The Good Fight

Spread the Love: Healthcare Reform 'Greatest Achievement of Our Time'

Joseph — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 10:15:05 EST

http://www.tnr.com/print/article/politics/just-noise

The New Republic has published a thorough and insightful editorial praising Pres. Obama for the historic achievement of getting comprehensive healthcare insurance reform through both houses of Congress. It's worth reading, so we can all understand a little better just why so many of the complicated and poorly understood provisions of this bill really do mark a great step forward for progressive policy goals.

Obama's Leadership Has Won Major Historic Achievements: Why Can't We Say So?

Joseph — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 17:19:42 EST

Pres. Barack Obama's has been one of the most fevered and frenzied in history, in terms of crises to be dealt with, major meetings with world leaders, on matters of global, long-term consequence, and in terms of advancing major humanitarian and democratic goals. And yet, the national media continue to obsess over the right-wing lie-machine that paints Obama as weak, irresponsible and presiding over a time of chaos and disorder. We need to change this dynamic, and we need to do it with deliberate effort and intelligent planning.

We need to treat every encounter that in any way touches on politics, in the coming year, as a caucus vote: it's up to those of us who support Obama, his agenda and his methods, his better brand of politics, to remind and to persuade, to make sure our friends and neighbors see the truth and not the lies and the facile rhetorical mashups being propagated by the know-nothing quote-happy mainstream media.

Obama has got China and Russia to sign on to his plans for a world without nuclear weapons. This alone is possibly the single most important diplomatic breakthrough since the detente of the 1980s. He has already advanced on this front to a point where the US and Russia are about to sign an agreement significantly reducing their stockpiles of nuclear weapons.

For the first time in history, both China and India have agreed to the central principles of a global effort to curb carbon emissions, green the economy, and protect the natural heritage of future generations of humanity. This, again, is a diplomatic achievement that dwarfs nearly anything seen in recent decades. On both counts, Obama is open about his view that these are only the first, tentative steps, and that far more needs to be done.

The economic situation of one year ago was apocalyptic; it looked like the coming of a second great depression, and the prospect of 500 or more bank failures this year alone was not unrealistic. There was talk of 12 million foreclosures in one year and unemployment reaching over 20%. Pres. Obama's cogent and visionary economic recovery plan, which was designed to be incremental, so that the economy would not be forced to stand on its own after just a quick, random burst of stimulus, has saved millions of jobs and likely hundreds of banks as well.

The economic situation remains hard for average people, but it is far from the doomsday scenario that was being predicted just one year ago. And that's an historic achievement for Obama. He has expanded help to the unemployed, expanded health insurance for poor children, through SCHIP, and devoted record amounts of funding to clean energy technologies and zero-emissions vehicles.

He is building the most far-reaching and credible transparency-oriented infrastructure for government record-keeping the world has ever seen. He has ordered every agency of the executive branch to participate in and to plan along with an "open government initiative", which has given more ordinary people a direct say in government policy than at any time in history.

Now, at the end of a grueling year, in which the opposition, the center, his left-wing and much of his own party, has unfairly sought to blame him for the nation's woes —these attacks are so unfair, even Sen. Tom Coburn is defending Obama against such slander—, Obama has collected a Nobel Peace Prize, promoted a message of peace and cooperation around the world, acted to close the illegal detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, banned torture, is on the verge of passing healthcare reform of unprecedented scope, has secured the beginnings of the first true global climate accord, and he's already fighting for tough new financial regulatory reform.

We have to not only spend our time defending Obama against unfair attacks on his character and the nature of his leadership, we have to devote our energies to celebrating the tremendous accomplishments of his first year in office. We may never have seen so productive a first year, and there are concrete facts to back that up. Let's get out there and tell the truth about it all. Our nation deserves this president, because we chose him, because his vision is right for our times, and because we have a lot of cleaning up to do. Let's support him; let's help him blaze a trail toward a more just, more sustainable, freer and more prosperous American future.

Democrats Need to Fight EVERY Race EVERYWHERE in 2010

Joseph — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 19:38:35 EST

The Democratic party needs to take stock of the political climate, turn off the pundit-box and take a closer look at the meaning of the polls. Then, get the word out. The conventional wisdom right now says the president is losing favor and the Democrats are even less popular. Almost no one on television seems to notice that the very polls they're reporting show the Republicans even more out of favor than Congressional Democrats.

This means that even with the staggering legislative and budgetary complications facing the Democratic party right now, and the array of crises Pres. Obama is forced to wrestle with, the Republicans have made literally zero gain in terms of public image, popularity or public trust. There are substantive reasons for that, not least of which is the party's total failure to offer any relevant proposals for solving the nation's many crises, which people still remember were engendered BY their policies.

What's more, there's a mythology about poll numbers which suggests that somehow Democrats' success in 2008 was entirely related to the popularity of Barack Obama as a presidential candidate. Obama did win by a landslide; even his popular vote victory was by a more than comfortable margin. But the Republican party stirred up a firestorm of passionate hate, which motivated an anti-Obama vote. What's more, the 2008 Democratic wave was a follow-on to the 2006 Democratic wave.

For all of Obama's virtues as a candidate, the Democratic agenda itself was gaining popularity ever since 2005, when it became clear to the mainstream general public the Iraq war was built on lies, involved torture and other abuses, and that the Bush administration was disinterested enough to let New Orleans descend into chaos before intervening after Hurricane Katrina.

The real secret to Democrats' success in 2008 was the Obama campaign's demand that the party compete everywhere. This was an extension of the Democratic National Committee's 2006 strategy, implemented by then Chairman Howard Dean, to compete for every seat. THERE IS NO REASON REPUBLICANS SHOULD HAVE A FREE RIDE, ANYWHERE, EVER. Especially now, when their politics has so disgracefully descended into hate language, fearmongering and programmatic distortions.

If there are 40 House seats "up for grabs", as some analysts suggest, arithmetical logic would say save half and the Democrats keep a substantial majority. But aiming for less than total victory is, inherently, unconvincing. It will undermine the entire party-wide effort, and help give Republicans momentum on shaping the rhetoric of 2010 and painting any loss as a defeat for the entire Democratic party.

So, we need to compete for every seat, regardless of geography, aim to raise record amounts from small donors, as did Barack Obama in 2008, and make sure efforts to get out the vote are strong, EVERYWHERE. Every Democratic or Democratic-friendly candidate in the country deserves a strong support system to keep the Republicans from gaining ground.

Healthcare March on Washington

Joseph — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 11:33:42 EDT

We need healthcare reform in order to prevent the continuing spread of the vicious infection of personal and corporate bankruptcies linked to radically escalating healthcare costs, which are coinciding with a worsening deterioration in quality of coverage and quality of care. We need reform to make healthcare coverage affordable, reasonable, and undeniable. We need reform to save tens of thousands of lives per year and establish a sustainable long-term economic path, to help protect the market system and make protecting and sustaining life more cost-effective, liberating people to live the lives they dream they can.

We are watching a massive, nationwide movement of propaganda and mobilization spread one after another wild fabrication and spur sometimes violent anger about the most promising healthcare reform proposals our nation has seen. It is intolerable to stand by and watch this campaign of malicious fear-mongering sow hate and anger and derail reform in order to serve the morally bankrupt political strategy of those who want to "kill reform" for their own electoral gain.

We need to organize not just at the local level, but we need to organize nationally, set a date for a massive demonstration of support in Washington, DC, and march on Washington. The demonstration should be set for early October and we need to spend big to get the message out and treat this cause like a second inauguration. We stood in the freezing cold to support Pres. Obama and his message of transformative change, and now we have to do the same, in the midst of this firestorm of distortions and tempers, to show the true grassroots movement demanding a response is pro-reform.

Let's get moving on setting the date for a march. We can launch a group on this website and use it to plan and to mobilize support.

A Time to Nourish Ourselves with the Hot Interplay of Ideas

Joseph — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 14:55:33 EST

I grew up being educated about why ours was the most hopeful system, because it was under the sway of human decency, common sense and imagination, and not the urges of the powerful. Between a Catholic school —the lessons of which resonate with me more as philosophy, the quest for understanding and fellowship and an ethical approach to citizenship— and a family of Republicans —the strictures of which resonate more in me as a lesson about the virtues and the pitfalls of caution and the vice and convenience of a narrow focus—, I came to understand that American democracy was an epic struggle against history, in hopes of bettering the condition of the individual human being, and securing a just and open society against tyranny and its wasting of vital energies.

I had never felt like a political being, as a child, though my grandfather held office in New Jersey and my upbringing did instill in me a lasting social consciousness. I can recall the feeling of a thrill running through me when I saw in Bill Clinton a president who worked for the people, with committed intellectual passion, and who included us, or made an effort to appear to count the people as part of the work of governing. Maybe it was the first real instance of the Democratic approach my young consciousness had been able to witness, and the experience helped to fix a meditative, philosophical mind, interested in ecology and the possibility of justice in human society, on a set of values in political action: defend the defenseless, struggle against oppressors, and let each person choose the best life possible, which should, ideally, entail the chance to build that life from one's own vision and energies.

It had never seemed clear to me that freedom implied a negation of the ethical bond to others, and it worried me that so many genuinely radical principles, negating the social contract on which I think all successful democracies are based, were taking root as the latter Bush rose from obscurity, heading into the 2000 campaign. I think it is hardly an original observation to note that between the procedural fiasco of the 2000 election and the first year of George W. Bush's presidency, it was as if we had been nudged by some remorseless antagonistic force into a twilight-zone America, where all the dark projections that we were taught to associate with the fear of Soviet world dominance, were becoming pet projects of mainstream agencies in our government. "Total Information Awareness" and the "USA PATRIOT Act" were just two examples. The Constitution was becoming the adversary, a suspicious, revolutionary text that would only serve to dilute the power of the new set of arrogant hands urging the wheel of state away from what we used to proudly call the common values of American democracy.

In the year 2000, Al Gore made a desperately difficult choice, and opted to withdraw from remaining avenues of contest and support the integrity of the Constitutional system, by honoring the verdict of the Supreme Court with regard to Florida. Instead of further legal challenges or calling for the impeachment of one or more Justices, instead of calling his supporters into the streets, Gore bet on the virtues of process and carried out his duties, counting the votes of Florida for his opponent. It was an act of devotion to the fragility of the democratic process, and to the faith that the rule of law and the government by the people, would prevail, in time.

I think in many ways, I was drawn into poetry, philosophy and my love of language, by the degree of poetry and philosophy I had early-on learned were a part of the cultural landscape of our democracy, how great words artfully rendered revealed truths and how those words had summoned and focused the humanity of a continent to move for liberation, time and again.

In 2004, when I saw Barack Obama address the Democratic National Convention, it was the first time I had seen any political figure so infused with this deep historic current of poetry, philosophy, and brilliantly humane rhetoric, so exhibiting the hope, faith and fearless devotion to the idea of American democracy, to the aspiration inherent in that idea. It was a moment whose resonance, in combination with a growing grassroots pro-democracy movement, is now deservedly incalculable. With the unflappable poise of humanitarian principle, indignant about the poisoning of our public discourse, and serious about serving, Obama reminded us that in the depths of our humanity, we retain, at all times, the urge to distinguish between right and wrong, and to apply our energies to bettering the general condition of the world.

I was living in Europe, working in the Spanish language, talking to people who had fled repressive political systems in other parts of the world, or who had seen such a system choking Spanish society for decades, and receiving critiques and good wishes from all quarters, from the 10th of February, 2007, when I began asking everyone I knew to spend a little time with Barack Obama's announcement speech, on the steps of the old State House in Springfield. No other document, as far as I was concerned, so ably expressed what I felt was my homeland, the fundamental grace and potential good of a place we feel proud of, but don't flaunt, the nation whose icons are foundational ideas and whose revolutionary spirit still lives in us, latent, waiting to take up the challenges of reform and ingenuity, humanism and public discourse, that come in times of historic upheaval.

I was often told, as I had been so many times before, that I was too idealistic for believing Obama could defeat the Republican machine, or the Democratic machine, for that matter. My well-meaning European friends would tell me, as if advising a lost soul, he's too much the poet, too much an idealist, that America is not evolved enough to elect a visionary. And, he's black. America could not be evolved enough to elect an African American, I was endlessly told. And I would say with confidence, ever more sure, that I know they've seen disappointment, corruption and debasement in their politics, that they feel betrayed on a human level by what our government had been doing, but that I know the heart of my country, and I trust that we are ready to do great things, and it's impossible not to recognize the hunger that is everywhere across our culture, for something smarter, better, more compassionate, more effective, for able leadership that manifests the virtues we like to see in ourselves.

I found that at every level, even in one-on-one conversations on other continents, we Americans, or maybe the people of the world generally, are engaged in a fierce struggle against cynicism. It became clearer to me that mayybe it's not about cynics versus idealists, but that those laboring to infect every corner of our political culture with the logic of force and the desolate attitudes of cynicism, were in fact victims of cynicism, already fallen, and that our struggle was not against "the cynics" but against those unfortunate people who had fallen into the moral bankruptcy of cynicism, embracing its flawed logic and its false promises.

American history is full of grave deviations from our ideals, but is also a story of transcendent progress, in service of which we continually open our society, ever further, in search of a more just, more humane, more philosophically progressive and democratic society. We answer challenges, and thanks to the devotion and poetry of as rare a voice as Barack Obama's, we were awakening to the fact that our most perilous challenge was here at home, at the helm, that we were facing a crisis of self-fashioning, in which we could cripple or empower ourselves and future generations.

I'm not the only person whose eyes welled up in joy and faith on the night of November 4, 2008. My staunch Republican father, for example, a vehement McCain supporter, but a now-and-again critic of his party's leadership, told me he could not help being overcome by the beauty and human accomplishment of the moment, that he was proud of his country and that seeing the Rev. Jesse Jackson reduced to tears, at what must have seemed an almost impossible and amazing overturning of historic injustices, moved him deeply.

For me, Barack Obama's inauguration is both a restoration —to our nation's transcendent character of hope and idealism, of confident ingenuity and capacity for great and human vision— and a surpassing of global resonance. It means that people can again find communion in civics, in civility, in unabashed hopes and in the work of manifesting our ideals, always just a little better than the best of us, but always worth reaching for; it means we can find common cause in those "better angels of our nature".

To me, this inauguration marks the beginning of a time in which we will be consistently driven to realize the best of what we are as a political culture, motivated by the constant reminder of one of our most transformative historic achievements. Back in the United States, having returned in hopes of being able to contribute somehow to making this moment more likely, at work on my own projects of expression and innovation, I feel as if I have really come home for the first time to the country of my origins, to the rich earth of a place where the deepest roots and the furthest extensions of my own true self, find nourishment in the hot interplay of public ideas and the real possibility of working together to find the right approach, and be the solutions our times demand of us.

Get Ready to Fight Voter Suppression Efforts in the Courts

Joseph — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 09:23:54 EST

All the noise being generated by the Republican campaign has made it seem to many like the accusations against ACORN are somehow a justification for the GOP's vicious voter-suppression efforts. There may be literally millions of Americans barred from casting votes because of registration purges, voter caging and other such tactics. The Republican party has been working round the clock for 8 years straight to make sure that this time, like in 2004, they would have the best chance possible of rigging the vote by frustrating it.

We will likely see at the very least hundreds, if not thousands, of cases of deliberate voter suppression, leading to the disenfranchisement of millions nationwide. We need to defend these rights in court, we need to make sure that any attempt of any kind, at any level, made by any Republican party operative be severely punished, according to federal law. I propose arranging for a team of lawyers to be read to file federal class-action lawsuits on behalf of us all, for even one case of deliberate vote corruption on the part of Republicans.

If one voter in one swing state is denied the right to cast a ballot, and that ballot turns out to be the difference in the winner of that state, and that state (as in Florida 2000 or Ohio 2004) turns out to be decisive, then my vote has been negated by the corrupt official behind that act of voter-suppression. Consider that usually these cases hit thousands or even hundreds of thousands of voters (again reference Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004, where in both cases the number of votes suppressed was far superior to the margin of victory), and you will see that one single sweeping act of voter suppression is enough to strip you or me or anyone of the right to have my intent as voter accurately recorded in history.

The Republicans have argued, starting in Bush v. Gore in 2000, that there is no constitutional right to have one's vote counted. I would argue this is as close as a proclamation of guilt as you will find any litigant make in court. It is an unbelievable disgrace to our nation that this remains an issue, and I believe firmly that if there is a credible risk of such crimes against our Constitution undermining the integrity of our process yet again, we need to see prosecutions at the highest level, precisely for crimes against the Constitution of the United States. I believe the evidence for those prosecutions can be gathered in the course of a civil trial, and that this process can begin literally on November 4, as soon as even one case has come to light.

Let's fight this to the end. There is no way we can expect salvation from the tragedies gathering around our nation if we do not defend this basic right.

Investigate ACORN Allegations, Find Which Individuals Responsible, Affirm Allegiance to 100% Transparent, Legitimate Process

Joseph — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 20:51:31 EDT

The GOP is hammering the organizing group ACORN, in part because it wants to create the imrpession that Sen. Obama is somehow a propagator of manipulations and shady dealings. It is a vital part of the Republican psychological fabric to make sure that somehow, no matter how dishonest or sinister in essence or intent, the Republican zeal must be directed like a lightning strike at something its adherents believe is morally degenerate, irresponsible and against all decency.

They will do anything to be able to tell lies with that sharp tone of condescension in their voices, in order to convince voters that they can vote their bias, vote their ignorance, and take shelter in the fabrications of the Republican party. This may sound exagerrated, but it is a consistent pattern and it is visible in every single election where Republicans feel it will not be an easy win. The ACORN issue is also part of the Republican strategy to accuse voters of defrauding the electoral system, when in fact it is a top-down organizational manipulation that they have been working to carry out in every presidential election since 1968.

We need to take this challenge seriously. They will not relent, and they will become increasingly vicious with every passing day. The more shocking their tactics, the more press they will get. If individuals working with ACORN falsified registration forms, there needs to be transparency, the group needs to take action against those individuals, and the Obama campaign needs to be clear about its absolute opposition to any such tactics.

But, we must also keep in mind that legitimate voter-registration drives are absolutely essential to our campaign, to the message of hope, renewal and change, and to the integrity of our democracy, as such. The Republican party counts in most elections on insuring that fewer citizens vote. That is not democracy, it is voter suppression, it is Bolshevik. We need to make this point and make it stick. Democrats, Barack Obama and community organizing groups that help register voters, want our democracy to work, want everybody to have a voice.

The issue here is ACORN was defrauded by volunteers or paid contractors. Someone for some reason decided to forge registration forms. It is likely that there is a trumped up Justice probe going on (this has been part of several corruption scandals for years, including the firing of US attorneys), and that ACORN is being blamed for individual actions, but we need to separate the wheat from the chaff and tell the truth to the American people. Government officials involved in pursuing false or trumped up prosections should be prosecuted, and now.

But the central note we need to strike is: election fraud of any kind is wrong; we need absolute transparency on all related issues, including the misuse of prosecutorial powers, the intimidation of voters, voter profiling for "challenges" and insecure electronic machines, plus links between the corrupt bosses of certain manufacturers and the GOP. Do with this what's been done on Keating: get the resources together, get the story ready, and if they try to use this to smear Obama or to suppress the vote, get the message out on what is known about these other issues.

John McCain Does Not Understand the Financial Function of Fannie & Freddie; He is Dangerously Uninformed & Disinterested

Joseph — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 13:35:27 EDT

Sen. John McCain is on national television telling one lie after another to the American people, and trying to spin the massive rescue package, without which the American economy would currently be hurtling toward the abyss, and for which he voted, as a sinister attempt by Democrats to give billions to big banks. John McCain is a politician who once stood on principle and who has consciously chosen to put aside every shred of basic integrity or human dignity in order to poison the minds of voters, because basically, he doesn't understand enough about what's happening to be convincing.

He once said he isn't all that interested in the fine points of economics. That would appear to be true, because he seems to have no knowledge at all of what Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac do in our economy. He alleges they are somehow responsible for promoting predatory lending and for tricking people into buying homes they can't afford. The fact is, since the Great Depression, we have had policies designed to help most working Americans find shelter and ideally, own a home.

Mass homelessness is a scourge on all of society, and unsustainable rent-levels are a drain on working people, sometimes forcing families into poverty. Home equity is a key to many aspects of our economic landscape, without which tens of millions of people would be marginalized, locked out and ultimately a drag on our economic output. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac exist to help facilitate the long-term viability of home-loans. They do not lend directly, but help support the viability of loans given out by commercial banks.

The predatory lending practices and the irresponsible credit derivatives and potentially fraudulent financially unsupported "credit default swaps" that have brought this massive crisis to our nation, were the province of commercial financial institutions which were unwilling to make viable loans to those less able to pay, and which sought to extract usury-level rates of interest from those least able to pay them, for their own profit and with no mind whatsoever to the long-term health of those accounts or of the market generally.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, with tacit government support, accelerated the pace of their buying up of problem loans, not in order to stimulate irresponsible lending, but in order to prevent or buy planning time for the looming credit crisis. As early as the summer of 2005, The Economist magazine warned that a global real estate collapse was coming, that would affect all industrialized nations, except perhaps those like Japan which had been struggling with the problem for more than a decade already by that point.

When Sen. Obama wrote to Treasury Secretary Paulson, warning of the problem of subprime mortgages and the potential catastrophic fallout from predatory lending practices —a problem he was working to tackle as early as 2001, in the bipartisan Illinois effort to counter predatory lending—, his effort was aimed at the real problem: the viability of credit derivatives that were being misused to prop up institutions whose portfolios were being poisoned by toxic inviable mortage-backed securities.

When Sen. McCain joined with other Republicans in attacking Fannie Mae, the concern was strictly ideological, and the move itself demonstrated a total misunderstanding of financial markets. The Republicans who fought to reduce the size of Fannie Mae wanted to do two things: 1) to force the assets of government-chartered firms like Fannie and Freddie onto the open market, at bargain prices; 2) to make it more difficult for individuals to leverage their buying power against major financial institutions.

The reasons? The move to force Fannie and Freddie to reduce their mortgage holdings was not an effort to shore up the economy, it was an effort to ignore the problem and avoid regulation of the financial sector. They wanted to help prop up private investment banks and financial institutions by allowing them to get cheap buys on mortgage-backed financial instruments, then count these as assets at market value, essentially, a veiled public buyout of private debt. Cover the financial institutions' rotting portfolio foundations with what look like suddenly rosy numbers.

The problem? Fannie and Freddie were already playing that role. That's what they do. They intervene in home-loan markets to help maximize the viability of loans to consumers, who are not as stabilized against sudden hardship as major financial institutions are. Fannie Mae's website clearly explains:

Fannie Mae is a government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) chartered by Congress with a mission to provide liquidity and stability to the U.S. housing and mortgage markets.
Fannie Mae operates in the U.S. secondary mortgage market. Rather than making home loans directly with consumers, we work with mortgage bankers, brokers, and other primary mortgage market partners to help ensure they have funds to lend to home buyers at affordable rates.

Originally chartered by the US government in 1938:

The impetus for creation of Fannie Mae was twofold: the national commitment to housing and the inability or unwillingness of private lenders to ensure a reliable supply of mortgage credit throughout the country.

So, the misuse of that economic lever is the fault of the financial sector itself. Real decisions were made that distorted the nature of affordable-rate home loans, attempting to bend them by force into some sort of massively profitable adjustable-rate mortgages, which were designed to be misleading and which were sold over and over again, real estate flipping-style, in a kind of pyramid scheme where the last entity to hold the loan would eventually lose out.

The move to make it more difficult for individuals to leverage their buying power against major financial institutions (which could force down commercial interest rates), was part of a concerted effort by Congressional Republicans to reform credit and bankruptcy laws to shift bargaining power to big banks. Why? Because they needed help with their decaying solvency. The 2005 bankruptcy bill made it more difficult for individuals to escape debt repayment by declaring bankruptcy, but easier for major firms or even banks to do so.

The only possible reason for doing this was to help banks cover up the fact that they had inviable loans
on their books. By now allowing individuals to escape repayment, in some cases even after losing their homes, the banks were able to continue counting those future repayments of failed loans as "assets", which were increasingly bundled together and resold as credible "financial instruments", when in fact they were essentially junk bonds in sheeps' clothing.

