Uniting vs. Dividing
Sep. 9th, 2008 05:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
billroperThere's talk going on now of how some candidates for the Presidency are uniters while others are dividers. Maybe that's true.
Personally, I don't give a lot of credence to the theory of uniters and dividers. Heck, one of GWB's first acts was to reach across the aisle to Teddy Kennedy to put together the "No Child Left Behind" act. Uniter, right? And vilified by the opposite side of the aisle too for that self-same bill. (NCLB is no doubt far from perfect. I anxiously await an alternative that doesn't have the stated problem of "teaching to the test" -- which strikes me as only being very wrong if we're administering the wrong test -- while still providing some mechanism for getting rid of bad teachers and failing administrators.)
In the current political environment, attempts at compromise get you nothing. The Medicare drug bill is a target for both left and right. It's probably better than what we started with (nada), but it seems that every politician hates it. Perfect? Of course not. But I have to admit that -- as someone who is taking four different medications daily -- I'm sort of fond of the evil Big Pharmaceuticals companies that are making it possible for me to lead a normal life. And I'd like them to find the next drug that I'm going to need in the future. It may well be true that the companies spend too much on marketing, but I'd be willing to bet that measures to restrict drug company profits are more likely to impact R&D than marketing.
Of course, that's all just a sign of self-indulgence on my part, I suppose. If I weren't such a fat, lazy slob, I could lose the weight that makes me drug-dependent. There are just two kinds of individuals in this country: decent, hard-working folks and fatties.
Darn! There are those nasty dividers again. And for those of you who aren't on the fat side of the great divide, let me tell you that it's a bit harder to lose this weight than you might imagine. On my list of things to do, to be sure, and I'm back on the exercycle again and trying to watch what I eat, but it's not going to be a trivial exercise.
So maybe I take it a bit badly when Obama says we can't "eat as much as we want". Or maybe drive a car that's large enough for me to fit in comfortably.
Easy for him to say.
But that's not the big thing. (No pun intended.)
No, what gets me is the subtle insinuation that if you don't vote for Obama, then you're a racist.
"Nobody thinks that Bush or McCain have a real answer for the challenges we face. So what they are going to try to do is make you scared of me," Obama warned a crowd in Springfield this morning. "You know, he's not patriotic enough. He's got a funny name. You know, he doesn't look like all of those other presidents on the dollar bills."
Yeah, right. Maybe not all that subtle.
Now I'm absolutely positive that there are some folks in the U.S. who are going to vote against Obama because he's black. And there are folks who are going to vote for him because he's black. This isn't exactly a great revelation.
But I'm not scared of Obama because he's black.
I'm scared of Obama because he's a product of the Chicago Democratic Machine. I'm scared of Obama because he's had enough different positions in this admittedly very long campaign that I'm simply not quite sure of what he believes, although my inclination is to think that his run to the center is the cynical set of statements. (See, for example, NAFTA, FISA, talking to Iran without preconditions, his recent statement about not raising taxes during a recession, etc.) I'm scared of Obama because of the sheer amount of absolute crap that a heavily Democratic Congress is likely to put on his desk for a signature.
I'm scared of Obama because when he was already safely in the U.S. Senate, he had the choice to endorse the reform Democratic candidate for Cook County Board President or the incumbent candidate of the Chicago Democratic Machine. And he picked the latter. And he stuck by that endorsement after the incumbent had an ultimately fatal stroke which eventually led to the installation of the incumbent's son on the ticket after the primary was over.
And he wants me to believe in a platform of "change". After all, what should I believe: his rhetoric or my own lying eyes?
And, by the way, if I don't vote for him, I'm a racist.
Hell of a way to be a "uniter", if you ask me.
Voting for McCain doesn't make you a racist. And voting for Obama doesn't make you ageist or sexist, for that matter. It simply means that you like the other candidate better for whatever set of reasons.
But you know, it simply isn't enough to have reasons to vote against a candidate. It'd be nice to have some reason to vote for a candidate. And I've certainly had my differences with John McCain. I consider McCain/Feingold to be a foolish infringement on free speech rights, for example. I believe that we should try actual enforcement of our laws against illegal immigration for a while before triggering another amnesty. (Might not work, but it'd certainly be educational to try it.)
So tell me, John, whatcha gonna do if we put you in there? And he decided to give me an answer and it was an answer that I liked:
He's going to run against Congress. He's going to run against excessive spending and earmarks. He's going to run against corruption. He's going to actually use his veto power.
Now, you have to consider that I don't much like our current Democratic Congress, but I didn't much like the Republican Congress that preceded it either. The Republican Congress forgot about the reform agenda that brought them into power in 1994; the Democratic Congress that succeeded them has managed to forget about reform even faster. I have very little use for Congress lately and apparently neither does the mass of voters, given that Congressional approval ratings make GWB's approval rating look good. So maybe that's just a cynical move on McCain's part too.
