McCain Sounds A Bit Like My Mother
Don't get me wrong. I agree with the initial pundit response on the first McCain Obama debate: 1) namely that it was an actual debate and not just an exchange of sound bites; and 2) that both candidates performed well, playing to their strengths and minimizing most of their weaknesses,
But there was one area in which I found Senator McCain just a little bit irritating, and that was because his constant references to his age and experience, and his repeated mantra of “Senator Obama doesn't understand x, y, or z” started to sound a lot like my mother.
I well remember my mom saying to me as I reached my high school years,
I'm 62 years-old, and I don't need some smart-ass teenager telling me what I know about x, y, or z.”
Substitute McCain saying, “I'm 72 years-old, and I don't need some smart-ass 40-something junior senator telling me what I know about x, y, or z” and you have the same effect.
Senator McCain was born in 1936, a spring chicken compare to my mother who was born in 1918 and died in 1989, but the rhetorical effect is still the same: “I'm older than you, there I know more” had the same resonance in 1980 as it does in 2008. I still thought, “Hey, mom, you voted for Ronald Reagan, even though he's planning to cut the very social security benefits that are intended to help me fund my college education, and I personally think you're nuts for doing this.”
Similarly, Senator Barack Obama countered Senator McCain's condescension with a consistent reference towards his ill-judged decision to support the Iraq War in the first place when it has provided such a distraction from and diversion of resources from Afghanistan, which is the real center of Al-Queda insurgency.
Senator McCain's repeated, almost hypnotic use of the refrain, “What Senator Obama doesn't understand,” combined with his rude refusal even to make eye contact with his opponent, underscores the generational divide between them.
Many voters, from the 40-somethings on down, and I count myself among them, do not want want condescension from our presidential candidates. We want accountability for the terrible decision to go to war with Iraq and to continue to spend $10 billion per month on a conflict we never needed to engage in. Senator Obama has been much more clear-eyed and cogent about the real national security threat facing our nation, and this threat has never been Iraq.
If there is anything either Senator and the American public “needs to understand,” it is that as little money as possible must be expended in a war with Iraq than we can ill afford, and that resources need to reallocated to actual, contemporary threats, both military and domestic. That will be the true test of leadership for our next president, particularly if the next terrorist threat comes from Afghanistan or Pakistan, which are underfunded and underestimated by the current administration, and the current Republican nominee.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Who Will Bail out the Taxpayer?
Who Will Bail Out the Taxpayer?
The American financial system has lurched from crisis to crisis all summer, resulting in government interventions whose shock value has increased from a stinging slap in the face to a full body blow in the latest proposal to bail out $700 billion in “toxic” assets held by a wide range of domestic and foreign financial institutions.
First the Bush Administration found it necessary to save Bear Stearns from bankruptcy. Then Secretary Paulson and Fed Chair Ben Bernanke engineered a national take-over of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That was still not enough.
A short time later the Federal Reserve announced that it would take a nearly 80 percent interest in the insurer American International Group in exchange for a two-year, $85 billion loan.
Why did the U.S. government have to bail out an insurance company? Well, it turned out that AIG had engaged in a new unregulated financial instrument, selling so-called “credit default swaps” which are essentially insurance on debt.
And when firms borrowed money to finance debt that included subprime mortgages and other “toxic” assets, the unregulated free-for-all that has been the U.S. financial markets for the past four years finally threatened to implode, .
Only in the case of Lehman Brothers did market capitalism actually play out in full leading to the bankruptcy of that institution.
The rules of capitalism are supposed to be simple. As Don Boudreaux, a professor at George Mason University puts it: “[Y]ou are free to take whatever risks you want as long as you are willing to bear the costs for those risks. And you get the upside of it too. If you have huge gains, great, you get the gains. But no one helps bail you out or subsidize you,” (“Do Federal Moves Take up Back to the New Deal?" All Things Considered, September 18, 2008). http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9477132
That's no longer true in this new world-turned-upside-down view of American capitalism where government intervention is now the name of the game and where it seems that if you win, you win, but if you're about to lose, you ask someone else to pay your bill.
So this week Secretary Paulson and Fed Chair Ben Bernanke are back on Capitol Hill, hats in hand, begging for a sum that makes these other billion-dollar interventions bail in comparison, and with even less oversight and less accountability to the real people who will be paying the bill – you and me, the American taxpayers.
Fortunately, despite the real crisis at hand, legislators of both parties have finally found the backbone to stand up to the Bush Administration and say, “Hey, wait a minute!”
In blunt and often angry utterances, these representatives are insisting that the details of this proposed gargantuan bail-out get fleshed out, that there is oversight of how the Fed and Treasury will implement the plan, and that the taxpayers get something back if this bad debt proves to have any ultimate value.
Congress is finally reflecting the outrage of an American electorate that has been sold an expensive and unnecessary war in Iraq and now is being asked to fund a similarly expensive financial rescue plan with just about as much planning and oversight as the Bush Administration put into its invasion of Baghdad, i.e. Let's just start a war and worry about the details later.
