Diatribune

As for what we're experiencing now, I don't know how else to say it. We are in a recession. We will stay in a recession for several years. The recession will probably get worse. Though this might not be a particularly popular notion, a) sustained economic health is no guarantee of its permanence and b) all systems derived by human hands are transitory and thus prone to fail.

 It's been noted many times how Barack Obama (and we) must hit back quick, hard, and to the point for every McCain attack he gets.  Including any surrogate assaults.

Oprah Winfrey, listed by Forbes magazine as one of the most powerful women on earth, is now under assault by the VAST Right Wing Conspiracy. Is she too uppity for her own good as some say of Barack Obama?

Reliable inside "sources" like Drudge Report, National Enquirer, and Fox News, confirm that the propaganda election campaign of John George McCain has hit the ground running in classic Rovian-Goebbels fashion.
 The consistent use of the phrase "sources say"  is a favorite and convenient way for Republicans to push a non-story into media frenzy in order to intimidate their prey using blame, shame, and guilt, to get what they want. 

It came as no surprise to me that McCain's convention bounce equaled Obama's. Polling in every other Presidential election followed a similar pattern. Neither was I particularly shocked that the selection of Palin as Vice-President, despite substantial leftist backlash, went over well with the American electorate. Voters are suckers for a gimmick and even more susceptible to novelty. McCain's Vice Presidential selection was a little bit of both.

The Democrats have spoken. The Republicans have spoken. From now on out, expect a daily dose of attack-style politics and increasingly personal attacks. Nothing will be off limits, except of course, families. (And maybe not even then) When the total impact of the RNC shows up in polls at the first of next week, Obama's bounce will subside and I predict the race will again be effectively tied for quite a while.

In being willing to sacrifice his strongest argument, experience, McCain has taken a gamble selecting his Vice-Presidential choice. Attempting to reach out to disaffected Hillary Clinton Democrats by putting a woman alongside him on the ticket, such a strategy might have worked if McCain had picked an ideological moderate. Instead, he picked a solid conservative. It's a curious selection because few Clinton supporters will be swayed by the presence of a woman who is conspicuously pro-life. The entire McCain/Palin ticket will be officially against abortion rights and rooted solidly in the tradition of fiscal conservatism.

Hillary Clinton, quite surprisingly to me, gave the best speech of her life last night on the second night of the convention. The New York senator did much to rehabilitate her image and radiated a kind of warmth and personality that would have worked greatly to her advantage had we seen it during the primary season. To some extent, the fact that she did a good job isn't totally surprising. Her concession speech in June showed her potential to deliver a good message. Provided rest and time to hone her rhetorical skills, Clinton can be an effective orator. Put on the spot and without adequate prep time and she is a bland, dull speaker.

Before writing this article, I took a look at fifty years of conventions prior to this one. The advent of television has given the American people a chance to know almost every imaginable facet of the person who would be their Commander in Chief. The nature of the nominating convention has changed drastically in fifty years time. The hard paternalism of the past, which disregarded the will of the people, believing that party insiders knew best, has been set aside.

Indeed, if that were still the case, Barack Obama would likely have never become the presumptive nominee of his party. Hillary Clinton would have become the de facto head of the ticket we all assumed would be the case as recently as a year ago. For all the talk of how the political process disregards popular sentiment, in the not-so-recent past one can see plain evidence to the contrary.

I've often stated, and I firmly believe, as I seem to be proven correct, that a lie repeated, may be accepted as fact, but the truth repeated, becomes self evident.

So what are we waiting for??
As the "Drill here! Drill now!" crowd repeat their pro oil meme daily in the MSM, and the pundits go all bobbly-headed in support of their misleading and insane ideas... as seen in this nauseating video...

A column by a British editorial writer sparked the impetus for this post. The central premise in this post is a variation upon what he had to say in his column. He was interviewed yesterday on MSNBC and I found myself nodding my head in total agreement with the argument he was advancing.

To wit, what has been bandied about recently is the hope that an Obama visit will mend fences with the rest of the world, and clean up American's reputation in the world, a reputation sullied by the excesses of the Bush Administration. Among the left, a major sticking point with the current government in power is how it has abused and misused its power. In Obama, leftists hope to see a resumption of American good standing in the rest of the world. It's a worthy cause to laud, though a more thorough examination might do us well to ponder.

Today's New York Times piece about the role of race in American politics and American society is a deeply disappointing expose of how far we've got to go. But instead of wringing our hands and lamenting the problem, let's confront the issue directly, all the better to put it aside.

A color-blind society may never be in the cards for us. We're too pluralistic a society, for one, and second of all it's an oversimplification to think that even those of us who share the same skin color would think with one voice, or be one monolithic entity. This is the nation of rugged individualism, after all. And by this, I aim to emphasize we may simply be unable undo the ways things are and may always be.

