Day: October 19, 2008

It was a delight to watch and laugh along with the barbs visited by John McCain and Barack Obama upon each other at the annual Al Smith Dinner in New York City last Thursday night.

In the midst of a long and very stressful campaign, particularly in the midst of the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, we got to see the human side of both candidates and to enjoy the funnier side of the events that have been transpiring. 

It is particularly appropriate that this annual political event commemorates the life and contributions of Alfred E Smith, the four term Governor of New York, and 1928 Democratic nominee  for President, who was also the first Catholic nominee for President, setting a new milestone in American politics, although he went on to lose in a landslide to Herbert Hoover, who proceeded to preside disastrously over the Great Depression.  This led to the destruction of the Republican majority and the beginning of the Democratic Party advantage in party registration, which has lasted  from 1932 to the present day. 

The modern Democratic party dates from the election of Franklin D Roosevelt in 1932 and his promotion of the New Deal.  Now, three quarters of a century later, an African American President may face the same challenge that FDR faced back then and a lot will be expected from him, with progressivism and liberalism again on the rise after a generation and more of Reagan conservatism.

May we wish Barack Obama good fortune as he marches on to the election in sixteen days and a post modern future!

I am very proud of Retired General Colin Powell for his endorsement this morning on MEET THE PRESS of Senator Barack Obama for President, with just sixteen days to go in the presidential campaign.

His analysis of the presidential campaign, and his reasons for endorsing Senator Obama over his long time friend Senator John McCain, are inspiring and will strengthen Obama as he goes into the final stretch of his quest for the Presidency.  It was comforting that he realized that McCain had been erratic in his response and temperament in the past seven weeks since the conventions, and that he had made an unwise choice in Sarah Palin, who Powell declared was clearly NOT ready for the Presidency on Day One, unlike Senator Joseph Biden, Obama’s Vice Presidential choice. 

Powell also made clear his discontent over the tone of the McCain campaign in his campaign rallies and his and Palin’s constant references to William Ayers, rather than focusing on the economy and the major issues that are being totally ignored by the McCain campaign.  Meanwhile, Obama has come across as focused, steady, stable, calm cool, comfortable with himself and ready to take on the responsibilities of the Presidency. 

Also important, as Powell pointed out, is the intellectual nature of Obama’s mind, a man of deep thought and reflection.  Wouldn’t it be a pleasant change to have a President one can fully respect and admire as one of a keen mind and intellect who we could look up to as a model, rather than having a "Joe the Plumber" or "Six Pack Joe" as our leader?  The nation is deserving of such a leader and should soon have what it is clear they want!

Oh, and by the way, I hope sincerely that "Joe the Plumber" goes back into well deserved obscurity.  We have had more of him than one can take.  My response to him is: "Good night and good luck"!  🙂

So now John McCain and Sarah Palin accuse Barack Obama of being a "Socialist"!  As if Socialism is the same as Communism, which unfortunately too many Americans, through lack of education and knowledge, tend to believe.

It is particularly ironic that this accusation is surfacing at a time when a Republican President (George W Bush) and Republican Secretary of the Treasury  (Hank Paulson) have decided that the government must buy into the banking system in order to save it.  It is also interesting that this conservative President created and promoted the biggest increase in government spending with the Medicare Part D prescription plan, passed in time for the election of 2004. 

The fact that every industrial democracy has a national health care plan except us, and that industrial nations created Social Security and Medicare many decades before we did,  should make one think could socialist type ideas be so evil?  Certainly, we are not in danger of abandoning our capitalist system,  but why not allow ideas that were originally socialist which have been shown to be beneficial if one looks at the evidence objectively?

For instance, it was the Democratic Socialist movement in this country that first promoted environmental protection, civil rights laws, and promotion of civil liberties, along with Social Security and Medicare.  An excellent example of a Democratic Socialist today is Senator Bernie Sanders  of Vermont, who is seen as a principled, decent man who wishes to promote the American dream beyond just a small group of rich citizens.  If this is the human face of Democratic Socialism, then we need to advance it.  The citizens of this country need to be educated in the virtues of a mixed Capitalist-Socialist system that prevents the kind of stratification so evident in America today, where one percent of the population has half the income.  This continued situation is a prescription for disaster socially and economically in the future if not rectified.

It is sickening to hear Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin and Congresswoman Michele Bachmann of Minnesota speak about so called "Pro American" parts of the nation, in effect to promote divisiveness and conflict when we so desperately need to come together in this time of economic crisis and are about to choose our next President. 

Apparently, the rural parts of America are "Pro American" while the urban and coastline areas are not.  Interesting that the first areas described are "red" states and the latter are "blue" states.  This is NOT a good strategy at a time when McCain is not ahead in ANY of the "blue’ states and running behind in many "red" states.  It is also unusual that Sarah Palin should bring this up when her husband has been a member of the Alaska Independence Party which professes to hate America and want Alaska to become an independent nation.  It is also surprising that Michele Bachmann is spewing her poison in a state which leans Democratic in the presidential race and has been consistently Democratic in presidential years longer than any other state. 

These are two good looking female politicians who show no class, no principle, and give evidence of being female versions of Joseph McCarthy, sowing division and hate and having no sense of responsibility in their accusations.  They seem not to care about the damage their labeling can do to Americans’ confidence in their government and in the future of America.  If this be evangelical conservatism in politics, let us be rid of it!

It is obvious to me that the greatest danger to this nation are people such as these who care not what damage they cause.  There is a word for Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann and their ilk: DEMAGOGUES!   As was said at the Army-McCarthy hearings but modified to reflect the gender of the accusers: "Ladies, do you not have common decency and care about the damage you are visiting upon those accused?"

Senator McCain needs to tell Governor Palin to cease and desist in this line of campaigning and to repudiate Congresswoman Bachmann’s despicable statements.  If he wishes any good memories in the future of his career in the Senate, it is essential to speak up NOW in a firm, clear, way !