Sen. McCain's attack on Fannie and Freddie misplaces blame for this crisis in order to craft an entirely alternate history, which he then intends to use to blame Sen. Obama for a crisis that Sen. McCain actively worked to worsen, either from disinterest, confusion or worse. At the very least, it is clear that Sen. McCain's ranting on the subject bears virtually no connection to reality, and this is what we need people to understand.

Let's Take a Leadership Role

Joseph — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 16:37:28 EDT

The can-do campaign of Barack Obama is based in part on the idea that we as a people produce a broad variety of talented individuals and fresh ideas that can help us adapt to changing circumstances and meet the challenges of a crucial moment in our history. Is that not very much what we're facing now with the financial crisis? Barack Obama understands the underlying banking problems that have led to this — this is in part why he fought predatory lending in Illinois.

Let's demonstrate the leadership potential Sen. Obama brings to this issue by getting involved to bring together conservatives and progressives, Republicans and Democrats, to do something to make this happen. Let's propose:

Paulson cannot be the centerpiece; he cannot be allowed to have unconstrained power over these dollars;
We have to do this responsibly; we can't just borrow from foreign governments;
'Nationalization' is not the only way; let's use this money to help make room for viable private-sector deals;
Infrastructure: let's devote a part of this money to credits for banks that help fund infrastructure development;
Green investment: clean sustainable energy is the future, let's help banks make that bet;
None of the above can be policy-motivated, they have to be shown to be economic staples of our nation's future, and a sure way to make money from this deal;
Taxpayers need some guarantee this is not just good money thrown after bad: tough dealing with Wall St. recipients is a must; taxpayers need to be repaid...

We can do this; Barack Obama's vision of hope and renewal can fit into this moment and help us steer the nation forward. It's absolutely right to avoid injecting presidential politics into the bipartisan solution, but we need the kind of bold, principled, visionary leadership Sen. Obama can bring to this and to so many other issues.

Is McCain Afraid of Serious Questions or Reporters You Can't Spin?

Joseph — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:41:22 EDT

John McCain has cancelled an interview with CNN's Larry King in response to an interview in which McCain's spokesman fumbled, dodged and spun, unable to provide one specific examle of a "command decision" made by Gov. Palin as "commander of the Alaska National Guard", a resume-builder commonly cited by the McCain campaign. Campbell Brown insisted on getting an answer to the question, and Tucker Bounds continued to spin and to try to dodge the question, as he was unprepared to answer it.

Though the incident was obviously embarrassing for the McCain campaign, is canceling an interview with the candidate himself really an appropriate response? It would appear that the once "straight-talking" John McCain is no longer comfortable taking tough questions or telling hard truths. It would appear he is no longer comfortable relying on character and judgment, and would rather dodge the issue while his campaign attempts to spin the American people with answers like "any decision she made... is more experience than Barack Obama has", a simple non-answer, combined with a ridiculous smear.

Are we facing the possibility that the Republican presidential campaign is really deteriorating into an adolescent tug of war with media and with the public, both of whom feel that a campaign has to make its own case and not just be treated like the inevitable successor to the least popular president in history? Maybe John McCain is no longer responsible for his own decisions, but this "handling" of uncomfortable issues makes him look like a shell of his former self.

Alaska Population: 700,000; Obama Donors: 2 Million... Obama Campaign is Massive Executive Organizational Experience

Joseph — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 14:28:05 EDT

We are hearing much about Gov. Sarah Palin's "executive experience", as governor of the state of Alaska. She has "made executive decisions"; one Republican strategist argued "she's right up there near Russia", as if she had acquired foreign policy experience by way of geography. But how much organizing, how much leadership has her executive position required? Is it really more than what Sen. Obama has acquired as the founder and head of the most successful national political campaign organization in recent history?

This may sound petty, and I take seriously Sen. Obama's admonition to be wary of the "smallness of our politics" (Feb. 10, 2007), but nevertheless it's worth making the point: Sen. Obama's work in organizing and steering a major national campaign has required no shortage of executive decision-making, including bringing together the most experienced group of foreign policy experts, over 300, turning his advisory team into a sort of cabinet infrastructure in waiting. He has received donations from over 2 million distinct individuals, and brought more than 18 million people across 50 states and multiple territories to his cause.

He plays an executive role (no one can argue against that) in steering the ship of 50-states-plus that is his massive grassroots campaign organization, started from the ground up, and now the most effective positive-message political campaign in modern history. His executive prowess vanquished the "Clinton machine" and has already redefined the entire nature and scope of our national political discourse.

His brilliant rhetorical vision is not the wishful thinking of an idealistic legislator and it is not the product of a man who has caved in to follow the established leadership of his party; it is a blue-print for what will likely be the most effective, most can-do, most energetic executive leadership we have seen in decades. He is compared to Lincoln and to JFK, not for speechmaking or for charisma, but for his leadership qualities, for his ability to take a stance, lay out a vision, and then build an organization led by himself, through which to commit the energy of millions to improving the lot of the average American and helping bring our nation closer to its ideals.

That is the executive we need. Whatever their qualities, neither of the GOP candidates measures up to this standard.

Obama-Biden Displays a Wealth of Experience & Judgment, McCain's Judgment is More in Question by the Day

Joseph — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 13:23:01 EDT

The GOP has now begun to say that "elections are not won on experience, but on leadership, and leadership is about judgment". This is —incredibly— the new talking point. They continue the relentless lies that "Obama has never done anything" and that "he has less experience than Gov. Palin"... both are tremendously insulting to millions of voters, and both are lies in every sense of the word.

So where does this leave us? Judgment. The GOP cannot even permit its candidate to follow the same campaign philosophy or the same line of argument —even where it was his ONLY chance— into the fall. Either they do not believe in him, or their idea of judgment is Karl Rove-style attack politics, and John McCain is not a strong enough leader to stop them from infiltrating and taking over his campaign.

His judgment looks shakier than ever, not only because he chose a VP-candidate based on a single brief meeting and a short interview, but because he has bet that nobody in America will notice. But beyond that, his judgment looks shaky because his campaign is trying to do everything simultaneously, with no attention to whether or not they produce evidence of their own lies by way of elemental contradictions.

His leadership amounts to... following Bush's lead on Iraq... following Bush's lead on taxes... following Bush's lead on drilling... following Bush's lead on delivering our system to far-right extremist judges... following Bush's lead on banking deregulation... following Bush's lead on dirty campaigning... following Bush's lead on contempt for the press and for voters... following Bush's lead in killing climate legislation by demanding free money for existing energy businesses. And, he even caved in on torture!

He even cozied up to a lobbyist and delivered favorable votes for her, all while proclaiming himself a reformer and a maverick. What aspect of his political philosophy is not beholden to the corrupt and discredited interests the American people are trying to throw out in the street? Why did it take Barack Obama arriving in the Senate and pushing for bipartisan support for the most sweeping ethics reform in a generation, when John McCain has been there for almost 3 decades and has had an all-GOP law-making process for 6 years of this decade?

Bush Address is 'Big Brother' Moment for RNC

Joseph — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 13:11:46 EDT

George W. Bush will now address the RNC via satellite and giant screen, from Washington. We could say we acknowledge that there was something noble about not appearing last night, as Hurricane Gustav was ravaging the Gulf coast, but then Pres. Bush this morning decided to spin the hardship of the Gulf coast evacuees into an opportunity to push for offshore oil drilling, so I think he undercuts his own claim to noble action by using the evacuees as political pawns for big oil.

So, it is fair to say there is something reminiscent of George Orwell's 'Big Brother' system from 1984, when Pres. George W. Bush, already notorious in the eyes of history for his attacks on civil liberties and Constitutional rights. The RNC is not only offering "more of the same" in terms of dirty tricks, sinister smears, double-talk, double-standards, tax cuts and the party's heavily propaganda-driven cult mentality, but they are also offering more of the same in terms of W., the would-be overseer of the known universe appearing only digitally, and refusing to step aside and allow the annoying "maverick" to step out from under his shadow.

This is the moment when we see clearly how this is about imposing on the US a 3rd disastrous Bush term, full of lies and manipulations; this is the moment when we will ssee that —barring some sort of sudden spiritual revolution within himself, George W. Bush will be incapable of explaining how John McCain has very different but laudable goals; Bush will affirm the absolute strangle-hold of his damaged philosophy on the reeling Republican party, and we should make sure we see clearly where every crack in their vessel is shown, tonight.

John McCain was too weak a leader to stop smear ads emerging in South Carolina, during the primaries; he has been too much of a double-talker and too weak to even make an effort to disavow the 527s smearing Obama with racist and libelous lies; he has been too weak a leader to defend his long-held principles against the radical distractions of the Bush presidency. And now, he wants us to trust him, and he brings us direct to our living rooms, the screen-only speech of the Big-Brother presidency, complete with all its direct and concerted assaults on our Constitution and our founding values.

That is the only meaningful message that should emerge from the RNC, but we will hear a relentless effort to spin what is said there to make it sound as if it professes a positive vision for the future of the United States. We must launch an all-out effort to counter these claims, to reveal the lies, to upend the rhetoric, before it gains any traction.

McCain Nuclear Energy Position Amounts to Push for "Porkbarrel" Spending for Arizona Business

Joseph — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 13:34:17 EDT

John McCain rails against lobbyists and members of Congress tied up in the feeding frenzy for federal dollars that is the budgetary allocation process known as "earmarking". But after killing his own climate bill with an inexplicable, counterproductive and irrelevant demand that the nuclear industry be given federal dollars to make its own business easier, McCain continues to insist on the federal government giving billions in subsidies to an industry he wants to expand in his home state: Arizona.

This is the very definition of earmarking... allocating federal dollars for projects (especially where private business interests are involved) in one's own state. McCain is actively calling for such projects to expand, even as he continues to proclaim himself the arch-enemy of such projects. Why has he not been called on to explain this glaring inconsistency? Why are we not holding him to account? How would he pay for this new plant he wants for Arizona? Would taxpayers from across the US be asked to reward private business interests McCain favors in his home state? Who would pay for the security for the plants and their waste? Does he care?

What about drilling? It turns out that John McCain has received over $740,000 from the oil and gas industries since 1990, and now he is pushing their interests, despite their being either incapable of solving the economic crisis relating to fuel prices or unwilling to do so, and their inaction on diversifying energy production methods or cleaning up their own processes to prevent environmental degradation and public health risks.

All told, John McCain ranks behind only Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas in funds received from the oil, gas, electric utility, automotive manufacturing, chemical and nuclear industries, receiving over $2 million from these interests since 1990. Now in the midst of a campaign against kickbacks and earmarks, his record shows he has called for the very subsidies these industries are asking for in Washington, some of which are traditional "porkbarrel" spending that benefits private interests in his own state. This will sting, if we make it an issue.

Why is Anti-earmark McCain Giving Billions to Nuclear Industry?

Joseph — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 12:48:14 EDT

An interesting article on "How the Arizona senator doomed his own global warming legislation with billions in nuclear subsidies" forces us to ask the question: why would McCain, who says he abhors project-specific funding and directed government money meant to line the pockets of regions or entities specifically, be fighting to give billions of dollars to the nuclear energy, especially knowing that it would kill legislation he says he supports?

While it seemed the legislation would help the nuclear industry do better in a market with new ground-rules, McCain wanted to give money directly to the private firms themselves:

In meetings with McCain's staff, environmental lobbyists argued the obvious points, according to Karen Wayland, legislative director of the Natural Resources Defense Council: what to do with nuclear waste, the need to prevent nuclear proliferation, the problem with security at nuclear facilities. They noted that legislation restricting greenhouse emissions in and of itself would create a competitive advantage for nuclear energy companies. They made no headway, so the enviros appealed to Lieberman and his staff. "Lieberman didn't seem to care for this provision," one of the green lobbyists remembers, "but he needed McCain, and McCain was pushing hard" for the nuclear subsidies.

Why McCain was so devoted to these private interests, why he seemed to give equal weight to feeding private industry with free money and combatting climate change, which he had begun to think of as a security, economic and quality-of-life risk to his own state, remains in question.

In 2005, after the climate bill's failure, McCain and Lieberman introduced similar legislation, this time with the subsidies written into the original language. McCain declared "I am a a green" and said environmental objections to nuclear energy and the severe risks posed by its waste products were "wrongheaded", insisting that legislation to reduce carbon emissions should also include money directed to the nuclear industry.

According to Mother Jones:

Several Democratic senators who had backed McCain's original legislation—Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Mark Dayton (D-Minn.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa)—defected, and McCain picked up no new Republicans. (Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama both voted for it.) "The staff didn't fully appreciate how much opposition there would be to the nuclear provision," Wicke says, adding, "I could say it was a bit of miscalculation.... It did stymie this climate change legislation." After collecting 44 supporters for the first bill, McCain had lost ground.

McCain was almost single-handedly responsible for killing a vital emissions reductions bill, and he did so fighting stubbornly for directed payments to private business for which no one could find a valid explanation. He also angrily told environmentally-oriented renewable energy proponents that renewables would never supply more than 1% to 2% of US energy needs. The US government had found as early as 1991 that wind from three states alone could —if properly developed— provide for all consumer electricity use, and 12 years later, the state of the art was such that the same hypothetical grid would cover all US energy demand.

McCain's position was and is out of touch with scientific and economic fact, and his allegiance to providing easy money to an environmentally dangerous, economically unsustainable industry smacks of the very politics of suspect gifts he claims to oppose. The degree of arrogance and stubbornness in fighting for the subsidies is only highlighted by the fact that he continues to proclaim himself to be an heroic crusader against such efforts, especially focused on how they contribute to killing much needed legislation.

McCain's Efforts to 'Reduce Bureaucracy' Consistently Undermine Vital Ethics Regulation

Joseph — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 11:42:38 EDT

Another GOP point attacking the Democrats, at all levels at all times in history, is to talk about "taking on do-nothing bureaucrats" and tout their own legendary efforts to "reduce bureacracy" or "cut red tape". In fact, it is often the other way around. It is often the case that Republican approaches to "bureaucracy" tend to set up roadblocks to effective social services —reference: No Child Left Behind— designing in phoney "standards" that together with micromanagement dictates are aimed at undermining standards and cutting funding to vital programs, while bureaucracy multiplies, as do funds directed to related "consulting" projects.

John McCain seems to have difficulty separating efforts to "reduce bureaucracy" from pro-corporate efforts to strip away vital regulations that keep accounting ethics standards and fraud protections in place. The result can be seen in the banking sector, where predatory lending has cost consumers and the government hundreds of billions of dollars, due to irresponsible, unethical or unsustainable practices. Sen. Obama was working to curb predatory lending in the home-mortgage sector back in Illinois in 2001. He is tuned in to what works and to what scams can undermine the system; he fought to do the same in Washington, while senators like McCain wanted fewer "regulations".

This makes McCain not a principled "maverick", but a rogue free-marketeer, who pushes Bush-like policies that give big breaks to big banks but force the average American into smaller and smaller cages with respect to their fiscal freedom and spending ability. McCain's tax cut proposals WILL NOT FIX THIS, because they are just an extension of Bush's, which have been one of the worst contributing factors to this anti-middle-class economic dynamic we have seen emerge and lead to this financial chaos.

Obama's working-class tax credits and targeted small-business tax cuts plan will fix this; responsible regulation, coupled with higher consumer-spending capacity relative to overall economic output, will restore order to financial infrastructure and keep the big cheats honest. McCain will not.

To Counter GOP Convention Spin, Unite Against & Outflank Them

Joseph — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 11:29:45 EDT

The GOP will now veer gradually away from the experience argument. Obama needs to keep showing his mettle, but McCain seems to have conceded to some degree that Obama has been "vetted" in the eyes of voters across the left and the center. Even conservatives seem to have acknowledge he can lead, they just disagree with his policies (largely due to historical bias about "liberals"). The item of choice will be fiscal policy, as Palin is not necessarily a strong security candidate.

They will try to scare Americans about how much Sen. Obama's policies will cost; they will say Pelosi is at the head of some sort of spending watershed and that Democrats cannot be trusted on fiscal discipline. For the record, Reagan and W. oversaw the two biggest spending expansions in US history. And H.W. raised taxes. The Reinventing Government program Al Gore ran for the Clinton administration was the most successful and most organized effort ever to counter wasteful spending and "reduce the size of government".

The Bush administration's record on that was: 1) to cut funding for vital programs, like education, veterans' affairs and even combat pay for deployed troops; 2) to direct spending to specific private entities through no-bid contracts. Neither of these did anything to reduce overall spending or the size of government, but both have caused serious harm to actual human lives. Katrina and Iraq are two examples of no-bid contracts causing mass suffering.

Sen. Obama is pushing for a Reinventing Government 2.0, and his fiscal policy is more disciplined and more precisely orchestrated than Sen. McCain's. We need to get this message out. We need to make it clear, we need to show how Barack has a wealth of experience in the fine-points not only of funding public programs, but of orchestrating budgetary priorities in order to keep spending under control, something no Republican president has done in more than half a century (get the historical references and say this every chance you get).

Advice to Biden on Debating Palin...

Joseph — Sun, 31 Aug 2008 11:18:54 EDT

There is a two-pronged pitchfork aiming at Joe Biden every time he looks to tear down Sarah Palin in debates or on the stump: 1) she's a woman and it's best not to look like a bully; 2) in the wake of the Barack-Hillary standoff, it's necessary to treat her as a viable candidate (because a woman can be) but not let that treatment vet her for the voting public.

Strategy points to be considered are:

1. Clinton: let Hillary be Hillary; ask her to come in and do some of the grunt-work of blasting both McCain and Palin, let her take on some of the more flagrant attacks, pulling no punches on any point.

2. Spin: Palin is lying about her position on earmarks; the McCain campaign is touting her as a crusading reformer, when in fact she has reacted to Democratic-backed ethics reform, out of necessity and political expedience.

3. Oil: she may not be "in the pockets of big oil", but her energy policy is entirely rooted in her role as an Alaskan politician; her position on oil is not scientific at all, but is about directing foreign oil profits and federal dollars to a socialist fund that is paid to Alaskans; it's a way of steering money to Alaska, not a fix for our energy problems. If she cannot evolve on energy and recognize how little relevance new drilling would really have to reducing overall energy costs, she needs to be exposed on that failing.

4. Economic policy: we need the kind of elbow-grease budgetary work that characterizes Sen. Obama and Sen. Biden both, the complexities that affect our national economy in ways a small-state governor cannot see from her perspective. Is the woman who talks about the bridge to nowhere actually part of McCain's economic plans "from nowhere"?

5. History: Hillary can question Palin's ability to contribute "to history", and if Palin goes in that direction, she risks appearing to diminish the meaning of Sen. Obama's revolutionary candidacy, and she will bring up the stark contrast between the two tickets on that count.

6. Judges: she wants even more conservative judges than we now have; the balance on the Supreme Court is already radically conservative, with two of the most fringe-radical justices ever named now on the court. To continue that shift —when Roe has still not been overturned, due to the Constitutional basis of the ruling— is just to impose on generations of Americans a single ideology that does not represent the mainstream or long-standing judicial precedent.

7. Foreign policy: Biden knows foreign leaders, Obama has traveled to every corner of the world (except South America?) on official Senate business, Palin has negotiated fishing rights with neighboring states.

8. Cute vs. Charismatic: Gov. Palin is an intelligent, informed, well-spoken and determined political figure; she is capable and she can defend her positions with charm and poise. She will rely on that charismatic edge in supporting her rhetoric. Throw it back at her. There is too much about her that makes that tendency seem like a willingness to try to be "cute" instead of fully explaining herself. DO NOT BE CONDESCENDING on this point, but in a statesmanlike way, make her seem irresponsible if she looks like she's playing that card.

9. Joe: let Biden be Biden. He's unpredictable, a wild-card, but an experienced statesman whom no one doubts. Add verbal discipline and sharp answers to that host of edgy qualities, and she will be unprepared to give straight answers.

Palin's Own Special Counsel Assures Alaskans She is OK with Earmarks

Joseph — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 22:22:30 EDT

John Katz, Special Counsel to Gov. Sarah Palin, published an article in the Juneau Empire in March 2008, explaining that Gov. Palin does not oppose earmarks, except where they become "controversial". (John McCain says he opposes every form of earmark, no matter what it is, and claims he has never asked for or accepted any such funds for his state —we should look into this, thoroughly; we should examine every single line of every bill he's voted on to see if this is true or not—, so Palin's position is absolutely at odds with what McCain claims about her.)

Katz explains that "earmarks are not bad in themselves. In fact, they represent a legitimate exercise of Congress' constitutional power to amend the budget proposed by the president." Legally, this is true, but it clashes violently with Sen. McCain's claims of a reformist platform, based almost exclusively on the earmark issue. Katz also explains that:

Earlier this year, President Bush and the congressional leadership announced that the total number and dollar amount of earmarks must be reduced significantly.
The Palin administration has responded to this message by requesting 31 earmarks, down from 54 last year. Of these, 27 involve continuing or previous appropriations and four are new. The total dollar amount of these requests has been reduced from about $550 million in the previous year to just less than $200 million.

So Gov. Palin herself, in the midst of the period in which she now claims she was an anti-earmark crusader, requested 4 entirely new programs be funded by earmarks. He does claim that Gov. Palin's budget requests "incorporate" the concept of matching federal funds "wherever possible", but the specifics about any case where this was done are lacking. We know that in the case of the "bridge to nowhere", her standard was 100% should be funded by the federal government, despite the "federal interest" aspect of the initial request essentially having been questionable.

Speaking for the governor's entire administration, Katz writes that "We take the position that each entity must interpret the new budget realities for itself. The members of the Alaska congressional delegation are the final decision makers concerning which earmark requests to pursue." So, far from being a stalwart opponent of all federal earmarks, or saying "thanks, but no thanks", Gov. Palin left it to her state's corrupt political establishment to seek whatever money it would from Washington.

Commenting on the fact that a national debate on the integrity of the Congressional budgetary earmarking process had featured certain projects to build "roads and bridges", Katz says that Gov. Palin had decided to re-examine "certain previous decision", due to the fact that Alaskan projects were receiving "unwanted attention". Political expedience, one might say, or simply a reaction to the climate of the times.

So was it principle, or was it that she was told to make changes? Katz writes that "Palin has said the state can either respond to the changing circumstances in Congress or stick its head in the sand." He claims that efforts to re-examine Alaskan projects funded by federal earmarks will help make Alaska more credible in a new legislative climate.

The basic truth of the matter is that Gov. Palin was not a crusader against earmarks and she did not "cancel" the Gravina Island bridge project due to the moral indignation of a no-nonsense reformer; she took a new political position on certain earmark projects (and not on others), opposed some while still making new requests, because the times were changing and it was a Democratic Congress in Washington reacting to the outrageous quid-pro-quo scandals involving high-powered lobbyists, corrupt members of Congress and earmarks.

In such an environment, and with the Republicans losing their majority —during which funding these projects was easier to come by—, it was less viable to base the state's budget priorities on the easy flow of federal dollars. Katz reminds Alaskans that "The governor is very much aware of the importance of the federal budget to virtually every Alaskan." He adds that her decisions regarding earmarks are a response "to the new realities" and that "we are not abandoning earmarks altogether but are seeking to constrain and document them in the ways discussed here."

Her position was to adopt the policy on lobbying transparency, money and gifts that may change hands and earmarks, demanded in legislation passed by a Democratic Congress and pushed, supported and passed thanks to the efforts of none other than Sen. Barack Obama, of Illinois. In this case, change came to Juneau, because reform-minded Democrats projected new standards out to the states, in connection with federal budget rules. Palin was just adapting "to the new realities".

The New Republic Finds Evidence Palin is Fudging Record on Bridge to Nowhere

Joseph — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 21:50:13 EDT

The New Republic blog, The Plank, has called into question Gov. Palin's position on the infamous "bridge to nowhere" project. She reportedly told the Anchorage Daily News, during her gubernatorial campaign that "Yes. I would like to see Alaska's infrastructure projects built sooner rather than later. The window is now--while our congressional delegation is in a strong position to assist."

As The Plank points out, Palin was in favor of milking the Republican majority in Congress for federal funds to pay for Alaska's own infrastructure development. This is not an unheard-of or horrible policy in the US, historically; public works projects can be great for economic stimulous and infrastructure upgrades of all kinds tend to pay dividends, but she is not telling the truth about her position regarding the Gravina Island bridge.

Shouldn't we expect for someone with such scant history in actually fighting the good fight to at least have one truthful example of how she did so?

