A Disproportionate Response, Gaza, December 2008

You slice our finger,
We cut off your hand;

You pluck out our eyes,
We chop off your head;

You shell our homes,
We level your cities;

You throw rocks,
We fire missiles from F-16’s;

You kill our soldiers,
We kill your children;

Whatever you do,
We will do X 10;

Because,

Your terror,
Is no match for our terror

The Ghost of Gray Davis

“He knows nothing and thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.” George Bernard Shaw

He tripled the car tax and was presiding over a budget hole of around $38 billion when the voters of California ran him out of office and into early retirement. Gray Davis was a wimpy political operator, a bland character in the pocket of his political benefactors, but he never broke the law or misappropriated public funds or had carnal relations with a minor, male or female – some of the usual reasons a sitting governor is recalled.

No, Gray Davis was simply unpopular and he never stood a chance to survive the Recall, not with action hero Arnold Schwarzenegger waiting in the wings with a highly calibrated PR machine pumping out photo ops of the would-be governor throwing “Join Arnold” t-shirts to enthusiastic crowds. The story line quickly developed and solidified: Arnold was an outsider with a personal fortune, beholden to no special interest, and therefore perfectly positioned to tame the political monster that is California.

Arnold won at the polls, of course, and brought his slick style to Sacramento, promising to end gridlock, partisan wrangling, budget deficits, freeway congestion, lousy air quality, and every other ill facing the Golden State. Arnold exuded confidence and soundstage charisma. He was the mighty Governator now, riding in to restore order in the capitol. The time was right, the role was meaty, and the script held intriguing possibilities for a sequel or two.

The media lapped it up, and voters were taken in – particularly when the Governator rescinded the hated car tax. Never mind that local governments depend on car tax revenue to fund essential public services; the state’s general fund would make up the difference, somehow. Budget technicalities could not be allowed to interfere with Schwarzenegger’s feel-good show. Arnold’s people erected a big tent on the capitol lawn, and the new Governor invited legislators in to smoke cigars and bask in his limelight. Excluding pols from Los Angeles and San Francisco, most legislators had never been this close to a real live action hero before and orbiting in Arnold’s atmosphere made them giddy and reverential. Imagine an assembly member from Amador County suddenly rubbing shoulders with the Terminator! What a thrill!

And Arnold’s “Can-Do, Anything is Possible in California!” rhetoric was invigorating after Gray Davis’s pinched and uninspired pronouncements. It was like 1980 all over again, Ronald Reagan’s sunny optimism versus Jimmy Carter’s dour pessimism.

At least until reality took hold. After the initial euphoria faded, Arnold discovered the hard, unpleasant truth of Sacramento: the state’s budget problems were real, structural in nature and impervious to easy resolution. Moreover, the state’s budget process was dysfunctional. Faced with a flood tide of red ink, Arnold studied his hand and did what any self-respecting politician would do – he deferred the reckoning to another day. But give Arnold due credit. He at least had enough savvy to realize that proposing a $15 billion bond initiative to fund everyday government operations flew in the face of his campaign promise to end Sacramento’s business-as-usual ways. The bond had to be packaged carefully and presented properly and stumped for enthusiastically, which played to Arnold’s strength. With a tight script, a friendly audience and appropriate props, Arnold could sell the illusion that he was a different kind of politician.

And he did. The Governator criss-crossed the state, telling voters that this was the last time he would plunk Sacramento’s Mastercard down. To prove he meant business, and to the delight of gullible audiences, Schwarzenegger cut up giant credit cards with oversized shears.

Fast-forward three and a half years. The political monster that is California has won. Arnold’s big tent on the capitol lawn is gone, quietly taken down and returned to the prop warehouse. California’s budget is deep in the red, with the potential deficit estimated in the range of $42 billion. The state’s bond rating is junk. Vital construction projects are on hold to conserve cash. Debt service costs $6 billion a year. Partisan bickering and legislative gridlock still rule the day; Democrats refuse to cut popular programs and Republicans nix any tax increases. Absent ideological concessions from both sides and decisive action soon, the state may go bust by spring.

Arnold’s scriptwriters suffer from writer’s block Getting out of a jam in Hollywood was so much easier.

Merry F'ing Christmas

Christmas cards arrive in the mailbox, some accompanied by an “annual” letter detailing a year of travel, adventures in child-rearing, business success, or, in one case, a bizarre recounting of the restaurants the author had dined in, as if this accomplishment is of signal importance.

Weird shit to be sure, but these are Weird times. It takes a strong person – or a delusional one -- to stand in the maelstrom of bad news and visible misery and still feel the spirit of this Christian season moving down his or her spine. Goodwill toward Men and all that stuff becomes hard to muster when the daily news is filled with evidence that in places like Africa, Gaza and Afghanistan, Goodwill is in short supply. Even here in our beloved US of A, where criminal politicians are lining up to pardon themselves for a host of heinous crimes, Goodwill is scarce. None of this horror is happening to me personally, so I suppose I should shove these dark thoughts out of mind and pour another glass of cabernet and let the world roll on as it will – and as it always has.

Maybe. Except I find suppressing these musings a difficult feat, even with a glass or two of cabernet sloshing in my belly, because the inescapable fact is that the outrages visited upon innocent human beings anywhere diminish human beings everywhere. We can close our eyes, turn up the sound on our iPods or change the channel on the Tube, but the fact remains and remains and remains.

Meanwhile, it’s Christmas Eve and a heavy rain is supposed to fall; the sky is leaden and the mountains wear a shawl of puffy clouds. The eucalyptus trees in the yard yield to a gust of wind, bend and writhe, then snap back and dare the wind to come again. My little family has light and warmth and food, none of us are ill or infirm or mutilated by war, and this seems miraculous, if not just flat lucky.

And on the nightstand next to my bed, the statue of Buddha is still smiling, so yeah, Merry F’ing Christmas.

Amen.

The Shoes of our Wrath

The Wall Street bailout is a boondoggle based on exaggeration and lies, and taxpayer money is flowing to all the wrong people for all the wrong reasons; Congress can and should stop the farce but too many in that compromised body are in the pocket of the financial industry; Bush and Cheney are busy re-writing history, claiming at every opportunity that we won the war in Iraq and liberated Afghanistan and made the world safe for Democracy, Freedom and the American Way; meanwhile, the lapdog American media jots down what the liars in Washington say without question or challenge, journalists having morphed into stenographers and mindless repeaters of falsehoods. It’s a shame that no American journalist has the cajones to heave his or her shoes at George W. Bush.

Two days ago I saw this headline in the New York Times and damn near fell over: “Bush Prepares Crisis Briefings to Aid Obama.”

Come again? Bush…Prepares…Crisis…Briefings…to…Aid…Obama.

Sweet Jesus! The same Bush who turned his two-term presidency into a running crisis, fucking up everything he touched, from the misbegotten worldwide War on Muslims to Hurricane Katrina relief to Iraq reconstruction, to the economy and health care, education, the environment, executive authority (which W abused and perverted), privacy, and the rule of law.

That Bush is going to brief Obama? Hey Mr. President-Elect, just tell W “Thanks but no thanks,” and if a crisis turns up in the early days of your presidency, do the exact opposite of what Bush and Uncle Dick would do and everything should turn out fine.

In a normal, rational country, in a normal, rational age, Americans would be screaming for Bush and Cheney’s heads, for an accounting of their high crimes and misdemeanors, and for simple justice. Instead, we, and in particular our elected “representatives,” stand complicit in a collective denial which in a few years will turn into institutionalized amnesia. Bush and Cheney will never account for their crimes, foreign or domestic.

I dream that on the morning of January 20, 2009, a half million fed up Americans will surround the White House and rain a torrent of shoes on Bush and Cheney as they leave the White House for the final time. By everything that is right and holy, and for every drop of blood ever shed in America’s name, they should leave in orange jumpsuits and shackles, but if we can’t have that, a hail of broken, dirt-caked, foul-smelling shoes will do.

Spinning History

The spin of history has begun
Karl Rove claims George W. Bush
“Liberated”
25 million Iraqis
from the grip of a brutal dictator
freed
millions of Afghans
from Taliban fanatics

Has Rove ever spoken with an Iraqi or an Afghan?
asked them how it feels to be “liberated” by a foreign power
whose soldiers now patrol their streets and occupy their cities,
lay down laws and mete out justice

Spin it any way you want
but for the Iraqis and the Afghans
it’s the same tired story
whether told in the King’s English
Russian
or on the editorial pages of the
New York Times

46 Iraqis died in a suicide bombing in Kirkuk today;
Baghdad is a city of ruins and blast walls;
the Taliban is back in business
moving on Kabul
attacking at will and fading away

Is this Rove’s idea of liberation?

Peddle your snake oil somewhere else, Mr. Rove
sell it to the fatherless sons and widows
of Baghdad & Kirkuk
the orphans of Kandahar

But don’t be surprised when they don’t buy it
unlike Americans
they know the difference between
truth and lies
fiction and fantasy

They know because they carry the full weight
of your master’s
boundless hubris
and bottomless arrogance
on their backs

Busted Bailout

So, Republicans in the US Senate shot down a bid by the Little 3 Automakers and the UAW for a hefty infusion of taxpayer cash, leaving the fate of the domestic auto industry in doubt. Republicans demanded even steeper wage and benefit concessions from the UAW on top of what the union had already conceded to.

Lost in the hurried debate about the auto industry is an accounting from the men (and the auto industry is a man’s playground) at the top, the highly compensated and pampered CEO’s of GM, Ford, and -- before it became the plaything of hedge fund managers -- Chrysler. We hear plenty of thunder from Republicans about overpaid UAW members, but what of the obscene amounts of dough the CEO’s pocket every year, regardless of how well or poorly the corporation performs? About that we hear next to nothing because CEO pay in Corporate America is still sacrosanct, a function of the “free-market.”

No, the discussion always centers on blue-collar labor costs, UAW versus Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Kia, between the rusted unionized North and the right-to-work South. But instead of comparing blue-collar costs, why not compare compensation in the Executive Suite? Do the big dogs at Toyota and Honda pull in 400 or 500 times more than the average line worker? Are the CEO’s at Toyota and Honda surrounded by dozens of Vice Presidents, as are the CEO’s of GM and Ford?

