14 October 2008
The Most Corrupt Congressional District?
It depends on your definition of corruption. There may be more meaningful abuses of power elsewhere, as well as cases that cost more money to taxpayers, but it bears noting that in Florida, the Democrat who took over the seat that was lost to the Republicans following Rep. Mark Foley's sex scandal is now embroiled in a sex scandal of his own. You might think that this is my cue to say something about the American Bipolarchy, but I suspect simple human nature explains stories like these more effectively.
13 October 2008
The Presidential Candidates: Ted C. Weill
Such as it is, Weill's candidacy is historically significant as an indicator of the shambles that the Reform Party has become. Created largely as H. Ross Perot's campaign vehicle for the 1992 and 1996 presidential elections, and the inheritor of the ballot lines and matching funds Perot earned, it has crumbled since he departed from the scene. Pat Buchanan's 2000 candidacy pretty much finished Reform as a national force, and Ralph Nader's 2004 effort did little to help.
Ted Weill is an 83 year old CEO who sought the Reform nomination four years ago, but yielded to Nader. This time, his major challenger was Frank E. McEnulty, who is running as Weill's running mate while conducting his own presidential run with the New American Independent Party. Weill doesn't have a campaign website of his own.
The Reform Party's objects remain pretty much what they were under Perot. The platform calls for eliminating the national debt and ratifying a Balanced Budget Amendment. It seeks to abolish "corporate welfare" and wasteful or outdated government programs. It calls for enhanced border security, a temporary freeze on legal immigration, and stronger legal liabilities for employers of illegal immigrants. It also calls for a constitutional amendment eliminating the automatic grant of citizenship to anyone born on American soil, reserving it instead for the children of actual citizens.
The Reformers want a stronger Securities & Exchange Commission to enforce existing laws against fraud and insider trading. Their demands include: "Ensure that punishment and fines fit the crime. Give corporate criminals real jail time. Money collected through fines should be reimbursed to stockholders, retirement funds or 401(k) plans. Fines should be commensurate, not small percentages. Revoke professional licenses for lawyers, accountants, stock brokers and bankers found guilty of fraud. "
Without mentioning specific countries, the Reform platform advocates the non-intervention principle and calls on the U.S. to stop supporting " foreign despots who utilize torture, murder and genocide to control their people." At the same time, it calls for "Respect for the sovereignty of all nations, and rejection of the belief that the United States should use its military power to engage in nation-building." The party is most concerned with securing advantageous trade agreements that protect American labor standards and eliminate incentives for outsourcing. The "giant sucking sound" Perot warned of echoes in Reform's emphasis on fair-trade issues.
The Reform Party illustrates the unfortunate dependence of parties on personalities outside the Bipolarchy of Republicans and Democrats. Much of what Reform stands for is as sound as when Perot spoke for it, but somehow the party fell into the hands of a nonentity, and the party's website hasn't even been updated to acknowledge Weill as its nominee. Meanwhile, a splinter group has endorsed the Republican ticket. It seems as if the party fell apart, assuming it was ever very coherent, because it's independent standing left it open to any interloper, with practically any agenda, who wanted the access to ballot lines and funds that Perot had earned. As soon as Perot renounced politics, probably, the Reform Party ceased to really stand for anything, and poor Weill is left to inherit a broken carcass. He sits at an apparent dead end of American political history.
Ted Weill is an 83 year old CEO who sought the Reform nomination four years ago, but yielded to Nader. This time, his major challenger was Frank E. McEnulty, who is running as Weill's running mate while conducting his own presidential run with the New American Independent Party. Weill doesn't have a campaign website of his own.
The Reform Party's objects remain pretty much what they were under Perot. The platform calls for eliminating the national debt and ratifying a Balanced Budget Amendment. It seeks to abolish "corporate welfare" and wasteful or outdated government programs. It calls for enhanced border security, a temporary freeze on legal immigration, and stronger legal liabilities for employers of illegal immigrants. It also calls for a constitutional amendment eliminating the automatic grant of citizenship to anyone born on American soil, reserving it instead for the children of actual citizens.
The Reformers want a stronger Securities & Exchange Commission to enforce existing laws against fraud and insider trading. Their demands include: "Ensure that punishment and fines fit the crime. Give corporate criminals real jail time. Money collected through fines should be reimbursed to stockholders, retirement funds or 401(k) plans. Fines should be commensurate, not small percentages. Revoke professional licenses for lawyers, accountants, stock brokers and bankers found guilty of fraud. "
Without mentioning specific countries, the Reform platform advocates the non-intervention principle and calls on the U.S. to stop supporting " foreign despots who utilize torture, murder and genocide to control their people." At the same time, it calls for "Respect for the sovereignty of all nations, and rejection of the belief that the United States should use its military power to engage in nation-building." The party is most concerned with securing advantageous trade agreements that protect American labor standards and eliminate incentives for outsourcing. The "giant sucking sound" Perot warned of echoes in Reform's emphasis on fair-trade issues.
The Reform Party illustrates the unfortunate dependence of parties on personalities outside the Bipolarchy of Republicans and Democrats. Much of what Reform stands for is as sound as when Perot spoke for it, but somehow the party fell into the hands of a nonentity, and the party's website hasn't even been updated to acknowledge Weill as its nominee. Meanwhile, a splinter group has endorsed the Republican ticket. It seems as if the party fell apart, assuming it was ever very coherent, because it's independent standing left it open to any interloper, with practically any agenda, who wanted the access to ballot lines and funds that Perot had earned. As soon as Perot renounced politics, probably, the Reform Party ceased to really stand for anything, and poor Weill is left to inherit a broken carcass. He sits at an apparent dead end of American political history.
Idiot of the Week Nominee: Sarah Palin
This was bound to happen, but Gov. Palin found a unique yet characteristic way to enter this competition. Since she entered the national arena, the Alaskan has been accused of offering pre-programmed responses to challenges, but today's episode in Richmond VA takes this purported habit to an absurd level. You may have seen it on TV, but until I can find an embeddable version of it on the net you'll have to be satisfied with this link to as sympathetic a report of the incident as you're likely to find -- and it's not that sympathetic this time. To save time, I'll cut to the chase right here:
I've tried to come up with a measured response to the scene, but the best I can come up with is: "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
The massive crowd of over 10,000 –holding signs that read “I’m Voting for the Chick” and “Keep Virginia Red– had problems hearing the governor of Alaska and supporters in the back started chanting, “Louder! Louder! Louder!” In an awkward moment, Palin mistakenly thought protestors were interrupting her speech, “I would hope at least that those protestors have the courage and the honor of thanking our veterans for giving them the right to protest.”
The audience began yelling, “No!” and tried to alert the GOP Vice-Presidential nominee to speak louder.Her husband, Todd then leaned over and explained to his wife that they were enthusiastic supporters not protestors, “They just can’t hear you back there. That’s it.” Todd whispered in Palin’s ear, but it is audible on the camera microphone.
I've tried to come up with a measured response to the scene, but the best I can come up with is: "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
* * *
Update: If it wasn't funny enough on the page, here's the video:
The Rumormongers: Who Do They Represent?
Here's a New York Times article which traces the "Obama is a Muslim" rumors back to 2004, shortly after Senator Obama delivered his star-making keynote speech to the Democratic Convention. This Andy Martin first posted his suspicions on FreeRepublic, which could be called a "paleo-conservative" website. That seems to be part of a pattern through which the rumors developed independently of the Republican establishment, and not necessarily consciously to its benefit. Two details of interest: Martin is said to have spread rumors about George W. Bush using cocaine before the 2000 election, while Ted Sampley, a provocateur who further publicized the Obama rumor beginning in 2006, has also called Senator McCain a "Manchurian Candidate." Sampley is one of those who hate McCain for supposedly betraying Vietnam veterans allegedly left behind in POW camps.
Another peculiarity, or irony if you prefer: while some think the Muslim rumor is meant to scare Jews into voting against Obama, Martin appears to be an anti-Semite himself. All of this may help explain McCain's dismay when confronting the haters at his own rallies last week. The fearmongering about Obama appears to be a genuine grass-roots phenomenon from outside the establishment. To me, that makes it scarier than ever.
Another peculiarity, or irony if you prefer: while some think the Muslim rumor is meant to scare Jews into voting against Obama, Martin appears to be an anti-Semite himself. All of this may help explain McCain's dismay when confronting the haters at his own rallies last week. The fearmongering about Obama appears to be a genuine grass-roots phenomenon from outside the establishment. To me, that makes it scarier than ever.
12 October 2008
From Tiny ACORNS...
The newest charges against the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now (ACORN) are a welcome reminder that Republicans aren't the only party trying to cheat in American elections. You'd get the opposite impression from listening to Democratic, liberal and progressive spokesmen who oppose GOP attempts at "vote suppression." Many of their charges against Republicans are legitimate, but when Republicans protest that some of the steps they advocate are necessary to prevent "voter fraud," Democrats act outraged and deny that anyone is perpetrating or encouraging fraudulent voting. Anyone who knows the history of the Democratic Party has to laugh at such claims. Vote fraud has a rich bipartisan history in this country, and there's no reason to believe that the older party of the two somehow renounced the practice. The evidence against ACORN (admittedly not an arm of the Democratic Party, but often in sympathy with it) is pretty damning, but there's room to blame the method by which the organization goes about registering voters rather than the motive.
The big problem with ACORN seems to be that it pays people to do its work. This creates a perverse incentive for unscrupulous operatives to get something for nothing by giving ACORN faked registration forms. The organization claims that it scrupulously vets the forms it receives to screen out fakes, but they could save themselves the step by removing the incentive and doing its work on a volunteer basis. That might also save them the grief they've gotten in the past from union organizers. While critics have charged that ACORN increases the perverse incentive by paying a piece-race, per registration form, the organization denies this, stating that operatives are paid a regularly hourly wage.