It's not just that Paulson and Bernanke have cried “wolf” once too often this summer and never actually saved a single lamb from slaughter, but they also have to take responsibility for the disastrous policies and regulatory performance of an administration that will go down in history as one of the most spendthrift, deceptive, and incompetent in American history.
To add insult to injury, the proposed Paulson-Bernanke plan contains no financial relief for the individual taxpayers who are being asked to bail out Wall Street while receiving no assistance with the housing crisis, or with shrinking incomes, or a growing unemployment rate.
As many housing advocates and economists will tell you, the financial industry has done a dismal job so far helping homeowners facing foreclosure restructure their debt. At the very least, any bailout of the financial industry must include some provision for individual taxpayers to restructure their debts, particularly for those who are in danger of losing their homes.
If Congress does agree to some form of the Paulson-Bernanke plan, it should be with some very serious strings attached. Any institution agreeing to participate should be required to disclose all of its debts, to fire its top management without any gold parachutes attached, and to agree to profit-sharing with the Treasury should its “toxic” assets ultimately turn out to have some value.
Then Congress needs to repeal its ill-judged revisions of the personal bankruptcy laws to make it easier for homeowners facing foreclosure to refinance their debts and not worsen a deteriorating housing market.
And finally, it's time for the American public and its leaders to decide whether we really are a capitalist society or not. If we offer corporations a safety net, we need to make sure that we not only have the appropriate regulations on the books, but regulators who enforce those laws thoroughly and seriously so that Wall Street doesn't once again have the opportunity to go to Vegas on the taxpayers' dime.
It seems almost certain that in resolving the current financial crisis, the American taxpayer will get stuck paying the check, but as voters we can also press our representatives hard to reduce the size of the final bill.
P.S. For an excellent overview of the financial crisis, see Gretchen Morgenson's September 21st New York Times column, entitled "Your Money at Work, Fixing Others' Mistakes."
The American financial system has lurched from crisis to crisis all summer, resulting in government interventions whose shock value has increased from a stinging slap in the face to a full body blow in the latest proposal to bail out $700 billion in “toxic” assets held by a wide range of domestic and foreign financial institutions.
First the Bush Administration found it necessary to save Bear Stearns from bankruptcy. Then Secretary Paulson and Fed Chair Ben Bernanke engineered a national take-over of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. That was still not enough.
A short time later the Federal Reserve announced that it would take a nearly 80 percent interest in the insurer American International Group in exchange for a two-year, $85 billion loan.
Why did the U.S. government have to bail out an insurance company? Well, it turned out that AIG had engaged in a new unregulated financial instrument, selling so-called “credit default swaps” which are essentially insurance on debt.
And when firms borrowed money to finance debt that included subprime mortgages and other “toxic” assets, the unregulated free-for-all that has been the U.S. financial markets for the past four years finally threatened to implode, .
Only in the case of Lehman Brothers did market capitalism actually play out in full leading to the bankruptcy of that institution.
The rules of capitalism are supposed to be simple. As Don Boudreaux, a professor at George Mason University puts it: “[Y]ou are free to take whatever risks you want as long as you are willing to bear the costs for those risks. And you get the upside of it too. If you have huge gains, great, you get the gains. But no one helps bail you out or subsidize you,” (“Do Federal Moves Take up Back to the New Deal?" All Things Considered, September 18, 2008). http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9477132
That's no longer true in this new world-turned-upside-down view of American capitalism where government intervention is now the name of the game and where it seems that if you win, you win, but if you're about to lose, you ask someone else to pay your bill.
So this week Secretary Paulson and Fed Chair Ben Bernanke are back on Capitol Hill, hats in hand, begging for a sum that makes these other billion-dollar interventions bail in comparison, and with even less oversight and less accountability to the real people who will be paying the bill – you and me, the American taxpayers.
Fortunately, despite the real crisis at hand, legislators of both parties have finally found the backbone to stand up to the Bush Administration and say, “Hey, wait a minute!”
In blunt and often angry utterances, these representatives are insisting that the details of this proposed gargantuan bail-out get fleshed out, that there is oversight of how the Fed and Treasury will implement the plan, and that the taxpayers get something back if this bad debt proves to have any ultimate value.
Congress is finally reflecting the outrage of an American electorate that has been sold an expensive and unnecessary war in Iraq and now is being asked to fund a similarly expensive financial rescue plan with just about as much planning and oversight as the Bush Administration put into its invasion of Baghdad, i.e. Let's just start a war and worry about the details later.
It's not just that Paulson and Bernanke have cried “wolf” once too often this summer and never actually saved a single lamb from slaughter, but they also have to take responsibility for the disastrous policies and regulatory performance of an administration that will go down in history as one of the most spendthrift, deceptive, and incompetent in American history.
To add insult to injury, the proposed Paulson-Bernanke plan contains no financial relief for the individual taxpayers who are being asked to bail out Wall Street while receiving no assistance with the housing crisis, or with shrinking incomes, or a growing unemployment rate.