Republicans represent the interests of owners and investors, not wage earners, so of course the Republicans want to turn the current situation to their tactical advantage and crush the UAW once and for all. That’s why the narrative runs like this: Ford, GM and Chrysler are collapsing because of greedy union workers who earn exorbitant wages and overly generous pensions and health benefits. Redundant product lines, poor engineering, woeful quality control and middling fuel economy have nothing to do with Detroit’s woes – it’s all the fault of those overpaid blue-collar workers, active and retired.

Somewhere during the past thirty-odd years, starting when Ronald Reagan declared open season on working people, it became a crime for working Americans to earn decent wages in decent working conditions with decent pension and health benefits. With a great shove from Reagan, Labor hit the skids, Capital became ascendant, and Profit replaced equity, fairness and morality. Welcome to the New World Order.

A Republican commandment these past thirty years or so has been that workers are expendable, replaceable, and far easier to exploit when they are prevented from organizing and bargaining collectively. There are laws on the books against union busting, but these laws have tiny teeth and are easily evaded by slick corporate lawyers. Americans experienced years of downsizing and rightsizing, domestic outsourcing, and then, as digital technology shrank the globe, international outsourcing, so that an American in Boise, Idaho in need of technical assistance with an HP printer finds herself talking to a technician in India; the Indians are invariably polite and eager to help, but rarely are these calls concluded without frustration.

The Republican fascination with union busting and cheap labor never came to grips with this conundrum: how can an economy driven by consumption thrive when consumers’ wages are flat or declining? Even at Wal-Mart, Burger King wages don’t go very far, and sooner or later, as we’ve seen lately, easy credit disappears.

But back to the bailout that didn’t happen. One other point deserves mention and that is health care and health insurance; if the United States had a sensible, sane, rational and cost-effective system of single-payer health insurance (that’s insurance, not socialized medicine) would Detroit and the UAW be in the straits they find themselves in today?

POEM - 3:00 A.M.

A dog howls, once, twice
Low & plaintive
A cry of loneliness that carries over
The silent street
Dark rooftops

Footsteps echo on the sidewalk
One soul moving through the night
Merge with the dog’s howl
Which is louder now, more insistent
To break the silence
and be heard

Lonely at 3:00 A.M.
Lonely in a crowd
Lonely in the marriage bed
Lonely in a church pew
Lonely on the front lines of war
Lonely in a hospital room
Lonely in an unmarked grave

Lonely
Lonely
Lonely

I roll over, awake now
Wishing I could open the window
And howl back at the dog

Poem - Poor November

In America,
November stands no chance against December
Christmas trumps Thanksgiving every year

Long before the leftover turkey is gone
Christmas swaggers in,
Like a playground badass with a score to settle

Pilgrims can’t stand in the ring with Santa
Any more than Sonny Liston could stand with Cassius Clay

Before the Thanksgiving dishes are dry
Christmas tree sellers erect their tents
Though who of sound mind buys a Christmas tree
In November?

The radio cries, “Happy Holidays” and every storefront window
Boasts a killer red-tag sale, 50% off, bargains galore!

On the corner by the museum a quartet plays Christmas ditties
For the shoppers and the tourists and the homeless

And on Black Friday people race like lemmings to the Mall
To Wal-Mart and Target
Primed for the Great American battle
The last frontier
Of our dubious supremacy

Losing their heads in the moment,
Otherwise decent people push and shove
Elbow their way through long lines
Run up escalators, hurl themselves into elevators
Glare impatiently at minimum wage clerks

Christmas is never content to merely win
It must dominate
Force November to kneel, then crawl in submission
Broken once more by our perversion

Poem - Terror in the Looking Glass

Kabul
Baghdad
Mumbai
Twisted metal
Broken glass
Blood-stained pavement
Mangled bodies
Chaos, confusion and carnage

Death, death, death

The papers and TV tell us Islamists from Pakistan
With possible ties to Al Qaida
Are prime suspects in the Mumbai attacks
Ruthless, righteous, full of retributive hatred
For Westerners

What do they want?
Why are they so eager to die
And take innocent people with them?

Is the answer in them?
Or us?

Happy Illusions

“It is style and story, not content or history or reality, which informs our politics and our lives. We prefer happy illusions. And it works because so much of the American electorate, including those who should know better, blindly cast ballots for slogans, smiles, the cheerful family tableaux, narratives and the perceived sincerity and the attractiveness of candidates.” Chris Hedges, Truthdig

The Tea Fire shoved politics off my table. When a wildfire devastates people in your own family, it’s hard to focus on the goings-on in Sacramento or Washington D.C.

The fire was a stark reminder of the ephemeral nature of life, how in an instant the course of a life – no matter how rich or seemingly protected – can change. In a matter of hours on a preternaturally hot and windy November night, hundreds of people lost a lifetime of memories, investment and their place in the world. You have to walk in the burn area, through the ash and charred timbers, see with your own eyes the collapsed roofs, blackened bricks and torched oak trees to fully grasp the devastation.

But politics has returned now, as it always does, because human beings are political creatures, and the decisions made in the capitol city of any nation carry implications for real people with real needs. Americans are riveted by the economy, desperate to know how bad it will get and how they might be personally affected, while Detroit cries for a bail-out and once proud and arrogant CitiBank calls for a helping hand. The irony is as stark as the hypocrisy and I don’t know where to start my tirade, other than to say that lavishly compensated and coddled corporate CEO’s know no shame.

The bottom line on Detroit is that the Big 3 have been sliding into the shitter for years, stubbornly wedded to shoddy designs and crappy quality. Sorry, UAW members. (The Ford parked in my carport is the most service-prone vehicle I have ever owned, and never, ever again will I plunk down my hard-earned credit on a Ford, GM or Chrysler product.) While the Japanese focused on quality, the Big 3 focused on the slick commercials they would show during halftime at the Super Bowl. While Honda and Toyota were getting out front of hybrid technology, the Big 3 were rolling out one gargantuan SUV after another, with names like Explorer and Expedition, Yukon and Tahoe, rugged luxury for suburban soccer moms who never ventured within a hundred miles of an unpaved road.

Now Detroit wants taxpayer money to execute an about-face, but let’s be honest: six months or a year from now, the Big 3 CEO’s will be back in front of a Congressional committee asking for more money, more concessions, more assistance, and they will spout the same arguments about the auto industry’s importance to the American economy, how it cannot be allowed to flounder or fail, blah, blah, blah. Congress will cave in, as it always does, and the slow death will continue, limb by limb, organ by organ; two of the Big 3 will merge amidst the usual corporate rhetoric -- happy talk of synergy and complimentary strengths and how the merger is good for America and American workers – and that too will fail.

But what was the point I was sidling up to when I got off on a Detroit tangent? Yes, Mr. Hedges, whose piece I came across a week after the election, when Sarah Palin embarked on her magical media tour. The hapless Governor from the Alaskan Frontier didn’t seem to grasp that her ticket was on the losing end of the electoral vote count or that she was the anchor that helped pull it down.

Palin is the poster child for Hedges’ thesis that American voters are easy marks for slick media images, sunny personal narratives, and campaign messages that bear little or no resemblance to reality. Why journalists following Palin didn’t burst out laughing when she said she was keeping her options open for 2012 is beyond me; she won’t be any more qualified then than she is now because the Governor of Alaska is Stupid. Flat stupid. Dense. Moronic. A politician who claims, as Palin does, that the economy will right itself if Government will just get out of the way of the people, is simply not to be taken seriously. The problem, Governor, was caused by lack of government oversight of the financial system, and that lack was systematically engineered by free-market ideologues.

Palin can run amok in Alaska without doing much damage because the state is sparsely populated, remote, and rich from petro-dollars and Federal subsidies. If the people of Alaska want a dolt for a governor, fine, they have the right to keep electing Palin, but do us all a favor and never again allow that dingbat into the lower 48.

Rush Limbaugh’s millions of faithful listeners also add credence to Hedges’ argument. There was Limbaugh, two or three days after the election, two and a half months before Obama will be sworn in, calling the economic downturn the “Obama Recession.” Rush contended that the financial markets were rattled by the mere thought of a Liberal in the White House – as if the past eight years of economic mismanagement by Republicans (and some weak-kneed Democrats, too) never happened. If we’re going to give this recession a name, let’s be fair, include the architects and the enablers, and call it the Phil Graham-Alan Greenspan-Robert Rubin-George W. Bush Recession.

Limbaugh shouldn’t be taken seriously, either, but I can see thousands of his adherents nodding in agreement when he spouts nonsense about the “Obama Recession.”

Meanwhile, the President-Elect is surrounding himself with Clintonites and moving closer and closer to the safe center. No one should be surprised by this – campaigning is one thing, governing another. As Eric Alterman wrote in the Nation, “Obama will disappoint us.”

Fire, Fire Everywhere

The Tea Fire shut the Balcony down for a few days, focused
all attention on the here and now, on the direction of the wind,
the temperature and the latest count of homes destroyed

Helicopters chugged overhead like a war zone, only now fighting devil winds and unforgiving heat

The moon turned orange, soot blanketed our cars; the home of a friend went up, an aunt lost everything in less time than it takes to drive to Ventura

Power went out and we fumbled for flashlights and candles as sirens cut the smoky darkness; the blaze jumped and skipped across dry hillsides, laughed at the men who gathered to make a stand in million dollar cul-de-sacs

Rich and poor got the same treatment, not from God but from the hand of careless Man

Drunk maybe, stoned maybe, or maybe just giddy with Youth, playing with fire in a field of tinder; an errant ember latched onto the devil wind’s breath as the sun slipped from sight

One spark to one bush to one tree

And then a car and a house

And another and another, and the sky dripped flame while the wind ran in circles, herding sparks to still more bushes and trees, unstoppable now, an insatiable force, indiscriminate, uncaring

Disaster on Thursday, disbelief on Friday, despair on Saturday, destitution on Sunday

Survivors poke through the rubble in search of miracles

The Rule of Law & Other Fables

George W. Bush continues to strut around the White House as if he will depart on January 20, 2009 on a triumphant note – and not as the worst and most unpopular Presidents in U.S. history. You have to admire George’s uncanny ability to shut out the real world and create his own alternate reality, where the nation’s economy is humming – thanks to his tax cuts for the wealthy – and our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are going according to plan – thanks to his brilliant leadership.