ACORN further claims that, even should some bad forms get through their scrutiny, no one would be able to use them in order to cast a fraudulent vote, since anyone trying that would have to present valid ID at the polls. For that reason, they dismiss Republican complaints and portray them as more advocacy of vote suppression. Without fully endorsing the Republican view, I have to note that what happens to the voter attempting fraud depends on the people running the polling place. There's no guarantee that a fraudulent voter would be detected (on whatever suspicion) and challenged.
In any event, organizations like ACORN should be unnecessary, at least to the extent that it's branched out into voter-outreach from its original and now controversial mandate to help poor people get housing. The organization itself has advocated "motor-voter" laws that would make its own work partially superfluous, and further reforms along the lines of Election Day registration could make it completely unnecessary. ACORN's work is self-evidently partisan; it would not make such efforts if it wasn't convinced that the voters recruited would vote along the lines they or their patrons desire. The idea of a middleman organization intervening between the individual and the state to facilitate the registration process is objectionable. It should be up to the state to make sure people know how to register and to ensure that everyone who wants to and can do it legally is able to. Under current Bipolarchic conditions that's probably too idealistic a position to take, but to the extent that ACORN clings to one of the pillars of the Bipolarchy, their work doesn't automatically improve the situation. While any Republican attempt to throw out all registrations collected by ACORN should be resisted if it happens, no one should regard the ACORN issue with complacency.
The big problem with ACORN seems to be that it pays people to do its work. This creates a perverse incentive for unscrupulous operatives to get something for nothing by giving ACORN faked registration forms. The organization claims that it scrupulously vets the forms it receives to screen out fakes, but they could save themselves the step by removing the incentive and doing its work on a volunteer basis. That might also save them the grief they've gotten in the past from union organizers. While critics have charged that ACORN increases the perverse incentive by paying a piece-race, per registration form, the organization denies this, stating that operatives are paid a regularly hourly wage.
ACORN further claims that, even should some bad forms get through their scrutiny, no one would be able to use them in order to cast a fraudulent vote, since anyone trying that would have to present valid ID at the polls. For that reason, they dismiss Republican complaints and portray them as more advocacy of vote suppression. Without fully endorsing the Republican view, I have to note that what happens to the voter attempting fraud depends on the people running the polling place. There's no guarantee that a fraudulent voter would be detected (on whatever suspicion) and challenged.
In any event, organizations like ACORN should be unnecessary, at least to the extent that it's branched out into voter-outreach from its original and now controversial mandate to help poor people get housing. The organization itself has advocated "motor-voter" laws that would make its own work partially superfluous, and further reforms along the lines of Election Day registration could make it completely unnecessary. ACORN's work is self-evidently partisan; it would not make such efforts if it wasn't convinced that the voters recruited would vote along the lines they or their patrons desire. The idea of a middleman organization intervening between the individual and the state to facilitate the registration process is objectionable. It should be up to the state to make sure people know how to register and to ensure that everyone who wants to and can do it legally is able to. Under current Bipolarchic conditions that's probably too idealistic a position to take, but to the extent that ACORN clings to one of the pillars of the Bipolarchy, their work doesn't automatically improve the situation. While any Republican attempt to throw out all registrations collected by ACORN should be resisted if it happens, no one should regard the ACORN issue with complacency.
Dear God: Get Out and Vote
Here is Iowa pastor Arnold Conrad exhorting his deity to intervene in the U.S. presidential election, as reported by the Los Angeles Times:
Here's the video:
Representatives of Senator McCain were, as usual, quick to distance themselves from Conrad's prayer. Representatives of God were unavailable for comment. Also unavailable were representatives of Buddha or "Hindu," while representatives of Allah reported that they were too busy praying for the stock market to crash to bother with petty American politics.
"There are millions of people around this world praying to their God -- whether it's Hindu, Buddha, Allah -- that [McCain's] opponent wins for a variety of reasons. And, Lord, I pray that you would guard your own reputation, because they're going to think that their god is bigger than you, if that happens."
Here's the video:
Representatives of Senator McCain were, as usual, quick to distance themselves from Conrad's prayer. Representatives of God were unavailable for comment. Also unavailable were representatives of Buddha or "Hindu," while representatives of Allah reported that they were too busy praying for the stock market to crash to bother with petty American politics.
11 October 2008
What Happened to Kimbo Slice? A Follow-Up
That's what a Florida commission wants to know in the aftermath of the alleged mixed-martial-arts phenom's sudden loss to Seth "Silverback" Petruzelli last week. People's ears pricked up when Petruzelli told an interviewer that he had been offered bonus money before the fight if he would wage a "stand up" bout -- relying on striking rather than grappling. Some apparently infer from this that someone was setting Slice up for a quick knockout.
People who've watched the fight on this blog tell me that they thought it was stopped very quickly. To them, the Silverback didn't seem to be striking devastating blows. Unfortunately, MMA is much like boxing, officially determined to err on the side of caution in giving referees discretion to stop bouts in order to prevent severe injuries. The sport prides itself in lacking the litany of comas and deaths to be found in the annals of boxing. But any sport that gives referees so much crucial discretion is susceptible to corruption. Their decision will always appear questionable when fighters remain conscious enough to protest the decisions, as is often the case in combat sports. Let's note, however, that Slice, to my knowledge, did not protest and has not protested the result of last week's encounter. Nevertheless, if you follow the link to the bottom of the page, you'll see that fight fans have a variety of opinions on the subject.
Personally, I think it was a simple case of the ref erring on the side of caution. Slice has shown more resiliency in past fights I've seen and might have been capable of fending off his foe, but in the ref's eyes he didn't seem to be defending himself as the Silverback rained blows, whatever their effect, upon him. There's bound to be a big payday coming for both men from a rematch, but I don't think that was the thought on the part of the promoters beforehand. Any investigation of the story should also look into what exactly happened in Ken Shamrock's training facility and how he got the cut that scratched him from his scheduled encounter with Kimbo. Earlier, I hinted that it might have been a has-been's way of chickening out of fighting someone whom he, with most other people, had overrated. But if you think what happened in the cage was questionable, you should also question the circumstances that put Petruzelli in there instead of Shamrock. If that's your plan, have a blast.
People who've watched the fight on this blog tell me that they thought it was stopped very quickly. To them, the Silverback didn't seem to be striking devastating blows. Unfortunately, MMA is much like boxing, officially determined to err on the side of caution in giving referees discretion to stop bouts in order to prevent severe injuries. The sport prides itself in lacking the litany of comas and deaths to be found in the annals of boxing. But any sport that gives referees so much crucial discretion is susceptible to corruption. Their decision will always appear questionable when fighters remain conscious enough to protest the decisions, as is often the case in combat sports. Let's note, however, that Slice, to my knowledge, did not protest and has not protested the result of last week's encounter. Nevertheless, if you follow the link to the bottom of the page, you'll see that fight fans have a variety of opinions on the subject.
Personally, I think it was a simple case of the ref erring on the side of caution. Slice has shown more resiliency in past fights I've seen and might have been capable of fending off his foe, but in the ref's eyes he didn't seem to be defending himself as the Silverback rained blows, whatever their effect, upon him. There's bound to be a big payday coming for both men from a rematch, but I don't think that was the thought on the part of the promoters beforehand. Any investigation of the story should also look into what exactly happened in Ken Shamrock's training facility and how he got the cut that scratched him from his scheduled encounter with Kimbo. Earlier, I hinted that it might have been a has-been's way of chickening out of fighting someone whom he, with most other people, had overrated. But if you think what happened in the cage was questionable, you should also question the circumstances that put Petruzelli in there instead of Shamrock. If that's your plan, have a blast.
The Tragic Quest of John McCain
Sometimes it must just suck to be Senator McCain, and I suspect he knows this. Have you ever imagined the degree of self-loathing he has to struggle with? Here's a Navy aristocrat, son and grandson of admirals, whose career crashes and burns over Vietnam. What's left is broken by his captors, on his own admission. He lived in shame at hearing his confession broadcast in his prison, and in fear of the wider world hearing it. In later life he tried to compensate by striving to reconcile the U.S. and Vietnam, only to be frustrated by people determined to discover prisoners remaining in the latter country, and when he airs his frustration, he finds himself accused of conspiratorial, treasonous dealings with the Vietnamese. Likewise, embarrassed by his involvement in the "Keating Five" scandal, he strove to redeem himself in the public mind by becoming the scourge of "money in politics," only to make himself hated by many in his chosen party. Humiliated by his defeat at the hands of Bush and Rove, he had to curry favor with them to have another chance at the nomination of his chosen party. He had to swallow his pride and seek endorsements from people he despised, all while the radio talkers howled against him. Determined to play the maverick, he was denied his fondest desire to tap Senator Lieberman as his running mate. To compensate, he played the progressive by choosing a woman to run behind him, only to see her upstage him and instantly win the love that the movement still withheld from him. He made a statesmanlike acceptance speech and got polite applause while the raptures Gov. Palin received still echoed in the hall. Now he is losing to someone he clearly sees as an upstart, and finds himself blamed by association for Bush's failures. Against what seem to be his own impulses, he is egged on to go negative, to play Joe McCarthy, by his own supposed supporters. But he must wonder what or whom those people actually support. On October 10, he rebelled against his programming and saw the true face of his party.
After the rally, an enterprising web reporter caught up to the old woman, so we saw her true face as well. The link will give you a transcript of the interview to make up for the bad sound quality.
Many inside the Republican party or among the "movement" conservatives have never felt that McCain was one of them, and they are probably right. The man may be a warmonger, but apart from that is closer to being a centrist. He has been a "maverick" in the past and might prove one again as President, but this has always been as much a matter of ego as one of principle. He would probably rather be judged by his character and his actions rather than according to brand-name loyalty, but bowing to the American Bipolarchy was the shortcut to power for someone starting out in a new state with a new family. McCain's tragedy, if you would distinguish his story with that label, is that he chose his associates who now so plainly disgust him, probably because he felt he had no choice. Maverick he may be, but he had no more courage than 97 of his Senatorial peers, all of whom wear partisan livery. What would it mean to be a maverick, after all, outside the structure of the Bipolarchy? He needs that structure to define himself negatively against it; otherwise he'd be just another Senator. If a true "team of mavericks" ran the country, there wouldn't be a party system. The concept of a "party of mavericks" is absurd, and Republicans know this. They indulge Palin in this whimsy because she can do no wrong in their eyes, while reserving their secret contempt for McCain. Only now it's not so secret.
