Searching for Relevancy in an Obama World

by Janet Ritz

Cross-published on The Chicago Sun-Times, The Huffington Post, Austin American Statesman, Palm Beach Post, Huston Chronicle

I spoke with a friend the other day, one of those rare individuals who'd passed his 87th birthday with a clear perspective on life that went beyond even his years, and heard from him frustration that has been echoed both by others of his generation and by those who are not yet of age to drink or vote.

The question they've been asking is: what happened?

What happened to the values for which the WWII generation fought and died? What happened to our principals about saving money and living within our means? What happened to fighting for freedom of religion and thought and tolerance? What happened to personal responsibility and the willingness to sacrifice to meet a shared goal? What happened to the moral centers of those in charge for the last few decades that made them think they could use the earth as their personal or corporate garbage dump, their offshore bank account, their property to pillage?

My friend bemoaned the generation that had followed his as trust-fund babies given every opportunity after a hard-won victory, who did not understand or care about the sacrifices made to provide them with the right to become something more than their fathers.

Instead, he complained, they squandered it for short term gain and immediate gratification.

I have heard the same from those younger than me. How could so much have been lost so fast? What about us? What will happen to our lives and our children now that our fathers and mothers have spent their inheritence? Who broke America, who broke the world, who is going to fix it?

The answer most people in America give, according to the polls, is Barack Obama. There is a lot to be said for his accomplishments in so short a time -- increased national debt notwithstanding (given the enormity of the problems he has inherited) -- but that's not, I suspect, the answer he would give. The president would say (and has said) that we all have to change to get out of this mess. Continued...

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John McCain's Missed Opportunity

by Janet Ritz

Published on Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Huffington Post, Palm Beach Post, Reuters

John McCain missed the single greatest opportunity to address his most dangerous supporters directly and to repudiate their threats of violence after Senator Obama brought up the threats in the debate. McCain chose not to do so, calling them "fringe" while lauding ALL his supporters as "patriotic."

This came after Senator John McCain made a point during the debate that Barack Obama should repudiate John Lewis' Wallace comparison, which Senator Obama had done already, while pointing out that Lewis' concern about violence, given the congressman's first hand experience, was a valid consideration.

Senator McCain was not impressed. Nor was he impressed when Senator Obama directly brought up the vitriol from McCain and Palin's rallies, citing words like "terrorist" and "kill him," which John McCain dismissed as coming from fringe supporters, after which the Republican senator went on to laud all his supporters as "patriotic Americans."

This exchange has haunted me since I saw it. Not only because of McCain's hypocrisy (demanding repudiation for something for which Senator Obama was not responsible while refusing to repudiate his own supporters' threats of violence against Obama), but because I felt connected to Barack Obama at that moment, the shared concern for both his safety and for our republic, should these "fringe" supporters that McCain/Palin have purposely fired up act on their threats.

I felt haunted, as well, because Obama's words, to me, had the ring of Martin Luther King's "I may not get to the mountaintop with you" coupled with: "here's your opportunity, John, to do the right thing."

Senator McCain missed that single greatest and likely only effective opportunity to address his supporters and say: "I know most of you, my supporters, are good Americans. For those who might feel, however, that violence is the answer, IT'S NOT. Our democracy depends on the smooth transition of power, no matter who the candidate is. You must not go there or we will lose more than just a good man. We will lose what our founders wanted our country to be."

The sin of omission. And by that omission John McCain missed the opportunity to not be held responsible should the worst happen. Hopefully (God, please) nothing will happen. But that doesn't change the fact that John McCain had the opportunity to keep it from happening and chose not to.

Senator McCain: Shame on you.

John McCain's Big Lies

by Janet Ritz

Published on Reuters, Chicago Sun-Times, The Huffington Post, Palm Beach Post

The disregard for the truth by the McCain campaign has produced lies so big that even those that support Senator McCain are hard-pressed to deny that they're lies.

So why the recent flood of such big lies?

While they may be meant to reach undecided voters (they'd be happy to pick them up), it seems rather a tactic to engender an angry response from Senator Obama that they can then point to and say -- see, he's angry, ergo, ipso facto, he's dangerous, different, not like you and me.

Senator Obama seems unlikely to fall into that trap. He knows how to be angry and cool at the same time and both are needed now (along with more passion, please). Not that he doesn't have a right to be angry and hot, and not just for himself, but for all of us. Because, make no mistake, it is the American people upon which this tactical fraud is being perpetrated.

And not just tactical fraud. Orwellian fraud. A hallmark of the Bush years (see: Clear Skies Act). Strong is good, weak is bad (four legs bad, two legs good...); pull up your bootstraps (unless, as Senator Obama correctly points out, you don't have boots).

An example of where Obama has condensed his message, those missing boots, because the simple and direct thought is something the American people in this world of television, Internet(s) and immediate gratification seem to require. It is a message he will have to reinforce along with finding a way to relay the passion he feels for our country to those who yearn to support him.

But that's a different and far more honorable path than McCain's choice to plow the lowest road of big lies. Which makes me question what kind of country this would be with John McCain in charge, considering those running his campaign, should he win, would likely be the same people running the government.

And yet, we are told, John McCain is a maverick.

The distortions coming from the campaign make it impossible to determine who John McCain is beyond the noise, the distractions, the decision of his campaign to present him as the alpha male in the hope that fear and uncertainty will lead a majority to identify with the aggressor rather than one they try to make out as a victim or, if he fights back, as the outsider who cannot be trusted.

Psychology. Not truth.

History can be helpful in understanding the dangers of propaganda in a time of uncertainty, war, bank failures, foreclosures, stagflation, propaganda... What would be equally helpful is the moment of reflection that every American should allow themselves, in lieu of propaganda, to ask this question:

What will my life be like four years from now?

