going cannibal

John McCain wants you to be afraid of Barack Obama, but McCain's the one who's scaring me these days by scapegoating two advocacy organizations - the Annenberg Foundation and ACORN - to score cheap political points.

Okay, ACORN has raised the ire of conservatives as many organizations seeking to politically empower the poor do. Read here to understand why the McCain campaign is attacking them (hint: to set the stage to contest the Nov 4 outcome). And here and here for ACORN's response (hint: McCain's attack is part of the same Republican voter suppression effort that led to the ousting of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Karl Rove for their role in the illegal firing of seven US Attorneys).

But Annenburg?? McCain has a web ad up claiming that "Ayers and Obama ran a radical education foundation together" referring to the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.

The Annenberg Foundation has played a vital role in education reform efforts since 1989. I worked alongside them in Philadelphia in 1999 and 2000 while my organization and theirs tried to tackle the dismal situation in Philadelphia Public Schools. They were and are highly respected in the field for their generously funded and reform-minded projects.

Here's what they say on their website about the Annenberg Challenge grants that funded 18 projects around the country, including the one in Chicago:

"Announced in December 1993 at the White House (my emphasis), Ambassador Walter H. Annenberg's $500 million 'Challenge to the Nation' became the largest public/private endeavor in U.S. history dedicated to improving public schools.

Eighteen locally designed Challenge projects operated in 35 states, funding 2,400 public schools that served more than 1.5 million students and 80,000 teachers. Over 1,600 businesses, foundations, colleges, and universities, and individuals contributed $600 million in private matching funds.

Each Challenge project fit unique local conditions and was planned collaboratively by educators, foundation officers, and community, civic, and business leaders."

Hardly the stuff of radicalism and not even considered left-wing. In fact, Founder Walter Annenberg was a lifelong Republican and former ambassador to the United Kingdom under President Richard Nixon. His widow, Leonore, has endorsed McCain and contributed the maximum donation allowed to his presidential bid. She is a MAJOR donor to the Republican Party and its candidates. See here for details.

PolitiFact, a non-partisan fact checking organization, gave McCain's claim that the Chicago Annenberg Challenge was a radical foundation run by Obama and Bill Ayers a "Pants on Fire" rating, its worst. Read here for more.

As McCain's campaign goes from carnivorous to cannibalistic (first dismissing Republican pundits who've come out against Palin as "Georgetown cocktail party" people and now attacking Republican philanthropists), we can hope that this will come back to bite him. But I'm somewhat horrified to note that Obama slipped in the polls last week amidst the barrage of attacks from McCain/Palin.

Democrats can't take this election for granted and must stand up to the slander and voter intimidation tactics or 2008 will be Florida 2000 and Ohio 2004 all over again. Please get the word out so we can set the record straight!

oh dear

"After I whip his you-know-what in this debate..."

- John McCain, October 12, 2008

More scary stuff here.

more of the same

A woman stood up at a McCain town hall meeting, held at Lakeville South High School in a far suburb of Minneapolis, and told Mr. McCain that she could not trust Mr. Obama because he was an “Arab.”

Mr. McCain replied: “No, ma’am, he’s a decent family man, citizen who I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues. And that’s what this campaign is all about.” At that, the crowd applauded.

- New York Times, October 10, 2008

So the good news is that McCain is backing away from the despicable tone his campaign has set in the past week. But the bad news is that in doing so he has chosen to juxtapose being a decent family man and citizen with being an Arab.

Was it an intentional slur? Probably not. But what does it say about the man that his subconscious misses the obvious negative stereotype in her question? McCain's answer brushes right past it, essentially accepting the premise that to call Obama an Arab is to associate him with terrorists.

There are between 350 and 422 million Arabs in the world, with 1.4 million people of Arab descent living in the United States. I guess it's safe to say the McCain/Palin ticket is not counting on this voting block, although half of registered Arab-Americans are Republicans. (1)

But is it really necessary that McCain continue the cultural warfare between Arabs and Muslims (note to McCain supporters - these terms are not interchangeable) and the mythical group some people like to call "regular Americans"?

