I'm Seeing Green

Romney and Rand, er, Ryan, Roust the Republicans

So should the celebrations start early? Would hailing Obama's II term cause the Mormon-Catholic Gods to frown mightily and load the dice in favor of the Republicans? Do I believe in magical thinking as I knock wood and drink a toast to Mitt?

On the one hand, Mitt-the-Twit's craven pick of Ryan as his mate, his below-the-limbo-champs bow to the ultra-conservatives, his raising of the class war to tactical-nuclear level, cannot be described as 'brave'. Desperate, maybe, game-altering, possibly, wonderfully expedient, certainly, but not indicative of any newfound steel in the spine.  On the other, it might get enough of us sluggish Democrats to hand the election to Obama.

But enough of Romney. We are all aware of his flip-flops. his exaggerations (I won't use the L-word,) and his total inability to act, even hypocritically, as if he cares about the average American (or anyone who makes less than his millions.)

Let us examine his VP pick. Incidentally, I won't use here the cliché about heartbeats and distance you are no doubt being inundated with. Let's just say it's scary enough that Ryan may be in shouting distance of the President if they win.

A very rich white man. What a surprise. Birds-of-a-feather and all that, Mitt's most comfortable with his own kind.

A lover of Ayn Rand. To anyone left of Attila the Hun, this should be disqualification enough. Rand's evil philosophy is reportedly Ryan's "reason for entering public service," which speaks volumes. Rand, in case you did not go through a (hopefully and mercifully) short period in your late teens when you thought she was the embodiment of coolth, is the force behind Objectivism, a super-libertarian, super-selfish individualism. This is the person whose work, Whittaker Chambers once reviewed, "I can recall no other book in which a tone of overriding arrogance was so implacably sustained." and "[in which there's the constant refrain of] to the gas chambers, go."

A man voted by his teenage peers as the 'biggest brownnoser.' Unfair to mention? No, surely all's fair in love and politics.

A man with a radical agenda to demolish social structures gained over the last fifty years. If Romney-Ryan are elected, and the Ryan budget is implemented, we'll see:

- Social Security privatized.
- Medicare replaced with a voucher system (we know how well that works for its baby cousin, Medicare part D vouchers.)
- Senior assistance, heating help and childhood hunger programs cut.
- Major federal departments such as Education and Justice decimated.
- Taxes on the rich and super-rich cut drastically, the revenue made up by the middle class paying more (surprise!) by eliminating popular deductions.
- Defense, however, sanctified and untouched.

In case you think I exaggerate, please note that a Tax Policy Center study supports much of this.

And, of course he's virulently anti-gay-marriage and anti-abortion. This from Obama's tweet: "Paul Ryan supports banning all abortions, even in cases of rape or incest."

Best quotes on the subject so far:
Paul Begala, "And so Romney Hood has his Friar Tuck."
Unknown blog poster: "Two R's make a Wrong"

Image credit: http://www.newscorpse.com/ncWP/

Do We Care if the World is Watching?

From the Guardian's Johnathan Freedland, this commenton his predicted reaction of the world if Obama fails in November. There will be a predictable number of comments from right-wing Americans excoriating him for daring to suggest the great US voting population is less than perfect. Or that the opinions of Europe, or of the world count for aught...(after all, didn't the US save the effete Europeans twice in the last century?) But what does it say of us that Obama's demonstrated appeal outside the US actually hurts him here?

For a country, and a party that is constantly saber-rattling its way around the world, this is a remarkably short-sighted attitude. The US will not for ever be able to march into countries and invade them at no risk to itself; it will be able to ignore world opinion only so long. Or so I feel. And Freedland agrees:

The feeling is familiar. I had it four years ago and four years before that: a sinking feeling in the stomach. It's a kind of physical pessimism which says: "It's happening again. The Democrats are about to lose an election they should win - and it could not matter more."

In my head, I'm not as anxious for Barack Obama's chances as I was for John Kerry's in 2004 or Al Gore's in 2000. He is a better candidate than both put together, and all the empirical evidence says this year favours Democrats more than any since 1976. But still, I can't shake off the gloom.

