Obama's catching heat this week for his campaign advisor's statement that Hillary shares some of the responsibility for Bhutto's assassination.
It's true.
Sucks to be you, Hillary, but you voted for this dumb assed war that Obama said from the start would be a disaster. If we weren't fuckin' around in Iraq, we might have actually caught bin Laden and Zawahiri by now and al Qaeda would be a historical footnote. Instead, they're in functional control of a whole provinces in Pakistan and the old Taliban is on the move in Afghanistan. Not to mention that the Iraq War has itself greatly fanned the flames of anti-American Islamic fundamentalism all over the region, including in Pakistan.
We done fucked up and what happened in Pakistan is just the "chickens coming home to roost," in the immortal words of El Hajj Malik El Shabazz (Malcolm X).
But alas, the truth is sometimes hard to take, thus the uproar about Obama. But that's also what keeps driving people to Barack. Truth equals "authenticity" -- a hard to define by critical attribute for a politician, and one that Barack enjoys in spades.
Comments?
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Obama, Race and the Progressive Blogosphere
With Barack Obama's campaign for the Democratic nomination on a roll, the "long knives" have come out of their sleeves. While the attacks have come from all sides, the most disturbing ones, from my perspective, are being launched from the progressive blogosphere.
The acknowledged founder of said blogosphere, Jerome Armstrong, recently posted a diary on MyDD questioning Barack's electability, the first few lines of which contained the following admonition:
Mr. Armstrong is, of course, far more evolved than that:
All of that combined with the counter-intuitive illogic of the claim that Barack's chances in the general election will be somehow compromised by his insufficiently partisan rhetoric during the primary leads me to believe that there's something a little deeper going on here. For those new to progressive politics it might sound novel, but for many of us who know the history, it's an old story: white progressives are uncomfortable getting behind a black standard-bearer for the progressive movement who they cannot control.
Whether it be Paul Krugman's rants about Obama's failing to tow the progressive line on Social Security and health insurance mandates, the "McClurkin" controversy, or any number of other things, the problem isn't so much that Obama's not really a true progressive at heart (his biography and record are crystal clear on that), but that he's his own man; when confronted with a demand that he "back down" on mandates or "exclude" an ex-gay gospel singer from his campaign, Obama refuses to do so.
It would be one thing if there were a viable capital "P" Progressive Party with a track record of winning elections; that would be a great argument for enforcing a party line. But we all know how far from the truth that is. With very limited exceptions, the progressive movement has been on a losing streak in America for decades and the inability of white progressives to find a way to work with black leadership is a big part of that history of failure: without black support, progressive victories are few and far between, and without black leadership, there is no black support.
So, even though the progressive movement is presented with what would appear to be its greatest chance in history to simultaneously help America take a huge step forward in realizing it's age-old dream of racial equality while at the same time electing the most self-evidently progressive President in our lifetimes, apparently many would prefer to stay on the sidelines, sniping at Barack Obama, suppesedly for failing to march in lockstep and/or throw a sufficient amount of rhetorical red meat at the base, but in actuality because they're just not comfortable with the emergence of a free-thinking black man as the leader of the progressive movement.
Fortunately, however, through Barack's unique force of personality and charisma, and maybe also because of the presence on the scene of a new, younger generation of progressive activists who are more accustomed to working on an equal basis with people of other races, this historic logjam in the progressive movement appears to be breaking down. Once we begin to separate out the more established leaders who have a vested interest in Obama's defeat, i.e. paid and/or high-profile supporters of one or another of the other candidates, by and large progressives at the grass roots level across America are getting "fired up and ready to go" behind his candidacy. Barack's army of field volunteers now numbers in the hundreds of thousands and is growing by thousands more every day.
I'm confident that twenty years from now, many of Obama's detractors will be writing books and articles with not a hint of irony about how Barack rejuvenated America by putting together a new progressive majority that was able to bring about incredible changes in America life and politics on a par with that accomplished FDR and JFK. I won't mind at all.
The acknowledged founder of said blogosphere, Jerome Armstrong, recently posted a diary on MyDD questioning Barack's electability, the first few lines of which contained the following admonition:
First, let me just say that anyone who accuses skin color as some part behind the reasoning will find themselves banned--there is zero tolerance for accusations of racism.Mr. Armstrong's bold attempt to censor any discussion of the issue of race in connection with his critique of Barack's electability is stunning. Having talked to hundreds of people about Barack's candidacy over the past year or so, I can say with a great degree of certainty that the number one issue going through most people's minds when they consider Barack's electability is the obvious one: Is America ready to elect a black President for the first time in its history?
Mr. Armstrong is, of course, far more evolved than that:
I don't even view Obama as black or with racial distinction. Identity-wise, I can understand why he's seen as such, but in that regard (and I have two kids with this same beauty), it points to a bright future when such fallacies such as 'race' become historical dust, and racism ceases. One day, let's hope. Having black skin is not totally gone as an electability issue, but it's as negligible as being a woman, a southerner, or a northeasterner. You can ask Harold Ford if you doubt it's still an issue in certain races-- but nevermind, because he would have to say otherwise in public, and I hope one day he will be able to win in Tennessee-- but it no longer is an insurmountable hurdle to being elected President.According to Mr. Armstrong then, it's not the racists who will pose the greatest risk for Barack Obama in the general election; no, the bigger electability problem for him is that the progressive base of the Democratic Party will abandon him in the face of the Republican assault that is sure to come.
The skepticism about Obama's electability isn't grounded in empirical polling (which are too early to matter); instead, it's more just a feeling that, given how well he's positioned his candidacy with the media's blessing, he's setting himself up for being torn down without a partisan base to rely upon for pushing back.The amazing thing to me is that Mr. Armstrong can so casually dismiss "empirical" data, totally ignore the fact that Obama has the most progressive biography and record of any of the major candidates, admit that his sentiments are based on nothing more than "just a feeling," and then use his position as the owner of a supposedly "democratic" political forum to squelch any discussion of the possibility that the very factor most talked about with respect to Barack's electability -- race -- might have played a role in how he, himself, arrived at this "feeling."
Yes, right now, Obama does pretty well among Republicans & Independents. But there's been more and more of a dissonance growing between Obama's campaign and among progressive partisan Democrats.
