Tag Archives: Barack Obama

The “We” and “I” That Make “Us”

January 28, 2013

I have always viewed conservative columnist David Brook’s comments as a barometer for the right. I like that he approaches ideological differences between the Parties by appealing to our intellect rather than our emotions. But like any good political pundit, Brooks is a craftsman with words aimed at creating an illusion not altogether in line with the real message of his more liberal adversaries.

He is not in the camp of the ideological extremists but he does promote a conservatism that none-the-less represents views that stand in stark contrast to what he might view as an imposing liberalism. His most recent column posted on the MLK holiday doesn’t deter from this paradigm. In it he praises the merits of Obama’s inaugural speech while also trying to show where the division lies between him and other conservatives and the “liberal” proposals that the President laid out for his next four years.

Unlike the conventional approach that tries to divide people utilizing the “we” versus “them” tact, Brooks uses a slightly altered version that builds on a “we” versus ”I” theme. That’s like “we” in welfare and “I” in Independent, as Brooks is suggesting. It’s another approach that attacks the very real problem of class warfare in this country, something he and his conservative fraternity have attacked for being a distraction to more important matters, like supporting the silly notion established in Citizens United that money is the same as speech.

Brooks is back to using cold war semantics by painting the collective we as a form of “centralization”, a word that is always code for communism and socialism in the conservative vernacular while raising the merits of the “I” aspect of decentralization. The latter is a favorite meme of the laissez-faire model popular during the 19th century Gilded Age and more recently with those who worship at the alter of Ayn Rand’s self-interest model – objectivism. A model that rejects humanity’s altruistic nature.

“Obama is liberated”, Brooks tells us and “he has picked a team and put his liberalism on full display”.

He argued for it in a way that was unapologetic. Those who agree, those who disagree and those of us who partly agree now have to raise our game. We have to engage his core narrative and his core arguments for a collective turn.

I am not a liberal like Obama, so I was struck by what he left out in his tour through American history. I, too, would celebrate Seneca Falls, Selma and Stonewall, but I’d also mention Wall Street, State Street, Menlo Park and Silicon Valley. I’d emphasize that America has prospered because we have a decentralizing genius.

Notice how Brooks categorizes Obama as liberal as if anyone who sides with an idea favored by liberal constituencies is in fact a card-carrying liberal. I wish Obama was a liberal but the reality is that his membership in such a club would be conditional at best. And perhaps this is as it should be for the leader of the free world who has to straddle both sides of the political spectrum in this country. But the not-so-subtle labeling of the President as a full-fledged liberal is meant entirely to irk the extremist on the Right who already are convinced that the President is a Muslim socialist. And oxymoron in and of itself.

His argument to distinguish between the concepts of “centralized” and “decentralized’ is yet another dichotomy that conveys a simplistic black and white comparison that ultra conservatives will interpret more along the narrower frame of reference, good vs. evil.

It may well appeal to most people at first blush. It was after all through the efforts of people who were able to capitalize off of a pro-entrepreneur government and create an economy where at one time opportunity was boundless for the eager creative individual, at least more so in our earlier history than it is now. Most frontiers of entrepreneurial success have diminished in terms of resources where land was vastly available and minerals had yet been fully exploited. Today’s entrepreneur has to work within strict confines that have in part been devised by their powerful peers and their connections in politics.

Here’s where Brooks’ concept of “a decentralizing genius” breaks down. The open-ended approach that allowed the Carnegies, Rockefellers and Morgans to succeed in the 19th century was eventually met with the resistance of a public that suffered the numerous abuses of laissez-faire economics. Along with a person’s labor value there were also the legitimate concerns of the common men and women about their living and working conditions as well as their health; something that suffered from a capitalist class who saw wages and government oversight as inhibitors to their personal wealth.

If it dawned on the Robber Barons of 19th century America at all that working long hours in unhealthy working conditions for wages that barely eked out a living, with no hope for the future was demoralizing, those captains of industry concealed it with a premise that belied the greed of the nouveau riche and the old aristocracy who wrote the laws in the 18th century that protected the interests of the propertied class. This premise became institutionalized in Herbert Spencer’s concept of the survival of the fittest. Something he purloined from Darwin’s natural selection of species theory and extrapolated into the corporate world, with a supporting role from Adam’s Smith’s “invisible hand” of the free market.

I thought it odd that Brooks would mention Wall Street as one of the heroes in his decentralizing genius offering. Though it was at one time the bastion of free markets that raised this country to its economic heights it is today reviled by most as nothing more than an elite entity that drives prosperity, not for the many as much as it does for the wealthiest 1% in this country. A fact that has been borne out by the current figures showing an income increase of some 265% by billionaires while most everyone else has seen their income shrink over the last 30 years.

Brooks’ notion that the decentralized individual has made America prosperous omits those parts where wealth has gravitated towards a select few through lying, cheating and stealing. The Savings and Loan scandal, Enron and the financial malfeasance of the finance industry which led to the Great Recession are some of the more glaring examples of this. It has been these demoralizing behaviors that have elevated the plutocracy in this country who have been shamelessly held up by wealthy wannabes. Were these indeed honest and altruistic-spirited men, there would be no need for those “centralized” efforts of government to keep such destructive and self-servings acts in check.

I salute the character of an individual who through their energy and insights have created those products that engineered one of the greatest economies in the world. But for Brooks or anyone else to believe that they did this with only their own capabilities and resources is to ignore that collective feature which enabled individual ambitions to succeed.

Manufacturing in this country, that originated through the theft of industrial technology created in England, relies on the labor of people. Without that labor anything that the mind can imagine would most likely not come into existence. It requires the training of educators to provide skilled and intelligent workers and managers as well as financial support from banks who rely on deposits from the common man and woman for those entrepreneurs to succeed. It requires the shared costs through taxes to build the infrastructure that allows commerce to move freely and expand.

