It's been so long since Bush was elected. Finally it will be soon over. And it's been a long time since I watched Obama give the keynote at the 2004 Dem Convention, and said, "That's the guy, the only one who can do it, the dragon-slayer".
Thank you Barack Obama for pulling it off, impeccably, graciously, professionally, convincingly. Thank you for fulfilling the promise you first offered the american public at the outset of the campaign.
Robert Parry's excellent article describes what is also my growing fear- that the corporate MainStream Media's shameless distortions, ellipses, chatterboxing and outright censorship will derange the general public enough to bring McCain within striking distance- or should I say caging distance- of victory in Nov.
"To assume that people will somehow see through such distortions has proven to be naïve in the past. More likely, many millions of Americans will head to the polls in November having internalized a hodgepodge of negative themes about Obama. Indeed, a significant number who have absorbed the uglier accusations will have come to hate him."
http://baltimorechronicle.com/2008/080608Parry.shtml
I think this editorial from Philadelphia's Phoenix gets it eactly right. Here it is (link to original below text):
Context is critical: The New Yorker and the Obamas07/19/2008 A lot of people have been talking about the notorious New Yorker cover caricature of Barack Obama dressed as a Muslim and Michelle Obama dressed as a violent Black Panther-style revolutionary, exchanging so-called "terrorist fist bumps" in an Oval Office with a portrait of Osama Bin Ladin on the wall and the U.S. flag burning in the fireplace.Anyone who knows anything about The New Yorker knows that it is a magazine with a long history of intellectual irony and sophisticated satire. Inside, the label "The Politics of Fear" shows that rather than implying some hidden agenda of the Democratic presidential candidate, this illustration is meant to depict conservative distrust, rumors and even deliberate fearmongering about Obama.Immediately on publication, the controversy started. It's been discussed on radio and TV and in print. Many commentators are outraged; others say they love it.The New Yorker editor's defense of the cover seems to be that critics just don't get it.That's not the problem. Really. A lot of people do get it.But that doesn't make it less irresponsible. If this was just a question of offending people, of going too far to make a humorous point, it would be far less of a big deal. Taste and satire often clash.But what makes it a problem is that, however ironically it was meant, it is too easy to take seriously. People who walk by a magazine rack may not look at individual titles of publications, but images can flash off the pages and grab their attention, maybe not enough to make them stop and buy it, but enough to stick in their mind.A lot of people are never going to see the caption inside the magazine. A lot of people are never going to realize the irony of the image. A lot of people are going to misinterpret it, maybe take it for vindication of their suspicions, and pass on that misinterpretation, and some will probably even misuse it in further cases.Now, it's true that satire often doesn't come with any explanation or warning label attached. Jonathan Swift's classic 1729 essay, "A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from being a Burden to their Parents or the Country" (by fattening, slaughtering and eating them), was actually taken seriously by a number of readers. That essay stirred outrage, controversy and conversation, as it was meant to do. But the difference is that there was never any danger that the people who took it seriously would take action on it by following the "modest proposal."The people who take The New Yorker's cover seriously will take negative action on it, by letting it influence their decision on who to vote for in November, and by continuing to spread false rumors.It's not like the cover will spur positive action as a counterbalance, either. The people who do get the satire are inevitably the people who already discounted the rumors. It's not going to lead to minds being changed. The most the cover does is generate more talk about the topic, and there was already quite a lot, for anyone who was paying attention anyway.If the words "The Politics of Fear" had been printed on the cover, the caricature would clearly be just that, a humorous exaggeration making a point. But lacking any obvious context, it deserves the criticism it is getting.The New Yorker seems to be saying "Our readers will get it — the right people will get it — and to heck with anyone else, or any damage it may cause."If so, if the magazine is about arrogance and inside jokes: insularity, not enlightenment. Does it have the right to take this attitude and publish this cover? Certainly.Does it deserve any respect for doing so? Certainly not.