As many housing advocates and economists will tell you, the financial industry has done a dismal job so far helping homeowners facing foreclosure restructure their debt. At the very least, any bailout of the financial industry must include some provision for individual taxpayers to restructure their debts, particularly for those who are in danger of losing their homes.
If Congress does agree to some form of the Paulson-Bernanke plan, it should be with some very serious strings attached. Any institution agreeing to participate should be required to disclose all of its debts, to fire its top management without any gold parachutes attached, and to agree to profit-sharing with the Treasury should its “toxic” assets ultimately turn out to have some value.
Then Congress needs to repeal its ill-judged revisions of the personal bankruptcy laws to make it easier for homeowners facing foreclosure to refinance their debts and not worsen a deteriorating housing market.
And finally, it's time for the American public and its leaders to decide whether we really are a capitalist society or not. If we offer corporations a safety net, we need to make sure that we not only have the appropriate regulations on the books, but regulators who enforce those laws thoroughly and seriously so that Wall Street doesn't once again have the opportunity to go to Vegas on the taxpayers' dime.
It seems almost certain that in resolving the current financial crisis, the American taxpayer will get stuck paying the check, but as voters we can also press our representatives hard to reduce the size of the final bill.
P.S. For an excellent overview of the financial crisis, see Gretchen Morgenson's September 21st New York Times column, entitled "Your Money at Work, Fixing Others' Mistakes."
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Why are Americans so crazy about oil?
Why are Americans so Crazy about Oil?
I watched the American rage over rising gas prices this spring with a mixture of sympathy and exasperation – sympathy for working people who can barely afford another cost of living increase and who have to drive to get to work – exasperation with all those other Americans who bought gas-guzzling Hummers, Expeditions, Siennas etc. and are now complaining about how much they cost to fill up.
Then I watched the spectacle of Rudy Guiliani cheerleading Republican conventioners in a chant of “Drill, baby, drill” and felt a mixture of stunned amazement and outright disgust.
“What is it about oil that makes Americans so crazy?” I wondered. A gallon of milk goes over the four dollar mark, and people grumble but they don't get on CNN and threaten their lawmakers with public mayhem. Gas prices hit that point, and people are ready to riot.
It may be the gas prices are one of those “in your face” costs of daily living that we can't help but notice. Stores may bury the equivalent cost of various brands of peanut butter on those little tags you can barely read, or keep prices the same but artfully reshape your box of cereal or your ice-cream container to be a little smaller. You barely notice, and for the most part, you keep buying.
Gas prices, by contrast, are posted in eye-popping dimensions on huge signs for all to view and to seize on as a source of outrage. I doubt that many people can tell you how much the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are costing per week ($2 billion) or how big the current deficit is ($370 billion so far in 2008), but just about any American can tell you how much he or she paid per gallon at the pump at the last fill-up.
But it's not just that so many Americans are irrationally fixed on the price of gas; a majority are also displaying an equal degree of illogic when it comes to reducing energy costs because they focus primarily on the supply side, and then pick the longest range solution – more domestic oil drilling.
This is ironic since the most recent fall in oil prices and accompanying declines in gasoline prices have resulted from a three-year decline in the number of miles Americans drive. In other words, simple conservation (and perhaps declining economic activity worldwide) have already had a far more dramatic impact on prices than any other action either politicians or oil companies could take. On September 9th, OPEC member voted to cut overall output by more than 500,000 barrels a day as a reaction to falling demand. Yet no leader in Washington is out there cheering the American consumer for doing the right thing.
It's enough to make economists wring their hands in despair. Reduce what you consume and producers have to cut their prices. “It's supply and demand, stupid,” one might image their slogan saying.
But what is worse that the lack of understanding and appreciation given to energy conservation is the reckless rhetoric of Republican leaders like Rudy Guiliani, and sadly, John McCain, who seeme determined to seduce Americans into thinking that they can have their SUVs and cheap gas, and that “drilling at home” will not only lower gas prices but create an energy independent America. Oh, and they'll throw in a bridge for good measure.
Senator McCain, who has missed eight votes to extend alternative energy tax cuts, including one that took place while he was in Washington, is not only missing the boat on a new energy industry, but even doing it at the expense of potential jobs in his home state. As Pulitzer Prize winning author, Thomas Friedman, pointed out in a recent interview with Terry Gross, the biggest solar project is ready to launch outside of Phoenix, Arizona, but Senator McCain hasn't bother to show up to vote on an extension that could bring clean energy and good manufacturing jobs to his constituents, (Fresh Air, 9/8/08).
Just as Americans wisely rejected Senator McCain's proposed summer gas tax “holiday” as a cheap gimmick, they should cast a gimlet eye at his proposal that we can drill our way out of our oil addiction. In an election year, politicians will claim you can have your cake and eat it too, but unless you want a severe case of buyer's remorse, voters should pay more attention to who is funding those politicians than to any promises they make.
As The Washington Post reported, “campaign contributions from oil industry executives to Senator John McCain rose dramatically in the last half of June, after the senator from Arizona made a high-profile split with environmentalists and reversed his opposition to the federal ban on offshore drilling,” (7/27/08, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/26/AR2008072601891.html).