Barack Obama lives in the real world where outrageous political corruption and slavish devotion to failed ideology leads to the suffering of flesh and blood human beings. The cable TV pundits are wild with advice for the President-elect, what he should do first, who he should appoint to what Cabinet post and so on. Office pools predicting the final composition of Obama’s cabinet are enjoying enthusiastic support and faring far better than the average 401K.

Meanwhile, King George is ramping up efforts to rat-fuck the nation one last time. While the country celebrates Obama’s victory and enjoys a resurgence of hope and anticipation, Bush and his cronies are changing rules and re-writing regulations to make it easier for the FBI to spy on American citizens, dismantling environmental protections in place since Bill Clinton enjoyed blow-jobs from Monica Lewinsky in the Oval Office, and basically standing around playing pocket pool while JPMorgan Chase and other big banks use their bailout windfalls for mergers and acquisitions rather than loans.

We expected nothing less from Bush than a last gasp orgy of ideological intercourse, one or two final lost weekends where the rich and well-connected get richer and American taxpayers get saddled with the bill. The big bailout (paid for with our hard-earned money and our kids’ future, don’t forget) wasn’t supposed to play this way, and we can only hope that an Obama Administration will tweak the bailout to make it work the way it was intended. This is important. The country’s leaders need to understand what made the financial system run off the rails, identify who was culpable, and enact legislation or create regulations to make sure it never happens again. Unfortunately, with the likes of Robert Rubin and Lawrence Summers circling Obama’s camp like birds of prey, it’s possible that Obama, in the end, will do nothing to upset the status quo.

That would hurt, not to mention insult, all the people who supported Obama’s campaign by donating money, knocking on doors or making phone calls; people didn’t work their tails off for Barack Obama only to watch him fall victim to the Clinton Syndrome. Remember? Clinton entered the White House on a wave of hope, but after encountering some early opposition, promptly pitched his tent in the valley of corporate interests and became a shill for Wall Street flim-flam. Despite his rhetoric and good-old-boy charm, Bill Clinton was no friend of working Americans. Frankly, when he wasn’t screwing someone other than his lawfully wedded wife, he was screwing us.

It’s natural for TV pundits and citizens to focus on the economy in this time of uncertainty and spreading financial distress, but personally I would like to hear the President-elect say something about restoring the rule of law at home and abroad. It seems to me that an affirmation of bedrock American principles is not only necessary, but a precondition for solving all the other problems we face. Are we going to allow Administration officials to ignore Congressional subpoenas or not? Are we going to continue violating the human rights of detainees? Are we going to turn a blind eye to Israel as it continues to violate every treaty it has ever entered into with the Palestinians? Are we going to allow further erosion of our civil liberties in the name of a false security? From there we can debate the best way to create a more just and equitable society, deliver health care to those in need, and get the hell out of Iraq, with or without “honor.”

I don’t think such introspection and reflection will happen, but it’s nice to hope.

When the People are Ready

The euphoria from election night lingers. It’s like stepping from a subterranean cavern into the first light of a fresh morning. The way ahead may be difficult and perplexing, but at least we can feel proud of our President as he represents us to the world. Obama reads, studies history, and speaks in complete sentences – by themselves these attributes make him radically different from the current occupant of the White House.

On January 20, 2009, intelligence and rational thought make a triumphant return to the White House. One thing is certain: willful ignorance will not be a virtue in an Obama Administration.

The reaction from people around the globe to Barack Obama’s victory proves that the idea of America is alive and kicking. Perhaps the world is reacting so favorably to Obama because he appears calm, collected and sane, reasonable and reassuring; he doesn’t swagger like a gunslinger (Bush) or talk like a fascist (Cheney). We have yet to fully appreciate the damage done by Bush and Cheney to our standing in the world. It won’t happen overnight, but Obama has a window of opportunity to repair that damage and restore our credibility and moral authority.

Tuesday night’s historic results were a relief, a catharsis -- hope that had been dammed for nearly eight years escaped in a deluge. Americans know that we are better than the last eight years. We’re hungry to rebuild our country along more equitable lines, with a stronger foundation that supports more citizens; hungry to prove that we are more than slaves to the “free” market and mindless consumerism; hungry to relate to the rest of the world in less bellicose ways; hungry to find solutions for pressing human needs.

George W. Bush is an aristocrat and he governed like one, never asking the people to sacrifice or put their collective shoulder to the wheel. Even when it came to Iraq, Bush asked for nothing but our prayers and blind faith in his word. In Bush’s twisted, out-of-touch worldview, the people need not concern themselves with complex matters of policy; instead, they should shop, watch TV and let the chosen ones at the top run things. When the people spoke about their concerns, as when millions took to the streets to protest the Iraq invasion, Bush ignored us.

When Barack Obama takes his seat in the Oval Office for the first time, he will face a daunting array of inherited challenges. Obama is stepping into a house trashed by a bunch of spoiled frat boys – light fixtures dangle from the ceiling, every toilet is clogged, furniture is upended, the kitchen is wrecked and nobody ever bothered to take out the garbage or clean out the refrigerator. What the frat boys couldn’t carry off they destroyed.

One of the great reclamation projects in American history will begin with the deck stacked against it.

But perhaps Americans owe George W. Bush a debt of gratitude, for it was Bush’s utter incompetence and failure that made it possible for Barack Obama to become President, for Obama’s message of hope to echo across the wasteland Bush bequeathed to us, and resonate with millions.

When the people are ready, the leader will appear.

Election Night, Historic Night

5:10 P.M. We just cast our votes at the Methodist Church on Anapamu Street. The lines were short and the poll workers chipper. During the day people kept asking me if I had voted; most of them had and wore stickers to prove it. Obviously, this is not a run-of-the-mill, ho-hum election; people are into it, hopeful. We waited until late in the day so we could take our kids with us.

At this moment MSNBC has Obama at 103 electoral votes and McCain at 58. I wonder what McCain is doing right now…probably taking a nap and hoping that he’ll wake up to a stunning upset. McCain clearly believes in fantasies and Hollywood endings, which is why he choose Sarah Palin as his running mate…I’m still trying to understand what his Brain Trust was snorting when they tapped Palin. It’s as if they tossed some names in a hat, closed their eyes, reached in…

Speaking of Palin, I saw that cipher on TV last night, regurgitating the same tired clichés that Republicans have employed for years, still straining, on the night before the election, to tar Obama with Jeremiah Wright and William Ayers, and to make the unconvincing claim – except to a cadre of die hard Republicans, rednecks, racists, and utter morons – that Obama is a socialist.

Why is MSNBC giving Tom Delay a forum? The prick is a criminal, a disgraced no-good unrepentant criminal who doesn’t deserve to speak to a national audience; of course the rat predicts that a Democratic majority in Congress will “ruin” the American economy. Huh? DeLay was a swaggering power broker in Bush’s first term and did a wonderful job terrorizing Democrats while transferring wealth to the richest Americans and pissing on the rest of us. DeLay wielded power like a Roman proconsul, sparing no one.

The Talking Heads are jabbering like barroom drunks, making projections, predictions and prognostications, most of which will be disproved by the time the night is through. But there’s air time to fill while the numbers trickle in so they need to say something.

The Big Board shows Obama at 175 and McCain at 76. Thousands of Obama supporters are gathering in Grant Park in Chicago. The Deep South goes for McCain – no surprise there -- old habits die hard.

I read this morning that Maya Angelou hoped that an Obama victory would signal that the people of the United States have finally grown up, thrown off the shackles of fear and racism and bigotry, and entered adulthood. Forty years after Martin Luther King Jr. was shot and killed. After RFK went down the same way.

The Talking Heads are now saying that Obama will win Ohio! This is a huge development. In 2004 I went to bed thinking John Kerry would squeak out a victory there and woke up to discover that Bush had taken the state – by fraud as we would later learn.

Virginia. Florida. North Carolina. Indiana. All too close to call at this hour, 7:03 P.M. on my end of the continent. Iowa goes for Obama with 7 electoral votes. Should the current trend hold and Obama win the election, I wonder what will become of the Republican Party. It will be a smaller party, even more right-wing and wacky than it is today, and just as apt to hitch its wagon to a wingnut like Sarah Palin. Or Huckabee. Or maybe they’ll pass the baton to Pat Buchanan.

I wonder what is going through John McCain’s mind right now. Is he working on his concession speech or maybe staring at the developing scene in Grant Park and wetting his Depends? Cindy is no doubt by his side, as she always is, now drug-free though still high-strung and as inclined to psychological meltdown as her hubby is. I have a hunch that she’s thinking: “You owe me old man, big time. I followed you from town to city to hamlet, from gated community to country club, from Wal-Mart to 7-11, from the Waldorf-Astoria to the Biltmore. I’m tired! I’m sick of politics, of your political aspirations, and of all the phony people that have surrounded us for the past year! I want to go home, but I can’t decide to which of our eight homes.”

MSNBC just called it for Barack Obama. Can it be true? Finally, an African-American in the White House! What a tremendous First Family the Obama’s will be -- bright man, smart woman, lovely children. And not white! Finally, finally, finally, after all these years, after all the lynchings and beatings and shootings, after all the dreams deferred and denied…now we can call ourselves Americans. Now we have an opportunity to live up to our most cherished ideals.

OK, the Talking Heads are getting mushy and teary-eyed. Rachel Maddow is crying like a baby. My 12-year-old son just commented that Sarah Palin is only a footnote now. The boy is so happy that the Era of Bush is nearly over that he’s bouncing off the walls. On the TV Jesse Jackson is teary-eyed. This is amazing. I almost can’t believe it. Not only did Obama win Ohio, he also won Florida! Florida – the Bush backyard.

The electoral count is 333 to 156. An emphatic statement. A dramatic repudiation of the last eight wasted years.