Palin is Spinning Her Record on the "Bridge to Nowhere"

Joseph — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 21:28:02 EDT

The "bridge to nowhere" is a favorite issue of Sen. John McCain. And Gov. Palin is proud of proclaiming that she "ended the bridge to nowhere". She claims she said to the federal government "thanks, but no thanks". And she said in accepting John McCain's request to join his ticket that "if Alaska wants a bridge, we'll build it ourselves". Now it turns out that reports suggest Gov. Palin was a supporter of the bridge to Gravina Island, while it was funded with federal dollars (precisely what McCain says he opposes), and she began to oppose the construction project when it lost some federal funding and Alaska would have to pay a larger share.

In fact, the bridge does not go to nowhere, it goes to the airport located on Gravina Island, otherwised serviced only by a ferry. Wikipedia's write-up on the bridge includes the following: "Governor Sarah Palin also supported the bridge, but canceled it when the Alaska delegation was unable to prevent changes to federal funding levels that more than doubled Alaska's portion of the bill from $160M(40.2%) to $329M (>82%) of the bridge's cost."

The governor's own office issued the following press release, stating the reason for canceling the bridge project as its not being entirely funded by the federal government:

Ketchikan desires a better way to reach the airport, but the $398 million bridge is not the answer. Despite the work of our congressional delegation, we are about $329 million short of full funding for the bridge project, and it’s clear that Congress has little interest in spending any more money on a bridge between Ketchikan and Gravina Island. Much of the public’s attitude toward Alaska bridges is based on inaccurate portrayals of the projects here. But we need to focus on what we can do, rather than fight over what has happened.

So, Gov. Palin's position on the "bridge to nowhere" is exactly the opposite of what she and John McCain claim it is. Her actual position was that the bridge should be 100% funded by the federal government. She wanted the $400 million "earmark"; Alaska paying for even a fraction of it was unacceptable to her. That doesn't necessarily mean her position was wrong or not in the interests of Alaskans; it just means they are misleading voters and fudging the record on "earmarks".

Sen. McCain tends to forget that he is not the only public official who has sought to curb wasteful spending, or talked about it, and naturally he never seems willing to mention that Barack enacted more meaningful ethics and lobbying-transparency reform than he ever did, almost upon arriving in Washington. One has to ask if McCain is lying about this issue as relating to his own running mate, and if during nearly 3 decades in Washington, he was unable to enact the kind of meaningful reforms Sen. Obama achieved with the opposition of a Republican president and majority, whether he is serious about reform at all.

In fact, McCain is soft on transparency, soft on fiscal reform, soft on real earmark spending (the Iraq war is the biggest earmark bonanza in the history of the US Congress), soft on accountability and soft on talking straight. Gov. Palin may have good intentions, but her record is not even what they say it is. They are padding her resume, lying about the meaning and timing of her positions and deceiving the American public. Let's ask them: why do they have to lie, if they are what they claim to be?

Should Hillary Take on a More Prominent Role in Campaign, to More Effectively Attack Palin on Issues?

Joseph — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 18:10:05 EDT

The Palin nomination seems in many ways to be a reaction to the Democrats, and to Sen. Obama's speech last night. First, because he wants to court "disgruntled Hillary voters" and because the move seems designed to answer Barack's reminding us that "the change we need does not come from Washington, it comes to Washington". We are already hearing McCain campaign operatives warn about how it will look if Biden takes the "attack dog" role against a younger woman, however valid his points may be.

So, are we looking at the possibility that one of the best assets we have as a campaign for a Democratic presidency may be Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, in that, she is poised, relentless, credible, and eloquent, and she can make the clear case for why Gov. Palin may not be an excellent choice, and for why the McCain-Palin ticket may be wrong for America, letting her do the attacking against a female VP candidate who just happens not to be a "leap to the center" but is rather quite seriously a sudden jerk to the far-right?

It may be good for the campaign, good for party unity, good for the overall landscape of American politics, if the Democratic party comes together in this way, and reminds Americans that this campaign could bring not only Barack Obama and Joe Biden to the White House, but also other party luminaries who are able to judge what it takes to do the job and are well-positioned to speak truth to the right-leaning 2nd to John McCain.

Is John McCain Admitting that He is "Not Ready" to See the Nation through a Time of Change?

Joseph — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 18:03:54 EDT

Sen. John McCain has done a great thing for women, and has rewarded the hard work of Gov. Palin herself, in a very serious and historic way. But he has made a calculation so fraught with divergent motives that one can only wonder at how many weaknesses he seeks to cover at the same time. He wants to seem fresher and more vital, he wants the charisma factor, he seems to be ceding that he does not have the stuff to achieve real reform himself, he is inoculating himself against the charge he is not conservative enough, he is assuming women will vote for a woman, despite the radical nature of her views.

And, we must consider that: this has been so unpredictable that McCain has eliminated his own "trust me, I'm steady" strategy as an option and due to her "youth and inexperience", he has eliminated any possiblity of attacking Sen. Obama for having fewer years in the halls of Washington foreign-policy that he does, as she has zero. She is also facing a federal investigation on ethics charges, and the whole affair seems to raise questions about Sen. McCain's faith in his own colleagues, his own judgment and his own talents for taking on the dynamic Obama-Biden ticket.

Keep the Pressure On; We Can Transcend Junk Politics & Really Achieve Change

Joseph — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 02:50:48 EDT

Sen. Barack Obama tonight gave what is likely the most important speech in American politics since the 1960s. And part of what gave it such weight is the challenge it lays down to a political establishment that depends in part on voters lacking information and lacking inspiration. He called on a nation of individuals to understand the meaning of responsibility not only in terms of others or of government, but also in terms of sharing responsibility for working toward a common vision of improved democracy.

This is a generational challenge that fits into the need to overhaul our economy to make it clean, green, just and more sustainable and democratic, as well as into our need to restore our standing in the world and counter mounting skepticism about the real value of the ideals on which our nation was founded.

Barack Obama tonight took the fight to the Republican party and challenged them to stand up for their own ideas. He demonstrated that there is no need to smear the opponent when you know they are simply wrong; you can contest their ideas with better ones and direct your energies to getting the truth across. We have a tremendous advantage in this, in part because of the message itself, and of course also because of the unique talent of Barack Obama to do this kind of work, to distill and communicate the vision we strive for as a culture and a nation.

I find myself thinking repeatedly these days when I am faced with Republican family or friends who repeat false claims as if they were fact, that they are unaware of how closely Barack Obama's vision really meets with the values they claim to uphold. And far far more than any candidate their own chosen party has put forth in recent years. Part of our work is to sway these voters: decent, idealistic people who do not see clearly that the GOP is stealing their creative energy and their moral support, and robbing them of the best possible future.

We need to keep the pressure on: this is the nature of this fight. John McCain is not what he claims to be, is not a man of vision or an independent thinker. He is not the pure soul that goes to Washington and comes away uncorrupted. Our ticket has cornered the market on those two extremely rare commodities, and we have to keep hammering away at the GOP attack machine: it is more irrelevant, more ridiculous, more a tragicomic comment on our political process than before, and this is our chance as a nation to transcend that junk politics and be real. At last.

A Watershed Moment in Our History! Barack Obama Has Reinvented the Vision of America's Promise!

Joseph — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 02:31:41 EDT

We have seen the best-thought-through challenge to our opponents and to the people of the nation: to have the courage, the grace, the passion and commitment, the agility of vision and understanding, to be able to take serious steps toward living the work of improving the shape of the American experience for individuals and communities.

Barack Obama has a lifetime of experience with the real American story: living the hardship and the hope, the vision and the flaws of the real world of human experience. He knows the meaning of the American dream, the promise of real American ideals, the value of our democratic system, the intense urgency that comes with having to face the challenge of building a better future.

We see in him the kind of nation we want to achieve; we are reminded that our nation is aspirational, founded on ideas and designed to work toward them. We see in him an example of what it means to take an interest in our fellow human beings, to work for the good of our community, to work for the hope of justice, liberty and opportunity, as made by the best in each of us.

We are the message. We are the moment. We are the hope. This campaign is a gift to us all, and the work will be to realize the beauty and the potential of that gift.

Biden Fits with Obama's Poise and Gravitas, Enhances Depth of Vision

Joseph — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 08:00:08 EDT

Barack Obama has been, from the start, one of the most poised and visionary candidates we have ever seen, and he has brought not just eloquence, but a depth of vision and a genuine gravitas —seriousness about and firm devotion to working with major problems facing American citizens— about major issues and the real human scale of the political arena. Joe Biden's joining the ticket only deepens and affirms this reality.

We now have the most promising and inspiring ticket our party has seen since Clinton-Gore, and perhaps even more potential for revolutionary reform, economic innovations, and major change to our economic infrastructure and the meaning of our role in a participatory democracy. We need to take the moment seriously, on every level and we need to make sure the McCain campaign knows: each and every one of their lies about Obama and his campaign is just that, a transparent lie.

There is no dearth of experience; there is no radical agenda; there is no possibility of there being anything but devotion to country and to the wellbeing of the American people and our cherished system of democratic government. This ticket will not cost you more, but will inspire an economic rejuvenation that helps break the crushing grip of Bush economic policies.

Most of all, let's take the fight to them, not let them get up off the mat at any rhetorical turn. Good luck everybody; this is our now!

All-Resource Energy Plan Will Phase Out Combustion, Fission, Contaminants

Joseph — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 01:40:43 EDT

We need a comprehensive energy plan that looks at all available options and puts them all in their place, proportionately. Solar is about to get 10 times more efficient (look up dye-treated glass panels with edge-mounted SV cells), and likely more than that, and wind could account for 20% of all electricity within two years. We can eliminate carbon emissions from our energy generation infrastructure within 10 years. We can phase out the insane inefficiency of nuclear plants (counting subsidies, construction, security, decommissioning, land wasted and millions of years of subsequent clean-up and waste-management) within two decades.

We can find ways to use coal not as a combustible fuel but as a complex chemical resource for deriving polymers and industrial byproducts we cannot phase out (giving us a means of sustaining a vital organ of our economy and to help ease the pain of phasing out carbon-based fuels). We can create enough renewable, zero-exhaust resources to produce all electricity and all automotive power without risk of any contaminant emissions. We just need to find the next generation of technologies, and get beyond the logic of the stone age, in which energy is derived only from burning carbon-based fuels (be they wood, coal or petroleum).

If we treat this issue seriously, we can chart a course with industry as an ally, through a time of massive transition, to a world where all these lofty goals are standards of practice and it is commonly perceived to be amazing that it took humanity so long to overcome its obsessive devotion to burning carbon-intensive substances in order to obtain energy, when there are so many other options available.

John McCain wants to help create an efficient battery. This is the work of the late 19th century, before the idea of electricity for powering cars was abandoned. It's a good idea, but that efficiency would come of its own accord if we built the infrastructure to enable the use of such technologies on a national scale. What we need to be funding are the technologies that will make even batteries as storage components obsolete. New forms of energy are coming that will eclipse the clean efficacy of solar and wind, so let's include that challenge in our total energy plan.

DO NOT MOVE TOWARD OFFSHORE DRILLING

Joseph — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 01:30:12 EDT

The offshore oil drilling proposals being pushed by Republicans with their hands in big oil's pockets (McCain included) are absolute sham proposals. They are designed to ensure that the public is distracted from the real issues regarding energy independence and win a 3rd consecutive crony term in the White House, precisely to ensure that alternatives are NOT developed and to keep prices unsustainably high, potentially crippling our economy.

It is one of the most reckless policy positions currently being embraced and so patently wrong-headed that the EIA has issued a report assessing the potential for real supply-impact as coming somewhere around the year 2030. If we move toward allowing this, it would seem we are seeking to neutralize an advantage McCain claims to have, but in fact, we are undermining our ability to stick him with the label of being the 3rd-term for W., the big oil crony, the unimaginative dinosaur that he has shown himself to be.

The fact is: if Barack Obama were to have supported the plan from the get-go, it would have been to help the American economy, because it was both possible and part of a hopeful vision for the future. The fact that he didn't is evidence enough for those of us who support him that he understood that offshore drilling is a sham issue, a lie to the American people, and an attempt at sabotage of new energy sources. To now embrace it is to give up that part of the fight, to give up that terrain in the battle for credibility.

Why would we do that? Bush is the voice of offshore drilling, and he is the LEAST POPULAR PRESIDENT IN US HISTORY. Why are we suddenly taking his advice on energy policy? Why should a man who couldn't find oil in Texas be our guide to energy independence? Why should a man who presided over the most devastating gas-price inflation (likely from collusion steered into being by his policies) be trusted on this? Are we not for change? Do we not believe in the ingenuity and dynamism of the American people?

Let's get busy putting together the energy plan to beat all energy plans, one that works, on all fronts, and is irrefutably the fastest, most efficient, most innovative way to zero-emissions, zero-contaminant fuel sourcing.

Let's Propose a Zero-Combustion, Zero-Toxin Vehicle X-Prize

Joseph — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 11:04:40 EDT

John McCain has had two good ideas in this campagin: one is that he would be considered less scary than fringe security radicals like Giuliani (though he negated much of this by adopting Bush's security policies as his own), the other is offering a $300 million prize for anyone able to significantly increase the life of electric car batteries. Where McCain is wrong is in the amount offered, the strings attached and in what infrastructure might be helpful to accompany that innovation.

Obama should propose a new fund of $1 billion, with no new taxes involved, in which existing gas and corporate oil taxes are devoted to achieving vehicles that are able to run up to 500 miles per charge, on electricity generated by any means and tapped from the home. The goal would be to be able to capitalize on private plans to build new wind and solar installations, to rely on a portion of a national renewables grid feeding directly into superefficient car batteries that can then enable auto manufacturers to build the vehicles that will employ that system.

I propose building this plan, taking the best ideas from the grassroots-in-the-know, and give Obama, the candidate with his finger truly on the pulse of our times, the idea best suited for our times, and most able to drive down fuel prices and drive innovation where we need it to go. Let's show our teeth on a pure, clean renewable transport economy.

To help assemble these ideas, we can get started by commenting on this post, which we can eventually build into an ongoing energy policy blog.

John McCain Has Devolved into a Shameless, Self-Fatiguing LIAR

Joseph — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 10:53:01 EDT

Sen. McCain has now nearly abandoned all reasonable semblance of a recourse to reason or principle and is spending a large part of every day telling absurd lies about Barack Obama. The media have taken note that his "straight-talk" motto seems to have gone out the window, as they have noted that he has essentially called in Bush's "hatchet-men" to run an all-smear all-the-time sort of political campaign against Sen. Obama.

Today we hear again that Obama wants to raise takes on American families. That he wants to tax anything that can be taxed. That his only plan for breaking our dependence on foreign oil is to put more air in our tires. McCain's lies are feeble and ridiculous, and they are evidenced as lies every single day, usually within minutes, by Obama's own resounding professions, but it is a problem to be facing a candidate that is so desperate, so unprincipled, so full of vitriol and disdain for the other.

John McCain was once upon a time an honorable man, but we are now seeing the near total destruction of every virtue he had ever convinced us he had. How do we counter the constant lies without being accused of smearing McCain? Is it enough to let him be as ridiculous as he has become, using Britney Spears and Paris Hilton as mudslinging tools, accusing his opponent of being too popular?

If we "let Obama be Obama" and "let McCain be McCain", will the nation see clearly, through all available lenses, how desperate the separation of value is and give Obama the landslide? Or do we need to talk more about what it says about this "experienced" longtime Washington politician that he no longer stands by his principles, that he no longer has anything good to say about anyone, that he is apparently unable to even begin to articulate his own ideas on any issue whatsoever? Maybe...

Maybe those of us who are creative enough to do so need to find the right way to compile and highlight the amazing array of lies and policy-switches that have become the entire substance of McCain's political style in recent months. Maybe we need to let people see in high contrast what it was McCain once pretended to be, and what he is now showing he really is, at bottom: an unimaginative infiltrator trying to rob the American people of responsible leadership through lies, innuendo, and bad jokes.

Al Gore's Model for a New Energy Revolution is THE PLAN: Let's Take Up the Challenge

Joseph — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 11:42:07 EDT

I have been writing on this issue for a long time. In 2007, it seemed improbable we could hope for more than a 50% reduction in CO2 emissions before 2050, in the US, let alone globally. Policy-makers are gun-shy on this for a number of reasons we cannot easily pin down. Fear and misconceptions dominate the in-power policy debate. Then this Congress pushed for a 70% mandatory reduction by 2050.

The fairest, best recommendation would be a global reduction of at least 90% by 2050, allowing for the reality that some carbon-intensive energy sources will continue to be useful to someone, somewhere. But now Al Gore has seen the terrain clearly and has pointed out: there is no longer a cost-effective argument for carbon-burning fuels. Upgrading our carbon-burning infrastructure will cost as much as building a new renewable infrastructure, but will create no new jobs by creating no new industry.

The green tech boom is now beginning. We already lag behind nations like Denmark in our participation. And we are suffering dearly because of a lack of political foresight. The time is now. The moment is here. The "fierce urgency of now" applies to this issue as well. We can protect our nation, defend the interests of liberty around the world, liberalize totalitarian systems, by taking the addiction to petroleum fuels out of the picture.

We can create the ultra-local electricity grid (based on in-home individual generation systems, with feedback arrangements to help power companies fairly distribute to the broader market), we can give citizens some say over the market and break the power of international cartels.

DRILLING IS A SHAM PROPOSITION: the logic of the oil markets means that offshore drilling in the US, which would destroy vital protected ecosystems, will produce NO downward shift on gas prices. Production will lag years, possibly more than one decade, and world-markets will devour a large portion of the oil, barring some radical shift by one or both of the major parties away from free-market policies.

We need to explain this to the American people, and here's how:

ISSUE AD: Oil drilling, the dark smoke, the oil wars, the climate crisis, the closed-door energy policies of the Bush administration that have enriched oil barons beyond belief but are bankrupting the entire US economy, and John McCain echoing the party-line on the pro-oil position. Show him using uneasy, halting, unsure demeanor as he parrots words fed to him by the oil lobby.

Then we show the brilliant future possible if we divorce ourselves from the downward spiral of our oil addiction. Bush says its addiction. Call forth the echoes of all incidences of responsible leadership on the climate-energy bind, and put forth a proposal to: 1. shift to entirely clean energy; 2. use carbon-fuels only where they help fill in the temporary gaps in the clean energy system; 3. make us the world's clean energy leader, with the leverage of the most vital industry for a global economy; 4. demonstrate how we can use clean energy to bolster our agricultural power and the resilience of our economy/environment/arable lands.

Demonstrate the potential for job creation, the historical link to great government-private initiatives to overhaul infrastructure, show how the cost is already built into the budget (as subsidies for unsustainable industries), and offer tax incentives for ALL Americans and entities in the US who move to clean energy, with escalating benefits going to those who shift to 100% clean energy.

The ad should be one full minute, it should cover all these points, and it should have an easy web address to link to all the source information, expanding out from the core concepts to the genuine economic and scientific data that will make the transition not only possible, but the best thing we can do.

This is a vital part of this historical moment, and taking over this issue entirely is part of demonstrating the unbreakable link to the zeitgeist, the urge to reform and recreate the nation through recourse to its best qualities. The ridiculous proposal of expanding drilling is just the trigger to isolating McCain as a dinosaur who cannot understand the needs we now have.

McCain Raises "Now He's Changing" Issue, Let's Scrutinize His Record

Joseph — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 11:22:27 EDT

The new McCain ad is an absurd affront to the common sense of the American voter: he claims that "now he's changing" (Obama, that is) his position on Afghanistan to win the election, which, as we well know, he is not. Barack Obama has been telling voters he fears the Bush-McCain Iraq policy has distracted us from the real threat posted by non-state actors in Afghanistan and in the fractious Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan. I cannot think of one time I've heard the twin wars issue raised by Obama in which he has not enunciated this position, which is the cause of his visit now.

The McCain ad is further evidence of his willlngness to lie to voters in order to distract them from his own inability to stand by long-held principles or to defend American democracy against the temptation to erode its virtues under the pretext of security. Click the link to the rest of The Good Fight blog to sort through a series of entries about John McCain's frighteningly rampant flip-flopping, on major issues of conscience, and let's get serious about making sure the American voter knows who is the man of principle, who is the visionary leader of a new American birth of freedom and who is the lying, spin-muddled zero-straight-talk guy trying to put one over on voters.

John McCain is the worst flip-flopper we've ever seen: tell the world, go national with hard-hitting ad on this topic

Joseph — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 18:35:57 EDT

How can we criticize John McCain without being dirty? Fight the smear, and do it with his own forked tongue. Let's get his wildly wobbling policy positions, on video, in his own words, his own voice, and put them into a compilation ad that shows how radically he flip-flops, how much he's sold out in order to ride the political winds to the GOP nomination.

Point 1: McCain was a "green Republican", then he calls global warming into question;
Point 2: McCain opposed Bush's tax cuts, which helped destroy our economy, then he decided they were the only way to save the economy;
Point 3: McCain believed Saddam Hussein had WMD, that was the legal justification he supported; he now claims we should fight a 100-year war in Iraq in order to instill democracy at gunpoint;
Point 4: McCain wants to defend the avg. American against monied interests, but he wants to slash social spending, while returning the tax savings to the wealthiest of the wealthy, and while expanding the Pentagon's mind-boggling budget by record amounts;
Point 5: McCain says he's for reducing gov't, but it's Obama who's proposing "Reinventing Government 2.0";
Point 6: McCain says his patriotism is to "put my country first", but he favors spending trillions of dollars to destroy a foreign country, then maybe, MAYBE, return it to something like a state of (tormented, unstable) "normalcy";
Point 7: McCain vowed he would never allow torture, then VOTED TO ALLOW IT, after a private meeting with Pres. Bush, during which we know not what was offered/agreed;
Point 8: McCain lamented giving even "the appearance of impropriety" in the Keating 5 scandal, then vowed to take on special interests, then lobbied for lobbyist lady-friend in Senate committee;
Point 9: McCain called fundamentalist preachers "agents of intolerance", then buddied up with several of the most radical, racist and controversial, when he was worried about the vote of the far-right;
Point 10: McCain famously said he didn't really know much or care much about economic specifics, and that he believed average Americans didn't either; now he daily attacks Obama with lies and smears in an effort to say he does care: does he?

We don't have to make a single accusation, nor do we have to "go negative"; these are McCain's own positions, his own words can be used. We can contrast one candidate with the other. I suggest a 120-second ad, to all states that are "red" or "purple", or even "purple-blue", showing Sen. McCain and his radical position swings. Showing him assailing change of policy position as a sign of not being fit to lead.

If we can, the best would be to show Sen. Obama stating with resounding consistency, positions on such issues, citing his votes supporting his principles, and even asking Sen. McCain to come and explain himself in the much talked of debates the two campaigns have foreseen. But the challenge is not necessary to make the point: we have a visionary, principled man, with a commitment to fact and to effect, who understands the issues of the moment and has outstanding judgment on major issues, and we have a man who is not only confused about his own positions and about what people want, but can't even decide which is the better yardstick for his own worth.

How can we make this point to tens of millions, without "going negative"?

McCain Campaign Homepage Smears Obama with Lies

Joseph — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 10:07:19 EDT

John McCain's homepage today includes a graphic suggesting that "Barack Obama's campaign attacks John McCain's record of service and sacrifice" and calls on supporters to "speak out" against this alleged activity of the Obama campaign. The allegation is false and constitutes an ad-hominem attack and an act of vicious libel.

McCain is using Gen. Clark's not necessarily untrue statement, that military service does not a president make, not by itself, as grounds to go to the most extreme mudslinging and degenerate manipulations his party has to offer. He has recruited the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, has appeared in public with at least one member, who continues to defend the lies he told four years ago, and has taken at least $70,000 from their main backers.

The same man who for months refused to distance himself from a pro-Nazi racist fundamentalist who calls for Israel's destruction because he believes it will bring salvation now claims that Sen. Obama should erase Gen. Clark, whose military service is not only beyond reproach but whose experience and performance in war is above the level of nearly all imaginable thresholds for distinction, from American politics. Sen. McCain's attitude and tactics represent a shameful and unprincipled desperation, and we must see it as such.

McCain is reeling. He sees that his career may end as a result of this quixotic attempt to seizing power through lies and torture and other innuendo that does not come anywhere near to representing genuine thought about complex policies. He sees that his many moments of astounding hypocrisy are coming to light, and he is attacking with rabid, reckless ferocity, the opponent whose principles, whose nobility of character, whose supreme intellect, are likely to see him ousted, generationally and politically, from his quest for power.

