Hi All,
Too often politicians spin terms to advance their agendas. Even to the point that, in a country created by the most liberal constitution known in history, the term "liberal" was turned to a nasty word.
A rose by any other name still smells as sweetly as a rose and calling torture “enhanced interrogation” still is inhumane and remains torture. The “enhanced interrogation technique” now known as “water boarding” that was not only permitted but also now known demanded under the Bush/Cheney administration is nothing less than “torture”. Politicians in the United States of America, since the time of John F. Kennedy, have learned to buy and sell the mass media. Allowing politicians to misguide the public by spinning words to reduce or increase the “sting” of the word. The current attempt of politicians to rename “torture”, as “enhanced interrogation, is a continuance of the deceptive policy of redefining terminology. Other “enhanced interrogation techniques” aside, the water torture now called “water boarding” is without doubt a form of torture. The attempt to define ‘water-boarding’ as ‘enhanced interrogation’ and not as ‘torture’ is purely political. It is an attempt to steer the public from the fact that the United States government under the auspice of the Bush/Cheney administration knowingly committed war crimes. Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz (Boston Globe 5-15-2004) probably coins the phrase, “water-boarding” in reference to a form of “water-torture”. Water boarding is, of course, actually a form of surfboarding. A great thing for the spinning of words for politicians, giving a form of water tortures the connotation of a sporting event. The United States of America was instrumental in drafting, defining and ratifying the terms of the 1948 documents outlawing wartime crimes. The United States was most adamant in this because of the inhuman treatment suffered by an astronomical amount of brave American soldiers, especially in the World Wars. War crimes under the Geneva Convention include, "...willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment (cruel treatment), including biological experiments, willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health." Article 3 of the Geneva Convention extends the articles of the treatise to include those not classified as “prisoners of war”. Hence, the attempted spinning of “war prisoners” to “detainees” will not protect one from committing a war crime. The water torture now called "water-boarding" surpasses "inhuman treatment" and "willfully causing great suffering", which is also illegal under the convention standards. Water boarding is nothing less than "torture", if it were not so, it would still be a war crime under the Geneva Conventions. Torture is defined as an inflicting of physical punishment which causes someone extreme pain, physical or mental anguish. Water boarding is a water torture that causes extreme pain, physical anguish and mental anguish. Water boarding is a torture. Our own Federal Criminal Code defines torture as “the intentional infliction of severe mental pain or suffering," In the United States, that called ‘water-boarding’ has long been considered and defined as “torture. The water torture now called water boarding has been an illegal war activity for many years. John McCain, past Presidential nominee and torture victim during the Vietnam War, said of the water boarding technique that it is a “very exquisite torture”. In Vietnam, United States Generals reiterated that water boarding was illegal and they were serious. A U.S. soldier found guilty of water boarding in Vietnam and sent to prison. Water boarding has long been considered an illegal wartime crime of torture whereby the United States holds its own accountable. A definition of water boarding as torture that goes back as far as 1901. A United States Army major, in the Spanish/American War, when found guilty of water boarding received a sentence of 10 years at hard labor. Only in the past few years has this been an issue. When it leaked that the United States had water boarded “detainees” at Guantanamo. The “spin” began water torture became water boarding, like the sport. Water boarding became an “enhanced interrogation technique” as opposed to the torture that it is. It is a hard pill to swallow, the idea of holding, especially before the world, one’s own responsible for such actions. However, this is a very resilient country, one of pride, which should not become a false pride by the subversion of words. To ignore our own morality and ideals, those that we have projected to the World, will be far worse than calling torture what it is, torture.
The Thirteenth Amendment
to the United States Constitution officially abolished and continues to prohibit slavery and involuntary servitude, EXCEPT as punishment for a crime.
That confusion reign at the heart of the GOP is now indisputable. One only has to look at this weekend’s CPAC. The party of Lincoln and Roosevelt and not so long ago the party of government is fast descending into fringe condescension and has as it's standard bearers two narcissistic opportunists. In Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, the sole rationale for being conservative, it would seem, is to cream whatever financial rewards they can through the authorship of badly written compilations passed off as books or badly mouthed and bigoted pronouncements touted as radio broadcasting; both Rush and Ann are doing very well financially on the backs of a people who do not seem capable of distinguishing fact from fiction. Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter are the clearest manifestation that the lunatics are now in charge of the asylum.
The GOP already beaten once by President Obama during the election, seem to want to commit hara-kiri by taking that fabled and entrenched dogma of “we still know best, we have absolutely no need to change and we lost because we gave up on our extreme right wing ideology”. The message coming from them is so confused that you have their new Chairman Michael Steele, apologized that the American people had every right not to believe anything they said. But in the same breath he touted and echoed their penchant for tax cuts ubber alles in debating a very transformational President whose popularity still appear stratospheric.
One would have thought that, after losing to President Obama despite the play on “Conservatives holding on to religion and guns ....” statement by the then candidate Obama and the much looped Reverend Wright’s “God damn America” controversies, the GOP would have formulated a different strategy of response and tactic of execution. Instead they have resorted to confused, misdirected and rudderless rabble rousing.
Take for instance the new line of attack by that most hypocritical of the so-called conservatives, Newt Gingrich’s attempt to link and lump President Obama in with President Bush for the current economic crises. Unless Mr. Gingrich believes that the American is the most stupid person on God’s Earth, how could he possibly make that association in the expectation that less than two months into his Presidency, the American people would have forgotten who brought onto them the current wrath of a very displeased economic GOD. And herein lies the absolutely impossible task that the GOP has to deal with; talk about the government’s lack of fiscal responsibility when they presided over the biggest deficit in the nations recent history is not convincing; talk of over burdening future generations when they spent their way through the nations treasures without so much as a monument built in commemoration, except for corruption and the numbers of new graves for the Brave young men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice to uphold the honor of their beloved nation on a distant shore sounds hollow and hypocritical; talk of bad economics when they created the conditions for the festering of the depression malaise that a very new and young administration has to grapple with even before it had taken office sounds disingenuous; talk of diminishing America prestige and influence when they have the dubious honor of their great leader being the only American President to have been ‘shoed’ by a foreign journalist when he was the guest of those journalists sounds farcical.
So the GOP is looking forward to when President Obama’s policies fail so that they can blame him and his party for the failure. Now let us look at how serious a challenge that may prove for the GOP to exploit more than for President Obama to explain. How does ending the war in Iraq render the President to criticism if that country descended into anarchy after the drawdown on US troops when he has already directed with ample notice period that the troops be brought home and only a non combatant compliment is retained and which would leave by a fixed deadline? It will only ‘fail’ if the Iraqis cannot look after themselves. But how does the failure of a democratically elected Iraqi government become the responsibility of a US Administration? Besides, the GOP likes his plan. It is just about the only thing they agree with him on.
Afghanistan as a coalition effort mandated by the UN and NATO is not the direct responsibility of President Obama although he has sought to highlight the dangers of ignoring that campaign for far too long. In fact, any failure there will be a vindication of his long standing complaint that too much focus went unnecessarily onto Iraq. And coalition partners in Afghanistan were not imposed upon to pull their weight.
The case of the US economy presents the worst case scenario for the GOP even more so than the rest of the litmus issues already described. Tax cuts for the middle classes, unemployment benefits and insurance for those who have lost their jobs, a foreclosure stay of execution for those struggling with their mortgages, health insurance for over eleven million children, the biggest reconstruction agenda for a generation, improvements for education, investments in alternative energy, assistance to States struggling as a result of the deep recession... etc.
Now let’s assume that no jobs are created at all (and that is quite some assumption) and the unemployment rate remains as is in 3 years hence. People would still see improvements in bridges and the road infrastructure, they will notice better classrooms and paid teachers, improvements in environmental awareness and steps to address them, a dramatic fall in the numbers of US Soldiers stationed abroad, a reduction in their tours of duty and their involvement in "dumb wars". The people still struggling for employment will be able to stay in their own homes and thereby have roofs over their heads and will be able to get sick without being bankrupt. Those still in employment, especially the middle classes, will still enjoy a reasonable standard of living and not see hikes in their levels of taxation. Since a lot of the jobs currently being lost are in GOP afflicted areas, a lot of ‘former’ GOP voters will come to appreciate the assistance they will be receiving from this so called and much maligned ‘Socialist’ government and may even decide that that type of ‘Socialism' may not be all that bad. Why? Because they would remember that this current President inherited all the issues from a GOP President. Most importantly, they will also remember that those aspects of policy that helps to ease their pain were passed without a single GOP support in the House and only three GOP Senators were brave enough to cross party lines despite a sterling effort by President Obama to be bi-partisan.
If there is a GOP GOD in existence it must know that 2012 will not be a GOP year. That will be when the real fruits of all this stimuli starts to really kick-in. And witnessing the disarray in which the GOP finds itself, it will take them more than three terms to get another look in; look at what happened to the British Conservative Party after Maggie Thatcher. The GOP’s redemption would be on the basis that it remodeled itself on a successful and winning formula; that of the Democrats and the GOP agenda then will be to portray themselves as the best placed to carry out the legacy of Obama. Now will that not be a turn for the books?