When it becomes part of the mindset that the individual is the master of his destiny disregarding the community he or she relies on to achieve and acknowledge their goals, that construct for greed begins to form and the anti-social characteristics it breeds poses a threat to the social stability we all rely on to prosper and feel secure.

When the “I” dominates the “We” then the moral bearings of society are lost, allowing us to disregard those who will sometimes fall through the economic cracks. It then becomes easier for successful people who have been more fortunate to demonize those struggling to survive as “hangers-on” or “takers” and “moochers” for fear that they may have to share what all of us are in part responsible for creating.

Though the concept of “we” is more inclusive than the “I”, both should shift to the more encompassing “us”. It is through the combined efforts of individual aptitudes and group strengths that will enable all of us as one people to persevere.

Posted by lbwoodgate in Society and Politics Tags: Ayn Rand, Barack Obama, capitlalist, centralization, class warfare, communist, corporate darwinism, David Brook, decentralization, free markets, us versus them, Wall Street

9 comments

Gun Lore versus Contemporary Reality

January 24, 2013

In the ongoing debate about the virtues and risks to legislate some sensible federal gun control measures both sides have established certain talking points to boost their position. The middle ground where both sides can come together seems to be sparse.

There does seem to be some reciprocity between both sides that would allow a universal background check to be established, eliminating the loophole where private sellers at gun shows and on-line will have to abide by the current law applied to licensed dealers. This is something that could prevent those most likely to hurt themselves and others from owning lethal weapons.

But little else has significantly changed. The norm seems to be a more hostile exchange of views that often find bumper sticker slogans that fire little verbal grenades at one another. Here’s a site that visually displays those memes for gun control advocates.

And then there are those that support the strong advocates of gun ownership. They say a picture is worth a thousand words and when accompanied by emotional language it can find a willing audience who often forego any deeper context. I’d like to display a few of these I found and offer a view that points out a flaw or two that seems to consistently get overlooked by those who brandish them.

You’ll notice that several of these memes make a parallel between restricting some guns, i.e., military assault style weapons, and the more hyperbolic claim of removing all guns. During his first four years in office President Obama made no attempt whatsoever to implement any kind of gun control measures. Yet the prevailing notion that he would in his second term has now become a reality, thanks in large measure to eight mass shootings in 2012 alone with the most egregious of these coming two weeks before Christmas at Sandy Hill elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut.

This late action from the President however was not from some nefarious plot to usurp power from the American people but because the clamoring by the gun control advocates went off the charts following the Newtown massacre, forcing the President to take some decisive action to curb what has become a mass killing epidemic in this country.

Family and intimate partner assaults involving firearms are 12 times more likely to result in death than those that do not involve firearms. In 2008, 54% of women who were killed by intimate partners were killed with a firearm, usually a handgun. SOURCE

Where women are used in these images to drive home the need to arm themselves, one might ask if their real motivation described in the image is based on some genuine adherence to 2nd amendment rights. No doubt some women feel this way. But might it not be more logical to assume that because many women suffer the most in our culture of violence, they of all people would be those most in need of some equalizer against an over powering male attacker?

Crimes against women are often from domestic disputes between spouses or ex-husbands and ex-boyfriends returning to exact some kind of vengeance from women who have spurned them. Spurned them in many cases because of the violence they endured from their relationship with men. Vulnerable too are the children in these families. Our Justice department reports that by “the age of 17, at least 27% of children nationwide have witnessed domestic violence in their own families.” But there is no validation for women or men to possess a small arsenal of assault weapons that a military unit or police force would be envious of.

So with that bit of commentary under your belts, let’s take a look at what the pro-gun advocates use to make their point. I will then attach my own comments that will call its credibility in to account.

Yes but now we have a problem with mixing alcohol and deadly weapons.

So we needn’t worry that the only inanimate object in this picture designed strictly for killing will kill more people easier and quicker when used for its designed purpose than those other objects NOT designed for killing?

Only a child would believe that this argument is about making all guns illegal and would not understand that dangerous drugs may kill only their users, not 20 school children sitting in their classrooms

Maybe this simply reflects the “dramatic rise in the number of attacks and violent plots originating from individuals and groups who self-identify with the far-right of American politics. In the 1990s the average number of attacks per year was 70.1. The average number of attacks per year in the first 11 years of the twenty-first century was 307.5, a rise of more than 400%.”

If mental health care were a legitimate concern for the NRA leadership then why have they allowed the gun show loop hole where private gun owners sell about 40% of the firearms are sold at events that don’t require background checks? Most of their members are okay with such background checks yet some within the NRA administration oppose such efforts. Domestic terrorism is a legitimate threat in this country that law enforcement officials need to prepare themselves for.

More than 31,000 people a year in the United States die from gunshot wounds. Because victims are disproportionately young, gun violence is one of the leading causes of premature mortality in the U.S. In addition to these deaths, in 2010, there were an estimated 337,960 non-fatal violent crimes committed with guns, and 73,505 persons treated in hospital emergency departments for non-fatal gunshot wounds.

Based on production data from firearm manufacturers, there are roughly 300 million firearms owned by civilians in the United States as of 2010. I would hate to see what an IMPOLITE armed society looks like.

I’m in agreement with the security notion behind this for reasons I stated above about violence against women. But the argument for sensible gun control doesn’t want to take your guns away to feel secure in your home. Just the small arsenal some feel they need to defend against the overblown fear of tyranny. And in homes where kids are at, is Mom always taking the precautions she needs to ensure their curious kids don’t get their hands on them? For example, take a look at the next image and my comments regarding this.