...If Sarah Palin defies the conventional wisdom that says elections are determined by the top of the ticket, and somehow wins this for McCain, what will be the reaction? Yes, blue-state America will go into mourning once again, feeling estranged in its own country. A generation of young Americans - who back Obama in big numbers - will turn cynical, concluding that politics doesn't work after all. And, most depressing, many African-Americans will decide that if even Barack Obama - with all his conspicuous gifts - could not win, then no black man can ever be elected president.

But what of the rest of the world? This is the reaction I fear most. For Obama has stirred an excitement around the globe unmatched by any American politician in living memory. Polling in Germany, France, Britain and Russia shows that Obama would win by whopping majorities, with the pattern repeated in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. If November 4 were a global ballot, Obama would win it handsomely. If the free world could choose its leader, it would be Barack Obama.

....Let's not forget, McCain's campaign manager boasts that this election is "not about the issues."

Of course I know that even to mention Obama's support around the world is to hurt him. Incredibly, that large Berlin crowd damaged Obama at home, branding him the "candidate of Europe" and making him seem less of a patriotic American. But what does that say about today's America, that the world's esteem is now unwanted? If Americans reject Obama, they will be sending the clearest possible message to the rest of us - and, make no mistake, we shall hear it.

Wolves Endangered Again

Ah, the legal system reverses the Bush administration once again:

A federal judge has restored endangered species protections for gray wolves in the Northern Rockies, derailing plans by three states to hold public wolf hunts this fall.

U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy in Missoula granted a preliminary injunction late Friday restoring the protections for the wolves in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. Molloy will eventually decide whether the injunction should be permanent.

The region has an estimated 2,000 gray wolves. They were removed from the endangered species list in March, following a decade-long restoration effort.

Environmentalists sued to overturn the decision, arguing wolf numbers would plummet if hunting were allowed. They sought the injunction in the hopes of stopping the hunts and allowing the wolf population to continue expanding.

"There were fall hunts scheduled that would call for perhaps as many as 500 wolves to be killed. We're delighted those wolves will be saved," said attorney Doug Honnold with Earthjustice, who had argued the case before Molloy on behalf of 12 environmental groups.

In his ruling, Molloy said the federal government had not met its standard for wolf recovery, including interbreeding of wolves between the three states to ensure healthy genetics.

"Genetic exchange has not taken place," Molloy wrote in the 40-page decision.

Molloy said hunting and state laws allowing the killing of wolves for livestock attacks would likely "eliminate any chance for genetic exchange to occur."

The Refuge of Scoundrels

Patriotism rears its dubious head during every political campaign, and doubly so during a presidential one. Why one would expect a non-particle person to even contemplate running for president is beyond me, but it seems that proving one is patriotic is de rigueur to run for office.

Of course, patriotism, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. Samuel Johnson said, famously, that "patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels," and one is reminded of that constantly when the right wing nabobs raise the issue.

When Michelle Obama said she was proud of her country for the firs time, anybody with an IQ over their actual age could've figured out that it was not to be taken literally and that she was talking about the sea change inthe political process that has allowed a black man to reach the highest level of political candidacy.

But even if she wasn't, what difference does it make as to her husband's ability to hold office? Does one's spouse's opinions, or even patriotism, matter? They should not. But even if her words are taken literally, does it mean that being not proud of one's country is being unpatriotic?

I would contend that, after eight years of the worst administration and president in this country's history, if you're not ashamed, you're not patriotic.

We have a president who has repeatedly lied to us and a vice-president thinks he's above the law.

We have appointed prosecutors and judges based on their political beliefs and who are pressured into politically-motivated actions

We have the heads of several agencies suppressing science in the name of the administration's received wisdom.

We are spying without warrants, and racially profiling citizens in the name of security.

We're torturing people in the name of the law; from Anne Marie Slaughter's article:

We still have a long way to go. Just this week we were told once again that the interrogation practices that some of our interrogators have been using against detainees were techniques that the Chinese practiced on our own soldiers during the Korean War. We long denounced these techniques as torture, until some of our government lawyers, to our eternal shame, decided that "torture" required imminent death or organ failure. Acknowledging that shame in no way in no way diminishes us as a country or a people. It is simply the necessary first step toward setting things right. That is a process, fueled by honesty and self-criticism, that we can be proud of

Why would YOU be proud of this record?

What's to be proud of is that the resiliency of the system is present and it's self-correcting, and has brought us to the brink of electing a moderate (though ex-progressive) black Democrat.

Now let's celebrate that!