You can say that they were booing Senator Obama, not McCain, but the crowd's mood was one of resentment at having their fun spoilt. What McCain may not have realized, or didn't want to believe, was that his people want to hate. They take pleasure in their own fear. It flatters them to think of themselves as targets of conspiratorial designs. If they feel threatened, that must mean they matter, or, better, that they are objects of someone's envy. I suspect that this mentality is alien to McCain, but he chose to cater to it in order to claim political power. Maybe he thought he could tame it, and maybe he still thinks so. After all, the crowd ultimately cheered when he chided that crazy woman. But that day in Minnesota he looked a man having a terrible revelation. He looked suddenly sick of his whole campaign, but he can't stop now. The quest goes on.
After the rally, an enterprising web reporter caught up to the old woman, so we saw her true face as well. The link will give you a transcript of the interview to make up for the bad sound quality.
Many inside the Republican party or among the "movement" conservatives have never felt that McCain was one of them, and they are probably right. The man may be a warmonger, but apart from that is closer to being a centrist. He has been a "maverick" in the past and might prove one again as President, but this has always been as much a matter of ego as one of principle. He would probably rather be judged by his character and his actions rather than according to brand-name loyalty, but bowing to the American Bipolarchy was the shortcut to power for someone starting out in a new state with a new family. McCain's tragedy, if you would distinguish his story with that label, is that he chose his associates who now so plainly disgust him, probably because he felt he had no choice. Maverick he may be, but he had no more courage than 97 of his Senatorial peers, all of whom wear partisan livery. What would it mean to be a maverick, after all, outside the structure of the Bipolarchy? He needs that structure to define himself negatively against it; otherwise he'd be just another Senator. If a true "team of mavericks" ran the country, there wouldn't be a party system. The concept of a "party of mavericks" is absurd, and Republicans know this. They indulge Palin in this whimsy because she can do no wrong in their eyes, while reserving their secret contempt for McCain. Only now it's not so secret.
You can say that they were booing Senator Obama, not McCain, but the crowd's mood was one of resentment at having their fun spoilt. What McCain may not have realized, or didn't want to believe, was that his people want to hate. They take pleasure in their own fear. It flatters them to think of themselves as targets of conspiratorial designs. If they feel threatened, that must mean they matter, or, better, that they are objects of someone's envy. I suspect that this mentality is alien to McCain, but he chose to cater to it in order to claim political power. Maybe he thought he could tame it, and maybe he still thinks so. After all, the crowd ultimately cheered when he chided that crazy woman. But that day in Minnesota he looked a man having a terrible revelation. He looked suddenly sick of his whole campaign, but he can't stop now. The quest goes on.
09 October 2008
The Presidential Candidates: My Patience is Running Out
I meant to add another candidate to the list tonight, but wading through the remaining entries at Project VoteSmart has become an ordeal. Perhaps my mood is befouled by the market news and excerpts from Senator McCain's campaign hatefests, but I feel less indulgent toward the frivolous cranks claiming to run for President. As it looks now, there might be no more than two additional entries, since no more than two candidates look credible (and that's still by my standards, not the pollsters'): the Reform Party and Social Equality candidates. All along I had wondered where the Socialist Worker Party was. I remembered seeing them regularly on the New York ballot in the past. Now, at the height of idiocy, they're running a candidate, Roger Calero, who is constitutionally ineligible to become President because he's a native of Nicaragua. Who is making these decisions? Why do they bother?
The "Politics Issue" of The New Yorker came in the mail today. The editors lead with a long endorsement of Senator Obama in what amounts to a whitewash of the Democratic candidate. The most critical they got toward him was to chide him for not doing the joint appearances with McCain back in the summer. Otherwise, they're bowled over by his seriousness, reasonableness, moderation, and literary skill. Not one word of the editorial suggests that the committee that composed it gave the least thought to independent candidates. The New Yorker may affect sophistication, but it looks just as limited by the brand-name sports-betting mentality as any yokel. Their anointing of Obama is as much a bet on the winning team as it is an assessment of his relative merits.
Meanwhile, McCain supporters are going mad. The rage is palpable in videos of campaign events. These are people who think they're losing, whose anger barely conceals an irrational terror at the thought of Obama becoming President. They think that McCarthyite tactics will save them. They think that people will vote against Obama to spite Bill Ayers, who for all his youthful excess is most likely a better man than most of the people who denounce him, on the evidence of his years of work on education and other issues. They will most likely return to the topic of Jeremiah Wright, but by now I think enough people will see through any such desperate attempt to change the subject. But it'll be poetic justice if the GOP goes down with its McCarthy colors flying. Embracing their McCarthyite heritage can only remind people that the Republican Party has had a 60-year problem distinguishing dissent and subversion that really disqualifies it from the high responsibility of defending a free society from terrorist conspiracies.
Obama ought to respond to any such attacks in kind. We can do without the whining complaints against "negative campaigning" or "swift-boating." If McCain and Governor Palin and their strategists and surrogates want to play that way, then ad hominem attacks should be the order of the day. The "nuclear option" would be to unleash all those angry Vietnam vets who think that McCain sold them out on the Senate floor, including that faction who think he sold them out in prison. Obama needn't say a word, but if McCain wants to smear people, he ought to be buried in Vietnamese mud, and Palin, who has literally been in bed with a secessionist, and has been blessed by authentic witch-hunters, should get a strong taste of her own medicine. I recommend these measures not for Obama's sake, but because I despise the Republicans as much as anyone.
But while I despise Republicans as much as anyone, I still don't know whether defeating McCain is so absolutely imperative as to require me to endorse Obama. Obviously, if you think the most important thing to do is defeat McCain, then you have to vote for Obama unless, like I do, you have the luxury of living in a "blue" state under the Electoral College system. But other priorities are still possible. You might feel compelled to vote in protest against the Bailout, in which case you must choose an independent candidate. The whole Bailout episode goes a long way to revive Nader's argument denying any more than a dime's worth of difference between the Bipolarchic parties. On the other hand, you might think war against Iran an unwelcome certainty if McCain wins, which would again require you to choose Obama. But those who think that way should check whether they're absolutely certain that Obama would not go to war. War is one way out of a depression, after all, as Democrats well know.
Ultimately we return to the question voters asked themselves in 2000. Knowing that a vote for Nader might be a "vote for Bush," dissidents had to guess whether Bush would ruin the country in four or eight years. My vote in blue New York didn't effect the outcome, but Democrats would say that I lost my bet. They'll have you believe that everything was perfect or heading in the right direction under Bill Clinton, but some of us didn't think so then, and our assessment of Bush shouldn't make us look back differently upon the Clinton years. In any event, the question now is whether McCain will ruin the country in four years. Admittedly, on top of that comes a worse question: what if he dies and Palin becomes President? For many people, the prospect of Palin will be the ultimate argument for Obama. But is that enough to resign everyone to once again voting negatively, vetoing the worst candidate rather than voting for whomever might be the best? Ask me again later in the month.
The "Politics Issue" of The New Yorker came in the mail today. The editors lead with a long endorsement of Senator Obama in what amounts to a whitewash of the Democratic candidate. The most critical they got toward him was to chide him for not doing the joint appearances with McCain back in the summer. Otherwise, they're bowled over by his seriousness, reasonableness, moderation, and literary skill. Not one word of the editorial suggests that the committee that composed it gave the least thought to independent candidates. The New Yorker may affect sophistication, but it looks just as limited by the brand-name sports-betting mentality as any yokel. Their anointing of Obama is as much a bet on the winning team as it is an assessment of his relative merits.
Meanwhile, McCain supporters are going mad. The rage is palpable in videos of campaign events. These are people who think they're losing, whose anger barely conceals an irrational terror at the thought of Obama becoming President. They think that McCarthyite tactics will save them. They think that people will vote against Obama to spite Bill Ayers, who for all his youthful excess is most likely a better man than most of the people who denounce him, on the evidence of his years of work on education and other issues. They will most likely return to the topic of Jeremiah Wright, but by now I think enough people will see through any such desperate attempt to change the subject. But it'll be poetic justice if the GOP goes down with its McCarthy colors flying. Embracing their McCarthyite heritage can only remind people that the Republican Party has had a 60-year problem distinguishing dissent and subversion that really disqualifies it from the high responsibility of defending a free society from terrorist conspiracies.
Obama ought to respond to any such attacks in kind. We can do without the whining complaints against "negative campaigning" or "swift-boating." If McCain and Governor Palin and their strategists and surrogates want to play that way, then ad hominem attacks should be the order of the day. The "nuclear option" would be to unleash all those angry Vietnam vets who think that McCain sold them out on the Senate floor, including that faction who think he sold them out in prison. Obama needn't say a word, but if McCain wants to smear people, he ought to be buried in Vietnamese mud, and Palin, who has literally been in bed with a secessionist, and has been blessed by authentic witch-hunters, should get a strong taste of her own medicine. I recommend these measures not for Obama's sake, but because I despise the Republicans as much as anyone.
But while I despise Republicans as much as anyone, I still don't know whether defeating McCain is so absolutely imperative as to require me to endorse Obama. Obviously, if you think the most important thing to do is defeat McCain, then you have to vote for Obama unless, like I do, you have the luxury of living in a "blue" state under the Electoral College system. But other priorities are still possible. You might feel compelled to vote in protest against the Bailout, in which case you must choose an independent candidate. The whole Bailout episode goes a long way to revive Nader's argument denying any more than a dime's worth of difference between the Bipolarchic parties. On the other hand, you might think war against Iran an unwelcome certainty if McCain wins, which would again require you to choose Obama. But those who think that way should check whether they're absolutely certain that Obama would not go to war. War is one way out of a depression, after all, as Democrats well know.
