Texts From My Father

I'm going to give you a brief introduction to my dad. My father is a person who, on the same day he gave me a copy of The True Believer and emphatically insisted I read it, happily displayed the new "Proud Tea Party Member" hat he received at the county fair.

So that pretty much covers everything you need to know for this.

I'd wanted the first time I wrote about Dad for These Gentlemen to be the story of how just this summer we went to a ball game together for the first time. It was going to be part of a larger sports-related post I've been working on for awhile, talking about making a dedicated effort to follow a team this summer, tying it back into my mentioning of the Orioles in my post about Otakon, and making a number of other observations and witticisms. Oh, it was going to be a great post. It'll still come, eventually. After yesterday afternoon happened though, it's taking a back seat.

I woke up yesterday morning to find I'd received a text message from my dad, with the following instructions. "Watch CSPAN2 1030AM this morning, discussion to follow."

My first impulse was immediately to just send back "sorry, don't have TV in the dorm," but for whatever reason, I decided to check CSPAN's website and sure enough, there's a live stream of all their programming. I looked at my schedule for the day. Reading, some volunteer work, and then maybe working on that aforementioned sports post. It was already after 10, nothing I was going to do was going to get started in the next 15 minutes. I waited until 10:30 rolled around and saw that there was some book talk going on, with an author deceptively named John Goodman touting his plan for health care reform. I watched the brief interview, sent my dad a text reading "anyone who says we should open up insurance across state lines is arguing for universal health care and doesn't realize it," and left it at that.

Then, compelled my reasons unknown to me, I kept the stream open. A reflexive groan escaped my lips as the segment ended and the next speaker came on. Dinesh D'Souza, talking about his new book, where he lays out exactly what a second term for Obama would look like. I decided to listen for awhile, but turned it off as soon as he broke out the "you didn't build that" line everybody with any kind of anti-Obama agenda has been ripping out of context for the last month or so. Man, I was glad my dad wanted me to see the book guy and not D'Souza.

So yeah, the next text I got back was "What? Did you see D'Souza?"

Just to sum up, D'Souza's latest argument is that the President has shaped his entire life and ideology through his father, whom he met once, 40 years ago. Not only that, but that his father had a friend who was an anti-colonialist (and Obama never met him at all), and so this friend influenced Barack Sr., who in turn influenced the President, and so now he's a rage-filled anti-American socialist who wants to tear down society. You know, I totally get that from his speeches, I don't see why so many other people don't hear it. The crux of D'Souza's contention comes from the fact that Obama titled the memoir he wrote about Barack Sr. Dreams From My Father. By saying "from" instead of "of," D'Souza posits, he means he's . . . you know what, it's easier at this point to just say D'Souza's entire argument is preposition-based and leave it at that.

What followed was a back-and-forth with my father I found noteworthy enough to record for posterity. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did.

Easing Into Pain

I didn't start feeling the tragedy in Tucson until last night. I don't know why it took me so long, but it did. And it took other people's words to do it.  Maybe I'm so used to hearing about it; so terribly used to only just getting emotionally past a national tragedy when another happens, that I'm numb.  According to The Toilet Paper (my most reliable source of interesting information), there were seventy-nine mass shootings (defined as four or more victims) in the United States between 2007 and 2009. Seventy-nine mass shootings in two years, in one stable, first world country.  That is so much bad news to take in, so often.  It's no wonder I'm desensitized to the plight of my countrymen.

I pride myself in being an overly sensitive person.  I can count on my hand the number of times I've killed bugs that weren't actively attacking me.  I don't hurt things or people, and when things or people are hurt, even if I don't know them, my heart breaks afresh every time.  Or it used to.  I would like to think it still does, because I feel it now. I feel the loss of those poor people in the Safeway parking lot, and for their families.  For the husbands who jumped in front of their wives, for the parents of that little girl at an age that I remember so well, for the fiancee of the young man, who can't even claim the badge of widow-hood.

It took others' words to do this to me, though. I was fully prepared to flit through the headlines like it was just another tragedy, as if something like that exists. Every tragedy is a complete and utter tragedy, and I almost forgot that, in the midst of my busy, fairly self-involved life.

First I read an account from one of my bloggers that I read regularly, Becca, and then I read our President's words in Tucson today.  Both shook me out of my indifference; one of them made me cry.  There is nothing I can do for these strangers in Tucson except feel their loss, and do all I can to send more love into the world, into the collective unconscious, and into my own daily life.  So I guess that is what I will do. And encourage you to read the same words I read, and do the same.

Fallacies

I am upset about tax cuts.

The tax cuts recently agreed to by the Obama Administration received some minor concessions by Republicans, chief among them the extension of unemployment benefits for a still-out-of-work America.  What they agreed to do in exchange, however, was extend Bush-era tax cuts, even for the wealthiest Americans, for another 2 years.

How are we going to pay for this?  How does the Republican party possibly justify at this point the idea of trickle-down economic theory, when it was following 8 years of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans that our markets entered this recession?  They like to say you can't spend your way out of a recession, but even if that wren't completely inaccurate, you can still raise money in it.  The tax cuts already given to us by the Obama Administration have been the largest cuts in history - over $282 billion dollars in taxes were lifted from the public over the last two years.  That's more relief to the middle class and working Americans than any President before him has given.  If the economy hasn't recovered yet, then cutting taxes more isn't going to help.

Let's just get it out in the open - the looming debt crisis in the country is going to continue getting worse, and for all their talk about wanting to make sure they solve this problem and don't pass it down to our children and grandchildren, the government has done practically nothing to make sure that is more than simple rhetoric.  I fully expect that 10 years from now, we will still be grappling with our greivous budget deficits and trade imbalances.  If there were better ideas, better ways of moving forward, they're being shot down now in the name of "bipartisanship."

What does the President hope to gain by caving in to Republicans yet again?  Is he so willing to compromise and find a middle ground that he'll go as far as to give the other side of the aisle everything they ask for and call it cooperation?  The message being sent right now is that it is to the advantage of the minority party to completely obstruct the positions of the majority party and then blame any failure to act or push through major policy on their shortcomings.  Unless our political gridlock is broken, that will be the model of governance we have moving forward.

