against a very eloquent and formidable opponent, Senator Hillary Clinton. Those primaries yielded the most prepared candidate to face John McCain.
We are finding that much like the primaries where Senator Clinton ignored the caucuses’, Senator McCain is playing behind the eight ball by ignoring voter registration, on the ground in all the critical swing states, and in some of the traditionally republican states. He is behind, hence McCain’s attack on Acorn, and McCain’s current call for class warfare.
Senator Obama or the DNC has to defend Acorn, because an attack on Acorn is like attacking community organizers, re-covering alcoholic’s, re-covering felons, the under privileged, the poor, the jobless, the homeless, and regular people who just needed a job, to tide them over to help pay their bills until they found a permanent position. This is John McCain’s and the republican’s attempt at class warfare, the rich against the poor. Moreover, John McCain supported Acorn before he was ever against it.
The Pendulum Swing
It has never been Senator Obama’s strategy to fight McCain in the mud, but because McCain realized they could not win on the issues, he assailed and slandered Obama and unflinchingly Obama has survived the character defamation reminiscent of Bush and Karl Rove. Not to be swift boated he has had to respond in his defense. Now, after three tumultuous weeks of an economic meltdown, the winds of change moved in Senator Obama’s carrying him to the lead.
Yet, again one senses that the political pendulum is starting to swing John McCain’s way. Not because of McCain’s grasp of the issues but, because of another round of Republican’s attacks. Effectively changing that momentum, they now know the pendulum is starting to swing their way. They have stopped the swing of the impact of the economic meltdown, with the force of the recent character attacks and negative “robocalls,” and negative spin by the Republican Party and their surrogates.
The problem here is that Senator Obama has not fervently disavowed these attacks and the campaign has not actively sought to reframe and build Senator Obama’s image with high profile endorsements, or through videos that build his image as a law abiding citizen, as a father, as a professor, as a lawyer, as President of Harvard Law Review. Etc. Senator Obama needs to get impassioned in his plea for justice regarding these attacks. It is obvious that McCain’s intent is not about Ayers, and his scant relations but it is about framing Barack Obama as a terrorist. For Senator Obama not to defend himself is political malpractice. He must shoot back at McCain and “Object, and Demand an apology” and call his attacks “slanderous, and defamatory.” People and surrogates are not saying Senator Obama is not a terrorist. Yet McCain when attacked by accusations of association with Wallace, etc., McCain was quick to refute and object.
Incite the Base to Get the Vote Out
Don’t’ be fooled by McCain’s panicky attacks they serve three main purposes; to incite the republican base to “fired them up and riled them up” and it is done to close their minds (watch this video) from voting for Obama, BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY it is used to get the vote out for McCain. People are saying, “The Blacks will take over,” “He is not a Christian,” “You got a negro running for President you need a first stringer, and he is definitely a second stringer,” “He is a wolf is sheep’s clothing”, “He is related to a known terrorist,” “he is friends with terrorists of this country” “he must support terrorists” “the Muslim thing is unnerving, ” “concerned that he is anti-white, that he might hide that” “He thinks white people are trash.”.
All those issues are undercurrents that are now surfacing with McCain’s attacks, and must be handled openly the way he openly handled the race issue. Listen to these attacks waged by McCain at his Miami, Florida stop and gauge the response of the crowd from a clip on MSNBC video labeled McCain: Glad Joe asked Obama questions. The point is that the Republican’s have closed the enthusiasm gap, WITH HATE AND FEAR and NOW have an enthusiastic base buzzing with anti-American rhetoric. What the republican’s have done is to turn the fears of 9/11 on its ears by creating a sense of fear from a false internal attack, via Obama. Tack on the “Underdog” status and McCain is perfectly positioning himself for victory in November despite what the polls show now.
The Real Issues and the Turn
Senator Obama has to turn up the heat by taking on the fight, fight, fight mentality of Hillary Clinton, and infuse it into his speeches, to rally the faithful, and to motivate the newly faithful to vote. It will be important to take this stance now and follow it through until the end. McCain is already taking this approach. Although Obama was declared the winner of the last Obama/McCain debate, McCain scored the right points by breaking from Bush, with his “I am not Bush line” and by using Joe the plumber as leverage to swing the minds of the middle class towards his camp, and by his inference of race and class warfare. Despite McCain’s angry disposition it served to score the right blows to incite McCain’s base.
It all comes now to how Senator Obama can finally connect with the country; it is down to the individual voter. Most people would rather vote for a person they know or can read, such as John McCain even with his flawed dispositions. When a person has a hard time reading Senator Obama and sees him as opaque, self-contained, or aloof, it becomes hard to get to know him, which is why some people still don’t know him.
HE MUST AVOID THE PITFALLS OF THESE CANDIDATES: Don’t get caught being too intellectual like Dukakis, and be framed as lacking passion. Don’t get framed as “Flat-Faced” like Carter, emotionless. Don’t get caught flat footed like Kerry when he was swift boated, and never responded in kind to his personal attacks, and held back on spending in some critical states.
Now the suggestion is not for Senator Obama to publicly lose himself but to show the public his “vim and vigor,” His fight, “the right stuff,” that wins Super bowls, and Championships, to separate and distance himself from John McCain. What Senator Obama unleashes may not be along the lines of a George Foreman, Charles Barkley, RFK, or McEnroe but along the lines of MLK, JFK, M. Jordan, or Ali, but may be along the lines of a more contemporary champion Usain Bolt. The object is to wow them, and motivate every voter we’ve registered to vote for Senator Obama, and to drive the vote down the democratic line as far as possible.