Contributions rose to $1.1 million in one month from $208,000 in May, $283,000 in April, and $116,000 in March.
The solution to America's energy needs doesn't have an easy answer. It will require creative thinking, multiple explorations of new cleaner energy sources such as wind, solar, geothermal, hydrogen, natural gas, biofuels, and carbon capture. It will also require “sacrifice,” on the part of the American consumer, if you can call the conservation efforts so many are already taking part in a “sacrifice.”
But if conservation isn't sexy – it still is the cheapest and most effective solution we have at hand. The least we can ask of our leaders and of our presidential candidates is that they encourage conservation rather than undermine or mock these efforts. They also need to promise voters that their decisions on energy policy will be determined by the advice of the best and brightest among our scientists, economists, and engineers, not the slickest sales pitches of lobbyists representing the old energy industries (oil, gas, coal, and nuclear).
Americans may find the price of gas infuriating, but they shouldn't let that rage make them crazy. At least not crazy enough to fall for the political huckstering we saw at the Republican convention and in the false promises too many politicians are making about the effects of oil drilling.
Because this election is about more that the high price of oil and gas. It's an opportunity for Americans to lead an energy revolution and reinvigorate our economy or find ourselves still trapped in our old addiction while Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, and the like laugh all the way to the bank and keep on writing campaign checks to John McCain and the Grand Old Party.
I watched the American rage over rising gas prices this spring with a mixture of sympathy and exasperation – sympathy for working people who can barely afford another cost of living increase and who have to drive to get to work – exasperation with all those other Americans who bought gas-guzzling Hummers, Expeditions, Siennas etc. and are now complaining about how much they cost to fill up.
Then I watched the spectacle of Rudy Guiliani cheerleading Republican conventioners in a chant of “Drill, baby, drill” and felt a mixture of stunned amazement and outright disgust.
“What is it about oil that makes Americans so crazy?” I wondered. A gallon of milk goes over the four dollar mark, and people grumble but they don't get on CNN and threaten their lawmakers with public mayhem. Gas prices hit that point, and people are ready to riot.
It may be the gas prices are one of those “in your face” costs of daily living that we can't help but notice. Stores may bury the equivalent cost of various brands of peanut butter on those little tags you can barely read, or keep prices the same but artfully reshape your box of cereal or your ice-cream container to be a little smaller. You barely notice, and for the most part, you keep buying.
Gas prices, by contrast, are posted in eye-popping dimensions on huge signs for all to view and to seize on as a source of outrage. I doubt that many people can tell you how much the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are costing per week ($2 billion) or how big the current deficit is ($370 billion so far in 2008), but just about any American can tell you how much he or she paid per gallon at the pump at the last fill-up.
But it's not just that so many Americans are irrationally fixed on the price of gas; a majority are also displaying an equal degree of illogic when it comes to reducing energy costs because they focus primarily on the supply side, and then pick the longest range solution – more domestic oil drilling.
This is ironic since the most recent fall in oil prices and accompanying declines in gasoline prices have resulted from a three-year decline in the number of miles Americans drive. In other words, simple conservation (and perhaps declining economic activity worldwide) have already had a far more dramatic impact on prices than any other action either politicians or oil companies could take. On September 9th, OPEC member voted to cut overall output by more than 500,000 barrels a day as a reaction to falling demand. Yet no leader in Washington is out there cheering the American consumer for doing the right thing.
It's enough to make economists wring their hands in despair. Reduce what you consume and producers have to cut their prices. “It's supply and demand, stupid,” one might image their slogan saying.
But what is worse that the lack of understanding and appreciation given to energy conservation is the reckless rhetoric of Republican leaders like Rudy Guiliani, and sadly, John McCain, who seeme determined to seduce Americans into thinking that they can have their SUVs and cheap gas, and that “drilling at home” will not only lower gas prices but create an energy independent America. Oh, and they'll throw in a bridge for good measure.
Senator McCain, who has missed eight votes to extend alternative energy tax cuts, including one that took place while he was in Washington, is not only missing the boat on a new energy industry, but even doing it at the expense of potential jobs in his home state. As Pulitzer Prize winning author, Thomas Friedman, pointed out in a recent interview with Terry Gross, the biggest solar project is ready to launch outside of Phoenix, Arizona, but Senator McCain hasn't bother to show up to vote on an extension that could bring clean energy and good manufacturing jobs to his constituents, (Fresh Air, 9/8/08).
Just as Americans wisely rejected Senator McCain's proposed summer gas tax “holiday” as a cheap gimmick, they should cast a gimlet eye at his proposal that we can drill our way out of our oil addiction. In an election year, politicians will claim you can have your cake and eat it too, but unless you want a severe case of buyer's remorse, voters should pay more attention to who is funding those politicians than to any promises they make.
As The Washington Post reported, “campaign contributions from oil industry executives to Senator John McCain rose dramatically in the last half of June, after the senator from Arizona made a high-profile split with environmentalists and reversed his opposition to the federal ban on offshore drilling,” (7/27/08, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/26/AR2008072601891.html).