Here are a few "regular Americans" McCain's supporters may be surprised to learn are Arab-Americans:

Jerry Seinfeld, (Syrian Mother, Jewish) Golden Globe- and Emmy Award-winning comedian

F. Murray Abraham, Hollywood actor and Oscar winner for the film "Amadeus" (Syrian father)

Jamie Farr, (Lebanese) Hollywood actor especially famous for his role as Klinger in the TV series "M*A*S*H"

Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple Inc. (Syrian father)

Danny Thomas, (Lebanese) actor and his daughter Marlo Thomas, actress

George J. Mitchell, (Lebanese) U.S. Senator from Maine, Senate Majority Leader

John H. Sununu, (Lebanese/Palestinian) Governor of New Hampshire and White House Chief of Staff under George H. W. Bush

Spencer Abraham, (Lebanese) Senator from Michigan and Secretary of Energy under George W. Bush

Helen Thomas, (Lebanese) reporter, columnist and White House correspondent

Sammy Hagar, (Lebanese), rock musician

Chris Kattan, (Iraqi Jewish father), comedian and actor, best known for his work on Saturday Night Live

Doug Flutie, (Lebanese) NFL Player


Here's one who happens not to be:

Barack Obama

Not that it matters.


(1)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_American

that one

Love this. From The NY Times today.

my friends, enough already

Just a few quick notes and links here related to last night's debate and the recent, ugly turn the McCain/Palin campaign has taken.

In the debate, once again, Senator McCain called for a spending freeze to deal with our current economic crisis. Let me be clear - the worst thing the government can do right now is to freeze spending. When no one is spending - government, individual citizens and businesses - jobs disappear, businesses collapse, families go bankrupt, governments are starved of tax revenues, unemployment and Medicare expenditures sky rocket creating huge deficits... am I making myself clear?

Consumers, sorry, citizens (still stuck in Bushspeak) were told to go shopping after 9/11 to shore up our economy, and look where it got us - mortgages we couldn't afford and the highest credit card debt ever recorded, nearly a trillion dollars(1). We aren't likely to fall for that line again, and if consumers aren't buying, businesses won't spend. So guess who's left? Either way, we're going to have deficits - with spending freezes that lead to lower tax revenues and raise welfare outflows or through job creation programs and healthcare reform that alleviates financial pressure on citizens and businesses. Only Obama's plan has a light at the end of the tunnel.

And did anyone catch this nonsensical exchange:

BROKAW: The three -- health care, energy, and entitlement reform: Social Security and Medicare. In what order would you put them in terms of priorities?

MCCAIN: I think you can work on all three at once, Tom. I think it's very important that we reform our entitlement programs.

My friends, we are not going to be able to provide the same benefit for present-day workers that we are going -- that present-day retirees have today. We're going to have to sit down across the table, Republican and Democrat, as we did in 1983 between Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill.

I know how to do that. I have a clear record of reaching across the aisle, whether it be Joe Lieberman or Russ Feingold or Ted Kennedy or others. That's my clear record.

We can work on nuclear power plants. Build a whole bunch of them, create millions of new jobs. We have to have all of the above, alternative fuels, wind, tide, solar, natural gas, clean coal technology. All of these things we can do as Americans and we can take on this mission and we can overcome it.

My friends, some of this $700 billion ends up in the hands of terrorist organizations.

As far as health care is concerned, obviously, everyone is struggling to make sure that they can afford their premiums and that they can have affordable and available health care. That's the next issue.

But we can do them all at once. There's no -- and we have to do them all at once. All three you mentioned are compelling national security requirements.

What $700 billion? Going to terrorists? Reagan and Tip O'Neill? Does anyone under 50 know what he's talking about? And by the way, we are not even going to get the Social Security benefit that seniors get today - the one that makes them choose between medicine and food?