All of that combined with the counter-intuitive illogic of the claim that Barack's chances in the general election will be somehow compromised by his insufficiently partisan rhetoric during the primary leads me to believe that there's something a little deeper going on here. For those new to progressive politics it might sound novel, but for many of us who know the history, it's an old story: white progressives are uncomfortable getting behind a black standard-bearer for the progressive movement who they cannot control.
Whether it be Paul Krugman's rants about Obama's failing to tow the progressive line on Social Security and health insurance mandates, the "McClurkin" controversy, or any number of other things, the problem isn't so much that Obama's not really a true progressive at heart (his biography and record are crystal clear on that), but that he's his own man; when confronted with a demand that he "back down" on mandates or "exclude" an ex-gay gospel singer from his campaign, Obama refuses to do so.
It would be one thing if there were a viable capital "P" Progressive Party with a track record of winning elections; that would be a great argument for enforcing a party line. But we all know how far from the truth that is. With very limited exceptions, the progressive movement has been on a losing streak in America for decades and the inability of white progressives to find a way to work with black leadership is a big part of that history of failure: without black support, progressive victories are few and far between, and without black leadership, there is no black support.
So, even though the progressive movement is presented with what would appear to be its greatest chance in history to simultaneously help America take a huge step forward in realizing it's age-old dream of racial equality while at the same time electing the most self-evidently progressive President in our lifetimes, apparently many would prefer to stay on the sidelines, sniping at Barack Obama, suppesedly for failing to march in lockstep and/or throw a sufficient amount of rhetorical red meat at the base, but in actuality because they're just not comfortable with the emergence of a free-thinking black man as the leader of the progressive movement.
Fortunately, however, through Barack's unique force of personality and charisma, and maybe also because of the presence on the scene of a new, younger generation of progressive activists who are more accustomed to working on an equal basis with people of other races, this historic logjam in the progressive movement appears to be breaking down. Once we begin to separate out the more established leaders who have a vested interest in Obama's defeat, i.e. paid and/or high-profile supporters of one or another of the other candidates, by and large progressives at the grass roots level across America are getting "fired up and ready to go" behind his candidacy. Barack's army of field volunteers now numbers in the hundreds of thousands and is growing by thousands more every day.
I'm confident that twenty years from now, many of Obama's detractors will be writing books and articles with not a hint of irony about how Barack rejuvenated America by putting together a new progressive majority that was able to bring about incredible changes in America life and politics on a par with that accomplished FDR and JFK. I won't mind at all.
Monday, December 3, 2007
Why I Support Barack Obama for President I
Like anyone else I suppose, my support for Barack stems from my own political beliefs. Although I have a passion for politics and policy, particularly insofar as they relate to social justice, I have spent relatively little energy engaging in electoral politics for one simple reason: from everything I can tell, money rules politics in America.
Almost everyone I've ever talked to, whatever their political philosophy, believes the same thing. At all levels of government and in all parts of the country, those who are able to back candidates with significant amounts of money get to decide who those candidates will be and which ones will win. That being the case, those who are not able to "ante up" do not have a voice, and the objective merit of any particular course of action counts far less than the pure self-interests of those who have ante'd up. In my opinion then, the most fundamental project for any progressive movement, the thing on which all other progressive possibilities are contingent, is political reform.
With that reality and goal in mind, I and most of my friends/allies have "retreated" in a sense to grassroots, community-based politics outside of the electoral system where we use community organizing, independent policy advocacy and legal intervention in order to bring the "people's" voice into the decision-making process. At the local level, at least, it is possible to make elected officials accountable to the people, if only because we can physically get in the way of stuff and bring uncomfortable truths to the public light. But the limits of our myopic focus on local, grassroots political activities has been amply demonstrated by the extreme havoc that the current administration has wreaked on the world. Therefore, even before Barack Obama's campaign, I, for one, was "fired up and ready to go" behind any Democrat who could at least put at stop to the "bleeding", so to speak.
My most significant previous foray into electoral politics was at the local level as well -- Jerry Brown's campaign for Oakland Mayor in 1998. In that campaign, Jerry refused any contribution over $100, made promises to nobody, but listened to everybody, and avoided a run-off by winning each and every precinct (save the home precinct of the runner-up) in the most racially diverse city in America against seven other candidates. One can argue one way or the other about Jerry's program once in office, but he served two terms, changed the face of what had been a down-at-the-heels town and was able to use his record there as a springboard for a successful run for California Attorney General.
But the most important lesson I took away from that experience is that it takes a special kind of candidate to actually pull off an insurgent, anti-big money, for-the-people campaign. There have been hundreds, if not thousands, of attempts across the country over the years, most of which failed. What is that special something? It's charisma.
And this is where we come to Barack Obama. Who can doubt his charisma? Tens of thousands flock to his speeches in all corners of the country. Hundreds of thousands donate to and volunteer for his campaign. Millions respond viscerally and immediately to his appeal. In my mind there are just a few political figures in modern American history that had a comparable appeal: John F. and Robert Kennedy, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. That's it. No one else.
But more importantly, this kind of charisma is pointless from my perspective without a program of real change behind it. Reagan and Clinton wasted theirs by and large on misguided reactionary conservatism or triangulation and personal pecadillos, respectively. But if Obama's career has been about anything, it's been about real, substantive political reform. After cutting his teeth as a community organizer working to involve disenfranchised people in the decision-making process in Chicago, he passed landmark ethics and lobbying bills in the Illinois State Legislature and in the United States Senate. The recent string of high-profile Republican retirements such as Trent Lott is due in no small part to the fact that after Jan. 1 of this year, they will no longer be able to lobby their old colleagues immediately after retirement because of legislation spearheaded by Obama.
As a Presidential candidate, he has refused to take money from PAC's and federal lobbyists, instead raising tens of millions through small donations and low-dollar fundraisers. His campaign strategy prioritizes grassroots organizing. His platform includes support for new initiatives on lobbying reform, transparency, honesty and accountability. Finally, buried in his brilliant speech at Google, is to my mind maybe the most important idea Barack has put forward yet.
Almost everyone I've ever talked to, whatever their political philosophy, believes the same thing. At all levels of government and in all parts of the country, those who are able to back candidates with significant amounts of money get to decide who those candidates will be and which ones will win. That being the case, those who are not able to "ante up" do not have a voice, and the objective merit of any particular course of action counts far less than the pure self-interests of those who have ante'd up. In my opinion then, the most fundamental project for any progressive movement, the thing on which all other progressive possibilities are contingent, is political reform.