Contributions rose to $1.1 million in one month from $208,000 in May, $283,000 in April, and $116,000 in March.
The solution to America's energy needs doesn't have an easy answer. It will require creative thinking, multiple explorations of new cleaner energy sources such as wind, solar, geothermal, hydrogen, natural gas, biofuels, and carbon capture. It will also require “sacrifice,” on the part of the American consumer, if you can call the conservation efforts so many are already taking part in a “sacrifice.”
But if conservation isn't sexy – it still is the cheapest and most effective solution we have at hand. The least we can ask of our leaders and of our presidential candidates is that they encourage conservation rather than undermine or mock these efforts. They also need to promise voters that their decisions on energy policy will be determined by the advice of the best and brightest among our scientists, economists, and engineers, not the slickest sales pitches of lobbyists representing the old energy industries (oil, gas, coal, and nuclear).
Americans may find the price of gas infuriating, but they shouldn't let that rage make them crazy. At least not crazy enough to fall for the political huckstering we saw at the Republican convention and in the false promises too many politicians are making about the effects of oil drilling.
Because this election is about more that the high price of oil and gas. It's an opportunity for Americans to lead an energy revolution and reinvigorate our economy or find ourselves still trapped in our old addiction while Exxon-Mobil, Chevron, and the like laugh all the way to the bank and keep on writing campaign checks to John McCain and the Grand Old Party.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
The Day the Unthinkable became a Reality – A 9/11 Remembrance
The Day the Unthinkable became a Reality – A 9/11 Remembrance
So many of us will never forget where we were when the news came. My husband and I awoke to a phone call from his brother around 6:00 a.m. and I immediately thought, “Someone must have died.” I was right, of course, but not in any way I could have expected or even imagined.
I remember turning on the TV to see the first plane explode and the first building collapse, and I felt as if someone had knocked the wind out of me. “I don't want the kids to see this,” I said turning to my husband, already knowing that this was not only a tragedy but a potential media spectacle.
Recalling how I felt that morning I can't help thinking of Auden's lines:
About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking
dully along.
I was sleeping peacefully when people leaped out of windows or called loved ones to say farewell or raced up stairwells to try to save people, and that realization makes me feel strangely guilty and yet lucky at the same time as I think, “There but for an act of fate, go I.”
That morning except for the eerily silent skies—no planes were passing overhead-- we determined to go on as normally as we could. I drove the kids to school, I met a friend for lunch as we had planned, my husband went to work. It was only later after we put the kids to bed that we turned on the television and watched and wept.
America lost more than thousands of lives on 9-11. We lost our innocence and our sense of invulnerability from foreign attack in a way more palpable than any experience since Pearl Harbor.
Many people resolved that such an attack would never happen again on U.S. soil, but I don't believe we can prevent every act of terrorism from occurring, whether it results from the actions of another domestic terrorist like Timothy McVeigh or a foreigner like Mohamed Atta.
Yet I do believe that we can do a great deal more to honor those who have lost their lives, and not just by building another memorial, or reciting a list of names, or standing together in a moment of silence.
Those are all honorable acts, but we are capable of a more profound form of remembrance if we take every opportunity to teach our children not only what happened on September 11th but how strongly we must strive to prevent religious extremism or racial, tribal, or ethnic prejudice from allowing us to forget our common humanity.
The terrible acts of September 11th, 2001 were not simply a strike against Americans but against every citizen of the world. They made the unthinkable a reality, and they diminished our sense of our own decency and regard for the sanctity of every living person. If we take this anniversary as an opportunity to affirm those values as a global community, we can make no better tribute to the lives of those we lost on this day seven years ago.
So many of us will never forget where we were when the news came. My husband and I awoke to a phone call from his brother around 6:00 a.m. and I immediately thought, “Someone must have died.” I was right, of course, but not in any way I could have expected or even imagined.
I remember turning on the TV to see the first plane explode and the first building collapse, and I felt as if someone had knocked the wind out of me. “I don't want the kids to see this,” I said turning to my husband, already knowing that this was not only a tragedy but a potential media spectacle.
Recalling how I felt that morning I can't help thinking of Auden's lines:
About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking
dully along.
I was sleeping peacefully when people leaped out of windows or called loved ones to say farewell or raced up stairwells to try to save people, and that realization makes me feel strangely guilty and yet lucky at the same time as I think, “There but for an act of fate, go I.”
That morning except for the eerily silent skies—no planes were passing overhead-- we determined to go on as normally as we could. I drove the kids to school, I met a friend for lunch as we had planned, my husband went to work. It was only later after we put the kids to bed that we turned on the television and watched and wept.
America lost more than thousands of lives on 9-11. We lost our innocence and our sense of invulnerability from foreign attack in a way more palpable than any experience since Pearl Harbor.
Many people resolved that such an attack would never happen again on U.S. soil, but I don't believe we can prevent every act of terrorism from occurring, whether it results from the actions of another domestic terrorist like Timothy McVeigh or a foreigner like Mohamed Atta.
Yet I do believe that we can do a great deal more to honor those who have lost their lives, and not just by building another memorial, or reciting a list of names, or standing together in a moment of silence.