Now, about the campaigning of late. Has anyone else noticed that the McCain/Palin campaign is going after the white racist vote? Thankfully, yes. Three takes on it:

John Stewart on how McCain/Palin is inciting angry mobs

Roland Martin of CNN on the euphamisms Joe Six-Pack, Soccer Mom, NASCAR Dad, and Small Town America

The New York Times on how Palin's demagoguery has elicited some frightening, intolerable responses

(1) http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/04/plastic_problems.html

what don't they understand?

As a photography student at New York University, I learned of the Farm Security Administration (FSA) and its cousin under FDR's New Deal, the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The FSA is famous for its small but highly influential photography program that ran from 1935-44 and realistically portrayed the challenges of rural poverty. It garnered support not only for its own projects but no doubt for other major New Deal projects such as the Tennessee Valley Authority which built dams to simultaneously provide jobs and electricity to the very poor in southeastern states. Many of the most famous Depression-era photographers were fostered by the FSA project, including Dorothea Lange, Gordon Parks, and Walker Evans. You may recall seeing some of their works:




Through the FSA, I learned of the Works Project Administration, established by President Roosevelt in 1935, which provided jobs and income to the unemployed during the Great Depression. The program built many public buildings, projects and roads and operated large arts, drama, media and literacy projects. It fed children and redistributed food, clothing and housing(2). On a personal note, nothing has ever tied together so neatly my love of photography and passion for progressive social policy as the FSA, which is why I share the connection and the images here.

But onto my point. Senator Obama has been criticized of late for being anything from cautious to absent (depending on your political leanings) in the current economic debate because he has yet to put forth a plan to deal with the crisis.

This is baffling to me, because he does have a plan and he's been talking about it since at least February 13 and most succinctly here. Five core underpinnings define that plan:

1. A National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank to rebuild our crumbling roads and bridges and create jobs
2. Investments in new energy technology, in part to create jobs
3. Near-universal healthcare to alleviate expenses for families and businesses
4. Closing the gap between the middle and upper classes with a progressive tax policy to put purchasing power back in the hands of the middle class
5. Investments in education for future growth

The first two proposals create jobs through government works projects and incentives to the private sector. And jobs are what we need right now. Obama's healthcare plan would alleviate the crushing cost of healthcare for families and businesses. These costs prevent families from investing in education or debt reduction and diminish businesses' ability to invest in new technologies or compete globally. Closing the gap between rich and middle to lower income people through progressive tax policy puts real purchasing power back in the hands of the spending classes versus the savings class (see my last post), creating demand for goods and services, which in turn creates more jobs. And investments in education keep us competitive globally going forward.

This plan mirrors the economic policies of twentieth-century British economist John Maynard Keynes that FDR employed as he wrestled to get the US out of the Great Depression. The National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank (NIRB) is a modern day WPA using government spending to provide much needed jobs and to complete public works which in turn yield improved infrastructure that businesses can use to transport goods more cheaply.

New jobs mean more money in the pockets of Americans, which stimulates demand, which leads to more business investment, which in turn creates more jobs, and so on. Keynes called this a multiplier effect. He argued that government spending should be used in times of recession in order to counteract an economy on a downward spiral and provide more long-term economic stability. In other words, when individuals and business stop spending for fear of a recession, which tends only to exacerbate or fulfill the expectation of that recession, then demand decreases and leads to less business investment, which leads to fewer jobs, then less consumer spending and so forth. It is at this point that only government can step in and reverse the economic freefall by creating a multiplier effect through investments until the economy is once again self-sustaining.

As for Obama's healthcare plan and tax policy which favor the middle and lower class, Keynes believed that fiscal policy should be directed towards the lower-income segment of the population, because that segment is more likely to spend the money, contributing to demand, than to save it(3). As I wrote in my last post, FDR's Federal Reserve Chief blamed much of the depression on a concentration of wealth in the upper class.

