The term blog didn’t exist yet (and neither did the software), but that didn’t stop me from sitting at my computer until the wee hours each week for five years to put together the “online column” I called Outrage. I wrote about things that pissed me off: corruption, politics, injustice, bad people... A few of you used to read it each week. A few more of you used to read it when elections were coming up.
Well, boys and girls, elections are coming and I’m outraged again. I clearly sit on the left side of the fence, but I am a voracious reader and what I've got to say is both thoughtful and supported. If you’re undecided in the upcoming election (or even if you’re not), please make some time to read this special return edition of Outrage.
You need to vote for Barack Obama. You need to.
Why? Watching the debates, it’s hard to understand why. Both candidates are limiting their responses to sound bites from speeches they’ve made a dozen times. Neither has the balls to be first on camera saying all the plans they’ve made are out the window because that would mean they have no plans. And, how could they? Our entire financial situation has just blown up and that’s just not an easy thing to plan for. But, no plans = no votes, so our vying future leaders (yes, even my guy) just fall back on generalities and crowd-pleasing digs.
There’s not too many issues this election. I see four.
1. The economy.
The plight of our economy goes has been in the works for a long time. About 25 years or so ago, Ronald Reagan got on TV and said, “The problem in America cannot be fixed by government. The problem is government.” This statement gave a great many of Americans hard-ons and became the justification of a greed-based Republican economic policy for decades:
Pay taxes? No, it just goes to those people on food stamps and they could work if they really wanted to.
Regulation? What do we need regulations for? We have capitalism.
Ugh.
This has gone on for a long time. Eight years of Reagan, Bush the First, Gingrich (because during the entire reign of the Clinton administration Bubba was kept impotent by a Republican Congress) and the crown jewel of this era, George Dubya. This one-two punch of cutting taxes for the rich coupled with deregulated financial markets was a perfect storm waiting to happen. Throw in a zillion dollar war in Iraq and you’ve got a guaranteed recipe for disaster.
Cutting taxes for the rich—in a country where the top ten percent control ninety percent of the wealth—should be obvious. If you don’t take money, you don’t have money. Ergo, we (the USA) don’t have money.
Our creepy veepy, Dick Cheney has been quoted saying “deficits don’t matter.” I think we can agree now, that that’s not the case.
So, let’s turn to deregulation. Regulations sound bad. We like freedom here. Being regulated doesn’t sound free. Well, have you everd hear of a “credit default swap?” It’s one of those joyous little creatures that evolves (I know, I know, there’s no such thing as evolution) when financial markets aren’t regulated.
Here’s an example of a good idea (a.k.a. regulation):
Investment banks should have to have some collateral on hand when they loan out billions of dollars.
Here’s an example of a bad idea (you guessed it: deregulation):
Investment banks can create a way to not have any collateral on hand when they loan out billions of dollars. Instead, we’ll let an insurance company (who doesn’t have these pesky collateral-holding regulations to deal with) guarantee our debt.
This is AIG. AIG held a big chunk of these swaps that basically allowed our financial system to become a house of cards. Guaranteeing the debt. With bail-outs.
John McCain said quite clearly that he will not raise taxes on the rich. While I’m sure he would stick to his promise to fight corruption, he’s against regulating financial markets. This is the real problem. And he is not going to change it.
You need to vote for Barack Obama.
2. Foreign policy.
Quiz time. What was the secret ingredient in George W’s rib-tickling, lip-smacking guaranteed disaster recipe? That’s right: war.
Do not kid yourself boys and girls. A vote for John McCain is a vote for bombing Iran.
This is also a formula that has been around since Reagan. US military dominance equates to US global leadership. Since the decline of the Cold War, we’ve had to get creative. Clinton and Bosnia. Bush and Iraq. Do you think it’s a coincidence that the two fronts on terror lay on the borders of Iran? When McCain (and Hillary) have accused Barack of not “getting it” this is they strategy they are talking about. Conventional wisdom and conventional policy have been laying the groundwork for this invasion for many years. In that view, control of the world’s resources (I say resources, not oil, because in the coming decades we’ll be struggling for control of water) through American military might is the only hope for sustained American global dominance.
The problem with this view (beyond that it involves killing people) is that the world really has become flat. The tides of change cannot be stopped. Forces more powerful than mankind have insured that we are all part of one large global economic system. Things like the Internet. The rise of China. Walmart. The first chapter of Thomas Friedman’s The World is Flat is called “While You Were Sleeping.” Let me sum it up for you: Globalization isn’t just coming. It already here. And America hasn’t even noticed.