Those are all honorable acts, but we are capable of a more profound form of remembrance if we take every opportunity to teach our children not only what happened on September 11th but how strongly we must strive to prevent religious extremism or racial, tribal, or ethnic prejudice from allowing us to forget our common humanity.
The terrible acts of September 11th, 2001 were not simply a strike against Americans but against every citizen of the world. They made the unthinkable a reality, and they diminished our sense of our own decency and regard for the sanctity of every living person. If we take this anniversary as an opportunity to affirm those values as a global community, we can make no better tribute to the lives of those we lost on this day seven years ago.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Sarah in Wonderland
Sarah in Wonderland
It seems incredible that the single nomination of a relatively unknown woman, governor of an enormous yet little populated state, who was mayor of a small town just a short while ago, could have had such a sweeping influence not only on her party but also on media perceptions of the presidential race. But John McCain's nomination of Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate seems to have had generated a storm of popular interest, to the point where admirers and detractors alike call her “Hurricane Sarah.”
Trying to figure out just who Sarah Palin is, and what she stands for, much less how she might govern, is a bit like looking at someone in a fun house mirror. Every time you think you've focused on one aspect of the image, you realize that you're just seeing another distortion. To conservative women, especially white conservative women, Sarah Palin is the new Hilary Clinton, a “feminist” they can love because she's so “like them.” For conservative men, Palin seems to be the equivalent of the “trophy wife,” the vice-presidential arm-piece who makes an old and not very inspiring John McCain suddenly seem the man to be envied. And for women on the left who are used to having the “feminist” label to themselves, albeit at the price of being mocked as “feminazis,” Palin is a conundrum: a woman with ambition, drive, and charisma, but who also espouses policies and beliefs that most self-described feminists wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole.
And then there are the women—of the left, right, and middle-- who don't necessarily want to judge Palin for her individual choices regarding work and family—but who find some of those choices disturbing, not just because Palin has a larger family than the norm but because she has a family with special needs running the gamut from the baby with Down's syndrome to the pregnant teen.
However, Sarah Palin does have a political record, if a brief one, and it tells a story of some interesting reversals and contradictions, especially if you hold it up against the image of Palin we see through the prism of her political handlers or left-wing bloggers or even her own convention speech.
I found it interesting that Anchorage Daily News columnist Michael Carey,who has followed Palin since she ran for governor, described her convention speech “very uncharacteristic” in it partisan attacks. In his judgment, these attacks on Democrats and particularly her attacks on Barack Obama were "probably inserted by some guys who think they're very smart and are from Washington.”
Noting that Palin's political battles in Alaska have been waged more within her own party than across part lines, he added: “People find... it hard to understand that her biggest problem in Alaska has been with the most conservative elite Republicans and with the oil industry. It hasn't been with the Democrats. She's worked well with the Democrats in the legislature. Legislation has passed that she wanted with their assistance, and it's crucial to her to have the Democrats up there,” (“Finding the Real Sarah Palin in her Convention Speech,” Weekend Edition Sunday, 9/7/08, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94365311).
Palin may compare herself to a “pitbull with lipstick,” but in fact her governing record on spending tax dollars has been less ideological than pragmatic. When it suited her interests to lobby for millions of dollars in earmarks, she did so, even as she now criticizes Obama for also engaging in earmark spending, something you'd be hard pressed to find any Congressperson not guilty of. The infamous “Bridge to Nowhere,” to which Palin claims she said, “thanks but no thanks,” was in fact a bridge that she supported during her 2006 campaign for governor. She only formally rejected the project after Congress deleted wording specifying funds for the bridge and when it was a political dead horse (see Politifact.com http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/680/).
What voters may want to consider in thinking about Palin is not just the relative brevity of her tenure as governor (18 months), but the fact that she has been governing a state with a substantial surplus and no major crises. Apart from her success in negotiating with oil companies and getting a new gas pipeline, Governor Palin has undertaken no other policy initiatives. Ironically, one of her biggest detractors is Republican State Senate Leader Lyda Green, who said she thought it was a joke when someone called her to tell her that Palin had been selected as McCain's running mate. "She's not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president?" Green told The Anchorage Daily News (8/28/08 http://www.adn.com/politics/story/510249.htm). Green is also from Palin's hometown of Wasilla.
Finally, although Palin has been upfront about her pro-life ideology and open about her religious beliefs, she has yet to provide full disclosure of her views on the separation of church and state and to what extent her religious views will inform her public policy.
Many conservatives have condoned and even celebrated Palin's teenage daughter's choice to have her baby as palpable evidence of her pro-life credentials, even though the pregnancy also violates the conservative belief in abstinence before marriage.
But what does Palin think about teen pregnancy and public policy? Does she remain committed to abstinence only sex education in the face of this personal instance of its failure?
And what about her views of the Iraq war as a reflection of a divine plan? "Pray [for] our military men and women who are striving to do what is right also for this country — that our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God," Palin told the Wasilla Assembly of God this past June.