The term that applies here is The Fallacy of the Middle Ground.  Middle ground is often sought because of the idea that, in any given argument, the correct option is somewhere in between the two opposing sides.  President Obama has tried to make it a touchstone of his Presidency that he reach across the aisle and work with Republicans to include them in creating of legislation.  The response has been to hinder any forwarding of any Democratic policy at every turn, no matter how beneificial it may be to the country.  Their policy is "Just Say No" to each and every bill that comes down the pipe should it have the names of any Democrat on it or any relation to the Obama Administration agenda.  Does that sound like responsible politics?  Does that sound like the example a minority party should be setting?

No, and that's the fallacy.  Sometimes one side is absolutely wrong and the other is absolutely right.  The Republican party is absolutely wrong in the way they have chosen to conduct themselves for the last two years, and if Barack Obama wanted to make any kind of lasting impression in his Presidency, he should have moved forward without them.  What happened instead was that they moved further and further right, and then insisted he meet them in the middle.  Whatever accomplishments he has had in the course of his first term, they are overshadowed by his utter failure to play the political game and repeated public defeats at the hands of opponents he keeps trying to make friends with.

Of course, the response by Democrats has largely been to blame as well.  That's another issue here - their reaction to the obstructionist policy of the Republicans has been equally as wrong.  They've fought amongst themselves and against the President, and attempted to distance themselves from Obama and show that they're "conservative Democrats."  The response of the public to that idea during the midterm elections was pretty clear - if we want a conservative, we'll just elect a real one.  So rather than responding to a united front with another united front, with superior numbers, they fractured and split and only aided the Republicans in making them look like buffoons. 

This approval of tax cut extensions for the wealthiest Americans is just an example of what the next 2 years will look like if there's not some kind of movement in the Democratic - or Republican - party to say "wait, no, this isn't helping America, this is bad for our citizens, and riding the party line isn't going to get anything done to get people back at work." 

You know why Americans are out of work right now?  Because we're shipping jobs overseas at a record pace, and concentrating our efforts on recovering them.  The problem with that is that these are the jobs that we built our country on 60 years ago, and the countries taking them are just now catching up to where we were then.  We should be putting our effort into innovation and discovery, into creating the next wave of new jobs to employ millions of Americans like manufacturing jobs did for decades.  Yes, we should put effort into retaining the old jobs while we still need them, but not to the exclusion of building a future for America instead of clinging to its past and complaining about its present.  The Republicans are big on telling you that before we do anything else we need to focus on jobs and the economy.  How many of them have offered anything to back up that statement in the way of actual solutions?  And "cut taxes, reduce spending" does not count.

So yeah, I'm angry.  I'm angry at our President, I'm angry at our major political parties, and I'm angry at the portion of the population nodding their heads and saying "yes, this is how the Republicans should act."  I'm angry we elected a President that promised discourse and togetherness conceding point after point in order to force the appearance of cooperation. 

Sometimes, Mr. President, you don't negotiate, or make deals, or try to reach aross the aisle.  Sometimes you say "no, I am right, I will explain to you why I am right, and I will make sure everybody knows I am right, and if you are not with me on this I will move forward without you."  You make your case, you bring it to the people, and you argue for it, only making concessions if a legitimate point against you is raised.  Once you pick a battle, you see it through to the end.  I know you're not perfect, but you should be better than the fallacy of the middle ground.  That middle ground is a chasm that you keep falling deeper into.

I'm also angry that politics continually drive me to make long, rambling posts expressing my frustration.  But I have standards I hold my elected officials to, and I refuse to compromise on them.

Republicans and The Great Unemployment Screw

House Republicans blocked unemployment extensions.

This is a very bad thing.

Here's why in a super-tiny nutshell (more details and numbers here - also the source of the image above - and here): in a recession, there are fewer jobs than there are job-seekers. (We've been making improvments, but not enough yet.) This means that without unemployment, many many qualified workers - not deadbeats, mind you, but people who are simply victims of the numbers imbalance - will be pretty well and screwed.

These folks may cease to be able to pay mortgages or rents, cease to be able to buy significant amounts of food, and so forth. This money therefore does not go to the retailers and renters who depend on their customers and rentees. It's a domino effect of badness. The Congressional Budget Office recognizes how bad things would have been had we not had UI extensions previously.

Compare this to the tax cuts for the wealthy which the Republicans want to keep (while saying that we "can't afford" the UI extensions) - the wealthy tend to sit on their money, and that which they spend may well go to foreign countries via strange tax loopholes and business ventures or plain old vacations and importing. Regular joes who are unemployed spend much more locally.

I was unemployed for several months in 2009-early 2010 and again late this summer. The money I got from the government (some of which was unemployment extension from Congress), where did it go? Why, to groceries. Local dining. Gas. Rent. Utilities. Student loans. Household items. Local entertainment (largely theatre, which was then most likely spent by those artists on groceries rent etc.). Health insurance via COBRA. A car repair or two. I carefully balanced my budget to make sure my expenses did not excede my unemployment payments, so that I could keep my savings for luxuries or emergencies (I only ending up using about $200 of them). The point is - nearly every penny of the money the government sent to me went straight back into the economy. (By the way, most of these purchases did also incur sales tax, and the businesses I and those liked me helped support pay taxes, too.)

Now, the economy wouldn't work whatsoever if the government just took money from the working people, gave it to the non-working people, and expected that this money would then go back to the working people when it's spent on groceries. Someone has to generate the money in the first place.

The important thing here - the one super-important thing to remember is:
THERE ARE NOT ENOUGH JOBS FOR EVERYBODY.

During my unemployment, I applied to two jobs a week minimum. I took my time crafting those applications, customizing the cover letters, etc. It didn't matter. If there are dozens of qualified people applying for the same jobs, then dozens-minus-one of them are not going to get it. Period.