Ultimately we return to the question voters asked themselves in 2000. Knowing that a vote for Nader might be a "vote for Bush," dissidents had to guess whether Bush would ruin the country in four or eight years. My vote in blue New York didn't effect the outcome, but Democrats would say that I lost my bet. They'll have you believe that everything was perfect or heading in the right direction under Bill Clinton, but some of us didn't think so then, and our assessment of Bush shouldn't make us look back differently upon the Clinton years. In any event, the question now is whether McCain will ruin the country in four years. Admittedly, on top of that comes a worse question: what if he dies and Palin becomes President? For many people, the prospect of Palin will be the ultimate argument for Obama. But is that enough to resign everyone to once again voting negatively, vetoing the worst candidate rather than voting for whomever might be the best? Ask me again later in the month.
08 October 2008
The Presidential Candidates: Thomas Robert Stevens
The Objectivist Party was formed last February 2, the date chosen because it's the birthday of Ayn Rand. As of August 12, the new party had affiliate organizations in 14 states and in the United Kingdom. The Objectivists held their first national convention in Denver, some months before the Democrats convened. On May 25, Stevens, a New Yorker, was nominated to head the national ticket. Alden Link of New Jersey is his running mate. They've made it onto the ballot in Colorado and Florida. Elsewhere they'll have to be write-ins.
Stevens is a lawyer, former cable TV talk show host, and college-level instructor on a variety of subjects. "He has introduced the philosophy of Ayn Rand to many students who have gone on to read her books and to appreciate the philosophy of objectivism," the Objectivist website notes approvingly. He remains a member of the Libertarian Party, serving on the party's Judiciary Committee, and was a supporter of Ron Paul's campaign for the Republican nomination. The Objectivists acknowledge Stevens as the party's founder, but the website doesn't explain why he formed the new party. They have a list of "Featured Members" that amounts to less than 100 people. Of course, that's no accurate measure of how many votes the party will get, but it suggests a handicap when it comes to getting out the vote.
The Objectivist platform, predictably, consists almost entirely of quotations from Ayn Rand. Her utopia was literally and admittedly a police state. Take her word for it, provided by the Objectivist Party: "The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man's self-defense, and, as such, may resort to force only against those who start the use of force. The only proper functions of government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud by others, to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law. "
In other words, politics consists of one gang of people hiring another to protect them and their winnings, however earned, from anybody else. No wonder that the party's "platform" doesn't really address any actual issues. But as it turns out, the Objectivists are still debating the content of a more substantive platform. You can keep track of their progress here. Stevens has made his most extensive statement of principles in response to a California Libertarian questionnaire. He posted his answers here, with responses from fellow Objectivists. His views are unsurprising: taxation is theft, eliminate government, etc. etc. Objectivists make a great show of their non-violence, but theirs is among the more barbaric ideologies competing for voters' attention this year. I would say that Stevens and friends are about to learn a harsh lesson about the marketplace of ideas, but I'm sure they'll protest that it isn't a real marketplace at all. I'd be inclined to agree, but not to sympathize with these people. But you might after perusing their website.
Stevens is a lawyer, former cable TV talk show host, and college-level instructor on a variety of subjects. "He has introduced the philosophy of Ayn Rand to many students who have gone on to read her books and to appreciate the philosophy of objectivism," the Objectivist website notes approvingly. He remains a member of the Libertarian Party, serving on the party's Judiciary Committee, and was a supporter of Ron Paul's campaign for the Republican nomination. The Objectivists acknowledge Stevens as the party's founder, but the website doesn't explain why he formed the new party. They have a list of "Featured Members" that amounts to less than 100 people. Of course, that's no accurate measure of how many votes the party will get, but it suggests a handicap when it comes to getting out the vote.
The Objectivist platform, predictably, consists almost entirely of quotations from Ayn Rand. Her utopia was literally and admittedly a police state. Take her word for it, provided by the Objectivist Party: "The only proper purpose of a government is to protect man's rights, which means: to protect him from physical violence. A proper government is only a policeman, acting as an agent of man's self-defense, and, as such, may resort to force only against those who start the use of force. The only proper functions of government are: the police, to protect you from criminals; the army, to protect you from foreign invaders; and the courts, to protect your property and contracts from breach or fraud by others, to settle disputes by rational rules, according to objective law. "
In other words, politics consists of one gang of people hiring another to protect them and their winnings, however earned, from anybody else. No wonder that the party's "platform" doesn't really address any actual issues. But as it turns out, the Objectivists are still debating the content of a more substantive platform. You can keep track of their progress here. Stevens has made his most extensive statement of principles in response to a California Libertarian questionnaire. He posted his answers here, with responses from fellow Objectivists. His views are unsurprising: taxation is theft, eliminate government, etc. etc. Objectivists make a great show of their non-violence, but theirs is among the more barbaric ideologies competing for voters' attention this year. I would say that Stevens and friends are about to learn a harsh lesson about the marketplace of ideas, but I'm sure they'll protest that it isn't a real marketplace at all. I'd be inclined to agree, but not to sympathize with these people. But you might after perusing their website.
Idiot of the Week: Video Edition
All the introduction you need is that the speaker is about to introduce Joe Biden at a rally in Florida. Just watch.
Noam Chomsky Comes Begging
I haven't commented on my mailbag lately, mainly because Senator Obama has drastically slowed down the pace of his begging letters. It's been several weeks since I last saw one. Maybe his people have enough money now, or maybe they realize that they're not getting any from me -- or maybe they can't afford to send out so many letters anymore.
Today, however, I got a letter from Noam Chomsky, the linguist and public intellectual. To some on the left, he's the ideal dissident, holding his own country to the same standard of conduct as every other and making no allowances for our alleged moral superiority. To others on the right he is the exemplar of the "blame America first" attitude, one who supposedly thinks that every bad thing that happens on Earth is this country's fault, but has never met a dictator he didn't tolerate.
Chomsky was writing to me on behalf of an organization called RESIST. The name is apparently an imperative or command rather than an acronym; "RESIST" stands for "Resist!" The writer was one of the founding members of the group forty years ago. As he explained, RESIST "provides critical funding to small left-wing groups around the country who are fighting for the progressive beliefs, values, and goals that I believe you share."
Its efforts have been modest. In those 40 years, RESIST has given away "more than $4 million to 4,578 dedicated groups who are doing this critical work." That doesn't amount to much per group, but this is "the cash that small progressive organizations need to survive.... RESIST steps in with the funds they need to pay the rent and phone bills, buy a computer, rent a bus to get people to a demonstration, train citizens to be activists -- even jump on an unexpected opportunity to head off an emergency."
Who gets the money? "Most of our grantees' names won't be familiar to you," Chomsky admits, but he lists a diverse group of beneficiaries that might raise questions among potential donors to RESIST. He mentions an Interfaith Alliance of Idaho that fights prejudice, an Oregon Toxics Alliance that blocked construction of two fossil fuel plants, a Worcester ex-prisoners group seeking easier access to loans, a Chelsea MA group that "protects immigrants from abuse by police, FBI and immigration officials," a South Dakota abortion-rights group, and a traveling "Iran/Afghanistan Memorial Installation" that "raises awareness of the human cost of war."
Some are bound to seem worthier than others, depending on who reads this. Some of you might want to help some of these groups but not others, but I assume that when you give to RESIST you can't choose who gets your money. Instead, Chomsky writes that "You can trust RESIST to distribute your gift carefully," while Katha Pollit, the feminist Nation magazine columnist, notes that "RESIST vets the groups so you don't have to."
Intending no offense to RESIST and its patrons, I have to say that the Internet age allows people to learn about and investigate small groups more easily than they could 40 years ago. People ought to vet needy activist groups themselves if they want to give effectively and on a principled basis. People with very specific concerns ought to be able to focus their money in those directions without seeing some of it go to places they'd disapprove of. In other words, it seems to me that RESIST serves an obsolete purpose, and shouldn't have to serve its apparent middleman function anymore. Since I would hate to think that Chomsky's friends simply like to handle other people's money, I'll content myself with offering them the polite advice to find something better to do with their time.
Today, however, I got a letter from Noam Chomsky, the linguist and public intellectual. To some on the left, he's the ideal dissident, holding his own country to the same standard of conduct as every other and making no allowances for our alleged moral superiority. To others on the right he is the exemplar of the "blame America first" attitude, one who supposedly thinks that every bad thing that happens on Earth is this country's fault, but has never met a dictator he didn't tolerate.
Chomsky was writing to me on behalf of an organization called RESIST. The name is apparently an imperative or command rather than an acronym; "RESIST" stands for "Resist!" The writer was one of the founding members of the group forty years ago. As he explained, RESIST "provides critical funding to small left-wing groups around the country who are fighting for the progressive beliefs, values, and goals that I believe you share."
Its efforts have been modest. In those 40 years, RESIST has given away "more than $4 million to 4,578 dedicated groups who are doing this critical work." That doesn't amount to much per group, but this is "the cash that small progressive organizations need to survive.... RESIST steps in with the funds they need to pay the rent and phone bills, buy a computer, rent a bus to get people to a demonstration, train citizens to be activists -- even jump on an unexpected opportunity to head off an emergency."
Who gets the money? "Most of our grantees' names won't be familiar to you," Chomsky admits, but he lists a diverse group of beneficiaries that might raise questions among potential donors to RESIST. He mentions an Interfaith Alliance of Idaho that fights prejudice, an Oregon Toxics Alliance that blocked construction of two fossil fuel plants, a Worcester ex-prisoners group seeking easier access to loans, a Chelsea MA group that "protects immigrants from abuse by police, FBI and immigration officials," a South Dakota abortion-rights group, and a traveling "Iran/Afghanistan Memorial Installation" that "raises awareness of the human cost of war."
Some are bound to seem worthier than others, depending on who reads this. Some of you might want to help some of these groups but not others, but I assume that when you give to RESIST you can't choose who gets your money. Instead, Chomsky writes that "You can trust RESIST to distribute your gift carefully," while Katha Pollit, the feminist Nation magazine columnist, notes that "RESIST vets the groups so you don't have to."