McCain is conceding now before his faithful, and actually sounding like a reasonable man, like a US Senator, like a gracious statesman. Where has this version of John McCain been since August? McCain’s crowd in Arizona is so lily white that I need my Ray-Bans. McCain’s people are chanting “USA! USA!”

Waiting for the man now, for Barack Obama to take the stage before a throng estimated at 100,000. What does it mean that the voters of America have elected an African-American man president? What does it mean for our tomorrow?

And here he is, conjuring FDR and Martin Luther King Jr., and RFK. Yes we can. Yes we can. Yes we can. After eight years of being told that only some of us can, that only some of us are worthy, that only some of us matter. Yes we can. Yes we can. Together as Americans. All of us.

That’s worth thinking about on this unbelievable night.

The 9th Inning

Waiting for Tuesday, November 4, is like watching the seventh game of the World Series where the home team – a franchise with a storied history of failure – is six outs away from erasing a decade of pain and frustration. The home crowd is delirious, on the one hand, and yet a palpable current of apprehension ripples through the stands; these fans have been here before, standing so close to the post-game victory celebration that they could feel the spray of champagne in their faces, only to watch in disbelief as the home team stumbled, bumbled and fumbled it all away.

The clock atop the centerfield scoreboard seems frozen and the interval between each pitch stretches like an eternity. The home team has its ace closer on the mound, but the opposing batters keep fouling his best pitches into the stands. A base hit and a walk, a sacrifice bunt, and suddenly the pesky, never-say-die visiting team is threatening, a hit away from being right back in the contest. From the outfield bleachers to the luxury boxes above home plate, the current of apprehension becomes a wave of fear. Is another historic collapse about to happen?

Tuesday can’t get here quickly enough. If I have to watch another clip of stiff, ridiculous John McCain making that robotic thumbs-up gesture I’m going to puke on the living room rug; if I have to hear Sarah Palin contorting logic and twisting truth in order to link Barack Obama to the PLO, the Weather Underground, the Symbionese Liberation Army or Osama bin Laden himself, I’m going to become violent; and if I see Karl Rove – that disgraced, corrupt and lying toad –one more time, well, there’s no telling what I’m capable of.

Yes, it’s the top of the ninth and the home club has the lead, its ace closer on the mound, and its first world championship in sixteen long years in sight. Nothing can go wrong, right? It’s OK to breathe, to leave the room to get a cold beer from the fridge, to take the dog for a stroll…

No, hell no, don’t you dare move except to get out and cast your ballot. Don’t be misled by polls or pundits. Keep rolling those prayer beads in your hands, keep promising the Gods that you will turn yourself around if they just have mercy and let us win, keep lighting candles and burning incense until the decent voters of America drive a splintered baseball bat through the hearts of John McCain and Sarah Palin. But even when that happens – and it must happen or the dream of America is dead – don’t rejoice until the coroner pronounces McCain and Palin officially deceased.

Overload

Campaign overload. Too many TV commercials predicting the end of civilization if so-and-so is elected or if this or that ballot proposition passes. Here in the Golden State, the Mormon Church and other culturally atavistic groups have poured millions into Prop 8, an initiative that would eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry. This is essentially a civil rights issue that has morphed into a Category 1 Fear Issue, with overblown ads asserting that school children will be indoctrinated to accept same-sex marriage.

It’s hogwash, but that’s modern politics. Big money and bigger lies endlessly repeated, and the more citizens watch and hear the less they know. With all the problems facing California – dysfunctional budget process, inadequate funding for public education, rotting infrastructure, a prison-system about to burst its seams, millions of citizens unable to access decent medical care – what do we get worked up about? Same-sex marriage.

On the national level, I’m still digesting Alan Greenspan’s recent admission that his infallible Market God ideology is, after all, very, very fallible. Lo and behold, Wall Street firms cannot regulate themselves and even more shocking to Mr. Greenspan – who achieved Saint-like status during his tenure as chairman of the Federal Reserve – market forces do not automatically solve all ills. Wow! This is kind of like the Apostle Paul saying he harbors doubts about Jesus.

What’s the world coming to? Sarah Palin promises to rid America of autism; Karl Rove blames the downward spiral of global markets on Barack Obama; John McCain warns that America will topple into the toilet if the likes of Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and the rest of those profligate Democrats achieve a congressional majority. (Question for the erratic senator from Arizona: could a Democratic majority foul the nation up any more than the Republicans managed during their six-year reign of terror?)

There’s more, of course, much more, from e-mail barrages to the four-color campaign flyers that clog the mailbox and go immediately into the recycle can. While it’s a relief to finally see the finish line on the reign of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, it would be naive to think that we can quickly – or painlessly -- climb out of the ditch Bush and Cheney (and their Republican lapdogs – and some Democrats, too) have driven us into. Barack Obama should win this election, and in itself that will be refreshing, but let’s keep our expectations reasonable – we’re in deep shit on multiple fronts – and before things get better they will almost certainly get worse.

Fraud & War

It’s entirely possible that massive voter fraud and voter suppression will mar the Election of 2008. What should be a landslide for Barack Obama and the Democratic Party may become a squeaker, ala the Election of 2000. Lawyers from both campaigns are already converging on battleground states, making charges, filing briefs, preparing the soil for the legal wrangling that might begin on November 5.

As long as there have been elections in America there has been fraud – ballot stuffing, ballot stealing, crude or sophisticated efforts aimed at getting some voters to the polls (the same voter more than once in some cases) while keeping others away (often by violence, more commonly by intimidation). In recent years the GOP machine has become adept at the mechanics of stealing elections.

It’s always amusing to hear our political leaders demand “free and fair” elections in countries where Democracy is trying to take root, when our own elections are so prone to manipulation. The hypocrisy never seems to register with American politicians.

Considering the mess the country is in, and the clear path that can be traced from the policies of George W. Bush and the Republican Party to that mess, the ineptitude of the McCain campaign and the jittery way McCain has veered to and fro on the issues, first a die-hard free-marketeer then a neo-regulator, and McCain’s cynical and disastrous choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate, Barack Obama should ride an electoral tidal wave to the steps of the White House.

And yet because of the potential for voter fraud, the outcome seems far less secure than it should.

We know fraud is going to happen in battleground states, we know who’s behind it; we just don’t know if there will be enough fraud to change the outcome.

Meanwhile, real families are still losing their homes, going broke, suffering from inadequate medical care, and driving on roads and bridges that have been neglected for decades.

If the Reagan Era was Morning in America, these anxious times, at the tail end of the Bush Reign of Error, might be called Twilight in America. The colossal failures of the past eight years are something to behold. Bush and his cronies failed on every front, in every arena, foreign and domestic, and when they slink from Washington, discredited, disgraced and despised, they will have left the country weaker than they found it.

Sometime during this long, strange campaign season the U.S. media made what appears like a collective decision not to report on the failed Iraq Occupation. To find out what is happening in U.S.-occupied Iraq, Americans must look to foreign media, like the BBC, which has not abrogated its responsibility to report on the Iraq conflict.

In the final presidential debate, John McCain made a sunny assertion that the Iraqi people are coming together and putting the chaos and mayhem of the past five years behind them. McCain’s blindness can be written off to the fact that he resides in an alternative universe where whatever gibberish he spews is accepted as irrefutable truth.

This is how BBC reporting went just last week: “There is much less violence now, but Baghdad is nowhere near returning to normal: the streets are full of potholes and the traffic is clogged and backed up by check-points.” Blast walls erected by U.S. forces (or perhaps this was done by Halliburton?) are another reason for the reduction in violence. The BBC: “Concrete anti-blast walls still surround almost every significant building here, and stretch along streets where there are markets, bringing relative safety, but turning the pavements - where the vendors' stalls are - into narrow, claustrophobic canyons.”

This sounds to me like a people being kept apart by physical obstacles rather than a people coming together in peace, harmony and a spirit of reconciliation. Call me crazy, un-American even, but I don’t think the “Surge” is working well anywhere expect in the minds of U.S. politicians, who in turn feed tales of “success” to a complacent news media.

For further proof of this consider the thousands of Iraqis who turned out to protest their government’s ongoing negotiations with the United States over a Status of Forces Agreement that would legitimize the stationing of U.S. troops in Iraq for years to come. One point the Americans want in the agreement is immunity from prosecution; in other words, the Americans want to be able to act freely, move freely, and if a GI happens to kill an innocent civilian, the Iraqis must have no recourse.

If this situation were reversed and Iraqi troops occupied New York City, would New Yorkers vote to give their occupiers unlimited powers? Why we expect others to act in ways we never would is a by-product of our arrogance.

Thank God That's Over

“Our tax policies need to be changed. There is something deeply peculiar about having rich individuals who make their money speculating on real estate or stocks paying lower taxes than middle-class Americans, whose income is derived from wages and salaries.” Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize Winning Economist

Final Presidential debate. Which McCain will show up tonight? The old McCain who never met a government regulation he didn’t want to kill, or the new populist McCain, who says he loves the average working American?

If you believe the polls, McCain’s only hope to close the gap with Obama is a knock out punch – or a huge gaffe on Obama’s part. The talking heads tell us that older Americans and white Americans may not vote for Obama, presumably because he’s black and different, which is incredible given the total cluster fuck that the Republicans – and John McCain – have presided over the past eight years.

Are those American voters actually silly enough to vote for McCain (or some minor party candidate) because of race? If so, this country is in worse shape than I thought.

At this dismal point in our history, I'd vote for an African-American lesbian if I thought she had some decent ideas and a dose of political savvy.

McCain is talking about class warfare now, as if he doesn’t grasp the stark fact that a class war has raged for the past thirty years – against working Americans who live by wages and salaries. Wealthy individuals and corporations have kicked the asses of working people for three decades, Senator McCain, and you and your pals Phil Gramm and Charles Keating helped them in the mugging.

“Well, thank you, Bob,” says McCain, sounding like an old man in a rest home. McCain says he knows how to cut billions in defense spending, but he’s thin on the specifics. “Earmarks,” says McCain, “that’s the answer. Cut those wasteful earmarks and we’ll be home free!”

Sweet Jesus, when will this agony be over?