Some might wonder about how this view of U.S. military policy would play in international circles, particularly in Muslim countries where an explicitly Christian rhetoric evokes fears of age old Western assaults on Islam as President George W. Bush found out when he used the term “crusade” to describe the war.
Before voters assume they know who Sarah Palin is, they should be asking some hard questions about Palin's past and contrasting her record in Alaska with the new political makeover of Sarah Palin as Vice-Presidential messiah to the Republican party.
It seems incredible that the single nomination of a relatively unknown woman, governor of an enormous yet little populated state, who was mayor of a small town just a short while ago, could have had such a sweeping influence not only on her party but also on media perceptions of the presidential race. But John McCain's nomination of Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate seems to have had generated a storm of popular interest, to the point where admirers and detractors alike call her “Hurricane Sarah.”
Trying to figure out just who Sarah Palin is, and what she stands for, much less how she might govern, is a bit like looking at someone in a fun house mirror. Every time you think you've focused on one aspect of the image, you realize that you're just seeing another distortion. To conservative women, especially white conservative women, Sarah Palin is the new Hilary Clinton, a “feminist” they can love because she's so “like them.” For conservative men, Palin seems to be the equivalent of the “trophy wife,” the vice-presidential arm-piece who makes an old and not very inspiring John McCain suddenly seem the man to be envied. And for women on the left who are used to having the “feminist” label to themselves, albeit at the price of being mocked as “feminazis,” Palin is a conundrum: a woman with ambition, drive, and charisma, but who also espouses policies and beliefs that most self-described feminists wouldn't touch with a ten-foot pole.
And then there are the women—of the left, right, and middle-- who don't necessarily want to judge Palin for her individual choices regarding work and family—but who find some of those choices disturbing, not just because Palin has a larger family than the norm but because she has a family with special needs running the gamut from the baby with Down's syndrome to the pregnant teen.
However, Sarah Palin does have a political record, if a brief one, and it tells a story of some interesting reversals and contradictions, especially if you hold it up against the image of Palin we see through the prism of her political handlers or left-wing bloggers or even her own convention speech.
I found it interesting that Anchorage Daily News columnist Michael Carey,who has followed Palin since she ran for governor, described her convention speech “very uncharacteristic” in it partisan attacks. In his judgment, these attacks on Democrats and particularly her attacks on Barack Obama were "probably inserted by some guys who think they're very smart and are from Washington.”
Noting that Palin's political battles in Alaska have been waged more within her own party than across part lines, he added: “People find... it hard to understand that her biggest problem in Alaska has been with the most conservative elite Republicans and with the oil industry. It hasn't been with the Democrats. She's worked well with the Democrats in the legislature. Legislation has passed that she wanted with their assistance, and it's crucial to her to have the Democrats up there,” (“Finding the Real Sarah Palin in her Convention Speech,” Weekend Edition Sunday, 9/7/08, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=94365311).
Palin may compare herself to a “pitbull with lipstick,” but in fact her governing record on spending tax dollars has been less ideological than pragmatic. When it suited her interests to lobby for millions of dollars in earmarks, she did so, even as she now criticizes Obama for also engaging in earmark spending, something you'd be hard pressed to find any Congressperson not guilty of. The infamous “Bridge to Nowhere,” to which Palin claims she said, “thanks but no thanks,” was in fact a bridge that she supported during her 2006 campaign for governor. She only formally rejected the project after Congress deleted wording specifying funds for the bridge and when it was a political dead horse (see Politifact.com http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/680/).
What voters may want to consider in thinking about Palin is not just the relative brevity of her tenure as governor (18 months), but the fact that she has been governing a state with a substantial surplus and no major crises. Apart from her success in negotiating with oil companies and getting a new gas pipeline, Governor Palin has undertaken no other policy initiatives. Ironically, one of her biggest detractors is Republican State Senate Leader Lyda Green, who said she thought it was a joke when someone called her to tell her that Palin had been selected as McCain's running mate. "She's not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president?" Green told The Anchorage Daily News (8/28/08 http://www.adn.com/politics/story/510249.htm). Green is also from Palin's hometown of Wasilla.
Finally, although Palin has been upfront about her pro-life ideology and open about her religious beliefs, she has yet to provide full disclosure of her views on the separation of church and state and to what extent her religious views will inform her public policy.
Many conservatives have condoned and even celebrated Palin's teenage daughter's choice to have her baby as palpable evidence of her pro-life credentials, even though the pregnancy also violates the conservative belief in abstinence before marriage.
But what does Palin think about teen pregnancy and public policy? Does she remain committed to abstinence only sex education in the face of this personal instance of its failure?
And what about her views of the Iraq war as a reflection of a divine plan? "Pray [for] our military men and women who are striving to do what is right also for this country — that our national leaders are sending them out on a task that is from God," Palin told the Wasilla Assembly of God this past June.
Some might wonder about how this view of U.S. military policy would play in international circles, particularly in Muslim countries where an explicitly Christian rhetoric evokes fears of age old Western assaults on Islam as President George W. Bush found out when he used the term “crusade” to describe the war.