In this original post about my unemployment (which cooked up quite a little localized Internet firestorm, albeit with typical talking points) (and which I never realized was getting so many responses at the time - I should learn to watch for comments more closely), I mention how the prospect of going to work at Starbucks was not a pleasant one. Two things I neglect to point out in that post: one, Starbucks does not have infinite jobs to offer for unemployed knowledge workers/college graduates. Neither do Walmart or anyone else. During a recession, all the unemployed middle-managers and artmakers and decently-paid office peons (myself being in the latter two categories) can't just all suck it up and move over to Starbucks and Walmart. Especially because some of them couldn't feed their families or keep their houses on Starbucks wages (whereas unemployment gives them enough to do so). Nor can little part-time jobs always fill the gap, because some people - like me - can't afford health insurance without employer assistance or a significant paycheck ($350 of my unemployment checks went to my insurance, plus deductibles), and can't go without insurance for health reasons.

(The thrust of my original post was more complex than that, and, as a late response to those that misread it, was mainly critical of myself. The point of that post was to examine the psyche of someone in my position, not to argue for or against unemployment insurance. This post you're reading now is arguing for unemployment insurance.)

(Additional note - I am currently employed, thanks to our very own b.graham and ali d. Networking trumps both brute force resume-carpet-bombing and tactical cover-letter-strikes.)

Simply put: if you think that, during a recession, leaving the unemployed high and dry will either lead them to get off their lazy asses and get work, or at least give them their due punishment for being freeloading bums, you're wrong. (Even if, reading my previous post, you deem me to be in the lazy-freeloading category, there are millions who definitely are not.)

In a recession, preventing the bankruptcy and poverty of the qualified-but-unemployed prevents the recession from worsening and allows the economy to recover while maintaining quality of life. When the recession is over, that's when you get tough on the expense of unemployment and start looking for deadbeats.

In conclusion: letting these benefits expire does no good for anybody. The government only saves money in the immediate sense; in the long run, tax incomes are hurt, economies weakened, and everybody loses.

So the Republicans are either total hypocrites ($830 billion for tax cuts to the rich okay, $12.5 billion for UI extensions not okay!) - practically bald-faced in their commitment to robbing the poor to feed the rich - or they're stupid.

Or there's a third option (not incompatible with the other two): the Republicans may realize this is all a bad thing, and are doing it anyways, because the only thing that matters is making Obama lose in 2012. It's for the good of the country!

Postscript: It should be noted that the extension bill isn't necessarily scuttled yet; but it's unlikely that it'll get altered to the Republicans' liking before it expires on November 30, thanks to the Thanksgiving holiday. Give some serious thanks!

Guess It's Politics Season Here at TG

Dear Maryland-Politician-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named-Because-You-Know-Exactly-Who-You-Are:

When you tell me, through the TV of course because why would you call me I'm not your friend, not to worry because if I vote for you you won't raise my taxes, that is exactly when I start to worry.  Because I may not be the best numbers girl (in fact I might actually be the worst), but I'm pretty sure we're still in a capital-R Recession.  And it seems to me that no matter which state of the union we're in, there's a yawning, creaking budget gap between what we have, and what we need. So. There's that.

And yes, yes, I heard the part where you said you would close said budget gap by trimming the bureaucratic fat, so to speak.  But what does that mean? Because if it means, "Hey, we know we waste a lot of money so we're going to have our special team of government accountants go through every line of the budget to see where all our money goes and hope to God we've overlooked some million-dollar pen purchases (because, er, we probably have)," then I'm all for it. 

But I can't help but suspect that you really mean, "Hey, we know we waste a lot of money so we're going to shut down arts and welfare programs because those guys don't vote, and also no one cares about them."  

This worries me.

So I wanted to let you know that I vote, and I care.  Granted, I care that my taxes actually go to something rather than being borne into the ether by virtue of the first stimulus bill, but I also care if my lack of taxes is going to shut down yet another high school art department, or yet another nursery for drug-addicted infants.

I care about that a lot.  And I vote about it, too.

So I just felt you should know.  Your advertorial comfort almost single-handedly lost my vote. (That, and the fact that for some reason you think gay marriage is a ridiculous notion not fit for the great state of Maryland.)

Thanks, and I'll see you next voting season,

B.Graham

Independents and Undecideds

We have an election coming up. I know this because a DNC person just called me asking for a large donation. Also there's been a bit of media coverage of the election here and there. Sporadic really. I couldn't tell you who is running in Deleware, they just don't seem to be getting any media attention.

But seriously, elections like this bring up an area that bothers me about politics. Undecided voters, who tend to be in that grand Montana-sized political space we call "independent." How is it possible to really stay undecided for so long into the political season. Let's say you are a normal person and have perhaps 5 issues that you care about: abortion, education, defense, guns and immigrants. I would bet you that whatever you feel on these issues lines up pretty closely with one of the political parties. You could be pro-choice, pro-public schools, against the war, for gun control but really dislike immigrants. And in that case I would bet you're gonna vote for the more liberal/democratic candidate. It's that easy. Or, if immigration is your absolute main concern above all else (dey tuk ur jerbs!), then you'll vote Republican.

I can understand people having evolving belief systems. You're raised in a very religious family but then give up religion in college and you find yourself voting more liberal. Or you move to a rural area and your views on guns and freedom (oh "freedom" that vague and wonderful word) changes markedly. These are possibilities and you folks aren't the problem.

But let's go back to Deleware. You have Ms. O'Donnell and Mr. Coons running for Senate. If you have even a basic opinion on any issue, it's pretty damn easy to pick one of the two sides. One is anti-masturbation and one is pro. There's pretty much no possible way that your list of issues splits 50/50 between the Democrat and the Republican in this race. When Nader made snide remarks in 2000 about Bush and Gore being the same candidate, it was pretty stupid. But you'd be a nutjob to think that both of these folks would do the same thing if they got to Washington. And even without a Palin Jr. running for every seat, the Tea Party has helped to make the chasm between one side and the other absolutely, gapingly huge.

So if you're really having trouble making up your mind in this upcoming election ... well maybe just sit this one out.

Disillusioned

I wrote this post three times and deleted all three drafts.

Each one was radically different than the others, despite trying to say the same thing each time. Each time I looked at it and said to myself "wow, this is straying really far from my original point."

Because my point, the only point I want to make, is that I used to believe in John McCain and now I don't. Up until this point I've ignored or excused his erratic behavior, but I've hit my limit of what I can tolerate. He's not a good man, he's not a good public servant, and he's not the person I thought he was.