(view original)
Great article, a must read. Here's an excerpt:
"...There are two major modes of thought in American politics -- conservative and progressive, what I've called "strict" and "nurturant." We all grow up with brains exposed to both and capable of using both, but usually in different areas of life. Some people are conservative on foreign policy and progressive on domestic policy, or conservative on economic issues and progressive on social issues -- or the reverse. There is no left-to-right linear spectrum; all kinds of combinations occur. I've called such folks "biconceptuals." Brainwise, they show a common situation called "mutual inhibition," where two modes of thought are possible but the activation of one inhibits the other. The more you activate a conservative mode of thought, the more you inhibit the progressive mode of thought -- and the more likely it is that the conservative mode of thought will spread to other issues.
Interestingly, many people who call themselves "conservatives" actually think like progressives on a range of issue areas. For example, many "conservatives" love the land as much as any environmentalist; want to live in communities where people care about each other, that is, have social not just individual responsibility; live progressive business principles of honestly, care for their employees, and care for the public; and have progressive religious values: helping the poor, caring for the sick, being good stewards of the God's creation, turning the other cheek. One view of "bipartisanship" for progressives is finding self-described conservatives and independents who have such progressive values and working with them on that basis. That's what Obama did when he went to Rick Warren's megachurch and it is his strategy in Project Joshua. Note that this is the opposite of the form of bipartisanship that involves really adopting right-wing values, or even appearing to. What this bipartisan strategy does, from the brain's viewpoint, is to activate the progressive mode of thought in the brains of conservatives, and thus tends to inhibit conservative thought.
But the form of bipartisanship that involves adopting, or appearing to adopt, right-wing views has the opposite effect. It strengthens conservative thought in the brains on those biconceptuals and weakens progressive thought. In short, it actually helps conservatives. Rather than "taking arguments away from them" it strengthens their basic values and hence all their arguments. It give conservatives more reason, not less, for voting for conservatives..."
(read the article)
Looking over some YouTubes of Obama speeches over the course of the campaign, I was really moved by this phenomenon, by the excitement and the promise. We have done it, wow. Obama will be the next president. WOW.
Change is coming, now for sure, and you can see it in the crowds, you can see it in the Bushman's face.
Now we can begin mobilizing our talents to reform our war-drunk economy and foreign policy, to address the threats of climate change and endangered food supply, secure our middle class, introduce health care for all, and redress the awful image we have given ourselves in the world at large.
A big task, but how rarely do we get a chance to remake the game? Let's begin.
Hillary's supporters in the audience at the DNC meeting last Saturday were, strange to say, bullying- yes, bullying the meeting. A very unpleasant spectacle. Has Hillary inadvertently awakened a monster? The angry white irrational middle-aged women demographic?
A few years back I wrote about the public's and the media's appetite for "attitude" rather than knowledge and judgement (see below the fold).
Seeing the effect of Obama's "race" speech last week, I think he succeeded in taking the steam out of all the attitude mongering, and set people, a little dazed, on a path of knowledge. This is something new for us Americans, and gives us pause, and perhaps the Hope that we might begin to get past the obsession with "attitude" over knowledge and judgement.
I think this speech and it's effect on people is basically what has turned the invisible tide in the last week, resulting in Richardson finally feeling safe enough to come out for Obama.
This ability of Obama to change the consciousness from sheer attitude to compassionate thinking is the real key to bringing about the change we want.
I hope he will give another speech of this importance every month from now until the November election- this would go a long way to preparing fertile ground for the changes we want to see, and would make for an inspiring campaign.
Danny Goldberg writes in the TPM Cafe:
March 7, 2008, 5:23PM
"The recent drama about NAFTA demonstrates that Barack Obama cannot effectively run against Hillary Clinton without criticizing the Bill Clinton administration.
At times it has seemed as if Obama wanted to identify with the 1992 version of Bill Clinton who was approximately the same age Obama is now and now was the last Democrat to actually win.