With that reality and goal in mind, I and most of my friends/allies have "retreated" in a sense to grassroots, community-based politics outside of the electoral system where we use community organizing, independent policy advocacy and legal intervention in order to bring the "people's" voice into the decision-making process. At the local level, at least, it is possible to make elected officials accountable to the people, if only because we can physically get in the way of stuff and bring uncomfortable truths to the public light. But the limits of our myopic focus on local, grassroots political activities has been amply demonstrated by the extreme havoc that the current administration has wreaked on the world. Therefore, even before Barack Obama's campaign, I, for one, was "fired up and ready to go" behind any Democrat who could at least put at stop to the "bleeding", so to speak.
My most significant previous foray into electoral politics was at the local level as well -- Jerry Brown's campaign for Oakland Mayor in 1998. In that campaign, Jerry refused any contribution over $100, made promises to nobody, but listened to everybody, and avoided a run-off by winning each and every precinct (save the home precinct of the runner-up) in the most racially diverse city in America against seven other candidates. One can argue one way or the other about Jerry's program once in office, but he served two terms, changed the face of what had been a down-at-the-heels town and was able to use his record there as a springboard for a successful run for California Attorney General.
But the most important lesson I took away from that experience is that it takes a special kind of candidate to actually pull off an insurgent, anti-big money, for-the-people campaign. There have been hundreds, if not thousands, of attempts across the country over the years, most of which failed. What is that special something? It's charisma.
Charisma: A rare personal quality attributed to leaders who arouse fervent popular devotion and enthusiasm.Without charisma, the politician needs money to succeed. They can be independently wealthy or they can find the backing of people with money, but in either case, their ability to really confront the status quo has already been greatly compromised long before they get into office. It's an unfortunate reality of the times in which we live that something as ephemeral and superficial as charisma is a prerequisite for something as serious and substantial as political leadership, but I believe it to be true nonetheless.
- American Heritage Dictionary
And this is where we come to Barack Obama. Who can doubt his charisma? Tens of thousands flock to his speeches in all corners of the country. Hundreds of thousands donate to and volunteer for his campaign. Millions respond viscerally and immediately to his appeal. In my mind there are just a few political figures in modern American history that had a comparable appeal: John F. and Robert Kennedy, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. That's it. No one else.
But more importantly, this kind of charisma is pointless from my perspective without a program of real change behind it. Reagan and Clinton wasted theirs by and large on misguided reactionary conservatism or triangulation and personal pecadillos, respectively. But if Obama's career has been about anything, it's been about real, substantive political reform. After cutting his teeth as a community organizer working to involve disenfranchised people in the decision-making process in Chicago, he passed landmark ethics and lobbying bills in the Illinois State Legislature and in the United States Senate. The recent string of high-profile Republican retirements such as Trent Lott is due in no small part to the fact that after Jan. 1 of this year, they will no longer be able to lobby their old colleagues immediately after retirement because of legislation spearheaded by Obama.
As a Presidential candidate, he has refused to take money from PAC's and federal lobbyists, instead raising tens of millions through small donations and low-dollar fundraisers. His campaign strategy prioritizes grassroots organizing. His platform includes support for new initiatives on lobbying reform, transparency, honesty and accountability. Finally, buried in his brilliant speech at Google, is to my mind maybe the most important idea Barack has put forward yet.
Technology-enabled citizen participation . . . can help connect government to its citizens and engage citizens in a democracy. Barack Obama will use the most current technological tools available to make government less beholden to special interest groups and lobbyists and promote citizen participation in government decision-making. Obama will integrate citizens into the actual business of government by:This would be a subtle, yet profound revolution in the way governmental decisions are made in America. Barack is the person who can make that happen.
—Establishing pilot programs to open up government decision-making and involve the public in the work of agencies, not simply by soliciting opinions, but by tapping into the vast and distributed expertise of the American citizenry to help government make more informed decisions.
—Lifting the veil from secret deals in Washington with a web site, a search engine, and other web tools that enable citizens easily to track online federal grants, contracts, earmarks, and lobbyist contacts with government officials.
—Giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days before signing any non-emergency legislation.
-- http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/14/barack-obamas-google-friendly-technology-platform/
Saturday, November 24, 2007
A Proposal for Barack Obama on Illegal Immigration
There is a clear and present danger that the Republican Party will exploit illegal immigration in the 2008 Presidential election in the same way that they were able to ride the gay marriage issue to victory in 2004. Democrats are generally avoiding the issue, but when pressed, each of them professes support for "comprehensive immigration reform" that would combine stepped-up border security and workplace enforcement with an earned legalization program. For evidence that this response is unsatisfactory, one need look no further than the unprecedented public outcry that twice killed the exact same proposal in Congress. Even worse, that opposition was directed most specifically at the part of the proposal most closely associated with the Democrats - legalization.
The reality that Democrats seem unable to face is that any effort to normalize the status of illegal immigrants will alienate a huge portion of the electorate. Witness the fates of Gray Davis and Elliot Spitzer, both Democratic governors of deeply blue states, in the wake of their respective attempts to grant driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. Hillary Clinton's campaign was headed toward the safe shores of inevitability until her equivocating response to the driver's license issue opened a floodgate of criticism. Still smarting at the next debate two weeks later, she delivered a very UN-equivocal one-word response to the same question - "No" - and watched Barack Obama fall into the exact same trap. Given that these stumbles occurred in Democratic debates where none of the candidates is seeking to distinguish themselves on this issue, we can only imagine the pounding the Democratic nominee will take when faced with a Republican nominee like Rudolph Giuliani, who promises "tough" action on illegal immigration.
So the Democrats appear caught once again between a deeply held majority opinion and one of their core constituencies - this time Latinos. But all is not lost. I think that buried in the noise around this issue is a simple, elegant solution that a Democrat can wholeheartedly embrace. My suggestion proceeds from the very legitimate, universally accepted rationale behind comprehensive immigration reform: our legal immigration system is broken. Democrats are correct in advocating for a "fix" to this dysfunction. As mentioned above, however, normalizing the status of illegal immigrants currently in the country is not a viable solution. At the same time, an "enforcement-only" approach would wreak havoc on the Democratic coalition.