The breaking point was, of course, McCain's continued filibuster of the move to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Because when you see on a hiring line that the government enforces a policy of non-discrimination regardless of race, gender, ethnic origin, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, physical disability, or age, they're holding that standard to everybody but themselves. You can't serve in the military and be openly gay. I had really hoped McCain was above this. It turns out he is far below.

Looking back on it, I've probably been fooled by the man's persona for a long time. Like many, I believed he took a strong stance against the things he believed to be morally wrong without caring about the consequences to his career. After all, he sponsored McCain-Feingold, which went against the conservative grain and tried to reform campaign finance. He's come out time and again stating that he believes in climate change and our need to combat it. He voted against the Bush tax cuts which squandered the Clinton-era surplus long before the war ever started. I really thought we had a guy here we could count on. I thought, given the chance, this guy would honestly change things.

If I had been paying better attention, I probably would have realized that he was more than a little duplicitous when he stuck so strongly by President Bush's side despite the fact that during the 2000 primaries, Bush was totally a dick.

I mean, seriously.

I might have thought more about it when Bush decided in 2006 that while signing McCain's bill on torture, he'd decide personally what did and didn't constitute torture and McCain didn't raise a word of protest. It might have stuck out a little more when he voted against a bill which would ban same-sex marriages in 2005, and then had on his website in 2008 that he believed marriage was only between a man and a woman and would appoint judges who felt the same if elected. If I hadn't been so taken with the idea that this guy was a reformer, a real, honest-to-God bi-partisan centrist who was concerned with doing what's right instead of what's easy or good for his career, I might have found it more than a little strange when he marched down the streets in Iraq and proclaimed them "safe," neglecting to mention that he was with an escort of over 100 U.S. soldiers at the time.

But it's hard. This man was my hero.

I don't have a lot of male role models in my life. Up until I was 16, if I needed guidance on what kind of man I wanted to grow up to be, I had to look either to my Uncle or Spider-Man. In 1999, the only thing I knew about politics was that Clinton was leaving office after giving America a lot of money and new definitions for "sex" and "is." Then John McCain shows up and wants to be President, and it seems to me for all the right reasons. Bush to me had the charisma of a goal post, which made him roughly twice as charismatic as Al Gore. I didn't care about them - I wanted this guy. He was passionate, driven; he really wanted to speak to my generation and make sure America, and its government, kept working for us.

In 2004, John McCain said this during an interview with MTV regarding Don't Ask, Don't Tell:

"There's many of us who are not comfortable with this issue, and I'm one of them. Primarily because I hate to see legislation and government involved in people's lives. ... But society is changing. We now have a don't-ask-don't-tell policy in the military. When I first came into the military, that would never have been possible. Society is evolving. Whether it's evolving for better or for worse, I'll let someone else make that judgment."

This gave me hope. Because when you're a public official, you don't have to like a policy - in fact, I'd say it's not part of your job to agree with everything sent your way. You just have to assess if it is what the people want. Vocal opponents of Don't Ask, Don't Tell would probably jump on McCain for not condemning the policy outright with this statement, but you know what? He shouldn't have to. What he's saying here is regardless of how he feels, society is changing and, whether he thinks it's right or wrong, it's his job to serve the American people, and the majority of Americans are against the policy.

So even as an old man, presumably set in his ways, he was not going to use his position to exert his wishes over those of the American people.

And now he filibusters the vote to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell. He filibusters not because he's trying to support the troops, since there are obviously tens of thousands of armed servicemen and women he's distinctly not supporting. Not because he thinks it's the will of the American people, they've clearly spoken out in favor of repeal. He's doing it because his Senate seat is up for grabs and he wants to make sure he earns the Republican nomination, so he's sticking up hard for the party line.

In 2008, when John McCain had a chance at becoming the President, I stood behind him. I believed in him, and whenever anyone pointed out his dramatic shift in tone, I brushed it off. "He's just pandering to the conservative base so that he'll get elected," I would tell them. "Once he gets into office he'll go back to his old self." Even though he lost, largely, in my mind, due to his choice of Sarah Palin as a running mate, his concession speech seemed to confirm everything I thought. Obama won, he lost, now it was his job to help the President any way he could, because that was the will of the people.

I was wrong.

The reason I deleted my other drafts is that I spent so much time trying to dig up all the good McCain had done that I meandered completely away from the point. I did this because I wanted to balance what I was saying with examples of how he was a great guy before. But his filibuster finally makes me wonder if that was ever really the case.

Don't Ask, Don't Tell violates the first and fifth amendments of our Constitution. And remember, this is a step forward from pre-Clinton years; Reagan described homosexuality and military service as "incompatible." Why would anyone stand up in support of violating an American's rights, especially a member of our military? Why would anyone stand up to prevent such a violation from being repealed? And asking those questions inevitably leads me to more questions.

Why would McCain suddenly support a fence along the border, blaming illegal immigrants for home invasions and murders? This completely reverses years of opposition to rhetoric which blames immigrants for our problems.

Why would McCain not make a comprehensive statement on his plans to protect Social Security during his 2008 campaign, when he did during 2000?

Why would McCain support an anti-abortion agenda, and then vote No on a bill which would have given $100 million to reduce teen pregnancies through education and contraceptives in 2005?

Why would McCain attack a plan to cut Medicare and Medicaid spending by $491 billion in 2009 when his own 2008 campaign ran on a platform which would have cut over $1.3 trillion?

Why would he pledge to vote "No" on Obama's stimulus plan unless the tax cuts from the Bush era were made permanent - the same cuts he voted against in 2000?

Why would McCain emphasize so strongly his desire to work with the President, support the President, and help make America stronger with the President, healing the red/blue divide in this country, only to become his most vocal critic and opponent?

Because . . .

Because he's not a hero.

He's not an arbiter of change.

He's just a politician, doing what politicians do. Trying to appeal to his base of solid voters to make sure he keeps his job for a few more years. And now that is actively hurting the troops he's claimed to support so actively all this time.