The GOP and the Beltway still underestimate President Obama. Some establishment types have great difficulty adapting to the new political order in Washington. These same types misread the writings on the wall during both the primaries and the election where they were out maneuvered by the then candidate Senator Obama, as he not only won the Democratic nomination but also totally defeated Senator John McCain , the GOP nominee.
The last week saw the GOP wade into pious self congratulation for their obstinate opposition to the signed stimulus legislation believing, as did the Beltway, that they had scored a major victory by denying the President his much vaunted bi-partisanship. The fact that the President still got what he sought; a stimulus legislation passed within 30 days of his taking office and that major GOP Governors including that of California seeking governmental assistance stood full-square with the President were totally oblivious to them. To the chagrin of the GOP, Beltway and in particular FOX News, the latest opinion polls seem to suggest that the American people are also full-square behind their President and had not read the script pushed haughtily by the Beltway and cable networks about a GOP victory in the tussle for bi-partisanship. The President’s approval ratings remain stratospheric, the Democratic Congress scores highly; in fact the highest they have scored to date and Representative Pelosi is more popular than the nearest GOP in either Houses of Congress.
Will the GOP grasp the new reality and muster opposition or just whine away in oblivion and irrelevance? That would be a shame because inasmuch as I support the President, I still believe in a strong but pragmatic opposition. That is not just good for American democracy but good for the President and a resurgent Democratic controlled Capitol. It would also signify once and for all that the GOP is now reformed and subscribe to proper and accountable government. That will not only be a testament sought by Americans but the wider World that we would never revert to what we just witnessed these past eight years.
The question though is simply will the GOP survive as a coherent political force in an Obama Presidency?
Violence is an industry. All industries employ people with a view to profit. Profit is not just monetary it can also be political. When people invest in violence it is because they hope to reap some benefit. US ordinary people (you and I) are just pawns manipulated by those who wish to use violence as a means of control and subjugation.
The issue of the Palestinians and Arabs/Muslims in general with Israel is something that has now generated its own life and path but I believe that the time has come for US the ordinary man and woman to stand up and proclaim that we ALL have a right to LIFE, LIBERTY & THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.
Let us also look at how we are being used by peoples and organisation to advance their own interests. That there is brutality in the Middle East and between Arabs and Jews is no secret but is anyone telling me that the violence is just one sided?
The Palestinians have become the subject matter used to express wider disenchantment about a lot of issues in the wider region. The Palestinian is a human being who craves life, peace and the pursuit of happiness and is also incredibly resourceful and hard working. But if I am employing you a Palestinian and your friends, neighbors, colleagues or relations come to my town to kill and maim people and sow terror for whatever reason, do I owe you an obligation to continue to employ you? Or why should I make it easy for you and others to be able to cross over into my town with the potential to pursue such hatred.
I see a lot of indignation about what Israel does and some of that indignation is deserved but I scarcely, if ever, hear Palestinians in the Gaza strip or in the West Bank openly criticise the perpetrators of violence especially Hamas. This tells me that those who live under Hama are NOT all free. They are not allowed the freedom of expression to protest against their 'so called' elected officials. And so long as the people are not free to express themselves I cannot believe that Hamas represents ALL the people.
For both sides of the conflict, it is important to understand that you cannot talk peace while you pursue terror. Any progress will be under the guise and perception that terror pays. I have also heard about how Hamas helps ordinary Palestinians in the provision of health care, housing and basic support. I think the Palestinian people deserve more than that. Can Hamas provide more health care than the rest of the world or more education than the rest of the world? I will believe Hamas works for the displaced, impoverished and long suffering Palestinian people when I see doctors, engineers, teachers, academics being created as a result of Hamas policies than teaching boys and girls to kill themselves as political instruments. If killing one’s self to achieve autonomy worked why do Hamas officials go into hiding and do not ride the streets in defiance of the enemy and challenge them to be killed? It is because they want your brothers, sisters and parents to die in THEIR cause to pursue POWER! The rhetoric is just that rhetoric!
And when peoples’ lives are so cheapen by their own political representatives why should your enemy value that same life that you do not value? So Hamas will give money to Palestinians whose homes and property have been destroyed to rebuild them. What about those whose lives have been wrecked? Those whose childhoods have been stolen from them? Those whose minds and well being have been damaged beyond repair? And all this because Hamas believes in conflicts of posturing which it knows it can never win. Not in the short term anyway. I do not call this love. What sort of love is it that seeks to repair what is material and almost irrelevant but does not care about what is the most relevant and most important which is the sacred life?
The Palestinian people have a right to life, dignity, LIBERTY and the pursuit of happiness but I doubt very much that they will get it through the use of mindless violence and terror perpetrated in their name by so-called leaders. And for those who sing about how brave Hamas are but very conveniently live outside Hamas control and do not suffer the consequences of their policies, I say shame on you!
There are those who will interpret my comments as being pro Israeli; far from it. My criticism of Israel is even harsher than this. But I fail to see how Hamas can reach the end gold it seeks by sacrificing the Palestinian people or bring undue hardship upon them by seeking to not only fight but pledging to destroy an opponent it cannot conceivably stand toe to toe with.
The time for peace has come. There is change; GENUINE change in Washington. I urge all Arabs, Muslims and true lovers of peace to embrace what this new American President has to say. It is the best HOPE in a generation and let us all pray to our God, our Allah, that we embrace him without the internecine rhetoric and demagoguery so we can ALL sleep peacefully at night and OUR children can grow to be older than we are and pursue their dreams.
The world; our world is the poorer when Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhist and non believers cannot come together to share in each other's knowledge and understanding so that we may propel the world towards true human peace and endeavor to harness the true potential of the human being and enjoy the abundant fruits of creation.
Please let us look forward and not backwards. Let us extend our hands to each other in true friendship and respect and see the true extent of creations wonders that await us in that sea of tranquility and peace here on Earth.
Salem aleikum.
Israel is being condemned by all and sundry for its latest incursion or as some would define it, invasion of Gaza. The shelling of UN compounds sheltering innocent civilians, the bombing of a UN school, the destruction of UN facilities storing much needed and scarce supplies and the use of phosphorous shells proscribed for use in civilian and populated theatres make some of us wonder what happened to Israel, the land we used defend till blue in the face?
I am saddened especially by the latest debacle and I seem to have the most peace when Israel is not in the news, because it would appear that the last decade or so has only brought about negativity for that young state.
A sad testament to what happens when a nation abandon its ideals under the ubiquitous guise of security.
If there ever was a nation on God's Earth, which should be very sensitive to attacks on civilians, women and children that state ought to be Israel. A just cause must carry world opinion. And yes, world opinion does matter, especially to places like Israel!
But then again, when you can get away with impunity time and again it becomes habitual. "The Palestinians started it", I can hear the apologists say. But what makes a nation civilized, is that it maintains its human decency especially in the face of unwarranted provocation.
When we stoop to the same levels of barbarity as those we seem to chastise, we reduce ourselves to a level even lower than that of which we chastise others and with that comes the erosion of our moral authority. Being the most powerful state or nation does not necessarily engender respect. Ask George W Bush.
The World is changing and Israel will do very well to change with it! And if anything Israel ought to listen to its friends and note that as others are already tagging this latest adventure as genocide or extermination demonstrates one thing; This world, our world, would not sit idly by and witness the wiping out of the Palestinians as an entity or as a people, only for a car or an aircraft to be named after them, generations down the line. No mas!
Hi all, it is not over 'til it's over. George Bush is preparing to enact 90 resolutions which will be hard for Obama to clear when he gets into office.
I am sending the following email to Nancy Pelosi, House Speaker and the one who can begin impeachment proceedings. It would be a shame if these two criminals are allowed to leave office with some bogus honorable history.
email:sf.nancy@mail.house.govDear Honorable Nancy Pelosi, With all due respect to your position, intelligence and patriotism. Yet it still escapes me why the legislation to impeach Dick Cheney and George Bush was sent to committee. At least this is what happened to the best of my knowledge. I assumed that it was a bad time to be impeaching the executive branch of our government. The controversy would be a bad idea during the campaign of our President Elect, Barack Obama. I ask of you, with my heart, mind and soul, to bring impeachment proceedings forward at this time. It would be a shame on this country and this governmental system if Bush and Cheney were allowed to leave office with honor after what they have done to this country and the Constitution. I firmly believe that without any political shenanigans, these two will be impeached the mere fact that both are sworn to uphold the Constitution and blatantly threatened military action against other sovereign nations is itself enough for impeachment. The founding fathers knew well the possibility of an executive branch, which put military force above diplomatic maneuvers. It is also inferred if not out and out written that the Presidents State of the Union address is to be of facts, not to be filled with inferences or out-and-out lies to the people of this country in effort to sway public political opinion. It is also without doubt that the President and vice-President used a minimum of three deceptions, which were known by them to have other, countermanding information, which they hide from view. It is imperative that bipartisan politics be put aside and honesty, integrity, common sense and intelligence be reinserted into a terribly politicized and polarized Congress. Please, do the right thing and impeach the men that their legacy is not left to blot the future governing of this great country.Yours,Duane A. Kuehn
To All the Nanas, Toots & Grans of This World
I came to support Barack Obama because I grew more and more fed up with the fact that in a world of plenty many children go to bed without a roof over their heads and hungry. I grew more and more disillusioned that the most powerful and the richest nation on God’s Earth could not feed, clothe and provide a large swathe of its citizens with the basic decency of affordable healthcare. Most of all, I was depressed about a senseless war that drained the whole world of the basic freedoms we were supposed to be fighting to protect. I wanted a sensible person in the White House and all the White houses across this globe who would not ban a mother from carrying a baby’s formula milk on to a plane without the humiliation of first having to taste it in full public view, or where a passenger travelling on an airliner could not carry a bottle of water through security but could buy a liter of whiskey in a bottle and carry that onboard.