A better comprehensive immigration reform approach would be to replace the legalization plank with one in favor of substantially increasing the quotas for regular permanent resident visas. These are the famous "green cards" that do not require a sponsoring employer and allow their holders to work freely in the U.S. and, after five years, apply for full citizenship. Family reunification, potential to contribute to our economy and national diversity are already the priorities for these programs. Applicants are required to apply from their country of origin and known previous immigration violators are barred temporarily or permanently, depending on the nature of their offense.
Illegal immigrants, having voluntarily returned home, can apply for these visas, but with no special advantage or disadvantage. By significantly increasing the number of these visas available and improving processing times, however, many, if not most, current illegal immigrants would likely qualify and be able to quickly return to their communities with minimal disruption to their lives. Already, more of these visas go to Mexican immigrants than to those of any other nation. To the extent that their applications were unsuccessful, it would be in favor of similar applicants with even closer ties to America.
This proposal is neither amnesty nor mass deportation. By creating a powerful incentive for illegal immigrants to voluntarily repatriate and apply to enter legally, we would greatly reduce the pressure at the border and at workplaces. We would also, however, provide a true "path to citizenship" and a better life for many illegal immigrants without rewarding the fact that they broke the law. It would increase our ability to enhance our economy and society through our immigration policy. It prioritizes keeping families together. The proportion of citizens and permanent residents in immigrant communities would greatly increase, creating a host of benefits for them and for America. And it would actually fix to our broken system.
I sincerely believe that Barack Obama is uniquely situated to advocate for such a proposal. It does not directly contradict anything in his current platform and would reinforce his reputation for creating solutions that transcend the divisive and polarizing politics of the past. As a person of color and son of an immigrant himself, he’d be relatively immune to charges from immigrant rights extremists of racism and xenophobia. His charisma, integrity and character would allow him to initiate conversations with potential opponents that others couldn’t.
As a campaign strategy, taking a strong stand on ending illegal immigration would also allow Obama to increase his appeal to the blue-collar voters who have been slow to catch on to his candidacy to this point and who are key to a Democratic victory in the general election. Through his advocacy of increasing the quotas for family reunification visas, he would also be creating new opportunities to deepen his base of support in Latino, Asian and other immigrant communities. In the general election, he would put any Republican opponent on the defensive by forcing them to oppose legal immigration.
It is this final point that is most critical. Democrats should stand strongly for immigration when it’s done the right way – legally. Immigration is the story of America -- the vast majority of us proudly trace our ancestry beyond our borders. But so is the rule of law. Republicans who oppose even legal immigration would be exposed as the true xenophobes and racists that they are in utter contrast to everything that Barack Obama represents and everything that most Americans aspire to be. That can only be a win for my candidate.
The reality that Democrats seem unable to face is that any effort to normalize the status of illegal immigrants will alienate a huge portion of the electorate. Witness the fates of Gray Davis and Elliot Spitzer, both Democratic governors of deeply blue states, in the wake of their respective attempts to grant driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. Hillary Clinton's campaign was headed toward the safe shores of inevitability until her equivocating response to the driver's license issue opened a floodgate of criticism. Still smarting at the next debate two weeks later, she delivered a very UN-equivocal one-word response to the same question - "No" - and watched Barack Obama fall into the exact same trap. Given that these stumbles occurred in Democratic debates where none of the candidates is seeking to distinguish themselves on this issue, we can only imagine the pounding the Democratic nominee will take when faced with a Republican nominee like Rudolph Giuliani, who promises "tough" action on illegal immigration.
So the Democrats appear caught once again between a deeply held majority opinion and one of their core constituencies - this time Latinos. But all is not lost. I think that buried in the noise around this issue is a simple, elegant solution that a Democrat can wholeheartedly embrace. My suggestion proceeds from the very legitimate, universally accepted rationale behind comprehensive immigration reform: our legal immigration system is broken. Democrats are correct in advocating for a "fix" to this dysfunction. As mentioned above, however, normalizing the status of illegal immigrants currently in the country is not a viable solution. At the same time, an "enforcement-only" approach would wreak havoc on the Democratic coalition.
A better comprehensive immigration reform approach would be to replace the legalization plank with one in favor of substantially increasing the quotas for regular permanent resident visas. These are the famous "green cards" that do not require a sponsoring employer and allow their holders to work freely in the U.S. and, after five years, apply for full citizenship. Family reunification, potential to contribute to our economy and national diversity are already the priorities for these programs. Applicants are required to apply from their country of origin and known previous immigration violators are barred temporarily or permanently, depending on the nature of their offense.
Illegal immigrants, having voluntarily returned home, can apply for these visas, but with no special advantage or disadvantage. By significantly increasing the number of these visas available and improving processing times, however, many, if not most, current illegal immigrants would likely qualify and be able to quickly return to their communities with minimal disruption to their lives. Already, more of these visas go to Mexican immigrants than to those of any other nation. To the extent that their applications were unsuccessful, it would be in favor of similar applicants with even closer ties to America.
This proposal is neither amnesty nor mass deportation. By creating a powerful incentive for illegal immigrants to voluntarily repatriate and apply to enter legally, we would greatly reduce the pressure at the border and at workplaces. We would also, however, provide a true "path to citizenship" and a better life for many illegal immigrants without rewarding the fact that they broke the law. It would increase our ability to enhance our economy and society through our immigration policy. It prioritizes keeping families together. The proportion of citizens and permanent residents in immigrant communities would greatly increase, creating a host of benefits for them and for America. And it would actually fix to our broken system.
I sincerely believe that Barack Obama is uniquely situated to advocate for such a proposal. It does not directly contradict anything in his current platform and would reinforce his reputation for creating solutions that transcend the divisive and polarizing politics of the past. As a person of color and son of an immigrant himself, he’d be relatively immune to charges from immigrant rights extremists of racism and xenophobia. His charisma, integrity and character would allow him to initiate conversations with potential opponents that others couldn’t.
As a campaign strategy, taking a strong stand on ending illegal immigration would also allow Obama to increase his appeal to the blue-collar voters who have been slow to catch on to his candidacy to this point and who are key to a Democratic victory in the general election. Through his advocacy of increasing the quotas for family reunification visas, he would also be creating new opportunities to deepen his base of support in Latino, Asian and other immigrant communities. In the general election, he would put any Republican opponent on the defensive by forcing them to oppose legal immigration.
