I thought it was one of the best State of the Union speeches I've witnessed. It wasn't jingoistic. It wasn't a laundry list. It was tough without being angry, optimistic without denying reality, specific without getting bogged down, and poetic without being flowery. I give it five stars. I just hope Obama can fight hard enough to follow through on his ideas.
Good job, Mr. President.
The state of our Union is getting stronger. And we've come too far to turn back now. As long as I'm President, I will work with anyone in this chamber to build on this momentum. But I intend to fight obstruction with action, and I will oppose any effort to return to the very same policies that brought on this economic crisis in the first place.
No, we will not go back to an economy weakened by outsourcing, bad debt, and phony financial profits. Tonight, I want to speak about how we move forward, and lay out a blueprint for an economy that's built to last - an economy built on American manufacturing, American energy, skills for American workers, and a renewal of American values.
Tell it, Barack!!
Now, you can call this class warfare all you want. But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense.
We don't begrudge financial success in this country. We admire it. When Americans talk about folks like me paying my fair share of taxes, it's not because they envy the rich. It's because they understand that when I get tax breaks I don't need and the country can't afford, it either adds to the deficit, or somebody else has to make up the difference - like a senior on a fixed income; or a student trying to get through school; or a family trying to make ends meet. That's not right. Americans know it's not right. They know that this generation's success is only possible because past generations felt a responsibility to each other, and to their country's future, and they know our way of life will only endure if we feel that same sense of shared responsibility. That's how we'll reduce our deficit. That's an America built to last.
Once when I was working at Walden Books in Hanover, we were playing a game about which two people we would want with us on a deserted island. I said Harrison Ford (this was a while ago - he's too old for me now ;>) . . . and Bill Moyers. Everyone at work looked at me askance when I said Moyers. Most had never heard of him except in the context of Joseph Campbell and this was years before he began Bill Moyers' Journal. Today I would change my first pick to Viggo Mortensen (well, he's very intelligent, too :>), but Moyers is still my choice. I wish there were a thousand journalists like him.
Obama's impotence is scary. In a stormy sea you want a sure hand on the helm. We don't have one and we're entering the roughest waters in decades. You don't need me to tell you how prospects for working people and the middle class have darkened. There's no one up there fighting for Americans whose wages are stagnating if they are even lucky enough to have a job, or for the middle class that's being squeezed from all sides. The writer William Broyles [former editor of Newsweek] recently wrote that "A despair grips America, a cold fear that our best days are behind us, that we are adrift and powerless. Yes, the Republicans are to blame. But so is a president who treats core American values as bargaining chips, who won't fight for anything, who refuses to lead."
VZ management sent a message to all of its union-represented "associates" in the northeast, which informed them that they must pay more for their benefits now, thanks to Obama's version of "health care reform." Said Verizon:
"Under the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, an excise tax will be levied on healthcare plans with very generous plan design components (so-called "Cadillac plans").... This excise tax is projected to cost the company as much as $200 million in 2018 when the tax is imposed; however, Verizon is required to account for this cost now. Accordingly, we will need to modify plan designs to avoid the impact of this tax."
President Obama could release a statement saying it is wrong for companies to shift excise tax costs to workers (seven years before the tax goes into effect)-something Obama said would not happen when the legislation passed last year.
An image of President Obama standing on a picket line with workers fighting a profitable company demanding deep concessions could help Obama win re-election in 2012. By standing with Verizon picketers, the president could help heal an uneasy relationship with organized labor, which has been frustrated by Obama's failure to push for labor law reform, his focus on lowering the deficit as opposed to creating jobs, and his push for free-trade agreements with Panama, Colombia and South Korea. Standing with striking Verizon workers could help capture some of the same energy unleashed by this year's protests in Madison, Wis.
Instead, the White House has been silent.
I'm glad Obama has begun campaigning but it's all going to ring hollow if he doesn't do what he promised in the last campaign. Getting on the lines (figuratively or literally) to defend his plan and warn companies that they shouldn't shift their costs to workers would be a great start.
Obama 2008: "It is a top priority for us to stamp out Al-Qaeda once and for all. And I think capturing or killing bin Laden is a critical aspect of stamping out al Qaeda."
When will our president listen to real people instead of the corporate backed "tea partiers"? It's time Obama stopped asking for Republican feedback and listened to the people who elected him.
I worked hard for Barack Obama. I was in NH practically every weekend after the convention, canvassing for his campaign. I had my doubts before that. Would he be tough enough? I was impressed with his strong acceptance speech - the one with "Enough!!!" in it. Now it appears that Obama may be what I feared he was before that speech, another Democratic wimp afraid to use his "political capital" to fight against the corporatists and for the middle class. It's my turn to say, "Enough!!"