But Obama needs to differentiate himself from Bill Clinton as much as he does from Hillary Clinton. To the extent that voters want a third Clinton term there is no rationale for denying Hillary Clinton the Democratic nomination. It is not plausible to depict her as having been a typical First Lady who merely did ceremonial work. She was an integral part of the Clinton administration. That is both her asset and her liaibility. Obama needs to take the bull by the horns and should take another line form John Kennedy's 1960 playbook: ”We can do better.”
The excitement that Obama has created thus far is not because of the ways he resembles Bill Clinton but because of the ways he is different from both Clintons and both Bushes. Part of his traction came from a lack of excitement about Bush/Clinton/Bush/Clinton.
One subtext of the Clinton campaign is that Obama is not ideologically different from Hillary. That is the supposed “fairy take,” Bill Clinton was talking about. If Obama is the same except for his eloquence, the argument goes, voters should go with the familiar brand name.
While acknowledging that Bill Clinton was most certainly better than either George Bush he must also remind voters that because of a lack of Presidential leadership during Clinton's time in office, Democrats lost both Houses of Congress. Bill Clinton failed to get national health care. He failed to reduce America's dependence on foreign oil. Bill Clinton failed to achieve labor law reform such as EFCA to make it easier for unions to organize. He failed to substantially increase the minimum wage. Bill Clinton signed NAFTA. The disparity of wealth between rich and poor grew during Clinton’s administration as well as Bush’s . America can do better.
Bill Clinton's administration introduced the language of “regime change” which set the stage for the disasterous war in Iraq. This is part of the “mind-set” that led to war. Bill Clinton let genocide happen in Rwanda. America can do better.
Bill Clinton reinforced the conservative paradigm when he claimed that the era of big government was over. This helped enable the further deterioration of the Bush years. Obama needs to remind Democrats voters what their real beliefs are-and how both Clintons triangulated away from them. Democrats can do better.
Bill Clinton was a good President but not a great one. He didn’t change the landscape of American politics in the long-term. Such a transformation and not a third Clinton term is what America needs.That’s the case Obama needs to make because if Americans believe that the best they can get out of the federal government is what Bill Clinton had to offer, they might as well go with Hillary Clinton."
The following open letter from a classmate of Hillary's reminds me why it is preferable not to have the Clintons back in the White House. It is also a shocking survey of, one has to say, the evil activities of this corporation, along with it's strategic infiltration of the Clinton White House and potentially the Hillary White House too.
Note: GE= genetically engineered; GMO= Genetically modified organism.
An Open Letter to Hillary Clinton From a Wellsley College Alumna Sunday, 03 February 2008 Submitted to Truth To Power by Linn Cohen-Cole Dear Hillary, By polling logic, I should be your supporter - Democrat, older woman, white, liberal. I was even in a dorm with you in college. I have pulled for you for years. But something this past summer fundamentally changed my responsibility to my children and grandchildren. In the time I have left in my life to protect them and others, I need to speak out. I saw a News Hour piece on Maharastra, India, about farmers committing suicide. Monsanto, a US agricultural giant, hired Bollywood actors for ads telling illiterate farmers they could get rich (by their standards) from big yields with Monsanto's Bt (genetically engineered) cotton seeds. The expensive seeds needed expensive fertilizer and pesticides (Monsanto, again) and irrigation. There is no irrigation there. Crops failed. Farmers had larger debt than they'd ever experienced And farmers couldn't collect seeds from their own fields to try again (true since time immemorial). Monsanto "patents" their DNA-altered seeds as "intellectual property." They have a $10 million budget and a staff of 75 devoted solely to prosecuting farmers. (http://www.grist.org/comments/food/2008/01/17/). Since the late 1990s (about when industrial agriculture took hold in India), 166,000 Indian farmers have committed suicide and 8 million have left the land. Farmers in Europe, Asia, Africa, Indonesia, South America, Central America and here, have protested Monsanto and genetic engineering for years.
