Patriotism = Lapel Pin

I've been meaning to post more on the subject of how we have come to gauge patriotism on whether someone wears a lapel pin. Barack Obama has been savaged by the Right because he doesn't always wear a flag pin on his lapel. This is one of those dumb, really dumb manufactured issues that has nothing to do with one's love of country.

During that ABC "debate" a voter asked why Obama didn't wear a pin. The voter mentioned that first responders and soldiers wear one on their uniforms, why not the Senator? ABC's moderators also wanted to know why. That was a curious sort of hypocrisy considering no one on that stage was wearing one. But, here's my thoughts on that issue:

Soldiers and First Responders wear the US Flag as part of a uniform- they do not have the right to opt out of having that flag there. My question is does that flag make them any braver? Do Firefighters run faster into a burning building knowing they have the flag on their unis? Does the flag help a cop stop a crime when she is off duty and out of uniform? Is a soldier less brave if the flag is torn from his BDUs?

We have members of Congress that place a flag pin on their lapels daily. They then proceed to cut funding to vital US interests, like education and the VA. They block voting on important legislation and point the finger across the aisle. They give watch companies move offshore, then help lobby for those same companies to get vital government contracts.

I don't wear a lapel pin, yet I pay my taxes and do my best to educate the next generation of Americans. I love my country, and that love is not diminished on bit by my not wearing a pin.

We need to move past symbols, and get back to asking questions that really matter.

Pennsylvania Perspective

I watched MSNBC last night for commentary on the Pennsylvania Primary. As usual, Pat Buchanan was obnoxious- he is the ONLY commentator that feels the need to interrupt others. Why do the hosts of these shows not call him out on that??

The general meme that emerged was that Superdelegates should be worried that Obama cannot win the big Electoral College states like PA. Obama cannot put Hillary away. This is a HUGE problem for the Democratic Party. Obama is weak and suffered from Wright's comments and his own bitter comments. Panic in the streets!!

Rachel Maddow, who deserves her own show on MSNBC, put things in perspective. I will echo her comments, and add my own. Rachel reminded everyone throughout the night that Pennsylvania was the perfect Hillary state. The demographics fit her- older, white, blue-collar voters. The Democratic Party (read old-style machine) was backing Hillary from Day One. I'll go even further- Hillary Clinton had every advantage over the rest of the field in this election cycle. She not only has the Clinton name, but she has Bill's organization. Hillary has had years to plan for this primary. She had the time to fortify the organization that Bill built in the '90s. The Clinton name still has a lot of weight within the party. Hell, if it were not for Obama, I would probably be a Hillary supporter. I, like so many others, remember the Clinton Years and want it back. True that these next Clinton Years would be Hillary Clinton Years, but I thought Bill would still be around. As this process started, I realized that Bill's time was over, and this new Clinton may not be the same person (duh). It is exactly the advantages of organization, name recognition, and time that led Hillary to having a 20 point lead over Obama in PA just six weeks ago, and it is here that I truly depart with Russert, Buchanan, et al over what Hillary's victory means.

If Obama had a 20 point lead over Hillary six weeks prior to a state primary, and he only won by 10 points, what would the headlines read? Would the media see that as a big victory? Hillary had all the advantages going in. She even continued her "kitchen sink" attacks on Obama. Jeremiah Wright's comments, Bittergate, and charges of elitism were thrown at Obama. Given those attacks and a 20 point lead, Hillary should have blown Obama out by at least 20 points. Instead, she got away with a 10 point win. Now, 10 points is nothing to sneeze at, but when you are down 150+ pledged delegates, 10 points doesn't work in your favor. Chuck Todd tried to make that very point last night. His analysis was that the battle for pledged delegates is over- Hillary has lost that fight. She can still catch Obama on popular vote, and then make the case to Superdelegates that she can win the big states versus McCain.