I remember way back in the spring, in the beginning of this health care "fight," I was asked to go door to door by the Obama for America organization. They wanted me to get people to sign on to Obama's health care plan. I asked the obvious question, "What is Obama's health care plan?" Silence. Our "leader" refused to take any stand whatsoever on what his bottom line was and then proceeded to sell us down the river for the likes of Snowe, Lieberman, Backus, Lincoln and the rest of the bought and paid-for corporate whores. He let Congress throw out single-payer, expanded Medicare, any public option, insurance industry regulation, and lowering the costs of prescription drugs without out even a whimper. Now he is willing to go along with a bill that will mandate high priced, unaffordable, private health insurance without any regulation and will tax the middle class for their work-based plans. It is not a "weak" bill. It is a toxic bill that will enrich insurance and pharmaceutical companies at our expense. And it will cause the Democrats to lose big in the mid-term elections. We have been had.
Obama continues to play nice with the powerful and tells us progressives to shut up and take our "medicine." We are painted as "left wing extremists" and those who are shilling for insurance and big pharma are called "moderates." Obama is forgetting who brought him to this dance.
I had hope for Obama. I worked hard for his election. I am officially losing my religion.
This was submitted by Frank Mand who covered the town hall event with President Obama in Portsmouth for Below Boston. It's almost like being there without the heat and the yelling. Thanks, Frank. Now get some sleep.
Battle lines being drawn . . .
It was a convenient arrangement. The crowds that arrived early to attend - or protest against anything associated with, the Health Care Town Hall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire Tuesday (August 11) entered by a long, straight access road off Route 1. The local police - perhaps at the suggestion of the Secret Service, allowed everyone to walk up that access road to a point, then forced them to choose either the left or the right side of the road. As it turned out, the 'Right', was on the right, the 'Left' on the other side, and for most of the day hundreds of people on both sides of the Health Care issue took turns antagonizing one another - from a distance.
On the right a half dozen individuals wielded large bullhorns, with which they scolded their opponents on the far shore for being 'leeches', 'welfare recipients', or just plain ignorant. Many of their signs equated the evolving federal health care plan with other traditional conservative complaints, with the clear inference that the country was on a path to Socialism, or Communism, or worse yet - Obamaism. 'ObamaCare', other signs suggested, should rightly be called 'Deathcare'. One large, handwritten oversized sign said simply - and ominously, "Live Free or Die!"
Two of my favorite people share a birthday. Here's their horoscope from the Herald:
Vitality increases this year. You'll spiff up your image, impress your loved ones and attract new friends. Shockingly good news comes in September. An effort to bring family together heals your heart in December. In the new year, you'll shift your perspective on work and suddenly make much more money in less time. Capricorn and Scorpio adore you.
Wow! They hit that on the nose - I'm a Scorpio!! :>)
A White House summit meeting on Thursday meant to shore up John McCain's shaky campaign "devolved into a contentious shouting match." And that's how McCain's own campaign described it.
The meeting revealed that President Bush's $700 billion bid to combat the worst financial crisis in decades had been suddenly sidetracked by fellow Republicans in the House, who refused to embrace a plan that appeared close to acceptance by the Senate and most House Democrats.
And where does the "straight-talking" McCain stand on the issue - who knows?
What he said on the flip. See if you can figure it out.
The one group that I really worry about in the upcoming election is older Americans. Sure, the latent, often subconscious, racism of days gone by may be a factor in their strong support of McCain over Obama. And for some it may be so strong that no rational argument could reach them.
However, they should know, if they now, or in the near future (like me), expect to depend on Social Security in retirement, the fact that McCain was a proponent of Bush's scheme to privatize the system and the fact that he wants to cut present benefits. In this time of crashing financial institutions and burgeoning inflation, the McCain/Bush scam to help their corporate friends looks even more insidious.
That's why I'm so pleased to see this new ad from the Obama campaign in the nick of time.
Obama/Biden's full plan for Social Security on flip
In her disparaging remarks about community activism, Sarah Palin is the worst kind of elitist. She is mocking the very foundation of democracy - the right of citizens to come together to bring about change, right a wrong and have a voice in their own governing.
Sure, Sarah Palin lied about the rest of Sen. Obama's experience by ignoring his many years as a Constitutional law professor and as a state and US senator. But, by making me recall that Obama started out as someone who worked with regular people to teach them how to use their power and to give their community a voice, she made me realize that he is more than qualified to be our president. The skills Obama learned by listening, working with and supporting people in those Chicago neighborhoods are the ones I wish every leader were required to have.
Rather than top down rule (how Palin became VP nominee), community organizing is all about bottom up (how Obama became a presidential nominee) power. Any regular person who wants to clean a park, support her/his child's school, get a referendum on the ballot, build a homeless shelter, hold a block party or have an art show is a de facto community organizer.