We must reveal him for what he is, make the smear-monger, war-monger, lobby-helper, wife's-cash-hiding walking subterfuge of a once noble man, stick. Make it clear to all that this is what McCain is: a man who talks about "straight talk" but can't put together two honest words about the state of the world, his policy goals, what elements of his "base" he actually cares about, or about his opponent. He is a fabulist and a liar, in this new incarnation, and he has lost touch with reality.

His extreme reaction to Gen. Clark's comments shows his most severe weakness: he feels entitled to the presidency, and he is now revealing that his entire campaign is based on the notion that due to his military service, no one should stand in his way, that it is, from his perspective, entirely unamerican to stand in the way of John McCain's lust for the presidency. Let's remind voters, the press, and John McCain that entitlement is not a legitimate path to power in American democracy. If that's all he's got, he should quit now.

Does John McCain Know that Colombian Free Trade is a Vote for Modern-day Slavery?

Joseph — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 09:41:49 EDT

John McCain is touting the Colombian free trade agreement as an absolute necessity in shoring up our hobbled economy against impending recession, or worse. The logic is questionable at best for many reasons, but above all, and perhaps more urgently than the myriad environmental travesties it would suppose, is working conditions in Colombia that are tantamount to slavery.

The free trade agreement being so aggressively backed by the "straight-talking" senator would broaden the means by which Colombian businesses could subject their workers to slave-status conditions and might put American businesses in a position where they could be more likely to (knowingly or unknowingly) participate in this ongoing human tragedy. Does he care?

Amnesty International warns that Colombia is one of the nations of the world where modern-day slavery exists. While John McCain is busy complaining that a military man mentioned the fact that just having been in the military doesn't automatically make you presidential material, and is trying to bludgeon Obama and the Democratic party with a false anti-patriot smear, he is actively participating in the promotion of policies designed to take advantage of working conditions (and pay-scale) that are not only substandard, and fail to meet the requirements of American law, but actually amount to enslaving the workers.

Let's call on John McCain to answer for this shameless and unforgiveable lapse in judgment. Let's ask him to re-evaluate his policy positions on economics (which he admits he knows little and cares little about) and free trade, and test whether his character and his intellect are noble enough to understand that slavery is out of the question for any element of American law or government activity (including trade pacts and foreign treaties), and (in case he missed it) that it violates the US Constitution.

McCain Campaign Linked to Fear-mongering Tactics

Joseph — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 01:44:55 EDT

It is important to note that legislation passed after the September 11, 2001, attacks makes it an act of terrorism to spread false information about an attack (a bomb threat, for instance), with the goal of instilling fear in the public. One McCain adviser said he believed a terrorist attack would benefit McCain, then apologized.

Now, after years of the Bush administration treating terrorism as its own preferred mechanism for constant manipulation of public opinion, supporters of John McCain have begun to raise the specter of a possible attack on the US, apparently as a means of scaring people into voting for the older, "more experienced" senator.

Sen. Joe Lieberman says "Our enemies will test the new president early". We have to ask ourselves 1. how he knows this and 2. what is he implying about the two senators? Does he mean that if McCain is elected, our nation's enemies will be less offended, will hold back?

The comments are so reckless and so much in poor taste, that it can only follow that Sen. Lieberman believes terrorism as such is an electoral asset to Sen. McCain, and this shocking perspective can only mean that using fear to dissuade voters' independent thinking is what he has in mind.

We must renounce this politics of fear and terror, as a nation, and we must denounce, as citizens, any politician who uses the logic of terror to intimidate American voters. The mounting urgency apparent in the McCain campaign to talk of terror and to plan for yet another war smacks of traditional intimidation tactics, aimed at provoking fear in order to manipulate voters.

We have an absolute responsibility as citizens to not behave in this way in our civic discourse and to not permit our nation to be dragged into the sort of sham process witnessed in states where opposition parties are treated as a grave threat to the nation's security simply because they disagree on policy issues with the ruling party. McCain should apologize immediately for this ramping up of bellicose rhetoric and this apparent attempt to take advantage of the logic of terror.

Wes Clark Says McCain Should Be Judged by His Abilities, McCain Brings in Swiftboater?

Joseph — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 01:28:33 EDT

Gen. Wes Clark made his "controversial" comments this weekend not as an attack on John McCain, but in direct response to the suggestion by Bob Schieffer that those specific facts might not be enough to qualify one to be president. Clark did not say McCain's record was not honorable, nor did he attack McCain personally.

Meanwhile, in response to this incident, John McCain has called in a group of veterans to defend his service. This seems a sloppy political maneuver, because ultimately, his record has not been called into question, and he has leapt to the defensive position all too quickly. What's more, among these veterans is at least one individual who formed part of the notorious smear campaign against John Kerry known as the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, a campaign of lies and innuendo largely thought to have "derailed" Kerry's campaign against George W. Bush in 2004.

This is yet another case of John McCain changing his views and cloaking himself in a shameless double-standard. He opposes torture, until it makes it possible to ally himself with the Bush White House, in his view a clear path to the presidency. He wants peace, unless it seems like bombing Iran might help inspire fear and get him elected. He abhors lobbyists and "earmarks", until he becomes close friends with one, and uses leverage in her favor.

He called fundamentalist preachers "agents of intolerance", until he found them to be politically expedient, then stood by brutally racist comments, until he found that not to be politically expedient. Now he seems to find it useful to ally himself with someone from the Swiftboat Veterans for Truth, in attacking his opponent, who did not actually attack him, who disowned the questionable comments, though they were not an attack. He sides with the smear-mongers, in response to a phantom smear.

We Have an Ethanol Problem; We Must Tackle it With Intelligence, Foresight

Joseph — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 11:07:25 EDT

Ethanol is a serious problem, as much as it is a solution. The rapid expansion of ethanol production in the US midwest, cutting into the corn harvest which produces over 40% of all global corn exports, is driving the price of food higher across the world, just as petroleum prices, spreading chronic water scarcity and a warming climate, are cutting into productivity and damaging the global food supply.

Ethanol from corn is not a scalable economic resource: the more we produce, the worse the damage to overall economic wellbeing; diverting cropland to fuel production equates very literally to burning the world's food, at a time when no nation can afford rapid escalation of food prices. This is a legacy issue: what will future generation think of us? It is also an ecological issue: what are we doing to our arable land, and what is happening to the Amazon as a result of Brazil's booming cane-ethanol industry?

And, it's a carbon issue: burning organic materials means producing carbon emissions, in lower concentrations than with coal or petroleum, but carbon emissions nevertheless. Ethanol is a destructive fuel industry being promoted as a way of replacing other destructive fuel industries, and we have linked our campaign to the hope of biofuels as a renewable resource to help reform the energy economy and save us from decadent habits of mass industry and an automotive culture.

The fact is: ethanol is not the way of the future, and it is not helping us now. Devoting all of Iowa's corn (40% of the world's exports) to ethanol production would give us only 18% of domestic automotive fuel consumption: given the volatility of the petroleum markets, this is not enough to bring down gas prices in any significant way, much less over the long term. In fact, the resulting jump in food prices will severely damage our long-term economic stability, as well as that of most poor nations.

In short, we are playing with fire. What we need is to look ahead to major paradigm shifts in energy production. Neither nuclear nor combustible fuels of any kind will prevail in the future global energy economy. We will discover new ways of "producing", or rather harnessing, ambient energy without having to burn or emit anything that would have a harmful impact on the environment.

We need to shift our energy policy, as a campaign, toward such a vision, find a way of funding these projects, and talking about as yet nonexistent technologies intelligently, without appearing to have turned against previous policy positions.

Ethanol could be a useful technology, if we find a way to produce it without reducing cropland for food production, and without damaging natural habitats. For instance, if we can find a way to produce cellulosic ethanol in mass quantities, at affordable rates, then we can use mostly waste material to produce bio-ethanol for fuel use.

An example: if we can produce cane-based ethanol without devoting huge swaths of land to grid-format farming for sugar-cane, extracting the source cane from fragile natural environments, including marsh land and grassy terrain, in minimally-invasive harvesting techniques, then we can simultaneously: 1. preserve fragile ecosystems; 2. exploit abundant carbon-based fuel resources; 3. transition to non-combustible fuels by way of cleaner combustible fuels; 4. stave off damaging price increases in fuel, food and water.

The fate of many poor economies, not to mention new democracies taking root in emerging markets, is at stake in a very real way. Finding the right stand on this issue will give us a better chance of creating viable solutions to our own economic weaknesses of the moment and of the coming years, and is absolutely indispensable to crafting a coherent, viable, historical-moment-attuned platform for energy and economic direction.

GOP Using Israel as Propaganda Tool; Dems Must Oppose this Tactic Now

Joseph — Fri, 16 May 2008 07:42:59 EDT

Congressional leaders in the GOP are trying to frame Barack Obama as anti-Israel. It is yet another case of misguided politicians seeking to use racial and ethnic hatred and fear as a tool for manipulation, and a means of seizing power. Over the weekend, Barack Obama gave an interview to the Atlantic, in which he clearly expresses his support for Israel, his belief that it is a "vibrant democracy" and that it must be defended. Yet he notes that the crisis, and the manner in which it is manipulated in the region for propagandistic purposes, is a "constant wound" that allows Americas enemies to undercut otherwise viable and worthy foreign policy goals int he region.

Now John Boehner and Eric Cantor have decided to use Israel as a propaganda tool, in order to lie about Barack Obama, manipulate sensitive ethnic and cultural ties and divide America, sowing fear in the interests of personal and party gain. This is little different from the kind of sinister propaganda and America-hating that Sen. Obama was criticizing in his remarks, and what's shocking is that in this case the manipulation is coming from two top members of the minority party in the US Congress. Boehner and Cantor should be ashamed of themselves and they should be taken to task across the US media. I would recommend that Boehner's irresponsible assertion that it is Israel which is a "constant sore", and not the manipulations of America's enemies, means the GOP should consider very seriously removing him from his leadership role: no one who thinks like that should be permitted near the highest ranks in Congress.

This blatantly irresponsible and mendacious attack is yet another example of John McCain's total failure as a leader of his party, his inability to convince the unscrupulous hacks of the GOP that not merely negative attacks, but especially outright fabrications are no longer welcome in American politics. We should brush this off with a major policy speech, demonstrate McCain's lack of interest in the subject, and call on the Republicans responsible for this sinister smear to apologize in public and face ethics-violation charges for using the press to distribute false information.

The Washington Post published excerpts from the interview, as follows:

Obama gave an interview over the weekend to Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic in which, among other things, he rejected former president Jimmy Carter's characterization of Israel as an "apartheid state." Here is the passage that has now become controversial. (Key phrases in italics.)
Goldberg:"What do you make of Jimmy Carter's suggestion that Israel resembles an apartheid state?"
Obama: "I strongly reject the characterization. Israel is a vibrant democracy, the only one in the Middle East, and there's no doubt that Israel and the Palestinians have tough issues to work out to get to the goal of two states living side by side in peace and security, but injecting a term like 'apartheid' into the discussion doesn't advance that goal. It's emotionally loaded, historically inaccurate, and it's not what I believe."
Goldberg:"If you become president, will you denounce settlements publicly?"
Obama:"What I will say is what I've said previously. Settlements at this juncture are not helpful. Look, my interest is in solving this problem not only for Israel but for the United States."
Goldberg:"Do you think that Israel is a drag on America's reputation overseas?"
Obama:"No, no, no. But what I think is that this constant wound, that this constant sore, does infect all of our foreign policy. The lack of a resolution to this problem provides an excuse for anti-American militant jihadists to engage in inexcusable actions, and so we have a national-security interest in solving this, and I also believe that Israel has a security interest in solving this, because I believe that the status quo is unsustainable."

The Post also notes, responsibly:

It is pretty clear from this passage that Obama is not calling Israel a "constant wound." Indeed, he specifically says "no, no, no" when asked whether Israel is a drag on America's international reputation. He is referring to the overall Israeli-Palestinian problem, including continued Jewish settlements in occupied Palestinian territory.

And that Jeffrey Goldberg, the Atlantic reporter:

describes Boehner's characterization of the interview as "mendacious, duplicitous, gross and comically refutable.

We are seeing that the Republican party is so far off the rails at this point, that they will use literally any pretext to sow fear and hatred in the interest of remaining in the White House. We need to make sure that this reality is as clear to all American voters as it is to those of us who know why Sen. Obama is the great hope for restoring the ideals and virtues of the American system, not to mention our reputation abroad.

Counter the GOP's $19.5 million attack ad blitz, early and with dedicated fundraising

Joseph — Sun, 11 May 2008 02:36:12 EDT

According to the New York Times, "The Republican National Committee is planning a $19.5 million advertising campaign to portray Mr. Obama, 46, as out of touch with the country and too inexperienced to be commander in chief, seeking to put him on the defensive before he can use his financial advantage against Mr. McCain, 71, party officials said."

The Obama campaign should start immediately preparing a huge funding drive to counter every single effort the GOP puts forth to do this sort of attack. If they want $19.5 million in negative ads to lie about Obama, then let's put up $25 million in freshly raised funds, raised specifically to counter their efforts. The strategy is like what Democracy for America does, and is an excellent way to let the McCain campaign know: every dollar you spend on negative ads will come back at you; your money will be wasted.

Let's take the fight to McCain, but make sure we beat Clinton handily in all remaining contests

Joseph — Sat, 03 May 2008 07:46:34 EDT

In sports, it is almost never wise to "play not to lose" or to try to run out the clock, much less in a very close contest, and certainly not in one where judges can overturn the apparent outcome on a whim if they like your opponent more (i.e. superdelegates). Nevermind how unsporting the superdelegate set-up is, we need to take seriously the fact that Hillary Clinton believes she can win this nomination, and we need to make sure we are playing to win, win, win, all around.

That means: let Barack be Barack. Do all the things that have worked and don't, for all the rice in China, try to tamp down his manner, his history, his oratory or his ambitious goals. Our nations needs an inspirational and visionary leader, and Barack is drawing the largest campaign crowds in history because he is the only individual in our political system who seems to have the stuff to rise to that task.

So: Clinton is a flawed candidate, but not for the petty irrelevant reasons the media often tout, that she's a woman, that she was married to the president some time ago, that she has an abrasive style at times. She is a flawed candidate, because she has made very bad choices on policy based solely on political calculation, and that is a raging red flag that she is wrong for the job she's seeking, especially at this moment in history.

She also exaggerates, and gives in to petty slander. She ran with her head down, "dodging sniper fire" —check the record (Lexis-Nexis perhaps) for how many time she's said "sniper fire" in the last year— in the Balkans, when she was actually walking to a ceremonial reading of a poem by a small girl? She was "duped" by the Bush administration on Iraq? How? I never saw any secret documents, and through television news, I could make out that the "evidence" presented was within itself totally incoherent, and so obviously contained falsehoods.

She told 60 minutes that "as far as I know" Obama is not muslim. He's not. She knows it, everybody knows it, and besides, it's an irrelevant distraction. She consciously made that remark in order to rob the nation of a great candidate, in order to try to use bigotry and confusion to her advantage and undermine the entire electoral primary process.

She has her virtues, and could be a strong president, and could be a responsible leader and to important things for our nation. Democrats could support her if need be. But, she is deeply flawed, and it is not for guilt-by-association type innuendo that we can say this. She has not been forthright as a candidate and she has not been willing to avoid lying and manipulating in order to get to where she is.

She takes money from lobbyists. She has openly sought to base her fundraising on expensive dinners with major wealthy donors. She has sought to create a campaign of the elite, whom she has not been able to win, while accusing her opponent of being an elitist, while he has cultivated a trailblazing grassroots campaign, backed by small donors, and which has drawn the attention of the intellectual and financial elite, due to its efficacy, its seizing the historical moment, and its vision for the future.

Let's be proud of these traits, let's be proud of Barack Obama, let's eliminate the fluff and the swiftboating from the news the way Barack brushed aside Australia's disgraced and forgotten PM Howard, when he made racist and pro-terrorist comments about the Democratic party.

There is no Wright issue (there is the media struggling to find a way to make race into a "juicy" free-for-all that destroys people); there is no toughness deficit (there is just the shallow assumption of two other candidates that intelligence is not necessary, only blustering and posturing and playground-bully threats, to give the impression of strength and authority).

The media are now fully caught up in their own lust for the sinister swiftboating sensationalism that they don't seem to be able to substitute with the real meat and juice of this election cycle: the fact that we are on the verge of an historical shift of major proportions, an economic overhaul, a green revolution, a need to restore our Constitutional values, and to ward of potential economic depression... they prefer to invent non-stories that they can manipulate as they see fit, in the absence of genuine thought, research or analysis.

Hillary Clinton and John McCain are both eager to capitalize on this disgusting abdication by the mass media of their Constitutionally-enshrined responsibility to inform the public effectively, and we need to make it clear, without fabrications or exaggerations, that this is so.

Maybe we can drive everybody else to the high ground, by example.

It will be key to ensuring Obama's typical stunning victories that we re-establish the moral and intellectual high-ground, and take back the middle-class and working-class center and independent vote. This is the way forward, the way to win, the way we need to unify and serve the people, to reform a system damaged by so many years of manipulation, crookery and corruption.

Rhetoric is an Expression of a Politicians Intentional Make-up (McCain and Clinton should give us tremendous pause in this light)

Joseph — Sat, 03 May 2008 07:38:08 EDT

The pseudo-criticism that seems to have taken root among Clinton hard-liners, and which the GOP is aching to start throwing around, that Barack Obama is nothing but talk, is, of course, an out and out lie. The slander is based on the fact that he is a great orator. So, let's dissect their petty puerile outlook, and demonstrate why McCain and Clinton are so afraid of a great orator, as a competitor.

First of all: our great orators, or writers of oratory, such as Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR and JFK, were all great reformers, they were all presidents who made great strides for the nation and whose powerful rhetoric was anything but the stuff of empty shirts trying to sound pretty. Their rhetoric was powerful precisely because it was an expression of their inner truth: their devotion to service, their vision for a democratic future, their belief in human rights and individual liberties, the power of a free society.

The fact that other politicians lack this great power of rhetoric is not simply a matter of taste or a side-effect of being "wonks" or bureaucrats... it is, along with those other traits, a symptom of what is lacking in them, which is the undercurrent of poetry and vision that comes with seeing the inspirational core of America's revolutionary experiment. McCain and Clinton see that Obama is this sort of leader, and that their flames flicker and bend under the force of his leadership vision.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was a great orator, not because he was some sort of blue-blooded elitist or used-car salesman with hollow arguments, obviously; he was a great orator because the power of the need to overcome great historical injustice was in his every fiber; he emanated the potential for hope and justice, and he was intellectually capable of grasping the problem from every angle, and in him there was the virtue of the man who knows that violence is not a solution.

For all these reasons, he is revered the world over as one of the great leaders of the 20th century, one of the great humanitarian thinkers of all time, and one of the quintessential revolutionary figures of modern times. His philosophy has taken root, as Barack Obama has pointed out, and much of what was once impossible is now possible, much of what was once commonplace brutality is now so marginal not even proponents of egregious violations of basic rights dare utter their views publicly.

What is John McCain's version of a great historical narrative? Of a vision for the future? To pretend to be "authentic" by confessing that he's not much of an economic mind. After how long in the Senate, making monumental historical decisions about Americans' everyday wellbeing and economic future? How many times has he claimed to know what he was doing, only to cover up his lack of interest, lack of understanding, lack of vision by claiming as a virtue that which reveals him to be a poseur, a man willing to manipulate public opinion to put him in a place where he can bungle through the most pressing issue of our times as has his predecessor?

What is Hillary Clinton's version of a great historical narrative? That she's entitled to the office, because she's a great leader among women, a woman who leads among men. Yes, she is. Yes, that's historic, and important, and it qualified her to give it a shot. But ultimately, she has not produced rhetoric that demonstrates that she has the spirit of the times in her core. She has not produced the words that reveal to us that she understands what her job would actually be.

She speaks as if we're living in the 1990s, and on the issues of the 21st century, she changes her mind constantly. Must oust Saddam to stop Al Qaeda. Oh, wait, no ties there, no WMD, I was duped, but the war is good, we must fight on, or... wait, nobody wants that, ok, I'm in favor of withdrawal.

She recently declared that she could "totally obliterate" Iran, a nation of 70 million people. This is not blunt honesty; this is horrible, facile, dangerously brutish rhetoric that reveals a willingness to toss aside rational thought in favor of making a mortal threat against 70 million people, whom we might do better to try to bring around to our view, to turn into allies.

Her rhetoric, in this as in other cases, is not forceful and TR-ish, it's evidence of a near total misunderstanding of the problems of our times: she fails to consider even for one moment that Iran has a youth culture in Tehran which is both academically and culturally drawn to western ideas and to democracy. She fails to consider that we would be best served by seeing the revolutionary dictatorship reformed into non-existence by way of a democratic process, which Iran has the potential for seeing through, under the right circumstances.

John McCain asserted three separate times on a ludicrous tour of Iraq and its neighboring states, in which he failed to produce one single representation of an intellectual grasp of the catastrophe unfolding in the region, that Al Qaeda was conspiring to help Shi'a militia in the south fight the occupying forces, though even uninformed lay people know that Al Qaeda, as well as its copycat organization "Al Qaeda in Iraq", is a Sunni-affiliated organization, historical and in Iraq contemporary, enemies of the Shi'a militants.

For a man who has based almost his entire candidacy on the need to "win the war" in Iraq, that level of ignorance is quite literally horrifying. It speaks of an individual who is willing to make decisions of potentially catastrophic significance for multiple nations and tens or even hundreds of millions of people, without so much as a clue about who is actually fighting whom.

What is it about Obama's inspirational addresses, and his everyday eloquence in small gatherings, that is so threatening to the political establishment? It's just that: the political establishment depends, at all times in history, on public servants being beholden to its often arbitrary doctrines, and Obama's rhetoric clearly reveals the internal reality that he brings to the campaign, that of a visionary leader who can reform, improve and correct the system, both according to our basic principles as a people and according to the real needs of the people.

That is what we are fighting to achieve. That is how we turn back the clock on 8 years of George W.'s prodigal vandalism of the American way. That is how we save ourselves from the crimes of a band of blinkered, self-interested cynics. That is how we save our nation and its foundational ideas from the worldview they have imposed upon us and projected against our allies and enemies alike.

In short, rhetoric matters, and in the campaign, it matters more than anything.

Biofuels, Hunger & War vs. Open Research, Wisdom & Problem Solving

Joseph — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 08:58:17 EDT

We are living in a time, whether we like it or not, when ideology cannot help us, when party influence and industry lobbyists are incapable of generating the solutions we need, in government, in society, for the environment and in the global community. We need for serious people to be thinking seriously about the real problems we face, as a nation, as a generation, as a civilization, and for those people to be leaders willing to confront the great crises of our times in an open way that includes the electorate, that includes those affected, that speeds the best solutions to the optimum point of impact.

In 7-plus years of the Bush-Cheney problem solving model, we've seen massive investments in war and ethanol as a way of reducing the threat of oil to our society's economic and political wellbeing. The impact has been to create minimal if any measurable positive result, while spurring an unprecedented escalation of hostility toward our nation and skepticism about our foundational values, all while driving food prices so high the world's poor are facing a sudden explosion in food prices on an unprecedentedly global scale.

We need to remind the public and the press that Sen. Obama's rhetoric is not about words, not about making people feel good, it's not a glamor-driven campaign move; but his rhetoric stems from a deeply felt personal commitment to the great potential of our nation, by way of its system of government and economics and by way of its historical spirit of change, improvement and transcendence.

Are those who are unwilling to speak of great possibility just afraid they may not know how to get there? Are they afraid they will not be able to rally public support? Are they unsure about the true vitality of the American system of elective government? Or are they just out of touch with the spirit of our times, unable to understand, much less explain, the simultaneous swelling of a passion for innovation, basic ideals, and hope, alongside the frustration with a system that seems asleep to the needs and tastes of a 21st century society?

It is Sen. Clinton who has used the divisive checkbook-baiting language of outmoded social class distinctions, while Sen. McCain has remained all but indifferent (until a recent reversal on foreclosures) to the economic hardships faced by the silent majority. Meanwhile, it is Sen. Obama whose plans propose genuine solutions, get the people involved, and reform government in a way that makes it more effective, less cash-starved, and more a tool for than a tormenter of the average citizen.

We are living in a new age, when democratic principles and processes enjoy more hope of being employed and put into practice than ever before, but we need people who understand that democracy is collaborative, innovative, capable and optimistic, to help ensure we do not run aground as we face the challenges of our global era.