That’s what Nancy Lanza of Newtown Connecticut thought too as she stockpiled assault style weapons for what she thought was the coming “economic crash” and taught her son with mental health issues how to use them. Twenty 1st graders and their teachers in Newtown paid the price for this “choice”.

AND FINALLY …

Thanks for making the case that we need a more all-encompassing federal strategy. Chicago is an island within a sea of easily available guns. The correlation between gun violence and poverty is why there is such a high rate in the nation’s 3rd largest city.

We need further civil discourse on this issue. Guns are only one component of the problem. Defending arguments that don’t meet today’s realities will only ensure another mass shooting.

Posted by lbwoodgate in Gun Control, Gun Culture/ Gun Violence Tags: America's views on gun control, anti-gun memes, Assault weapon, Barack Obama, crimes against women, federal gun control, gun advocate rhetoric, Gun control, National Rifle Association, Newtown Connecticut, violence against women

7 comments

The Attack of the Angry Left

NEWS FLASH!

On a right-wing talk show on Thursday, David Keene, the president of the National Rifle Association, blamed President Obama and the left for what he says have been hundreds of death threats made against him and his family. SOURCE

Don’t underestimate the wrath of the Left when irked

This may be all a big to do about nothing though. It’s an oxymoron to believe that ideologues on the left have deadly assault weapons, unlike the ideologues on the right who routinely send death threats to the president, so we can only presume that they will use less lethal means to carry out any ill-will on Mr. Keene.

What can we expect from the limp-wristed, milquetoast liberals? Will they utilize the tea spoons they stir their organic green tea with to cull his eyeballs out? Or catch him off guard outside a Starbuck’s and scald him with a hot semi-sweet mocha latte? He ought to be careful too as he pulls out of his driveway. They may be lying in wait in their beamer or a preserved 1968 Volkswagen bus from their trips to the Monterrey and Woodstock festivals to T-bone him once he backs into the street.

An anonymous source for the NRA president said one angry advocate for gun support claimed she would suffocate him with her silk embroidered collector pillow she purchased at a gift shop while vacationing in Maui last summer. Another came from a Beverly Hills zip code who said they would attempt to slip an overdose of pure Columbian cocaine in his coffee if only their gardener/dealer hadn’t been busted and deported back to Guatemala.

But there is a legitimate fear that there are some leftist extremists out there who may have developed some mental disorders recently and purchased one of them AR-15s in the mad rush with the gun nuts to get them before Obama bans them.

Keene isn’t too worried about this prospect the anonymous source tells me. The existing laws to prevent such a purchase are likely to prevent this from happening. However, if that turns out to be the case, he had better hope the gun supplier for that person was out of extended magazines with a 30-round capacity. There is little guarantee he’ll be able to outmaneuver such a rapid fire attack. Unless of course he has updated his certified self-defense NRA training that has been affectionately referred to as the “Dirty Harry response”

Posted by lbwoodgate in Humor, Satire Tags: Barack Obama, David Keene, Guatemala, Keene, left threats on NRA president, Maui, National Rifle Association, NRA, Obama

6 comments

This Is For Real Folks!

October 29, 2012

Will the choices we make November 6th be based on reality or fantasy

Reality meet Fantasy

Well at long last we’ve arrived at the final week before the Presidential elections and the outcome looks like its going to be a close one. Most people have made their minds up and supposedly there are still a few holdouts that haven’t been able to determine where the candidates stand on issues they feel are important to them. Really? Did they just return to Earth last week or have they been ignoring all political commentary and the debates for better TV fare like Real House Wives or Pawn Stars?

The economy is still the biggest issue for most people and many are basing their choices on how well they think Obama has handled the mess he inherited from the Bush White House. Thanks initially to Bush’s Secretary of Treasure, Henry Paulson, Wall Street is prospering while many on Main Street have yet to get past this recession. Yes, I know. Obama has carried out the second part of this bailout but he didn’t completely abandon Main Street either.

Many voters will be unduly influenced by the distortions and lies they hear from the right about taxes being too high (they’re lower for 98% of us than they’ve been in fifty years) and debunked notions about Obama’s birthright and political philosophy. Despite bringing many Wall Street types in to fill cabinet and administrative posts and continuing the Bush-era use of torture, keeping Guantanamo open and accelerating the use of drones in Pakistan, Obama is portrayed by the right as a radical who wants to impose sharia law. Beyond all of this I have heard comments from people I love very much that Obama is weak because he “bows to foreign rulers”. George W. can walk hand in hand with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia but if Obama extends a cultural courtesy to the man one time, as he did at the 2009 G-20 summit in London, he is somehow demeaning the stature of the American presidency?

Adding fuel to the doubts of some about Obama’s legitimacy to be president is a film recently released with the hope of exploiting this absurdity. The movie, “2016: Obama’s America” written and directed by Dinesh D’Souza, is what one critic calls a “shaggy, piecemeal right-wing screed” and a “crude and sloppy … piece of campaign-season partisan hackwork”. Part of the film deals with D’Souza’s attempts to exploit the fear of those duped by the nut-case, Orly Taitz, who claimed she had proof of Obama’s birthright as a Kenyan only to find out it was a forged, amateurish document.

But D’Souza’s scheme is much grander than Taitz as he tries to make the outlandish link between Obama’s “socialist” father and some anti-colonial notion that he inspired his son to spread around the world, I suppose that in the event he would someday became the leader of the free world. After all, what father doesn’t think his son can be President of the U.S. So what if the father in this case was an African national who gave his son an endearing American name like Barack Hussein Obama. Some just dream deeper than others. Others critics of this film have equally debunked the premises of D’Sousa’s.

