Veterans Day

Americana, Politics, War

Korean War Memorial at the western end of the National Mall, Washington DC       

Washington is full of war memorials; it makes me sad that there are so many. On the east end of the Mall, is the The Ulysses S. Grant Memorial  facing toward the Lincoln Memorial at the west end. They unite the Mall like they united the country. In between are newer monuments: World War II, The Korean Conflict – named Conflict or Police Action so Congress didn’t have to vote for it – The Vietnam War. We are becoming an Empire, filling our capitol with memorials to our distant, empirical, wars.

It is nice we honor our Veterans – I am a Veteran and am proud of it, maybe too much at times, considering that I have never heard a shot fired in anger – but I fear that the Honoring is covering up national policies we shouldn’t have. I fear that the Honoring is covering up the debate and discussion on whether we should even be fighting these wars. I fear that the Honoring is covering up our neglect of the shattered bodies and psyches that are the waste products of these empirical wars.

In all the wars, in each war, young men and, now, women – or old boys and, now girls,  depending on your point of view – have been sent to distant places by old men to kill people whose names they don’t know and, in most cases, can pronounce. They are sent to places we don’t really know or understand. It is not making us great, it is not making us rich, it is not making us safe.

Obama, race, extremism, and stupidity

Americana, Politics

I was surprised at the racism in this election. I have been surprised and disturbed at the increasing reveal of racism over the last four years, mostly by people trying to appeal to Republicans, and – now,  in the end, when the ballots have been counted – I am surprised and delighted that it didn’t hurt the President. Ironically, the racism seemed to have hurt the Republicans.

We all know the guy above is a ___fill in the blank again__. Even he knows it, as he stands there, staring into the close distance, looking at nothing, just being aware of the camera behind him. My question is Why did he do it? Why did he put that shirt on and go out in public? Why did he even buy that shirt? I guess that it is possible he is so tired of his life not working that he is finally wants to yell out his truth. His life is not his fault, it’s the black president’s fault giving all his black friends all the goodies . Maybe he thought most of us would secretly agree.

Before the election, I thought I hope he is wrong, but I am not as sure as I was four years ago. The election proved him – and me – wrong. Sure, there are racists out there, but not enough to overturn a black president whose pitch was What I am doing may not be working – yet – and hasn’t lived up to my promises, but it will and I need to be reëlected to finish the job. This was not the magic Negro promising Change, this was – in most American’s opinion – a steady, competent  guy trying to dig us out of a hole. A guy who just happened to be black and it didn’t really seem to matter.

Most of us reconized the passive- aggressiveism of Romney dickishly saying When the world needs to do really good stuff, you need an American. while pretending it was not about race, and it ended up hurting Romney more than it hurt Obama. Not with people who really did think he was born in Kenya, I guess, but with most voters (66,882,230 and counting). I can understand that the guy in the picture is too stupid to realize that he is hurting what I presume is his cause (getting Obama out of office). But I found it harder to believe that Romney is that stupid – I know, the proof is in the fact that he actually did make that statement – and I wonder why he made it. I wonder what he was thinking when he included you need an American in his speech.

When I read about Republicans cutting back on early voting, eliminating Take Your Souls to the Polls Sunday in Florida, making picture IDs mandatory to vote, and just generally harassing black voters, it scared me. I had forgotten that these were people who – just sixty years ago – were willing to die to get the vote (and, don’t forget, some did). The harassers must have forgotten that too, and they must have been shocked that all their harassment just increased the turnout against them.

I went to bed Tuesday night feeling great about America. An America, it turns out, that is becoming as inclusive and welcoming as I had dreamed it would be.

 

 

Lifted from the Daily Dish

Politics

 Jewel Samad/AFP/GettyImages

While waiting for the first results, I saw a couple of election day items at Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish that  I want to reprint. A quote from Lincoln and a story from a voter.