That last part- Hillary can beat McCain in big states because she beat Obama. Non-sequitor Hillary! The majority of new voter registrations are for Dems. Unless these new voters are actually Republican sleepers, they will vote for the Democratic Nominee. Hillary's victories in California and Texas were secured mainly through early voting, with many of the new voters and last minutes decisions going to Obama. That says that while Obama was still relatively unknown (see above), as his campaign got rolling, more people have been drawn to him. Pennsylvania and Ohio were exceptions to this- the majority of PA voters that decided very close to the primary went with Hillary.

A view of The View

Elizabeth Hasslebeck of The View is a Republican Talking Points Action Figure (Batteries not included). She claims to have been an early supporter of Obama, but the other day said she was interested in him early on- in other words, who's this guy running and what reason can I have not to support him. Now she claims that due to the words of Rev Wright, she cannot support Obama.

After McCain's last visit to the show, the ladies got into a heated discussion about Joy's comment that McCain was too much like Bush. Elizabeth got hot and defended him, but could no more than parrot McCain's comments that he and Bush have many differences. The idea came up that McCain was very much like Bush because he associated himself with Bush. Elizabeth then proceeded to say that if that's the case, then Obama is very much like Rev Wright because he associated himself with Jeremiah Wright. Elizabeth refused to admit there might be a difference in the two associations.

When the subject of Cindy McCain's plagiarism of recipes from the Food Network came up, Elizabeth donned her cape and flew to poor Cindy's rescue. Elizabeth reminded everyone that Obama "plagiarized " parts of his stump speech from Duval Patrick, and since it was just words, it was no big deal that Cindy McCain was stealing recipes and calling them her own. Again, no admission of differences.

Lastly, Joy brought up Cindy McCain's addiction and theft of medications from her charity. Elizabeth immediately defended Cindy by saying that she had done so much good in her life that they should overlook that incident. She even went so far as to mention the McCains' adoption of a little girl from Indonesia. Yep, that same little girl who was the subject of a Karl Rove whispering campaign during the 2000 Republican Primary.

The problem I have is Elizabeth has consistently overlooked facts that would support her overlooking the incidents of Democrats, while trying to protect Republicans. She certainly forgot that both Obama and Patrick share ideas and themes. Patrick and Obama also don't mind sharing lines from speeches, so this is not what Joe Biden did in 1988 by any means. These are friends and yes Obama should have on every occasion given Patrick credit for his words. Now, Obama borrowing stump lines from a close colleague surely cannot be viewed in the same light as someone taking recipes from the Food Network and calling them their own. If it was a matter of calling them "Recipes our family enjoys" then that would not be as bad without citing the source of the recipes.

Elizabeth is quick to try to bludgeon Obama with Jeremiah Wright's words. She, like the majority of the media, is quick to reduce 36 years of Pastoring into 20 seconds of negative sound. Rev Wright has probably said some other things that could be taken the wrong way, but if the media was really interested in finding out, they would get recordings of Wright's sermons and listen. Elizabeth is willing to overlook the good he has done with and through TUCC and toss him under the bus because it suits the Republican cause.

Debt and Taxes

In this country, we have removed the links between debt, spending and taxes. Bush was adept at the notion of "Debt doesn't matter", and because of this, we are financing the war in Iraq, the Stimulus Package, and other spending through more debt. We went from a surplus to debt overnight, and Republicans have not said a word. In fact, they have gladly gone along with this bankrupting of our country. Who's buying our debt, and how will they use it?

McCain wants to permanently install Bush's tax cuts, but he doesn't say how he will pay for it. (Debt) Yet, in the ABC Debate, the hosts drilled Clinton and Obama about tax increases. Yes, I agree with Hillary that taxes have a place, and Bill's tax strategy helped get us out of debt. We need to have a honest discussion on how our next president is going to reduce our national debt. Obama hit on it by saying that we're racking up debts that our grandchildren won't be able to pay.