What does this have to do with you? You have connections to Monsanto through the Rose Law Firm where you worked and through Bill who hired Monsanto people for central food- related roles. Your Orwellian-named "Rural Americans for Hillary" was planned with Troutman Sanders, Monsanto's lobbyists. Genetic engineering and industrialized food and animal production all come together at the Rose Law Firm, which represents the world's largest GE corporation (Monsanto), GE's most controversial project (DP&L's - now Monsanto's - terminator genes), the world's largest meat producer (Tyson), the world's largest retailer and a dominant food retailer (WalMart). The inbred-ness of Rose's legal representation of corporations which own controlling interests in other corporations there and of corporate boards sharing members who are also shareholders of each other's corporations there, is so thorough that it is hard to capture. Jon Jacoby, senior executive of the Stephens Group - one of the largest institutional shareholders of Tyson Foods, WalMart, DP&L - is also Chairman of the Board of DP&L and arranged the Wal-Mart deal. Jackson Stephens' Stephens Group staked Sam Walton and financed Tyson Foods. Monsanto bought DP&L. All represented at Rose. You didn't just work there, you made friends. That shows in the flow of favors then and since. You were invited onto Walmart's board, you were helped by a Tyson executive to make commodity trades (3 days before Bill became governor), netting you $100,000, Jackson Stephens strongly backed Bill for Governor, and then for President (donating $100,000).
Food and friends, in Clinton terms: Bill's appointed friend Mike Espy, Secretary of Agriculture, who immediately significantly weakened federal chicken waste and contamination standards, opening the door to major expansion of Tyson's chicken factory farms. Espy resigned, indicted for accepting bribes, illegal contributions, money laundering, illegal dispersal of USDA subsidies, .... Tyson Foods was the largest corporate offender. But what Bill did for Monsanto "genetic engineering" goes beyond inadequate concepts of giving corporate friends influence: He unleashed genetic engineering into the world. And then he helped close off people's escape from it. Genetic engineering is many orders of magnitude different from "normal" (even polluting) business in its potential biologic ramifications. The warning myth of Pandora'a Box - letting irretrievable things rush out into nature - has become real. The harrowing change to the world from nuclear fission and fusion is the closest parallel.
What did Bill do?
1. Bill's put Monsanto people in at the FDA, as US Agricultural Trade Representatives, on International Biotechnology Consultive Forums, and more ... (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/072600-03.htm) or( http://wwwmonitor.net/monitor/9904b/monsantofda.html) or (http://www.mindfully.org/GE/Revolving-Door.htm)
2. Bill's FDA gave Monsanto permission to market rBGH (a GE bovine growth hormone), the first genetically engineered product let loose on us (or did tomatoes with fish DNA get there first?).
3. Despite reports of bovine illness and death, Bill's FDA did not recall it or put warnings on it. Even "a very angry, very vocal nationwide consumer base" had no impact."
4. Bill's FDA wouldn't even label rBGH as "present" in milk.
5. When dairy farmers tried to label their own milk rBGH-free so the public could choose, Bill's USDA threatened all dairies that their products could be confiscated from stores. Michael Taylor, USFDA Deputy Commissioner, was formerly Monsanto's counsel.
6. How were consumers to protect their family, given Bill's FDA enforced public blindness, except to buy only organic? But Bill's FDA tried to close off that last escape, proposing to include in "organic" standards, "the dirty three": genetic engineering of plants and animals, use of irradiation in food processing and use of municipal sewage sludge as a fertilizer. (My emphasis.) The FDA backed down. Had this gone through, Monsanto could have finally labeled rBGH milk ... as "organic." And animal waste from factory farms, a pollution nightmare for Tyson and others, could have been sold as fertilizer. USDA head Dan Glickman: "This is probably the largest public response to an [Agriculture Department] rule in modern history." In fact the response was 20 times greater than anything ever before proposed by the USDA.