Intending no offense to RESIST and its patrons, I have to say that the Internet age allows people to learn about and investigate small groups more easily than they could 40 years ago. People ought to vet needy activist groups themselves if they want to give effectively and on a principled basis. People with very specific concerns ought to be able to focus their money in those directions without seeing some of it go to places they'd disapprove of. In other words, it seems to me that RESIST serves an obsolete purpose, and shouldn't have to serve its apparent middleman function anymore. Since I would hate to think that Chomsky's friends simply like to handle other people's money, I'll content myself with offering them the polite advice to find something better to do with their time.
07 October 2008
McCain-Obama, Round 2
It was a dull, repetitive affair. There was little said that wasn't said last week. Most of the "Town Hall" questioners had nothing original to contribute. One had a particularly challenging question -- whether healthcare should really be a commodity -- which both candidates promptly ducked. They touted their different plans and criticized one another without addressing the larger issue, since that would mean discussing the possibility of a single-payer policy. Senator Obama did well, nonetheless, by discussing ways in which the existing system was dysfunctional or unfair. Bringing up his own mother's final struggle with cancer may have been tasteless, but commentators will probably praise him for doing it, since it was a way to "connect" with ordinary people. Overall, sometimes Obama gave the more detailed, direct and relevant answer, and sometimes Senator McCain did. Sometimes Obama forgot to answer the original question at all, as when some fatass asked if the U.S. should intervene militarily should Iran attack Israel. That brought up another round of recriminations over Obama's willingness to negotiate with rogue leaders and McCain's blithe bloodthirstiness about bombing Iran. On Pakistan McCain is still determined not to understand Obama's position, and Obama remains understandably unwilling to determine that his policy on cross-border raids is not much different from President Bush's.
McCain seemed to be playing more to the independents this time. He even dared mention a time when he defied Ronald Reagan, and this was meant to show McCain's moderation on military commitments, since he opposed the deployment of Marines to Lebanon in 1983 and predicted the consequences fairly accurately. He has, of course, endorsed more risky ventures since then, and still defends the "surge," but doesn't dare defend the initial decision to invade Iraq. All he had to do, of course, was to bring up that insane league of democracies idea again to give this part of the debate to Obama by default.
Obama was intellectually dishonest when he insisted repeatedly that our economic crisis was only eight years in the making, as if just because Bill Clinton left the country with a surplus it had to be Bush who planted all the seeds of doom. Anyone who bothers investigating the subject knows that deregulation was well underway before Dubya arrived on the scene, and that, as one questioner noted, both parties are to blame for the crisis. On the other hand, McCain surely overstepped in suggesting that Obama was personally responsible for the crisis by somehow encouraging Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to make risky loans. Once deregulation was accomplished, those institutions did quite well giving themselves and their employees incentives to issue loans. Obama is probably constrained in his analysis by an unwillingness to offend the Clintons by questioning their legacy, while McCain's credibility as a savior is nullified by his dogmatic supply-sideism. He may think it makes him a paragon of fairness, but McCain should realize that "Let's not raise taxes on anyone" is not what most people want to hear at this point. Most Americans, I think, want to see a certain class of people pay, in one form or another, but while McCain eagerly joins the chorus of condemnation, he can't seem to imagine doing more than utter sharp words.
Before the show, I'd heard some people suggest that tonight was "make or break" for McCain. That's absurd. Too much can happen in these volatile times for the election to be decided tonight. Both candidates remain viable after the debate, which I thought Obama won mainly because McCain's answers tended toward canned dogma. Obama was little better but just enough, though polls may yet say otherwise. The whole event should really have given people more reason to explore other options,but for me to say that probably reads like canned dogma by now.
McCain seemed to be playing more to the independents this time. He even dared mention a time when he defied Ronald Reagan, and this was meant to show McCain's moderation on military commitments, since he opposed the deployment of Marines to Lebanon in 1983 and predicted the consequences fairly accurately. He has, of course, endorsed more risky ventures since then, and still defends the "surge," but doesn't dare defend the initial decision to invade Iraq. All he had to do, of course, was to bring up that insane league of democracies idea again to give this part of the debate to Obama by default.
Obama was intellectually dishonest when he insisted repeatedly that our economic crisis was only eight years in the making, as if just because Bill Clinton left the country with a surplus it had to be Bush who planted all the seeds of doom. Anyone who bothers investigating the subject knows that deregulation was well underway before Dubya arrived on the scene, and that, as one questioner noted, both parties are to blame for the crisis. On the other hand, McCain surely overstepped in suggesting that Obama was personally responsible for the crisis by somehow encouraging Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to make risky loans. Once deregulation was accomplished, those institutions did quite well giving themselves and their employees incentives to issue loans. Obama is probably constrained in his analysis by an unwillingness to offend the Clintons by questioning their legacy, while McCain's credibility as a savior is nullified by his dogmatic supply-sideism. He may think it makes him a paragon of fairness, but McCain should realize that "Let's not raise taxes on anyone" is not what most people want to hear at this point. Most Americans, I think, want to see a certain class of people pay, in one form or another, but while McCain eagerly joins the chorus of condemnation, he can't seem to imagine doing more than utter sharp words.
Before the show, I'd heard some people suggest that tonight was "make or break" for McCain. That's absurd. Too much can happen in these volatile times for the election to be decided tonight. Both candidates remain viable after the debate, which I thought Obama won mainly because McCain's answers tended toward canned dogma. Obama was little better but just enough, though polls may yet say otherwise. The whole event should really have given people more reason to explore other options,but for me to say that probably reads like canned dogma by now.
06 October 2008
The Presidential Candidates: Joe Schriner
Schriner prefers to be called "Average Joe." In a way, this is rather arrogant of him, but it's one way to pitch yourself to the so-called common man. But like many an "average Joe," Schriner juggles a lot of tasks. He's a freelance journalist, a Little League coach, a Catholic outreach worker in poor neighborhoods, and a part-time house painter. This is his third presidential campaign.
Since 1990, Schriner has been traveling the country "to look for common-sense solutions" to societal problems. He comes back from his research with some ambitious claims.
Schriner is a walking clippings file. He constantly drops the names of newspapers across the country that have interviewed him. He claims to have logged 80,000 miles since his first national effort in 2000. Most recently, he's returned from a "Buckeye Backcountry Tour" of rural Ohio. And since he's returned home to Cleveland, his blog reports, his family has had two bikes stolen. He's used to rough treatment on his quest.
His running mate is Dale Wray, a man he befriended in Cassopolis, Michigan, where Wray is active in the chamber of commerce and the local arts community. “For me, the choices I make come down to following the only two commandments that Jesus gave: ‘Love God. And love your neighbor." Wray says, "I have spent a lifetime trying to define [and live out] those terms.”
Getting to the issues, Schriner commented on the bailout crisis on his campaign blog last week. "Foreclosures seem to be starting a chain reaction," he wrote, "A homeowner is foreclosed upon when they can’t pay the mortgage anymore. This begs the question: How many people are simply living beyond their means these days? Sure there’s inflation. And yes, variable rate mortgages are going up. So in the face of this, many could adjust by, say, living more simply, and creatively (like house-sharing). This should be how we approach the National Debt as well. That is, the Federal Government should: tighten it’s belt and come up with creative ways to pay it off." Earlier in September, he recounted how mortgages have evolved in recent years.
That's hard to argue against.
On Iraq, Schriner says, "I would have weighed a potential, pre-emptive war in Iraq (and any possible future war), against the criteria of “Just War” principles. In this case, it didn’t match up.~ Before declaring any war, I would go to Congress, not with a pre-conceived plan, but with an open mind. And I would respect the consensus decision. ~ Likewise, I would go to the U.N. with the same type of paradigm." He proposes to go to Iraq, if elected, to apologize personally to the Iraqi people. He would leave our remaining in the country up to a vote by the Iraqis, while recommending South Africa and Northern Ireland as models for reconciling the various Iraqi factions.
Schriner would fight terrorism without the Bush administration's extraordinary surveillance measures and without resort to torture. He also believes that the U.S. should stand down from its own "terrorist" policies toward the rest of the world in order to reduce the danger of terrorism striking home. Here's his position paper on the topic, which showcases the way he learns about issues from interviewing people on the road. It's a wide-ranging if not necessarily comprehensive approach that Schriner's rivals might emulate.
He'll deal with energy issues by signing the Kyoto Protocol and developing wind and solar technologies while encouraging home-scale conservation with a peculiar emphasis on home-sharing. More nuclear power is verboten. Here's the position paper, which is too detailed to summarize in this article.
Schriner espouses a Consistent Life Ethic," or what others call the "seamless garment." That means he opposes abortion, capital punishment, and euthanasia. He seems to lean against war, but while he condemns the invasion of Iraq according to "just war" criteria, the very existence of such criteria implies that he would endorse at least a defensive war. Once he contrasts the "Culture of Life" with the "Culture of Death" you know religion will have to come into it.
However, Schriner wants to do more than just say no. "For one, as president I would work exhaustively to try to help reverse societal trends that often lead to abortion. Among the most prominent, in my opinion, are: increasing poverty, the wide scale breakdown of the nuclear family, declining social mores leading to rampant promiscuity; a growing cultural perception children are a “burden” in respect to lifestyle choices; and, an ever increasing devaluation of Life (with the unborn, the handicapped, the elderly…) in this country."
Conspiracy theorists beware: Schriner actually supports the idea of a North American Union. "This would be for the purpose of inspiring more joint environmental conservation projects, more joint business ventures, more tourism (especially eco-tourism) to help boost poorer economies, more cultural exchange," he writes, "and, most importantly, it would promote much more general camaraderie between nations. " He also calls for amnesty for the undocumented, a "living wage" for immigrant workers, and temporary worker programs.