Sorry Ass Debate

ABC News should be ashamed. During its hosted Democratic Debate from Philadelphia tonight was a complete waste of time. Okay, complete waste of time is a bit of an overstatement. ABC and it's hosts proved Senator Obama's points regarding the poor state of political discourse in America. It also proved the point he has made time and again about distractions being thrown up to divert us from discussing real issues. Look at the choice of questions for the first HOUR:

Bitterness
Rev. Wright
Rev Wright's love of America
Flag Lapel Pins
Bosnia
Economy (finally)

Notice a pattern? The hosts seemed to be carrying water for both John McCain AND Hillary Clinton. These are not the issues that most of us really care about. In addition, on the question of taxes, neither host seemed to recognize, or acknowledge, that the the need to eliminate debt or what the average American makes in this country.

The price of cheap(er) Gas

What if United States domestic policy was helping fuel food riots and higher costs around the world? There was a small Ethanol Subsidy in Iowa for several years. You could buy Ethanol-blended gas (89 Octane) for less than 87 Octane Regular Unleaded gas. In the last couple of years, the idea of Biofuels has caught on and we are now saddled with a much larger subsidy.

As a result, the price of Corn has gone from approximately $2/Bushel to a high near $6/Bushel. This price increase means farmers are now more inclined to grow Corn for Ethanol Production, than say Corn for Consumption or Feed. This is only part of the problem that the media is starting to examine. Increased demand and Weather-related incidents are making for a perfect storm of storages in basic food stuffs. Check out Dan Froomkin's round-up here. We are paying the price for not developing this technology sooner. Brazil started its research after The Arab Embargo in the '70s.

More Bitter Blues

No, I cannot let this go- I'm bitter dammit!! We have heard a lot about what Barack Obama said in a closed-door fundraiser in *gasp* San Francisco of all places. What if there was another perspective on the comments that the media can't let go? Read David Coleman's piece on Huffington Post.

The party's over and the guests won't leave

What happens if you have a party and the guests won't leave? Start a fire? Call the police?

While everyone in DC was going at each other about whether to leave Iraq, under what conditions we could start to withdraw, and whether it was in OUR best interest to do so, a lone voice spoke the truth. Iraq's Prime Minister al-Maliki said that US forces could be withdrawn starting now. Who listened? Damn near no one. Like two parents arguing over what a child wants, no one hears the child what he wants. Now, I'm not calling Iraq, the Iraqi people or the Iraqi government children. I'm saying the exact opposite- they are people who can and should control their own destiny (again).

If the government of Iraq, in the form of the Prime Minister is saying "Last Call, you ain't got to go home but you got to get hell out of here," then we ought to pack our stuff and go. If Bush gave a hoot about us, the Iraqis and the troops, he'd declare victory (because Maliki said we can go- the are standing up so we can stand down) and bring our people home.

Hell, I'm still bitter!!

Big Steel decided to face competition from Japan, then Korea, and etc by NOT modernizing or changing business plans, and crying to government for help. Protections helped business leaders in Steel draw more money out of the industry, and then walk away when things fell apart. Who got hurt? The workers that were caught in the collapse.

When Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, it didn't matter that whether people evacuated or not, they got the shaft from Insurance Companies as well as their government. To add insult to injury, the government gave no bid contracts to companies that in turn recruited and hired immigrants to do some of the rebuilding, instead of letting the people who lived there do the work. The difference was in pay- it was cheaper to hire others to do the job, and save the money for profits. Who gets hurt? The people that lost everything, and got nothing in return.

Hell, I'm Bitter too!

Barack Obama commented that people in small towns are mad, frustrated and bitter that government (politicos they elected) have done nothing about the loss of jobs, and instead fed them excuses like "Hey, those illegals are the reason jobs haven't returned." Despite the fact that Gays, Guns, and Religion had nothing to do with the losses, they are the "red meat" issues politians have given the populous to chew on. Obama has said this before in 2004, but the differences are 1) he was more eloquent the first time, 2) he was new to the Senate (won the election but not sworn in), 3) wasn't running for President, and 4) didn't have Clinton, McCain and a bored Media at his back.