Not wanting to be outdone and insuring that his ego doesn’t suffer, Donald Trump is back in the news again challenging Obama’s academic creds. “The Donald” is a bit of a joke to even most conservatives so I won’t waste a lot of space on this here, but will encourage you to read Jean Calomeni’s Snoring Dog blog piece about this moronic move by the reality TV host.

Obama slams Trump on Tonight Show

I fear that well-intentioned people have been led astray by these huckster’s and to the likely detriment of our democracy in the future. I have a young friend who posted the following on his Facebook page:

“I don’t care for Obama or Romney but Obama had his turn and didn’t do that good. So Romney it’s your turn buddy! Please do better then(sic) what we had to deal with the last 4 years!”

I just want to shake the young man and tell him that this isn’t a crap shoot. This is like thinking your luck at a casino will change if there’s a different card dealer. Learning all you can about poker is more apt to benefit a player than picking someone the casino selects.

Like so many others who have listened more to the angry and unfounded claims of political pundits rather than using legitimate fact checkers and reading a variety of sources that haven’t had their credibility tainted, my young friend is fixing to make a choice that has long-term consequences. If in fact Romney gets elected and carries out his campaign strategy and promises, this young man’s grandmother’s prescription drug costs will rise once Obamacare is shut down and the “donut hole” comes back.

His own parents’ medical costs will be negatively impacted when they reach the eligible age for Medicare in about ten years if this safety net program becomes the voucher program Paul Ryan wants it to be. He and his children will suffer the ugly consequences of climate change that are so connected to the increase of CO2 from fossil fuels having failed to implement policies that would convert to cleaner, renewable energy sources sooner. We’ll all be getting a demonstration of this as Hurricane Sandy makes it way along the East Coast. It will start to come inland today and meet another massive storm, becoming what weather forecasters are calling a “frankenstorm”. This monster storm that will impact anywhere between 50-60 million people has possible climate change links from global warming.

The climate change link may be more than just more precipitation. A 2010 study found“Global warming is the main cause of a significant intensification in the North Atlantic Subtropical High.” Climate Central’s Andrew Freedman explains a possible influence:

Recent studies have shown that blocking patterns have appeared with greater frequency and intensity in recent years….

While it is not unusual to have a high pressure area near Greenland, its intensity is striking for this time of year. As Jason Samenow of the Capital Weather Gang wrote on Wednesday, the North Atlantic Oscillation, which helps measure this blocking flow, “is forecast to bethree standard deviations from the average — meaning this is an exceptional situation.”

I don’t want to disrespect anyone’s decision on why they are voting for the candidate of their choice but I would find greater respect for those who do so for more concrete reasons based on careful study and conviction of beliefs. In E.A. Bucchianeri’s novel, Brushstrokes of Gadfly, his fiery, idealistic heroine Katherine makes this observation:

“…they say if you don’t vote, you get the government you deserve, and if you do, you never get the results you expected.”

As important as voting is in a democracy, it is informed voting that will garner better results and ongoing participation in the political process that ensures any likelihood that you’ll get the government you expected.

There will never be an ideal candidate that meets each person’s criteria and values and the 30-second ads during the campaign are not aimed at informing you about what you need to know. Democracy is a group effort and one that extends beyond the voting booths. Voting for or against someone because you don’t think he is American enough, or christian enough or hasn’t provided a silver bullet to make everything better is unfair to those of us who have studied the candidates and make choices based on the realties of this world as we best see them.

” … if describing what you want to see happen without providing any specific policies to get us there constitutes a “plan,” I can easily come up with a one-point plan that trumps Mr. Romney any day. Here it is: Every American will have a good job with good wages. Also, a blissfully happy marriage. And a pony.” Pulitzer prize-winning Economist Paul Krugman

To emerge out of one’s emotional cocoon and make a long-term decision that comes from plutocratic influences and narrow ideological views is a fear that the framers had immediately following the days this country joined the world as its first democratic-republic. To make a farce of it is to shame us all with those people around the world today who so desperately want to experience what it is like living under anything other than an iron fisted ruler.

Six Facts About Mitt Romney’s Plan

Posted by lbwoodgate in 2012 Presidential Elections Tags: Barack Obama, choosing a candidate, Donald Trump, Henry Paulson, myths we take to the voting booth, Orly Taitz, political realities and fantasies, Romney, uninformed voters, Wall Street

12 comments

What’s In a Name?

October 26, 2012

The depressing state of the current political campaign has been so egregious that even I can’t weigh in much longer. However that doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun with this silly season. In the vein of the bible decoding scams I started playing around with the letters of the presidential and VP candidates’ last names to see if there was anything striking that could be divined from them. I know. Get a job right? If only.

Anyway, I was a little surprised that with the limited choices I had at how well the words I could create seem to reveal prophetic traits of the candidates.

The only rule I made for myself was that I had to use ALL of the letters of their last name to form real words.

So starting with the VP candidates here’s what I came up with

BIDEN – In Bed Politically speaking, when you are in bed with someone you are supportive and aligned with their ideas and policies. OMG! Does this speak directly to Biden or what? As Obama’s Vice-president Biden has been nothing but a loyal advocate for the POTUS.

RYAN – Now this one is really prophetic. Who is Paul Ryan’s role model? AYN Rand

Romney = R Money (Republican money). Need I say anything more other than what this 1984 photo of Romney’s Bain Capital group conveys? (Take my word for it. Those really are conservative greenbacks coming out of their orifices)

Obama – A Moab. We all laughed at the Tea Party-types when they chided Obama supporters for treating him like the anointed one but check out this revelation.