But McCain's never had any great need to be loved that I've noticed, certainly not by the members of his own party. And he went out and picked a VP candidate who may have faults, but has the best set of reform credentials that he could find. So maybe he's not just kidding me.
I fully expect that McCain is going to do some things that I won't like. But if I'm lucky, he's going to raise taxes (some) and cut spending (a lot). That's different than what I expect from Obama, which is raise taxes (a lot) and raise spending (a whole lot).
(Yes, I'm aware that Obama is only going to raise taxes on "the rich". The thing is that there aren't enough of "the rich" to finance what Obama seems to have in mind, so I expect that he's going to start sliding taxes leftward on the income bell curve fairly quickly. Remember, the AMT was only supposed to affect "the rich". See how that worked out?)
And since he's going to be working with a likely Democratic majority in Congress, he's going to have to reach across the aisle to try to get anything useful passed. It turns out that's something that he's already got some experience with. And in terms of getting results that are pleasing to the majority of the citizens, well, I'm thinking that a center/right President working with a left-leaning Congress has a lot better chance of producing reasonable compromises than a left-leaning President working with a left-leaning Congress.
He might, in short, be a "uniter".
I can work with that.
Personally, I don't give a lot of credence to the theory of uniters and dividers. Heck, one of GWB's first acts was to reach across the aisle to Teddy Kennedy to put together the "No Child Left Behind" act. Uniter, right? And vilified by the opposite side of the aisle too for that self-same bill. (NCLB is no doubt far from perfect. I anxiously await an alternative that doesn't have the stated problem of "teaching to the test" -- which strikes me as only being very wrong if we're administering the wrong test -- while still providing some mechanism for getting rid of bad teachers and failing administrators.)
In the current political environment, attempts at compromise get you nothing. The Medicare drug bill is a target for both left and right. It's probably better than what we started with (nada), but it seems that every politician hates it. Perfect? Of course not. But I have to admit that -- as someone who is taking four different medications daily -- I'm sort of fond of the evil Big Pharmaceuticals companies that are making it possible for me to lead a normal life. And I'd like them to find the next drug that I'm going to need in the future. It may well be true that the companies spend too much on marketing, but I'd be willing to bet that measures to restrict drug company profits are more likely to impact R&D than marketing.
Of course, that's all just a sign of self-indulgence on my part, I suppose. If I weren't such a fat, lazy slob, I could lose the weight that makes me drug-dependent. There are just two kinds of individuals in this country: decent, hard-working folks and fatties.
Darn! There are those nasty dividers again. And for those of you who aren't on the fat side of the great divide, let me tell you that it's a bit harder to lose this weight than you might imagine. On my list of things to do, to be sure, and I'm back on the exercycle again and trying to watch what I eat, but it's not going to be a trivial exercise.
So maybe I take it a bit badly when Obama says we can't "eat as much as we want". Or maybe drive a car that's large enough for me to fit in comfortably.
Easy for him to say.
But that's not the big thing. (No pun intended.)
No, what gets me is the subtle insinuation that if you don't vote for Obama, then you're a racist.
"Nobody thinks that Bush or McCain have a real answer for the challenges we face. So what they are going to try to do is make you scared of me," Obama warned a crowd in Springfield this morning. "You know, he's not patriotic enough. He's got a funny name. You know, he doesn't look like all of those other presidents on the dollar bills."
Yeah, right. Maybe not all that subtle.
Now I'm absolutely positive that there are some folks in the U.S. who are going to vote against Obama because he's black. And there are folks who are going to vote for him because he's black. This isn't exactly a great revelation.
But I'm not scared of Obama because he's black.
I'm scared of Obama because he's a product of the Chicago Democratic Machine. I'm scared of Obama because he's had enough different positions in this admittedly very long campaign that I'm simply not quite sure of what he believes, although my inclination is to think that his run to the center is the cynical set of statements. (See, for example, NAFTA, FISA, talking to Iran without preconditions, his recent statement about not raising taxes during a recession, etc.) I'm scared of Obama because of the sheer amount of absolute crap that a heavily Democratic Congress is likely to put on his desk for a signature.
I'm scared of Obama because when he was already safely in the U.S. Senate, he had the choice to endorse the reform Democratic candidate for Cook County Board President or the incumbent candidate of the Chicago Democratic Machine. And he picked the latter. And he stuck by that endorsement after the incumbent had an ultimately fatal stroke which eventually led to the installation of the incumbent's son on the ticket after the primary was over.