Now people are not so much arguing against his point that things are going well for some of us, they are upset by the characterization via the word bitter. McCain and Clinton have called Obama out of touch and Elitist for speaking the truth. This latest controversy is like the others aimed at Obama- much about nothing. Even the people are starting to catch on and not buy the BS. While I don't have a link to CNN's Jack Cafferty, his comment was something to the effect of "even someone like me, who barely graduated high school , can see that Obama was not attacking small town Americans." Facts be damned, Hillary forges ahead with criticism of Obama's comments. Clinton and McCain are proving to be the Elitists here. McCain's plan for dealing with the Mortgage mess was to blame everyone equally and let people sink or swim on their own. Two weeks later, he ran from the plan. Hillary's plan was fair, but she did not anticipate this crisis, and in turn, criticized Obama's plan as timid, despite the fact that he was
requesting action from Bush a year ago.

Hale Stewart has a good blog explaining bitter. If you don't get it, bitter has been around a while. In previous election cycles "Angry White Males", "Reagan Democrats", and other groups could easily have been characterized as bitter. Bill Clinton called them insecure. The word bitter does describe some people- people who see the price of Food, Energy, Transportation, Housing and everything else rising much faster than their salaries- that's 99.999% of us by the way.

America does not torture

No, we just use enhanced interrogation techniques.... Wait, you mean that those soldiers from West Virginia whom the administration tried and convicted were NOT the originators of torture??? The President expressed grave concern that he was left out of the loop.

The Decider goes to Capitol Hill

Yeah right. President Bush has set himself up as the Decider-in-Chief, yet he sends underlings to testify and say that there will be no troop withdrawal. It amazes me that the Decider whose leadership on Iraq has been called bold refuses to well, be bold and venture up to visit the entire Congress. Bush met with "key" members of Congress (read Republican lapdogs), then held a press conference to announce that *surprise* that troop levels will remain the same and everything is good. Then he has the audacity to say that losing in Iraq is the only thing that can destroy morale.

If Bush really believed that what we are doing in Iraq is right, he'd make that bold move and go to the Hill and run a special session, answering any and all questions with none of that "I have secret information I cannot share with you BS". Well, I guess DICK's comment makes that impossible.

Iraq Hearings

Last week, Gen. Petraeus and Amb. Crocker were testifying before Congress about conditions in Iraq. There were a few of things that struck me about their testimony:

1) They both talked of the fragile gains that have been made in Iraq. These gains were spoken of in less glowing terms used by Bush. Bush talked about a new Iraq in 2006, while Crocker and Petraeus talked of a country on the verge of collapse. Bush again *shock and surprise* lied about the conditions on the ground.

2) Petraeus and Crocker have to toe the company line if they like their jobs. How many generals and appointees have been fired, retired and forced out for saying that Iraq was less than a paradise. To me, this means their testimony has to be discounted. Petraeus did come close by saying that victory is far off.

3) Even though Bush claims to listen to the Generals, he really only listens to the ones that say what he wants to hear.

The power of the Blog!!

I've been overwhelmed with work, work, work, family and work. There have been several things that I've had every intention of blogging about, but usually those thoughts happen around 3:30am, and I'm working (more on that later) or sleeping.

I'll attempt to catch up now...

40 years later....

Martin Luther King, jr was assassinated 40 years today. People across the country are remembering this day. I was too young to remember what happened (almost three at the time), so instead of commemorating the day, I will say more about race.

40 years ago, Republicans, particularly Conservatives hated King. People like Pat Buchanan felt that King was a fraud and a con man. Others, like J Edgar Hoover, thought he was a subversive out to destroy America. Given his mission at the time of his death, some African Americans felt he was turning his back on his calling by supporting striking garbage workers in Memphis.

Today, Conservatives sometimes argue that King would not support Affirmative Action. Pick your jaw up off the floor, man. The argument goes like this:

"In his I have a dream speech, Dr. King speaks of people being judged by the content of
their character not the color of their skin."

They also like to portray Dr. King as a dreamer. A great Orator who had a vision for an ideal America that moved beyond racial preferences.