Moab was the illegitimate offspring of Lot’s daughter who became pregnant by having sex with her father after she and her sister got him drunk. Ironically, Moab was the patriarch of the line that eventually gave us King David and ultimately Jesus himself. One can only conclude, with the logic of Orly Taitz, that the messiah has returned.

“Whoa! It’s Really Him”

Posted by lbwoodgate in Humor Tags: Ayn Rand, Barack Obama, bible decoding, campaign 2012 political humor, fun with names, Joe Biden, Mitt Romney, Moab, Obama, Orly Taitz, Paul Ryan, Republican

10 comments

What a Difference Four Years Makes

October 23, 2012

The presentations by the candidates in last night’s presidential debate should have removed any doubt who has the foreign policy strengths. Obama made distinctions that Romney could only agree with.

In 2008 Barack Obama’s critics said that he was an “empty suit” compared to John McCain on foreign policy. Though it was an ugly assessment it had great merit at the time. Obama ‘s national political experience was fairly nascent in 2008 and his foreign policy savvy was almost non-existent. Had the country not been so determined to shuck the failures and abuses of the Bush administration, which by default fell on any GOP candidate for President, this foreign policy weakness could have lost it for Obama.

Fast forward to last night’s foreign policy debate with Mitt Romney and you see a Barack Obama who has mastered not only the language of a foreign policy expert but who has a broad and in-depth understanding of the matrix that is critical in setting policy here and abroad to sustain a position of leadership in global affairs. Gone was the “empty suit” that many accused him of being in 2008. Yet when Mitt Romney clearly displayed a similar weakness last night, as he has this entire campaign, supporters raved how well he displayed a “leadership” image.

Style, not substance, all of a sudden became a ringing endorsement for the crowd that always liked to point out how the GOP had the foreign policy creds. And it was this approach that apparently seemed to be the card that the Romney campaign wanted to play based on the political spin put out by his operatives following the debate. During the debate many conservative commentators were lamenting Romney’s performance.

David Limbaugh asked on Twitter, “Why do these advisers tell Mitt not to go for the jugular? Why? Laura Ingraham was essentially doing the same – Romney using kid gloves ag[ain] — WHY?!” The ever vivacious S.E. Cupp thought that “Obama is making laughable, easily argued points. But Romney’s not effectively arguing them.” I find it presumptuous for anyone to say there is any “jugular” there. Even Romney’s attacks on Libya are falling apart.

Afterwards conservative pundits were trying to portray Romney as “restrained” while painting Obama as agitated and overly aggressive. Some of us thought we saw the reverse of a Presidential debate #1 and yet conservatives now view the candidates differently. Looking presidential was more important than attacking your opponents weaknesses.

Try as he did to come off as a poised leader, Mitt Romney was often flustered in how to respond to foreign policy details posed by President Obama

Comments were similar by Romney supporters who went to the blogs to present their views on who they thought won. It was an obvious defense for a man who had now become the empty suit of the campaign. His ideas were neither fresh nor pertinent. His cold-war state-of-mind seemed to think an Iran with nuclear weapons was our greatest national security threat (something they are years away from by the way) yet who had told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer back in March this year that Russia was “without question our number one geopolitical foe” On this, Obama had perhaps one of the best one-liners of the night. “The 1980s called, they want their foreign policy back.”

What was clear about the Romney strategy last night was that since he was a light-weight compared to the President on foreign policy, his goal became, which many say he achieved, not to get entangled in details he has no knowledge about. His one strength was to try to connect a weak economy with a weak foreign policy effort. But the President was ready for him on this issue to. Obama pointed out how Romney leans towards sending troops back into Iraq and appears too eager in suggesting that boots on the ground may be required in Syria and Iran. “After a decade of war, I think we all agree, we need to do some nation-building here at home,” the President told the audience in his closing statement.

Tying Romney to a cold war, militaristic approach nullified, I thought, any attempt on Romney’s part to assure many voters, especially women, that he would not be quick to send our sons and daughters back into harms way. This point could have been driven home more vividly had Obama pointed out that the members of Romney’s foreign policy team are essentially the same who helped define the “preemptive strike” doctrine of the Bush/Cheney era.

[On] July 12, Governor Mitt Romney [was] attending a GOP fundraiser hosted by former Vice President Dick Cheney at his home in Wyoming. It’s fitting, really, since Romney has called Cheney a “person of wisdom and judgment.”

[When Romney was considering] possible running mates, it’s worth remembering that he pointed to Dick Cheney as the “kind of person I’d like to have” working with him.

Out of Romney’s 24 special advisors on foreign policy, 17 served in the Bush-Cheney administration. If Romney were to win, it’s likely that many of these people would serve in his administration in some capacity — a frightening prospect given the legacy of this particular group. The last time they were in government, it was disastrous. SOURCE

Perhaps Romney’s performance last night did present itself to many as a calm leader who would not cave under the stress of global conflicts. This is indeed a quality that exudes leadership. But knowledge and decisive action speak louder than appearances. Obama has demonstrated this capability, along with a cool-headed demeanor, and was convincing as commander-in-chief in last nights debate. Once Romney opened his mouth it became apparent that he was more concerned about having his feelings hurt by Obama while coming across as agreeing more with the President than as someone who has any bold new approach for addressing crises around the world.

If it were appearances we were going for instead of knowledge and certainty then this image of Romney would be appropriate

Horses and bayonets’ is the hot new meme

Posted by lbwoodgate in 2012 Presidential Elections Tags: Barack Obama, conservative commentators, Dick Cheney, empty suit, John McCain, Mitt Romney, presidential debate #3, romney's foreign policy team, Romney's foreign policy weakness

12 comments

Why I Still Support Barack Obama

October 17, 2012

My comments below were documented about 6 hours before last night’s 2nd Presidential debate took place and have not been altered as a result of anything either candidate conveyed during the debate.