More Strategy
Realistically, every network and cable organization is talking about race as being a factor. Senator Obama and the campaign must factor in the Bradley effect which is about a 10-12 point spread, if this spread is factored in then the Obama campaign is in trouble, we are behind.
Senator Obama’s “don’t get cocky” statement went around the world, from NY, to Taipei, to London, and may have served to dampen everyone’s expectation for victory. Rather than serving as a rally cry for victory it sounded as a signal to put on the breaks and proceed with caution: A discouraging defensive and losing stance. He must restate and use different words to rally the campaign and put it on the offense.
More evidence of the shift is found in the polls as offered by AFP, Thursday October 16, 2008, they write, “The Gallup daily tracking poll Thursday offered McCain a glimmer of hope, putting Obama's lead at six points at 49 to 43 percent, down from seven points a day before.” Factoring in the Bradley effect is just smart politics, or shall we call it the new standard. If Senator Obama is up by six points be prepared to loose by four to six points. That is why the urgency of now needed.
McCain needs to be re-attached to the Republican’s, and Senator Joe Biden needs to unleash a barrage of attacks and use undeniable closing arguments on McCain linking McCain along with the republicans so that they will be found guilty of all the failures our country faces now; Making it virtually almost impossible for McCain to distance himself from Bush or the Republican’s.
Even more so now condemn McCain for being erratic on the economy, call him a right wing convert on policy-no longer a moderate, call him hotheaded and untrustworthy with national security, undependable with social security, bought by special interests groups, lobbyist’s, and big oil. Label him reckless with women’s issues. Call him a quasi-reformer out of convenience and for political solvency. Call McCain a Friend of a convicted Felon, G. Gordon Liddy, of Nixon Watergate era, who was a Hitler fanatic as a child. Call McCain on the carpet for his associations with Liddy, in 1998 Liddy hosted a fund raiser for McCain’s re-election, at Liddy’s house. He received $1000 in 2008 from Liddy, and considers him a friend.
Senator Obama has to bring out his own Joe the plumber, Jane the mom, Jake the student, and Mr. and Mrs. Joe, Sr. as standard bearers for Healthcare, Education, the Economy, Energy Independence, to inspire the democratic base. At rallies, and events have our people start chanting USA, USA, USA, USA, take that rally cry from the Republican’s.
Unite forces of Senator Obama and Senator Biden, and keep them together, and have then roll play good cop bad cop, together with their stump speeches. The goal would be to play an attack offense. There are enough days to cover all the swing states. The objective would be to flood each state with a Blitz of Media Attention and coverage by having both candidates starting in the same city, in the same state, and then having them split into different parts of the state. This could be done on a rolling basis all the way through Election Day, and each swing state can be covered twice, if implemented now. Note Senator Biden is still not getting his message out to the media.
The Close
Two years ago Senator Obama started with a theory, a thesis based on hope and change. Like a Doctoral dissertation he has outlined and given us his introductory statements, and over the last two years he has developed the body of his thesis. We know his stance on War, Healthcare, Energy, Veterans, Social Security and the most important his Economic recovery plans, now he needs to conclude his dissertation by giving us his closing arguments. His aim will be to connect and convince the undecideds, and to rally the millions of people he will need to vote to win.
Finally, in trying to remember what made the primaries so electric, and enthusiastic we have to look at Senator Obama’s opponent Hillary Clinton. It was her “battle and never give up spirit” that almost garnered her nomination, but it was in the end Senator Obama’s consistent strategy that won him the nomination for democratic presidential candidate. Here are four of her main victory speeches, which give insight to why she was so popular and effective but they also give insight to why Senator Obama was able to achieve so much. They are worth review just for the quality and the content of the phrases she used, but to get insight on the tone she used to win those states, and to consider hiring her speech writers (if not done already) for Senator Obama, and or Joe Biden.
Hillary’s Kentucky Victory Speech Hillary’s New Hampshire Victory Speech Hillary’s West Virginia Victory Hillary’s Super Tuesday Speech
Hitting the Bulls eye in the last Presidential Debate mean’s the complete utilization and refinement of every stratagem used in previous debates. The object is simple to get in as many arrows in the Bull’s Eye within the time allotted.
The Bull’s Eye is the central issue the electorate deems important, each surrounding ring is tangential to that central point, although each surrounding ring has a value it is not as valuable as an arrow that lands in the Bulls Eye, so importance and emphasis is given to land the arrows in that circle .
Senator Obama has to consider these outliers:
The close up and the Art of Body and Facial expressions
1. Camera angle
2. The Rule of Thirds
a. first third-face left to right
b. second third-head on shot
c. last third-face right to left
3. Know your camera-when directing a response must know which camera gives the Senator the best angle.
a. call it the aim, and the pivot.
4. Posture
a. a straight posture connotes honesty and straight talk
b. avoid camera angle that gives that appearance of speaking from the side of mouth (the liar angle).
c. avoid the mug shot-from the neck up.
5. Facial Expressions
a. the frown, the smile, all convey a message.
b. Each facial expression must match his tone, rhetoric.
c. Simply avoid the Carter “Flat Effect”
1. Which signals to the people
a. limited emotion, a phoney, liar, not-authentic
b. various emotional or psychological disorders
6. Allow for expression of real emotion, that expresses authenticity.
7. Hit the Bull's Eye