Personally, I resent having spent years of effort to protect my children and now grandchildren, from that crap.
Politically, Bill sided against small farmers and against the public's right to know, and with Monsanto.
A snap shot of our food:
Oils: Sheep died in India after feeding on Bt cotton fields. We feed our children Bt cotton, as cottonseed oil in peanut butter and cookies.
Grains: 49% of US corn acreage was planted in Bt corn in 2007. A French study proved Monsanto's GMO corn causes kidney and liver toxicity.
Soft drinks and candy have highly concentrated Bt corn, in the form of high fructose Bt corn syrup. The US food system depends most on two crops, soy (90% GMO, 90% of traits owned by Monsanto) and corn, the largest crop (60% GMO, nearly 100% Monsanto traits). "[E] ssentially our entire food supply is genetically modified, to the benefit of one company." The Grocery Manufacturers of America in 2000 estimated that 70 percent of US food contains GM traits.
Meat: Steroids bulk up atheletes. Monsanto steroids bulk up animals - more weight, more profit. We feed our children steroids in meats. Is this why our children are fattening, like Hansel and Gretel?
Poultry: Bill's USDA weakened chicken waste and contamination standards and attempted to allow sewage sludge as fertilize crops. I will say more about disease from industrialized poultry farms waste, at the end of this letter.
Milk: Over 30 scientific publications have shown increased levels of IGF-1 in milk with rBGH increases risks of breast cancer by up to seven-fold, also increasing colon and prostate cancers risks. Canada, 29 European nations, Norway, Switzerland, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa ban U.S. rBGH dairy products. Bill's USFDA put no restrictions, no warning labels (not allowing labels at all). (My emphasis.)
American children eat that food and drink that milk, Hillary. Coincidentally, American children are increasingly fat and sick.
Here, Bill ignored pleas for labeling. Abroad, Bill ignored intense international objections over the same issue - unlabeled US food exports - badly straining trading relations. Monsanto's "good ole boy," he betrayed American families at the deepest levels conceivable - their family's health and their democratic right to know. He betrayed our rural life and American family farmers - backing corporation deceit and control, over honesty and clean farming.
But, HIllary, it is one thing to not label a regular ole food product to sell it, and quite another to sell a suspected-dangerous food product (rBGH), but Bill's administration didn't label (or stop) a well-known, terrifying threat - Mad Cow Disease. Bill's FDA's August, 1997 regulation permitted "known TSE-positive [Transmissible spongiform encephalopathy] material to be used in pet food, pig, chicken and fish feed," only requiring the label to read "Do not feed to cattle and other ruminants" in the US. Monsanto added to the problem. "There is evidence that rbST use [Monsanto's GE bovine growth hormone] reduces the useful lifespan of a dairy cow. ... Given that the incubation period for BSE is at least three to five years and perhaps longer, rbST-treated cows could harbor "hidden" BSE. That is, they might be infected but still asymptomatic when sent to slaughter." (My emphasis.) http://www.consumersunion.org/food/bgh-codex.htm Bill let TSE into our entire food chain. And who owned the feed and slaughter and genetic engineering corporations whch benefitted? Please, tell me, Hillary, what he could possibly have gotten in friendship or favors, that could ever justify his exposing millions of people to this?
With genetic engineering itself, Bill did something to the whole world, which tried to object. Words are inadequate to express how astoundingly immoral, beyond human bounds and conceit and power, that was.
"Even for the biggest "winners," it is like winning at poker on the Titanic." Jerry Mander: Facing the Rising Tide
He had no right.
Do you hear that?
Bill had sex from Monica Lewinsky. That's "dinky immoral." That's chicken feed immoral - excuse the Tyson pun, excuse the TSE-laced pun. Bill let genetic engineering lose on NATURE itself.