So even though I am black, I was looking more and more for plain old commonsense. And on reading about Barack and listening to him I was shocked to find a man who bristled with just basic commonsense.
Then I discovered that he is just about the same age as I am. He is going grey like I am, travelled a lot and lived in different states and even territories like I have, nearly as handsome as I am, we both have African fathers who were not around much and he was raised by his grandmother as I was.
Now that last fact of being raised by his grandmother was truly the clincher. Because I know that there is no better love than that given by a grandparent for a grandchild. My grandmother went up to the heavens when she was over 100 years old. She lived in Africa and I had the good fortune of visiting her just over a year before she went up into the clouds to be a kool nebula. When we met for the last time we laughed and cried together, hugged each other. Nana stood up and walked me to the door when I left – she had not walked the previous three months!
Here was a lady of immense class even if poor. Here was a human being of endless compassion even if she was suffering ill health. She was always there for me whether I was genuinely ill or just playing her for a nice meal of calf’s liver which I drummed up when nine years old, that it had been recommended by the doctor because I needed more iron in my blood. And here was the surprise. She knew all along I was telling fibs about the calf’s liver and yet she indulged me. Here was a person whom in all the years I lived with her never once saw her lose her temper or raise her voice. Here was a woman who raised seven surviving children four of whom were college graduates and numerous grandchildren of the same calibre yet did not even have basic education.
Now I have not blossomed into a potential POTUS but I know deep in my heart that I would most certainly be a lesser person but for her love and nurturing; how she spoke to one more with her demeanour and eyes than her lips. She instilled discipline without the crop. She installed the work ethic without enforcement. But most of all she loved abundantly and unconditionally.
When my Nana left this Earth I went to help lay her to rest and I wept. Not of sadness but of the wisdom and incredible love that this world was being denied and the fact that my children, her great grandchildren never got to meet the most special woman who nurtured and shaped my life. Most times I speak to her quietly because I know she would ignore me if I shout or am too loud. She always preferred calm tranquility to bawling and most certainly brain over brawl.
So if you do not understand why Barack suspended his campaign to become POTUS to go see his ailing Toots and running the risk of losing his momentum and lead in a very hard fought and contested race with just two weeks left, it is because without a shadow of doubt, if he were offered the chance or choice to choose between his Toots surviving another year without pain or him winning the presidency, I would bet my bottom dollar that he would choose the former. Because that is how great, Grans are.
And I pray that Toots stays strong beyond the next two weeks to watch her kin show the World not only how the dignified office of the President of The United States ought to be executed but that the most powerful and still most respected nation on Earth does better using its enormous wealth compassionately than in combat. Let’s steal ourselves a moment to reflect for the new global and world order that will be unleashed in the reign of an Obama administration that set the benchmark for generations to come and for replication across the globe. For he is a man with our sensibilities and instincts who recognises that the next two thousand years cannot replicate the distaste and debauchery of the previous two thousand, for times are far too important for business as usual.
So tonight let’s all raise a glass of whatever it is we drink in salute and honor of the Nanas, Toots and Grans of this world without whom our gene pool beside other characteristics would be more the poorer.
Let’s humbly and without fanfare of our own making usher in not just new blood, instincts and ideals but a sense of community, belonging, fairness, respect and yes, responsibility. It is now our turn. Our generation has to make the rules now going forward, and as we judged those generations who failed before us as harshly as we have done, we must work ever so hard to live up to the aspirations and the mantra of our calling that ‘the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice but not by itself. For each one of us has to reach up and lend our weight to help bend it towards justice’. ……Gods speed!
So, we have all heard the McCain campaign's latest attempt at diversion. Seems that now they are calling his economic plan "socialism." How does monetary assistance to the the poor and downtrodden differ from monetary assistance for the top %5 of wealthy americans? How is bailing out corporations and giving them financial breaks in a so- called "trickle down" system not socialist? Get real you McCain morons! You dont want to call the government's obvoius "socialist" interventionalism on behaf of the wealthy, and prosperous for what is is. But as soon as that money goes to helping the truly disenfranchised and devastated masses, then it becomes a "socialist" idea? This is yet another double standard enacted by the whining upper class and the McCain campaign who truly represents them. Are we backpeddling to the red scare and neo McCarthyism? Wake up you turds! We are moving forward in this country, and scare tactics and black labeling "commie" of good americans and necessary policies are just plain wrong!
We will not stand for this pathetic rhetoric. We will take our country back from the vampires, and the vultures and the scoundrels.
I just wanted to get this out in the open:
This perception of the "Liberal" media by McCain supporters is ridiculous.The media plays what they percieve to be the opinion of the majority, while some outlets are playing satire to reality, to expose bitter truths in a light hearted manner, so as to allow their proper digestion. Ratings drive this business, and ultimately money. The public's desire for the facts and the gossip are what the media is appealing to. I am sick and tired of McCainites whining about how unfair it is that their candidate is being portrayed in such a way by a few certain outlets. They try to bundle the entire media up in a generalization. Citing a lists of instances where opinion's are made that contradict their guarded little world, and applying it to the broad spectrum that is free speech. While their own outlets (fox news comes to mind) bend reality to their own beliefs and tendencies, which they do not contest. They attempt to paint MSM as propagandist. As if the liberals are taking over the country with their radical and subversive propaganda. When popular opinion has indicated their so called "fair and balanced" news coverage is the actual propaganda being force fed to the people. They lack a sense of humor and sense of fair play. Basically, they can dish it out, but cant take it when it is directed towards them. How very immature and hypocritical. The "liberal" media has their own way of debunking lies, and retalliating. It is called telling the truth! I am so sorry that you can't handle the truth McCainites. It looks like you need to go back to school and learn how to play well with others!Grow up boys and girls! Stop your wailing and whining, and take your punches like the rest of us!!!
Senator McCain before he even confirmed his participation in tonight's Presidential debate is already advertising that he won the debate.
Here is a man (an American hero) who cannot distinguish day from night, left from right, right from wrong or fact from fiction.
McCain for President? You must be joking!
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/thefix/2008/09/mccain_wins_debate.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/images/26Sep_Friday_WSJ.JPG
AP Poll Finds Racial Undertone In Presidential Election
In attempting to determine why a nation in crises after nearly 8 years of Bush the minor’s stewardship of a morally, intellectually and politically bankrupt GOP and its aging nominee John McCain, who changes his views as often as there are storms in the gulf-of Mexico, still running neck-and-neck with the rival Democratic nominee Barack Obama, the poll with the help of Stanford University using very sophisticated analysis came up with a whopper! There is STILL racism in the USA!
Now I must say I am flabbergasted. Racism in the USA? Why, in the land of Lincoln and Roosevelt? The very sophisticated poll combining computer graphics with questions probing latently held views discovered that 40% of all whites and a lot of Democratic voters still held very negative and stereotypical views about blacks. They believed that blacks are their own worst enemies. Were violent, lazy and did not try harder. Only 59% of white Democrats, according to the poll, said they would vote for Barack Obama, and as much as 17% of Hillary Clinton’s supporters are willing to vote against their own interests and pull the clinger for McCain.
Now I am sure that most ordinary people did not require the sophisticated analytical tools of Stanford University to have come to the easy conclusion that there is still racism in the USA. Why else would candidates and parties spend a small fortune in attacking people for their race as the GOP did by attempting to ally Obama and former Fannie Mae Chairman Frank Raines. A more apt reference could have been Jim Johnson who as former Chairman of Fannie Mae was on Obama’s vice presidential selection team until his resignation. So why Raines whom Obama barely knew instead of Johnson? Raines is black and Johnson? You can guess!
More seriously, until recently the MSM had virtually given McCain and his running mate Sarah Palin a pass at being extremely economical with the truth. In fact some might say for telling bare faced lies! But then again a lying old man of their kin is better than any truth telling N…. any day.
But all the analytical tooling cannot hide a huge shock to the American psyche; that of a once mighty nation now in serious decline. America is growing old but doing so rather ungracefully! The mighty US$ is in perpetual decline, the famed US armed services are bogged down in a titanic struggle borne out by the insipient fantasies of men such as John McCain and carried out on the ideological idiosyncratic whim as those of his current running mate Sarah Palin; who is fast being coached to become the standard bearer of the now disgraced neo-conservatives.