Clean Up the Petty Mess & Get on with the Fight for Change

Joseph — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 04:11:30 EDT

I am increasingly unnerved by what I see as the lustful determination of both the Clinton and McCain campaigns and the national media to reduce this entire election process to a handful of petty squabbles over style, or even the perception of style (who is perceived as more "traditional" or "homey" in a "red state" kind of way). This is not just a question of unfair, it's a question of taking very poorly thought through campaigns, forcing them on a country in desperate need of real sweeping innovative change, and undermining the one candidate we've been lucky enough to see for a generation who actually is willing to do things for the common good.

That said, we have to remind people of all social strata, of all cultural styles and preferences, this "guns and God" blow-up, like the Rev. Wright obsession, is nothing more than an attempt to rob the average person of the opportunity to be heard in the process of a movement of democratic inspiration that actually takes into account what affects the average person. It doesn't matter why: conspiracy theories, lack of nuance in media, etc.; it's just the same naked indifference to what America needs, and what we need is to take a hard look, without the criminal distortions of ideology, at what really ails us, and be optimists, and be doers, and fix our course as a nation and a diverse people.

So I like what Mark Levin has written about the best way to address and reverse the "guns and God" kindergarten tiff:

I think his rejoinder to the whole "cling to guns and God" charge could have been better explained by saying something like this -
"I used a poor choice of words - I should have said angry or frustrated (which is a reality) instead of bitter, which was silly to say. Respect for character, morals, deep faith and the right to bear arms are deeply embedded in our national psyche. Hard-working Americans are feeling helpless, that no President can help them with their economic problems, so it is natural to focus on other issues they care about or direct their frustration in other ways. I want to tell them - 'Do not lose hope on the economic front. We need your hand and determination. You are my brothers and sisters. I care about what happens to you.' And some of us may feel less friendly towards immigrants and view them as being competition - all this is natural under these circumstances. We have to right the ship of our nation so that we the descendants of immigrants can together forge a stronger America, America the proud." And then he should have gone medieval on the metaphorical ass of his two tormentors...on the elitism charge, which he was suitably combative about.

The sinister elitism, the manipulation and the cynicism, are coming from the campaigns who prefer to attack on the issue of rhetoric, but who offer only divergent ways to capitalize on the lobbying industry's power in Washington, feed the big backers of the current system what they need to keep quiet, and either: 1. steal Barack's ideas then say he's unoriginal or 2. mount phoney PR stunts like stealing recipes from TV to make the campaign seem like it's a down-home kind of operation, or 3. find ways to inject racist and xenophobic drivel into the public discourse in order to win by divide and conquer means of dumbing America down.

We need to remind people that we're giving all Americans a seat at the table. We need to remind Americans that we're working toward that "more perfect union", on all levels, not just on race, not just on economics, not just on peace and security, but also on our democratic process and on valuing the contributions of all Americans to the vibrant spectacle of our evolving culture.

It can be done, we can do it, the prize is within reach; let's stay on the ball, not falter, not doubt ourselves, but reach out, as we always have, make this not only the biggest "big tent" movement to date, but the most authentically so.

Will McCain Be Anything Other than a Repeat of Hillary Clinton, When We Get to the General?

Joseph — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 12:02:45 EDT

The more we hear of the hamfisted and unfair attacks on Barack Obama —based on his pastor and other nonsense of "guilt by association" or race baiting fear mongering from his opponents—, the clearer it is that we are facing an election environment in which the two major opponents cannot compete on their spirit or their ideas. John McCain's speech on the economy was astoundingly vacuous, actually putting him at risk of proposing a do-nothing presidency. So the attacks on Obama will continue, and will be ad-hominem, manipulative and unfair.

But we need to think very seriously about the probability that after emerging as the nominee of the Democratic party, Barack Obama will be facing a grizzled experienced legislator whose main line of attack will be to copy everything the Clinton campaign has been doing. The likely situation will be that we will have to constantly remind people that John McCain is so insecure, he just copies Hillary Clinton's ideas. This could be a great way of framing the debate and reminding people that it's Barack Obama that has the great ideas suited to this moment in American history.

Mr. McCain, Why Do You Do That to Your Supporters?

Joseph — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 11:26:22 EDT

Why does John McCain, in the tradition of recent Republican leaders, treat his supporters as if they were incapable of critical thought? This is a vital question, and it appears he will be actively working to give us fodder if we raise it over and over again.

He claimed at least 3 times last week that Iran was training al-Qaeda in Iraq. Iran is a Shi'a theocracy, hell-bent on removing Sunni dominance in Iraq. Al-Qaeda in Iraq is a Sunni militant organization. As Bill Maher said this week: "that Iran is training al-Qaeda is so untrue not even Dick Cheney said it".

John McCain with this gaffe has demonstrated two fundamental things about his campaign: 1) they are not really all that serious about the facts, the just want to win; 2) they don't respect their supporters intellectually or on moral grounds. They believe their supporters' views can be manipulated by fudging the facts, and they don't care if their supporters might oppose their security strategies were they to know how low the bar is for factual knowledge and critical thought within their candidate's inner circle.

So let's ask: Mr. McCain, why do you do that to your supporters? Why do you treat them like they have no capacity for critical thought or moral judgement?

Wright's Comments Worse than the Fundamentalist Evangelists that Have Backed Bush, McCain?

Joseph — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 12:09:39 EDT

We have to face, at least in our analysis of what is happening in this moment in the media environment, and what the GOP may be planning to do to attack, the very serious question of why the media have suddenly run with this attack on Obama, based on the comments of a pastor, when both George W. Bush and John McCain have very joyfully and personally invited and accepted endorsements from radical fundamentalist preachers and dangerous bigots, in a very public forum and with apparent impunity as to nationwide public opinion.

We need to research those individuals, their sermons, their publications, specific acts of hate-speech and even calls to violence and bloodshed. We need to look at how these fundamentalist preachers who have backed the GOP time and again actually view the state of Israel, for example, whether or not they support Jewish heritage and Israeli democracy, or whether they treat the state of Israel as some sort of keystone whose destruction will herald the Apocalypse and the second coming of Christ.

This is an actual view that has infected the minds of some evangelical Christians, and above which we all need to rise, in order to support our friends and allies, protect the values and the virtues of democracy, and make our way to a fuller and brighter future for all human beings. We need to contemplate very seriously how utterly destructive this kind of "connection" has been for the Republican party, for its moral values, and for its misguided support for incredible abuses at the executive level, and contrast that (if the issue persists) with the real democratic values that underpin the Obama candidacy.

This candidacy is what America needs right now. It needs to free itself from the abuses of the small-minded and lascivious Machiavellian incumbents in Washington, who would like to engineer an election through mass-media, through unfair smears, and through the falsification of public opinion. However we can keep the message of unity, tolerance, freedom and democratic community, we must. This complex dynamic is a very big part of the "fierce urgency of now", and today's speech was the best first step to restoring the dignity and transcendence of discourse to the Obama campaign.

By the way, isn't Obama's vision of unity more credible than a John McCain who will only continue Bush's shockingly divisive, false "uniter, not divider" politics?

Absolutely Brilliant Speech! The Dignity of the Future of a More Perfect Union Comes Clear

Joseph — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 11:57:26 EDT

We need to stay on top of this issue, stay ahead of the curve. We cannot allow GOP smear tactics to paint Obama or the Democratic party with the false brush of anti-Americanism. It is absurd in the saddest and most sinister ways for one major party to accuse a United States Senator of rabid anti-Americanism. Barack Obama is a patriot and one of the great public servants we have in our midst. Nothing is more important than that, and that is what has spurred so many millions to flock to his campaign. The vision of a great, shining, "more perfect" American way ahead, the vision of a Jeffersonian dream, a nation of citizens serving as they are best able to serve, freed from the moral hindrances of slavery, division and fear, is what we can best deliver, as a movement and as a people, in this great historic moment.

Blueprint for Change: Read it, Use it to Get the Word Out

Joseph — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 22:20:06 EDT

We are hearing all day, every day, that Barack Obama's problem is lack of experience and/or lack of specifics. Well, we have a blueprint for change, available at http://www.barackobama.com/issues/, for pdf download, which speaks to the specifics, to the heart of each problem we face as a nation, and does so with daring and with breadth of vision.

We can use this document to master the structure of the agenda that underlies and will follow the rhetoric of the campaign trail. We can use the information contained there to caucus for Obama as we go through our everyday lives. At a bar, on a streetcorner, we hear people echoing what unthinking pundits shout at each other, or what is sung to the choir; it is there we can say, but have you heard? did you know that? or, in fact, Obama plans to...

It is vital that we counter the punishing void of the mass media, the dumbed-down mudslinging of ads, soundbites and headlines, and get to the point, get to the marrow of the politics of the moment, remind ourselves and others that this is a question of zeitgeist, the spirit of the times: Barack Obama has his finger not only on the pulse of what this nation is feeling and wanting; he also has solutions in the cross-hairs and is ready to act, to lead and to govern, in precisely the way we need in order to heal ourselves as a nation, economically, politically and in our communities.

Let's get the word out, let's lead by example, which is what our candidate is going to do...

Has John McCain Lost His Mind?

Joseph — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 22:12:05 EDT

Every freedom-loving American should think very seriously about this question. John McCain used to oppose harsh interrogation techniques that put Americans, or anyone for that matter, at risk for torture by their captors in times of war. He decided that supporting George W. Bush's radical anti-constitutional policies was politically expedient, and switched his vote to favor Bush's policy.

Now, the formerly "maverick" Republican moderate has opted to appear in public with one of the most dangerous zealots in North America. A fundamentalist preacher who has called Catholicism "the great whore" and a "cult" and who blames the people of New Orleans for the horrors of Hurricane Katrina, who has said the US deserves terrorist attack if it asks Israel to compromise in any way in its peace negotiations or if it does not implement a race-based immigration policy, essentially barring people from Muslim countries from entering the US.

John McCain went only so far as to say that he would like people to acknowledge that he is not declaring his own support for all of Rev. Hagee's radical views, only accepting Hagee's support for his own views. This is, presumably, an attempt tow in votes, but it has so much fearmongering, violent rhetoric and racism and xenophobia mixed in, that one can't but help to think that what McCain is saying by accepting this endorsement personally and with a smile is that even those who openly hate the American way, our system of open democracy, are not really all that scary to him, and certainly he's not above putting aside his values for a little while to win their supporters' support.

This might seem harmless enough, an election-year awkwardness that doesn't speak of personal character, if it didn't in fact echo much of what has occurred with John McCain's policies over the last few years: fiscally, he has become a radical Bush Republican; on the Bill of Rights, he has shifted worryingly far toward the Alito "unitary executive" stance; he has voted to support Bush's "black site" archipelago, Abu-Ghraib-style abuse and has said he foresees a 100-year war in Iraq.

This man has not stuck to his principles, he has not remained true to his "straight-talkin'" self-appointed caricature, he has not walked the tightrope of values and democratic principle, when it has been expedient for him to kowtow to those who oppose that sort of thing. His rage this week before a New York Times reporter seems directly linked to his inability of late to speak clearly and honestly about his believes, his policy agenda, his supporters, his coalition, the meaning of his victory in the GOP.

He has trounced his fellow Republicans in astonishing fashion, and yet he behaves as if he is the last person with any responsibility for any of this, as if he still had to convince the most radical fringe elements whose support he could NEVER lose to a liberal Democrat, no matter what sins he's committed. There is something rotten in Denmark, and there seems to be a trail of madness running through the court.

We can only hope that the other party takes note, or the candidate himself, and takes decisive action to stop this flood of bigotry and anti-constitutional hubris that is welling up around McCain's ankles. It may soon be too high to get it out of the public discourse, to keep ourselves dry of it, and all Americans will be the worse for it.

Let's find a way to hold McCain and the Republican party responsible for this irresponsible, hateful drivel that is licking at their brains from the far fringes of human reason. He likes this attention? He wants to revel in the adulation of hatemongering zealots, then he should be seen in that light. We are still waiting for McCain to be a man and scold Rep. Steve King for his remarks of this weekend. And, all told, it seems we are looking at a man made of silly putty, who is ready to bend and to take whatever image the GOP wants him to take, to take advantage of whatever sleeze is offered to him on a silver platter, and never to apologize for such shameless distortions.

Bush pro-torture veto is dark day for America

Joseph — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 13:10:57 EST

The President of the United States has just used his veto power to demand the right to use torture as an alternative to our brilliantly conceived and democratic system of justice. There is hardly any need to put words to this event. It is a dark day in our nation's history, and one of the most shameful aberrations of the Bush presidency. We need to come out with a clear and comprehensive alternative to the kidnap, torture and disappearance strategy for terrorism prosecution, and we need to actively highlight all the cases where charges can no longer be brought, due to the egregious abuses of this president and his extraconstitutional police-state tactics. Abused inmates cannot make legally admissible confessions. Torture overrules all investigatory skill or prosecutorial persistence.

The Constitution is more important than these alleged lowlife enemies of our system, and those who lead our system should feel the same way, they should protect our system against this type of medieval erosion of our rights, which is precisely what the terrorists seek. We need to make the case: George W. Bush, when he kidnaps people off foreign streets, locks them up without counsel or charges, in secret locations, tortures them, then fabricates extraconstitutional tribunals to rig trials against them, hands the terrorists precisely what they seek, the permanent erosion of our democratic system and the injection of tribalism and cowardice into our system of government and justice.

Nationwide Town Hall Meeting?

Joseph — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 13:03:36 EST

Can the Obama campaign organize the largest political rally ever? Via the internet, videoconferencing and based in an indoor arena? My guess is this can be done, and we can create a nationwide town hall meeting, complete with clips and excerpts that can be viewed repeatedly online, on YouTube and other such services, a way of reaching out to all segments of American society, and demonstrating the ability of the candidate to take on all issues, all questions, all spontaneously arising problems and intellectual demands, to make contact with the average American, and to bypass the major media in order to help shape a new national community of ideas, mutual support and civic responsibility.

We Need to Turn Florida and Michigan into Obama Turf

Joseph — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 12:57:07 EST

We must stand by the ideal of the will of the voter. Florida 2000 was wrong. Ohio 2004 was wrong. New Hampshire, Washington state (GOP) and New Mexico 2008 have been wrong, and it would be wrong for Hillary Clinton or anyone to gain the nomination by superdelegates overturning the popular vote. The Electoral College is a relic of slavery, and we should move on all fronts closer to the "one-man, one-vote" principle.

As such, Florida and Michigan should have their say, despite the reckless arrogance of their political leadership. And Obama will be a stronger candidate if he is nominated officially after all the states and territories are counted, including these two very populous states. Those who vote for Clinton and later see Obama nominated, may feel the urge to be part of the movement, and come out passionately supporting Obama as their candidate, but this is less likely if a significant effort is not seen to be made to bring about the already fabled do-over.

We need to do everything possible to:

record and discern the absolute will of the voter
implement in this short timespan a truly verifiable voting system, be it by mail or not
ensure that with the do-over, Florida's spectacularly broken system is fixed, ready to hold a reliable count in November
that the standards for true citizen participation grow out of what will be done to get to voter intent in Florida and Michigan
let people there know that the Obama campaign views this as an opportunity to show a good example to the rest of the US
reverse the shame of the current delegate ban
persuade voters that the do-over is as much Obama reaching out to them as their chance to join the movement
reach Hispanic voters of all persuasions in Florida and blue-collar workers of all stripes in Michigan (i.e. see this as a refreshed opportunity to cut into an appropriate Clinton's base)

Will John McCain Repudiate Rep. King's Racist Attack on Obama? Will Hillary?

Joseph — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 12:28:24 EST

Sen. John McCain is now facing a situation much more grave and resonant than Ms. Power's comments about Sen. Clinton. Rep. King of Iowa has suggested that Barack Obama's name means that terrorists would celebrate his winning in November. Sen. McCain should immediately call for King's resignation, in no uncertain terms, and urge his party as a whole to repudiate both King and this sort of naked bigotry.

If McCain does not go as far as to call for King's resignation, and to do so without even the slightest delay, he will be demonstrating that he is not willing or able to stand for the true values of American constitutional democracy, that he is not able to lead without stooping to racist innuendo or capitalizing from foam-at-the-mouth paranoiacs like King.

The same goes for Hillary Clinton: she must call for the harshest possible consequences for King's remarks, starting with his resignation and leading further to a criminal probe into whether or not his statements were actually part of the Republican party's by now fairly well-known strategy to attempt to associate Barack Obama with cultures tied to the origins of his name but which are not in fact related to his beliefs, upbringing, affiliations or policies.

Rep King Should Resign Immediately, His Party Apologize for His Assault on American Democracy

Joseph — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 12:18:49 EST

Rep. Steve King (R-IA) has said that electing Barack Obama would be a victory for al-Qaeda. He says they would be "dancing in the streets", and bases these remarks, apparently, on the senator's name. The fact that he is not at all a Muslim and that he is a great American public servant and patriot, with a forceful plan to strengthen the military and battle terrorism, seemed to have no sway whatsoever over King's rabid racist perspective.

It has been nearly 50 years since the United States enacted sweeping civil rights reforms, and finally relegated to a dark and treacherous past the language and the force of naked institutional racism. The Republican party now sees itself once more yoked with the burden of that primitive way of thinking. It can only, and Sen. John McCain can only, shake off that evil mantle, by demanding that Rep. King resign his position immediately and promise not to seek office again in the Republican party.

One might suggest he should be asked to seek treatment for his apparent disregard for the humanity of others (in today's political climate, a member of Congress who can actually so distort the basic humanity of his fellow elected officials, is privileging such trivial information above the value of actual human character, that his views could be a sign of latent sociopathy). Or would that be an unfair assumption? Maybe he's just a flawed human being who cannot help his own fateful inadequacies.

Whatever the truth of Rep. King's motivations, his suggestion that the American people should not be allowed to elect a great and inspriational leader without feeling that they have handed a victory to terrorists, solely because this worm-brained bigot cannot understand that names that sound the same or have a similar origin do not make the inner nature of a human being the same, is a disgusting and unforgiveable attack on the nature of American democracy and on the rights of the American people.

The racist nature of his comment means that Mr. King no longer has a place in public life in this country; his own district should be in the streets demanding his resignation, and seeking to replace him with someone actually fit to serve and who might be able to hold some rhetorical weight in the serious environment where real decisions are made on Capitol Hill.

Come Out Hard Against Any Semblance of Rigged Elections

Joseph — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 11:58:23 EST

Why are we hearing every day, all day long, that this or that governor is going to "deliver" his state to the candidate of his favor? Was it not a despicable moment in American rhetoric when on election night 2000, candidate George W. Bush informed the press that his brother had promised him he would deliver Florida? Ed Rendell is going to "deliver Pennsylvania"? Why? Has he engineered a Clinton victory? Or is he just planning an illegal use of the party's statewide organizational apparatus from the governor's office?

This really is serious business. We have heard time and again how one governor or another seeks to "deliver" a state. And this smacks of a media-wide and popular surrender of the concept of open democracy, in favor of something like a feudal parceling out of the nation's process. As if any one candidate were entitled to victory in any place, regardless of what the voters seek in their hearts. We must counter this type of rhetoric, counter this type of unfairness, and push for a more transparent process where public officials are distanced from the campaign process in any way other than endorsing a candidate and appearing, in their free time.

Media Spinning Pro-Clinton Web Unsupported by Evidence

Joseph — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 11:52:03 EST

We need to stay on the ball in terms of media attitudes about the campaign. Since the "red phone" ad, the news media have gone fiercely and unabashedly pro-Clinton, almost the way a crowd of spectators begins to root for the player about to lose a tennis match in straight sets, in hopes the match will be prolonged. The news media are making millions with this election campaign, and they are desperate to ensure that the "story" not drop off the radar, they want the hot drama of an impossible to decide, intrigue-intensive, cutthroat primary campaign, and we have to watch how the Clinton campaign engages in a careful dance with media spin in hopes of capitalizing on this perception of what's best for the story of the race.

Hillary Clinton's negative attacks are a sign of total desperation and weakness, a sign of a campaign that is running out of ideas and no longer believes it has what it takes to win on the merits of what the candidate is offering. That is the truth of those attacks. The news media are enraptured at present with the idea that Clinton's "hardline" tactics are a sign of strength, willpower and determination, almost as if by being an egregious manipulator and mudslinger, you somehow show the traits needed to govern or to lead in a time of conflict. This is preposterous, and we need to find the rhetoric necessary to get the campaign back to the issues, to chastize the media without turning them off, and to inject serious tactical doubt into the Clinton campaign, which is, incidentally, according to media reports, on the verge of tearing its management team apart from within.

The attention being given to Clinton does not accurately take into account the nature of this race, the nature of the numbers, or the meaning of the outcome, whichever it may be, of the Democratic race. We are seeing pervasive "handicapping" by the news media and the pundit culture, in which both John McCain and Hillary Clinton are being given inflated praise on a number of issues where they are in fact most highly questionable as candidates. McCain's integrity? A man who (horribly, unforgiveably) suffered torture himself, but who voted to support it in order to win favor with the radical right fringe of his party. Clinton's national security experience? In the Senate only, like Obama. Let's not think that she was facing down dictators because her husband asked her to speak about healthcare and women's rights, which vital as they are, are different issues altogether and have nothing to do with a potentially apocalyptic midnight phone call.

"Love the People": Cornel West

Joseph — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 11:41:44 EST

"You can't lead the people, if you don't love the people. You can't save the people, if you don't serve the people." —Cornel West, philosopher, theologian & historian, Princeton University

How Clinton is Losing America for the Democrats

Joseph — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 11:50:49 EST

This is sad to say, because Hillary Clinton is a great public servant and a serious candidate, but her campaign is doing serious damage to the resurgence of the Democratic party. Where the 2006 Congressional victory, the GOP's astounding scandals, and the sunburst of hope of the Obama campaign have brought a nationwide fervor for reform and new beginning, a passion for the Democratic message, and a vision of a new kind of moral strength in the highest ranks of the American political system, the Clinton campaign's shameless smear tactics, its self-conscious whisper campaign against Obama, its lack of commitment to the historic need to come together and restore the pillars of American democracy, are turning people off and deadening the verve with which the Democratic party has burst back to prominence over the last 20 months.

We all need to take a deep breath and continue to look at these events in terms of the big picture. Who is aiming to do good by history? Who is aiming to well by the standards of conscience? Who is making gains on the problem of destructive political hysteria? It is the Obama campaign, and only the Obama campaign that has inspired a new wave of civic pride across America. And all Democrats, independents and reform-minded Americans need to take very seriously that the Clinton campaign, at this moment and by its increasingly cowardly behavior, is undermining this great moment, undermining the integrity of the process and handing a amoral victory to the forces of Rove-like hacks and mercenaries.

The answer for the Democratic party is to move away from this kind of baseness as soon as possible and as comprehensively as possible. Barack Obama needs to maintain his epic poise and dignity, to stay serious in the face of these kindergartenesque tantrums from his rivals, face the historical moment without fear and stay the inspirational course. Let Obama be Obama and the rest will fall into place. Don't let go of that positive energy, just because there are shameless attacks, whisper campaigns, rumor mills and sleeze on the horizon.

At Bunker Hill, in 1775, American revolutionaries were ordered "Don't fire until you see the whites of their eyes", meaning don't expend your ammunition and your resources before you can actually face down the danger, because the danger will continue to come at you, and you will be left defenseless. Obama should not become Rovian to counter the Clinton campaign's Rovian tactics. He should maintain his revolutionary footing, and hit at his opponents' real vulnerabilities when the blow will be decisive, but without relinquishing his position on the high ground of ideal and principle.

Texas Is Not a Victory for Clinton!

Joseph — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 11:39:10 EST

We have to take a very hard look at the numbers and we have to take a very hard look at the strategies that both campaigns have laid out over the last several months. Hillary Clinton was banking on Texas being her knockout blow, not on the entire global press viewing it as Obama's potential knockout blow. She eked out what looks like a win in the voting, but in the caucuses, where voters actually have to defend their choice and persuade others, she lost ground.

The overall delegate count still favors Obama, and now we're hearing about how Ed Rendell is going to do everything in his power to hand Pennsylvania to Hillary. Let's ask ourselves the following question: why is it that Hillary is constantly trying to get governors to "hand" elections to her? This is the George W. Bush playbook. This is Rovian. This is sinister on its face, and should make her an inviable candidate in a post-Bush Democratic party.