"Our way of life is likely to be more fundamentally transformed in the next several decades than in the previous one thousand years...Tens of thousands of novel transgenic bacteria, viruses, plants and animals could be released into the Earth's ecosystems...Some of those releases, however, could wreak havoc with the planet's biospheres." Jeremy Rifkin, Biotech Century
Bill did this to us, like it was some nothing and he, some big dumb ass Southern boy, just smiling and getting in good with the Big Boys, thinking about as much about the consequences of something this immense and about us human beings out here, as he thought about you, when he was unfaithful with Monica. Just one big fool getting off on the power and used to getting away with things.
Terminator genes, developed by DP&L, a Rose Firm client, prevent seeds from "working" after only one season. Farmers "must" repurchase (patents and suing not certain enough control, it seems). Those "killing" genes pose the apocalyptic risk of breaking out into nature. Natural seeds could fail, too. Nature could fail. Far-fetched?
GMO fields are already contaminating normal species Berkeley Professor of Microbiology, Ignacio Chapela, wrote an open letter, warning the Mexican government about just this breaking out phenomenon happening in maize. And it has already happened with weeds - pesticide resistant GMO seeds break lose and weeds become pesticide-resistant Superweeds. But Bill's USDA spokesman, Willard Phelps said the USDA wanted the technology to be `widely licensed and made expeditiously available to many seed companies.'
"Genetic Engineering is often justified as a human technology, one that feeds more people with better food. Nothing could be further from the truth. With very few exceptions, the whole point of genetic engineering is to increase sales of chemicals and bio-engineered products to dependent farmers." David Ehrenfield: Professor of Biology, Rutgers University.
Hillary, one third of the world's bee colonies have collapsed. Gone. Farmers in India are killing themselves. Farmers and bees. Since organic farmers in India are fine and organic farmers report no colony collapse, what does these farming catatrophes say about "industrial agriculture"?
Mad Cow Disease is another direct result of industrial agriculture. And now ....... transnational poultry factories are implicated as the source of bird flu. ... Small scale poultry farms and wild birds seem not to be the problem (just as small farmers are not the issue in Mad Cow Disease), and yet "initiatives are multiplying to ban outdoor poultry, squeeze out small producers and restock farms with genetically modified chickens. . http://www.ens- newswire.com/ens/feb2006/2006-02-27-01.asp "Of the few outbreaks that did occur in [Laos], more than 90% broke out in commercial poultry operations, not free-ranging flocks." Monsanto (and others) is currently working with the USDA to force small farmers to tag every animal with a global tracking device (NAIS - National Animal Identification System). Allegedly related to food safety, Monsanto and others would be creating a vast corporate digital library on every move of small farmers's livestock.
But small farmers do not create the contaminated environments, do not supply the feed, do not grind up diseased animals into feed (how Mad Cow began) and then sell it. In fact, their farming methods, free range and small scale, are significantly healthier and safer for animals and food than the massive concentration of animals by corporate industrial agriculture.
Monsanto is also aggressively pushing for state laws to limit farmers' right to choose what to plant and the public's right exclude GE plants from their communities.
Cattle bloated by steroids, lapse and loss of 10,000 year old normal seeds, immense pollution from factory farms, deadly-disease-ridden feed, world-wide bee colony collapse, poisoned soil and depleted water supplies, Superweeds, lawsuits against farmers, loss of family farms, and ... India farmers killing themselves in what may be the largest mass suicide in recorded human history (on average ... one farmers' suicide every 30 minutes since 2002 - The Hindu 1.30.08) - that is industrial agriculture.
