Nearly two years: Yes, We Have

I supported Barack Obama from the beginning.

I was there for the highs and the lows. And then the really lows. And then the really, really lows.

I doubted him. I understood why the left could have found reason to abandon him. In fact, I had thought the Republicans had cornered us again, of all elections.

But I always stood by Barack Obama. I defended him against other Democrats. I defended him against Republicans. I defended the cause he was creating from the ground up.

So I was there for the highs. And then the really highs. And then the really, really highs.

And then the biggest high of this election, nearly two years in the making.

Don't get me wrong, I love bandwagoners. Even the ones that came on the wagon after the election.

But this is for everyone who was there from the beginning. Everyone who went wire-to-wire with Barack Obama.

Today is our day.

Some things are just wrong

Me, as a purely political observer, I don't care about gay marriage. Politics is the art of the possible, and on a national level it's not possible (preventing it from being banned, on the other hand, is possible, and I make a distinction). To get there, it's the responsibility of progressive activism, not politics (I make another distinction), to get their **** together and prevent things like, say, the passage of Prop 8 from happening in a blue state like CALIFORNIA. Did Obama not teach you anything about grassroots organization?

Until then, I've never been a hardcore social liberal. I'm not a social conservative either, I just care about the environment, education and the economy more than I do about other issues. Just convince me that your social issue is movable to the left, and I'll get on board. In any case, I'll always vote leftwards, but I just can't get worked up like others about social issues until I can back a progressive winner.

Sorry.

That said...some things are just wrong.

"SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A woman in the San Francisco Bay area was jumped by four men, taunted for being a lesbian, repeatedly raped and left naked outside an abandoned apartment building, authorities said Monday."

Put away your feigned surprise; I can completely see something like this happening in America. At times, we as a people are that depraved and that soulless. If not more. Before hearing of this, I would have needed to be convinced that it could happen in San Francisco, but I would have never deemed it unfathomable.

There's a point where it's not about politics. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire was all about taskmasters making as much money with as little labor compensation as possible. The depravity continued in the aftermath; no punishment was dealt to the factory owners because there had been no crime (what labor laws?). Even when Al Smith did his barnstorming all over New York, factory owners were DESPERATE to keep at putting the proverbial whip to their workers, all the while trying to hide it from Smith and the Assembly. Laws were passed. Unions were allowed to form. A turning point in reversing the balance between laborer and entrepreneur had revealed itself.

Here's the irony: I'm going to venture a guess and say that the fire was the ultimate catalyst for change. Maybe Al Smith followed suit, and the Assembly followed after him, but before then, Tammany Hall didn't do enough, if anything, to prevent the bodies from falling just outside Washington Square Park.

I, for one, don't think these sorts of issues are solved in the political realm. My thinking is that, if you need to, come the crucial moment, change politicians' minds, you've already lost.

It's the same thing we've said about Iraq: win their hearts and minds. Gay marriage, like unionization and labor standards a century earlier, is the social issue that politics cannot cure until we know for sure it's viable. The battle has to be fought in the streets, not on Capitol Hill or in front of the White House.

People should be downright livid that something like anti-LGBT gang rape could happen in America. These are the things that are truly, completely, horribly wrong that need more attention in the activist realm than the debate on pure principles and ideology.

This is exactly why I don't care that Obama is having Rick Warren perform the invocation. Because when we talk about it, it's mostly about why gay rights are good or why they're bad. Yeah, you sold me, but tell me the same thing in tangible, practical terms.

For the most part, the issue of gay marriage, from both sides of the debate, has been waged more on principle than on example and anecdote. It has allowed the side issues of the role of religion and the rights of states and freedom of speech to take up the collective, brain brain power of all the parties involved. Only a fire had the power to direct the political debate towards real results.

So, I go back to the beginning to tell the activist movement to clean up their act, talk about why intolerance towards difference is not only harmful, but has already, at a most basic level, proven to be harmful, poisonous and needs to be ended, like yesterday.

And if those in progressive activism need any pointers on where to start redirecting the debate, there's a woman in San Francisco who has become a victim of one of the 1,500-or-so sexual orientation-based hate crimes just this year.

The new liberal compact

Crossposted to Daily Kos

Since Thursday, one line from the Democratic National Convention has echoed in my head since Barack Obama's introductory video:

"It is a promise we make to our children, that each of us can make what we want of our lives..."