No one in this nation or abroad can afford for our democratic process to be further eroded. No one can afford for our entire system of electoral politics to be turned into a dog and pony show for the political elite: it's not about that. It's about whether or not a given candidate, however qualified or experienced, however intelligent or willing to fight, is actually made of the right stuff to be a great leader and a great public servant at the same time, and whether those traits coincide with the specific challenges of the moment.

We need, in this moment in our history: a new economic vision; a new political standard; a new fundraising transparency; a new voice for our founding ideals; a new Lincoln. We need an honest individual willing to put principle ahead of pride, willing to put the good of the people ahead of personal ambition, willing to work in the trenches of total political reform in order to make good on the promissory note that was our independence and our founding laws.

Texas came around to Obama, not the other way around. Clinton has been steadily losing support there, and the level by which her numbers there were shifting in the negative is sincerely astonishing. It represents a trend across the nation, where people are increasingly aware that Barack Obama is the man for this moment in history, the genius, the believer, the physician, who can heal our wounds and bring us back to our senses as a people, a nation, as a member of the world community.

Jefferson on Restoring Government to its True Principles

Joseph — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 23:27:47 EST

"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt.... And if we feel their power just sufficiently to hoop us together, it will be the happiest situation in which we can exist. If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are the stake." —Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to friend John Taylor

John McCain Has the Problem of Shifting Loyalties, Changing Principles

Joseph — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 23:17:14 EST

Now that John McCain is the recognized, if not official and no longer "presumptive", nominee of his party, it's worth beginning to talk about what that means, for the GOP and for Democrats. He has once again seized on the ideas and the manner of others to try to ingratiate himself into the minds of voters. He wants people to think he's the "red phone" guy, the one you'd want answering the nuclear holocaust hotline at 3am. But, he has the very grave problem of Iraq and his incomprehensible support for Bush's "extreme interrogation" methods.

He has the problem of making exceedingly bad judgments in very serious times, and then blaming non-existent ghosts of reasons (raised not even by his own mind but by the propaganda of his party leadership) for his choices. The two cases specifically (the Iraq war and abusive interrogations) demonstrate a willingness to take grave actions not endorsed by American law, in order to achieve personal political gain and in the process sacrifice the principles, the stability and the wellbeing of America's cherished democracy.

We need to be positive about the potential for great, historical change, and move into a future where the Obama vision can help to reshape and recover the American dream, the vision of a land of justice and liberty, equality and the rule of law, but we also need to ensure that unfair characterizations (of self or of opponent) are not permitted to the other candidates. John McCain is no more obvious the red phone guy than any other presidential candidate. His actual performance should be judged, not his military experience or his senatorial longevity.

Keep Up the Fight, Get the Truth Out

Joseph — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 23:09:24 EST

Hillary Clinton's campaign is working at all levels to undermine the high level of debate and energy that has spread across the country and has driven Barack Obama to the lead in the race for the presidency. Her methods have been to stray from substance and to make vague innuendos and hollow rhetorical attacks that distract from the reality. The "red phone" ad is one of the most egregious examples of anti-Democratic agit-prop that we have seen in recent years, and she has done severe harm to the party by framing the issue in that way.

Instead of repenting for her sinister commitment to the Iraq war policy of George W. Bush, which so many believe was a mind-bogglingly selfish calculation that she would rather run as pro-war against a pro-war Republican (all of them were likely to be so), she has opted to renounce real principle and undermine one of her party's great and inspirational leaders.

Was her support for the most disastrous foreign policy decision in history a sign of sound judgment? Was her desire to use bombs and bloodshed as a bulwark against GOP criticism a sign of her commitment to peace, justice and the rule of law? What would she have done when the red phone rang warning of missiles in Cuba in 1962, had she been president? Sometimes handling national security concerns with poise and wisdom means not racing to war when there are better, more effective options, and the war will only bring more war.

Let's keep the pressure on and ensure that Obama's momentum is not withered by the shameless kowtowing of the same fair-weather press that killed Howard Dean's 2004 grassroots movement campaign. We are trying to reclaim and rebuild American democracy. We need to be committed to that principle, and not shy from the challenge it poses.

The Clinton campaign should be scolded in the severest terms by Democrats across the nation for its lowering the standards of debate and seeking to win by setting out landmines for her in-party rivals. I honestly feel a spreading revulsion in the Democratic party to the sort of campaign that has emerged against Barack Obama, stooping to what appear to be race-motivated manipulations, attempts to transfer media attention from issues and specifics to superficial puns and catch-phrases, naked attacks, and even (in alleged cases) possible polling manipulations.

The Clinton campaign appears to be trying to run its own half-hearted version of the Obama playbook, while it also runs its own "kinder, gentler" version of the Karl Rove playbook. Instead of standing up for her party's values and helping to spread the vision of a fairer, more just and free America, she has busied herself with the business of smearing and destroying the energy of the moment and the future of her party. This itself raises very serious questions about the quality of leadership we can expect from her, and I fear that voters of all sorts will perceive this with great clarity if such tactics are able to prevail.

We must keep the faith, keep the energy, and beat her by being better than all that.

Obama Wins Democrats Abroad Primary with 65% to Clinton's 32%

Joseph — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 18:05:20 EST

The Democrats Abroad primary vote was held at voting centers in 33 countries, with those living in countries with no voting center to vote by mail, fax or online.

Sen. Barack Obama reportedly won 65% of the votes tallied, while Sen. Clinton reportedly won 32%, with all other Democratic candidates receiving less than 1% of the vote.

The win makes it 11 consecutive victories for Barack Obama. Hillary Clinton is meanwhile struggling against Obama's groundswell of momentum going into the votes in Ohio and Texas.

With the largest number of voting centers in the history of the contest, it was expected turnout would be higher than usual.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/02/21/obama-wins-democrats-abroad-contest/

McCain Denies Lobbyist-Affair Allegations, Dems Should Take High Road for Now

Joseph — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 17:57:04 EST

The New York Times has published an exposé alleging that Sen. John McCain carried on an illicit romance with a woman working as a lobbyist, whose clients had business related to matters pending before the Senate Commerce Committee, which he chaired.

There appears to be corroborating testimony from people who were part of McCain's 2000 presidential campaign, but there is not as yet hard proof or an admission. Sen. McCain says the story is untrue and he is disappointed that the Times ran such a piece.

This could spell disaster for the GOP, with its straight-talking candidate caught in a web of obfuscation and deception. Or, it could prove a false allegation. Either way, let the relevant structures fall of their own weight; there is no need for Democrats to sully themselves wrestling in this proverbial mud.

Keep to the high road and keep the message positive, hopeful, resonant, a message that transcends ideology and reaches out to people of values, common sense and an ethical view of the world, people committed to American ideals of self-government. The McCain blow-up is a distraction; let it be whatever it is without reveling in or taking advantage of this type of political sport shooting.

Rush Limbaugh Worries GOP Will Lose "50-State Landslide"

Joseph — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 17:46:14 EST

A bizarre tussle has erupted between pseudo-commentator and radio host Rush Limbaugh, a self-proclaimed "conservative" and former Republican Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger. Limbaugh has been attacking John McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee, for not being conservative enough, while Eagleburger has criticized Limbaugh for irresponsible attacks against the GOP frontrunner.

Eagleburger is quoted as saying: "I don't know who elected Rush Limbaugh or Hannity as the heads of this conservative movement. They throw that word around as if it was theirs and theirs alone, " adding "I thought I was a conservative, but that doesn't mean that I have to buy off on everything thesepoobahs thinks is what's necessary to be a conservative"...

But the real grist of the story is the profound disenchantment the Republican party seems to be feeling as it struggles to reorganize a damaged and discredited leadership: in his tirade against Sec. Eagleburger, Limbaugh actually said the words "We're trying to avoid a fifty state landslide". He also said the GOP is "trying to win", a claim which would seem obvious except for the division in the party and the fear of losing all 50 states!

There is profound disarray in the base of the Republican organization; there is ideological discord among its leaders, and as such a movement within the party against the man who is getting the majority of the votes. But McCain's enormous advantage in delegates is due in part to the "winner-take-all" format, another fact which puts the question of party divisions back in the spotlight.

Keep this in mind, but let's not count chickens before they hatch...

McCain, the Hispanic Candidate? Not So Fast...

Joseph — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 12:02:35 EST

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/19/AR2008021902700.html?nav=rss_politics

It may be that John McCain is the one Republican who is not reviled by the broader Hispanic population as an anti-immigrant zealot. It may be that for this reason, it will be harder to challenge the GOP in the Rocky Mountain states. But that does not mean that Hispanics and immigrants will flock to the party of militarized, drone-patrolled walls, Fortress America and the "enemy combatant" doctrine of due process.

We need to be very clear on this point: the basic agenda of the Democratic party is more attractive to families of immigrants than a Republican who is less sinister in terms of their interest than his cohorts. We should not stray from faith in that truth. Obama does not need to make big changes to his record or to his policy outlook in order to woo Hispanic voters; he needs to get his message across to them, let them see that his message includes them and does better for their communities and their children's prospects than any other plan out there.

We need to see clearly that a commitment to abiding by the true values of the Constitution and the system it lays out, equality, fairness, opportunity and self-government, is what most immigrants coming to the US admire most about the potential they feel exists here. Higher wages are a part of that wealth of civic heritage and political optimism, and are undermined when we have corrupt officials selling the system off for personal gain.

Obama's message speaks to the core interests of any rational human being, and to anyone passionate about real democracy, because it comprehends implicitly that we cannot be a free people without a system of laws that protects our freedoms, and we cannot enjoy that system of laws if we have officials who disregard it.

We need to be sensitive to the needs and the passions of a nationwide movement that favors humanity in immigration policy, and we need to be sensitive to the fact that language culture is not something American values demand anyone give up or throw away. All the great cultures whose "huddled masses" have come to our shores have maintained some or most of the language and tradition they brought with them, and American society is richer for it, the envy of the world in its diversity and dynamism.

But we should never try to "out-McCain" McCain if he tries to take up the mantle of the pro-immigrant Republican or the pro-Hispanic immigrants' rights champion. What we need is a more humane system and someone smart enough and imaginative enough to ensure that we have the security we need, without targeting people or undermining our liberties.

Obama is the "beacon of freedom" candidate; people around the world look to his candidacy with hope and admiration and his rise has already gone a long way to moderating radical criticisms of the nature of the American electorate and our culture. Stay on message: "we are the change that we seek".

Wisconsin, Hawaii Bring Us Closer to the Big Wave

Joseph — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 11:48:22 EST

Barack Obama's presidential campaign is already changing the course of American history. It is setting records for primary turnout and inspiring a new wave of young and independent voters to participate passionately in the process. It is drawing people to a campaign of humanitarian and democratic values, and to the idea that what we wish were the best thing about us might actually be possible, if we commit to it.

Wisconsin and Hawaii have made it 10 straight for the Obama movement, and the campaign's fundraising from small donors is a veritable tidal wave of popular support that heralds a new era in which the public not only hopes for, but demands that the government be a government of the people, by the people and for the people. This is a moment when we have a real chance to fulfill the well-written but not always lived-out promises of our founding documents, to reclaim our liberty and to do inspired work for the betterment of a great democracy.

The big wave will be the tipping point at which it becomes ever more evident that this is no longer a contest between Barack Obama and history or between Democrats and Republicans, but rather that it is a contest between people vying for the ability to do what Obama has been urging us all to do, to look for, hope for and work for change that actually reinvigorates a land of opportunity and brings back our faith in the most open, most resilient system of government the world has seen.

Texas and Ohio could be that moment, when it becomes clear that McCain can't campaign against Obama, but will have to compete with him, within the context of his historic and resonant message, for the right to be the agent of change and inspiration, to be the one who helps give the People back their right to govern themselves.

Counter Clinton Campaign's Desperate "Plagiarism" Attack with the Facts...

Joseph — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 15:35:26 EST

A blog excerpt from the Washington Post reports that the Clinton campaign is attacking Obama for "plagiarising" parts of a speech by Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick, from 2006, in which he took on the criticism that his eloquence represented nothing more than "just words". Patrick quoted the Declaration of Independence, FDR, JFK, and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., arguably the four most outstanding phrases in American political rhetoric, especially from a Democrat's point of view.

Barack Obama cited three of these same phrases, and followed each with the phrase "just words". Is this plagiarism? Or is the Clinton campaign really that desperate? This is comparable to doing opposition research into a kindergarten essay. It is childish, banal, and smacks of a near total lack of sincerity before the voters. Considering that the Clinton campaign is not just campaigning against Barack Obama, but is in theory campaigning to represent the Democratic party, this level of campaign pettiness could well damage the party in the general election.

What is especially interesting about the attack is that Hillary Clinton actually did take words directly from Barack Obama as Iowa slipped from her grasp. She used his phrase, saying "We are fired up and we are ready to go because we know America is ready for change and the process starts right here in Iowa".

For the record, Deval Patrick is a friend of Barack Obama, and David Axelrod helped run Patrick's 2006 campaign for Massachusetts governor. The New York Times has reported that "Both [Patrick and Obama] had anticipated that Mr. Obama’s rhetorical strength would provide a point of criticism. Mr. Patrick said he told Mr. Obama that he should respond to the criticism, and he shared language from his campaign with Mr. Obama’s speechwriters", adding that "Mr. Patrick said he did not believe Mr. Obama should give him credit."

McCain Defies Decency, Principles, Logic, Own Past, Votes for Abusive Interrogations

Joseph — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 13:37:52 EST

Sen. John McCain has reportedly turned against one of the most principled areas of his own political career: his committed opposition to torture, unfair detention practices and violations of the US Constitutional system. He has voted with his party and the White House to grant the CIA the right to continue its use of interrogation techniques banned under international law, American law, and the Uniform Code of Mililtary Justice. The question of why is startling:

Again, as so many times in recent days, this highly respected and committed public servant, a man who has served his country nobly and it would appear, selflessly, for decades, has turned against his principles in order to give the appearance of being more like George W. Bush. The question is whether this is at all necessary, given that he appears to be unbeatable, in statistical probability, in the GOP primaries. And it raises the very serious question as to why he would at such a juncture, just when his political fortunes seem higher than ever, give up his principles for what appears to be an attempt to pander to a voting block he has not needed to get where he is.

It is unfortunate that neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton voted to achieve a ban against harsh interrogations, because this makes it more difficult to demonstrate how McCain's vote demonstrates a lack of seriousness about principle and public service and a strange tendency to give up principle when it seems politically necessary (although skilled observers would probably say it was not). But this vote is a sign of major political weakness for McCain and for his party generally. The contradictions are stunning, and as with any good candidate, we need to keep the pressure on at all times.

McCain's Waffling, Flip-Flopping, Lying and Fabrication Begins to Border on Epic

Joseph — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 13:02:25 EST

Sen. John McCain, strangely desperate and inauthentic for a man whose message appears to be working, has turned to lies and fabrication about his own record, complete with words stolen from his rivals, in an effort to manipulate voter sentiment, out of fear of what opponent, we know not yet. It might be that he is intimidated by Barack Obama's shocking prowess for gathering huge crowds and doubling voter turnout. Or that he is intimidated byt he Clinton machine. Or, it might be that he is still afraid of the kind of Bush-Rove politics that wiped him away in 2000, so unfairly. Now, he's turning to them to get his shot.

The Washington Post has reported that McCain's recent claims to have opposed Donald Rumsfeld's handling of the war in Iraq are an attempt to cheat the public consciousness. He claims to have called for Rumsfeld's resignation, but according to the Post, he never did. He expressed a loss of confidence, but he did not demand Rumsfeld resign. What's even stranger is that he has been so unbelievably hawkish about the war, defending every aspect of its logic, its planning, what he perceives as its historical imperative (which he has also altered as the White House as, conveniently, as the facts demanded it).

So, John McCain is proving to be a spin-meister and not a straight-talker, a war-monger and not a patriotic defender of the wellbeing of military personnel (who might rather not die unnecessarily), and another sheep in the would-be (and ever smaller) Bushy flock. But he is running as a "maverick". He should not be allowed to mislead conservatives into thinking he's always been one of theirs, any more than any Dem has been, and he should not be allowed to mislead war opponents into thinking that his support for Bush's sordid folly was somehow qualified and a sort of willful opposition.

The American people deserve to see what their candidates really stand for, and we need to start keeping notes now, on what he says, when he says it, what he really did in the past, and why the timing of his lies is so suspicious. We also need to take into account that: between the untimely Romney withdrawal, McCain's bizarre abandoning of some of his own core ideas, and his call for other Republicans to leave the race to let him win, before the rest of the states vote (!?!), there is an air of weakness and desperation on the GOP side of this race, and that can be dangerous for their party, or ours, or the electoral process itself.

McCain Steals Obama's Rhetoric, Lies About Obama's Policy Proposals

Joseph — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 06:18:14 EST

Sen. John McCain has shown himself in the last few days, since becoming the "presumptive" nominee of his party, as a man willing to alter the facts, slander opponents and steal the ideas of others to cover his own lack of serious material. Now, as Obama has swept 8 consecutive primary votes and taken the lead in primaries won, popular vote, delegate totals, as well as fundraising, McCain has lowered his standards even further and used the same "all talk, no substance" "fairy tale"-type language that the Clintons were slammed for using in SC.

McCain's attempt to expropriate the language of hope in order to back a campaign that has dissembled on issues ranging from war and peace to economic policy, education and immigration, using his own story to attempt to turn the message of hope and possibility into a message of darkness and bloodshed (100, 1,000, 10,000 years in Iraq???, etc.), is a demonstration of the intellectual bankruptcy of his campaign, whatever the sound and tested policy initiatives the senator from Arizona has backed in the past.

He has lied so many times in the last week, about his opponents, about his record, about his fondness for the radical policies of the current administration, or about his level of opposition to those policies, about whether Iraq is a just war, about why it was fought, about his role in embracing the lies that were told to send so many young patriotic Americans to their deaths, to topple a dictator reputed to be a former CIA asset, that the truest thing we can say about his campaign is that "straight talk" has gone out the window, and the bloody mischief of the DC status quo in politics is his most trusted adviser.

It's incredible to see what the lust for victory will do to a candidate who has for so long stood on principle and defied the rogue elements that took the leadership in his party. But John McCain has chosen to ally himself with the radical fundamentalist right, to seek counsel from Karl Rove, to push for grandiose expansions of currently unconstitutional executive powers; in short, he has begun to demonstrate that at the first hint of attaining to the presidency, he is capable of becoming overtly Machiavellian, shamelessly Orwellian, and not so sure he likes the idea of counting every citizen's vote (ref.: Washington state).

The Obama campaign must steel its will for a candidate that has chosen to ease his own sense of political desperation (unfair electoral abuse in 2000 [SC], coopted time and again by the Bushevik regime, out of touch with the current electorate, and slightly bewildered "maverick" frontrunner in a party that cannot drum up more than a few hundred people at any of his rallies), by attacking the candidate that outshines him on almost every point of electoral interest, and rallies tens of thousands per day!

it must be ready for a reptilian, blood and guts, free-for-all where the audacity of hoping for a better America, and trusting in the wisdom and commitment of the American electorate (as McCain dubiously remarks) will be tested to the utmost, where the challenge will be, as always, to stay clean, stay above the fray, to not be cruel or petty, all while demonstrating without remorse how lost and savage the Republican machine has become in 2008.

Poetry is not a plan for government, but poetry is how we get the message into people's hearts. Expansive oratory, replete with lyrical phrasing and hardened by incisive, concrete policy proposals, summarized in digestible and transferrable prologue, is what must be kept up at all costs. Let the news media show the booming cheers and the rousing metaphorical vision, day after day, and let that be the sign that McCain's call to seriousness against what he perceives as a "superficial" movement, is in fact sign of his own superficial approach to the needs and inspirations of the American electorate.

The voters will do the rest. "We are the change that we seek!"

Mass Foreclosures Spell Disaster for US Economy

Joseph — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 04:50:57 EST

Why are we not proposing to do more to prevent the raft of foreclosures that could come as "adjustable interest rate" loans are adjusted to price people out of their homes? Unfair financial practices like that should not be rewarded.

We have to think very seriously about why this crisis has come about. Self-interest can drive prosperity and progress, raise standards of living and strengthen civic institutions, but greed does not. This is a question about unabashed and predatory greed.

We need: 1. a nationwide freeze on all foreclosures where any loan was set with adjustable rates that put homeowners at severe disadvantage given their income; 2. freeze on all adjustable rate increases in interest owed; 3. comprehensive federal investigation of deliberately abusive practices; 4. a redirection of all of the Bush tax cuts (later to be phased out) toward swift resolution of this crisis; 5. sweeping new regulations that protect homeowners but do not prevent the expansion of available capital.

Short of this, we are facing severe prolonged economic hardship based on the rapid disappearance of equity and disposable income among consumers and the continued shrinkage of capital available for loan and credit across the economy, at all levels.

The plan presented should be bold, serious, viable and should be pushed for immediately, forcing the White House to act, and the presidential campaign (among all candidates) to commit to reform that prevents another bubble fueled by abuse and whose collapse hurts the weakest the most.

Romney Move May Weaken McCain Against Dems; Obama Camp Stay on Course

Joseph — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 12:14:07 EST

Mitt Romney's withdrawal from the GOP race has left an air of desperation and cynicism on the conservative side of the American dialogue. Why? Because Romney bowed out precisely at the moment when it looked like conservatives were least relevant. He did so openly admitting his conviction that pursuing his campaign would make it easier for the Democrats to win.

What does this mean, exactly? Well, principally, it means that the hardline, blind-faith base that Bush used so effectively, to sideline issues and drive a wedge between the People and their government, is out of style. People are disenchanted, and the rhetoric that echoes that time of arrogant leadership rings hollow even to many who would passionately support a hardline conservative candidate.

The Republican party has since the 2006 mid-term elections, and the ouster of several top members of Congress, been firmly on a defensive footing, as if it were not possible to both gather a coherent Republican platform and win the 2008 elections. This fundamental weakness is shown in Romney's bizarre departure from the race at this moment, and the party's suddenly betting on McCain is a two-fold show of insecurity:

1. It is a rebuke of the last 8 years of Bush government, as if the wrong choice had been made in 2000; 2. It is an admission that there is no new direction, they have had to turn to a choice they formerly rejected, who has gained credibility in the party by becoming one of the most outspoken supporters of his former rival.

This is not the moment to start getting worried, and it's not the time to think about how to both face down the Clinton campaign and John McCain as the presumptive Republican nominee; this is the time to do both, with passion and commitment, and to do both of those tough jobs with inspiration, unafraid and able.

It is not an advantage for the GOP to start trying to define itself as the party of John McCain when the candidate doesn't know who he's running against, and with the unprecedented levels of inspiration and turnout among Democratic voters (coupled with his Iraq policy, skepticism about economic stewardship and the doubts of conservatives), it's not going to be easy for John McCain to get anything like an air of inevitability.

National polls show both Hillary and Barack have an edge over McCain in the general election, and McCain has struggled to get any word out about his candidacy, other than that he's a maverick (there's some question about that) and that he's pro-war (not very maverick). Picking apart his long and complicated record (as the GOP consistently does with any Democratic senators) will make it easy to demonstrate where the contradictions are in his new posturing on war, money and social values.

Barack Obama's campaign is unique in recent elections precisely because it does best when it is what it is, from the bottom to the top, an exercise in inspired authenticity and citizen commitment. Neither Hillary Clinton nor John McCain has anything like that level of mobilization power. So let's mobilize, and keep the campaign moving forward.

Video Brings Barack's Voice to the People

Joseph — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 06:21:05 EST

This video mixes footage of Barack's rousing oratory with supporters speaking his words...

It has been put together by an inspired supporter of Barack Obama's candidacy, in part as an effort to get word out in California and inspire turnout for the Tuesday primary. We would like to expand the video, add more voices to the Obama message, and reach out to a diverse, nationwide audience, if possible. Start by responding to this post, and we will put you in touch with the video's director to work on expanding the content. Let's make sure people know that these words are the message of the times, let's get the Obama message into the hearts and minds of voters across the country!

Economy-Education-War

Joseph — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 06:58:12 EST

"It's the economy, stupid" was a great mantra, that helped steel the logic of the Clinton organizing team and bring 8 strong years of Democratic government into the White House. I propose that if we can constantly make a link between economics, education and the exorbitant waste of war dollars (as contrasted with actual security policy with any sense about it), we can do the same.