And he wants me to believe in a platform of "change". After all, what should I believe: his rhetoric or my own lying eyes?
And, by the way, if I don't vote for him, I'm a racist.
Hell of a way to be a "uniter", if you ask me.
Voting for McCain doesn't make you a racist. And voting for Obama doesn't make you ageist or sexist, for that matter. It simply means that you like the other candidate better for whatever set of reasons.
But you know, it simply isn't enough to have reasons to vote against a candidate. It'd be nice to have some reason to vote for a candidate. And I've certainly had my differences with John McCain. I consider McCain/Feingold to be a foolish infringement on free speech rights, for example. I believe that we should try actual enforcement of our laws against illegal immigration for a while before triggering another amnesty. (Might not work, but it'd certainly be educational to try it.)
So tell me, John, whatcha gonna do if we put you in there? And he decided to give me an answer and it was an answer that I liked:
He's going to run against Congress. He's going to run against excessive spending and earmarks. He's going to run against corruption. He's going to actually use his veto power.
Now, you have to consider that I don't much like our current Democratic Congress, but I didn't much like the Republican Congress that preceded it either. The Republican Congress forgot about the reform agenda that brought them into power in 1994; the Democratic Congress that succeeded them has managed to forget about reform even faster. I have very little use for Congress lately and apparently neither does the mass of voters, given that Congressional approval ratings make GWB's approval rating look good. So maybe that's just a cynical move on McCain's part too.
But McCain's never had any great need to be loved that I've noticed, certainly not by the members of his own party. And he went out and picked a VP candidate who may have faults, but has the best set of reform credentials that he could find. So maybe he's not just kidding me.
I fully expect that McCain is going to do some things that I won't like. But if I'm lucky, he's going to raise taxes (some) and cut spending (a lot). That's different than what I expect from Obama, which is raise taxes (a lot) and raise spending (a whole lot).
(Yes, I'm aware that Obama is only going to raise taxes on "the rich". The thing is that there aren't enough of "the rich" to finance what Obama seems to have in mind, so I expect that he's going to start sliding taxes leftward on the income bell curve fairly quickly. Remember, the AMT was only supposed to affect "the rich". See how that worked out?)
And since he's going to be working with a likely Democratic majority in Congress, he's going to have to reach across the aisle to try to get anything useful passed. It turns out that's something that he's already got some experience with. And in terms of getting results that are pleasing to the majority of the citizens, well, I'm thinking that a center/right President working with a left-leaning Congress has a lot better chance of producing reasonable compromises than a left-leaning President working with a left-leaning Congress.
He might, in short, be a "uniter".
I can work with that.
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no subject
Date: 2008-09-09 11:49 pm (UTC)Not so much
Date: 2008-09-10 12:32 am (UTC)"No, what gets me is the subtle insinuation that if you don't vote for Obama, then you're a racist.
"Nobody thinks that Bush or McCain have a real answer for the challenges we face. So what they are going to try to do is make you scared of me," Obama warned a crowd in Springfield this morning. "You know, he's not patriotic enough. He's got a funny name. You know, he doesn't look like all of those other presidents on the dollar bills."
Yeah, right. Maybe not all that subtle."
Sorry, Bill, but your paraphrase is inaccurate.
He is not saying, "If you don't know vote for me, you are a racist." He is saying:
a. My opponents are not engaging me on the issues, but rather attacking me personally.
b. Some of the personal attacks have a distinct racial overtones.
I think both points are not without basis in fact.
a. McCain's own campaign manager has stated that this election will be about personalities, not issues. I hope that is wishful thinking, but it is certainly the approach McCain is using.
b. As to the other point, a Georgia congressman recently referred to Obama as "uppity". Talk being less than subtle. Allow me to cite David Gergen:
"There has been a very intentional effort to paint him as somebody outside the mainstream, other, 'he's not one of us,'" said Gergen, who has worked with White Houses, both Republican and Democrat, from Nixon to Clinton. "I think the McCain campaign has been scrupulous about not directly saying it, but it's the subtext of this campaign. Everybody knows that. There are certain kinds of signals. As a native of the south, I can tell you, when you see this Charlton Heston ad, 'The One,' that's code for, 'he's uppity, he ought to stay in his place.' Everybody gets that who is from a southern background. We all understand that. When McCain comes out and starts talking about affirmative action, 'I'm against quotas,' we get what that's about."
This from a man who worked for George H. W. Bush's campaign.
In short, your claim about an implication of "Vote for me or your racist" is simply not accurate, at least not of the quote you provided.
Re: Not so much
Date: 2008-09-10 09:36 pm (UTC)I also recall some comments around the time of the Ohio and Pennsylvania primaries from Obama about people who just wouldn't vote for him with a pretty thinly veiled intimation of exactly why they wouldn't. No doubt such people exist, just as there are people who wouldn't vote for Hillary because she was a woman, or who won't vote for McCain because he's a Republican, etc.