I have issues with Barack Obama. Many of us on the Left do. But in the heat of a tight campaign race I am not going to attack my choice for President and thus help someone who I feel will do greater harm to our economy and the future of our planet. I wish there was this pure ideal of a candidate out there that many people thinks exists, but there isn’t and we all need to get past that.

We have a two-party system that doesn’t always give us the candidates we want but it does allow our participation and it falls on more than simply voting for whoever wins the ticket to create a government that was the envy of the world when it was inaugurated back in 1789. I realize the Roberts court with its Citizens United decision has made it more difficult by allowing larger amounts of money into politics to influence voters. For at least the last 150 years, the plutocracy in this country, with the aid of the courts in some cases, have diminished the original concept of a government for and by the people of this land. But the system does still work if we put more than a faint effort behind it. So until it doesn’t, I’ll do all that I can to prevent people like Mitt Romney from making choices that can hurt me and almost every other American.

Mitt Romney will double down on the Reagan/Bush policies of trickle down economics and kill what gains we have made since January 2009. His uncertainty about whether or not the climate science is sufficient is a joke in light of the abundant data available to him and presented by a significant consensus of climate scientists. The guy makes a rash call on what took place the night the Libyan embassy was attacked before the intelligence is even conveyed to the commander-in-chief, yet somehow he doesn’t have the capability to assess the legitimacy of man-made global warming? Only a fool would subscribe to such a weak notion and I do not want to waste my vote on a fool.

There’s a certain amount of noise being made by those who have bought in too easily the imagery that has been created by the religious right, the Tea Party, FOX News commentators, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Ann Coulter and right-wing blogs like Breitbart and The Drudge Report who want to portray the president as un-American, a Muslim jihadist sympathizer, a socialist/communist/fascist, and yes, even a racist. They’ve regurgitated this nonsense so long that they have bought into it so completely, now accepting it as unquestionable and can’t understand why anyone would consider voting for the man.

Here then, not laid out necessarily in any hierarchical fashion, are the reasons I will vote for Barack Obama instead of the Republican option.

1. He has a broader constituency he considers when making public policy compared to Romney’s narrower concerns for the wealthiest 1%. He doesn’t belittle and give up on people he feels certain won’t vote for him.

2. He gets it about “man-made global warming” and though he hasn’t moved fast enough to act on what he knows, he will not be the immovable object Mitt Romney will be on this.

3. He understands that reducing taxes and cutting public sector jobs deprives the U.S. treasury of revenue for paying down our national debt and that free market principles alone will not create the job growth we need at this time.

4. He is more willing to promote clean, renewable energy as a part of an energy and jobs policy to become oil independent rather than Romney, who wants to open up more dangerous exploration for oil in offshore deepwater and under arctic ice.

5. He has shown that he is serious about reducing health care costs in this country where the Republicans have NEVER made any serious effort at this. Who wants to vote for a candidate like Romney who supports repealing the one piece of health care legislation that has at least made a dent in one of the highest expenses consumers have to deal with today?

6. He has a better feel for what poverty is really like, growing up around it and at times having lived on its threshold, making something of himself despite the absence of traditional parents. Many growing up under these conditions and feeling alienated as a mixed-race child might have given into drug addiction and a life of crime. Instead, the man has fulfilled the American dream and created a stable family life that serves as a role model for others.

7. He supports the free-enterprise system but also understands that it is subject to human weaknesses, requiring sufficient government oversight to protect those who would suffer abuses from greedy corporate interests.

8. He shares my view that values tradition yet understands that the Constitution is a living document and subject to the interpretations of the ever changing social dynamics as opposed to the rigid concept of “original intent” that claims to know what the framers over 200 hundred years ago thought would be best for the general welfare of this nation today.

9. He’s more willing to sustain a lot of what belongs to the public commons rather than turning it all over to the for-profit private sector.

10. He’s shown greater concern and support for public education while Romney and the GOP work with wealthy special interests to privatize education.

11. He fulfilled the spirit of compromise more than the GOP who refused to work for the common good and allowed itself to be hi-jacked by a radical element that voted NO on everything that didn’t meet their strict and narrow criteria.

12. I feel safer that he is less likely to send our military troops into harms way and doesn’t alienate other cultures and nations with an obnoxious level of American exceptionalism.

13. He doesn’t show the disdain and indifference for science that too many in the GOP do.

14. He thinks women should make equal pay for equal work.

15. He thinks the American worker deserves a minimum wage

16. He too thinks it is dishonest and selfish for people of great wealth to hide their fair share of taxes in off-shore and overseas accounts while voting against a livable wage for the rest of us.

17. His tax rate is more comparable to mine than Romney’s 13% and has shown ample evidence of this in releasing years of tax records to Romney’s one and half.

18. He hasn’t threatened to restrict civil rights in the form of banning gays in the military, creating a constitutional amendment opposing same-sex marriage and insisting women‘s bodies be invaded to support extremist pro-life views.

19. He supports a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians where Romney sees “no hope” for this.

20. With four of the nine members of the Supreme Court over 70 years old, the next occupant of the White House could have the opportunity to appoint one or more new justices. Don’t want Romney adding more Scalias and Thomas’. Think what would happen to Roe v. Wade

As I mentioned earlier, there’s a lot of money out there in politics and this invariably opens the door for corruption and influence peddling. When you look at both campaigns however one thing sticks out with the Romney campaign – they’re getting much more larger individual donations. In August, the average donation was $58 for the Obama camp. Ninety-eight percent of donations were $250 or less. Romney’s campaign has not been that forthcoming on what their average donation is but it is clearly higher than Obama’s . What little I did find on Romney’s was in this AP report where representatives said “about 94 percent of its donations came from people who gave $250 or less.”

