So we had a night or two flushed with optimism and hope in early November. But what do we have now? We’ve got unjustified, unending wars, a wretched economic crisis, horrible new legislation being pushed through by a lame duck government of war criminals no one is impeaching or indicting, union busting and a whole world we have crippled. On top of all that, we have an extensive list of other annoying or painful developments. Here are the ones that are especially irritating me at the moment. You probably could add a few of your own.
Rick Warren: Obama was glad to have the support – financial and volunteer – of a whole raft of progressives, but he now awards to a fundamentalist lunatic the biggest platform in the history of media by inviting him to give the invocation at his inauguration. This creep Rick Warren not only fanatically supported California’s Proposition 8, removing rights from lesbians and gays, he compares homosexuality to pedophilia and incest and he bars membership in his church (!) to unrepentant gays. What the hell is Obama doing honoring this foul reactionary, who also opposes stem cell research and compares abortion to the Holocaust?! Warren doesn’t like non-believers very much, either. Obama was happy to change his mind about Reverend Wright. It’s time for him to disinvite this nasty man from the inaugural spotlight instead of throwing sexual freedom under the bus.
Bernie Madoff: Yet another rogue capitalist has taken down unknown lists of institutional, foundation, charity and personal fortunes through a Ponzi scam built on snobbery and high-class secret handshakes; and where is the man? Is Madoff in jail after his indictment? No, he is in one of his many million-dollar homes with a little ankle bracelet. He is enjoying the fruits of his crimes in the warmth of his ill-gotten gains. At the same time, there are apparently more black men in American prisons today (thanks to the “war on drugs”) than there were slaves back in the day. I’m fuming. Lock this crook up now or throw him to his victims.
Caroline Kennedy: This daughter-of and niece-of decides she wants Hillary Clinton’s senate seat – and everyone seems to be saying, Okay. What are Kennedy’s positions on the important questions of the day? Abortion? How to deal with New York’s economic crisis? Education policy? Queer marriage? Anything? The woman has been hiding for decades – perfectly her right – and has only even been voting in about half the elections, so what right does she have to get this plum? It is the decision of one man – Governor Paterson – and he’s already received calls from all sorts of important Democrats, including Obama’s boy, Rahm Emanuel. This is foul. This isn’t democracy; this is dynasty.
Kennedy = Palin: I wanted to write a whole blog about the similarities between Sarah Palin’s sudden entry onto the national stage and Kennedy’s. The latter has even copied Palin’s claim that one of her main qualifications for the job is that she raised a family! Yeah, that narrows it down. Kennedy is even now refusing to answer legitimate questions from the press, instead relying on expensive high-profile PR firms to handle her message. Sound familiar? I hate to say it, but at least Palin ran for and won elections before being catapulted into the big-time. Kennedy has studiously avoided politics. What’s similar is the complete lack of public record on national issues. Palin floated on a sea of fundamentalist support; Kennedy thinks DNA is sufficient.
Detroit Bailout: I’m not a big fan of Detroit automakers, especially having lived abroad for a couple of decades where people do perfectly well with efficient little cars that can move 4 or 5 people from here to there without pretending to be the butch vehicle of the apocalypse. However, this refusal of Congress to bail out these manufacturers without union-busting conditions is blatant exploitation of the economic crisis to promote the reactionary agenda. Reminds me of how Cheney and Bush used 9/11 to push through wars and legislation (like the Patriot Act) they had earlier decided they wanted. Not only were the bank and finance workers (or execs) put under no conditions, no one can find the hundreds of billions poured into those sectors that were supposed to turn into credit for actual citizens, but never did. Some report that the money is supplementing massive executive salaries, hot tub conferences and shareholders’ checks. Why aren’t Democratic congress-people going ape-shit and why aren’t we on the streets complaining about this rip-off?
So, as always, we’re back to questions of class. Rich criminals enjoy house arrest in posh surroundings. People with pedigrees trump those with qualifications when perks are being bestowed. White collar criminals are treated with handouts while workers are punished for their bosses’ incompetence and greed. And wealthy powerful Christian fundamentalists who build their base on self-righteous hatred are invited to shine in the name of “inclusiveness.” As one of the many, many commenters wrote to Obama on Change.gov, “This is a turd in the punchbowl.”