The national economy is on life-support with the Federal Reserve (a private bank) urging the nation’s tax payers to bail out a bunch of hoodlums who have grown so greedy but so vast that anything else will lead to the death of the once mighty US economy - the engine room of the global economy! And that dose of urgent chemotherapy? One trillion US Dollars. That is $1,000,000,000,000.
Some Americans may be racist and racism may well be rife in the Democratic Party; after all some very prominent Democrats made their fortunes on the back of slavery and fought abolition tooth and nail. Remember the racist South was once solid Democratic territory. The 1956 Southern Manifesto, a Confederacy throwback some ninety-one years after they had lost the American Civil War, was signed by nineteen United States Senators. Seventy-seven members of the House of Representatives opposed to racial integration in public places also signed it. Of the ninety-six members of Congress who signed the Southern Manifesto, two were Virginia Republican Congressmen [three Southern Republican Congressmen refused to sign]. The rest were all Democrats. *Senator Richard Russell, Democrat of Georgia, co-authored the 1956 Southern Manifesto strongly defended white supremacy and voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
*Senator Albert Gore Sr., Democrat of Tennessee, voted against 1964 Civil Rights Act
*Senator Sam Ervin, Democrat of North Carolina (the Senator who chaired the Watergate Investigating Committee), signed the 1956 Sothern Manifesto and voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act
*Senator James O. Eastland, Democrat of Mississippi was a staunch segregationist and avowed racist who signed the 1956 Southern Manifesto and voted against 1964 Civil Rights Act and still served under Jimmy Carter as the Chairmen of the Senate Judiciary Committee and number three to assume the presidency. He served in the Senate till 1978; only some thirty years ago.
But all that notwithstanding however, what I am absolutely convinced about is this; American is not the same and will never be again unless it takes a very serious look at itself. The nation needs to look and reflect upon itself. For the missed opportunities, exploitation and greed under the guise of the free-market. No market is ever free. There is always a price to pay! The previous gravy train that led so many to only care about their self-interests’ and damned the rest, has left the station and never to return. There will be repercussions when Main Street washes away the blinkers and discover, as they will, that they have been had! Lied to! Manipulated!
Only one man is equipped with the candor, freshness, decency, honesty and integrity to deal with this highly explosive domestic tinder-box delicately. Only one man is predisposed to handle the associated international repercussions and pushback that the US will face when other more serenely managed economies suffer, stutter or even fail as a direct consequence of the free wheeler-dealings under the ubiquitous guise of the free market.
For this is a nation in addition to the $1 trillion to rescue high stakes gamblers who may well end-up keeping their ill gotten winnings at the expense of Main Street who may lose even their homes, is indebted to itself and the rest of the world (gross national debt plus debt held by public stock) by an eye-popping $9 trillion. That is $9,000,000,000,000. Put another way, which is $30,000 per every woman, man & child in America. But you tell that to the lazy, violent blacks not trying hard enough. The truth of the matter is that America may end up needing Barack Obama more than it knows and certainly more than he needs America. It may not seem a patriotic thing to say but most nations in this World, would welcome him with open arms. There are not that many American leaders in the current crop you can say that about. Fortunately, there are more Americans across the political spectrum who when the issues demand, it would seem, are prepared to put aside their superficial differences in color. I believe this is what drives Barack Obama in his pursuit of the Presidency. Well, the AP poll found that most whites say that blacks could improve their lot if they tried harder. Well Barack is hard at it trying. Hopefully these same folks will be prepared to help him help America.
So now you know why Barack & Joe have a fight on their hands. Why they together have to fight harder. They know things are far worst than they can talk frankly about without causing fear or panic. Oh, and for now Joe Biden is an honorary black. Barack and Joe will close the deal but they need your help and support. They need you to appeal to the good sense of a common purpose of ordinary folks so that Barack and Joe prevail. We need Barack to be the next POTUS. I am absolutely convinced that he will be. Or do you need a poll to tell you that?
The date is September 19, 2008. As a nation, we are distracted by the enviornment, prosperity, energy, faith, morality, health, & all concerns of humanity. All of these issues are, as I like to say, "in Devine order", or they are under the direction of a higher power. If we can come togather for the purpose of war (absurdity of killing God's greatest creation), we can surely come togather for a love of humanity. Why do we not like each other? I find my buttons being pushed by hearing the name Rush Limbaugh. That is absurd! I don't know Rush Limbaugh. He's never trespassed against me. He's a powerful human, with a tremendous following. His disconnect comes from a belief that some of God's greatest creation is flawed, & hence, he would have us destroyed, if necessary. Plainly stated, Rush Limbaugh seeks to divide this great nation.
How many would like Limbaugh go away? How many would say, "Limbaugh is bad"? Is that not a disconnect from the truth, that Limbaugh is a perfect creation of God? Why don't we find some common grounds to begin with, & stop all the absurdities? Rush, I'll bet I could learn a few things from you, & I'll also bet you could learn from me, given the chance. I can promote conservatisim the same as liberalism. I'm on a journey to seek the greatest from all of us, & to expose disconnect as it appears. My b.s. (belief system) is evolving to allow me to discover who God has made me to be. I researve the right to change my b.s. at anytime I feal appropiately (no longer searves my needs). I believe fear is my biggest obstacle in life. I believe judgement is a servant of fear. I believe we must build community to save humanity on earth. I believe God's judgement will be hell on earth, if we don't CHANGE, & come togather. I believe in the abundance of creation, & there's plenty for us all, who respects all creation. I believe in justus for all, when all are valued equally. When I pledge allegance to my country, I'm accepting that my country is under God, & by that statement, we must be undividable, & hence, we can live with liberty, & justice, for all.
Remarks of Senator Barack Obama—as prepared for delivery Confronting an Economic Crisis Tuesday, September 16th, 2008 Golden, Colorado Over the last few days, we have seen clearly what’s at stake in this election. The news from Wall Street has shaken the American people’s faith in our economy. The situation with Lehman Brothers and other financial institutions is the latest in a wave of crises that have generated tremendous uncertainty about the future of our financial markets. This is a major threat to our economy and its ability to create good-paying jobs and help working Americans pay their bills, save for their future, and make their mortgage payments. Since this turmoil began over a year ago, the housing market has collapsed. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had to be effectively taken over by the government. Three of America’s five largest investment banks failed or have been sold off in distress. Yesterday, Wall Street suffered its worst losses since just after 9/11. We are in the most serious financial crisis in generations. Yet Senator McCain stood up yesterday and said that the fundamentals of the economy are strong A few hours later, his campaign sent him back out to clean up his remarks, and he tried to explain himself again this morning by saying that what he meant was that American workers are strong. But we know that Senator McCain meant what he said the first time, because he has said it over and over again throughout this campaign – no fewer than 16 times, according to one independent count. Now I certainly don’t fault Senator McCain for all of the problems we’re facing, but I do fault the economic philosophy he subscribes to. Because the truth is, what Senator McCain said yesterday fits with the same economic philosophy that he’s had for 26 years. It’s the philosophy that says we should give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down. It’s the philosophy that says even common-sense regulations are unnecessary and unwise. It’s a philosophy that lets Washington lobbyists shred consumer protections and distort our economy so it works for the special interests instead of working people. We’ve had this philosophy for eight years. We know the results. You feel it in your own lives. Jobs have disappeared, and peoples’ life savings have been put at risk. Millions of families face foreclosure, and millions more have seen their home values plummet. The cost of everything from gas to groceries to health care has gone up, while the dream of a college education for our kids and a secure and dignified retirement for our seniors is slipping away. These are the struggles that Americans are facing. This is the pain that has now trickled up. So let’s be clear: what we’ve seen the last few days is nothing less than the final verdict on an economic philosophy that has completely failed. And I am running for President of the United States because the dreams of the American people must not be endangered any more. It’s time to put an end to a broken system in Washington that is breaking the American economy. It’s time for change that makes a real difference in your lives. If you want to understand the difference between how Senator McCain and I would govern as President, you can start by taking a look at how we’ve responded to this crisis. Because Senator McCain’s approach was the same as the Bush Administration’s: support ideological policies that made the crisis more likely; do nothing as the crisis hits; and then scramble as the whole thing collapses. My approach has been to try to prevent this turmoil. In February of 2006, I introduced legislation to stop mortgage transactions that promoted fraud, risk or abuse. A year later, before the crisis hit, I warned Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke about the risks of mounting foreclosures and urged them to bring together all the stakeholders to find solutions to the subprime mortgage meltdown. Senator McCain did nothing. Last September, I stood up at NASDAQ and said it’s time to realize that we are in this together – that there is no dividing line between Wall Street and Main Street – and warned of a growing loss of trust in our capital markets. Months later, Senator McCain told a newspaper that he’d love to give them a solution to the mortgage crisis, "but" – he said – "I don’t know one." In January, I outlined a plan to help revive our faltering economy, which formed the basis for a bipartisan stimulus package that passed the Congress. Senator McCain used the crisis as an excuse to push a so-called stimulus plan that offered another huge and permanent corporate tax cut, including $4 billion for the big oil companies, but no immediate help for workers. This March, in the wake of the Bear Stearns bailout, I called for a new, 21st century regulatory framework to restore accountability, transparency, and trust in our financial markets. Just a few weeks earlier, Senator McCain made it clear where he stands: "I’m always for less regulation," he said, and referred to himself as "fundamentally a deregulator." This is what