You get a better idea how much more each donor is giving when you look at state and local coffers. In San Antonio the average contribution to the Democrat’s campaign was $135 while Romney was pulling in an average of $681 per donation and in New Jersey Obama’s average was $149, compared with an average of $802 for Romney. Opensecrets.org also shows Romney’s top contributors are outpacing Obama’s. Even more glaring is how many billionaires have lined up in the Romney camp.

What also repulses me about electing a Republican as President or even for dog catcher is their brazen attempts to eliminate qualified voters by pushing voter ID laws. Voter fraud is a fear mongering tactic used by those on the right and most of them know that the threat of in-person voter fraud is wildly exaggerated.

So I am voting for Barack Obama even though my vote won’t carry much weight in Texas where the GOP is sure to walk away with all the electoral college votes. There are caveats to my reasons and imperfections that can be pointed out. But they are insufficient to make me think that Romney would be the better choice. Should Obama be successful in gaining a second term then I will spend as much energy challenging his decisions I object to, like continuing the practice of torture, privacy right violations and his deadly use of drones. Issues that few Republicans would find fault with.

As president I understand that he may feel the need to continue such practices, seeing the world from a vantage point the common man or woman can’t. But if we have learned anything from the Bush White House’s reason for taking us to war in Iraq, it is that we shouldn’t hesitate to challenge the Executive branch’s claims that rationalize calls to war or human rights violations. Actions to defend any national security interests should be based on the highest legal & moral standards, not the influences of wealthy, powerful self-interests.

Posted by lbwoodgate in 2012 Presidential Elections Tags: American plutocracy, Barack Obama, corporate influence in politics, ending social security as we know it, equal pay for equal work, legalize same sex marriage, Mitt Romney, Republicans, Romney, Romney and the wealthiest 1%, universal health care, voting for Obama, vouchers for Medicare

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Obama to Romney: “Those 12 million Jobs you’re claiming will happen without you.”

October 11, 2012

The title of my essay suggests that the President himself has informed Mitt Romney that he is on to his little deception but I am in fact writing vicariously for the President in the hopes that he takes this baton and effectively carries it to not only his next debate with his GOP opponent but for the remainder of the campaign as he travels through swing states talking to voters.

Voters need to make sure that Romney isn’t employing some legerdemain when he debates the president

Following the first presidential debates in Denver, GOP candidate Mitt Romney put a spotlight on himself that continues to reveal how he is misleading the American voter, not only in his claims about his own abilities but in how he is misrepresenting President Obama’s job creating policies.

Mitt Romney has made the economy the centerpiece of his campaign and has tried to make a case that not only has the President’s policies not worked but that they will make things worse if he remains in office. Romney has also assured us that if he is elected he will use his business skills to bring jobs back and reduce the deficit without raising taxes. In order for voters to buy into this they will have allow themselves to be mesmerized by the trickery Romney and his VP choice, Paul Ryan, will be performing for the remainder of this election year.

Ignore that man behind the curtain

If the President’s policies were not working and were in fact making things worse, then we wouldn’t be seeing the opposite of what we were experiencing during George Bush’s last year.

[O]ur economy and financial markets went into a tailspin in the second half of 2008 due to the consequences of conservative economic policies aggressively implemented by the Bush administration.

Compare this to the economic situation today:

The U.S. economy has added jobs for 31 consecutive months

The economy has been growing since June 2009

Manufacturing has been on the upswing

Corporate profits have risen sharply

The stock market has added healthy gains

Foreclosures are finally falling

Household wealth is continuing to expand

Instead of a second Great Depression, the actions of President Barack Obama’s administration resulted in our economy exiting what became known as the Great Recession of 2007–2009 within the first six months of his term. - SOURCE

Watch, as I create jobs out of thin air!

“See, nothing up my sleeves”

Mitt Romney claims, “If I’m president, I will help create 12 million new jobs in this country with rising incomes.” Really? Romney says he can achieve what only Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton have and will do it in 4 years rather than the course of two terms Clinton and Reagan needed to achieve this.

That’s pretty bold stuff. Romney has always viewed himself as something of a hero riding in to save the day. His successes at Bain Capital, passing Universal Health Care in Massachusetts (Romney-care) and the 2002 Winter Olympics may make this a justifiable view of himself. But his achievements with these were perhaps more a factor of his fiduciary skills. The claim that he will help create 12 million jobs is more a sleight of hand move that involves something he hasn’t had a hand in and which has essentially already been set in motion without any Romney heroics.

12 million new jobs will occur with or without Romney, according to several reports by Moody Analytics, the economic firm IHS Global Insight as well as the CBO’s own analysis. Strange that this is forecasted and Mr. Romney has yet to step foot in the Oval office. Romney’s imaginary part in this only comes about if he wins in November and finds himself in place when this all materializes. Voila! His promise of creating 12 million jobs comes true. But it comes true not for actions he took but for merely showing up.

These analyses likely do not take into account an Obama loss that allows the GOP to repeal Obamacare along with their failure to address the debt ceiling issue that could well push the economy over the “fiscal cliff”. Then that 12 million figure would likely drop dramatically according to the CBO’s analysis. Hundreds of thousands of jobs could be lost in the first two years alone if Romney implements most of his draconian budget cuts.

What this job creation projection does is to debunk the claims made by Romney and the GOP that Obama’s actions have not improved the economic quagmire he inherited. Though factors are in play here that no single person can take credit for, it becomes clear that if unemployment is reduced to the projected 6-7% figure by the fourth quarter of 2016, it will have done so by actions Obama has taken that have been anything but hurtful.