This is essentially a People’s contest. On the side of the Union, it is a struggle for maintaining in the world, that form, and substance of government, whose leading object is, to elevate the condition of men – to lift artificial weights from all shoulders – to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all – to afford all, an unfettered start, and a fair chance, in the race of life. Yielding to partial, and temporary departures, from necessity, this is the leading object of the government for whose existence we contend,” – Abraham Lincoln, Special Message to the People of the United States, July 4, 1861.

At my precinct polling place by 7:30 a.m. Fairly long line. It turned out that all the voting machines were broken. So we all had to vote by provisional ballot. Ridiculous. The lady just behind me in line brought along her daughter, I’d say she was about 8-10, certainly an elementary school student. Mom starts to fill out the ballot and the child shrieks, “No, not him! Nooooo!” Then she takes up a chant “Ba-rack O-bam-a, Ba-rack O-bam-a, Ba-rack O-bam-a!” Mom is perplexed, hushing her, and then finally “Alright, alright.” “Ma’am can I have another ballot?” She hands back the one she started, fills out a new one, and the kid starts applauding “yeah!”

A voting booth conversion? A juvenile act of extortion? Pretty bizarre incident. In any event, I’d say it was the kid who effectively cast that ballot. But why not? It’s about her future.

Barack Obama is going to win

Politics

Let me start by saying that I am going to vote for Obama. I would vote for Obama even if I thought he would lose but I don’t. I am an Obama guy. I am on his team and my outlook is colored by my looking through that lens. For example, I saw a clip of Obama campaigning while wearing his nifty Air Force One flight jacket. Say, eight years ago, when I saw Bush wearing his Air Force One flight jacket, I was disgusted and, when I first saw Obama wearing one, I felt pretty much the same way. But my cognitive dissonance antibodies have set in and – now – I am OK with it. It becomes him.

With all the disclaimers above, I am willing to bet that Obama is going to win this election. Maybe not $10,000 but lunch if anybody actually feels confident enough to bet that Romney is going to win. We keep hearing that it is too close to call, but I think that is really just GOP PR and the media wanting to sell coverage. Two people – three if you count Colin Powell – who are smart and probably see the writing on the wall just came out for Obama: Mayor Bloomberg and Republican governor Chris Christie. Both would have been unlikely to have been so positive towards Obama if they thought he was going to lose.

The reason Powell, Bloomberg, Christie, and I think Obama is going to win is the Electoral College favors President Obama. Let’s start with the estimates from freedomslighthouse.net. (From the name, you might guess that this is a right leaning – misusing leaning in its most benign sense – organization, and you would be right.) They say that Obama has a safe lead in states producing 238 votes and Romney has a safe lead in states producing 191 votes and that agrees with what most other people say. That doesn’t mean that Obama will win for sure, but it does mean that he is closer to winning than Romney.  Just like the Giants were closer to winning when they were leading the Tigers by two runs in the 7th inning (they weren’t guaranteed to win, but they did have a better chance of it).

To win, Obama needs 32 additional Electoral Votes and Romney would need 79 Electoral Votes. Of the states that are up for grabs, Obama is leading in seven: New Hampshire – 51.2% to 47.9 according to Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight1 – Wisconsin, Ohio @ 50.8% to 47.9, Virginia  slightly @ 50.2% to 49.0, Colorado @ 50.2 to 48.7,  New Mexico, and Nevada @ 51.4% to 47.5. Romney is leading in two: North Carolina @ 50.9% to 48.4 and Florida @ 49.9% to 49.5. Sure, it is possible for Obama to lose, but it is unlikely.  This campaign looks very much like Obama’s primary campaign against Hillary in that they were not running a popularity contest, they are basing everything around getting enough Electoral Votes to win. Yes, they are pretty close in the popular vote, but to actually win the Presidency, Romney had a very steep and unlikely climb up until Sandy.

I think that Sandy iced it for Obama. For about four or five days, last week Romney – with no official position – was invisible and Obama started wearing – very visibly – his Commander and Chief Flight Jacket.

1. The Republican hate Nate Silver because he has been projecting Obama for most of the year, but he was only one Electoral Vote off in 2008. His methodology  for Virginia is typical.

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