It has become fashionable to lament the high cost of health care and college tuition to name but two services provided to the American public. Both were never designed to become cottage industries, and yet both have become sprawling masses of inefficiency. This we know. This is something politicians have latched onto and incorporated in their stump speeches, but hardly anyone ever addresses the reasons for the increased cost.

Despite Obama's recent jog to the center, enthusiasm for the candidate remains high. Though the halo has slipped a bit in the past couple weeks or so, Obama's rock star status remains largely undiminished. This is particularly in evidence here in Alabama, a state McCain will likely win handily. The GOP margin of victory may be less then ten percent, the closest it has been since 1976, which was the last time this state went blue and handed its electoral college votes to Jimmy Carter.

It's been a while since I've seen Obama give a mention to his universal health care plan. Having read through the plan in its entirety on his website, I have to say that I wish it took into account the reality of why medical costs are so outrageously high. I am aware that an in-depth discussion of the details of the plan doesn't make for interesting sound-bytes and doesn't hold the interest of the American public the way patriotism, terrorism, and economic recovery plans do, but for millions of Americans forced to pay unnecessarily high drug costs, this hits U.S. consumers where it hurts the worst, in the pocketbook.

Examining the alarmist headlines on the cable news channels has been amusing, to say the length. All of them amount to some variation of: "Will the Liberal Base Desert Obama?".

In a word, no. We're so used to grumbling our way down to the poll, casting our vote for a wholly uninspiring Democratic candidate in November, that if need be we will act in kind this time too. But even so, I'm still under the sway of the Obama glow, even if certain segments of the cynical media have begun to question its love affair with the Illinois senator. As I have maintained before and continue to maintain, politics has some degree of pandering involved and one never truly knows how any candidate will govern until he or she is sworn in and taken office.

Let it be known up front that I didn't grow up in an uber-patriotic household. Dad didn't display the flag at the front of our house, whistling an out-of-tune but nonetheless heartfelt version of taps while lowering the stars and stripes at sundown every day.

I always felt a little uncomfortable in the presence of these deeply flag-waving people, mainly because I grew up in a culture of deeply rooted skepticism. The extremely patriotic were no different from religious zealots in my mind and even as a child I found it difficult to entertain any sort of trust in elected officials. I found myself constantly reminded of the evil deeds, doublethink, and unethical methods our government had fostered. This kind of dubious record was, incredibly, in the same breath, combated by a desperate willingness to mythologize and romanticize the historical impact and lasting legacy of its noble deeds.

Roger Simon's recent article on Politico, entitled "Obama Not Running as Movement", takes a pointed swipe at many of us here in the liberal base of the Democratic Party. Those of us who have bristled at Obama's recent jog to the center would do well to remember that whether we like it or not, this country is still center-right in political orientation.

Double standards do exist, particularly in the realm of religious expression, morality, and foreign policy. The Republican party can be excused far more easily than the Democratic party when it comes to perceived inconsistencies on this issues. So a certain degree of political compromise is necessary to win in November.

I read an article yesterday talking about how, for all the lip service this election from both campaign in favor of change and a radical shift from polarizing policies and politics, this election has quickly become a grudge match along the same lines as the last several. While the Democratic primary was a reasonably sedate affair, Obama v. McCain went nasty almost immediately after the Illinois senator secured the Democratic nomination and is likely to become notably even more mudslinging by the time it draws to an end in a little more than four months.

For those of us who love a good political fight and are incapable of seeing politics in any other manifestation, this kind of back-and-forth bickering is much in line with our desires and expectations.

Having read through opinions on both sides of today's ruling on gun control, it seems as though recent major decisions passed down by the high court fall in one of two major categories: hard paternalism or soft paternalism. Hard paternalism draws strict lines in the sand, believing that people cannot be trusted to make proper decision in their own behalf.

Today's 5-4 ruling that rejects the death penalty for child rapists shows the clear divide not just on the Supreme Court, but in American society in large. If we needed any further example of how polarized we are in this country, decisions such as these are more than eager to point it out. If we needed a means to gauge how we have evolved over the centuries, this easily provides it.

Al Gore's endorsement last night in Detroit drew a fresh batch of sharp parallels between Barack Obama and John F. Kennedy and played up Gore's environmental credentials. This, in and of itself should come as no surprise to anyone. Prior speeches have seen the Senator from Illinois bill himself as a cross between Abraham Lincoln and JFK, with a smattering of other Democratic superstars thrown in for good measure. In a different candidate, I'd see this as empty chest-pounding, but Obama's earnestness and charisma make this characterization seem plausible.