“Senator Obama, I’m not President Bush! I can do it…we…I…we can…sure.” This is McCain’s Hail Mary pass, the last gasp of a dying campaign that is devoid of intellect, soul, heart, substance, content, and truth. The only idea McCain has in his quiver is tax cuts. Will someone please explain to John that we’ve tried that trickle down notion and it doesn’t work? And while your schooling the old fool, explain to him that most American corporations pay next to nothing in taxes, thanks to generous loopholes written into the tax code and voted upon in the Senate by John McCain and his fellow Republicans.

“The answer is Town Hall meetings,” McCain asserts. “If only Senator Obama had agreed to sit down with me in a town hall meeting, things in this campaign would have been so much different.”

The man is old and decrepit but he’s still got balls, I give him that.

Obama is acting Presidential and McCain is acting petulant.

McCain is a crybaby.

Obama’s right about one point: the American people are cynical about the entire political process, the inane back and forth, the wild claims, false accusations, outright lies and total Fox News bullshit spin, and the incredible amounts of money spent by these candidates to buy public offices.

McCain says that all the money the Obama camp is spending is “Destroying the fabric of Democracy.” As if Florida didn’t happen in 2000! As if massive voter fraud didn’t happen in Ohio in 2004! The truth is that the GOP has destroyed the integrity of our elections. Hey, John, it wasn’t Democrats who politicized the hiring process in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division!

McCain: “My campaign is about getting this economy back on track. But let’s talk about Bill Ayers and ACORN! That will put a lamb chop in every skillet and a Ford in every garage!”

This is too excruciating. I can’t stand another second of this travesty. McCain is a jabbering old fool. “Nuclear power is no problem! I have the answers, just trust me, people. I’m John McCain, straight-talking maverick!”

I’ve had enough of politics. I’m switching to the Dodgers game to see if the boys in blue can extend their season.

The American Casino is Closed for Renovation

Some of the writers whose views on the economy I enjoy reading have taken to calling the American financial system of the past two and a half decades a “casino” economy, meaning, of course, that by design it bred a few stupendous winners and an inordinate number of losers.

Think for a moment about the confluence of trends and notions that led to the collapse on Wall Street: Indian gaming started to find a niche in American life about twenty years ago, give or take a few years, and before we knew it every state boasted some form of casino gambling; Las Vegas shed its “Sin City” reputation and took on a respectability that its founders never dreamed possible; states from Maine to California used Lotteries to shore up tax-depleted budgets, only to find that state-sanctioned gambling never generated enough cash to go around.

Reality TV arrived soon after, with its contrived competitions that pitted people against one another with big rewards (money, celebrity) for the last contestant standing. Whether it was ballroom dancing, peddling overpriced real estate, losing weight or seeing who could create a ball gown out of saran wrap, we ate it up, as if a scripted and edited TV program was reality.

It’s no surprise that pop culture mirrored our economy. When corporate CEO’s raked in $50 or $60 million bonuses for creating paper wealth instead of real wealth, the public -- conditioned by years of Conservative propaganda to believe that CEO’s deserved huge rewards for feats of alchemy -- hardly blinked. Who cared? Times were booming and the money was green, and sooner or later riches would trickle down to the masses like Republicans always promised.

Working stiffs, folks of average means, saw the glitz and glitter and bling on TV and wanted their fair share. The only problem was that thousands of middle-class manufacturing jobs had been shipped to China, India, Pakistan and other places where people were willing to work for pennies; and thanks to an assist from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, nations near our borders saw their economies “restructured,” forcing destitute and desperate people to stream into our country in search of work, no matter how dangerous, demeaning or low-paying.

And let’s not forget how the Titans of Finance and their buddies in Congress used every tactic at their disposal to smash unions, slash pension obligations and make people responsible for their own medical care – at a time when the cost of care was streaking toward the stratosphere.

Taken together, these factors created wage stagnation for the majority of American workers.

But of course, workers and their kin were still expected to do their duty and continue consuming as if there was no tomorrow. Consumers tapped credit cards until the cards maxed out. Home equity came next and for a few golden years, as home values soared and money remained cheap, mistaking one’s home for an ATM worked fine.

Sensible people predicted that these schemes would collapse, but voices of reason were drowned out by the likes of Alan Greenspan, John McCain and George W. Bush. To these men, the “financialization” of the American economy was a tremendous success, a triumph of free market ideology.

Until it wasn’t. Until the music died and valueless pieces of paper choked the gutters of Wall Street and the Titans, panicked by the swift collapse of their sand castles, ran to the Government with hands outstretched and a tale of doom on their lips. The gambler’s mentality was still alive when Hank Paulson, himself a decorated Wall Street alum, demanded that Congress loan him $700 billion of taxpayer money – with nary a string attached. Say what you will, but Henry Paulson has enormous balls.

On the tube behind me, John McCain is insisting that he and no one else knows how to deal with the financial wreckage. McCain is stiff and phony and ridiculous.

Nobody knows if the Great Bailout of 2008 will restore stability and health to the world economy. The only certain thing is that taxpayers have been swindled once again.

Fembot from Alaska

What was that?

I hope to never see the likes of it again in my lifetime, but in this age of diminished expectations I’m certain I will.

We will.

No thinking person could have watched last night’s debate between the Vice Presidential candidates and come to the conclusion that Sarah Palin acquitted herself with distinction. She was like an outclassed prizefighter, ducking and dodging, throwing ineffectual jabs, backing up, and clinching at every opportunity in order to survive to the final bell of the last round.

But that’s really all anyone expected. The bar for Palin wasn’t merely lowered by the McCain campaign and the pundits – it was dropped on the floor.

Mired in two wars and an economic collapse, Palin spouted shopworn clichés, folksy “darn right’s, heckuva’s and Joe Six-Packs,” and for good measure (though in bad taste) even winked in the camera. I lost track of how many times she said “maverick” when referring to her running mate. Trying to sound a populist theme, a near impossibility after the policies her party slavishly followed the past eight years, the policies that dug the trench we find ourselves wallowing in, Palin ended up espousing the exact opposite.

Incredible. Handlers drilled talking points into Palin and she dutifully repeated them, whether appropriate to the question at hand or not. In some cases it seemed that Palin has spent the past eight years living in total isolation, without access to television, newspapers or the Internet. She promised greater oversight of the financial system and in the next breath urged government to get out of the way of the people; she repeated the shibboleth that tax cuts equal job creation, when the fact is that the Bush junta tried that trickle down idea and it failed, miserably.

What did Governor Palin mean when she said we had to “grow” our military? Does she not know that the United States spends more of its annual budget on defense than the rest of the planet, combined?

Even after five weeks on a national ticket and numerous cram sessions, Governor Palin doesn’t grasp the essential constitutional functions of the office of Vice President.

Quick study she is not.

And it was painful to watch Palin compare what she has done in Alaska to what she might do in Washington D.C., because there is no comparison; Alaska is a unique state, isolated, sparsely populated, energy rich. Oil and natural gas revenue fill Alaska’s coffers at a time when most states are drowning in red ink and making very difficult decisions about essential human services. Of course Alaska’s state taxes are low, but not because of Sarah Palin.

I learned last night that John McCain “knows what evil is.” George W. Bush also claims to have a deep understanding of evil, an understanding that prompted his Administration to invade and occupy a country that posed no threat to the United States. We will pay penalties for that decision for the next fifty years.

Sarah Palin is an unfortunate pawn in a cynical, deceitful Republican electoral strategy that rests on two pillars: endless repetition of half-truths, fabrications and outright lies, and the gullibility of American voters.

What was that? A disgrace.

Queen of the Tiger Cage

John McCain’s Ranch, Arizona

It’s 105 degrees at 9:00 a.m. when GOP Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah Palin comes down for breakfast. After two straight days of intense preparation for her debate against Democrat Joe Biden, Palin looks as haggard as a hospital intern after a 12-hour shift in a big-city ER on a night when rival gang-bangers launch a killing spree.

McCain’s people are nervous about the debate, even though they’ve been working the media non-stop for days, pushing the story that Palin is much better in a debate format than she is in a one-on-one interview and will hold her own against the unpredictable and loquacious Biden. McCain’s people know the claim is a stretch, but they don’t have much choice; the campaign is in disarray, sliding in the polls, and the clock is ticking.

Even after two days of history lessons, review of talking points, mock interviews, and long conference calls with Dick Cheney, Rush Limbaugh and Karl Rove, Palin still seems unsure of herself and displays a potentially disastrous tendency to wander off topic or make unsupportable claims.

With less than twenty-four hours to go before the big showdown, it’s time to pull out all the stops, so this morning, even before Palin can pour a cup of coffee and help herself to a doughnut, aides hustle her outside into the harsh sunlight. The Governor shields her eyes as she is marched to a replica of a North Vietnamese POW camp erected on McCain’s lawn. The camp is authentic down to the last detail, including guards dressed like NVA soldiers, and armed with Chinese-made rifles.

“What’s this?” Palin asks.

“Never mind,” the aide says impatiently. “Get in that bamboo cage.”

“I’m not getting in there! Are you crazy?”

“Senator McCain wants you to get a taste of what he went through in Vietnam. He thinks it will help you in the debate. Get in.”

“There’s a dead fish in there! And it smells like dog poop! Gross!”

Two aides shove the Governor inside the cage and secure the door. The Governor is too tall to stand comfortably and too concerned about soiling her skirt to sit down. She feels disoriented, the heat is unbearable, and she wishes she were back home, shooting wolves from a helicopter with a high-powered assault rifle. Since the GOP Convention, party types from all over the country have been whispering to her that John McCain is unhinged -- and she’s beginning to believe them.

“What is our mantra?” a voice booms over a loudspeaker. “Who are our enemies? Which nation is more of a threat to the United States of America, Russia or Canada?”

Again the voice booms, “What is our mantra? Answer!”

“Country first,” Palin offers, tentatively.

“Louder, with conviction!”

“COUNTRY FIRST!”

“And our enemies?”

“The Liberal media and the Washington elite?”

“Yes, yes, among others. Are we winning the war in Iraq? Is Barack Obama a traitor for not supporting the Surge? Should the United States invade and occupy Pakistan? Answer!”