As far as "uppity" goes, here's a Democrat from Nevada using the word first -- or at least earlier. Apparently, if you say "elitist", you mean "uppity".
We could get into a big argument about who is elitist and who isn't, but just let me suggest that going to Harvard Law School and hanging out around Chicago's Hyde Park may not make you become elitist, regardless of your background.
But it certainly won't hurt. :)
Re: Not so much
Date: 2008-09-11 12:24 am (UTC)I don't think your citation to the Democratic Nevada Rep helps your point much. She was using the word, not too wisely, imho, to paraphrase comments about Obama, not applying them to the candidate himself. The idiot Representative from Georgia actually used the word "uppity" to describe Obama. (He then tried to claim he was unaware the word had racial overtones -- yeah, right.) I don't agree that Elitist = uppity.
Actually, I think the whole elitist thing is bogus anyway. Elitist has been used by Republicans generally to attack Democrats. It seems to sell well, although I fail to see how being elite is really a bad thing, not to mention that GWB's folks were peddling this line when their own candidate was a graduate of Yale and Harvard.
Re: Not so much
Date: 2008-09-11 03:41 am (UTC)Honestly, I don't know how you can say that Berkley isn't saying that people are applying "uppity" to Obama. It's all "code word(s)". She (I assume she) is being very straightforward about it as quoted.
As far as GWB being elite, that would be impossible, as I've been told frequently that he's a chimpanzee. :)
Re: Not so much
Date: 2008-09-11 01:19 pm (UTC)Re: Not so much
Date: 2008-09-11 02:44 pm (UTC)But it's not viewed as a good thing politically. There, it means you're out of touch with your constituency. I recall this sort of thing being thrown at the first President Bush when he was being impressed by a supermarket checkout scanner, with the implication that he didn't know what this common, everyday item was. Now, it turns out that it was actually a pretty advanced scanner with a bunch of interesting features which is why he was making impressed noises, but that wasn't the way the story came out.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-10 12:22 am (UTC)And we'll see what happens over the next year or so. Not to me, because I'm in Britain, or necessarily to you, but to America and to the world. My prediction: if McCain gets in, there will be more foreign wars, more fundamentalist theocracy, and more money for the (metaphorical) fat cats while the number of people living in poverty grows and grows. If Obama gets in, maybe it'll be exactly the same, and maybe it won't. And right now, if I were broke in America, I'd be clutching at a "maybe."
no subject
Date: 2008-09-10 03:00 am (UTC)But there is a horrible paradox that must be faced: those who are prepared to make war are less likely to have to than those who are not. On the whole, I think there may be less, if (and I sincerely hope I am wrong about this point) more prompt, war as a byproduct of of a President McCain than of a President Obama.
There is also the fact that I have lived in Chicago all of my life--my resulting aversion to Chicago (and Cook County, the county that includes Chicago) politicians is almost beyond reason. I'd Like to think that Obama is different, but the Stroger (the Cook County Board President that Bill referred to)business argues that he is not.
On the other hand, I'd really like like to see the Republicans (and some Democrats) spanked quite soundly for some of the excesses of the last few presidential and congressional terms.
It is a puzzlement.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-10 07:39 am (UTC)But with the Republican machine, if I may borrow the term, it's not about wars you "have to" fight. I don't know if anyone is still denying that the war on Iraq had nothing whatsoever to do with Al-Qaeda or the bombing of the Trade Centre. And that war, despite being prosecuted by people who were clearly fully prepared to make war, has not finished promptly or well.
Sane people don't start or otherwise give rise to wars, though sometimes they are compelled to finish them. I have more confidence in Obama in this direction that I have in anyone who has agreed with Bush as often as McCain has.
And I sympathise with your experiences of Chicago politics--our own town council, I'm morally certain, is in the pockets of various property developers--but I can't see how anyone would imagine that electing another Republican nationally would make a difference to that. Of course he says he'll work against corruption--it is, if I have understood this correctly, one of Obama's weak spots among people who know him locally or who have researched him. I'm sure Bush made promises about not having sex with interns.
I don't want to see anyone spanked. I just want to see a different kind of government in the biggest, scariest and richest nation on the planet. Soon, please.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-10 02:50 pm (UTC)For an example of the latter, look to the current Bush administration. Helped by John McCain.
The Iraq war wasn't necessary, but here we are up to our necks in it, with our military, which would otherwise be a deterrent, bogged down in it, and it looks like Russia has noticed.