That is a nice try. Dr. King had a vision for America, but he rooted that vision in the hard reality of his time. He stated:

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

Those are the words of a man who knew that he was viewed as less than human, that his wife and children were viewed as less than, and that if this country was to move forward, it would need to acknowledge the anger and frustration felt by a people systematically held back for no other reason than a social construct called race. Those are the words of someone who expected, demanded more of his country.

Here we are 40 years after this man's death. Read the speech here and tell me again how inflammatory the words of Jeremiah Wright are.

Right back at you Pat

In my previous post, I linked to Pat Buchanan's piece on Race. That piece was supposed to answer Barack Obama's speech on race from Philly. To me, Pat's screed did much more than provide an answer from an angry White American, it also showed why Obama's follow-up discussion about his grandmother.

Obama did an interview and basically said his grandmother was a typical White person of her time. The Right twisted this into Obama saying his grandmother was a typical White person- implying that Obama was saying that the typical White person is a bigot. I say bigot because racist implies not just a prejudice, but power to act on that prejudice. The big distinction is that his grandmother is older, and from a time when calling an African American a nigger, boy, girl or darkie was as acceptable as calling that person by her/his name. That was a time not long after D.W. Griffith's Birth of A Nation, portrayed African American men as savage rapists looking to have their way with any White woman unlucky enough to be alone with them, and African American women as wanton sexpots ready at all times for all interested. In that climate, one born in Slavery and perpetuated in Post-Slavery America, Obama's grandmother grew up. That she feared/fears African American men is a function of her upbringing.

Pat Buchanan attempted to tap into that White anger that Obama mentioned. Is White anger real? As real as Black anger. The period between Reconstruction and The Civil Rights movement is approximately 100 years (1865- 1969). During that time, African Americans were still virtual slaves in some parts of America. The right to vote was continuously and violently denied. Black men were jailed and subsequently lynched for the offense of reckless eyeballing a White woman. This law was used to: 1) force Black men to not look White women in the eyes, and 2) eliminate African American businesses by having shop owners arrested for such an offense. The Tulsa Riot in 1921 was sparked by the supposed attack of a white woman (see the official report from 2001).

Buchanan was quick to point out that African Americans commit rape against Whites at a rate 100 times greater than Whites against Blacks. So, I was curious because I have heard that before and was never able to find those statistics. Check out the FBI website here. Googling black on white crime statistics shows articles and discussions like this, but little clue as to where these statistics were generated. I went to the Bureau of Justice Statistics and did not find data to support Buchanan's claim. I did find this little piece of information here: For 2005, "About seven in ten female rape or sexual assault victims stated the offender was an intimate, other relative, a friend or an acquaintance." This does not support what Buchanan attempts to imply about Black on White crime. Furthermore, the FBI's Uniform Crime Report does not include information on the race of victim versus offender. Does Pat's information come from discussions and sites like this? The Department of Justice does publish the National Crime Victimization Survey. Buchanan claims Whites are 100 times likely to be raped by Blacks than vice versa, yet the NCVS for 2001 (a year he cites) shows that the chance is less than twice as likely. The data is also skewed because the survey is based on the perception of the attackers race. Look here on Table 42.

Buchanan is looking to do what republicans have done for years- scare the voters into doing something. Well Pat, a lot of people have been pushed into doing something for the last eight years, and they are really tired. You proved Obama's point, pundits will try to distract us from looking and discussing real issues, and you my friend, are trying hard, but no prize.

The Tangled Web of Race

Chris Matthews had Senator Obama on Hardball tonight. Matthews asked Obama what it was like to be a black kid with a white mother. It reminded me of a comment that Ted Koppel made on ABC's Nightline- that race is a social construct designed to create a support a heirarchy based on skin color. The mixing of White with anything nonwhite is viewed as contamination. It means a White woman can bear a black child, but a Black woman can never bear a white child.

While Obama took on addressing the issue of race and trying to make a case for the anger felt by both Whites and Blacks, our boy Pat Buchanan proved Obama was so right- in a most ironic way. You can read Pat's screed here.