It is this final point that is most critical. Democrats should stand strongly for immigration when it’s done the right way – legally. Immigration is the story of America -- the vast majority of us proudly trace our ancestry beyond our borders. But so is the rule of law. Republicans who oppose even legal immigration would be exposed as the true xenophobes and racists that they are in utter contrast to everything that Barack Obama represents and everything that most Americans aspire to be. That can only be a win for my candidate.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
A Response to Tom Hayden's 'Appeal to Barack Obama'
A Response to Tom Hayden’s Appeal
Tom Hayden recently posted “An Appeal to Barack Obama,” wherein he criticized Barack’s statements in a New York Times Magazine interview rejecting the Vietnam-era framework of Scoop Jackson Democrats vs. Tom Hayden Democrats. Hayden accuses Obama of Clintonian triangulation and centrism in general and in particular with respect to the War in Iraq and the issue of race. He argues that Obama would be better served politically by appealing to the antiwar “Tom Hayden Democrats” who will predominate in the Democratic primaries and intellectually by engaging in “substantive thinking” instead of just looking for a point exactly equidistant from each extreme. He also believes that Obama is consciously downplaying to his detriment “the deepest rationale” for his candidacy -- his race.
In my opinion, for Hayden, Clinton and others of the Sixties generation, the urgency to end the ideological battles that have stymied political progress in America is just not the same as it for younger people. After thirty years of ideological warfare in Washington and elsewhere, the Baby Boom generation will be the first in American history to bequeath to its children a worse quality of life than they themselves enjoyed. On issue after issue, we have seen the failure of our governmental institutions to make even the most basic progress on the fundamental issues facing our nation.
As the lives of the rich and poor diverge ever more widely from each other, our very status as a First World nation seems in question. Even as the affluent few enjoy unprecedented wealth and luxury, far more of us are sinking deeper and deeper into a quasi-Third World kind of existence where the basic necessities of housing, education, health care and a clean environment are increasingly out of reach. Meanwhile, our foreign policy spreads hatred and violence around the world, creating new enemies for American by the millions.
I, for one, am willing to trade a little bit of ideological purity in favor of a President who will roll up his or her sleeves, bring people together from across the political spectrum and produce some tangible progressive change in the status quo. Yes, the war in Iraq was a huge and immoral crime against humanity and Barack is the only major presidential candidate who spoke out against it when it wasn’t popular to do so. Iraq, however, is not Vietnam. We all want to end the war, but you don’t have to be a Scoop Jackson Democrat in order to be in favor of pulling our troops out in such as way as to avoid creating a humanitarian disaster and/or breeding ground for anti-American hatred and terrorism in our wake.
Hayden also seems to think that Obama’s alleged centrism is somehow connected to a desire to deemphasize his race – supposedly the “the deepest rationale” for his candidacy. Again, Hayden portrays his inability to lift his consciousness out of the false dichotomies of the Sixties generation – this time in the realm of identity politics. Obama transcends the old dichotomy of black militant/Uncle Tom Negro in the same way that he transcends the antiwar/hawk paradigm. He hasn’t built his popularity amongst whites by opposing affirmative action, like a Ward Connerly or Clarence Thomas. But at the same time, he’s not an Al Sharpton either, running from one racial flashpoint to the next in order to express his “outrage” at the latest example of white racism. Although he has an excellent record of achievement on black causes such as racial profiling and death penalty reform, he doesn’t analyze every issue facing our nation through the prism of race. Most of all, he provides inspired and effective leadership to our nation that is informed but not proscribed by his experiences as a black man in America. That, for me, is the “deepest rationale” for Obama’s candidacy.
Obama’s blackness is, by itself, no rationale at all for his becoming President. This is not to say that race has nothing to do with it. I’m sure that Obama’s racial consciousness probably contributed to his decision to forsake a cushy life on Wall Street in order to become a community organizer on the Southside of Chicago and, later, a civil rights lawyer. The fact that he successfully represented the Southside for two terms in the Illinois State Legislature indicates to me that he understands and can be an effective advocate for the needs and concerns of black constituents. I believe I can honestly state, however, that if a white, Asian or Latino candidate emerged with the exact same record, platform and abilities as Obama, I would be equally excited about his or her campaign.
I would invite Mr. Hayden and others of the Sixties generation to try to put aside the old litmus tests and take a good look at what Obama has stood and fought for throughout his career. His platform and record with respect to every progressive cause is there for all to see. Yes, he has the ability to reach across the aisle, but it’s because he triangulates himself to the center; it’s because he listens and finds common ground in order to move forward a progressive agenda. His campaign eschews money from federal lobbyists and has directed considerable resources into grassroots political organizing in disenfranchised communities.
It is only through some magical combination of luck, charisma and timing that someone like Barack even has a remote chance at winning – a set of circumstances that I don’t expect to see again in my lifetime. Progressives would be making huge mistake, in my opinion, to ignore the Obama campaign because he’s not perfectly ideologically aligned with them on every single issue and does not want to replay the battles of past decades. This is the best chance we’ve had in a generation to bring about real progressive change at the federal level in America. Let’s take advantage of it!
Tom Hayden recently posted “An Appeal to Barack Obama,” wherein he criticized Barack’s statements in a New York Times Magazine interview rejecting the Vietnam-era framework of Scoop Jackson Democrats vs. Tom Hayden Democrats. Hayden accuses Obama of Clintonian triangulation and centrism in general and in particular with respect to the War in Iraq and the issue of race. He argues that Obama would be better served politically by appealing to the antiwar “Tom Hayden Democrats” who will predominate in the Democratic primaries and intellectually by engaging in “substantive thinking” instead of just looking for a point exactly equidistant from each extreme. He also believes that Obama is consciously downplaying to his detriment “the deepest rationale” for his candidacy -- his race.
In my opinion, for Hayden, Clinton and others of the Sixties generation, the urgency to end the ideological battles that have stymied political progress in America is just not the same as it for younger people. After thirty years of ideological warfare in Washington and elsewhere, the Baby Boom generation will be the first in American history to bequeath to its children a worse quality of life than they themselves enjoyed. On issue after issue, we have seen the failure of our governmental institutions to make even the most basic progress on the fundamental issues facing our nation.
As the lives of the rich and poor diverge ever more widely from each other, our very status as a First World nation seems in question. Even as the affluent few enjoy unprecedented wealth and luxury, far more of us are sinking deeper and deeper into a quasi-Third World kind of existence where the basic necessities of housing, education, health care and a clean environment are increasingly out of reach. Meanwhile, our foreign policy spreads hatred and violence around the world, creating new enemies for American by the millions.