And in the meantime, McCain looks at the results: 100 people a month dying in sectarian and terrorist attacks, women having lost the basic right to be free of fear of honor killings, 10% of the population refugees to other countries or internally displaced (which is like being a refugee except without crossing international borders), the Iraqi government arresting the Sunni sheiks that led the Anbar Awakening which was actually responsible for most of the reduction in violence, and he calls it "success."
Take a good hard look--this is what success looks like to John McCain.
I have no problem with "speak softly and carry a big stick." But we need to get our stick back. We can argue over whether John McCain or Barak Obama will be better at doing that--but while we argue, it would be wise to keep in mind who glued the stick to Iraq in the first place, and who spoke out against it.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-10 12:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-10 03:33 am (UTC)It IS true. The pharma companies spend almost twice as much on advertising as R & D. I think direct to consumer advertising was THE worst thing the govt every approved as it relates to drugs.
I too must agree to disagree with you, although in no way do I think you are racist for not voting for Obama. Do I think there are people who are? You bet. Some of them are relatives of mine.
I disagree with the Republican views on abortion and that alone is enough to prevent me from voting for McCain, even if I were so inclined. I actually DID vote for McCain, way back in the 2000 primary. Since then he has lost my respect by sucking up (or appearing) to the religious right, supporting a war that I believe we should not have started in the first place and quite honestly his views have changed sides so many times that I don't believe anything he says. Oh and his comments regarding Iran scare the bejeezus out of me.
His speech last week was surprisingly mild, compared to the flaming rhetoric of the previous two days of the convention. But as I said, he has changed his views so many times, that I do not believe he will do what he said. I believe the Republican party and Bush/Cheney/Rove/Rumsfeld in particular, are responsible for much of where America finds itself right now, economically and internationally. I do not want another 4 years of cowboy diplomacy. I believe it has done significant damage to our reputation in the world.
Much of why I am supporting and intend to vote for Obama IS his rhetorical power. The major power of the presidency IMO is the bully pulpit. I believe Obama can bring back the optimism that characterized the start of the Kennedy administration. I believe that more than anything else he might do is so vital to America.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-10 01:11 pm (UTC)His speech last week was surprisingly mild, compared to the flaming rhetoric of the previous two days of the convention. But as I said, he has changed his views so many times, that I do not believe he will do what he said. I believe the Republican party and Bush/Cheney/Rove/Rumsfeld in particular, are responsible for much of where America finds itself right now, economically and internationally. I do not want another 4 years of cowboy diplomacy. I believe it has done significant damage to our reputation in the world.
Much of why I am supporting and intend to vote for Obama IS his rhetorical power. The major power of the presidency IMO is the bully pulpit. I believe Obama can bring back the optimism that characterized the start of the Kennedy administration. I believe that more than anything else he might do is so vital to America.
I think this sums up my feelings pretty well.
Regarding some of the other things, though, I have no hope. Given the bipartisan support for government intrusiveness in the name of "security", I expect nothing to change in terms of the "Patriot Act" (except maybe that companies pressured by the government to do illegal things will now be damned if they do and prosecuted or damned if they don't and - well - prosecuted.) I have no expectation of anything approaching a balanced budget - war spending aside, the Clinton balance was due more to the dot-com increase in revenues than any other factor, and of course those went away when the bubble burst (before the current administration took office, but I guess we shouldn't say that.)
McCain squandered my respect during the proceedings leading up to this election, and I don't think he'll be able to repudiate those changes when he gets elected. I think Palin was not just an appeasement pick, it was a move by the far right to put some leverage onto the ticket.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-10 09:40 pm (UTC)What would you point to that would suggest that the Supreme Court isn't near the middle currently?
Supreme Court
Date: 2008-09-11 12:35 am (UTC)My own analysis is that Scalia, Thomas, and Alito were all very conservative. Roberts is solidly conservative. Anthony is less solidly conservative.
No one on the "left" wing of the court is nearly as liberal as Scalia and Thomas are conservative.
Re: Supreme Court
Date: 2008-09-11 03:45 am (UTC)And I think Ginsburg is easily as liberal as Scalia and Thomas are conservative.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-10 09:56 pm (UTC)(I mean, seriously. I don't know how that differs from McCain's position, which I recall as being the same. And somebody else ought to get to look something up once in a while. :) )
no subject
Date: 2008-09-14 05:29 pm (UTC)"Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb bomb Iran."
Even as a joke, it's a joke in poor taste, and dreadful
taste for a presidential candidate.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-10 03:36 am (UTC)Neither candidate is ideal. I'm still waiting for "the one" who will someday take a set of positions, and fucking stick to them through the whole campaign.
The problem is, those guys get creamed because our system only allows those who either have huge personal fortunes, or the support of one of the two major parties to have any chance at all.