“ … GDP grew by 1.7 percent in 2011, producing nearly 1.6 million jobs. This is net of nearly 300,000 jobs lost in the public sector, thereby reflecting a private sector that is experiencing sustained, if not vigorous, growth.

A stronger above-trend economic recovery is not expected until 2014, after which several years of healthy growth are forecast. Thus, in the mid- to long-term, real estate markets should experience full recovery. This recovery should also lead to new supply ..

While a modest improvement from 2011, the coming year is forecast to experience continued gradual recovery, with anticipated job creation of about 140,000 per month. Longer-term, growth should accelerate. The previous employment peak should be achieved in 2014, and the unemployment rate should fall below 7 percent in 2016.” SOURCE (emphasis mine)

Obama and the Democrats have less than four weeks to convince voters who were impressed with Governor Romney’s performance following the first debate that there exuberance is based largely on distortions and lies. Unless they can convince enough people that the change they think they will get by returning the power back to the GOP is simply more of the same policies that created the great recession in the first place, this country will devolve into an economic morass that will take at least a decade to recover from. The writing is already on the wall as we watch conservative austerity programs dragging Europe down as it prevents a faster resurgence of our own economy.

And now for a side show

Watch the Daily Beast’s video of Hankeygate showing Romney employing a little prestidigitation that could violate the debate rules forbidding the use of any props, notes, charts, diagrams or other writings

Hankeygate

Romney Has No Real Jobs Plan

Posted by lbwoodgate in Social Discourse Tags: Barack Obama, fact checking romney's claims, GOP, Mitt Romney, Obama, political tricks, presidential debates, Republicans, Romney's job creation plan, romney/ryan magical mystery tour, slight of hand figures, voodoo economics

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Outrage Expressed Over “Free Contraception” Study

October 5, 2012

The Religious Right and conservatives double down on their efforts to block efforts by women to use pill.

A dramatic new study with implications for next month’s presidential election finds that offering women free birth control can reduce unplanned pregnancies — and send the abortion rate spiraling downward.

When more than 9,000 women ages 14 to 45 in the St. Louis area were given no-cost contraception for three years, abortion rates dropped from two-thirds to three-quarters lower than the national rate, according to a new report by Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis researchers.

From 2008 to 2010, annual abortion rates among participants in the Contraceptive Choice Project – dubbed CHOICE — ranged from 4.4 abortions per 1,000 women to 7.5 abortions per 1,000. That’s far less than the 19.6 abortions per 1,000 women nationwide reported in 2008, the latest year for which figures are available.

Among teen girls ages 15 to 19 who participated in the study, the annual birth rate was 6.3 per 1,000 girls, far below the U.S. rate of 34.3 per 1,000 for girls the same age. SOURCE

Despite this positive news for opponents of abortion many on the religious right see this as evidence that unwed teen girls are still having promiscuous sex. Farbus Doolittle, the Southern Baptist director for the Wayward Girls Home in Christian County, Kentucky, said that for rates of abortion to drop that dramatically means only one thing, “young fertile girls are violating God’s law to procreate and populate the earth”.

“We think it’s important that women forego the use of any contraception and forbid anything other than natural abstinence”, the clergyman said. “If these girls can’t just say no then they should honor the will of God and carry that unborn child to full term. God doesn’t want them to have sex before they are legally married and will send them straight to hell if they abort any child conceived out of wedlock.”

A spokesman for the Catholic Church also weighed in. “If, as supporters of the contraceptive mandate argue, it will pay for itself in reduced medical expenses, so will free embryo engineering and other eugenic services, including infanticide, doctor-assisted suicide, organ harvesting, and genetic manipulation,” wrote Thomas Joseph White, director of the Thomistic Institute at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C., and R.R. Reno, in the conservative journal First Things.

An assistant to director White was later heard telling a colleague that the exaggerations uttered earlier by his boss were the result of his prescription lapse for Oxycontin. That information could not be validated by our reporters.

“The study’s lead author, Dr. Jeffrey Peipert, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Washington University, said the results were so dramatic, … that [he] pushed the journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology to publish the study before the Nov. 6 presidential election, knowing that the Affordable Care Act, and its reproductive health provisions, are major issues in the campaign”, according to Brian Alexander with NBC News.

Alexander also reported that John Santelli, professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, said the study suggested “that it’s totally supportive of the president’s provisions on reproductive care and preventive services for women in the Affordable Care Act.”

This outraged some on the political right. Conservative politician Jeremiah Matthews of Lafayette, Louisiana was among those politicians who found this news disconcerting. “We have been very successful in portraying President Obama and his support for the birth control pill as a usurper of freedom and anti-God. For this news to suggest that maybe he was right would make him look like he really cared about the health of women and the unwanted pregnancies of young, poor teens. This would put us at an even greater disadvantage of achieving our number one goal for the American people – making sure that Obama is a one-term president”.

We have not received any response in our attempt to reach TV Evangelist Pat Robertson on this matter. Members of his staff tell us he has been in fervent prayer with the Lord in an attempt to get Tim Tebow to start at quarterback for the New York Jets for the upcoming Monday Night game against the Houston Texans.

Is 700 Club host Pat Robertson avoiding the controversy over birth control pill to seek divine intervention on behalf of Tim Tebow?

Posted by lbwoodgate in Satire Tags: anti-abortionists, Barack Obama, Catholic Church, current-events, free birth control pills, NBC News, Pat Robertson, religious right, Tim Tebow, unwanted teen pregnancies, Washington University School of Medicine

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