I, for one, am willing to trade a little bit of ideological purity in favor of a President who will roll up his or her sleeves, bring people together from across the political spectrum and produce some tangible progressive change in the status quo. Yes, the war in Iraq was a huge and immoral crime against humanity and Barack is the only major presidential candidate who spoke out against it when it wasn’t popular to do so. Iraq, however, is not Vietnam. We all want to end the war, but you don’t have to be a Scoop Jackson Democrat in order to be in favor of pulling our troops out in such as way as to avoid creating a humanitarian disaster and/or breeding ground for anti-American hatred and terrorism in our wake.
Hayden also seems to think that Obama’s alleged centrism is somehow connected to a desire to deemphasize his race – supposedly the “the deepest rationale” for his candidacy. Again, Hayden portrays his inability to lift his consciousness out of the false dichotomies of the Sixties generation – this time in the realm of identity politics. Obama transcends the old dichotomy of black militant/Uncle Tom Negro in the same way that he transcends the antiwar/hawk paradigm. He hasn’t built his popularity amongst whites by opposing affirmative action, like a Ward Connerly or Clarence Thomas. But at the same time, he’s not an Al Sharpton either, running from one racial flashpoint to the next in order to express his “outrage” at the latest example of white racism. Although he has an excellent record of achievement on black causes such as racial profiling and death penalty reform, he doesn’t analyze every issue facing our nation through the prism of race. Most of all, he provides inspired and effective leadership to our nation that is informed but not proscribed by his experiences as a black man in America. That, for me, is the “deepest rationale” for Obama’s candidacy.
Obama’s blackness is, by itself, no rationale at all for his becoming President. This is not to say that race has nothing to do with it. I’m sure that Obama’s racial consciousness probably contributed to his decision to forsake a cushy life on Wall Street in order to become a community organizer on the Southside of Chicago and, later, a civil rights lawyer. The fact that he successfully represented the Southside for two terms in the Illinois State Legislature indicates to me that he understands and can be an effective advocate for the needs and concerns of black constituents. I believe I can honestly state, however, that if a white, Asian or Latino candidate emerged with the exact same record, platform and abilities as Obama, I would be equally excited about his or her campaign.
I would invite Mr. Hayden and others of the Sixties generation to try to put aside the old litmus tests and take a good look at what Obama has stood and fought for throughout his career. His platform and record with respect to every progressive cause is there for all to see. Yes, he has the ability to reach across the aisle, but it’s because he triangulates himself to the center; it’s because he listens and finds common ground in order to move forward a progressive agenda. His campaign eschews money from federal lobbyists and has directed considerable resources into grassroots political organizing in disenfranchised communities.
It is only through some magical combination of luck, charisma and timing that someone like Barack even has a remote chance at winning – a set of circumstances that I don’t expect to see again in my lifetime. Progressives would be making huge mistake, in my opinion, to ignore the Obama campaign because he’s not perfectly ideologically aligned with them on every single issue and does not want to replay the battles of past decades. This is the best chance we’ve had in a generation to bring about real progressive change at the federal level in America. Let’s take advantage of it!
Friday, September 28, 2007
Blog Purpose and Why the Left is Wrong on the Iraq War
Hello World!
Or more accurately, the part of the world that is reading this . . . which is likely to be something close to zero . . . for now.
But hopefully, this blog will eventually find its desired audience: well-meaning American progressives and liberals who are open to new ideas about what the "left" side of the political spectrum should be doing right now.
If you are satisfied with the progressive and liberal agenda as well as the strategies and tactics being used to carry it out, then, by all means, click on . . .
. . . but the rest of us, this blog will hopefully contribute to a new discussion and, ultimately, new directions in thought and action.
This blog reflects a belief that if we need new thinking on the left in order to more effectively bring about the social, economic and political changes that we are seeking.
I think most of us would agree on much of what those changes would look like: ending poverty and building a prosperous middle class; maintaining a healthy and vibrant natural environment; achieving true racial and ethnic justice and equality; making sure that all Americans are able to access high-quality health care, education and housing without being driven into bankruptcy; an American foreign policy that supports peace, human rights and sustainable development. I could go on for pages, but I really think that there’s more consensus here than most of us realize.
We also know that there are very powerful forces within our political/economic system who oppose that agenda. The middle class has been shrinking, while the rich get richer and the poor get more numerous. Multinational corporations rape our national environment at an exponentially increasing rate. Health care, education and housing are being priced out of the budgets of more and more Americans every year. America’s foreign policy has by and large been an agent of war, injustice and poverty more often than not.
But most importantly, however, for purposes of this blog, is that I believe that any objective observer would have to conclude that the progressive and liberal agenda described above has been, for the most part, losing out to the agenda of the rich and the powerful since the ascendancy of the conservative movement to national power with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.
And, I would argue, this trend of the last three decades stands in sharp contrast to the trend of most of the decades before it starting with the Progressive Movement and then the New Deal incredible positive changes were being fought for and won in American society. The incredible expansion of the middle class and reduction in poverty, the establishment of great national parks and innumerable local ones, racial integration of schools and public accommodation, quality health care, education and housing becoming affordable to more people than ever before and America leading the world in gigantic wars against the tyranny and oppression of Nazism and Authoritarian Communism.
So the fundamental questions, for me at least, are: Where did we go wrong and what can we do to get back on track?
I don’t pretend to have all of the answers. That’s the beautiful thing about a blog – it can be used to stimulate a discussion so that answers can come from a variety of sources. But I have given this topic a lot of thought and study and I think that I have some valuable points to add to the discussion. But the point that I feel most sure about is that we aren’t having enough of these kinds of discussions. We keep beating out heads against brick walls trying to move them.
I’m hoping that this blog will convince enough of us to step back for a moment, look at the brick wall, realize that beating our heads against it will not cause it to crumble down before us, and begin to map out a strategy for going around or over the wall without losing our way.
At one level, this is a very theoretical discussion about ideology and pragmatism, democracy, etc., but I will try to embed that discussion within discussions of immediately relevant topics, i.e. topics that can be impacted upon right now. This is not an academic exercise. Wars are being prosecuted in our names, important elections are impending. We need to stay current and we need to put our beliefs into action whenever possible.