You want better fiscal management? Elect a Libertarian. Oh, wait, you can't, because the democrats and republicans are using their public campaign funds to hire lawyers to file bullshit lawsuits to keep 3rd parties off the ballot in tons of states.
As long as this country allows itself to be brainwashed by bullshit artists, acting through politically appointed party reps of only two groups of people, we will have bad government. Unfortunately, the bulk of the US voting population are simply just ignorant, stupid, or in far too many cases, both.
"People get the government they deserve" True statement.
Obama is likely to spend more. He could get every dollar he needs by simply taking it from the military budget, and scaling back military operations to fall within the new budget.
McCain might spend less, but will likely cut funding in areas that simply can't afford the loss. He sure isn't going to cut military spending.
Neither of them has a really well defined plan. The last guy who did was a nut job for other reasons (Perot).
The closest guy who had one this time was a semi-nutjob (Paul). neither of those two had a chance in hell of getting elected. Ditto Nader who is a nutjob WITHOUT a well defined plan.
You know who i'd like to see in the white house? People who will never go there. Warren Buffet. Steve Jobs. Colin Powell, before the politicians ruined him. Petraeus, if we can get him before the politicians ruin HIM. Hell, even Bill Gates. Anyone who understands what a fucking budget is actually for, and who has experience running a profitable and/or efficient enterprise, and picks good people to help them run it.
But the system won't accept people like that. And until we force the issue of requiring the presence of a third party on the ballot in every state, it will continue to lock them out.
McCain isn't a bad guy - he was my pick from the republican field, as obama was my pick from the democrats. But he has flipped on many issues, run a campaign based heavily on personal attack, and shown some very, very poor judgement in selecting people to help him run things. He sold out, and has compromised his integrity for the sake of appeasing his republican masters.
Yeah, obama is a "machine" product. But while the machine produces a Stoger or Blagspendovich, It also produces the Daley family who despite being corrupt as shit, manage to get things done, mostly correctly, and within budget.
The fact is, any major politician becomes a sellout, and/or corrupt. It's only a question of when and how much.
In this case, I fear what McCain and the republicans will do to the US constitution (what's left of it) and the world (from ecological, political, economic and military standpoints)far, far more than I fear what Obama might do.
The republican party has fucked this country up, gotten a lot of people killed for no good damn reason, ruined the economy, and violated the constitution like a cheap whore.
Time to give a shot to the only other guys I'm allowed to vote for. They sure can't do any fucking worse.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-10 09:54 pm (UTC)When Daley illegally bulldozed Meigs Field, it didn't cost him a cent.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-11 12:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-11 03:35 am (UTC)However, I did mean to get back up here and note that wasn't my intent. I'm simply trying to say that you (the generic you) can't excuse the level of corruption by saying that the government runs well. By that standard, a police state would be just fine.
And I don't think you want that. I don't either.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-11 01:48 pm (UTC)Fred here:
Date: 2008-09-10 03:54 am (UTC)I also lost my brother last year because of the screwed up American Medical system. He'd still be alive today if we had a single payer, or government funded plan, as they do in virtually every other civilized country on earth. McCain won't fix that, the lobbyists running his campaign won't let him. Obama offers that he will at least try. If you should lose your job & then need further surgery on your knee, it will be possible in Obama's world, in McCain's you'd have to get insurance for an existing condition. I don't suppose you've ever tried that?
Ask anybody who has tried just how difficult it can be.
Re: Fred here:
Date: 2008-09-10 09:48 pm (UTC)I will note that a single-payer, government funded plan can screw someone over just as well as our system does. I recently read an article about a Canadian woman with a fatal, but treatable condition who had to come to the U.S. to get treatment that the Canadian medical system wouldn't authorize. Unlike your brother, she did survive.
If I were in a single-payer, government funded plan, I might not get surgery to repair my knee. The doctor who originally evaluated me said effectively, "You're old. You're overweight. You've got a desk job. Why do we need to fix this knee?"
The answer was "I have a small child to carry up and down stairs and chase after. I regularly lift and carry heavy boxes and throw them around. I need a stable knee to be able to do that." And now I have one.
As far as trying to get private insurance, yes, you bet I've done that. When I first got out of school, I was working as an independent contractor for a little consulting firm. And despite being young, substantially thinner (although still overweight), and a lot healthier, it was a major pain in the butt. It would no doubt be worse now.
There are a lot of problems with our health insurance system. I don't really believe that either candidate is on the right track. Curiously, I was just reading a Time magazine from 2004 where John Kerry suggested something that I think is pretty close to the right way to go -- national catastrophic health insurance.