Here’s one of the ramifications of the Democratic Party’s refusal to support gay marriage: all three ballot attempts to ban gay marriage passed. Florida, Arizona and California – where 17,000 same-sex couples have already married, best friends of mine among them – all voted to limit the civil rights of their citizens.
Obama and Biden were both as clear about their anti-gay marriage stand as they were on their support of Roe v Wade and – waddya know – all three anti-abortion initiatives (South Dakota, Colorado and California) were defeated. Colorado’s rejected initiative was especially sinister: it attempted to define human-hood as starting at the moment of fertilization.
That’s leadership, Barack Obama. For good and for crap.
There were a lot of other Propositions to interest people. According to Ballotwatch, “Overall, 92 measures were approved, 54 were rejected, and 7 are still to be decided.” Animal rights propositions to stop commercial dog racing in Massachusetts and to define acceptable housing space for California’s farm animals succeeded. Bond proposals got a friendly hearing but tax cuts were sensibly rejected, including an attempt to end income tax in Massachusetts.
And the two states that often fight to be Trendsetter of the Nation took different decisions about dope: California will not be decriminalizing possession, while Massachusetts is only gonna fine you if you’re holding less than an ounce of weed. Now Massachusetts residents can enjoy a lesbian or gay marriage while stoned in a well-resourced dog-friendly state. This could be the economic life-raft we’ve been looking for.
However one of my oldest dearest friends Tracy Moore is married to the wonderful Rabbi Lisa Edwards of the world’s first lesbian and gay synagogue Beth Chayim Chadashim (BCC) in LA. They’ve conducted 42 weddings since July 17th and this moving film by Pam Postrel (with Dan Fogelberg singing a Judy Collins song) gives evidence of the nightmarish devil’s rituals these homophobes have put a (temporary?) end to.
While I have written a volume on Sarah Palin, quite literally, I have not talked much about Barack Obama. As we approached November 4th, I was continuously on the edge of tears. With Obama's victory, I wept - along with all those folks who came to Chicago from Texas and Mississippi and Illinois, along with Jesse Jackson and Jon Stewart. It was not only a global moment, but one very personal to me.
I came of age as a young teenager in a disturbingly segregated Pittsburgh. My friends and I started a civil rights group, but there was not a single institution in town that would host our inter-racial meetings. No school, no church, no community center.
My parents allowed us to meet at our house until eventually the Unitarian Church opened its doors to us. Threatening midnight phone calls were just one price my parents paid, but in those days Jews were widely committed in very concrete ways to the civil rights movement, coming as it did right after the profound lesson in racism called World War II.
Watching Obama's impressive, competent, steady, unruffled campaign unfold has been breathtaking. Matt Frei on BBC America put it this way: "Obama has managed to look like a cool designated driver of a country in peril." His unflappable temperament and his inexhaustible energy have been almost uncanny. As someone who has made a career out of flapping and ruffling, I know that Obama kicks butt.
There is so much about this that is right and right on. The world is super relieved. People of color are heartened. Progressive activists have hope for the first time in a long time. Democratic politicians have themselves been tarted up in his reflected success. His vision is so strategic that one is a tiny bit less afraid of the grossly crappy economic and political state of the world.
But let us not forget that Barack Obama is more than a stirring, welcome historic figure. He's also a moderate politician with views - and not all of them are fabuloso. For example, he does not support gay marriage. It would have been easy to take that stand, but he didn't do it. He supported the bailout, which is proving to be increasingly corrupt and, just as lefties predicted, just another means of stealing from the people to give to the bastards that took us all down in the first place. He opposed the war on Iraq, but Obama talks like a war-monger when it comes to Afghanistan - the country that historically eats empires that think they have the right to trespass. His position on Israel and Palestine is utterly problematic and one-sided. Some accuse him of sucking up to the American Jewish community, and he seems unaware that many Jews here and in Israel oppose the occupation of Palestine. Many worry that he is accepting at face value the advice he gets from Dennis Ross, a leftover and discredited advisor from Clinton and Bush administrations that failed to achieve peace, or even humanitarian relief in the territories.
You got to feel for anyone going into a new high-profile job with such a mess to clean up. But then, you've got to wonder about the person who so badly wants that job. But that's another topic. If we have to have a president and it can't be Nelson Mandela or Emma Goldman, then let's definitely have Barack Obama.
I've collected many inspired music clips that I haven't included in my blogs. This wonderful one is from manze dayila, a Haitian New Yorker who adores Obama.
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