In that vein, I will start with what I would consider to be the two biggest political issues currently facing the left in American: the Iraq War and the fight for the Democratic Presidential nomination.
Why the Left is Wrong on the Iraq War
The left correctly opposed the Iraq War from its inception. President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq is the worst foreign policy decision made by a President in U.S. history, one for which we will be paying a heavy price for decades to come. It was a completely immoral and illegal action for which President Bush and other members of his inner circle should be prosecuted as war criminals.
But . . . for us to now be pushing for a withdrawal from Iraq in the face of that country’s mounting humanitarian crisis might just be even more immoral. I think this position is a huge error in judgment that the left will regret within two or three years.
Wait! Before you click away and swear me off as just another Bush apologist, just let me lay out a couple of simple arguments that I believe are really pretty reasonable.
First, it’s not a stretch of the imagination to believe that the level of sectarian violence in Iraq is inversely proportional to our troop presence there. That is to say, the more troops we have on the ground over there, the fewer dead bodies.
Although the numbers presented by General Petraeus to the U.S. Congress, if they are to be trusted, would tend to bear this out, you don’t have to believe him on this. Every knowledgeable person, both within the military and outside of it, told us that for us to properly secure Iraq after an invasion would require 500,000 to 600,000 troops.
That number isn’t a wild guess. It’s a direct extrapolation of the number of troops sent by President Clinton to secure the peace amidst another ethno-religious sectarian civil war: Bosnia. Almost a decade after then of that war, there are still 20,000 multinational troops policing a smaller population than the city of Los Angeles.
If that basic, quite reasonable assumption turns out to be true, it would follow that as we begin to pull out our troops, the dead bodies of the innocent will begin to pile up in the streets of Baghdad at an increasing rate. What will we do then? Would we just turn a blind eye and tell the Iraqi people not to blame us because we never voted for Bush?
And keep in mind, many of the most visible advocates for a troop withdrawal, including Senator Hillary Clinton the leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination (more on that later) voted to authorize this war. Colin Powell’s warning to President Bush before the war (“If you break it, you own it”) applies with equal force to a Senator who made it possible by voting for it. But even for those of us who opposed it from the start and never did anything to help it, as Americans we’re still responsible for it.
Yes, there are those who say nobody knows what will happen if we leave and in any case, it is our troops themselves who are the instigators of much of the violence over there and as we leave, the violence will subside. I think that’s plausible, but my point is, I wouldn’t bet on it. It’s far more likely that the violence will rise as we try to pull out and we’ll be faced with exactly the choice I’ve described above: continue the pullout amidst a mounting humanitarian crisis and possible genocide or go back in try to keep the peace.
While I would agree of course that none of this would be occurring had we never invaded, I think it’s folly to bet that now that we’ve totally ruined their country, that we can now leave and everything will just go back to the way it once was. The plain fact is that the Iraqi government does not have the ability to secure the safety of the Iraqi people. I don’t know that there is anybody who doubts that.
Letting the nation partition itself into autonomous tribally-policed ethnic enclaves is no solution either. There are mixed marriages in Iraq. There are Shiite families who lived for generations in Sunni areas, and vice-versa. In any case, who on the left would accept a totally segregated Iraqi society as our only lasting legacy on that nation?
Come on people! We may not like President Bush and everything that he stands for. We can even say that he wasn’t even rightfully elected. We can say that he acted illegally, without proper authorization, outside of the Constitution, but the fact remains that what he did was done in our name and we are now responsible for it. We owe the Iraqi people whatever we can give them in the way of safety, security and the reconstruction of their society along lines not dominated by tribal and ethnic division.
The thing is, I’m pretty sure that ultimately, the left is going to realize this and we could very easily see, soon after a Democrat takes office in the White House in 2009, a total switcheroo of sides on Iraq, with the Democrats wanting to stay in order to avoid a humanitarian crisis and the Republicans urging a pull-out. It’s not so crazy . . . that was exactly the posture of the two parties with respect to Bosnia and Somalia.
Unfortunately, however, that reversal may cause so much chaos and confusion on the left that it might set our cause back for decades. It would be the ultimate “flip-flop,” an even worse reneging on a campaign promise than the first Bush’s “read my lips” fiasco.
I think the only principled position that we can take right now is that we are committed to doing whatever it takes to bring about an end to the chaos and violence afflicting Iraqi society and deliver a program of reconstruction that at least returns them to where they were before we invaded. If that can be done effectively by reducing our troop presence and pulling out completely, great! But if it proves to be the case that we cannot do so without keeping our troops there and/or sending even more troops, then unfortunately that is our moral responsibility.
OK, that’s it for now. If anyone somehow finds this, I’d love to har your comments. The next entry will be my endorsement of Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination. And no, I’m not a paid staff member of any political candidate or party. It’s just one person’s opinion that Barack Obama could be our generation’s FDR.
Or more accurately, the part of the world that is reading this . . . which is likely to be something close to zero . . . for now.
But hopefully, this blog will eventually find its desired audience: well-meaning American progressives and liberals who are open to new ideas about what the "left" side of the political spectrum should be doing right now.
If you are satisfied with the progressive and liberal agenda as well as the strategies and tactics being used to carry it out, then, by all means, click on . . .
. . . but the rest of us, this blog will hopefully contribute to a new discussion and, ultimately, new directions in thought and action.
This blog reflects a belief that if we need new thinking on the left in order to more effectively bring about the social, economic and political changes that we are seeking.
I think most of us would agree on much of what those changes would look like: ending poverty and building a prosperous middle class; maintaining a healthy and vibrant natural environment; achieving true racial and ethnic justice and equality; making sure that all Americans are able to access high-quality health care, education and housing without being driven into bankruptcy; an American foreign policy that supports peace, human rights and sustainable development. I could go on for pages, but I really think that there’s more consensus here than most of us realize.
We also know that there are very powerful forces within our political/economic system who oppose that agenda. The middle class has been shrinking, while the rich get richer and the poor get more numerous. Multinational corporations rape our national environment at an exponentially increasing rate. Health care, education and housing are being priced out of the budgets of more and more Americans every year. America’s foreign policy has by and large been an agent of war, injustice and poverty more often than not.
But most importantly, however, for purposes of this blog, is that I believe that any objective observer would have to conclude that the progressive and liberal agenda described above has been, for the most part, losing out to the agenda of the rich and the powerful since the ascendancy of the conservative movement to national power with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980.