Of course, they might not want to pay for my knee either...
no subject
Date: 2008-09-10 03:56 am (UTC)Well, Roper, this is one place you let your true feelings out. By the way, also give a perfectly good reason to vote against Obama.
The rest of the reasons are not so clear. When you say in the current political environment, attempts at compromise get you nothing, remember which party is perpetuating that (currently with threats of another government shutdown). When you wonder about people's objections to Evil Pharmaceuticals, remember Billy Tauzin and PhRMA. Look up Donald Diamond. Just to give a couple of examples.
If McCain is running against earmarks and corruption in Congress, and against the Democrats, and against the uncompromising brand of politicians, then you have to wonder who is he running with.
Someone put a large chunk of current politics into focus when he said, Republicans need to own their failures.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-10 06:30 am (UTC)I'm also *royally* incensed at the Democrats who went along with this bullcrap, instead of saying, "enough". If there was a way to get rid of the whole lot of them (Republican and Democrat alike), I would be in favor of it.
I am really afraid that a McCain presidency will be just a continuation of the Bush legacy; and what scares me about that is I believe McCain will pick up where Bush left off, and get us in another war (with Iran this time, or maybe even Russia). We don't need another war, we still have two unfinished so far.
While I am generally in favor of one party controlling Congress while the other controls the White House (hopefully fewer buttheaded agendas getting pushed through), I am so fed up with the current Republican administration that I am willing to let the Democratic bozos have a shot at it.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-10 10:15 am (UTC)Exactly right.
There are, unfortunately, reasons to be scared of McCain which are as good or better. Perhaps the deciding factor is that a gridlocked government is better than one where one party has free rein (and in this case, the common error "free reign" would be applicable too).
There are no good choices. That's why I focus on issues rather than candidates. There's at least a chance of improving something with regular pressure on an issue.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-10 02:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-10 03:27 pm (UTC)For that matter, McCain has probably acknowledged that some people will tell you he is too old to be president. If I came across an example of that, I wouldn't take it as evidence that he's saying "If you don't vote for me, you're ageist." And when I see McCain or Palin saying "some people will tell you a woman shouldn't be vice-president" (and I sure expect to see it soon if it hasn't already happened) I won't take it as saying "If you don't vote for me, you're sexist."
I agree that there is prejudice in American culture against people who are fat, but I didn't interpret "we can't eat as much as we want" as a slam against fat people. I don't consider myself fat, and I've been struggling with my weight, for medical reasons, since the beginning of this year. I've lost 10 pounds (that's right, in 8 months) and I've goddamn it plateaued again, and "we can't eat as much as we want" is just a plain fact of my life. Yes, Obama is thin. So is my dad. When Dad gets on me about my weight I think it must be easy for him; he's always been thin--but in fact I don't know that. He's my dad, I've known him for years, but I don't feel his hunger, or his temptation to break down and have just a modest amount of seconds at dinner, or to eat just a few malted milk balls. I can only feel my own. How much less can I know how easy, or not, it is for Obama, who I don't know at all?
And I sympathize with not being able to find a car that fits you comfortably--I have similar problems. I don't think it's because people despise people with unusual body sizes, I think it's because the car manufacturers make seats they think fit "average people." I sure wish they realized that the average person is over 6 feet tall, but it hasn't happened yet. Planes are even worse for me, as I'm sure they are for you.
Regarding a left-leaning President working with a left-leaning congress--the Bush administration presided over some pretty radical changes in our government. Authorizing torture, packing the Justice department with incompetent ideologues, throwing the FISA courts out the window, and swinging the Supreme Court way over to the right, for examples. We are going to need some pretty radical changes to set those things right. The Justice Department alone--Mucasey has (theoretically) put a stop to the hiring on the basis of ideology, but all the ideologues who were hired under Gonzales are still here, gaining seniority with every tick of the clock. To get a balanced and competent Justice department, the incompetent ones have to go, competent ones must be hired in their place with an eye to balancing the ideology there, and the competent federal prosecutors who stood up to the pressure to prosecute democrats regardless of evidence of wrongdoing must be reinstated.
Do you seriously think the Republicans would allow that if they controlled the administration? They didn't up to now, McCain hasn't (as far as I know) said word one suggesting he would fix matters--the Democrats may not have the spine for it, but they're my last, best hope.
Radical change certainly has the potential to go wrong, and I understand why it's scary. But it's the only thing that can fix the changes that occurred on the Republican watch. And I want that; I want it very much.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-10 09:51 pm (UTC)The ideological hiring that went on in the Justice Department was done precisely because the people doing the hiring believed that the career employees of the department tended to lean left. I don't know whether that's true or not, although there are some reasons to believe that it might be so.
So now you're proposing ideological hiring. I'm not sure there's a difference between that proposal and the thing that just happened that you condemn.