Competing Visions

It's hard to get a handle on how the two presidential nominees would do on the energy front.

Obama has been connected to the coal industry in Illinois, a state quite dependent on coal revenues, and is very much for alternatives to petroleum, mainly ethanol. He says:

"[ethanol] ultimately helps our national security, because right now we’re sending billions of dollars to some of the most hostile nations on earth.” Also, [oil dependence] makes it more difficult for us to shape a foreign policy that is intelligent and is creating security for the long term.”

Of course Obama is often now "accompanied by Tom Daschle, the former Senate majority leader from South Dakota. Mr. Daschle now serves on the boards of three ethanol companies and works at a Washington law firm where, according to his online job description, 'he spends a substantial amount of time providing strategic and policy advice to clients in renewable energy.'” (New York Times)

Ethanol gets millions of dollars of government subsidies, something that McCain wants to eliminate, not for the market distortions that it is causing (rise in food prices worldwide, for instance,) but in the name of free trade,  and because he thinks that selecting ethanol, for instance, as the horse to ride is "... playing favorites, [instead] our government should level the playing field for all alcohol fuels that break the monopoly of gasoline, lowering both gasoline prices and carbon emissions."

McCain also would let states determine whether or not to allow offshore drilling, a proposal quite objectionable to Obama.

Huffington Post reports on McCain's support for the electric car:

Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain proposed a $300 million reward for anyone who can design a more efficient electric car battery. He also said that, if elected, he would support a $5,000 tax credit to automakers who sold zero-emissions cars -- per car sold.

Grist's Kate Sheppard reported that McCain took a shot at opponent Senator Barack Obama's support of ethanol in the same breath.

ClimateProgress is skeptical: "First off, every energy and car company on the planet knows they'll get rich by improving batteries. The world is probably spending $1 billion a year in this quest. This $300 million prize is a pointless gimmick, just a cynical move to get some good PR."

The Devil and Bobby Jindal

As an Indian (East) myself, I realize my experience with Indians in this country seems to have been limited. While I would not say most of my friends and acquaintances are quite as rabidly leftist as I am, they are uniformly liberal and probably Democrats, even the ones higher up the corporate ladder, which seems to breed Republicanism.

So it is with a sense of wonder and dismay that I note the ascent of one of my peeps, Bobby Jindal, to a potential running mate for the presumptive (lovely word) Republican nominee, John McCain. And you thought Cheney was as bad as it gets.

The 36-year old Jindal's views and attitude might not get him elected dog-catcher in my previous home-state, California, or maybe here, in New York. However, Louisianans take a broader and, I might say, less critical view of their politicians and have seen fit to elect him their governor.

Born a Hindu, he converted to Catholicism in high school. Nothing wrong with that, you may say. A person's faith should not be held against him. But in the context of the attacks against Obama's preacher (who no doubt will figure prominently in the fall campaign,) I say it's fair to examine Jindal's views.

And what a conservative Christian he's turned out to be. Anti-abortion for any reason. Wants (un)Intelligent Design taught in schools. Fawned over by the NRA. In other words, he's completely the opposite of my limited circle of Indians, immigrant or otherwise.

But this story is the pièce de résistance; he's actually witnessed a demon exorcism (though apparently it's technically not an exorcism according to ecclesiastical law because a priest was not present.) Full description in an article in the New Oxford Review from 1994. [also see Daily Kingfish]

Regarding  Susan (with whom he may have been involved,) an unfortunate cancer victim who's been acting "strangely" and has "sulfuric smells" in her dorm room,  and whose friends and family are holding a prayer meeting-cum-intervention for her [emphasis added:]

Maybe she [Susan] sensed our weariness; whether by plan or coincidence, Susan chose the perfect opportunity to attempt an escape. She suddenly leapt up and ran for the door, despite the many hands holding her down. This burst of action served to revive the tired group of students and they soon had her restrained once again, this time half kneeling and half standing.

It appeared as if we were observing a tremendous battle between the Susan we knew and loved and some strange evil force. But the momentum had shifted and we now sensed that victory was at hand. felt some type of physical force distracting me...as if something was pushing down on my chest, making it very hard for me to breathe...

While Alice and Louise held Susan, her sister continued holding the Bible to her face. Almost taunting the evil spirit that had almost beaten us minutes before, the students dared Susan to read biblical passages. She choked on certain passages and could not finish the sentence "Jesus is Lord." Over and over, she repeated "Jesus is L..L..LL," often ending in profanities.