happens when you confuse the free market with a free license to let special interests take whatever they can get, however they can get it. This is what happens when you see seven years of incomes falling for the average worker while Wall Street is booming, and declare – as Senator McCain did earlier this year – that we’ve made great progress economically under George Bush. That is how you can reach the conclusion – as late as yesterday – that the fundamentals of the economy are strong. Well, we have a different way of measuring the fundamentals of our economy. We know that the fundamentals that we use to measure economic strength are whether we are living up to that fundamental promise that has made this country great –that America is a place where you can make it if you try. Americans have always pursued our dreams within a free market that has been the engine of our progress. It’s a market that has created a prosperity that is the envy of the world, and rewarded the innovators and risk-takers who have made America a beacon of science, and technology, and discovery. But the American economy has worked in large part because we have guided the market’s invisible hand with a higher principle – that America prospers when all Americans can prosper. That is why we have put in place rules of the road to make competition fair, and open, and honest. Too often, over the last quarter century, we have lost this sense of shared prosperity. And this has not happened by accident. It’s because of decisions made in boardrooms, on trading floors and in Washington. We failed to guard against practices that all too often rewarded financial manipulation instead of productivity and sound business practices. We let the special interests put their thumbs on the economic scales. The result has been a distorted market that creates bubbles instead of steady, sustainable growth; a market that favors Wall Street over Main Street, but ends up hurting both. Let me be clear: the American economy does not stand still, and neither should the rules that govern it. The evolution of industries often warrants regulatory reform - to foster competition, lower prices, or replace outdated oversight structures. Old institutions cannot adequately oversee new practices. Old rules may not fit the roads where our economy is leading. But instead of sensible reform that rewarded success and freed the creative forces of the market, too often we’ve excused an ethic of greed, corner-cutting and inside dealing that threatens the long-term stability of our economic system. It happened in the 1980s, when we loosened restrictions on Savings and Loans and appointed regulators who ignored even these weaker rules. Too many S&Ls took advantage of the lax rules set by Washington to gamble that they could make big money in speculative real estate. Confident of their clout in Washington, they made hundreds of billions in bad loans, knowing that if they lost money, the government would bail them out. And they were right. The gambles did not pay off, our economy went into recession, and the taxpayers ended up footing the bill. Sound familiar? And it has happened again during this decade, in part because of how we deregulated the financial services sector. After we repealed outmoded rules instead of updating them, we were left overseeing 21st century innovation with 20th century regulations. When subprime mortgage lending took a reckless and unsustainable turn, a patchwork of regulators systematically and deliberately eliminated the regulations protecting the American people and failed to raise warning flags that could have protected investors and the pensions American workers count on. This was not the invisible hand of the market at work. These cycles of bubble and bust were symptoms of the ideology that my opponent is running to continue. John McCain has spent decades in Washington supporting financial institutions instead of their customers. In fact, one of the biggest proponents of deregulation in the financial sector is Phil Gramm – the same man who helped write John McCain’s economic plan; the same man who said that we’re going through a ‘mental recession’; and the same man who called the United States of America a "nation of whiners." So it’s hard to understand how Senator McCain is going to get us out of this crisis by doing the same things with the same old players. Make no mistake: my opponent is running for four more years of policies that will throw the economy further out of balance. His outrage at Wall Street would be more convincing if he wasn’t offering them more tax cuts. His call for fiscal responsibility would be believable if he wasn’t for more tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, and more of a trillion dollar war in Iraq paid for with deficit spending and borrowing from foreign creditors like China. His newfound support for regulation bears no resemblance to his scornful attitude towards oversight and enforcement. John McCain cannot be trusted to reestablish proper oversight of our financial markets for one simple reason: he has shown time and again that he does not believe in it. What has happened these last eight years is not some historical anomaly, so we know what to expect if we try these policies for another four. When lobbyists run your campaign, the special interests end up gaming the system. When the White House is hostile to any kind of oversight, corporations cut corners and consumers pay the price. When regulators are chosen for their disdain for regulation and we gut their ability to enforce the law, then the interests of the American people are not protected. It’s an ideology that intentionally breeds incompetence in Washington and irresponsibility on Wall Street, and it’s time to turn the page. Just today, Senator McCain offered up the oldest Washington stunt in the book – you pass the buck to a commission to study the problem. But here’s the thing – this isn’t 9/11. We know how we got into this mess. What we need now is leadership that gets us out. I’ll provide it, John McCain won’t, and that’s the choice for the American people in this election. History shows us that there is no substitute for presidential leadership in a time of economic crisis. FDR and Harry Truman didn’t put their heads in the sand, or hand accountability over to a Commission. Bill Clinton didn’t put off hard choices. They led, and that’s what I will do. My priority as President will be the stability of the American economy and the prosperity of the American people. And I will make sure that our response focuses on middle class Americans – not the companies that created the problem. To get out of this crisis – and to ensure that we are not doomed to repeat a cycle of bubble and bust again and again – we must take immediate measures to create jobs and continue to address the housing crisis; we must build a 21st century regulatory framework, and we must pursue a bold opportunity agenda that creates new jobs and grows the American economy. To jumpstart job creation, I have proposed a $50 billion Emergency Economic Plan that would save 1 million jobs by rebuilding our infrastructure, repairing our schools, and helping our states and localities avoid damaging budget cuts. I worked with leaders in Congress to create a new FHA Housing Security Program, which will help stabilize the housing market and allow Americans facing foreclosure to keep their homes at rates they can afford. Going forward, we need to replace Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as we know them with a structure that is focused on helping people buy homes – not engaging in market speculation. We can’t have a situation like the old S&L scandal where its "heads" investors win, and "tails" taxpayers lose. That’s going to take ending the lobbyist-driven dominance of these institutions that we’ve seen for far too long in Washington. To prevent fraud in the mortgage market, I’ve proposed tough penalties on fraudulent lenders, and a Home Score system that will ensure consumers fully understand mortgage offers and whether they’ll be able to make payments. To help low- and middle-income families, I will ease the burden on struggling homeowners through a universal homeowner’s tax credit. This will add up to a 10 percent break off the mortgage interest rate for 10 million households. That’s another $500 each year for many middle class families. Unlike Senator McCain, I will change our bankruptcy laws to make it easier for families to stay in their homes. Right now, if you’re a family that owns one house, bankruptcy judges are actually barred from helping you keep a roof over your head by writing down the value of your mortgage. If you own seven homes, the judge is free to write down any or all of the debt on your second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth or seventh homes. Now that may be of comfort to Senator McCain, but that’s the kind of out-of-touch Washington loophole that makes no sense. When I’m President, we’ll make our laws work for working people. But as we’ve seen the last few days, the crisis in our financial markets now reaches well beyond the housing market. That’s why it’s time to do what I called for last September and again this past March – and it is only more overdue today. Our capital markets cannot succeed without the public’s trust. It’s time to get serious about regulatory oversight, and that’s what I will do as President. That starts with the core principles for reform that I discussed at Cooper Union. First, if you’re a financial institution that can borrow from the government, you should be subject to government oversight and supervision. When the Federal Reserve steps in as a lender of last resort, it is providing an insurance policy underwritten by the American taxpayer. In return, taxpayers have every right to expect that financial institutions with access to that credit are not taking excessive risks. Second, we must reform requirements on all regulated financial institutions. We must strengthen capital requirements, particularly for complex financial instruments like some of the mortgage securities and other derivatives at the center of our current crisis. We must develop and rigorously manage liquidity risk. We must investigate rating agencies and potential conflicts of interest with the people they are rating. And we must establish transparency requirements that demand full disclosure by financial institutions to shareholders and counterparties. As we reform our regulatory system at home, we must address the same problems abroad so that financial institutions around the world are subject to similar rules of the road. Third, we need to streamline our regulatory agencies. Our overlapping and competing regulatory agencies cannot oversee the large and complex institutions that dominate the financial landscape. Different institutions compete in multiple markets - Washington should not pretend otherwise. A streamlined system will provide better oversight and reduce costs. Fourth, we need to regulate institutions for what they do, not what they are. Over the last few years, commercial banks and thrift institutions were subject to guidelines on subprime mortgages that did not apply to mortgage brokers and companies. This regulatory framework failed to protect homeowners, and made no sense for our financial system. When it comes to protecting the American people, it should make no difference what kind of institution they are dealing with. Fifth, we must crack down on trading activity that crosses the line to market manipulation. The last six months have shown that this remains a serious problem in many markets and becomes especially problematic during moments of great financial turmoil. We cannot embrace the administration’s vision of turning over the protection of investors to the industries themselves. We need regulators that actually enforce the rules instead of overlooking them. The SEC should investigate and punish market manipulation, and report its conclusions to Congress. Sixth, we must establish a process that