“Yes, yes, yes! We should invade everybody and drill for oil in their backyards! It’s our Manifest Destiny and part of the Bush Doctrine. Can I please have a drink of water?”

“No! Do you think this is a game? We’re in a war for the American Way of Life, locked in a struggle with an implacable enemy. Imagine how Senator McCain felt when he was in captivity!"

“OK, OK,” Palin says. “I get it! I demand to be let out of this stinky cage.”

“You’re too young to have been a POW but now you at least know how it feels. Joe Biden cannot make the same claim. This gives you an enormous advantage. Tonight you must go for the jugular of that Muslim-sympathizer, Obama. Show no mercy and ask no quarter. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t hear you!”

“YES! Now let me out of here, I’m ruining a fabulous pair of pumps.”

“Our fate rests in your hands, Governor. The stakes are high but the bar is so low that you cannot fail.”

Uncle John Shows Up

I fortified myself with vodka and tuned in C-Span to watch the first McCain-Obama debate. John McCain showed up, imagine that, but he looked stiff and constipated; Obama looked presidential but once the debate got underway he missed a number of opportunities to thump McCain. McCain tried to emphasize his experience by dropping names and recounting how he had tramped the terrain of Afghanistan (with Alexander the Great, perhaps), and therefore knew in his bones how a war there should be fought. McCain claimed that the US is on the way to Victory (McCain loves the word) in Iraq, though very few Americans know what victory in Iraq might actually look like. Perhaps we should ask the suffering Iraqis what an American victory would look like to them. I have the feeling that a total withdrawal of all foreign troops would figure prominently in Iraqi thinking.

At times Friday night McCain reminded me of the old uncle who gets invited to Thanksgiving dinner out of pity, is placed in a corner of the den with a TV tray and the remote control, and is ignored while the rest of the family tries to enjoy turkey with all the trimmings. Only in McCain’s case he won’t be ignored. “Let me tell you,” he says over and over before launching into a ramble that no one can follow.

On the economy, McCain was clearly out of his depth. He reiterated his empty claim that he believes in and supports the American worker, but of course his actions over the past eight years – and let’s not forgot, as McCain conveniently has, that for six of those years, the Republicans, McCain’s party, had total control of the government – make a mockery of the claim. McCain aided and abetted the Titans of Finance who plundered and profited before the house of cards collapsed. American workers have been hurting for a long time; odd how McCain only now notices.

It was particularly infuriating to hear McCain talk about cutting “runaway” spending. First of all, the misbegotten Invasion and Occupation of Iraq is the primary example of a Republican Administration drunk on spending; the cost of this misadventure is climbing towards the trillion dollar mark, and yet McCain’s Jockey briefs get wadded up about congressional “earmarks.” Give us a break, John. Your party is the culprit here. Two wars – one of them completely unnecessary – a financial system built upon greed and fraud, a decimated manufacturing base, budget and trade deficits, ceaseless borrowing from foreign banks to cover our economic weakness, absurd tax policies -- the list goes on and it has all come to a head courtesy of McCain’s Republican Party.

Pork barrel spending is the least of our fiscal problems.

Don’t get the impression that I was bowled over by Senator Obama because I wasn’t. Obama missed numerous opportunities to hammer McCain, and the senator’s assertion that we can rely on nuclear power and clean coal technology was simply political silliness. Given our current financial mess, the United States cannot afford to build more nuclear power plants, and even if we could, we shouldn’t.

But at least Obama had facts at his command and an understanding that the country has entered a new era. Neither candidate will admit it, and McCain is too old and nostalgic to recognize it anyway, but the United States is no longer the baddest bully on the playground; we exhibit classic symptoms of a decrepit empire. Thankfully, Obama has a sense of this and perhaps the intelligence and political skill to do something about it.

Watching McCain ramble through his talking points brought to mind Sarah Palin’s disastrous interview with Katie Couric on CBS. If you missed that, it’s definitely worth a look. Palin is a train wreck, a small town mayor trying desperately to play on the big stage and failing miserably. Palin is so inept that she makes Spiro Agnew and Dan Quayle look competent.

Flight of the Owners

“Since becoming President of the United States in 2001, President Bush has worked with the Congress to create an ownership society and build a future of security, prosperity, and opportunity for all Americans.” Official White House Website

That’s rich, isn’t it, given that the “owners” are currently running to the Federal government and lining up for a taxpayer-funded bailout. Rich but hardly surprising -- the fact that this nonsensical blurb remains on the White House website is testament to the Bush Administration’s staunch refusal to recognize reality.

The Ownership Society was always a codeword for supporting the wealthy at the expense of the middle class and the poor. Bush and his posse of radical ideologues pretended that the Ownership Society was open to all, but of course the front door was guarded and only the “right” people were allowed inside. Bush & Co. wrecked the economy by misplaced faith in the “free market” and by dismantling the regulatory framework that was created to curb the schemes and shenanigans of greedy capitalists.

We’re experiencing the end result of Bush’s disastrous blindness and incompetent leadership: a $700 billion Government bailout. Lo and behold, the Market God is neither infallible nor immune to manipulation and gaming; now the Federal government is poised to become the not-so-proud owner of billions of dollars worth of paper – much of it of unknown or dubious value. That there is no place to turn except the Government must make the Bushies squirm and retch; they have nothing but contempt for Government, and to watch their cronies, political allies and campaign contributors run to Government for aid must gall them no end.

Or perhaps it galls them not at all. Introspection has never been a Bush Administration strength.


The meltdown in the financial markets pushed a lot of things off the table last week. I lost track of GOP-darling Sarah Palin while her running mate was stumbling for words to explain his economic flip-flops. I assume Palin was closeted with advisors and tutors, learning the capitols of the world, the names of heads of state, and the major exports of India, Saudi Arabia and China. By now, I’m sure Palin can recite the Bush Doctrine forwards and backwards.

Ah, folly, you twisted devil. Regardless of who he claims to be as Wall Street burns, John McCain is one of the best legislative lackeys that bankers, investment houses and hedge fund operators ever had. McCain’s claim to carry the banner for improved regulation of the financial sector is contradicted by his voting record.

McCain keeps trying to reinvent himself as someone he’s not, hoping, I suppose, that the media will ignore his record and let his blatant lies pass. If you believe that John McCain can “reform” the corrupt culture he helped create in Washington, then you might as well bet your house on the Pittsburgh Pirates to win the World Series next season. The truth is that McCain has assiduously championed the interests of his corporate benefactors, and to believe that he has changed is pure fantasy.

Crude oil is up, the DOW is down and the US Government can always tap taxpayer money for ill-advised wars or to rescue wayward corporations. We can’t find ten bucks to provide health care for the uninsured or to educate our children properly or to wean ourselves from fossil fuels, but we can wage wars and rescue the wealthy with hardly any debate at all.

That’s the American Way in this age of perversity.

John McCain, Working Man

“Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.” John Stuart Mill

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have an important announcement. Are you ready? Hold onto your butts now because this is huge: Republican presidential hopeful John McCain has discovered -- the American worker!

Yes my friends, it’s true, I heard old man McCain singing the praises of the American worker with my own ears. There was McCain on one of the morning propaganda shows answering questions (well, sort of) about the Wall Street meltdown and what it means for the nation. Not only did McCain call for a blue-ribbon commission to investigate Wall Street’s abuses (why do politician’s always call for a blue-ribbon commission?), he also said he believes in the ingenuity of the American worker.

How rich is that? For twenty-five years, the Republican Party and John McCain have undermined American workers in every way possible, from relentless deregulation, to off-shoring American jobs to China, to busting unions, to supporting tax and trade policies that favor Capital over Labor.

Now, as Wall Street swan dives into the proverbial toilet, McCain wants to wrap himself in the tattered flag of the American worker, as if working Americans have had anything to do with the swindles that pass for business-as-usual on Wall Street.

The man has no shame whatsoever and must be exposed for the liar that he is.

The sad truth is that many voters believe McCain’s spiel, even when the facts of their own lives tell them that he is wrong. I happened to catch a TV interview with an unemployed Michigan autoworker the other day, and was flabbergasted when this poor man said that when it comes to the economy he trusts John McCain more than Barack Obama. Dear, suffering man, the problems of Michigan and the hardships faced by average working people all across America are directly related to a quarter century of Republican ideology: the “you’re-on-your-own, rugged individual, government-is-the-enemy, taxation-is-theft, and the Market-knows-best” bullshit that we’ve been force fed. Why any person with a pulse – particularly someone from a state as beleaguered as Michigan -- believes that the Republicans have an answer for our economic woes is beyond me.

Word up, Michigan: a vote for McCain is a vote to continue the disastrous policies that produced the economic suffering you’re experiencing.

How does John McCain explain the fact that the real wages of American workers fell or remained stagnant while productivity soared? How does he explain his staunch opposition to the Employee Free Choice Act – legislation that would make it easier for American workers to join unions and bargain collectively? How does he explain his steadfast support of a tax system that favors capital over labor, or the fact that his dear friend and former economic guru, Phil Gramm, authored the legislation that deregulated the financial services industry and ushered in an era of greed, excess and corruption? If McCain is so pro-worker, why is his campaign riddled with corporate lobbyists?

To hear John McCain extol the virtues of American workers is like listening to a street whore in Bangkok extol the virtues of abstinence-only sex education; it doesn’t fit, it doesn’t work, and it sure as hell doesn’t make a shred of sense.

John McCain and his Republican allies (does the name Alan Greenspan ring any bells?) are responsible for the collapse of our financial system. The facts are clear, the proof irrefutable; to lay the blame anywhere but at the feet of a failed ideology is to believe that that infamous bridge in Alaska leads somewhere.

Serious Times, Serious People, Really

To prove that the McCain Campaign isn’t sheltering Sarah Palin from media scrutiny, John McCain and Palin are hitting the campaign trail and speaking with reporters – at least those reporters screened by Blackwater for Liberal tendencies, anti-McCain attitude or fact-based skepticism. What follows is the transcript of a press conference that took place recently in eastern Ohio.

Fox News: Governor Palin, what shade of lipstick are you wearing today?

Palin: This is hardwood-rose, a good outdoorsy shade, don’t you think?