We have two choices now: deny reality and enact policies to attempt to cling to our turn as king of the hill; or accept that the in the new world order we will be one of several leaders that need to work together to tackle the challenges of a deteriorating planet with diminishing resources.
This is fundamental change. This is radical change. This is “Change We Need.”
Diplomacy is a big topic of debate. McCain (and Hillary) look at Barack’s proposed approach to diplomacy as insane. “This is the way it’s always worked,” he exasperatingly cries to the camera, “Barack doesn’t get it.” Make no mistake. Barack Obama is talking about fundamentally altering the diplomatic process our nation has followed since we’ve become a world power. But it’s not because he doesn’t get it. It’s because “the way it’s always worked” simply doesn’t work. Look at the Middle East. It took Clinton eight years to get the Israelis and Arafat to sit down together only for Arafat to back away from the deal both parties had painstakingly negotiated. Bush has taken an even harder line stance, but what progress have we seen? None. The old way of using audiences with US leaders as leverage points to gain concessions “worked” to get us to the point of those an almost negotiated deal, but did they really work at the end of the day? We certainly haven’t come very far.
American’s have always been great innovators. Our culture encourages dreaming. We love Apple because they dare us to Think Different. Despite the colossal economic fuck-up we are now in the midst of, we became the leader of the free world because we dare to invent new solutions to the everyday challenges we face. It gets dark; we invent a light bulb.
Barack sees a system that just doesn’t work. His reaction is to change the system. Will it work? I don’t know. It’s certainly the brave American thing to do. Seems to have worked in North Korea. What I do know is the status quo isn’t working either. John McCain is the status quo.
This brings us back to the issue of Iran. Right now we are surrounding Iran on both sides. We have publicly stated that they are evil. Of course they want a fucking bomb! They’re not stupid. McCain says Obama doesn’t understand strategy. Here’s a strategy for you, John. Don’t corner a wild animal. It’s a good way to get hurt.
And believe me, I’m a Jew. When I was in Hebrew school they used to show us these movies of the Holocaust every year that were horrific and that can never happen again—to “my people” or anyone else. I do not want to see Israel in danger. But they there the ones who are going to have to live down the road from a nuclear-armed Iran. Unless we stop scaring the hell out of these people, they’re going to do whatever it takes to protect themselves. Ahmadinejad is evil, but what’s motivating Iran is fear. Understanding this is called empathy. Without it, you’re not looking at the whole picture. Barack Obama has it. John McCain does not.
You need to vote for Barack Obama.
3. Sarah Palin.
Are you kidding me??? Did you see her on Katie Couric? Go to YouTube and search for “Sarah Palin Katie Couric.” Right now.
John McCain is like 142 years old. He’s going to put the US at this incredible risk of having a woman with the worldliness of a caterpillar because his pollster scientists tell him she connects with Joe Six Pack? Because while she can’t even answer to what magazines she reads, she’s a maverick just like him? As an “earmark” for the evangelical base of his party?
Really, John? Really?
I run a business. You give that person an entry-level job, not the keys to the castle.
Fareed Zakaria from Newsweek put it well: “McCain says that he always puts country first. In this important case, it is simply not true.”
You need to vote for Barack Obama.
4. All that other stuff
Somehow, eventually, we will get past the crisis we now face. And in that world, I hope it is enlightened reason that will guide the morality of the country my children will grow up in—not fire and brimstone. I want to be clear that I do not believe that Republicans are evil. I have to admit, when I was younger, I did. In this country, religion has often been equated with conservatism. Yet the people I know who are religious are fundamentally good people who care about right and wrong. I’d like to think they stopped for a second when someone first asked them “what would Jesus drive?” But as people, they are susceptible to marketing. And, Republican politicians are great marketers. The problem is that the values they sell are laden with hypocrisy.
Of course they don’t mention that in the ads. Some things to think about:
- For a group that cries, “Government is the problem,” to suggest that government should force women to carry out an unwanted pregnancy is hypocritical.
- For a group that says, “Every life is precious,” to support a death penalty system that is racially biased and subject to human error and prejudice is hypocritical.
- For a group that says, “We support family values,” to oppose the rights of gay men or women who want to build a family is hypocritical.
- For a group that says, “We don’t believe in evolution” to say we’ll invest in the right science to rid us of energy dependence is hypocritical.
- For a group that says, “it doesn’t matter what caused global warming,” to say we’ll fix what caused global warming is hypocritical.
- For a group that says, “We support Main Street,” to put forth that the rich should not pay their fair share of taxes and we should trust that the benefit will somehow trickle down to the rest of us is hypocritical.
I could go on. Suffice to say: You need to vote for Barack Obama.