There's a lot more to learn about on Schriner's website, into which he's put a lot of work, or at least a lot of words. He's clearly put much more effort into learning about the issues than many comparable independent candidates. My great reservation about Schriner is his lack of any record of leadership in any venture. Intelligence and a capacity to synthesize a lot of grass-roots data are valuable qualities, but there's no evidence that Schriner could convert those qualities into political power. He himself contends that he'll have accomplished something if he gets the people he meets on his long campaign trail to change their lives in some way. To the extent that he's seen people do that, he once suggested jokingly, he may as well be President already. Rather than see him elected, however, I'd like to see someone subsidize him so he could better publicize his findings. He ought to be made the editor or publisher of some national magazine or a regular contributor to television or radio. He could probably do more good that way in the long run. He might at least lose the temptation to cite his own press clippings all the time.
Schriner was ambitious enough last year to seek the Green Party nomination. Here he is making his pitch. I found that the quoting of himself was more obnoxious in a speech than on the website. "Average Joe" ought to be more modest.
Since 1990, Schriner has been traveling the country "to look for common-sense solutions" to societal problems. He comes back from his research with some ambitious claims.
On the Southside of Chicago in a gang war zone, I learned how to end homelessness. In Atwood, Kansas (pop. 1,500), I learned how to balance the National Budget. In Grand Junction, Colorado, I learned how to get healthcare for all. In High Springs, Florida, I learned how to end global warming, for good. In Juarez, Mexico, I learned how to unequivocally solve
the immigration issue.
Schriner is a walking clippings file. He constantly drops the names of newspapers across the country that have interviewed him. He claims to have logged 80,000 miles since his first national effort in 2000. Most recently, he's returned from a "Buckeye Backcountry Tour" of rural Ohio. And since he's returned home to Cleveland, his blog reports, his family has had two bikes stolen. He's used to rough treatment on his quest.
His running mate is Dale Wray, a man he befriended in Cassopolis, Michigan, where Wray is active in the chamber of commerce and the local arts community. “For me, the choices I make come down to following the only two commandments that Jesus gave: ‘Love God. And love your neighbor." Wray says, "I have spent a lifetime trying to define [and live out] those terms.”
Getting to the issues, Schriner commented on the bailout crisis on his campaign blog last week. "Foreclosures seem to be starting a chain reaction," he wrote, "A homeowner is foreclosed upon when they can’t pay the mortgage anymore. This begs the question: How many people are simply living beyond their means these days? Sure there’s inflation. And yes, variable rate mortgages are going up. So in the face of this, many could adjust by, say, living more simply, and creatively (like house-sharing). This should be how we approach the National Debt as well. That is, the Federal Government should: tighten it’s belt and come up with creative ways to pay it off." Earlier in September, he recounted how mortgages have evolved in recent years.
We then stumped in Delaware, Ohio, where I talked with a man-on-the-street about the economy. He said his first mortgage was a one-page document that said the bank was going to loan him so much money and he would have to pay so much money each month in return. That’s it. Now those documents are multi-page, small print, extremely complicated (and convoluted) legalese, with all kinds of additional provisions, loopholes, etc.. Extrapolated out, that’s the picture of our economy in general these days. For instance, the recent stories of all the intricacies of the Federal bail outs, and the tremendously multi-dimensional dynamics of the companies being bailed out, paint a picture of an extremely complex (and superfluous) behemoth — that needs to go back to a simple, one-page form, metaphorically speaking.
That's hard to argue against.
On Iraq, Schriner says, "I would have weighed a potential, pre-emptive war in Iraq (and any possible future war), against the criteria of “Just War” principles. In this case, it didn’t match up.~ Before declaring any war, I would go to Congress, not with a pre-conceived plan, but with an open mind. And I would respect the consensus decision. ~ Likewise, I would go to the U.N. with the same type of paradigm." He proposes to go to Iraq, if elected, to apologize personally to the Iraqi people. He would leave our remaining in the country up to a vote by the Iraqis, while recommending South Africa and Northern Ireland as models for reconciling the various Iraqi factions.
Schriner would fight terrorism without the Bush administration's extraordinary surveillance measures and without resort to torture. He also believes that the U.S. should stand down from its own "terrorist" policies toward the rest of the world in order to reduce the danger of terrorism striking home. Here's his position paper on the topic, which showcases the way he learns about issues from interviewing people on the road. It's a wide-ranging if not necessarily comprehensive approach that Schriner's rivals might emulate.
He'll deal with energy issues by signing the Kyoto Protocol and developing wind and solar technologies while encouraging home-scale conservation with a peculiar emphasis on home-sharing. More nuclear power is verboten. Here's the position paper, which is too detailed to summarize in this article.
Schriner espouses a Consistent Life Ethic," or what others call the "seamless garment." That means he opposes abortion, capital punishment, and euthanasia. He seems to lean against war, but while he condemns the invasion of Iraq according to "just war" criteria, the very existence of such criteria implies that he would endorse at least a defensive war. Once he contrasts the "Culture of Life" with the "Culture of Death" you know religion will have to come into it.
I personally believe God pre-destines the life span of someone. And in that span, the person has a set of opportunities to impact the world, for “the good.” However, for reasons of: convenience(abortion); for reasons of revenge (the death penalty); for reasons of selfishness (unequal distribution of food, access to health care, adequate shelter… between the advantaged and the disadvantaged); undue expedience (a motor vehicle fatality in America – every 13 minutes)… God’s design for a person’s lifespan, and their impact on the world -- gets cut short.
However, Schriner wants to do more than just say no. "For one, as president I would work exhaustively to try to help reverse societal trends that often lead to abortion. Among the most prominent, in my opinion, are: increasing poverty, the wide scale breakdown of the nuclear family, declining social mores leading to rampant promiscuity; a growing cultural perception children are a “burden” in respect to lifestyle choices; and, an ever increasing devaluation of Life (with the unborn, the handicapped, the elderly…) in this country."
Conspiracy theorists beware: Schriner actually supports the idea of a North American Union. "This would be for the purpose of inspiring more joint environmental conservation projects, more joint business ventures, more tourism (especially eco-tourism) to help boost poorer economies, more cultural exchange," he writes, "and, most importantly, it would promote much more general camaraderie between nations. " He also calls for amnesty for the undocumented, a "living wage" for immigrant workers, and temporary worker programs.
There's a lot more to learn about on Schriner's website, into which he's put a lot of work, or at least a lot of words. He's clearly put much more effort into learning about the issues than many comparable independent candidates. My great reservation about Schriner is his lack of any record of leadership in any venture. Intelligence and a capacity to synthesize a lot of grass-roots data are valuable qualities, but there's no evidence that Schriner could convert those qualities into political power. He himself contends that he'll have accomplished something if he gets the people he meets on his long campaign trail to change their lives in some way. To the extent that he's seen people do that, he once suggested jokingly, he may as well be President already. Rather than see him elected, however, I'd like to see someone subsidize him so he could better publicize his findings. He ought to be made the editor or publisher of some national magazine or a regular contributor to television or radio. He could probably do more good that way in the long run. He might at least lose the temptation to cite his own press clippings all the time.
Schriner was ambitious enough last year to seek the Green Party nomination. Here he is making his pitch. I found that the quoting of himself was more obnoxious in a speech than on the website. "Average Joe" ought to be more modest.
The Second Vice-Presidential Debate
It's not clear whether the producers of the Democracy Now! radio program invited Senator Biden or Governor Palin to participate in their vice-presidential debate of October 3. My guess is: probably not. But it was only fair, since we can be even more certain that the organizers of the October 2 St. Louis debate did not invite Matt Gonzalez, Ralph Nader's running mate, or Rosa Clemente, who is Cynthia McKinney's. Here's a transcript of the debate, in which the two progressives were invited to comment on Biden and Palin and distinguish their own positions. On a first reading, I think Gonzalez came off better because Clemente tended to make unrealistic demands while appealing to a relatively narrow demographic. The debate became most interesting when the candidates were invited to go after each other rather than their Bipolarchy counterparts:
To clarify my own viewpoint, I don't dispute Clemente's contention that, on some fronts at least, dismantlement is preferable to reformism, but I question her priorities. The Think 3 Institute's position is that there are indeed still people who should be subjected to prisons, and it will do the nation good to see those people imprisoned. It'd be a different class of people, for the most part, from the current prison population, and I wonder whether Clemente would consider Crhymethinc's platform, for instance, and not agree that prisons would still have some use. The whole exchange demonstrates Clemente's narrow point of view. She actually seems to believe that only "her" people are imprisoned, and therefore prisons are unfair. While she may claim to bring perspectives that are often ignored, she seems to ignore some herself.
In any event, I hope to see more encounters like this one in the next month, preferably with the "principals" involved. A round-robin format that would give Baldwin, Barr, La Riva, McEnulty, McKinney, Moore and Nader turns before the public would be ideal. Maybe Ron Paul can do something to make that happen. It's simply imperative in these days of the bailout that Americans realize that they have more choices than liberals for the bailout and conservatives for the bailout. I'd like to see if poll numbers show any signs of growing awareness, not to mention growing support, for the independents, but I won't hold my breath waiting for the news.
AMY GOODMAN: Ralph Nader ran on the Green Party ticket in the last presidential race, but, Rosa Clemente, your main difference with Matt Gonzalez and the Independent candidacy of Nader-Gonzalez?
ROSA CLEMENTE: I mean, I think one of my main differences, I feel that a lot of the issues coming from some of the other third parties are more reformist issues, and I feel we don’t need reform anymore. We need to really look at a lot of these systems in this country and talk about fully dismantling them. And I think that’s one of the reasons that Cynthia picked me. I think, coming from my generation, coming from the South Bronx, still seeing my family there suffering in the poorest congressional district to this day, understanding the history of Puerto Rico and what the United States of America has done, particularly to my people and that country and my island, that we can’t afford to be talking about reform, we can’t afford to be talking about the lesser of two evils, although I don’t see Matt Gonzalez or Ralph Nader as an evil. I’m talking about the fact that—
MATT GONZALEZ: But, Rosa, I’m just wondering, though, could you just give one example where we’re reformists and you’re something else?