Fox News: It’s lovely, Governor. How do you feel about taxation?

Palin: Taxation is bad. I support lowering the tax burden on hard working Americans.

CNN: Governor, do you think women who supported Hillary Clinton will support you?

Palin: I don’t see why not. They’re women, I’m a woman, so I expect they’ll vote for me.

McCain: I want to remind you that my opponent never spent time in a North Vietnamese prison camp.

Palin: And let me add that I read about North Vietnam on Wikipedia.

Correspondent from the Nation magazine, sneaking past Security: Excuse me, can we talk about the economy, please.

Fox News: Who let that leftist agitator in? Governor Palin, how do you juggle your official duties and a large family?

Nation Correspondent, before being assaulted with pepper spray: What about Iraq, the illegal invasion and occupation…you bastards – get your hands off me, this is still AMERICA!

Palin: Well, my husband, the First Dude, is really good about helping out around the house. He doesn’t cook, but he will wash windows and do laundry.

CNN: Isn’t she wonderful!

Fox News: She’s electric! She has single-handedly re-energized the Republican Party! McCain is a genius for selecting her as his running mate!

NBC News: John, good to see you again. Do you believe – as President Bush does – that the fundamentals of the economy are strong?

McCain: The economy is robust, the envy of the world. And did I mention that I served time in a Vietnamese POW camp? Let me just say this: Republicans put America first. My opponent will coddle America’s enemies. My opponent doesn’t know what it’s like to survive in a POW camp.

Palin: I gave every citizen of Alaska a tax rebate!

CNN: Governor, I’m sorry to ask this question, forgive me, but did you support the infamous Bridge to Nowhere?

Palin: I did not – I fought against that silly bridge. I don’t know why the Liberal establishment keeps insisting that I supported the Bridge. Clearly, the Liberal establishment is against me – and against women in general.

CBS News correspondent, second row, whispered to ABC News correspondent: I love her but she’s lying. She supported the Bridge and tried to secure more Federal dough for similar projects. She only opposed it when it became a political embarrassment for Senator Stevens. I should do my job and ask a tough follow-up, but isn’t she just wonderful?

Fox News: John, is this election about character?

McCain: Absolutely. And unlike my opponent, my character was molded during my years in a POW camp.

Palin: It’s more important to have character than to be a character. I read that in a book, actually.

Fox News: Governor, the Obama Campaign has made a number of scurrilous attacks against you for an alleged lack of experience in foreign policy. How do you respond?

Palin: First of all, there’s no tougher species of female than a hockey mom. Second, I am the commander-in-chief of the Alaskan National Guard – the front line of America’s defense against a Russian invasion of our glorious nation. I have a uniform and everything. If the Russians want a fight, the ANG is ready for them. Bring ‘em on Vladimir is what I say. Did you know that you can see Russia from Alaska?

Fox News: OMG! OMG! I’m so excited I think I just soiled myself.

Amy Goodman, Democracy Now Host, shoving past Security: This is supposed to be a serious press conference about serious issues! What do either one of you have to say about the trashing of the Constitution, illegal spying on American citizens or the shameful treatment of our veterans?

(Seconds after she asked this question Goodman and her film crew were tasered by State Troopers and arrested.)

Palin: I think I believe in Law & Order, and I’m pretty sure I read the Constitution when it came out in paperback. And I just watched my son ship off to serve his country in Iraq – against the very people who plotted and launched the terrible attacks of September 11.

ABC News correspondent whispered to CBS News correspondent: Oops. I guess Sarah missed the memo from Karl Rove. Well, she’s still amazing even though she doesn’t seem to understand that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. Smarts are overrated in politics anyway.

McCain: I don’t feel the need to respond to insolent questions. After all, I was a POW.

Masters of Deceit (or How to Run a Campaign when you have Nothing to Run On)

Rovian logic. If the economy stinks for most Americans and portends to worsen before it improves – talk instead about illegal immigration, abortion, or something nebulous, like “character.” Whatever you do, don’t talk about the real world issues impacting real people’s lives – the issues your party is largely responsible for creating.

Talk about reforming politics in Washington as if your party has not been in total command of all three branches of government – and still controls two – for six of the past eight years. Talk about how you are the one to take on the Establishment even though you yourself are a pillar of that Establishment.

Talk nostalgically about small towns and families while vowing to continue the policies that are destroying small towns and families.

Above all, paint your opponents as unpatriotic and un-American while your party undermines the Constitution, runs roughshod over the rule of law and strains relationships with America’s traditional allies. You don’t need a comprehensive plan or vision for the country, you just need to lie compellingly about your opponents. Run on your biography, not the actual record, and invoke your stint as a POW at every opportunity – even when it’s irrelevant to the topic at hand.

If you watched any part of the GOP Convention you know that the Rove Playbook is still widely read and that Republicans are clinging to George W. Bush’s illusions. If the American electorate was more sophisticated and harder to dupe, the GOP would be packing bags, shredding documents and preparing to depart Washington D.C., because after eight disastrous years of Republican misrule, logic says there’s no way John McCain can beat Barack Obama.

Think about it. Is the Republican ticket running against Barack Obama and Joe Biden or are they running against the long, dark shadow cast by George Bush and Dick Cheney? The crux of the matter is that McCain and Palin must run against their own party’s disastrous record without turning off or alienating the party faithful.

It’s a trick worthy of Houdini, but it’s also a stage show the Republicans have perfected – after all, George Bush made it to the White House twice, which proves that American presidential elections are about images and emotions and distortions, not facts, policies or truth.

For the Masters of Deceit, Sarah Palin is a smart choice (even though her right-wing policy positions and staggering absence of experience make her a ridiculous choice) because she’s enough of a circus act to divert attention from the stiff old man she’s running alongside. The mainstream media took Palin at face value, got caught up in the hype and announced that Palin “electrified” the GOP convention and “energized” the base. Palin is good copy and next to the sclerotic McCain, the dull Fred Thompson and the rabid Rudy Guliani, who wouldn’t look fresh and chipper?

The disciples of Karl Rove will spend the next two months trying to induce gullible voters to forget the policy failures of the past eight years: a failing economy brought on by Republican blind faith in a benevolent Market God; two wars, one of them completely unnecessary; a failure to address America’s energy needs or come to grips with the serious implications of climate change; indifference to citizen concerns about the affordability of health care and higher education; and the erosion of Constitutional protections.

The cynicism of Karl Rove and the GOP would be amusing if it wasn’t deadly serious.

One Small Step Closer to the Gulag

On the day I begin re-reading One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, Democracy Now host Amy Goodman is arrested in St. Paul, Minnesota for protesting the arrest of two of her colleagues. All three have journalist credentials and Press ID, and yet police in riot gear manhandle them as if they’re members of the Weather Underground. Fortunately, some alert soul captures this outrage on video and posts it on YouTube.

For all of Barack Obama’s soaring and inspiring rhetoric, we didn’t hear much in his convention speech about restoring civil liberties. I wonder if Bill Clinton’s call for restoring the American Dream at home also meant turning back the emerging American police state.

The police state will prevail unless and until the arrest of a journalist as prominent as Amy Goodman is front-page news. As of this morning, at least on the New York Times and Los Angeles Times websites, it’s not even worth a mention. I don’t suspect that Diane Sawyer or Matt Lauer will lead with the story, either, though in the grand scheme of freedom and liberty, the arrest of Amy Goodman and the systematic stifling of dissent in this country is more important than Hurricane Gustav or the hypocrisy of Sarah Palin.

Dissent is as fundamental to a real democracy as free and fair elections. The Constitution still guarantees the right of free speech and free assembly, but when peaceful protestors – with a permit -- are met by police in full riot gear and journalists trying to do their jobs are arrested, one wonders what the Constitution means.

I first read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich in 1979. Back then America seemed as far from the Gulag as the moon is from Pluto. Today the distance is far shorter. We’re in the process of trading some of our most precious civil liberties for a false sense of security. No nation on this planet jails as many of its citizens as we do; we torture prisoners and invade countries that pose no threat to us. And, like Pravda in the days of the Soviet Union, the American media feeds the population a steady diet of half-truths, whole lies, and mind-numbing trivia.

We can ignore what happened to Amy Goodman in St. Paul, but not for long. Tyranny happens gradually.

Moose Burgers, Get Your Moose Burgers

Sarah Palin. Who? Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska for the past twenty months. What is the population of Alaska? Less than a million people – in the entire state! As a point of comparison, that’s less than the population of San Jose, California, Jacksonville, Florida and Columbus, Ohio. Sarah Palin is the best the GOP can do? Palin is the most qualified Republican woman they can find?

I have nothing against a female vice-president or Alaska – but are they freaking serious!

Choosing Sarah Palin as his running mate simply shows that John McCain is desperate. Choosing Palin also confirms – as if any further proof were needed – that the GOP is done, out of ideas, finished, kaput, bankrupt, adrift on the sea of a failed ideology. Choosing Palin does not – even though Sean Hannity tried his best to spin it so – re-establish McCain’s maverick reputation. McCain has marched in lock step with George W. Bush, down the road, around the bend, and over the edge of a sheer cliff.

The GOP run is over. Hannity, Limbaugh, Barnes, Savage and the rest of the right-wing blowhards had their time in the sun, total control of the country -- White House, Congress, Courts – and tanked spectacularly, historically, monumentally.

McCain and Palin, a doddering old man and an untested woman from an isolated state that bears no resemblance to the rest of the United States. Where Palin’s from it’s fine and dandy to support gun ownership, indiscriminate oil drilling and other nutty right-wing ideas because at the end of the day we’re talking about Alaska – a state that, frankly, was added to the union as an afterthought and means next to nothing in the grand scheme of things.

Bill Clinton was right – absent another stolen, fraudulent election – Obama and Biden are on the right side of history and should capture the White House in a landslide. Clinton was also right when he said that this election boils down to two simple elements: restoring the American Dream at home, and restoring American credibility abroad.