And I have to ask myself, in the midst of all this, what if it was unpopular amongst McCain's base to be Jewish? What if they demanded Jews not be allowed to serve openly in the military? Would McCain stand in front of Congress and say that it's for the good of the troops that no one who's Jewish be allowed to observe while in the armed forces? If that was the party line being taken, would I watch John McCain on the Senate floor filibustering an attempt to enforce the first amendment?

Like he's doing right now?

And in answer, yeah, I probably would, because there's no reason to think McCain would be any different in anti-Semitic America than he is in homophobic America.

I thank John McCain for his years of service to this country during Vietnam. That is where my gratitude for his work ends. Because now I can't tell if all the work he did in the Senate was legitimately for the good of this nation or just the good of himself. Shame on you, McCain, for failing to support our troops in favor of supporting yourself. Shame on you, McCain, for choosing to oppose the rights of Americans because your Senate race was a little tougher than usual this year. Shame on you, John McCain, for costing me my role model.

I wanted to be just like John McCain. I wanted to stand in front of Congress and demand we do the right thing. I wanted to be this dynamic persona who reached across party lines when he needed to because as much as he believed in his own convictions, he believed in helping America more. I wanted to be the one who changed things, who made a difference, who never backed down from what was right even if being pushed down upon by a sea of wrong.

So thank you, John McCain. Because I've decided I still will be. I'll be everything you pretended to be, everything you are not.

And one day in the future, when some young boy or girl looks to our government for a hero, I will not let them down.

Is A Jew Supporting the "Ground Zero Mosque" A Traitor?

Mr. Mark Williams,

In your article here and in your response to Mr. McMorris-Santoro quoted in his article here, you apparently decided that Jews who support the so-called "Ground Zero Mosque" should be called Judenrat.

(For those unfamiliar and who didn't go and read the linked articles, before I go on, the Judenrat were the Jews living in the Nazi ghettos who snitched and reported on their fellow prisoners, and essentially sold out their neighbors to the Nazis. Also, I am myself a Jew, although my argument has nothing to do with that fact.)

Mr. Williams, this is an inaccurate comparison, because it makes one assumption:

It assumes that the Muslims building the "Ground Zero Mosque" are our enemy.

They are not.

(As it has repeatedly been pointed out, <LindaRichman> the "Ground Zero Mosque" is neither at Ground Zero, nor really a mosque... discuss amongst yourselves </LindaRichman>. The official name is Park51, since people raised a stink about calling it "Cordoba House.")

The problem we have, and have been having, on a large scale and for the past several years, is that we equate the radical Muslims with all Muslims. The radical Muslims - they are our enemy, they are anti-Semitic, and murderous, and all those other bad things. But first of all, they are hardly Muslims; the Koran preaches peace and goodwill just like the Christian Bible (and assuredly has some less-than-modern morals just like the Christian Bible). Islam is not vastly different from Christianity or Judaism in the grand scheme of things; it just has some different wallpaper. The differences between radical Muslims and moderate Muslims are greater than those between moderate Muslims and moderate Christians and Jews. If we could get beyond our prejudices - the natural reaction of "That's so foreign!" whenever we see Muslims with their strange, alien prayer methods and forms of dress and their typically differently-colored skin - we could see that.

We should not be shunning and spitting at the Muslims founding this Center. They are our friends. What we should be doing is embracing them, saying, "Hey, radical Muslims of the world! Look here! Here are the true Muslims, and we are proud to call them friends. You see, it is we - the moderate, peace-loving of the world - who are united against you, the hate-mongers and the opportunists."

This is not what we are doing, or at the very least, this is not the message we are sending out because the All-Muslims-Are-Bad folks scream the loudest. This is counter-productive. Radical Muslims and moderate Muslims are not a hair's-breadth apart. Suggesting they are barely distinguishable is like saying you or I are barely distinguishable from the Unabomber or the Oklahoma City bomber because we are all Americans. We are vastly different, we just happen to live within the same nation. And so with the Muslims - the moderate and radicals just happen to be within the same (metaphorical) nation, and it's one considerably vaster than America, for that matter. It does nobody any good to lump all those moderates in with those few extremists; all this achieves is driving the dispossessed and unhappy moderates into a state where they can swallowed up by the extremists.

We should want to hug close the vast, moderate mainstream of Islam, that wide swath that includes the likes of the liberal Iranians whose secular lifestyle is almost identical to the typical American middle-class one (remember the Twitter thing?) and, of course, the many good-citizen decent-folk Muslims living in America, who, again, would be indistinguishable from typical Americans except for some differences in skin color and cultural heritage.

There is no way to justify lumping all the Muslims together without resorting to racism and prejudice. And here is the important part: There is also no way to justify saying the Center should be scrapped because its in "bad taste" without implying that we are incapable of distinguishing honest, true Islam from radical, in-name-only Islam. This should be, as they say, a teaching moment. We should be teaching the world, each other, and ourselves that love of peace, community, education, communication and tolerance are better umbrellas under which to lump together disparate peoples than the name and minimal trappings of a vast religion.

In other words, this would be an excellent opportunity for we, Americans and Jews, to re-define our concept of Muslims - to perhaps even invent a contrasting pair of terms more specific and simple than the generic modifiers "moderate" and "radical" - such that we can talk about either group of Muslims without having to spout disclaimers all the time. Imagine if we referred to the extremist so-called Muslims who are more interested in power, oppression and control of the legacy of the Koran as "Jihadists." (This would not be accurate given the definition of the word within Islam, but it's evocative for Americans, at least, and I can't do any better at the moment.)

It was Jihadists who attacked the World Trade Center - not Muslims. Muslims, like any regular Christians or Jews, are merely interested in practicing their own religion and living their own life and being, you know, normal - they don't attack people. Jihadists attack people, and they did. Jihadists caused 9/11 - Muslims want to build a Center nearby. Wait, where's the problem there? It's Group A and Group B.

We have everything to gain from doing our best to separate and distinguish the totally fine, normal everyday Muslims from the out-there violent evil quote-"Muslims"-unquote. Our aim should be to extricate the Muslims from the complicated universe of ties that connect them to the Jihadists, not to treat them as tainted.