In my book, they are the best, most gifted kind of people around. They are the ones who create neighborhood and community bonds that make a place worth living in. Without their hard work and ability to inspire people, it would be a dreary world indeed.
Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez, Clara Barton, Ralph Nader, the founders of the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, and some might even say . . . Jesus, were all community organizers. In other words, community organizers are the innovators and pioneers who push and pull to do something to make their neighborhoods, government, environment, schools, and country better. They are patriots and heroes who should be honored, not laughed at.
On the flip, hear Obama explain why he was so proud of his work as a community organzer.
Two excellent new ads from the Obama campaign focus like a laser beam on the economy and how it is affecting the middleclass. IMO, this is exactly the right tact to take against McCain. It's the economy, McStupid!!!!
Here's ad playing in Indiana:
Another one that is one of the ad buys during the Olympic coverage is on the flip
Of all the narcissistic professions, writing an opinion column has to be at the top of the list. Joan Vennochi must think a lot of herself to believe that what she has to say is worth reading on a weekly basis. In the case of this latest column, "The Audacity of Ego", it certainly was not.
I'm no psychiatrist . . . but then, neither is Vennochi. I would not diagnose her as a narcissist, although she does have that "sense of self-importance" thing going on. No, I assume she must have got the latest GOP talking points about Obama - the ones that portray him as a latte-drinking elitist and empty speech-giving guy who is way too earnest and . . . also, a self-centered, ego-driven politician. Yipes!!!
And McCain, according to Vennochi, . . . he is . . . er . . . humble?
(Isn't being able to rally your countrymen/women by speaking clearly and eloquently part of a president's job description? Well, it should be. - promoted by Jan A)
McCain v Obama
For a few days I have been mentally preparing to listen to a McCain speech. I thought I would have to endure 30 minutes of his droning on about the same old, same old politics I have easily ignored for the better part of the last 10 years. One night I finally sat down at my computer to watch the most recent McCain speech. The longest speech I found was only 5 minutes. McCain was talking about his plan to increase domestic oil drilling, build many more nuclear and "clean" coal power plants, assist auto makers in bettering their product so to sell more cars, improving schools, giving working class Americans tax cuts and innovate in the field of renewable energy sources in order to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.
McCain also talks in negatives terms, "this is what I will not do, this is what is wrong, these are the things he won't do, and this is what should have been done." When ever an interviews asks what he will do to change something, how things should be done, to paint the picture of how he is going to fulfill his promises; he stumbles, he looses the fluidity of his speaking, he looks away or he proceeds to rudely talk right over the interview for several minutes while they make repeated attempts to engage him in a conversation, again.
When McCain is on the stage his audience claps and laughs as if there is someone standing behind the camera holding up signs to remind the audience that he just made a good point or that he was funny. McCain's jab at Obama's energy policy was "for a guy who's campaign slogan is 'Yes we can' he sure says a lot of 'no we can't" I couldn't help but roll my eyes.
McCain often says that an Obama administration would be comparable to that of Jimmy Carter. I say, I certainly hope so.
The press, too, continues the GOP myth that Jimmy Carter was a fool who was beat by the Republican hero, Ronald Reagan. I am sick of it. All Democrats should be outraged. Not only has Carter become the best ex-president ever, he is a truly honest man who had amazing foresight. He was the kind of president any country should have been proud of. So why does our country ridicule him and honor a true buffoon/puppet like Reagan? To me, it says more about the Republican take over of the corporate media than about either man.
Let's get this straight. If we had listened to Jimmy Carter and reduced our reliance on foreign oil, developed alternative energy sources and practiced conservation in our daily lives, we certainly would not be fighting a war for oil today. We probably would not have had the first Gulf War and possibly could have avoided the horror of September 11th, 2001.
From Carter's 1981 State of the Union address:
Since I took office, my highest legislative priorities have involved the reorientation and redirection of U.S. energy activities and for the first time, to establish a coordinated national energy policy. The struggle to achieve that policy has been long and difficult, but the accomplishments of the past four years make clear that our country is finally serious about the problems caused by our overdependence on foreign oil. Our progress should not be lost. We must rely on and encourage multiple forms of energy production--coal, crude oil, natural gas, solar, nuclear, synthetics--and energy conservation. The framework put in place over the last four years will enable us to do this.
Those of us old enough to recall the Carter years remember wearing sweaters and lowering the thermostat and driving under 55 to save gas. What I had nearly forgotten though was that Carter didn't just talk the talk, he actually fitted the White House roof with solar panels back in 1979.
On the flip, there is a clip from a new movie entitled "The Road Not Taken" about what happened to those panels in the years since. Warning: The loss of all those years may cause a deep sense of regret to those concerned about the environment.