Monsanto and Tyson are two of the largest industrial agricultural corporations in the world. Industrial agriculture is represented by your Rose Law Firm. Your claim to care about food safety is terrifying double-speak given what Bill did and who you take donations from. Your idea of a Department of Food Safety would centralize control of food - in whose corporate connected hands? You talk tough about labeling food - ah, but "foreign" food - a sleight of hand tricking a public desperate for safe US food. You talk about food safety but Bill degraded food in every imaginable way and prevented minimally sane labeling. I am a person before I am a woman. Your gender means nothing. It is a media distraction. Your policies on health and food and women and children, are meaningless in the face of connections that have threatened those groups profoundly, connections you have never denounced. Monsanto uses child labor in India, primarily very young girls, exposing them to a lethal pesticide 13-14 hours a day, for pennies in pay. But you take donations from their lobbyists. You say you care about black people but as the poorest people in this country, they are least able to buy organic and are forced to eat the contaminated foods Bill let into our food system. The National Black Farmers Association has a boycott out on all Monsanto products.
Do you eat organic? So, who are you with, hapless black consumers and black farmers, or Monsanto? Mothers left to give their children rBGH milk, or Monsanto? Women exposed to 7 times greater risk of breast cancer, or Monsanto? Desperate farmers in India and young children forced into child labor in cottonseed factories there, or Monsanto? Animals suffering from lives in filthy cages and disgusting feedlots, shot up with steroids and hormones and antibiotics, or Monsanto? Our children who eat candy with high fructose Bt corn syrup associated with kidney and liver toxicity, or Monsanto?
Edwards was right about your corporate connections. I just didn't understand until I saw that PBS show and read about Monsanto, how personally affected my children and grandchildren, and all people around the world, have been. I will not vote for you. I will vote for someone who will commit themselves to work on behalf of small farmers and real food and decent treatment of animals and to end this industrialized agricultural nightmare that is taking us off a cliff.
Linn Cohen-Cole Atlanta
Disclaimer. I am not a scientist. I have read for months on this subject, and am including only a tiny portion of the horrifying things I have learned. I am expressing my opinion as person and may be wrong. Perhaps things are swell out there and rBGH is fabulous and TSE-laced feed is great, and genetic engineering is the best thing since manna. But I am scared for my family and I have not only a right to say so but an obligation to do so. I am angry that Monsanto was allowed the influence it had and has done the things it definitely seems to have. I am disgusted by industrialization of every tender and beautiful part of our world and hope, for all our children's sake, we are not too late to pull back.
Bravo! Obama has won all states on Saturday Feb 9 primaries and caucuses!
Unfortunately, my own state, New Mexico, is still unable to give the results of the primary last week! How weird is that? The democratic party leaders of New Mexico have taken responsibility for the fiasco- at least verbally- but they have not resigned, which they should do if they really do take responsibility.
Tomorrow is the big primary! After the amazing crowd that attended- or in many cases like me tried to attend, the Obama friday night event, we were set for a whopper of a turnout here in Santa Fe for the big primary vote on Tuesday.
But already we are seeing trouble... I learned this morning that state employees will not be given the traditional two hours off to vote; they'll get none in fact. New Mexico has a huge proportion of state workers, so this could seriously suppress turnout.
Add to this the fact that, at least here in Santa Fe, only half the polling places are to be used, so that everyone must find out whether they have been re-assigned, and if so, to where...
And that the polling times, normally 7-7, are tomorrow only 12 noon to 7 pm.
The problem with all this is that the Governor, Bill Richardson, is a Clinton supporter.
More to come...
Dvmx.com is endorsing Barack Obama.
"...with Obama something could happen here that we long for, something that hasn't happened in 40 years in this country. We might find again our better natures, rejoin the community of nations, rejoin the future, and inspire ourselves and the world once again. Everyone can sense it around Obama, a kind of historic magnetism; let the torch pass to a new generation..."
More at Dvmx.com
Surprisingly, Hillary came from behind (at least according to the pre-vote polls).
Some say her wet-eyed moment rallied women to turn out for her.
I was a bit worried already though, before the vote. Because in Obama's last speech I felt there was too much of a Martin Luther King cadence, which evoked MLK and those times and struggles in a more than subtle way. Now Hillary had suffered in Iowa from too much 90's nostalgia; Obama was the bolt from a fresh future; he has to be careful now, particularly in South Carolina, not to cloak himself in cadences and references to past struggles, past heroes, because they are the past, and people want to see in him a fresh break from the past..