I am not a Judenrat because I support the foundation of Park51. You, Mr. Williams, are giving more comfort to the enemy than I, by doing everything you can to drive a wedge between peace-loving peoples. The nerve you have, trying to de-legitimize the opinions of your fellow Jews by calling them such a loaded word (which very nearly evokes Hitler and thus loses your argument by Internet Law anyways). And if you would read this (I'm sure you won't, but I have to assume you will given the nature of an open letter), I am sure you would call me naive - but you are naive, to believe it possible for a religion with X million adherents worldwide to be so monolithic that to support one (moderate) member of it to be equivalent to supporting the most distant and extremist member of it.

And since I'm on a roll, responses to a couple other common anti-Park51 arguments:

"They should have known people would react negatively to it, and so not have done it." (A slightly differently worded version of the "bad taste" argument.) Yes, and the lawmakers who passed the civil rights bills in the 60s knew that people were going to react negatively. But they did it anyways, because it was right, and because those people who reacted negatively needed to grow up and learn better.

"Oh so NOW they want to build a Mosque right where they killed people on 9/11!" and any similar arguments that mean the same thing, but are worded more diplomatically. You can't make this argument without suggesting there is some Muslim committee that makes all the decisions. That use of the word "they." There is no "they." There is no monolithic Islam. There are Jihadists and there are Muslims, and even amongst those two groups, there are no steering committees. This isn't Catholicism with the Pope we're talking about. The "they" who are building Park51 are not the same "they" who flew planes into the towers - nor the same "they" who launch rockets at
Israeli civilians, for that matter.

I will conclude by saying that the choice often lies with us as to whether we identify an Other as either enemy or friend. (The key word being "often" - if someone is literally pointing a gun at you, they are probably not your friend - but this is not the case, is it?) So if we have the choice of having one more friend or one more enemy, why should we make the choice that leaves us one ally fewer and one enemy more?

Or Maybe It's Just a Total Monet

So I tend to translate large, all-encompassing concepts I don't understand into small, accessible things that I do.

Which is why when I hear politics, I write fashion.

Liberals, to me, are bright colors with lightness or freedom of movement to them, like jersey knit or crepe de chine. They flow and change with the shape and movement of the person, allowing for all body types. Conservatives, then, are brocade and taffeta in subdued greys and blues. They give structure and shape to the bodies they cover, keeping individuals uniform, giving sameness.

If Liberals are haute couture, Conservatives are vintage chic.

So you see why I get confused when people try to tell me they don't match, and therefore never can (likewise never will) be found in the same closet.

Because, well, of course they don't match; they're completely different looks. But I'm not going to wear a princess cut gown to a picnic, or a flower-print romper to a power lunch. I'm just not. And you can't make me.

I might usually prefer the more forgiving fabrics or brighter colors and patterns, but there is a time and place for cut, for fabric, for style.

And every once in awhile I need some Ralph Lauren to my Alexander McQueen, and I want them to hang in my closet. Together. Without a televised screaming match.

Is that such an impossible dream?

The Weight of One Day

I want to have something to say about this day; and I guess I do. I have too much to say. And too much to feel; too much rage, and too much sadness.

Rage at the politicians and pastors who drive a wedge in our humanity, pitting people against people. Rage at extremists, of all kinds, all over the world.

Sadness for the families of the victims, who feel it ever more sharply than anyone else. Sadness for our country, embroiled in disgusting hatred and partisanship. Sadness for the world, which just can't seem to get its fucking act together. It's all just, sad. And I don't know how to fix it.

We are living in the Dark Ages. And our world is a hard, hard place.

Economic Fantasies

I considered posting about my unemployment situation. (Yes, again.) I considered posting thoughts about the economy as a whole, particularly in reference to Gentleman Pratt's post and this contrasting article. But trying to tackle such economic questions kept leading me to question myself along these lines: just what is the ideal I am shooting for? In other words, when critiquing our economic policy, and talking about what I hope would change, what am I hoping it will change to?

Obviously, I want gainful employment for myself, and prosperity and all that. But what does that really look like?

So my mind went wandery and I fantasized two economic utopias (utopiae?):

1) Pseudo-Anarchistic Agrarian Localized Economic Fantasy

The economy is entirely localized. Food is grown mere miles from your city, and it is expensive and rare to eat exotic foods from around the world - no strawberries in wintertime, no Colombian coffee in the District of Columbia. The same goes for every other small craft, from furniture making and clothes weaving to local filmmaking. There is no complicated global system of number-moving that allows an entire nation's economy to be based on managing the money and information of another nation. Essentially, it's like the way the world just before the Industrial Revolution - everyone is naturally employed taking care of the

The downside? Greatly reduced progress. Hard to organize the major human-race-size projects like a space program without larger infrastructure. Downside/upside, depending on your point of view: instead of cushy office jobs, people tend to work with their hands. Lastly, the only way this could work is if people voluntarily and intentionally avoided the advanced assembly line machinery of our modern age, because otherwise people just don't have enough work to do. It's not capitalistic, but it's healthy.