And Barack Obama was right when he framed the election this way: “If you don’t have a record to run on (and how can John McCain and his Alaskan sidekick possibly run on the Republican record? Hi folks, we’re losers and we want you to vote for us!) paint your opponent as someone to run from.” Precisely, and that’s what the dying, sputtering GOP machine will do from here to Election Day. Only now the Democrats can do the same thing, spotlighting McCain’s age and mental confusion, his temper and history of ethical lapses, and now the gaffe of all gaffes, tapping unknown, untested Sarah Palin as his running mate.

Need we talk any further about John McCain, the blatantly transparent political calculator – crassly trying to attract female votes by choosing Palin – his abysmal absence of vision, or do we now know everything we need to know?

Racists, Rednecks and Rove

This is a big week for the Republicans, even though the Democrats and Barack Obama are center-stage. You can bet the GOP brain trust – led by Karl Rove – is camped around a massive Plasma TV screen, drinking whiskey neat and recording everything that happens, everything that is said, reading between the lines and below the lines, seeking to uncover the story beneath the story -- all for the purpose of storing ammo for the general election.

If Barack Obama thinks he has seen the worst of the GOP attack machine he is sadly mistaken. Rove and his minions will pull out all the stops once Obama and McCain are officially anointed; oh yes, that’s when the big guns will be wheeled into position, and come September and October, the GOP will launch a major assault on the Truth, and millions of American voters will be cut down and left for dead. From now until then, Rove and his people will be working OT to paint Obama as too Liberal, too Foreign, and too much of a Muslim sympathizer. And if that PR offensive doesn’t gain traction, bet heavy that Rove and Co. will call their pals at Diebold and see about rigging voting machines to record votes for Obama as votes for John McCain.

Rednecks, racists and big money Chamber of Commerce types are worried about Barack Obama -- the idea that a black man with a strange name might take up residence in the White House makes a lot of white folks nervous. The cowboys at the county fair are talking about the possibility of an Obama presidency in apocalyptic terms. This isn’t the same as when Jesse Jackson ran because Jackson didn’t stand a chance of winning. Jesse was, frankly, too black to win over white voters. Not so with Obama, who is smart, articulate and charismatic.

Wall Street movers and their armies of K Street lobbyists are girding for war in the corridors of power. Money is already flowing to grease palms and buy loyalty, just in case Obama gets elected and proposes something sensible like re-regulating the banking system so that middle-class and working-class Americans are protected from predatory Titans of Finance.

The same siege mentality prevails in the health care industry, lest Obama get uppity and use his bully pulpit to promote Universal health care. The Privileged and the Profit Makers know that the time is now to inoculate themselves against an assault on everything they’ve gained during Bush’s reign.

There are, of course, a few realists in the McCain camp who know their man is a corrupt stiff with a liability-laden resume; all they can do is stoke the fears of the masses – fears about Mexicans swarming across the border to rape and rob defenseless white suburbanites; fears of socialized medicine; fears of reverse discrimination; fears of high taxes; and the Numero Uno Fear -- bearded Muslims.

McCain’s operatives know that peddling Fear is all they’ve got. When it comes to policy McCain is Bush Redux, and even the thickest, dumbest, shit-kicking, tattooed American has figured out that Bush and the GOP are responsible for the shit-storm sweeping the country. When citizens are weaned on TV you can fool most of them most of the time, but sooner or later even dolts wake up and realize that George W. Bush and his cronies are guilty of sodomizing the United States of America.

More to the point, McCain’s people know their man can’t hold his own against Barack Obama in a televised debate – even one with cream-puff questions lobbed by journalists infatuated with McCain. “I was a POW” is a statement of historical fact, not a policy position. Moreover, “I was a POW” is irrelevant to this election. This thing is about pulling us out of the open sewer Republican greed, corruption and incompetence put us in.

Irony Abounds & Abounds & Abounds

It’s ironic to hear George W. Bush lecturing Russia about invading a sovereign nation, and demanding that Russia pull its occupying forces back. Isn’t that like telling Russia to cut & run?

George W. Bush and his ideological allies invaded a sovereign nation, Iraq, on a sand dune of lies and insist, five years, thousands of dead and wounded and billions of dollars wasted later, that American forces remain in place until “victory” is achieved. Why should Russia, which has its own interests, do any different?

And isn’t it ironic, not to mention telling, that during the Russian incursion into Georgia, the American media showed viewers plenty of images of war, but that same media machine cannot be bothered to show Americans what is really happening on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan. Are we to believe that there are no weeping elderly women in Iraq, or orphaned children in Afghanistan? Compared to the coverage in Georgia, the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns have been bloodless.

Ironic that conservative ideology asserts that the answer to every social problem or need is to turn to the private sector, where the profit motive and competition will insure efficiency. But then why are Conservatives masters of the “no-bid” contract awarded to big political donors? Where’s the competitive advantage in that?

And, frankly, why would taxpayers want the functions of government turned over to American business? In case Conservatives have forgotten, we’re the nation that cannot compete in manufacturing -- our auto industry is pitiful, we’re losing our edge in technology and science, and our banks and investment houses are run by greed-mongers who can’t tell a sound investment from a bogus one; these people and their regulatory enablers created the mortgage crisis that has the home foreclosure rate up above 50%.

America may be a world leader in entertainment, but that’s not enough to sustain a superpower. The only business arena the American private sector excels in is buying and selling paper, swapping stock, consolidating corporations and lobbying the Federal government for public subsidies, hardly the stuff of which great powers are made.

Ironic that Barack Obama feels compelled to submit to a “faith” grilling at the hands of mega-church leader Rick Warren. If there ever was a tyranny of the “minority,” this is it. Evangelical Christians make up a relatively small part of the electorate and yet our presidential candidates find it necessary to pander to this group. Didn’t John McCain sound tough when he said he’d follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell? Uh, John, your party and your friend George W. Bush have had seven years to bring Mr. bin Laden to “justice” and you’ve failed in spectacular fashion.

The world may indeed be divided into good and evil, but if so, how does humankind defeat evil as Mr. McCain told the Christian faithful he would? By force of arms? By eradicating the distinction between church and state? By making public school children recite the Lord’s Prayer and the Ten Commandments?

Ironic that in a time of great social complexity, nuance and shades of gray, that one of our presidential candidates, Barack Obama, is ridiculed by the Right for being too smart, too intelligent, too eloquent. In a time when we desperately need fresh and bold thinking and all the smarts we can muster to meet the challenges facing our world, the mainstream media echoes the notion that a corrupt dolt is the man we should rally behind. Sorry, but for nearly eight years we’ve followed a fool, an embarrassment on the world stage, a man with an unmatched absence of curiosity and a super-abundance of hubris, and look where we stand: locked in a war on a “tactic,” in debt to foreigners, and in the midst of an economic meltdown.

Yes, these days irony abounds, and woe to the nation that cannot see it.

Straight Talk

Editor's Note: Things haven't been going the McCain Campaign's way of late, and some in his inner circle are becoming worried that McCain is flat-lining when he should be peaking for the GOP convention. The charge that a vote for McCain is the same thing as voting for a third Bush term rankles the Arizona Senator as much as the charge that he's too cozy with DC lobbyists.

McCain tried to set the record straight at a recent press conference.

McCain: Hey guys.

Press: Hi John!

McCain: I have a statement and then I’ll take your questions. Most of you guys have been on my campaign bus, so you know I like straight-talk, not elitist twisting of the facts. Some liberal media outlets have reported that a vote for McCain is a vote for George W. Bush’s third term. That’s a lot of hogwash. John McCain has his own agenda for America. OK, that’s it, short and sweet. Fire away!

Press: Mr. McCain, what is your stance on taxes?

McCain: I stand firmly on the principle that taxes are bad. My position is simple: no new taxes on business or the American people, ever.

Press: Mr. McCain, by nearly every measure the economy is in rough shape. How do you plan to turn it around?

McCain: Frankly, I disagree with you. The fundamentals of our economy are strong. What we need to do is cut taxes. Taxes are killing us.

Press: No offense, sir, but thanks to the tax cuts enacted by the Bush Administration, corporate and individual tax rates are at historically low levels.

McCain: Listen, pal, if you disagree with me again I won’t let you on my campaign bus. No more free booze or cozy access to me and my staff for you. Read my lips: taxes are the problem. Cut taxes and the economy will take off like a cruise missile.

Press: Speaking of missiles, what are you planning to do about Iran?

McCain: Well, I was a military man and I know that we can’t let tyrants get hold of nuclear weapons. If Iran acts up, threatens its neighbors, Iran will pay the price. If Iran wants to test John McCain’s will, John McCain will not hesitate to respond.

Press: Given that the US is bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, is it wise to confront Iran militarily?

McCain: What are you suggesting, that America cut and run? You sound like Senator Obama. Look, the only thing that Iran understands is force. We have to do whatever it takes to keep Iran from acquiring a nuclear device, and if that means military action, so be it.

Press: Switching subjects for a moment, health care is of great concern to the American people. What is your health policy?

McCain: Tax cuts and the free market. My opponent supports socialized medicine, I don’t. Next question?

Press: Mr. McCain, do you think the US can drill its way out of its energy problems or are renewable fuels like wind and solar power the answer?

McCain: We drill, we win our independence. What we need to do is provide tax incentives to oil companies for expanded exploration. The government should get out of the way of oil companies and let them do what they do best.

Press: Mr. McCain, best estimates by the oil industry itself is that the US only has 2% of the world’s oil reserves. If that’s correct, domestic exploration won’t come close to meeting the country’s needs.

McCain: I don’t buy it. Keep your engine tuned and your tires inflated. Stop talking like a defeatist.

Press: Major oil companies are making record profits. Why should the taxpayers subsidize expanded exploration by Exxon?

McCain: Because that’s how business gets done in America.

Press: Mr. McCain, you’ve surrounded yourself with advisors who trained under Karl Rove, and it has been widely reported that your campaign is taking the low road. How do you respond?

McCain: I don’t. John McCain lives on the high road. I’ve never taken the low road in my life. People who insinuate that my campaign is taking the low road are un-American and unpatriotic. I don’t surround myself with lobbyists, either. With John McCain you get straight-talk and a new direction for America.

Press: Gee, no offense Mr. McCain, but your positions sound positively Bush-like!

McCain: No beer for you!