Justice Department
Date: 2008-09-11 12:47 am (UTC)BS. The ideological hiring took place because the incompetent and inexperienced people put in charge of the hiring were completely ignorant of the law and their responsibilities.
Read the Inspector General's reports on the hiring.
http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/special/
Re: Justice Department
Date: 2008-09-11 03:52 am (UTC)There's a common perception -- perhaps inaccurate -- that people in public service tend to be more liberal, thus the careerists in government bureaucracies tend to be more liberal than the population at large. I don't know if you want to dispute that or not.
The fact that the people who doing the hiring cocked up the process in an attempt to hire more people of a certain ideology, violating the law in the process, is a bad thing. If the people hired were incompetent, then they should be removed for cause.
Re: Justice Department
Date: 2008-09-11 01:59 pm (UTC)If that's true, it wouldn't surprise me if people in public service tend to skew a bit liberal, and I wouldn't take it as evidence of previous unfairness in hiring.
To choose another example of a skew--the armed forces tend to skew heavily conservative. I see a certain amount of anti-liberal bias there, but I think that bias is a result of many more conservatives applying, coupled with people's natural tendency to group with other people who share their attitudes. I certainly wouldn't suggest that the Armed Forces should fire conservatives and hire and promote liberals regardless of competence to redress this imbalance.
Re: Justice Department
Date: 2008-09-11 02:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-09-11 01:50 pm (UTC)I'd propose firing everyone, left or right, who was hired during that time, and rehiring based on the resumes submitted during that time on the basis of competence rather than ideology. Don't deliberately hire left, don't deliberately hire right--hire on the basis of the standard indications of future quality in federal prosecutors regardless of ideology.
I'd want to hire on the basis of the resumes submitted then, rather than present resumes, because the experience the ideologues gained at the Justice Department was gained under false pretenses and shouldn't count, but it wouldn't be fair to take away experience just from the righties and not from the lefties. We should hire now the people who should have been hired at the time.
I will note that I am bending over backwards to be fair here, since I think it's quite likely that word got out about the ideology-based hiring and fewer lefties submitted resumes, because why bother when you know the review process isn't fair.
I will further note that there's nothing ideological about rehiring Federal Prosecutors who were dismissed for not using their offices as a political tool. That should have been done as a matter of course, as soon as it came to light. Even if you don't agree with the rest of my proposal, I hope you agree with that.
I will finally note that I think there's no possible way a Republican administration will ever agree to this, not even rehiring the unfairly dismissed prosecutors, because (in my opinion) they will think it's not sufficiently tilted in their favor.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-11 06:34 pm (UTC)And he [Obama] wants me to believe in a platform of "change".
He's [McCain's] going to run against Congress. He's going to run against excessive spending and earmarks. He's going to run against corruption. He's going to actually use his veto power.
Both McCain and Obama are saying a lot of the correct things, but actions speak louder than words. Can we expect McCain to bring about change when he voted the way GWB wanted about 90% of the time? Can we epect McCain to serve the public interest rather than the corporate interest when his campaign is run by corporate lobbyists? Obama, OTOH, generally voted against the Bush administration and is not accepting campaign contributions from lobbyists or PACs.
no subject
Date: 2008-09-11 06:45 pm (UTC)And Obama seems to be the #3 recipient of donations from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, if I can believe the information that I saw on Open Secrets, so it doesn't seem that his funding sources are necessarily pure of outside influences either.
Damn. I just had to look.
Date: 2008-09-14 05:47 pm (UTC)having wasted 2 hours of packing time.
But Bill, some thoughts:
1. Thoughtful essay.
2. Interesting to see how you reach different conclusions from the same data. I think we both put on blinders, sometimes. I think you do more often than I do, though. :-)
3. Neither McCain nor Obama are my candidates. I wanted Hillary. But I can say this much: The Republican Party lost me with Reagan, and I have not seen it correct course since. I'm not fond of the disorganization, splintering and, yes, sometimes the extremism from some Democrats in the party. That's probably why I am now Independent. (I was Republican when I lived in Chicago.)
I do know this, however: My life has always been better under a Democratic presidency than under a Republican presidency. My government is less intrusive in my life, and functions better when it does affect my life, under Democratic administrations than under Republican administrations. And, the country's economy flourishes under Democratic administration and does not under Republican administrations. So, right now, until the Republican party straightens up, I vote Democratic more often than not.
It is true that I no longer respect McCain. But more importantly, I do not trust his party. Obama was not my first or second or third choice (My favorite was Richardson, then Biden.) But I know I will be happier with his party than with yours.
And I want my habeas corpus back.
(For that matter, I want my Republican party back.)
And now I really DO have to get back to packing.