I began to think that the demon would only attack me if I tried to pray or fight back; thus, I resigned myself to leaving it alone...

Cheney is sometimes considered a devil. Our next Vice President might only have battled with one.

What do you think Jon Stewart would make of this?

No Photograpahy, Please, We're Americans

Except where explicitly posted, you have the right to take a photograph from any public place.

Sounds quite unequivocal, doesn't it? But this right is being undermined, mostly by over-zealous authorities, and, of course, our omnipresent Homeland Security.

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Locally, the Atlantic Yards footprint is becoming a photographer-harassment zone. Just ask Adrian of the blog A Brit in Brooklyn, or Norman Oder of the Atlantic Yards Report who has been stooped and questioned several times while near Ratner's hole-in-the-ground. Mostly by private security, of course, but the police are only a call away. Oder on being stopped:

"Though I asked for more of an explanation, Sgt. Jones of the 77th Precinct (right) said he didn’t have time to provide one, and forcefully but not roughly gripped my arm and walked me across the street."

New York City has also tried to prevent photography in the subway

And then there's this good read from Bruce Schneier's  The War on Photography:

What is it with photographers these days? Are they really all terrorists, or does everyone just think they are?

Since 9/11, there has been an increasing war on photography. Photographers have been harrassed, questioned, detained, arrested or worse, and declared to be unwelcome. We've been repeatedly told to watch out for photographers, especially suspicious ones. Clearly any terrorist is going to first photograph his target, so vigilance is required.

Except that it's nonsense. The 9/11 terrorists didn't photograph anything. Nor did the London transport bombers, the Madrid subway bombers, or the liquid bombers arrested in 2006. Timothy McVeigh didn't photograph the Oklahoma City Federal Building. The Unabomber didn't photograph anything; neither did shoe-bomber Richard Reid. Photographs aren't being found amongst the papers of Palestinian suicide bombers. The IRA wasn't known for its photography. Even those manufactured terrorist plots that the US government likes to talk about -- the Ft. Dix terrorists, the JFK airport bombers, the Miami 7, the Lackawanna 6 -- no photography.

Given that real terrorists, and even wannabe terrorists, don't seem to photograph anything, why is it such pervasive conventional wisdom that terrorists photograph their targets? Why are our fears so great that we have no choice but to be suspicious of any photographer?

Because it's a movie-plot threat.

A movie-plot threat is a specific threat, vivid in our minds like the plot of a movie. You remember them from the months after the 9/11 attacks: anthrax spread from crop dusters, a contaminated milk supply, terrorist scuba divers armed with almanacs. Our imaginations run wild with detailed and specific threats, from the news, and from actual movies and television shows. These movie plots resonate in our minds and in the minds of others we talk to. And many of us get scared.

Club for Growth on the Rampage

Senator Lieberman has less and less to recommend him, now that he's become the gaffe-minder of John McCain and what little Democratic credibility he had is quite shredded. But he did sponser a climate control bill, so at least on that front he's in the right place

Which makes him a target; from msnbc.com,this story:

A conservative, free-market advocacy group will begin airing ads this week pressing Senate Republicans and Democrats to vote against a bill that aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The Club for Growth wants to scuttle a bill by Sens. Joseph Lieberman, an independent from Connecticut, and John Warner, R-Va., that the Senate is scheduled to begin debating next month. Despite the ad campaign, the bill seems to lack the votes needed to overcome a filibuster.

With $250,000 in radio and television spots, the Club for Growth is targeting Republican Sens. Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, and Democratic Sens. Robert Byrd and Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia and Max Baucus and Jon Tester of Montana. Dole, a co-sponsor of the bill, as well as Alexander, Baucus and Rockefeller face re-election this year.

Club for Growth President Pat Toomey, a former Republican congressman form Pennsylvania, called the legislation a "massive redistribution of wealth.''

Some might say that is one if its strengths.

Not that the Club for Growth likes McCain, either, again because he has a relatively reasonable environmental plank. "The fundamentals that Senator McCain seems to support are badly misguided,'' Toomey said.

Hillary on my Mind

We all know that there's something about Hillary Clinton that brings out the hyperbolic side in people, from the right-wing conspirators (who actually did exist,) to  fading icons of the feminist movement who see sexism under every dark remark.