The slogan should not be "economy-education-war", at least it doesn't have the right ring to my ears, but it's a good place to start. The mantle of "change" has now been taken up by virtually all the candidates remaining in both parties. Sen. Obama can deliver it, and can be a transformative leader. The problem now is proving that, time and again, without sounding like there's only one word to the political philosophy.

I think that ensuring we have a strong delivery on economic issues (which includes credit, healthcare, homeownership), education (which gives us the growth opportunity on which real American values are based) and the category of political activity that is "decisions about war and peace", then we can be clearly the choice of all Americans, clearly the candidacy that breaks the mold and has sleeves rolled up, ready on day one, the beacon of hope...

We need inspired and wise speeches, we need a visionary demeanor, we need to get the message back to the core values that have made the Obama campaign such an inspirational movement across the country. When we turn the dialogue to ideas, inspiration and transformative collaboration, we win the day.

Be the Candidate Who Leads by Working Hard...

Joseph — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 06:48:54 EST

The contest for South Carolina has become far too personalized, and John Edwards is 100% right when he says "what does any of this have to do with the price of tea in China?" We need to get back onto the road to unity, change, and take back the reins of what will be, by zeitgeist and by necessity, a truly transformative moment in the history of the US and the world.

We need to keep our eyes on the prize, so to speak, and not look away from the task ahead, be the "happy warriors" that lifelong Democrats have long praised people like Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton for being, and try to stay —as difficult as it is— above the fray, while not shying away from the job of putting the record straight.

It's a tough task, but there is no better way... we need to understand in our bones that the future of this country is at stake in this election and that we cannot allow the Democratic party to be split or discouraged by the kind of infantile smears that have been dominating coverage recently. It's been truly unfair to the Obama campaign what's been said recently, and it smacks of dirty politics, but if we're better than that, then we have to be what it is we aspire to be.

Let's take a page from Bill Clinton during the impeachment era: he went on TV every day and reminded the American people directly, over the heads of the journalists present, "I'm busy getting about the work of the country", and people were encouraged to see a leader who led by working. That's precisely what's so great about Obama's candidacy, and we need to get that image back into the media spotlight.

Inevitability, Viability, Front-runner Status, the Honest Road

Joseph — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 10:11:01 EST

Is Barack Obama the guaranteed candidate? Just because a few pundits suddenly found mystical faith this weekend? Did he destroy Hillary's chances by winning Iowa outright? Was New Hampshire a loss? Were the polls pre-NH actually skewed or wrong? Were there problems with the Diebold voting machines used to scan ballots in NH?

These are the key questions we need to ask as we approach the coming states. There is no guarantee for any candidate, at any time. The pundits who dismissed Hillary after one close 3rd-place finish should not have been taken at their word this weekend, nor should they be now, now that they've gone back on that analysis and claim Obama can't win, just because he missed a 2nd win by 2%!!! Two. Iowa did not destroy Hillary and New Hampshire barely slows Obama in any way whatsoever (they came away with the same number of delegates!!!).

There are serious questions about whether or not New Hampshire's primary vote was carried out in a verifiable way, or whether the Diebold machines used were in fact secure. The head of the company administering and maintaining them has resorted to hysterical profanity toward the Democratic election monitor in Iowa, after she suggested that some of the Republican votes there were counted in an unreliable way, using the same machines.

But that should not distract the Obama campaign from the business at hand: keep the pressure on, keep the message of hope in people's mind, demonstrate aggressively and often where the other candidates, including the Republicans, fall short in that respect. The cynicism and small-mindedness (bigotry, xenophobia, paranoia, religious hatred, lies about fiscal policy, lies about Iraq, testosterone-junky comments on Iran or Pakistan) of the Republican campaign so far makes it an entirely unserious process, and THAT is what we need to expose, simply be being in every way, at every moment, the sensible and inspired alternative, working with facts and in service to the public good.

The honest road to the nomination is to be who we are: challenge the status quo, challenge the media to see things they often ignore, keep promoting the message of change and hopes in ways that 99.9% of politicians do not have the imagination or the commitment to undertand or to bring about... that's how we lead, that's how we rescue this country from "falling backward", that's how we make change happen, in a credible, sustainable way that embraces the "fierce urgency of now".

GOP prepares sinister "Swiftboat" campaign against Barack: let's stop it early, constantly, and everywhere, with the resounding and proud truth

Joseph — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 09:58:35 EST

Joe Conason has written a vitally important article on the strategic distortions and wholesale manipulation that extremist conservatives will engage in order to undermine Sen. Obama's campaign. It is of the utmost importance that the response to any and all smears be swift, devastating, and of such a blanket nature that the stories evaporate sooner than they can get traction. Conason writes:

"They will try to Swift-boat me,” said Barack Obama in the days before the New Hampshire primary, looking forward to the Democratic nomination that he still believes will be his, with a prediction both accurate and chilling.
Whether he can go on to claim the nomination is yet to be determined. Much more predictable is the nature of the campaign that would be waged against him—and the fickleness of the national press corps if and when that ugly process eventually reaches its nadir.
The effective template for attacking a Democratic nominee was developed by former Republican political boss Karl Rove during decades of trench warfare in Texas and across the country. While Rove may only whisper advice from the sidelines next fall, his approach can be easily copied by lesser talents: Seize upon the Democrat’s most attractive quality and sow doubts to undermine that appeal. With candidates such as John Kerry and Max Cleland, that meant tearing down their records as war heroes and raising questions about their patriotism
With Obama, the obvious target is his inspirational life story. The task of the opposition operatives will be to twist that saga, to unearth facts or factoids that raise concerns about the candidate’s background, and to make his cosmopolitan upbringing appear alien and even sinister—and, of course, to play the race card against him, either subtly or blatantly. These themes will begin to appear in the right-wing press, which is of course where the original Swift-boat smears showed up four years ago.
Indeed, that process has begun, and is accelerating along with Obama’s drive toward the nomination. Conservatives will briefly applaud him for defeating Hillary Clinton, the immediate object of their hatred, and then turn on him as the next target. Denigrating material about the front-runner—whose popularity and skill they clearly fear—will be ready for deployment very shortly, but will not be aired until his nomination is a certainty. Keep reading...

Barack Obama is the candidate America needs, and now voters and media are increasingly aware of that. Republicans are starting to feel the sting of that truth as well, and they're terrified of spending 8 long years in the kind of deep freeze where Bush's Republican regime left the Democrats, and the American people, for the first 6 years of this century.

We need to ensure that Barack's high road rhetoric, his elevated devotion to the public good, his sincere commitment to the best ideas for the brightest possible future for a free and strong America, his reverence for the founding ideals of the Constitution and principled approach to policy-making, become and remain a powerful composite and THE ONLY story.

Well Done in Iowa! Let's Go Nationwide!

Joseph — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 01:47:13 EST

Congratulations to the entire Obama team, and for all the good work done at all levels, to get the message right, to let Barack shine, and to get the vote out across Iowa. I propose that going national hinges on harnessing that energy, that inspiration, the emotion and the hope of the people, and bridging the gap between the ideal and the necessary, between the hopeful and the downtrodden, between the tolerant and the isolated.

"We are one nation! One people! And our time for change is now!" This is the perfect mood, and the right register for capturing the zeitgeist. Rich or poor, black or white, liberal or conservative, people are hungry for change, for renewal, for the opportunity to be part of a nation that deserves to be proud of the mission and of the character of its system, its government, its aspirations.

Now is the time... New Hampshire is looking for precisely the mix of inspiration, gravitas, leadership and honesty that Sen. Obama exudes. We must soldier on, without becoming arrogant or taking anything for granted. Barack deserves this win, and this is his moment in history, for reasons incalculable, but politics doesn't favor what's deserved; only with hard work and dedication, humility and care, will we realize this dream.

Justice Dept. in Flagrant Attempt to Obstruct Justice, Aid Executive in Hiding Destroyed Evidence

Joseph — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 08:27:55 EST

The New York Times is reporting:

The Justice Department asked the House Intelligence Committee on Friday to postpone its investigation into the destruction of videotapes by the Central Intelligence Agency in 2005, saying the Congressional inquiry presented “significant risks” to its own preliminary investigation into the matter.
The department is taking an even harder line with other Congressional committees looking into the matter, and is refusing to provide information about any role it might have played in the destruction of the videotapes. The recordings covered hundreds of hours of interrogations of two operatives of Al Qaeda.
The Justice Department and the C.I.A.’s inspector general have begun a preliminary inquiry into the destruction of the tapes, and Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey said the department would not comply with Congressional requests for information now because of “our interest in avoiding any perception that our law enforcement decisions are subject to political influence.”

The request is a shocking attack on Constitutional checks and balances and demonstrates the wholesale incapacity of the new attorney general to reform the politically corrupted department or to hold those in power accountable for outrages against the rule of law.

We need to be very clear about this point: the rule of law is democracy, and it means that the people have, at any time, the right to hold their elected officials accountable for crimes committed in the name of power. If we tolerate a system where the head of a department refuses to reveal information about whether his department was complicit in a crime against the constitutional system, then that system is eroded and we are less free.

The only responsible course of action at the present moment is:

1) demand that the AG recuse himself from all investigations into this matter, as he has just shown himself willing to obstruct a Constitutionally-sanctioned oversight process and to aid the accused in potentially escaping responsibility for crimes against the Constitution, international law, and the judicial system;

2) appoint a special counsel with full subpoena authority and urge that all evidence gathered through sworn Congressional testimony be included as basis for further warrants and subpoenas issued to those who may have participated in the tapes' destruction, including individual agents, directors, White House officials and any or all members of Justice who saw reference to this material pass their desk;

3) immediately begin to examine intra-executive communications to see what sort of contact may have motivated this request by the Justice Dept. that a major criminal probe by a House committee be abandoned, while it gathers resources for its own ends, not clearly stated, and refuses to cooperate with Congressional probes;

4) hold major policy speech reminding all members of government and the American people that the nation's freedom depends first and foremost on the rule of law and that no official is above the law, not CIA agents, not the president and that the attorney general does not have the right to order Congress not to seek evidence in its oversight capacity...

5) schedule a deadline, after which Congress will publish the full contents of its investigations, naming those suspected of wrongdoing and pressing for more vigorous prosecution of crimes by federal officials;

6) propose, debate and push to passage a new law specifying no activity of any kind which is found to have been conducted beyond the scope of the law can be concealed on the grounds of 'national security', 'executive privilege' or the pernicious totalitarian concept founded on the arbitrary exercise of power by the British monarchy referred to as 'state secrets'...

7) seek passage of a federal law establishing that the extremist concept of a 'unitary executive' is fundamentally opposed to the US Constitution and that attempts to consolidate executive power and diminish checks and balances will be treated as actions against the integrity of the Constitutional system; part of this will be to force Pres. Bush to take a stand by signing into law this rejection of the unitary executive concept, which has so often been used to argue for wildly expanded executive powers under his administration, and ensure that with passage of this law, the full exposition of all attempts to dismantle Constitutional checks and balances will be made in the white hot light of the public gaze.

We are facing a wave of entrenched, deeply rooted, well-organized and well-funded campaigns, on various fronts, to establlish the near total impunity of the executive branch of government. The ideals of democracy require that we meet this assault with democratic measures: new law, open debate on the validity of totalitarian measures within a democratic system, and prosecution of ALL crimes committed by federal agents.

We have fallen outside of the rationale of our legal system when no criminal probe is initiated against federal officials until Congress first makes a feeble request that the Dept. of Justice (which is not judge or jury) investigate "whether a crime has been committed". That is a ridiculous stand-in for real due process, and an excuse to aid those who abuse their office in escaping punishment.

Bush Admin. Imperils Climate Future at Bali

Joseph — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 06:30:49 EST

The Guardian newspaper is reporting:

The US was accused last night of trying to derail a global agreement on climate change by proposing that it becomes a voluntary agreement where countries set their own targets and timetables for reduction of greenhouse gases, rather than a legally binding one. [...]
The proposed text, tabled late last night and leaked at about midnight local time, would effectively allow any country to opt out of the next round of the Kyoto agreement. Observers said last night it could take climate change negotiations back more than a decade. [...]
"This is an extraordinary attempt by the Bush administration to kill off the fight against climate change," said John Sauven, director of Greenpeace UK. "If they get this text through, then it will give a free pass to any nation that wants to keep polluting."

This attack on the health and wellbeing of future generations is flagrant and, frankly, incomprehensible at this moment in history. In November 150 global corporations called for mandatory emissions caps, knowing that the costs of climate change are already mounting and that everyone will pay for the lag of any element within the global economy that fails to meet the moment.

What happened in New Orleans in 2005 could happen in hundreds of cities around the world simultaneously if warming is not slowed and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet breaks apart, causing sea levels to rise more than 6 meters. The US economy can and must begin now, at all levels, to transition to sustainable resources with real elasticity built into the system, in order to be a world leader in coming decades, as these as yet unseen events take their toll on the global economy and on international political stability.

We need all responsible adults in the United States, especially political leaders, strong senators and presidential candidates, to put maximum immediate pressure on Pres. Bush to reverse course, withdraw this outrageous proposal, and enter comprehensive negotiations for a global emissions treaty, with legal penalties and economic sanctions for significant violations.

The time to run our country and our economy with this sort of hamfisted and pathological lack of imagination, is over. We are the most dynamic and resource- and idea-rich nation in the world; it's time we started acting like it. Stalling all budgetary activity, legislative debate and any activity other than oversight of the executive branch, would be a good first step for Congress to express its outrage at the current Executive's once more all too apparent disregard for human life and wellbeing.

Pentagon Needs Green Technologies, Use Their Money to Incentivize Them

Joseph — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 02:58:08 EST

The Pentagon has taken a leading role in exploring new technologies for fueling old-style hunks of metal and innovative deployment and weapons systems. It is doing this because traditional combustible fuels pose a number of economic problems which amount, over time, to major security risks, if our military is dependent on them: petroleum is a case in point.

The White House doesn't like the idea of raising taxes on Big Oil, apparently because they think the immense, parasitic record profits being taken by the oil companies as a result of pricing volatility in oil markets, stemming from the spreading cancer of international Islamist terrorism and the disastrous Iraq war, should go to the oil companies and to them alone.

So, let's help the military go green by making its dollars go a little further; use part of the Pentagon's research and deployment budgets to incentivize the implementation of green technologies across the US economy. This will speed the adoption of major new technologies, and the rate at which the Pentagon can shift away from dependence on oil from places like Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Venezuela.

We can also offset the taxation of corporations with major new fines for oil companies that unfairly use influence to try to prevent other fuel providers or new industries from competing fairly in the marketplace. We can also implement a zero-tax for ten years policy for all business done with green energy, where producers earn at least 50% of their revenues from that green energy production.

No carbon-based or nuclear-based system can be fully tax exempt under this system, and ethanol must be considerd a sticking point... it is not 100% clean, and it is a combustible, which means pollution and environmental impact. This must be accounted for and long-term thinking should situate ethanol as a transitional fuel option, not a long-term boon for US farmers.

Essentially, the idea is this: Bush will have two options... either tax the oil companies heavily and prosecute executives criminally for price gouging, or fine them for working against the open competition of clean energy sources in a fair market environment, and transfer Pentagon cash from Iraq to green technology, now.

All members of the US Senate who have held meetings with oil industry executives, representatives or lobbying firms over the last 12 months (first of all those who voted with the Exxon-Mobil crowd) should be named publicly and asked to account for the content of those conversations and their view on the long-term benefits thrown out by their pro-polluter votes.

Artful Dodgers: Senate blocking of Energy Bill Threatens Americans' Future Health and Economic Stability

Joseph — Fri, 14 Dec 2007 02:43:54 EST

Moves by some in the Senate to defend big oil interests and to push the continued use of contaminating carbon-based fuels puts the future integrity of the American economy, but ecologically and in terms of long-term pricing stability, at risk, in exchange for the short-term benefit to a few powerful lobbies. The fact is, the bill needs to be much stronger than it was: fuel efficiency standards should be at 50 mpg by 2012 and at 120 mpg by 2020, while electric utilities should be generating fully 50% of all power from renewables within 5 years.

All of this is doable, and there's no reason why profitable American corporations can't weather the transition. No one is better-suited to doing so, given the record profits flooding the energy sector in recent years. The question is short-term spending priorities, and the Senate has just given a potent and historically dangerous vote of confidence to energy companies' policy of not wanting shed one dollar to take responsible steps to green the US economy while it's still a forward-thinking idea and economical, and not a last-ditch effort to stave off disaster, and out-of-control expensive.

If the US does not start on a comprehensive nationwide economic overhaul in the next few years, it will begin to lag perilously behind other wealthy nations in taking up this new industrial revolution. The result will be that world leaders in green industries will be elsewhere, their products will cost more, the transition will be more difficult, and the US will be foolishly languishing in a 19th-century industrial model (coal, for instance, continues to be a major threat to public health and ecological sustainability).

The recent vote against the energy bill in the Senate should be a wake-up call to anyone serious about an environmentally responsible agenda: it's time to get serious and to stop listening to the cowardly cries of those in industries afraid to make the transition. Let's present a far tougher, far more sweeping brand of energy-policy reform; let's be the wave of reformers that push on George W. Bush the demand of basic human decency and common sense, that the US economy be remade to be green and elastic, for the health and wellbeing of future generations.

September 2001 PDB Hold Clues as to How Lies About Iraq Threat Were Crafted

Joseph — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 04:52:37 EST

On September 21, 2001, Pres. Bush was told in his Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) that Iraq and Al-Qaeda had no significant ties, and that Saddam Hussein not only saw Al-Qaeda as a threat, but that he had contemplated infiltrating group with Iraqi agents to help protect his regime against it. In following months, both he and the vice president repeatedly and passionately reported to the American people and the world that Saddam Hussein had "significant" ties to the group and may have been behind the 9/11 attacks.

It is clear that this claim was not made based on the intelligence provided to the president and that the intelligence was ignored. The subsequent invasion of Iraq and spreading violence and chaos in that country is a direct result of the White House's very flagrant hijacking of Constitutional war powers, apparently by way of such misrepresentations.

The fact that Congress was not allowed to know the contents of this PDB until 2004 demonstrates a clear attempt to keep Congress in the dark, even though the Constitution requires that Congress grant permission for the president to assume control of the military for going to war. There needs to be a comprehensive public inquiry, with sworn testimony by all those involved, including the president and the vice president, on camera, about all actions regarding this intelligence.

This war continues to be a threat to the future security of the American people, to the region, and to the lives of the millions of innocent civilians whose country is disintegrating as a result of this incomprehensible pro-war policy, which led to perhaps unprecedented manipulation of the nation's security apparatus and Constitutional system.

GOP Candidates Waffle on Iraq, Showing Weakness: Hold their Feet to the Fire

Joseph — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 04:52:34 EST

LA Times reports "Citing a recent decline in violence in Iraq, top Republican presidential candidates on Sunday offered gushing assessments of the U.S. war effort there -- an unusual moment in a GOP primary campaign that for months usually has stepped gingerly around the Bush administration's unpopular policies in that country.

The candidates' comments, coming in a debate on the Spanish-language television network Univision, went further than even the White House and top military leaders have gone as they have watched civilian and military deaths ebb since President Bush launched a controversial U.S. troop "surge" strategy.

Until Sunday, only one candidate, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, had emphasized his support for the troop increase, a stance that over the last year coincided with his fading status as a GOP front-runner.

"We are winning," declared former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, whose candidacy has experienced a surge of its own in recent weeks into the top tier of GOP contenders."

Let's be sure to keep tabs closely on all the activities of the GOP candidates. The Iraq war is a mind-boggling disaster, and they are now throwing around pollyanna positions that demonstrate the total lack of intellectual integrity in their campaigns and the general weakness of their positions, both before the electorate and in the face of historically meaningful policy suggestions from leading Democrats.

This waffling is vital, because it underscores the intellectual bankruptcy of the GOP at this moment in history. While any candidate can change his or her mind in a constructive way, but the Republican candidates have just done something startlingly foolish and dangerous: they've returned to using brutal bloodshed and chaos in Iraq as nothing more than a political tool, demonstrating that they don't have a real position on any of these isues.

Set the stage now, with consistent, eloquent, dignified language expressing the Obama position, that holds their feet to the fire and shows the voters how little they can be trusted not to dance around such serious issues.

Cut Ties with Sudan Regime Until Rule of Law Can Be Established

Joseph — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 09:17:40 EST

At present, the Sudanese regime of Omar al-Bashir has jailed a British schoolteacher due to her students' choosing the name Muhammad for a teddy bear, which she intended to use as a tool to teach them about the value of animal life. Muslims in Britain and around the world have expressed confusion at the Sudanese regime's extreme reaction (she was facing 40 lashes and an extended prison term, for "insulting Islam").

I am, as is Sen. Obama, opposed to the cold shoulder hard-line diplomacy strategy, but we need to take very seriously the likelihood that isolating the Bashir regime as far as possible will help gather international pressure to bring about negotiations that have some possibility of bearing fruit. Until now, the essential result of most such attempts has been a wink and a nod, with no attempt at any level to abide by international law or to cease the brutal persecution of Sudan's people.

This is the latest manifestation of a campaign of brutality and disregard for human rights, free speech and the dignity of the individual, exhibited by one of Africa's most violent regimes. Sudan's oil resources have helped make it a target for critics and may be the only reason its numerous refugee crises have been on the international radar, but its oil is also the reason the West has been timid in its approach to Bashir's hostility toward any semblance of a civil democratic state existing under his rule.

While demonstrators now campaign for the schoolteacher's death, the Bashir regime continues, according to numerous reports, to work against peacekeeping efforts in Darfur and seems determined to find a way to carry out its campaign of ethnic cleansing of the Darfur region, whether by way of a mass refugee crisis or by sponsoring and protecting the genocidal militia bands that carry out the slaughter.

There has been little clear evidence of an attempt by the Bashir government to usher Sudan out of the brutality of its protracted civil war and violent and radical judicial practices. The United States should be looking very hard at what this means for the future history of our interaction with this tyrannical regime. In whatever way possible, the US must push for a significant ramping up of UN peacekeeping operations, full policing powers across the Darfur region, and the total reform of the nation's judicial and electoral systems, recognizing the Bashir regime for what it is: kleptocracy, megalomania, and genocide, rolled into one neat package designed to sell oil to a "market of the willing".

Prominent US figures, like Senator Obama, must begin to pressure China immediately to impose strict conditions on any and all future trade with the Bashir regime, using incentives and a viable plan for national development to make it possible to bring about real change and not just make idle threats or worsen the horrors being lived by the people under attack from the Khartoum government. The status quo in Sudan is not the way forward, is not the answer and is not acceptable as part of a "roadmap" to future peace and harmony.

Does Our Global Trade Policy Directly Undermine Our Core Values?

Joseph — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 10:38:03 EST

We should make sure the international economy is well-oiled with democratic principles, not a tool for hardening the defenses of tyrants and bullies. There is a prevailing wind in the policy atmosphere pushing globalization, which has two main currents, both of which are (interestingly) contradictory, and somewhat unnerving:

1. The presumption that brute dominance and disregard for the rule of law will somehow inevitably give China the upper hand, so we should "liberalize" laws governing trade so that we can "compete" with China in this regard;

2. That merely by way of trade (whatever its form) we will achieve the total democratization of states that have lived for millennia without anything resembling what we call democracy, even as we empower the most powerful among them.

The first point has an obvious flaw: we are creating inevitability where it does not exist. The concern becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, because we refuse to accept that brute force will not win the day, so we hand China the right to use any and all means necessary to conquer its economic rivals, ourselves included, and then we move swiftly to facilitate this eventuality, by molding international regulations to suit the juggernaut.

The other way in which our approach to this issue is flawed is that it involved amazing (and self-contradictory) hubris: we are the economic juggernaut par excellence, at the moment, but the EU is a bigger market and our currency is falling apart. If we accept that China will be the world's biggest market and that this should be the measure of value and influence, then we facilitate rules which give even more power to the juggernaut (ourselves now, soon China), then we weave our own disadvantage into policies aimed at building a brighter future. The hubris is in thinking we can beat the logic of a system we accept as being unbeatable, the logic of brute force and juggernaut economic powers.

The second point is flawed because it makes a fundamentally erroneous assumption: that market economics creates liberal democracy. They tend to coincide, but this is only true where the market is developed (and China's will be very carefully planned, from top to bottom) in such a way that a huge middle class is able to impose economic and political change without changing the system in place. Or, by revolution, in which case, economics is not the means at all, but perhaps the obstacle, as it will prop up those in power.