David Strathairn delivers the quote much like an ordinary American would, echoed later in Obama's own speech:

"It's a promise that says each of us has the freedom to make of our own lives what we will, but that we also have the obligation to treat each other with dignity and respect."

Whether, or how strongly you believe in the former, it is easier for liberals to be attached to the latter. Going back to the days of Al Smith, the idea that government has a responsibility, not only to collect taxes in exchange for life and liberty, but also to provide the quality of life that makes such liberty worthwhile has always been central to the Democratic Party.

But the first part is just as instructive, and for the liberal cause to prosper, it must embrace the totality of Obama's message.

There is a duality in the American dream. There is nothing really more American than the ability of one to not only control their own destiny, but also to help shape the destiny of a greater good. Go to other parts of the world, and the goals are simpler. In some places, just barely surviving is a success in itself. In other places, the simple objective of having a career and family and not bothering anyone else is more than overwhelming. Beyond the United States, only in a few places on Earth (perhaps China, for one) will you find that it is not altogether strange for a private individual to say she wants to serve her country and has the ability to do so. Dreaming big is not altogether an absurd proposition.

But this is not to remark upon the uniqueness of America in the world, rather this is to recognize the opportunity that merely having the title of "American" can bring. With so many people of so many different backgrounds, abilities and accomplishments, this country need not be particularly restricted to carving out niches or specialties on the world stage (no one denies that American computer programmers, for example, are among the best, even if their counterparts in India receive their outsourced jobs for lower wages - we can do those jobs and many others if we choose to). It is because of the fabled American dream that Obama references that we can do whatever we want, should we commit the energy and effort to our motivations.

This is actually what draws conservatives to the concept of the free market. In this world of valuing your own skills and putting them to use, you can receive whatever you want, commensurate with your contributions. It is why, when Obama says that the Ownership Society merely means that you are on your own, conservatives from the upper class on down to the poverty line truly have no problem saying, "So what? That's fine with me."

Whether they ignore their own economic self-interests or not, Republicans (not independents, mind you, and certainly not Democrats) are more than eager to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, even if they don't have boots, as Obama remarks. Receiving help that they do not solicit can be one of the most embarrassing things to any person who has been made to believe they can make it on their own. Hence, the appeal of the conservatives' free market bent.

If "one's own destiny" and nothing else is the Republican Party's message, "the destiny of a greater good" and nothing else is the Democratic Party's message. It's why it's easy to call us socialists or communists without any thought as to what those words actually mean. I, for one, don't particularly trouble myself as to their meanings, but I do know that even in the private sector, one simply does not move up without help from others. One, for example, does not earn a promotion unless someone remarks how well they've done in their job. Even in the free market, one needs to be given the opportunity to participate. "We're all in this together" and "a rising tide lifts all boats" are the central tenets of the liberal cause. Hence, Social Security and federal Stafford Loans and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Federal support for those in need of, say, hurricanes in the Gulf Coast, too.

Whether mainly by design or mainly by chance, American politics, despite a society that has so much potential to do great things on an incredibly vast scale and scope, has taken hold of the law of excluded middle: you have one choice, or the other choice, and you may not have both. The independents in the center are not allowed to have their cake and eat it too.

Because I'm forced to choose, I would rather have a system that doesn't call for my complete and utter ruin should I fail in my personal endeavors. If I ever have a family, I would rather my children have the system of support that only society at large can provide them, especially during the times when, say, I'm busy at work or when they're studying at school, or both. That's why I'm a Democrat. That's why I'm a liberal.

But I have to believe in an electorate that wants it all. In a country that can fit 300 million people and probably twice that, given its size and reach, it has to be absurd that America can be limited by anything.

This is not merely an economic dichotomy, either. What got Jesse Jackson all upset this summer? Obama's call for the responsibility of fathers for their children. No doubt both are right: on one hand, fathers must own up to their obligations, but society, on the other hand, must own up to the reality that one-parent homes need support from various avenues, now more than ever. No doubt parents are probably overwhelmed by a pop culture filled with violence and other suggestive themes and need society to look at itself and monitor the effects of its own culture, but only parents are responsible for turning the television off if keeping it on would be detrimental to a child's development.

Perhaps lost in the details of Obama's speech (and there were many initiatives promised under an Obama administration) is the theme of the American duality: why not have it both ways? Why not provide financial assistance to college students while asking for public service? Why not recruit an army of teachers while asking for parents to get involved? Why not be both individually and mutually responsible at the same time?