Two Republican candidates, Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul, have both called for the elimination of the IRS and the income tax. Instead, government revenues would come from a national sales tax, with adjustments so as not to penalize lower income households*.
Abolish the IRS, and put an end to payroll taxes, witholding taxes, income taxes, and capital gains taxes- rewarding earnings, savings and investment, while shifting the tax burden to consumption, which we can all agree we do too much of anyway. It makes great sense. Maybe our citizens would discover the pleasures of saving money, and if they did, they'd be investing it in our future, and earning tax-free profits on our growth. We have the reverse now, where we deepen our debt hole, increasing a negative investment in the future.
Could there not be a huge appeal in this idea? Even beyond the visceral shout of joy we may feel at the idea of ending the IRS and the income tax, surely one of the greatest causes of anxiety and trouble for the citizen, the IRS is also the foundational rationalisation for the government's invasion of personal privacy, which has lately run amok. Certainly for someone like me, an independent contractor, keeping track of myriad small revenue occasions and explaining and framing every detail to a federal agency is a tremendous pain. Abolishing taxes on income and earnings, and making up the revenue with a modified VAT [value-added tax]. It makes a lot of sense in an age of toxic over-consumption, shrinking income in the middle class, and negative savings rates, to tax consumption, not earnings and savings.
I wonder if abolishing the IRS can emerge as a pivotal issue in 2008. For one thing, politicians and talking heads are fundamentally lazy, and this one sounds likeit could be complicated. And there must be tens of millions of people who live off the whole income tax lollapalooza, they'll want to keep this quiet too.
More importantly perhaps, we measure the health of our economy by the growth in consumer spending, regardless of growing debt. You hear the monthly reports, 'Consumer spending, which represents 72 percent of the economy, grew in the last quarter....'
This is a pretty stupid way of measuring the health of the economy-
Changing our measuring along with abolishing the IRS, we might hear instead something along these lines: ' Economists are buoyant on the nation's health- over the last month, earnings increased 5%, individual savings increased 4.8% , and investment increased 4%, while consumption grew at a low 1.1%...'
Unfortunately, this is an idea that is not part of any of the democratic candidates' policy promises.
*In France in the 70's for example, VAT rates were at the maximum on luxury goods, and diminshed to zero on necessities. Huckabee has proposed a 'prebate' of the percent of the individual's income that would be collected in the VAT. (This opens the door to federal inspection of income records, which could snowball into a mini-IRS. The French solution avoids this.)
Well, it has begun. Obama cleared his opponents by a whopping 8% in Iowa. You can feel the swell now, it's exciting. Shades of JFK. The torch is passed...
Edwards edged out Hillary. Hillary let her candidacy be too much about the Clinton years (her 'experience'), about her and Bill, and ultimately about her. ('It's personal for me').
Seems like a lot of people may like her, but want something new, no more Bushes and Clintons, something very different, and they see that in Obama.
I still love Edwards; and am glad he will continue for a while, speaking to the people, telling the truth the media won't countenance.
I'm expecting a solid Obama win in New Hampshire, and a lot of momentum going to Michigan, where he will win again.
As for the Repubs, McCain may finally get his day in New Hampshire, but it won't last, and it may not be as big as he hopes, since many independents who might have voted for him will vote for Obama.
I'm curious to see if the Huckster's geniality and 'populism' can overcome a prejudice against southern baptist creationists in New Hampshire. I'm ready to be surprised, the Huckster has great charm and appeal.
My money's on Obama tomorrow to win the Iowa caucuses. To go out on a limb, I'd say by 2 percentage points, with Edwards second and Hilary aclose third.
Obama's been building serious support in a serious way while others dance for the cameras and the polls. Fingers crossed.
On the repub side. I'm guessing Huckabee then Romeny 5 points behind, very close to McCain.