Before voters assume they know who Sarah Palin is, they should be asking some hard questions about Palin's past and contrasting her record in Alaska with the new political makeover of Sarah Palin as Vice-Presidential messiah to the Republican party.
California Dreaming
California Dreaming
Every day I seem to hear yet another news story about the demise of the “California Dream.” From Sacramento to Fresno to Los Angeles to San Diego, people seem to be losing their homes, losing their nerve, and seeking their dream of a better life outside the Golden State. I hear their complaints: plummeting housing prices, a high cost of living, traffic, too many people fighting for too few resources, and my rational side says, “Of course, they're right; California is overcrowded, overpriced, and overrun.”
But my California dream is located in a beautiful corner the Bay Area peninsula, where the housing crisis hasn't reached the same monumental proportions that people have seen in other parts of the state, and where my memories of fog rolling over the Santa Cruz Mountains, or the sun rising over the South Bay still tug at my heart strings.
So my family is bucking the trend of the California exodus. We just moved back to Palo Alto, California from Albuquerque, New Mexico this summer, primarily because of me, a 45-year-old not-quite-stay-at-home mom. I want to reclaim my California dream, which means getting off the freeway, out of the car, and back into a suburb with a small-town feel, where I can bike to get groceries, and my kids can go to good public schools.
Huh? Yes, New Mexico did live up to its reputation as a slow and easy land of mañana, but I also discovered that getting around Albuquerque meant spending a good part of every day in my car, and ultimately I was willing to trade the beautiful wide open spaces I could see from almost every part of the city for a more densely populated suburb where just about everything is accessible on foot, bike, bus or train.
Now it takes me about two weeks to empty my gas tank, and I love that feeling that every trip I make on my own power is one less contribution to the smog that is the downside of daily life in the Bay Area.
In fact, it nearly deflated my euphoria at the prospect of coming home to see the brown haze spread all over Silicon Valley when we first crossed over from I-5 in the middle of August. I hadn't remembered the air quality being quite that bad, and after the clear, intensely blue skies of the Southwest, I did stop to think, “What in the world am I doing to my lungs moving back to this?”
It still gives me a twinge every time I climb the hills behind Stanford University where I have an unrestricted view of the valley from San Francisco to Oakland to San Jose and see the smog that hangs over the whole expanse, especially in the hot still days of late summer when there's no breeze to blow it all over to the Central Valley (another source of guilt for Bay Area residents).
But if home is smoggier and more crowded than I remember, it's also full of friends who have welcomed us all back so warmly that I can't believe my good fortune. It seems that every day I run into someone else who says, “You're back! We're so glad you're back with us!” and I think that wherever you live, the real sense of being at home comes from the community you find and build there.
Every day I seem to hear yet another news story about the demise of the “California Dream.” From Sacramento to Fresno to Los Angeles to San Diego, people seem to be losing their homes, losing their nerve, and seeking their dream of a better life outside the Golden State. I hear their complaints: plummeting housing prices, a high cost of living, traffic, too many people fighting for too few resources, and my rational side says, “Of course, they're right; California is overcrowded, overpriced, and overrun.”
But my California dream is located in a beautiful corner the Bay Area peninsula, where the housing crisis hasn't reached the same monumental proportions that people have seen in other parts of the state, and where my memories of fog rolling over the Santa Cruz Mountains, or the sun rising over the South Bay still tug at my heart strings.
So my family is bucking the trend of the California exodus. We just moved back to Palo Alto, California from Albuquerque, New Mexico this summer, primarily because of me, a 45-year-old not-quite-stay-at-home mom. I want to reclaim my California dream, which means getting off the freeway, out of the car, and back into a suburb with a small-town feel, where I can bike to get groceries, and my kids can go to good public schools.
Huh? Yes, New Mexico did live up to its reputation as a slow and easy land of mañana, but I also discovered that getting around Albuquerque meant spending a good part of every day in my car, and ultimately I was willing to trade the beautiful wide open spaces I could see from almost every part of the city for a more densely populated suburb where just about everything is accessible on foot, bike, bus or train.
Now it takes me about two weeks to empty my gas tank, and I love that feeling that every trip I make on my own power is one less contribution to the smog that is the downside of daily life in the Bay Area.
In fact, it nearly deflated my euphoria at the prospect of coming home to see the brown haze spread all over Silicon Valley when we first crossed over from I-5 in the middle of August. I hadn't remembered the air quality being quite that bad, and after the clear, intensely blue skies of the Southwest, I did stop to think, “What in the world am I doing to my lungs moving back to this?”
It still gives me a twinge every time I climb the hills behind Stanford University where I have an unrestricted view of the valley from San Francisco to Oakland to San Jose and see the smog that hangs over the whole expanse, especially in the hot still days of late summer when there's no breeze to blow it all over to the Central Valley (another source of guilt for Bay Area residents).
But if home is smoggier and more crowded than I remember, it's also full of friends who have welcomed us all back so warmly that I can't believe my good fortune. It seems that every day I run into someone else who says, “You're back! We're so glad you're back with us!” and I think that wherever you live, the real sense of being at home comes from the community you find and build there.
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