Obama is right: patriotism has no party. But nowhere and at no time in this campaign has a conservative, a Republican or a McCain supporter advocated the degree of societal support that Obama proposes. It offends a conservative's sensibilities that the village that Hillary used to reference has a collective responsibility to raise each and every child within its care.

Liberals, on the other hand, have no such indignation towards the idea of personal responsibility. We have just talked about collective responsibility more, quibbling over the details of universal health care and the solvency of Social Security. But Obama, in his acceptance speech, has espoused both ends of the spectrum in equal parts, and this is the tone that we, as Democrats, should adopt, and haven't yet.

Maybe in four generations, Democrats have yet to outline in enduring terms the compact that government and a free society have toward each other, and the benefits that both bring to the table. But I am compelled by the notion that the party, and indeed the Presidential candidate, that details this compact to the electorate will win the election. Every time.

No one for the liberal cause need betray the principles of the base to say that both are necessary and vital to the endurance and prosperity of this republic. What is required of us, however, is the ability to carry Obama's new compact of both personal freedom and responsibility to the greater good to all Americans. Let's not merely talk about universal health care, but also the freedom to pursue all opportunities when one is healthy. Let's not merely talk about subsidizing a child's education, but also the endless dividends that a good education brings to one's quality of life. But let's also say that emergency rooms that are less crowded and schools with fewer failing students will do more good than merely sucking it up and taking hardship in stride ever could.

At the same time, let's also say that people should be free to do with their lives as they will, free from interference that society can sometimes unnecessarily bring to bear. Why can't we say that? In a nation with as varied a people as ours, let's give each and every American every opportunity to decide for themselves what would be good, both for themselves and for the people around them. Why not? It has been my belief that it is that freedom, under the compact held by the Roosevelts (a pledge to a New Deal) and Kennedys (ask not what your country can do for you) of our party and outlined by Senator Obama, is actually why we advocate for all of the collective responsibilities we have to each other.

Fred Thompson: WTF!?

Fred Thompson, quoted by Political Wire:

"Every time you're somewhere, that means you're not somewhere else."

Good gravy. This is the guy the GOP drafted to get into the presidential race? Some Yogi Berra-knockoff that isn't half as funny as the original?

Only Jack Bauer can save Antonin Scalia

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. What a lunatic:

Jack Bauer saved Los Angeles...he saved hundreds of thousands of lives...are you
going to convict Jack Bauer? Say that criminal law is against him? 'You
have the right to a jury trial?' Is any jury going to convict Jack Bauer? I
don't think so.

To be clear, Jack Bauer and all his torture tactics could not stop the nuclear explosion in Valencia, killing over 12,000 people.

More importantly, though, is this: 24 is a television show! It's not real!

What's more, the generals, among them U.S. Army brigadier-general Patrick Finnegan, are trying to educate the American people that it's not real:

The kids see it, and say, 'If torture is wrong, what about 24?' They should do a show where torture backfires.

I thought Bush told us to listen to the generals.

Forget the terrorism bit for a moment. If Supreme Court Justices can quote fictional television shows to make their point, what's next? Hey, while watching Cartoon Network, I saw this scene in one episode of Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends...

I expected Lou Dobbs to rush the stage

At tonight's presidential debate, Wolf Blitzer asked for a show of hands among those who thought English should be the official language. Surprising to me, only one raised their hand. Even more surprising, it was Senator Mike Gravel from Alaska, who is, besides this issue, either the most liberal candidate on the stage, or the least sane candidate in the lower tier.

His rationale is sound, that people can and should still learn other languages beside English even if it is the official language. Gravel himself knows French on top of English. However, Senator Barack Obama was the first to give the right answer, that BS issues like the official language are the mainline weapons of conservatives to divide the American people. Not between the native-English speaking and the native-(everything else) speaking, but between the tolerant and the intolerant. Something that one particular brown people-basher who somehow passes as a true American on CNN doesn't understand.

Senator Hillary Clinton is perhaps a bit inaccurate that hospitals would be prohibited from providing translation services to non-English speakers, but schools and polling places would be forced to print all of their materials in English. Ask what conservatives think about that, and they would probably picture a world where immigrants would have to motivate themselves to learn English.