2) Pseudo-Randian Laissez-Faire Capitalist's Fantasy

There are nearly no taxes, particularly not on corporations or the rich. The government is minimal, essentially only providing the rule of law, a smaller military (unless private donors want to finance it) and diplomatic functions. Everything else is provided by private business. Roads are maintained the same way that water and electricity are - through billing of private citizens by large-scale corporations. Everyone is not only employed, but paid very well because the big corporations, disburdened of taxes, can afford to employ Americans at living wages. Also, thanks to widespread Carnegie-like philanthropy, every town has a privately funded, well-stocked library as well as every other modern public-use amenity.

~~~

If you think I find neither of these particularly plausible, you're correct. If you think I find one of them a good dream and the other a nightmare, you're also correct.

So, your turn, readers! What is your economic fantasy world?

My Only Post on the Tea Partiers ... Probably

Last week the New York times published a survey and an article on the views and demographics of self-identified tea party members, and then five million bloggers wrote blog responses. This will be one more.

From the article there seems to be three main points of the Tea Party Platform:

1. The deficit is out of control!
2. Government spending is out of control, government takeovers of everything is coming!
3. Obama doesn't share "my"/"our" values!

Let's start from the beginning. Check out the deficit before and after Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush took office. Notice something? The deficit went way up. We actually had a surplus at the end of the Clinton era. Shocking right? Government spending didn't really go down either during Reagan or Dubya's time.

To tea baggers I say this - first you should acknowledge what terrible presidents these two Republicans were. Look at the way they spent all of our money!

Then there's government spending. Now the tea party folks want to make one thing clear - Don't touch their medicare or social security! But there's a bit of a problem, these are the two most expensive government programs, and if we leave aside defense for a moment (it's a third rail that no one will touch anyway) then social security and medicare, which people seem to love across the board, are many multiples as large as all other federal government spending.

What can we do to reduce spending, then? "Eliminate waste," say the t-baggers, parroting what John McCain used to say when he was a maverick. But no one actually supports government waste, just like no one supports littering. And yet no one is in the streets protesting littering. Waste is just a red herring.

Thus request #2 for the teabaggers - since you fear the increase in government spending and deficits, I think it's time to put your money where your mouth is and forgo any social security payments for you and your loved ones. Your 401k should be sufficient right? That was Bush's plan in 2005, so why not do a minor enactment of this yourselves to get the ball rolling.

Then there are "values." I'm not even going to tackle the "He's a Muslim from Kenya" thing, except to say this, if I was in charge of a newspaper or magazine, I would put in a footnote under quotes when someone told a complete lie, [i.e. "I don't support what he's doing pushing his Muslim values on Americans," says Bob Smith of Pittsburgh, PA. Footnote: Obama is not Muslim, he is a practicing Christian.]

You know what country likes to force folks to subscribe to a rather narrow selection of values? France. Ironic really that the pushier the right wing get, the more they sound like Frenchmen who condemn their countrymen for saying "le weekend" instead of "le fin de semaine." The joy of America is the diversity of American culture. The culture that makes our movies (lot of liberals there) invents new and important technology (more liberals) advances research in our universities (liberals, obviously). Gosh I wish these liberals would all just move to Canada so we can just watch movie versions of the Left Behind series until the end times.

So an educated, well-spoken, Christian, sports-loving, family man is the devil? Seems kinda odd and it leads down an inevitable conclusion. If you tea baggers aren't ready to take the leaps I've suggested on points 1 and 2, then there's really only one issues - you don't like black people.

AntiPro

I've been mulling this over in my head for weeks now, trying to think of the right words, the most sensitive phrasing, the best possible way to approach this subject. But here again, this morning on NPR, I heard it: "We are proponents of health care reform, but there is one subject that trumps all others, and that is the sanctity of life."

Sanctity of life. When the man on the radio said it he was talking about being pro-life, or anti-abortion or however you choose to describe it, but at this point I feel like it has been reduced to a propoganda buzzphrase that just serves to make its opponents sound like a-holes.

And at the risk of giving away my politics, I don't think I am an a-hole. Because I get being anti-abortion, I do. Where life begins is a belief and far be it from me to knock on anyone's beliefs. But. What confuses and frustrates me is when I hear that that it is the single most important politic in a person's repertoire. Because, if sanctity of life is truly your number one concern, shouldn't your top politic be adoption and foster care reform, or help for the homeless, or bigger budgets for rehabs and crime prevention? What about budgets for rape counseling at schools, abolition of death row, child-care and CPS reform, welfare reform, harsher penalties for dead-beat parents, or proper sex education?

Are people only important when they are half-made?

Because that doesn't seem fair to all the people who have been born and are trying to make it in our harsh, overcrowded world. And I don't think committing murder (see: Scott Roeder) is the way to show people how compassionate you are about all the unborn babies that are just as likely to become abortion doctors or homeless addicts as christian evangelists.

It is important for women to know and understand what their other options are, if for no other reason than that abortion can be extremely taxing for a woman on an emotional, physical, and spiritual level, but as it stands there aren't many because the money and support simply are not there.

So when people say shutting down abortion clinics is their number one concern, I can't help but feel frustrated and helpless, and like we are only pulling an unsightly band aid off a broken leg with no intention of resetting the bone.

A Response to the Director

I've got the congressional apportionment blues. I got my census packet in the mail today. It came with a message. This is my response.

A message from the Director, U.S. Census Bureau...

Hello Director! Nice to talk with you again. Oh and don't bother giving me your name, I've already got one.

This is your official 2010 Census form.

Darn tootin'!

We need your help to count everyone in the United States by providing basic information about all the people living in this house or apartment.

I'm not talking, g-man.

Please complete and mail back the enclosed census form today.

Woah there tough guy. Aren't obnoxious fonts from nameless writers limited to the internet? I better send this thing in before I get a follow up letter in all caps.

Your answers are important.

Flattery will get you everywhere.

Census results are used to decide the number of representatives each state has in the U.S. Congress.

As a resident of Washington D.C., how many census forms can I fill out to get a representative in congress? I heard you guys are over-budget already, but I can go down the street to a FedEx Office and take care of making copies for you. Eh?

The amount of government money your neighborhood receives also depends on these answers.

There are 980 people living in my household. A cashier's check would work best, they clear on my bank account faster.

That money is used for services for children and the elderly, roads, and many other local needs.

Meh. A congressperson would be fine, thanks.

Your answers are confidential.

Somehow I feel like the sucker at the table.

This means the Census Bureau cannot give out information that identifies you or your household.