What gets lost in this avalanche of dubious analysis is both the reality of the state of sexism in these United States of America, and the weakness and errors in the campaign of the first potential woman President.

On the one hand, you have op-eds like these:

Misogyny I Won't Miss by Marie Cocco:

I won't miss reading another treatise by a man or woman, of the left or right, who says that sexism has had not even a teeny-weeny bit of influence on the course of the Democratic campaign. To hint that sexism might possibly have had a minimal role is to play that risible "gender card."

But for all Clinton's political blemishes, the darker stain that has been exposed is the hatred of women that is accepted as a part of our culture.

Cocco makes a big deal of the many Hillary t-shirts out there, without mentioning the Curious-George Obama t-shirts. The marketplace is an equal-opportunity put-down.

and Belittled Woman by Libby Copeland

The person who once conjured a vast right-wing conspiracy now refuses to exit a race she's almost surely lost, and it Drives. People. Crazy. "Poor Hillary" is their response, an attempt at death by condescension. Hillary hate is something profound, something that may never be fully unraveled. It is her very name, so polarizing; it is Slick Willy and Vince Foster and Whitewater and that nickname "Shrillary" and her supposed unending ambition and . . . something else, something ancient.

Copeland says '"Poor Hillary: right gender, wrong woman," goes the headline on the Web site of a Scottish newspaper as if you can separate the two."' But why can't you?  

And then there's Rachel Sklar's misguided rant in HuffPost, Hillary Hate: Making Sexism Acceptable. where she wonders why "people [are] so stubbornly resistant to allowing that sexism might have been part of this campaign?" Do they? All of them? No-one admits there's sexism?

It's good to note, appropos Sklar's story (which considers the previous two "great op-eds,"), that the collective wisdom of the Net's responses are almost uniformly against the notion that it was sexism that derailed Clinton's candidacy. There's more "fair and balanced" commentary (to use a loaded phrase) in the 200+ responses than in Sklar's original post.

And for a refreshing counterpoint there's the Guardian piece with the unfortunate title (Sklar would see more proof of sexism in it) Hell hath no fury by Michelle Goldberg:

Infuriated by Barack Obama's ascent, Geraldine Ferraro, erstwhile feminist icon, has transformed herself into Archie Bunker in heels.

In January, the venerable Gloria Steinem made a more sober version of Ferarro's argument in the New York Times, arguing (though she claims not to have been) that gender trumps race in the victim sweepstakes, and that if young women are voting for Obama over Clinton, it could be because of false consciousness.

The irony is that, for the overwhelming majority of women, voting against Clinton was never about repudiating second-wave feminism. But the more leaders of the movement insist on conflating their noble struggle for social justice with the fate of an uninspiring and nepotistic candidate, the less relevant it will be. Many progressives, male and female alike, see Clinton as cynical and narcissistic, pandering to interest-group sectarianism even as she compromises on important principals. It would be a hideous shame if they came to see feminism the same way.

8-Year-Old Sniper Does Not Faze Hillary

The Washington Post has revealed the startling facts behind the Hillary-Clinton-in-Bosnia story.

You may recall that Hillary Clinton visited Tuzia military airport on March 25, 1996, and described the landing in a speech last week at GW University as:

"I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base."

Turns out to be hairier than she makes out.

She was actually greeted by the midget posing as an 8-year-old flower girl (shown in the photo above,) moments before the impostor whipped out the 9-mm Glock concealed in the bouquet. Sen. Clinton and others immediately ran for cover as the "little girl" began shooting at random. Military police, momentarily confused, came to the rescue. The fate of the shooter is classified.

Why Sen. Clinton chose to downplay this incident is a mystery. Calls to campaign headquarters were not returned at blog-time.

While Sen. Clinton's husband, Big Dog Bill, had also visited the same airport in his official capacity as President of the United States a week earlier, there appears to be no connection between the events, his predilection for short women not being considered relevant.

Also debunked are rumors that NAFTA proponents were behind the incident, and merely were hoping to scare Sen. Clinton into changing her well-known opposition to the treaty. The fact that, indeed, Clinton did support NAFTA after all was, her campaign says, merely coincidence, and does not represent a "flip-flop," as characterized by her rival (the black guy formerly known as bi-racial) Barack Obama.