Then take them to a parent-teacher conference at a public school in Chinatown, and they will get the world they are looking for, where the school can't afford a translator anyways and the Chinese parent has to make do with their child translating for them. Chinese is not an option in any official capacity to begin with. Do you think that mom is motivated to learn English at the moment?

It's easy to score points with white people when their world is all about hot dogs and NASCAR and the idea that, should they ever leave their little towns in middle America, everyone around the world can accomodate them by speaking English. The practical and realistic sure gets in the way, however.

Don't applaud

I'm just now watching a repeat of The Daily Show and Jon Stewart's interview with Al Gore. Sounds good.

One piece of advice from one liberal author of a non-notable blog to the rest of the blogosphere: if you hear your favorite politician/famous figure/all-around good guy/girl say something, no matter how truthful or accurate or right or just, like "Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11," don't applaud. Don't clap your hands or cheer or anything like that.

Yeah, he's right. But instead of sounding like "I told you so," it sounds like you're cheering for the bad guy. Don't do that.

OK, that's all. Thanks.

Higher standards

The US Office of Special Counsel will begin an investigation into Karl Rove's efforts to direct the federal bureaucracy to help support Republicans in the political process. They will search for any coercion on Rove's part, which would be in violation of the Hatch Act signed into law to protect federal employees from political persuasion.

If Rove is the genius that Republicans believe that he is, the investigation will find that he committed no crime, and the administration will be legally off the hook.

In another branch of the government, Bush lent his support to US Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, saying:

...As the hearings went forward, it was clear the attorney general broke no law, there's no wrongdoing...

In the best-case scenario for the administration, both Rove and Gonzalez will be found not guilty, for no crime existed.

Republicans will be happy. The decent American people who honestly thought they voted for a good and honest man, on the other hand, should not.

Bush came into office on the promise to "clean up Washington," whatever that means. His Supreme Court-sanctioned victory came off the heels of a half-decade long assault on the Democratic Party for perceived immoralities that went all the way to the top. The phrase "higher standard" was part of the Christian conservative vernacular.

It is becoming readily apparent that the higher standards Republicans demanded and believed they got by electing Bush only applies to Democrats. Either that, or immorality doesn't apply to defrauding the American public or promoting widespread inequities in the last enduring democracy in the world.

At least they hope they broke no laws.

"Do you think it's time?"

Dennis Kucinich has no shot at becoming President. He is Ralph Nader with a real feel for the political landscape, but without the possibility of being a spoiler in November.

That said, Kucinich is the only prominent Democrat that should file charges of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney. It is not cowardice for someone the likes of Clinton or Obama or even Edwards to dodge any talk of impeachment. For better or for worse, the Democrats' top tier has to look towards the future and not dwell on the failures of the Republicans' most audacious political power grab since the Civil War and Reconstruction. The sooner the vocabulary of "Permanent Majority" and "neoconservativism" is erased from memory, the better.

In the meantime, perhaps the White House knows things about Iraq that the rest of the world doesn't (possible, but not probable, and definitely not important enough that the rest of the world couldn't garner such insight on its own), but the impression remains that Cheney and Bush and all that swore unconditional loyalty before patriotism to country have conducted the Iraq War in a criminal manner that dishonors the soldiers in the field.

Year five

So, yesterday was my birthday. I turned 25. I watched basketball and started to think this was the most uninteresting, uninspiring NCAA Tournament I've seen in quite some time.

But anyways...

Today is the four-year anniversary of the start of the Iraq War. Which means, if you do some math, I will have spent one day of my adult, drinking-age life in peacetime. Which wasn't that great to begin with, since that day was spent with the Bush administration preparing for the war the following day.

Any parent who has given or seen the birth of their child on March 19, 2003 will have every day raising their child in the shadow of war. Their children went to nursery school today not knowing what peace looks like. When it does arrive, it will be alien to them, having to see it for the first time ever.

September of next year, they will go to kindergarten, and no one really knows what the state of the world will look like then. Perhaps it will be better than today, but the promise of peace that the Bush administration has given to the American people remains uncertain as ever. Until then, if ever, we will have to raise our families under the constant threat of our own demise.

"Washington must change"

If I'm wrong, I'm wrong (and I supported Dean in the primaries four years ago), and Clinton and Edwards would also be head and shoulders better than McCain or Giuliani. But my support will be going to Barack Obama in next year's primaries.