ROSA CLEMENTE: One example of reform, where we’re different?
MATT GONZALEZ: Yeah, where you think we’re—where we’re advocating reform, and somehow you’re advocating system change, because we’ve not supported this bailout.
ROSA CLEMENTE: I mean, I think the prison-industrial complex—I think—I mean, look, I applaud Ralph Nader for coming out finally against the prison-industrial complex, but part of that still keeps the prison-industrial complex alive. Part of that still says that there’s people that should be subjected to prisons. And I have a very different view on that. I don’t think we need prisons. I think we need the abolition of prisons. I think we have to fully understand that particularly my generation, African American and Latino young people—no one is speaking to that issue. No one is speaking to that issue, you know, and I think the Green Party has been forced to speak about that issue, because Cynthia specifically picked me. I come from that generation. I see what’s going on. So that’s what I talk about. I think it’s more about truly radical progressive change.
To clarify my own viewpoint, I don't dispute Clemente's contention that, on some fronts at least, dismantlement is preferable to reformism, but I question her priorities. The Think 3 Institute's position is that there are indeed still people who should be subjected to prisons, and it will do the nation good to see those people imprisoned. It'd be a different class of people, for the most part, from the current prison population, and I wonder whether Clemente would consider Crhymethinc's platform, for instance, and not agree that prisons would still have some use. The whole exchange demonstrates Clemente's narrow point of view. She actually seems to believe that only "her" people are imprisoned, and therefore prisons are unfair. While she may claim to bring perspectives that are often ignored, she seems to ignore some herself.
In any event, I hope to see more encounters like this one in the next month, preferably with the "principals" involved. A round-robin format that would give Baldwin, Barr, La Riva, McEnulty, McKinney, Moore and Nader turns before the public would be ideal. Maybe Ron Paul can do something to make that happen. It's simply imperative in these days of the bailout that Americans realize that they have more choices than liberals for the bailout and conservatives for the bailout. I'd like to see if poll numbers show any signs of growing awareness, not to mention growing support, for the independents, but I won't hold my breath waiting for the news.
Maggie Gallagher: Credit Where It's Due
I'd missed the Maggie Gallagher column over the past two weeks in the local papers. Had she gone on leave? Had the paper dropped her? Who could I rely on for weekly idiocy? So I went to Google to track her down. She's still writing, and last week wrote this column. Since I have flogged her here previously, I owe it to her to credit her when she's right -- especially when she agrees with me. Writing last week about the bailout struggle, she singled out two legislators for special condemnation: Speaker Pelosi and Senator McCain. Of these, McCain was the worst of the two, Gallagher concludes. Quite on her own, our columnist has figured out Sam's First Rule of Partisanship and judged McCain accordingly. I'll let her explain:
Now if Gallagher would only recognize this same tendency in her beloved Gov. Palin she might almost qualify as an intelligent person.
But John McCain's behavior was, in my humble opinion, even worse -- insulting to the intelligence of the American people. For example, in a Sept. 26 press release McCain said: "Both parties in both houses of Congress and the administration needed to come together to find a solution that would deserve the trust of the American people. ... The difference between Barack Obama and John McCain was apparent during the White House meeting yesterday where Barack Obama's priority was political posturing in his opening monologue defending the package as it stands. John McCain listened to all sides so he could help focus the debate on finding a bipartisan resolution that is in the interest of taxpayers and homeowners."
On Sept. 29 McCain repeated: "Our leaders are expected to leave partisanship at the door and come to the table to solve our problems. Senator Obama and his allies in Congress infused unnecessary partisanship into the process. Now is not the time to fix the blame. It's time to fix the problem."
This is insane. Worse, it's disgusting. Does John McCain (or his handlers) think we have no ears? That we won't notice his nasty partisan jabbing while posing as a leader above the fray? Here's what our dysfunctional political system now encourages: The last man jabbing and jabbering thinks he's going to win.
Now if Gallagher would only recognize this same tendency in her beloved Gov. Palin she might almost qualify as an intelligent person.
So Much For the Bailout?
A ripple effect followed the sun from east to west this morning and the U.S. stock market followed Asia and Europe into a deep plunge. As I write, the market was down by approximately 450 points according to the Dow Jones index. If the congressional bailout was supposed to prevent this, then it may have already failed. A government cannot command people to have confidence in the economy. Over the weekend we'd been warned by people from the President down not to expect immediate positive consequences from the bailout. Some went so far as to say that things would continue to get worse before improving. It makes you wonder whether the bailout will have anything to do with the eventual improvement. I wonder how much worse things could get if the bill hadn't been approved and signed. It probably would be worse for some people, but whether we should have been worried for those folks is still an open question. Senator McCain and Senator Obama will have some 'splainin' to do at tomorrow's "Town Hall" debate.
05 October 2008
Kimbo Slice: Man, Myth & Metaphor
On the night of October 4, national TV viewers witnessed the sort of scenario that only seemed possible in implausible movies. The EliteXC mixed-martial arts organization was presenting its latest live card on CBS, featuring its main attraction, Kevin "Kimbo Slice" Ferguson. He was scheduled to fight one of the most famous "ultimate fighters," Ken Shamrock, but Shamrock was forced to withdraw due to a cut sustained during training earlier that day. Slice would instead fight a complete unknown, a mediocrity who had not fought for many months.
Kimbo Slice was promoted as the next superstar of "MMA." He's a grass-roots phenomenon, earning notoriety as a barnstorming street fighter whose impromptu bouts were posted on You Tube and other venues. Looking at some of those fights, today, I was unimpressed but could understand his appeal. Slice started out as an old-school bareknuckle brawler, more like someone you'd see in "Toughman" tournaments, where a lack of professional experience is the only prerequisite. There'll always be a demand for his type of fighter once casual fans grow bored with refinements in the discipline of any martial art. Mixed martial arts is founded on Brazilian jiu-jitsu, which is oriented toward getting people into submission holds. Educated fans can appreciate the subtlety of maneuver as two experts grapple for a superior position, but the casual fan will look at this the way most American sportswriters look at soccer; there's no obvious action, no points being scored as far as they can tell, so it's boring.
With brawlers like Kimbo Slice we're back to the primitive origins of combat sports as a kind of religious rite. People want to see fighters give their all and use every ounce of energy trying to beat the other man. They're impatient with defense. They're not interested in seeing how well someone can protect himself, but would rather view a fight as a kind of trial by combat in which the fighters do nothing but punch or kick or throw elbows until one goes down as if by the verdict of fate or god. At its roots it's still about human sacrifice, though the true ultimate hasn't been asked for in quite a while, and when fighting gets too skilled or too disciplined it's like someone is holding back. This is the same demand that transformed professional wrestling from a legitimate combat sport into dramatized slapstick, and the advent of Kimbo Slice caused many MMA fans to worry that their sport might go that way.
Slice was promoted beyond his evident talent due to the freakish fame of his fight videos, which to me looked little different from bumfighting. He couldn't even claim to be undefeated, having been beaten down by a Boston cop in a ten-minute struggle, but he struck some as charismatic, even as he impressed me as looking and talking like a bum. He is, in fact, a high-school graduate who spent some time in college but found himself working as a security guard for porno shoots. He seemed to appeal to the hip-hop community, at least in the South, and to anyone who preferred "pure" brawling to any martial "art." Elite XC promoted him in tried and true fashion, pitting him initially against has-beens whose names could still lend credibility to Kimbo's victories. He beat up a 46-year old former heavyweight boxer. He pounded "Tank" Abbott, who could be called Kimbo's precursor. In the early days of the Ultimate Fighting Championship Abbott briefly prospered as a "pit fighter" and seemed poised to become a star because of his wild brawling. He was soon beaten regularly by anyone with skills, and by 2008 had no businesses going into a cage with anyone. But he had a name that would promote the show and Kimbo's ascent, so he was sacrificed. October 2008 was supposed to be Ken Shamrock's turn. He was a legitimate star of early UFC and remained credible even after a stint in professional wrestling, but he'd declined rapidly in recent years, and was clearly signed in the expectation that Kimbo could take him. Perhaps Shamrock believed it too; if so, hence the cut that took him off the card.
But the show must go on. After two women beat the crap out of one another, and after a guy wearing plastic vampire fangs beat up a fat guy, it was time for the main event: Kimbo Slice vs. some non-entity nicknamed "the Silverback." This is what happened:
Rather than embodying the primitive essence of fighting, Kimbo Slice appears to have been yet another entrepreneurial con job. His career up to last night was a product of promotion rather than promotion based on merit. Fight fans were sold an image, and thousands of fans paid who knows what to watch the reality. This is the caveat emptor principle in practice. You pay up front with no assurance that the product is worth the price, and someone makes money no matter what: Kimbo himself, the promoters, and the TV network.
Even after this, they'll try to make the show go on. They were making excuses for Kimbo moments after he fell. He had trained for Ken Shamrock, not for the Silverback, they cried, as if Kimbo were Sarah Palin preparing for a debate with no room for spontaneity, or as if one can train so specifically against another man's style that you forget not to leave your face exposed for a punch. But they had to admit that this was a major setback for their phenom. Their answer was, "Back to the drawing board," as if they could get people to buy the same lemon all over again -- and maybe they can. Maybe next time people will want to see the rematch of Kimbo vs. Silverback so badly that they can make it a pay-per-view. An old practitioner of this art is fond of saying, "Only in America," as if he couldn't expect to get away with such stuff elsewhere. I'm afraid that I'm too much of a pessimist about human nature everywhere to agree with him, but I understand the sentiment.
Kimbo Slice was promoted as the next superstar of "MMA." He's a grass-roots phenomenon, earning notoriety as a barnstorming street fighter whose impromptu bouts were posted on You Tube and other venues. Looking at some of those fights, today, I was unimpressed but could understand his appeal. Slice started out as an old-school bareknuckle brawler, more like someone you'd see in "Toughman" tournaments, where a lack of professional experience is the only prerequisite. There'll always be a demand for his type of fighter once casual fans grow bored with refinements in the discipline of any martial art. Mixed martial arts is founded on Brazilian jiu-jitsu, which is oriented toward getting people into submission holds. Educated fans can appreciate the subtlety of maneuver as two experts grapple for a superior position, but the casual fan will look at this the way most American sportswriters look at soccer; there's no obvious action, no points being scored as far as they can tell, so it's boring.