Our policy toward China is, in this light, tremendously confused. We spent 12 years and 58,000 American lives, tens of billions of dollars and provoked millions of civilian deaths in Indochina because their communist aspirations were unforgiveable. We refuse to trade with Cuba, because Fidel Castro is an unsavory character, and a communist. But we risk great ideological and political setbacks aiding China's rise to worldwide influence, without even a hint of real efforts to reform the system or democratize.

Diplomacy is a good idea, and trade can help to liberalize a system of entrenched, feudal power. But, there need to be far more powerful levers in place. We need China to reform its banking system, build the cleanest economy ever seen, cease resort to arbitrary executions, persecution of religious and ethnic groups, and transition to a multi-party electoral system, but our trade rules in relation to China do not do much to make this happen. We are aiding the juggernaut in displacing us, and this means our influence for the good, if we have such a thing, will be diminished, perhaps irreversibly.

Let's start the dialogue now, start pushing other candidates, and the White House, to use all available levers to ensure that opening its markets to US investors not be the single overarching priority in our relationship to China. Let's ensure that we help protect our own values, as a free and open society, but leveraging our economic muscle to bring China into the fold of nations that are govered by the rule of law and see regular peaceful transitions from one ideological bent to another.

GOP Hatred of Undocumented Immigrants is Racism, because...

Joseph — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 06:57:01 EST

The Republican candidates have gone berserk, rhetorically, with the idea that Fortress America must be built, in the real world, with concrete and steel barriers, guns aimed at innocent and very unfortunate people, who just so happen to be "freedom-loving" and very daring, and we need to have a national examination of our conscience and understand clearly that what they are pushing is a very naked, very brutal form of racism.

They are not advocating a fortified northern border, even though it was through Canada that Islamist extremists have, on more than one occasion, entered the US with ease. Never through Mexico. They like to use the term "narco-terrorists", which is a good term for Afghan warlords or Colombian cartels that kill judges, but has very little to do with people crossing the border from Mexico. Case in point, they are not advocating using drone aircraft to police drug-infested neighborhoods in the US, whose consumption drives the very sinister, very bloody situation in which non-drug-using Mexicans find themselves in towns south of the border, where those supplying the US market rule with medieval ferocity, motivated by the American dollar.

They deride "sanctuary" as a bad thing, but were it not for the principle of sanctuary, our democracy would not exist at all. The North American colonies were a sanctuary for puritan outcasts, debtors, violent criminals and political dissidents, and the Revolution was their leaders' decision to ensure that sanctuary (what we now call a "free country") was not undermined by monarchical fiat or by an abusive parliament.

Throughout the 19th century, millions fleeing famine and social collapse in Ireland, having a very rough time of it, found sanctuary and made a new home in the United States. The rule of law found sanctuary here, and from its humble beginnings, expanded like a beacon of light (as GOP poseurs are often fond of chanting) to far corners of the world.

The Underground Railroad, one of the most heroic achievements of American resistance to tyranny and evil, was an explicit fight to give sanctuary to those most in need, and it helped lead to the liberation of an entire race of people, setting the nation on course at last to begin the true realization of its ideals. It is sad, and absurd, that a bunch of isolated non-innovators in political thought feel so obliged to fling such relfexive hate at a group of people that is not in any self-evident way, undermining our democracy or our security.

As the New York Times is reporting:

BY coincidence, a New York research group, the Fiscal Policy Institute, issued a report this week underlining the importance of immigration here in Sanctuary City and, for that matter, throughout New York State.
Legal or illegal — the report made no distinction — immigrants were said to account for nearly one-fourth of the state’s total economic output. Most of them speak English, according to the study. More and more own their own businesses. Upstate and in the city’s suburbs, most own their own homes.
Without them, the report suggested, the city’s revival over the last 25 years might never have been.

The Republican party knows this (reference George W. Bush's "amnesty" proposal, as it is called by enemies in his own GOP), but refuses to talk about it openly. Exploiting the facile and inflammatory rhetoric of xenophobia and racial hatred is much simpler, and they are foisting that ugliness not only on the groups they are attacking, but on the people whose votes they want but whose intelligence they mark at such an animal level.

My ancestors arrived in the US between the time of the Revolution and the year 1901. I have no fear of persecution on document status. I have not been marginalized by American society in any way, except perhaps by a hollow political discourse that dislikes thoughtful criticism or the motivations of common decency. And it is self-evident to me that this assault on today's immigrant population is an act of shameless hate-mongering carefully calculated to undermine our liberties and to capitalize on the apparent authoritarian "mandate" that comes from gaining support for such a point of view.

It is a vile fact of the current political climate that one of two national parties has resorted to the Tancredo doctrine, as if it were an inevitable political resource: if the GOP believes this is a necessary tactic, it is because a small-minded one-policy zealot like Tancredo appears to them to be worth as much as any of their other candidates; it is because they have no idea whatsoever what they can offer the American public. This is the politics of Slobodan Milosevic, a radical race-based nationalist: foment fear and division among ethnic groups, then consolidate a base of false authority from that climate of fear you yourself have created.

We need to ensure that the future of American politics does not justify or swallow this petulant sectarian bombast. Let Romney and Giuliani try to outflank Tancredo, but let's not let a single one of them force the American political dialogue into this gutter of racial hatred and oppression. We need to take a very careful look at the proposals they are making and illustrate why it is that the GOP would permanently alter American life for the worse, with proposals that allow police officers to demand "papers please" on the spot, in any place, at any time, with no judicial or legal backing other than their own prejudice.

The GOP campaign against immigrants is a campaign against our history, our future and our Constitutional liberties, and it needs to be shown to be just that. Let's make sure they know this last faint gasp of issue-based politics that they're attempting to realize, is actually out of bounds. We are a free society.

Can Artful Humility Be the Key to Foreign Policy Renewal?

Joseph — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 06:02:35 EST

In his campaign for president in 2000, George W. Bush promised a "humble" foreign policy. He promised not to engage in "nation building". He promised not to use the US military as the "policemen of the world". We have seen persistent examples of unilateralism, arrogance, flouting of treaty obligations, a failed but overwhelmingly massive (even before the war) "reconstruction" project for Iraq, fraught with unthinkable levels of corruption, and the wild west sheriff's attitude of "WANTED, dead or alive" applied to military operations across the world.

This is all self-evident, and the contradiction need not be explained further. Sen. Obama has proposed trusting the strength of US diplomacy and engaging potential enemies directly, negotiating. In essence, without recoiling from the world or making false or untenable promises like Bush did in 2000, he is proposing a more humble, yet more ambitious approach to foreign relations. And that may be the key to his success among independents and even moderate Republicans in the general election.

Making sure we have a foreign policy that matches our democratic ideals means: dialogue, negotiation, the rule of law, respecting free elections in other nations, and capitalizing on the standard of nation-state sovereignty, not to pick and choose among friendly or unfriendly authoritarians, but to drive the collective will of those nation-states toward peace and security, cooperation and non-violent conflict resolution. It can be done, and Obama needs to marshall the resources of that position to his general political discourse, as he has begun to do...

Side Effects of US Dollar Collapse

Joseph — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 05:48:43 EST

We need to be keeping our focus on the problem of the federal government's work to shore up the dollar, which appears virtually non-existent. We need to push for reform that will stabilize the dollar against volatility in home-buying and financial markets. We need, at the very least, to give the outside world a signal that the US government cares about whether dollar-carrying US citizens are wealthier or poorer than they were before, as against competing currencies, or the currency will be considered a poor bet.

An important question now and through November will be: What is Congress doing, concretely, to prevent the ongoing erosion of the US dollar, or to assuage the underlying economic imbalance that's driving it? Adding to that: Who in Congress is stepping up to defend the American economy against the corrosive effects of Bush policy?

Part of the problem with presidential politics is that proposals are often just ideas that may or may not be tested some time after an upcoming vote... 2008 could be a disastrous year economically for the US, and Sen. Obama's position as a responsible leader on economic issues and committed reformer would be strengthened if he takes steps now to help cushion the fall for the average American, so that he can point to those actions justifiably, and in the present tense, so that he can show he went head to head with a stubborn president and got things done on this vital issue.

Reasons why:

1. the fall in the value of the US dollar lessens the influence of the American consumer overseas, which means in part that less resources will pour into the US market, as exporters look to places where disposable income is on the rise;

2. long-term, the fall in dollar value will help push prices higher, ahead of the creation of the wealth needed for employers to equal that price-rise with wage increases;

3. this value deflation is harming the integrity of US communities, as money flows away from employment-investment, and reduced opportunity leads to job-motivated moving, the potential disintegration of community fabric, i.e. of the democratic ability to defend the interests of community life...

The issue is likely to be of even greater concern as unprecedented pressures take their toll on the US economy: record Pentagon spending, $1.6 trillion in spending to cover cost+interests of Bush's wars, the apparently imminent repossession of 2.5 million families' homes, tax policies that undermine middle class vitality, prosperity and spending power, the ill-advised persistence in funding the nation's dangerous addiction to fossil fuels, the high costs of which in the next year may begin breaking the bank for many individuals and businesses.

Oprah could be visibility windfall, but gravitas must be priority

Joseph — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 05:29:27 EST

TIME says Oprah's campaigning may not help Obama (but it can)...

The backing of a figure as popular as Oprah Winfrey, who brings with her the added credentials of not having involved herself in presidential politics to such a degree before, is a vital media coup for Sen. Obama. It is deserved and if properly played out, will help deliver the message of responsible, innovative, thoughtful leadership, what is clearly most desperately needed in the next president.

However, there is inherent in such a campaign shift the risk of being nudged off course on the vital issues of security, general wisdom and dedication to the underlying Constitutional system. Each of those messages can be relayed by the Winfrey events, but it is vital that the "rock star" label not overtake the obvious virtues Barack Obama brings to the fight for a better American future and a more responsible role in the world.

The combination of charm, gravitas, passion and wisdom, displayed so eloquently in Sen. Obama's announcement address, must be manifest consistently throughout these vital battleground-state appearances. It is the bedrock of his campaign style, and the most solid foundation any of the candidates has to stand on.

FRONTLINE Explains How the Bush Admin. Botched Iran Policy

Joseph — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 11:22:44 EST

The PBS documentary series Frontline has produced an extensive report on the Bush administration's dangerous 'Showdown with Iran'. The piece explains how the September 11, 2001, attacks spurred immediate and near unanimous outrage across Iran. The reformist government condemned the attacks, huge rallies expressed sympathy with the American people, and the 'death to America' chant at Friday prayers was dropped, "for the first time since the revolution" that brought the ayatollahs to power.

According to the report, the Iranian government, under Khatami, a pro-western reformer, assisted the US effort to topple the Taliban, secured the cooperation of the Northern Alliance, and essentially ordered uncooperative warlords to step aside and allow Karzai's ascent to power.

In Chapter 2, we learn that the 'axis of evil' declaration occurred just as these same reformists appeared poised to achieve some of their most important pro-democratic goals. Much of the Iranian population has long been reported to be secretly pro-western, while Tehran popular culture has been reported to be avidly pro-western and anti-fundamentalist. These potential assets to US diplomatic interests were apparently squandered in an impatient zeal to achieve total acquiescence by the government of a nation with over 70 million inhabitants.

The lesson is clear: we now face a nightmare situation with Iran: a hardline fanatical leader, the reformists banned by the ayatollahs, potential nuclear armament, and the very real possibility that three of its key neighbors (Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Pakistan) may disintegrate into bloody factional chaos. The failure to negotiate a long-term partnership with the reformist project in Iran has led to a mega-crisis situation in which the possibility exists of armed conflict with the only stable country of those four key predominantly muslim states.

The next president may, tragically, be forced to deal not only with this problem, but with a nascent armed conflict brought about by ill-advised policies and inflammatory political rhetoric aimed at scaring American voters into choosing certain candidates.

Sen. Obama has been clear and responsible in his statements, calling for dialogue and for diplomatic solutions to diplomatic tensions, and at present Pres. Bush appears to have promised German chancellor Angela Merkel he will use diplomacy and not military means to deal with Iran's nuclear ambitions. But we need to take issue with past mis-steps and ensure that we guide the public debate toward policies that will prevent mass chaos and further military conflict for American forces.

Act Now to Pass Genetic Non-discrimination Act

Joseph — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 08:37:30 EST

Sen. Tom Coburn is reportedly blocking legislation to prevent individuals from suffering discrimination due to the contents of their genetic code, for reasons not clear to fellow senators, even as businesses are preparing to push new genome decoding technologies into a major new bio-tech market.

It is one thing to allow the manipulation of genetic material for the benefits of health, generally, to come up with new cures and help treat otherwise elusive diseases, but there is no way a free society can abide the institution of practices (commercial, governmental or otherwise) that discriminate against any individual due to his or her genetic makeup.

Sen. Obama should act now to bring this issue into the public arena, ensure that the public is made aware of the outrages that could ensue if genetic non-discrimination is not made federal law, and remove the procedural hurdles Sen. Coburn may be attempting to exploit.

This issue could be serious enough to present a real legal limbo with regard to Constitutional protections, if we do not start right from the first moment banning any attempt to use genomic information against individuals, for commercial or for other reasons.

We cannot talk of universal healthcare, then permit the threat of people being barred from treatment for genetic makeup and the interpretations that ascribe to it, as per (still nascent) existing techniques.

Rape Victim Sentenced to Lashing, Prison Reveals Saudi Legal Chaos

Joseph — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 07:34:35 EST

CNN is reporting that the 19-year-old Saudi woman sentenced to 200 lashes and 6 months in prison, in part for being raped, in part for questioning the court, did not even know she was being charged until she was sentenced. The law applied by the judge is not written, and cannot be consulted, and her lawyer was summarily disbarred and reprimanded for questioning the court's ruling.

This is a clear demonstration of total disregard for the rule of law and the rights of a victim of a brutal crime. Resposible political leaders from around the world should immediately call on the Saudi regime to:

1. reinstate the defense attorney, 2. grant the woman a full pardon, 3. ensure that all laws exist in written form, 4. guaranttee that all defendants have rights to attorney, to know charges against, to mount a defense and to appeal, 5. ensure that women have total freedom of movement, 6. remove without delay the judges responsible for the initial sentence and the expanded punishment, 7. subject these judges to appropriate punitive measures for abuse of office, 8. investigate whether there is any deliberate attempt on the part of the judges to punish the victim, precisely because they prefer such cases not come to light.

We should make sure that in all possible ways, the US economy is divorced from such cruel regimes, that Saudi officials understand fully that despite the privileged position they hold with regard to oil and ownership of US government debt, they will find themselves subject to harsh sanctions if their criminal justice and legislative systems are not radically reformed.

If we are going to re-establish America's reputation as champion of legal protections, due process and the rule of law, we need to start by doing everything possible to ensure that we do not in any way whatsoever condone these radical examples of abuses overseas.

The US Cannot Support Musharraf's Emergency Rule

Joseph — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 10:07:35 EST

Gen. Pervez Musharraf has re-instated military dictatorship in a nuclear-armed state facing a serious internal security crisis from fundamentalist insurgents. From his point of view, this seems a prudent step, perhaps, a way of ensuring that his grip on power, presumably to the benefit of the people of Pakistan, the region and the world, not slip. The problem with this logic is obvious: his hard-line crackdown risks radicalizing huge swaths of the civilian population and could provoke a surge in support for radical groups.

As forces for democracy array against the increasingly isolate general, it is of prime necessity to ask ourselves if "el general no tiene quién le escriba", to cite García Márquez, by which I mean, to ask if he has any access to a useful perspective on his nation's present and future. He seems to fear that democratization under former leaders he accused of corruption would be worse than erasing democracy altogether.

The problem, again, is that Musharraf's actions, now culminating in this violent and unpopular crackdown —even police have said they do not want to carry out these orders, one officer was dismissed for saying so to the press—, have repeatedly impeded the roots of democratic civil society once more taking hold. The Bush administration is pushing for the rapid restoration of civil society in Pakistan, but so far, a real move to achieve that end has not been made... Musharraf may have behaved as an ally for the US in difficult times, but no democratic nation can reliably refer to an authoritarian state as an "ally".

The risk to our own security is only heightened by Gen. Musharraf's reckless disregard for the rights of his people, the value of an independent judiciary and a functioning civil society, complete with popular opposition leaders, free press and dissidents.

Saudi Court Strips Attorney of Law License for Defending Rape Victim Against Planned State Torture

Joseph — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 06:45:10 EST

Radicalism of Saudi assault on rape victim, women's rights, escalates. CNN reports that "Judge Saad al-Muhanna from the Qatif General Court also barred al-Lahim (who represented a young woman gang-raped by seven men) from defending his client and revoked his law license, al-Lahim said. The attorney has been ordered to attend a disciplinary hearing at the Ministry of Justice next month."

There is a clear attempt in this case, by the Saudi authorities, to ensure that no questioning of its cruel policies be permitted, and an irrational disregard for the position of a victim of brutal sexual violence. The United States must take a firm position against this ruling, without delay, and (despite the powerful economic ties implicated) move for sanctions against the Saudi regime immediately if its sanctioning of rape is not forcefully overturned.

This is the moment to "cry freedom", to remind the world of the essential ideals of American jurisprudence, and to come out definitively against state-imposed torture and cruelty in all its forms.

The Time to Lead is Now: Climate Change Requires US Cooperation in Int'l Efforts

Joseph — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 05:54:59 EST

It is a sign of gross and morally unhinged negligence that the United States government has not been willing to lead, or to even participate in global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Due to the science we already have, the laws we have to govern our own activity and to force government to act for the public health, we face the real possibility of being forced, in American courts, in the future, to pay for damage done to the most affected populations in other parts of the world, as a result of inaction by our government.

Whether or not such cases are ever seen in court, future generations will look back and will see clearly that a zeitgeist of selfish convenience and primitive disregard for the wellbeing of our fellow human beings led to a reckless attitude with regard to this snowballing crisis. We need to step up the rhetoric, get the word out, and put pressure on Congress to force the president's hand, now, without delay. Anything less is irresponsible dilly-dallying, and will be seen as a laughable excuse for campaign pandering both by voters and by future generations of Americans.

The IPCC is one of the most comprehensive and prestigious bodies of scientists ever gathered from around the world, and it has been unequivocal in its reports this year. 2007 will be remembered as the year the climate crisis went public and stayed on the global public interest radar, for good. The United States cannot afford to be lagging behind, not now, and not in the eyes of history.

The following, from the Obama campaign "healthy environment" issue write-up, is a good start: "Global warming is real, is happening now and is the result of human activities. The number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes has almost doubled in the last 30 years. Glaciers are melting faster; the polar ice caps are shrinking; trees are blooming earlier; oceans are becoming more acidic, threatening marine life; people are dying in heat waves; species are migrating, and eventually many will become extinct. Scientists predict that absent major emission reductions, climate change will worsen famine and drought in some of the poorest places in the world and wreak havoc across the globe. In the U.S., sea-level rise threatens to cause massive economic and ecological damage to our populated coastal areas."

In fact, large-scale mass extinction already appears to be underway, with the IPCC predicting 15% to 37% of all species may be wiped out by climate change alone. Mass extinction is part of a broad-based degradation of ecosystem elasticity, which in turn destabilizes climate patterns and exacerbates the effects of climate-altering phenomena.

My proposal to Sen. Barack Obama:

1. Push the reduction of emissions by 80% by 2050, to a 90% goal, and make it global. (There's no reason this cannot be done. Wind-energy resources in Texas, Kansas and North Dakota alone could power the entire US economy and more, if properly funded and developed. Most nations have a surplus of wind resources; the secret is local development and responsible construction and implementation.)

2. Work to punish all forms of corruption associated with energy production, and implement stiff sanctions against any nation that does not severely punish such corruption (whether it's bribery is Appalachian coal mining schemes, Saudi arms trafficking, Uzbekistan's megalomaniac leader, or China's support for the Bashir government in Khartoum).

3. Ensure that the US economy is incentivized, from top to bottom, to adopt renewable resources and that we can fund through innovation, entrepreneurship, research and development grants, the green technology boom, which if properly carried out, will far surpass the 1990s economic expansion related to the building and popularization of the world wide web.

4. Institute in US law a "limited use" doctrine for nuclear plants, which means they will be employed in a period of transition (with no new construction) as a means of softening the price pinch that could come to sectors that lag in the renewables transition. This is not meant to allow new growth or prolonged use of fossil fuels, but rather to avoid punishing the underprivileged for their lack of access to easy capital.

5. Greening the military: begin immediately the funding and incentivization for defense contractors of a transition to a military made more efficient, flexible and green in its global reach by way of the ecological (which in the very near future means economic) sustainability of its technologies and deployment systems. This will soon be a measure of rapid-deployment capacity, i.e. the ability to project power without bankrupting the state.

6. Plan for "jump" generation innovations: energy resourcing is still in its infancy, comparatively (fossil fuels are square one; nuclear a bold but ill-advised 'spur'; renewables are the first stop toward rational energy policy; after renewables, or within the context of, there will come a more advanced mode of powering the global economy). Geothermal still relies on risky construction methods, wind requires massive construction and solar occupies space (ever less, but still a constraint), whereas new capabilities may be lying in wait beyond the scope of current scientific methods. Let's think ahead and privilege the "zero emissions" criterion.

We are on the cusp of an energy revolution, which is synonymous with acting to save the relative homeostasis of the global environment, to which our civilization is accustomed and which it requires for long-term stability. We can phase out fossil fuels, then nuclear, while building a global renewables grid, and (parallel to that) jumping ahead to what's next. Integrated thinking will help us to serve the needs of a global systems ecology imperiled by our current practices.

Lastly, I propose that it is of the utmost urgency to examine security risks involved with climate change. We already have water wars in Africa. There are potential conflicts brewing in South America and south Asia. Australia faces the possibility of the Sydney region becoming near uninhabitable in a century's time. And Bangladesh, with 150.44 million inhabitants is caught between India's overpumping of vital rivers and the constant threat of mass death and chaos from monsoon flooding.

We need to look at the potential for crop failure on massive regional scales, migrations of tens of millions of refugees, and what happens when local militia start responding (reference: Darfur, or Afghanistan, on a much larger scale). We need to find a collaborative framework wherein:

1. democracy is not in any way curtailed nor are totalitarian measures elevated by the global protocols;

2. global treaties are bold, viable, respected and implemented;

3. the median wealth of the human population globally is increased (to de-incentivize violations).

This is the very least we can do to get started.

Saudi Woman Faces 200 Lashes, 6 Months in Jail for Being Raped

Joseph — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 06:10:13 EST

Truthdig is reporting "A Saudi woman has been sentenced to 200 lashes and six months in jail by an appeals court because she was riding in a car with a man when she was attacked and gang-raped by seven men. It is forbidden in Saudi Arabia for unmarried men and women to be together. She was 19 at the time of the attack."

This is a barbaric outrage in terms of criminal justice. Sen. Obama should stand up and call immediately for the fundamentalist kingdom to pardon the victim, modernize its laws in relation to women, and de-segregate. Any government that punishes a woman in this brutal way for being gang-raped is participating in a material way in the crime; such laws make it far more difficult for victims to come forward, which is like a green light to would-be attackers.

I urge the Obama campaign to take a firm position on this and find a way to use the idea of open diplomacy to trigger substantive action on this, without delay, in this supposely "friendly" nation. I also urge that this effort include a demand that Pres. Bush personally intervene and call for an end to this state-organized brutalization of women.

Hillary's 'Mudslinging' Attack is Ad-hominem Mudslinging

Joseph — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 05:50:01 EST

Does Sen. Clinton realize that her constant reference to rivals' "mudslinging" is in itself mudslinging, and perhaps moreso than the criticisms she's facing? She has come up against substantive criticism for positions she has taken, and she has been unable to explain her tendency to support ill-advised "hard-line" strategies, under the apparent assumption that it is more politically expedient. This criticism is substantive, because it represents one of the biggest problems facing the Democratic party in recent elections, and one of the most vital concerns to Democratic voters. They do not want Republican-lite anymore, and so she's been called to account. How can the Obama campaign keep these critiques fair and substantive, turn the "mudslinging" charge around, and emerge as the serious campaign, without doubt? That's the quest at this point. That's how to win the early primaries. And it's rooted in Barack's effort to date on this issue: it's urgently necessary to answer the tough questions and to be clear about one's philosophy, one's knowledge and one's judgment. The public discourse deserves nothing less. And all voters know this intuitively.