identifies systemic risks to the financial system like the crisis that has overtaken our economy. Too often, we end up where we are today: dealing with threats to the financial system that weren’t anticipated by regulators. We need a standing financial market advisory group to meet regularly and provide advice to the President, Congress, and regulators on the state of our financial markets and the risks they face. It’s time to anticipate risks before they erupt into a full-blown crisis. These six principles should guide the legal reforms needed to establish a 21st century regulatory system. But the change we need goes beyond laws and regulation. Financial institutions must do a better job at managing risks. There is something wrong when boards of directors or senior managers don’t understand the implications of the risks assumed by their own institutions. It’s time to realign incentives and CEO compensation packages, so that both high level executives and employees better serve the interests of shareholders. Finally, the American people must be able to trust that their government is looking out for all of us - not the special interests that have set the agenda in Washington for eight years, and the lobbyists who run John McCain’s campaign. I’ve spent my career taking on lobbyists and their money, and I’ve won. If you wanted a special favor in Illinois, there was actually a law that let you give campaign cash to politicians for their own personal use. In the State House, they called it business-as-usual. I called it legalized bribery, and while it didn’t make me the most popular guy in Springfield, I put an end to it. When I got to Washington, we saw some of the worst corruption since Watergate. I led the fight for reform in my party, and let me tell you – not everyone in my party was too happy about it. When I proposed forcing lobbyists to disclose who they’re raising money from and who in Congress they’re funneling it to, I had a few choice words directed my way on the floor of the Senate. But we got it done, and we banned gifts from lobbyists, and free rides on their fancy jets. And I am the only candidate who can say that Washington lobbyists do not fund my campaign, they will not run my White House, and they will not drown out the voices of the American people when I am President of the United States. That’s how we’re going to end the outrage of special interests tipping the scales. The most important thing we must do is restore opportunity for all Americans. To get our economy growing, we need to recapture that fundamental American promise. That if you work hard, you can pay the bills. That if you get sick, you won’t go bankrupt. That your kids can get a good education, and that we can leave a legacy of greater opportunity to future generations. That’s the change the American people need. While Senator McCain likes to talk about change these days, his economic program offers nothing but more of the same. The American people need more than change as a slogan– we need change that makes a real difference in your life. Change means a tax code that doesn’t reward the lobbyists who wrote it, but the American workers and small businesses who deserve it. I will stop giving tax breaks to corporations that ship jobs overseas, and I will start giving them to companies that create good jobs right here in America. I will eliminate capital gains taxes for small businesses and start-ups – that’s how we’ll grow our economy and create the high-wage, high-tech jobs of tomorrow. I will cut taxes – cut taxes – for 95% of all working families. My opponent doesn’t want you to know this, but under my plan, tax rates will actually be less than they were under Ronald Reagan. If you make less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increase one single dime. In fact, I offer three times the tax relief for middle-class families as Senator McCain does – because in an economy like this, the last thing we should do is raise taxes on the middle-class. I will finally keep the promise of affordable, accessible health care for every single American. If you have health care, my plan will lower your premiums. If you don’t, you’ll be able to get the same kind of coverage that members of Congress give themselves. And I will stop insurance companies from discriminating against those who are sick and need care the most I will create the jobs of the future by transforming our energy economy. We’ll tap our natural gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology, and find ways to safely harness nuclear power. I’ll help our auto companies re-tool, so that the fuel-efficient cars of the future are built right here in America. I’ll make it easier for the American people to afford these new cars. And I’ll invest 150 billion dollars over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy – wind power and solar power and the next generation of biofuels; an investment that will lead to new industries and five million new jobs that pay well and can’t ever be outsourced. And now is the time to finally meet our moral obligation to provide every child a world-class education, because it will take nothing less to compete in the global economy. I’ll recruit an army of new teachers, and pay them higher salaries and give them more support. But in exchange, I will ask for higher standards and more accountability. And we will keep our promise to every young American – if you commit to serving your community or your country, we will make sure you can afford a college education. This is the change we need – the kind of bottom up growth and innovation that will advance the American economy by advancing the dreams of all Americans. Times are hard. I will not pretend that the changes we need will come without cost – though I have presented ways we can achieve these changes in a fiscally responsible way. I know that we’ll have to overcome our doubts and divisions and the determined opposition of powerful special interests before we can truly reform a broken economy and advance opportunity. But I am running for President because we simply cannot afford four more years of an economic philosophy that works for Wall Street instead of Main Street, and ends up devastating both. I don’t want to wake up in four years to find that more Americans fell out of the middle-class, and more families lost their savings. I don’t want to see that our country failed to invest in our ability to compete, our children’s future was mortgaged on another mountain of debt, and our financial markets failed to find a firmer footing. This time – this election – is our chance to stand up and say: enough is enough! We can do this because Americans have done this before. Time and again, we’ve battled back from adversity by recognizing that common stake that we have in each other’s success. That’s why our economy hasn’t just been the world’s greatest wealth generator – it’s bound America together, it’s created jobs, and it’s made the dream of opportunity a reality for generation after generation of Americans. Now it falls to us. And I need you to make it happen. If you want the next four years looking just like the last eight, then I am not your candidate. But if you want real change – if you want an economy that rewards work, and that works for Main Street and Wall Street; if you want tax relief for the middle class and millions of new jobs; if you want health care you can afford and education so that our kids can compete; then I ask you to knock on some doors, and make some calls, and talk to your neighbors, and give me your vote on November 4th. And if you do, I promise you – we will win Colorado, we will win this election, and we will change America together.
Remarks of Senator Barack Obama—as prepared for delivery
Confronting an Economic Crisis
Tuesday, September 16th, 2008
Golden, Colorado
Over the last few days, we have seen clearly what’s at stake in this election. The news from Wall Street has shaken the American people’s faith in our economy. The situation with Lehman Brothers and other financial institutions is the latest in a wave of crises that have generated tremendous uncertainty about the future of our financial markets. This is a major threat to our economy and its ability to create good-paying jobs and help working Americans pay their bills, save for their future, and make their mortgage payments.
Since this turmoil began over a year ago, the housing market has collapsed. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had to be effectively taken over by the government. Three of America’s five largest investment banks failed or have been sold off in distress. Yesterday, Wall Street suffered its worst losses since just after 9/11. We are in the most serious financial crisis in generations. Yet Senator McCain stood up yesterday and said that the fundamentals of the economy are strong
A few hours later, his campaign sent him back out to clean up his remarks, and he tried to explain himself again this morning by saying that what he meant was that American workers are strong. But we know that Senator McCain meant what he said the first time, because he has said it over and over again throughout this campaign – no fewer than 16 times, according to one independent count.
Now I certainly don’t fault Senator McCain for all of the problems we’re facing, but I do fault the economic philosophy he subscribes to. Because the truth is, what Senator McCain said yesterday fits with the same economic philosophy that he’s had for 26 years. It’s the philosophy that says we should give more and more to those with the most and hope that prosperity trickles down. It’s the philosophy that says even common-sense regulations are unnecessary and unwise. It’s a philosophy that lets Washington lobbyists shred consumer protections and distort our economy so it works for the special interests instead of working people.
We’ve had this philosophy for eight years. We know the results. You feel it in your own lives. Jobs have disappeared, and peoples’ life savings have been put at risk. Millions of families face foreclosure, and millions more have seen their home values plummet. The cost of everything from gas to groceries to health care has gone up, while the dream of a college education for our kids and a secure and dignified retirement for our seniors is slipping away. These are the struggles that Americans are facing. This is the pain that has now trickled up.
So let’s be clear: what we’ve seen the last few days is nothing less than the final verdict on an economic philosophy that has completely failed. And I am running for President of the United States because the dreams of the American people must not be endangered any more. It’s time to put an end to a broken system in Washington that is breaking the American economy. It’s time for change that makes a real difference in your lives.
If you want to understand the difference between how Senator McCain and I would govern as President, you can start by taking a look at how we’ve responded to this crisis. Because Senator McCain’s approach was the same as the Bush Administration’s: support ideological policies that made the crisis more likely; do nothing as the crisis hits; and then scramble as the whole thing collapses. My approach has been to try to prevent this turmoil.
In February of 2006, I introduced legislation to stop mortgage transactions that promoted fraud, risk or abuse. A year later, before the crisis hit, I warned Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke about the risks of mounting foreclosures and urged them to bring together all the stakeholders to find solutions to the subprime mortgage meltdown. Senator McCain did nothing.
Last September, I stood up at NASDAQ and said it’s time to realize that we are in this together – that there is no dividing line between Wall Street and Main Street – and warned of a growing loss of trust in our capital markets. Months later, Senator McCain told a newspaper that he’d love to give them a solution to the mortgage crisis, "but" – he said – "I don’t know one."