With brawlers like Kimbo Slice we're back to the primitive origins of combat sports as a kind of religious rite. People want to see fighters give their all and use every ounce of energy trying to beat the other man. They're impatient with defense. They're not interested in seeing how well someone can protect himself, but would rather view a fight as a kind of trial by combat in which the fighters do nothing but punch or kick or throw elbows until one goes down as if by the verdict of fate or god. At its roots it's still about human sacrifice, though the true ultimate hasn't been asked for in quite a while, and when fighting gets too skilled or too disciplined it's like someone is holding back. This is the same demand that transformed professional wrestling from a legitimate combat sport into dramatized slapstick, and the advent of Kimbo Slice caused many MMA fans to worry that their sport might go that way.
Slice was promoted beyond his evident talent due to the freakish fame of his fight videos, which to me looked little different from bumfighting. He couldn't even claim to be undefeated, having been beaten down by a Boston cop in a ten-minute struggle, but he struck some as charismatic, even as he impressed me as looking and talking like a bum. He is, in fact, a high-school graduate who spent some time in college but found himself working as a security guard for porno shoots. He seemed to appeal to the hip-hop community, at least in the South, and to anyone who preferred "pure" brawling to any martial "art." Elite XC promoted him in tried and true fashion, pitting him initially against has-beens whose names could still lend credibility to Kimbo's victories. He beat up a 46-year old former heavyweight boxer. He pounded "Tank" Abbott, who could be called Kimbo's precursor. In the early days of the Ultimate Fighting Championship Abbott briefly prospered as a "pit fighter" and seemed poised to become a star because of his wild brawling. He was soon beaten regularly by anyone with skills, and by 2008 had no businesses going into a cage with anyone. But he had a name that would promote the show and Kimbo's ascent, so he was sacrificed. October 2008 was supposed to be Ken Shamrock's turn. He was a legitimate star of early UFC and remained credible even after a stint in professional wrestling, but he'd declined rapidly in recent years, and was clearly signed in the expectation that Kimbo could take him. Perhaps Shamrock believed it too; if so, hence the cut that took him off the card.
But the show must go on. After two women beat the crap out of one another, and after a guy wearing plastic vampire fangs beat up a fat guy, it was time for the main event: Kimbo Slice vs. some non-entity nicknamed "the Silverback." This is what happened:
Rather than embodying the primitive essence of fighting, Kimbo Slice appears to have been yet another entrepreneurial con job. His career up to last night was a product of promotion rather than promotion based on merit. Fight fans were sold an image, and thousands of fans paid who knows what to watch the reality. This is the caveat emptor principle in practice. You pay up front with no assurance that the product is worth the price, and someone makes money no matter what: Kimbo himself, the promoters, and the TV network.
Even after this, they'll try to make the show go on. They were making excuses for Kimbo moments after he fell. He had trained for Ken Shamrock, not for the Silverback, they cried, as if Kimbo were Sarah Palin preparing for a debate with no room for spontaneity, or as if one can train so specifically against another man's style that you forget not to leave your face exposed for a punch. But they had to admit that this was a major setback for their phenom. Their answer was, "Back to the drawing board," as if they could get people to buy the same lemon all over again -- and maybe they can. Maybe next time people will want to see the rematch of Kimbo vs. Silverback so badly that they can make it a pay-per-view. An old practitioner of this art is fond of saying, "Only in America," as if he couldn't expect to get away with such stuff elsewhere. I'm afraid that I'm too much of a pessimist about human nature everywhere to agree with him, but I understand the sentiment.
Reading Comprehension: Are You Smarter Than Sarah Palin?
Governor Palin reports that she learned from the New York Times that Senator Obama "pals around with terrorists." That's an extraordinary claim for the "paper of record" to make. I would suspect that Palin has mistaken the conservative broadsheet, the Sun, for the Times, but as it turns out, the Sun folded last week because it couldn't find another sugar-daddy to subsidize its neocon propaganda. Palin had in fact read the Times, but this is what it said:
Yes, this is the Bill Ayers story again, but as the Times explains, Ayers is a legally innocent man. Whatever he admitted to doing, and however he feels about it, "Federal riot and bombing conspiracy charges against him were dropped in 1974 because of illegal wiretaps and other prosecutorial misconduct."
The school project both men were involved in is known as the Annenberg Challenge. The Times reports: "In March 1995, Mr. Obama became chairman of the six-member board that oversaw the distribution of grants in Chicago. Some bloggers have recently speculated that Mr. Ayers had engineered that post for him. In fact, according to several people involved, Mr. Ayers played no role in Mr. Obama’s appointment. Instead, it was suggested by Deborah Leff, then president of the Joyce Foundation, a Chicago-based group whose board Mr. Obama, a young lawyer, had joined the previous year. At a lunch with two other foundation heads, Patricia A. Graham of the Spencer Foundation and Adele Simmons of the MacArthur Foundation, Ms. Leff suggested that Mr. Obama would make a good board chairman, she said in an interview. Mr. Ayers was not present and had not suggested Mr. Obama, she said."
Obama sat on another board with Ayers, and once commented favorably on a book Ayers had written on the juvenile court system. I haven't read the book, but I'm inclined to doubt that it vindicates the Weather Underground or endorses domestic terrorism. "Since 2002, there is little public evidence of their relationship," the reporter notes, "If by then the ambitious politician was trying to keep his distance, it would not be a surprise."
I suspect that the busy governor stopped reading halfway through the article, upon taking moral instruction from a Chicago columnist who believes that Ayers should be shunned from public life. This writer claims that people who want to give Ayers or Obama a free pass are practicing the old double standard.
“I don’t think there’s a statute of limitations on terrorist bombings,” Steven Chapman told the paper, “If you’re in public life, you ought to say, ‘I don’t want to be associated with this guy. If John McCain had a long association with a guy who’d bombed abortion clinics, I don’t think people would say, ‘That’s ancient history.’ ”
Of course, Senator McCain has been associated with dubious characters, actively seeking endorsements from religious leaders with disturbing views, but somehow everyone seems satisfied once McCain cuts ties with them. Palin herself has some alarming clerical associations, if we can believe what we hear on MSNBC. But I wonder whether McCain's associations have yet been explored fully.
Palin could just as well have taken moral instruction from her running mate. McCain himself has claimed the moral high ground to pass judgment on Ayers. The Times quotes him from earlier this year saying, “How can you countenance someone who was engaged in bombings that could have or did kill innocent people?”
Somehow that strikes me as the wrong question for someone who has actually done time for bombing innocent people, so to speak, to ask.
A review of records of [a Chicago school reform] project and interviews with a dozen people who know both men, suggest that Mr. Obama, 47, has played down his contacts with Mr. Ayers, 63. But the two men do not appear to have been close. Nor has Mr. Obama ever expressed sympathy for the radical views and actions of Mr. Ayers, whom he has called “somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago, when I was 8.”
Yes, this is the Bill Ayers story again, but as the Times explains, Ayers is a legally innocent man. Whatever he admitted to doing, and however he feels about it, "Federal riot and bombing conspiracy charges against him were dropped in 1974 because of illegal wiretaps and other prosecutorial misconduct."
The school project both men were involved in is known as the Annenberg Challenge. The Times reports: "In March 1995, Mr. Obama became chairman of the six-member board that oversaw the distribution of grants in Chicago. Some bloggers have recently speculated that Mr. Ayers had engineered that post for him. In fact, according to several people involved, Mr. Ayers played no role in Mr. Obama’s appointment. Instead, it was suggested by Deborah Leff, then president of the Joyce Foundation, a Chicago-based group whose board Mr. Obama, a young lawyer, had joined the previous year. At a lunch with two other foundation heads, Patricia A. Graham of the Spencer Foundation and Adele Simmons of the MacArthur Foundation, Ms. Leff suggested that Mr. Obama would make a good board chairman, she said in an interview. Mr. Ayers was not present and had not suggested Mr. Obama, she said."
Obama sat on another board with Ayers, and once commented favorably on a book Ayers had written on the juvenile court system. I haven't read the book, but I'm inclined to doubt that it vindicates the Weather Underground or endorses domestic terrorism. "Since 2002, there is little public evidence of their relationship," the reporter notes, "If by then the ambitious politician was trying to keep his distance, it would not be a surprise."
I suspect that the busy governor stopped reading halfway through the article, upon taking moral instruction from a Chicago columnist who believes that Ayers should be shunned from public life. This writer claims that people who want to give Ayers or Obama a free pass are practicing the old double standard.
“I don’t think there’s a statute of limitations on terrorist bombings,” Steven Chapman told the paper, “If you’re in public life, you ought to say, ‘I don’t want to be associated with this guy. If John McCain had a long association with a guy who’d bombed abortion clinics, I don’t think people would say, ‘That’s ancient history.’ ”
Of course, Senator McCain has been associated with dubious characters, actively seeking endorsements from religious leaders with disturbing views, but somehow everyone seems satisfied once McCain cuts ties with them. Palin herself has some alarming clerical associations, if we can believe what we hear on MSNBC. But I wonder whether McCain's associations have yet been explored fully.
Palin could just as well have taken moral instruction from her running mate. McCain himself has claimed the moral high ground to pass judgment on Ayers. The Times quotes him from earlier this year saying, “How can you countenance someone who was engaged in bombings that could have or did kill innocent people?”
Somehow that strikes me as the wrong question for someone who has actually done time for bombing innocent people, so to speak, to ask.
Recommended Reading
My longtime Institute colleague Crhymethinc has fully joined the blogosphere. He gets off to an ambitious start with a draft political platform that's worth examining. Here's hoping that more will follow.
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