And, I would argue, this trend of the last three decades stands in sharp contrast to the trend of most of the decades before it starting with the Progressive Movement and then the New Deal incredible positive changes were being fought for and won in American society. The incredible expansion of the middle class and reduction in poverty, the establishment of great national parks and innumerable local ones, racial integration of schools and public accommodation, quality health care, education and housing becoming affordable to more people than ever before and America leading the world in gigantic wars against the tyranny and oppression of Nazism and Authoritarian Communism.
So the fundamental questions, for me at least, are: Where did we go wrong and what can we do to get back on track?
I don’t pretend to have all of the answers. That’s the beautiful thing about a blog – it can be used to stimulate a discussion so that answers can come from a variety of sources. But I have given this topic a lot of thought and study and I think that I have some valuable points to add to the discussion. But the point that I feel most sure about is that we aren’t having enough of these kinds of discussions. We keep beating out heads against brick walls trying to move them.
I’m hoping that this blog will convince enough of us to step back for a moment, look at the brick wall, realize that beating our heads against it will not cause it to crumble down before us, and begin to map out a strategy for going around or over the wall without losing our way.
At one level, this is a very theoretical discussion about ideology and pragmatism, democracy, etc., but I will try to embed that discussion within discussions of immediately relevant topics, i.e. topics that can be impacted upon right now. This is not an academic exercise. Wars are being prosecuted in our names, important elections are impending. We need to stay current and we need to put our beliefs into action whenever possible.
In that vein, I will start with what I would consider to be the two biggest political issues currently facing the left in American: the Iraq War and the fight for the Democratic Presidential nomination.
Why the Left is Wrong on the Iraq War
The left correctly opposed the Iraq War from its inception. President Bush’s decision to invade Iraq is the worst foreign policy decision made by a President in U.S. history, one for which we will be paying a heavy price for decades to come. It was a completely immoral and illegal action for which President Bush and other members of his inner circle should be prosecuted as war criminals.
But . . . for us to now be pushing for a withdrawal from Iraq in the face of that country’s mounting humanitarian crisis might just be even more immoral. I think this position is a huge error in judgment that the left will regret within two or three years.
Wait! Before you click away and swear me off as just another Bush apologist, just let me lay out a couple of simple arguments that I believe are really pretty reasonable.
First, it’s not a stretch of the imagination to believe that the level of sectarian violence in Iraq is inversely proportional to our troop presence there. That is to say, the more troops we have on the ground over there, the fewer dead bodies.
Although the numbers presented by General Petraeus to the U.S. Congress, if they are to be trusted, would tend to bear this out, you don’t have to believe him on this. Every knowledgeable person, both within the military and outside of it, told us that for us to properly secure Iraq after an invasion would require 500,000 to 600,000 troops.
That number isn’t a wild guess. It’s a direct extrapolation of the number of troops sent by President Clinton to secure the peace amidst another ethno-religious sectarian civil war: Bosnia. Almost a decade after then of that war, there are still 20,000 multinational troops policing a smaller population than the city of Los Angeles.
If that basic, quite reasonable assumption turns out to be true, it would follow that as we begin to pull out our troops, the dead bodies of the innocent will begin to pile up in the streets of Baghdad at an increasing rate. What will we do then? Would we just turn a blind eye and tell the Iraqi people not to blame us because we never voted for Bush?
And keep in mind, many of the most visible advocates for a troop withdrawal, including Senator Hillary Clinton the leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination (more on that later) voted to authorize this war. Colin Powell’s warning to President Bush before the war (“If you break it, you own it”) applies with equal force to a Senator who made it possible by voting for it. But even for those of us who opposed it from the start and never did anything to help it, as Americans we’re still responsible for it.
Yes, there are those who say nobody knows what will happen if we leave and in any case, it is our troops themselves who are the instigators of much of the violence over there and as we leave, the violence will subside. I think that’s plausible, but my point is, I wouldn’t bet on it. It’s far more likely that the violence will rise as we try to pull out and we’ll be faced with exactly the choice I’ve described above: continue the pullout amidst a mounting humanitarian crisis and possible genocide or go back in try to keep the peace.
While I would agree of course that none of this would be occurring had we never invaded, I think it’s folly to bet that now that we’ve totally ruined their country, that we can now leave and everything will just go back to the way it once was. The plain fact is that the Iraqi government does not have the ability to secure the safety of the Iraqi people. I don’t know that there is anybody who doubts that.
Letting the nation partition itself into autonomous tribally-policed ethnic enclaves is no solution either. There are mixed marriages in Iraq. There are Shiite families who lived for generations in Sunni areas, and vice-versa. In any case, who on the left would accept a totally segregated Iraqi society as our only lasting legacy on that nation?
Come on people! We may not like President Bush and everything that he stands for. We can even say that he wasn’t even rightfully elected. We can say that he acted illegally, without proper authorization, outside of the Constitution, but the fact remains that what he did was done in our name and we are now responsible for it. We owe the Iraqi people whatever we can give them in the way of safety, security and the reconstruction of their society along lines not dominated by tribal and ethnic division.
The thing is, I’m pretty sure that ultimately, the left is going to realize this and we could very easily see, soon after a Democrat takes office in the White House in 2009, a total switcheroo of sides on Iraq, with the Democrats wanting to stay in order to avoid a humanitarian crisis and the Republicans urging a pull-out. It’s not so crazy . . . that was exactly the posture of the two parties with respect to Bosnia and Somalia.
Unfortunately, however, that reversal may cause so much chaos and confusion on the left that it might set our cause back for decades. It would be the ultimate “flip-flop,” an even worse reneging on a campaign promise than the first Bush’s “read my lips” fiasco.
I think the only principled position that we can take right now is that we are committed to doing whatever it takes to bring about an end to the chaos and violence afflicting Iraqi society and deliver a program of reconstruction that at least returns them to where they were before we invaded. If that can be done effectively by reducing our troop presence and pulling out completely, great! But if it proves to be the case that we cannot do so without keeping our troops there and/or sending even more troops, then unfortunately that is our moral responsibility.
OK, that’s it for now. If anyone somehow finds this, I’d love to har your comments. The next entry will be my endorsement of Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination. And no, I’m not a paid staff member of any political candidate or party. It’s just one person’s opinion that Barack Obama could be our generation’s FDR.
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