In January, I outlined a plan to help revive our faltering economy, which formed the basis for a bipartisan stimulus package that passed the Congress. Senator McCain used the crisis as an excuse to push a so-called stimulus plan that offered another huge and permanent corporate tax cut, including $4 billion for the big oil companies, but no immediate help for workers. This March, in the wake of the Bear Stearns bailout, I called for a new, 21st century regulatory framework to restore accountability, transparency, and trust in our financial markets. Just a few weeks earlier, Senator McCain made it clear where he stands: "I’m always for less regulation," he said, and referred to himself as "fundamentally a deregulator."
This is what happens when you confuse the free market with a free license to let special interests take whatever they can get, however they can get it. This is what happens when you see seven years of incomes falling for the average worker while Wall Street is booming, and declare – as Senator McCain did earlier this year – that we’ve made great progress economically under George Bush. That is how you can reach the conclusion – as late as yesterday – that the fundamentals of the economy are strong.
Well, we have a different way of measuring the fundamentals of our economy. We know that the fundamentals that we use to measure economic strength are whether we are living up to that fundamental promise that has made this country great –that America is a place where you can make it if you try.
Americans have always pursued our dreams within a free market that has been the engine of our progress. It’s a market that has created a prosperity that is the envy of the world, and rewarded the innovators and risk-takers who have made America a beacon of science, and technology, and discovery. But the American economy has worked in large part because we have guided the market’s invisible hand with a higher principle – that America prospers when all Americans can prosper. That is why we have put in place rules of the road to make competition fair, and open, and honest.
Too often, over the last quarter century, we have lost this sense of shared prosperity. And this has not happened by accident. It’s because of decisions made in boardrooms, on trading floors and in Washington. We failed to guard against practices that all too often rewarded financial manipulation instead of productivity and sound business practices. We let the special interests put their thumbs on the economic scales. The result has been a distorted market that creates bubbles instead of steady, sustainable growth; a market that favors Wall Street over Main Street, but ends up hurting both.
Let me be clear: the American economy does not stand still, and neither should the rules that govern it. The evolution of industries often warrants regulatory reform - to foster competition, lower prices, or replace outdated oversight structures. Old institutions cannot adequately oversee new practices. Old rules may not fit the roads where our economy is leading. But instead of sensible reform that rewarded success and freed the creative forces of the market, too often we’ve excused an ethic of greed, corner-cutting and inside dealing that threatens the long-term stability of our economic system.
It happened in the 1980s, when we loosened restrictions on Savings and Loans and appointed regulators who ignored even these weaker rules. Too many S&Ls took advantage of the lax rules set by Washington to gamble that they could make big money in speculative real estate. Confident of their clout in Washington, they made hundreds of billions in bad loans, knowing that if they lost money, the government would bail them out. And they were right. The gambles did not pay off, our economy went into recession, and the taxpayers ended up footing the bill. Sound familiar?
And it has happened again during this decade, in part because of how we deregulated the financial services sector. After we repealed outmoded rules instead of updating them, we were left overseeing 21st century innovation with 20th century regulations. When subprime mortgage lending took a reckless and unsustainable turn, a patchwork of regulators systematically and deliberately eliminated the regulations protecting the American people and failed to raise warning flags that could have protected investors and the pensions American workers count on.
This was not the invisible hand of the market at work. These cycles of bubble and bust were symptoms of the ideology that my opponent is running to continue. John McCain has spent decades in Washington supporting financial institutions instead of their customers. In fact, one of the biggest proponents of deregulation in the financial sector is Phil Gramm – the same man who helped write John McCain’s economic plan; the same man who said that we’re going through a ‘mental recession’; and the same man who called the United States of America a "nation of whiners." So it’s hard to understand how Senator McCain is going to get us out of this crisis by doing the same things with the same old players.
Make no mistake: my opponent is running for four more years of policies that will throw the economy further out of balance. His outrage at Wall Street would be more convincing if he wasn’t offering them more tax cuts. His call for fiscal responsibility would be believable if he wasn’t for more tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, and more of a trillion dollar war in Iraq paid for with deficit spending and borrowing from foreign creditors like China. His newfound support for regulation bears no resemblance to his scornful attitude towards oversight and enforcement. John McCain cannot be trusted to reestablish proper oversight of our financial markets for one simple reason: he has shown time and again that he does not believe in it.
What has happened these last eight years is not some historical anomaly, so we know what to expect if we try these policies for another four. When lobbyists run your campaign, the special interests end up gaming the system. When the White House is hostile to any kind of oversight, corporations cut corners and consumers pay the price. When regulators are chosen for their disdain for regulation and we gut their ability to enforce the law, then the interests of the American people are not protected. It’s an ideology that intentionally breeds incompetence in Washington and irresponsibility on Wall Street, and it’s time to turn the page.
Just today, Senator McCain offered up the oldest Washington stunt in the book – you pass the buck to a commission to study the problem. But here’s the thing – this isn’t 9/11. We know how we got into this mess. What we need now is leadership that gets us out. I’ll provide it, John McCain won’t, and that’s the choice for the American people in this election.
History shows us that there is no substitute for presidential leadership in a time of economic crisis. FDR and Harry Truman didn’t put their heads in the sand, or hand accountability over to a Commission. Bill Clinton didn’t put off hard choices. They led, and that’s what I will do. My priority as President will be the stability of the American economy and the prosperity of the American people. And I will make sure that our response focuses on middle class Americans – not the companies that created the problem.
To get out of this crisis – and to ensure that we are not doomed to repeat a cycle of bubble and bust again and again – we must take immediate measures to create jobs and continue to address the housing crisis; we must build a 21st century regulatory framework, and we must pursue a bold opportunity agenda that creates new jobs and grows the American economy.
To jumpstart job creation, I have proposed a $50 billion Emergency Economic Plan that would save 1 million jobs by rebuilding our infrastructure, repairing our schools, and helping our states and localities avoid damaging budget cuts.
I worked with leaders in Congress to create a new FHA Housing Security Program, which will help stabilize the housing market and allow Americans facing foreclosure to keep their homes at rates they can afford. Going forward, we need to replace Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as we know them with a structure that is focused on helping people buy homes – not engaging in market speculation. We can’t have a situation like the old S&L scandal where its "heads" investors win, and "tails" taxpayers lose. That’s going to take ending the lobbyist-driven dominance of these institutions that we’ve seen for far too long in Washington.
To prevent fraud in the mortgage market, I’ve proposed tough penalties on fraudulent lenders, and a Home Score system that will ensure consumers fully understand mortgage offers and whether they’ll be able to make payments. To help low- and middle-income families, I will ease the burden on struggling homeowners through a universal homeowner’s tax credit. This will add up to a 10 percent break off the mortgage interest rate for 10 million households. That’s another $500 each year for many middle class families.
Unlike Senator McCain, I will change our bankruptcy laws to make it easier for families to stay in their homes. Right now, if you’re a family that owns one house, bankruptcy judges are actually barred from helping you keep a roof over your head by writing down the value of your mortgage. If you own seven homes, the judge is free to write down any or all of the debt on your second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth or seventh homes. Now that may be of comfort to Senator McCain, but that’s the kind of out-of-touch Washington loophole that makes no sense. When I’m President, we’ll make our laws work for working people.
But as we’ve seen the last few days, the crisis in our financial markets now reaches well beyond the housing market. That’s why it’s time to do what I called for last September and again this past March – and it is only more overdue today.
Our capital markets cannot succeed without the public’s trust. It’s time to get serious about regulatory oversight, and that’s what I will do as President. That starts with the core principles for reform that I discussed at Cooper Union.
First, if you’re a financial institution that can borrow from the government, you should be subject to government oversight and supervision. When the Federal Reserve steps in as a lender of last resort, it is providing an insurance policy underwritten by the American taxpayer. In return, taxpayers have every right to expect that financial institutions with access to that credit are not taking excessive risks.
Second, we must reform requirements on all regulated financial institutions. We must strengthen capital requirements, particularly for complex financial instruments like some of the mortgage securities and other derivatives at the center of our current crisis. We must develop and rigorously manage liquidity risk. We must investigate rating agencies and potential conflicts of interest with the people they are rating. And we must establish transparency requirements that demand full disclosure by financial institutions to shareholders and counterparties. As we reform our regulatory system at home, we must address the same problems abroad so that financial institutions around the world are subject to similar rules of the road. Third, we need to streamline our regulatory agencies. Our overlapping and competing regulatory agencies cannot oversee the large and complex institutions that dominate the financial landscape. Different institutions compete in multiple markets - Washington should not pretend otherwise. A streamlined system will provide better oversight and reduce costs.
Fourth, we need to regulate institutions for what they do, not what they are. Over the last few years, commercial banks and thrift institutions were subject to guidelines on subprime mortgages that did not apply to mortgage brokers and companies. This regulatory framework failed to protect homeowners, and made no sense for our financial system. When it comes to protecting the American people, it should make no difference what kind of institution they are dealing with.
Fifth, we must crack down on trading activity that crosses the line to market manipulation. The last six months have shown that this remains a serious problem in many markets and becomes especially problematic during moments of great financial turmoil. We cannot embrace the administration’s vision of turning over the protection of investors to the industries themselves. We need regulators that actually enforce the rules instead of overlooking them. The SEC should investigate and punish market manipulation, and report its conclusions to Congress.