In March 2007, Senator Obama warned of the housing crisis and a year later in a speech in Manhattan he called for investment banks, mortgage brokers and hedge funds to be regulated much as commercial banks are, the streamlining of overlapping regulatory agencies, and the creation of a commission to monitor threats to the financial system and report to the White House and Congress - six months and several bank failures before John McCain called for the same types of reform(4).

Jobs creation through public works and new energy investments, closing the gap between rich and poor through progressive tax policy and healthcare reform, tighter banking regulations, improved business environment through improved infrastructure and lower healthcare costs - in short, a plan that draws on what's gotten us out of tough economic times before... what don't the pundits understand?

Maybe they wanted Obama to say something new? But Senator Obama's economic plan has always addressed the current crisis, because unlike most pundits, he's seen it coming all along. Maybe they just need to catch up with him.


(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farm_Security_Administration
(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Works_Progress_Administration
(3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_economics
(4) http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/16/...

reading between the doggones, betchas, and bless yer hearts

The problem with politicians who believe that government can't possibly work for the people is that when they take office they do everything they can to fulfill that prophecy. Just think Katrina.

So when Sarah Palin said on Thursday evening in her debate with Senator Biden, "Patriotic is saying, government, you know, you're not always the solution. In fact, too often you're the problem," it sent chills down my spine. Because if we look back at the last three Republican administrations and a possible McCain/Palin administration, she's right.

Steven Labaton writes in today's New York Times about a decision taken by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2004, under pressure from top investment banks (Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs), to relax regulations on debt to capital ratios which would allow those same banks to 'leverage up' and free up billions of dollars to invest in mortgage-backed securities, credit default swaps and other complex derivatives, and that they be allowed to self-regulate these activities. Ya know, get government out of the way.

When have we heard this before? Ah yes, 1999. As governor of Texas, George W. Bush signed a law enabling most major industrial polluters to audit their own pollution records, provided they reported them, in exchange for which there would be absolute protection from public disclosure. He also championed tort reform which made it more difficult for individual citizens to sue these companies.(1)

In the end, investment banks collapsed under the weight of their own debt and Texas continued to lead the nation in air pollution volume.

Whether it's through deregulation, lax oversight, incompetent agency managers, or managers who lobbied for the very industries they now regulate, the Bush Administration followed the pattern set in Texas, and has, in its own circular logic, proven the theory of ineffective government.

Now, in the bitterest of ironies, it is the government that is called on to bail out one of the most deregulated and unsupervised industries. And thanks to Bush, the effort is lead by one of the bank chiefs who pressured the SEC to relax the rules on capital holdings in the first place, Treasury Secretary and former Goldman Sachs CEO, Henry Paulson. And no one believes he can do it well, because no one trusts the government to do anything right.

So where do we go from here?

We can follow Sarah Palin's lead, if we believe government is never the solution. If we want to continue to bail out reckless industry titans, watch our social security go the way of our 401(k)s through privatization, our kids' toys continue to be coated in lead paint, our school cafeterias continue to receive the poorest quality meats from our nation's grossly under-supervised meat processing plants; if we want to no longer trust the drinking water that comes out of our taps or trust that the bridges we drive over won't collapse, by all means, we should vote for the ticket that doesn't believe that government matters.

In a more amusing irony, Governor Palin said in her closing statement, "It was Ronald Reagan who said that freedom is always just one generation away from extinction. We... have to fight for it and protect it, ... or we're going to find ourselves spending our sunset years telling our children and our children's children about a time in America, back in the day, when men and women were free."

Ronald Reagan was warning against the socialist threat of Medicare, a government program now widely considered to be, along with Social Security, the third rail of government.(2) Why? Because they provide real solutions for real Americans.

(1) www.texasobserver.org/article.php?aid=670 and www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2002/jun/16/features.magazine57
(2) www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/opinion/04herbert.html?ref=opinion