Chris Matthews addressed that question in a recent comment:

"Suppose the energy crunch has grown to cripple the economy, we're moving products, twenty years from now, on old railroads and gas guzzling trucks. The air becomes clogged with pollution again from fossil fuels because they're all we have. India, China, Russia and Brazil are, by then, grabbing and outbidding us for resources. Our failed education system has cost us our innovative edge. We can't compete. We might even have fallen back to a second rate power, we Americans. And the young people twenty years from now and the older folks who can remember it, will look back on the fall election of 2008 that set the course for this century and see videotapes of us arguing about lipstick...lipstick.

This game that's being played is not an insult to a candidate, it's an insult to the intelligence of our democracy, which is really all we have, each of us, to decide and build a future. Our only escape from all this is to force ourselves, against all the distractions, to think through the hearts and minds of those young people who will have to live in the world we are now deciding who's to build, who's to lead us to." Continued...

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Republicans block oil windfall tax

by Janet Ritz

Cross-posted on Huffington Post, Palm Beach Post

Senator Pete Domenici, R-N.M, has relayed the mixed message of "we feel your pain" (at the pump), while attempting to justify his party's blockage of a windfall profit tax on Big Oil by saying that increased taxes on oil companies would be something Americans wouldn't want.

Which Americans?

"Americans are furious about what's going on," declared Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and want Congress to do something about oil company profits and "an orgy of speculation" on oil markets.

"If you don't tell the big oil companies they can no longer run energy policy in America, we will not succeed, plain and simple," Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., told CBS Radio News.

That "orgy of speculation" is the issue, of course, spurred along by the falling dollar (more on that below). The legislation, which failed to gain the required 60 votes to overcome a Republican filibuster (as with the recent failed global warming legislation), would have required the following provisions that to address speculation:

1. Require traders to put up more collateral in the energy futures markets and open the way for federal regulation of traders who are based in the United States but use foreign trading platforms. The measures are designed to reduce market speculation.

2. Make oil and gas price gouging a federal crime, with stiff penalties of up to $5 million during a presidentially declared energy emergency.

3. Authorize the Justice Department to bring charges of price fixing against countries that belong to the OPEC oil cartel.

Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the obstructer of the earlier climate change legislation, echoed Domenici's crocodile tears about the pain at the pump while ridiculing "those who think we can tax our way out of this problem."

McConnell's answer?

Drill more oil on American soil (read: Alaska and offshore). Screw the environmental consequences.

Which makes one wonder whether this approach -- to let things get so bad that Americans will support a complete rape of the environment -- might be the end-game of our pain at the pump that these oil lobbyist representativesRepublicans feel so very bad about, especially after these very same Republicans, lead by McConnell, defeated separate legislation designed to provide for alternative fuels.

But then, it could just be short-presidential-term greed -- the 'let's get as much as we can before our policies drive the Republicans out of office' philosophy.

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Reverend Wright's Wrong Timing

by Janet Ritz

Cross-posted at The Huffington Post, Reuters

I do not presume to judge anyone else's method of worship. I do know bad timing when I see it and Reverend Jeremiah Wright's pre-primary media blitz seems designed, unintentionally or not, to benefit John McCain, while distracting from the real issues of the campaign (four-dollar gasoline, war, recession, health care, cronyism, the need to reduce in the influence of special interests...).

Barack Obama's response:

He does not speak for me; he does not speak for the campaign. I cannot prevent him from continuing to make these outrageous remarks. But what I do want him to be very clear about, as well as all of you and the American people, is that when that I say that I find these comments appalling, I mean it. It contradicts everything that I'm about and who I am and anybody who has worked with me, who knows my life, who has read my books, who has seen what this campaign's about, I think will understand that it [Wright's position] is completely opposed to what I stand for and where I want to take this country. [snip] The fact that Reverend Wright would think that somehow it was appropriate to command the stage for three or four consecutive days in the midst of this major debate, is something that not only makes me angry, it also saddens me.

Senator Obama pointed out which of Wright's comments most angered him, including Wright's conspiracy theories on AIDS and other conspiracy issues, Wright's denigration of the U.S.'s fight against terror, his statement that Obama's denunciation of Wright's remarks was political posturing and Wright's claim that Farrakhan was an "important voice." To which Senator Obama responded that Wright's comments were: appalling, ridiculous, outrageous and offensive. David Axelrod, Obama's chief campaign strategist, was asked by Chris Matthews about the Wright's 'speaking tour':

I must say it wouldn't be my first choice. I think Reverend Wright felt that he had been done a disservice in this process and he decided to go public and he did and, frankly, the news media was very eager to accommodate that. He had three hours on the cable stations last night and the coverage this morning and so he's gotten himself quite a platform.

Matthews replied that it was hard to understand why, after Obama had been so sensitive in the way he distanced himself "and yet in payment for that, the Reverend Wright goes on this book tour basically, to basically put it back in his face."

Axelrod replied that it is not about Senator Obama; that Reverend Wright was speaking for Reverend Wright.

Why is Wright doing it? Is it the Wright book that's coming out? Did he not like Barack Obama's thoughtful speech on race? Is he giving Senator Obama permission to completely disassociate from him? Or was it the way that the Senator disassociated himself from Wright's most outrageous remarks that prompted this response? Is there any doubt now that Reverend Wright, regardless of his positions, falls into that curious corner of American politics of what-to-do-about-those-who-are-in-your-world-but-do-not-speak-for-you.

This is unlike John McCain's unashamed courtship of Pastor John Hagee, despite Hagee's description of Catholicism as "a Godless theology of hate" and his statement that Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment wrought upon New Orleans for a gay pride parade, because McCain actively sought Hagee's endorsement...

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