That's good to know, I'll be sure to tell Valerie Plame that her identity is safe with the government.

Your answers will only be used for statistical purposes, and no other purpose.

But you're forgetting the most important purpose, and that is protecting my bread. By refusing to take part in the census, under Title 13 Section 221 of the United States Code, I will have to pay a fine of no more than $100. So I'm either participating in a sham, or I'm funding it. Alright. You've twisted my arm. I'll dance.

The back of this letter contains more information about protecting your data.

You're welcome. I look forward to another slap in my unrepresented face in 10 years.

Well That Explains A Lot

I was perusing teh interwebz when I found this gem of a video. I'm not sure if the NSYE has done this before, but it's still pretty amazing. And by amazing I mean appropriate. I present to you... Darth Vader on Wall Street.

If you only knew the power of the put.

Grown-Ups

As I started writing this I was facing a bit of a grown-up type decision. Nothing life shattering, but one option was clearly more mature and the other less so (not exactly immature, just a bit less wise) I chose the less mature option but covered myself and it will all probably work out.

I bring this vague little tangent because the recent Virginia race for Governor (yes, we're electing a new governor down here THIS VERY YEAR!!!) has reached a new interesting point given that Bob McDonnell, the Republican candidate, wrote a very, very conservative thesis for graduate school, which in his case was the very, very conservative Regents university. From the original post article which broke this story: 'Robert F. McDonnell submitted a master's thesis to the evangelical school he was attending in Virginia Beach in which he described working women and feminists as "detrimental" to the family. He said government policy should favor married couples over "cohabitators, homosexuals or fornicators."'

Now we've all done and said things in college that we may regret. In some (okay, many) cases these things are posted on facebook. But there's a bit of a problem with Bob's thesis, even though it was published back in 1989 -- he was 34 years old at the time.

Now I'll be the first to say we all have our immature moments even as we get further into adulthood (see: my pottymouth at the last DC United game), but anything you write of the length and concentration in a graduate thesis is not something to be easily dismissed as youthful indiscretion. This was a not a "wise Latina" moment, it was something far worse. Most people don't lay out their moral stances in quite such detail ever, but McDonnell did, and to say that it was 20 years ago is simply bullshit. This wasn't just an off-color comment in private company or hitting on a woman at the bar because you had to drink. This thesis is Bob McDonnell, and as the right continues to focus on values over positions, it's quite disingenuous for him to keep saying he's going to be the "jobs" governor when he wants 50% of the workforce back in the kitchen.

So the broader question is, when can we really say that you are an adult and you have to accept responsibility? When you have a kid? When you graduate college? When you turn 30? I don't know if there's a simple line and maybe that's the problem. To paraphrase that old Supreme Court chestnut, most of us know adulthood when we see it.

I May Be A Liberal But ...

While I do spend most of my days hugging trees like many liberals, there are times when I stray from the party line. Thus this will be an irregular series where I mention some dumb things on the left. Lest you thing I'm ever switching teams, go back and read some of the transcripts from the Sotomayor hearing. The Republican party would need to completely and fundamentally change for me to ever vote that party line. Step #1 would be - Stop being racist to Supreme Court nominees.



* Trial Lawyers - The Dems get a loooooot of money from trial lawyers. But the amazing proliferation of malpractice suits created by these lawyer tends to hurt many of the folks who the Democrats claim to represent. First off, it has a pretty big negative effect on the number of doctors and their field of focus. JStone mentioned to me that back in his home county there were basically no pediatricians because of the high cost of malpractice insurance. Thus he became a man (through choice of primary physician) at the age of 4. Also, the sheer amount of frivolous lawsuits and wacko payouts inevitably come back around and wind up costing jobs to companies that have to bend over backwards.

Now - there are a lot of evil and stupid companies, and their are some incompetent doctors. But if you go in for heart surgery and have some complications, part of the reason is HEART SURGERY IS DIFFICULT! If it was easy everyone would be doing it and the world would be a pretty different place.

* Farm Subsidies - Now both parties are guilty of this but it's still a bummer that the Dems don't do much to stop this. The way the US farm system is set up is incredibly unfortunate. It's 2009 and you still have plenty of people being paid money not to grow crops (it was funny in Catch-22 but at this point it's just sad) and you have large subsidies going to huge corporations who have turned our food cycle into efficiency over health. We already have more than enough calories to feed everyone, but we need to start getting better calories. Ready anything by Michael Pollan or Fast Food Nation for a better explanation of what's going on.

Bye For Now Sarah Palin

I can't not mention that to celebrate her tireless dedication to the AIP, Mrs. Sarah Palin has resigned from the Governorship of Alaska. Her rational goes something like this: "I am not running in 2012, and sometimes people do bad things as lame ducks, so I'm going to dodge that bullet all together and quit midway through my term." I will leave it to Oz to provide the legal-eagle Latin phrase for this kind of logic (retardius stupidius?) but I just want to mention that she has taken this "politics" game to the next level. Back in the old days people running for President would often build up a resume of political experience by holding successively higher offices. Palin has finally broken that cycle of tyranny and quit office before the evils of politics destroy her mindgrapes.

Another fun fact from her speech (watch it, really, she's on some next level shit here), is that she decided to ask her kids now if she should still be governor. Now, some politician would talk with their kids before running for office, not midway through. But not Sarah, she's a maverick, and her basically works like the Israeli Knesset. When little Twig gives you a vote of no confidence, you just gotta take you knocks.

So in closing, since I hope never to see her ever again, I'd like to say that this woman and her family are the worlds most effective PSA for contraception. And I would never hire her for any job, because she is America's biggest quitter.

What Would Obama Do?

Today I realized I ask myself "what would Obama do?" on a regular basis.

Sure, our president makes mistakes from time to time. But overall I consider him to be a solid role model.

If people acted more like Barack Obama, the world would be a better place. I often think WWOD when I see people in a conflict. Like the other day I saw someone get cut off on Connecticut Ave. in northwest DC, followed by a flurry of honking and middle fingers. I wanted to roll down my window and yell WWOD.

But I hesitated, and held back, since that's what Obama would do, probably.

This solution applies to any problem.

Hate your job? WWOD?

Got a flat tire? WWOD?

3x76=? WWOD?

Paper or plastic? Neither. Obama brings reusable bags to the grocery store.

In the end I'm just thankful we aren't asking ourselves what Palin would do. Because anyone's guess is as good as mine.

Dear Future Republicans Presidential Candidates . . .

Please, please just stop having sex between now and 2012. You guys really suck at it. Unlike in Italy, where you can almost get away with damn near anything, if you do it in the states you're gonna get caught. It's like you're trying to force Mitt Romney to run again. The guy tied the family dog to the roof of the car. That's more messed up thank at least 80% of what Berlusconi has done (that we know if).

So please, keep it in your pants.




Especially you Ensign. Keep your sexiness in check.