Sixth, we must establish a process that identifies systemic risks to the financial system like the crisis that has overtaken our economy. Too often, we end up where we are today: dealing with threats to the financial system that weren’t anticipated by regulators. We need a standing financial market advisory group to meet regularly and provide advice to the President, Congress, and regulators on the state of our financial markets and the risks they face. It’s time to anticipate risks before they erupt into a full-blown crisis.
These six principles should guide the legal reforms needed to establish a 21st century regulatory system. But the change we need goes beyond laws and regulation. Financial institutions must do a better job at managing risks. There is something wrong when boards of directors or senior managers don’t understand the implications of the risks assumed by their own institutions. It’s time to realign incentives and CEO compensation packages, so that both high level executives and employees better serve the interests of shareholders.
Finally, the American people must be able to trust that their government is looking out for all of us - not the special interests that have set the agenda in Washington for eight years, and the lobbyists who run John McCain’s campaign.
I’ve spent my career taking on lobbyists and their money, and I’ve won. If you wanted a special favor in Illinois, there was actually a law that let you give campaign cash to politicians for their own personal use. In the State House, they called it business-as-usual. I called it legalized bribery, and while it didn’t make me the most popular guy in Springfield, I put an end to it.
When I got to Washington, we saw some of the worst corruption since Watergate. I led the fight for reform in my party, and let me tell you – not everyone in my party was too happy about it. When I proposed forcing lobbyists to disclose who they’re raising money from and who in Congress they’re funneling it to, I had a few choice words directed my way on the floor of the Senate. But we got it done, and we banned gifts from lobbyists, and free rides on their fancy jets. And I am the only candidate who can say that Washington lobbyists do not fund my campaign, they will not run my White House, and they will not drown out the voices of the American people when I am President of the United States. That’s how we’re going to end the outrage of special interests tipping the scales.
The most important thing we must do is restore opportunity for all Americans. To get our economy growing, we need to recapture that fundamental American promise. That if you work hard, you can pay the bills. That if you get sick, you won’t go bankrupt. That your kids can get a good education, and that we can leave a legacy of greater opportunity to future generations.
That’s the change the American people need. While Senator McCain likes to talk about change these days, his economic program offers nothing but more of the same. The American people need more than change as a slogan– we need change that makes a real difference in your life.
Change means a tax code that doesn’t reward the lobbyists who wrote it, but the American workers and small businesses who deserve it. I will stop giving tax breaks to corporations that ship jobs overseas, and I will start giving them to companies that create good jobs right here in America. I will eliminate capital gains taxes for small businesses and start-ups – that’s how we’ll grow our economy and create the high-wage, high-tech jobs of tomorrow.
I will cut taxes – cut taxes – for 95% of all working families. My opponent doesn’t want you to know this, but under my plan, tax rates will actually be less than they were under Ronald Reagan. If you make less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increase one single dime. In fact, I offer three times the tax relief for middle-class families as Senator McCain does – because in an economy like this, the last thing we should do is raise taxes on the middle-class.
I will finally keep the promise of affordable, accessible health care for every single American. If you have health care, my plan will lower your premiums. If you don’t, you’ll be able to get the same kind of coverage that members of Congress give themselves. And I will stop insurance companies from discriminating against those who are sick and need care the most
I will create the jobs of the future by transforming our energy economy. We’ll tap our natural gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology, and find ways to safely harness nuclear power. I’ll help our auto companies re-tool, so that the fuel-efficient cars of the future are built right here in America. I’ll make it easier for the American people to afford these new cars. And I’ll invest 150 billion dollars over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy – wind power and solar power and the next generation of biofuels; an investment that will lead to new industries and five million new jobs that pay well and can’t ever be outsourced.
And now is the time to finally meet our moral obligation to provide every child a world-class education, because it will take nothing less to compete in the global economy. I’ll recruit an army of new teachers, and pay them higher salaries and give them more support. But in exchange, I will ask for higher standards and more accountability. And we will keep our promise to every young American – if you commit to serving your community or your country, we will make sure you can afford a college education.
This is the change we need – the kind of bottom up growth and innovation that will advance the American economy by advancing the dreams of all Americans.
Times are hard. I will not pretend that the changes we need will come without cost – though I have presented ways we can achieve these changes in a fiscally responsible way. I know that we’ll have to overcome our doubts and divisions and the determined opposition of powerful special interests before we can truly reform a broken economy and advance opportunity.
But I am running for President because we simply cannot afford four more years of an economic philosophy that works for Wall Street instead of Main Street, and ends up devastating both.
I don’t want to wake up in four years to find that more Americans fell out of the middle-class, and more families lost their savings. I don’t want to see that our country failed to invest in our ability to compete, our children’s future was mortgaged on another mountain of debt, and our financial markets failed to find a firmer footing.
This time – this election – is our chance to stand up and say: enough is enough!
We can do this because Americans have done this before. Time and again, we’ve battled back from adversity by recognizing that common stake that we have in each other’s success. That’s why our economy hasn’t just been the world’s greatest wealth generator – it’s bound America together, it’s created jobs, and it’s made the dream of opportunity a reality for generation after generation of Americans.
Now it falls to us. And I need you to make it happen. If you want the next four years looking just like the last eight, then I am not your candidate. But if you want real change – if you want an economy that rewards work, and that works for Main Street and Wall Street; if you want tax relief for the middle class and millions of new jobs; if you want health care you can afford and education so that our kids can compete; then I ask you to knock on some doors, and make some calls, and talk to your neighbors, and give me your vote on November 4th. And if you do, I promise you – we will win Colorado, we will win this election, and we will change America together.
Calm down people, You don't have to act desperate. Dont let this go to your head, or affect your efforts for a victory, but this election is all but won by Obama's campaign. When the time comes to vote at the polls, people will think about two things: 1. Bush screwed us not once but twice, now his buddy is trying for a third time. 2. Obama is running a clean campaign with integrity, and is a different breed of politician that doesnt stoop to playground bullying, and flippancy. He is above the fray. Next thing they will do is vote democrat. Obama knows that the american people will embrace his message. He knows that as long as he sticks to his message, and gives a solid plan, that he cannot lose. Kerry was a weak candidate. He was an elitist, and he ran for president in too close to a post 911 america. His speeches sucked, his debates were lousy. Plus he didn't respond nearly as quickly or decisively as Obama has this election. And his message wasn't anything like Obama's. I voted for him for the same reasons many did. He wasnt Bush. Obama's message is that McCain is more of the same. He has the facts to back him, and a message that, well... draws 84,000 to invesco field, and 85 million to their tv sets. Have we forgotten? Are we so afraid of losing that we will result to the desperation of the GOP's pitiful tactics? Will this election be the same as all of the others? The GOP wants us to wring our hands and make desperate retalitory attacks at McCain. I am not saying that we should just sit by and let the GOP take bites out of our ass (no pun intended) while we sit idly by and appear weak. What I am saying is that we should stick to the issues that have taken us this far. We need only get the message out and concentrate on voter reistration and education. The GOP will use every dirty smear that they can think up. We democrats need only to respond by chastizing the way they run their campaign, and highlight how this is "more of the same" Bush/Rove tactics that americans have grown weary of. We only need to show that the pig is wearing lipstick, and wallowing in the mud. There is an old quote I know about playing dirty in politics: "You shouldn't wrestle with a pig, you get dirty, and the pig likes it."
We don't have to be desperate. The american people will respond appropriately. The GOP wants us to think that race is the top issue this election, and that our fear is more important to dwell on than our hope. If you are afriad, then get out there and register voters, and call swing states.
Obama is right to take the high road. He knows that we will catch more flies with honey. He knows that america wants to be great again, and is ready for change. After the debates, america will see clear and true who to vote for. Be patient my friends. It will come. It HAS to come.
I've never heard a conservative speak without fear before! Nice Job McCain. I thought you really wanted to retire! I guess not. You know how God feels about killing & stuff? War is about killing, you know? Sure you don't want to retire? How do you tell God that somebody died for something? I thought God was in charge of that. Do you want to fight with God over who dies, when, where, how, etc.? Babies? Children, not even adults of 18? Kill, or be killed, is that what ya teach em?
Your team has brought us to where we are John McCain, & through their incompetence, they blew it, & you know it. The people love you, & I love you, & it's time for you to let go, & let God. This is not the time for you. You've made too many promises to too many people, that you'll never keep. You've lied about appreciating Bush's policies, it won't work. Good speech! Welcome to the race of a lifetime! How does it feel to be a POW for 5 1/2 yrs? Will you prosecute Bush if you find he broke the law? Do you hold any grudges against your captors, while you were a POW? Did they know your dad was Comander in Viet Nam? Did it matter? Did you know we have a lot of questions to ask of J. McCain? Please retire, the country loves you, & you really don't need to be president, Obama started the movement, & you've been a great follower. You're performance in life will be allowed to surface. The light will shine on all darkness. You still have unopened closets. Retire for humanities sake! We love you the way you are. Let it go. You deserve a break!
