McCain 'Wasted'

So Obama expressed the view that people who are suffering economically may feel distressed by the situation, and that they may embrace various cultural practices and institutions quite strongly as a result. Of course, he used somewhat blunt language to express that point of view, not the nuanced, refined, elistist, thesaurophilic phrasing that I have used. The right wing noise machine repeats the blunt phrasing over and over, making like its an insult, even though a mindless hack like Hannity doesn't understand what it means.

McCain said American lives were 'wasted' in Iraq. Why isn't he being tarred and feathered with his own blunt language?

Oligarchy

In my first real post to this blog, I noted an article in which Bernanke warned about the looming Social Security crisis, which amounted to $3.7 trillion over a 75 year horizon. Just a few short years ago, the conservatives were calling for benefit cuts, and Bush wanted to create private accounts and turn over some of the Social Security money to the Wall Street boys.

That seems like a remarkably bad idea now. Particularly galling is how fast Bernanke got $1 trillion (that's with a T) cash together when his buddies came calling, but how resistent he is to the idea of spending any money on the working folks. Even more galling is the possibility that the funding for this bailout of his pals could be coming from the $2 trillion Social Security trust fund, built up over the past 25 years by the working people for whom he appears to have no empathy. Maybe it is just coincidence that the size of the bailout is roughly the size of the SS trust fund, but a few alarm bells are going off in my head.

Meanwhile, people are throwing out the word socialism to describe the bailouts. Folks, that is wrong. Socialism would be the government spending $1 trillion to eliminate poverty, provide health care, and improve quality of life for the whole of the country. A few well connected government officials raiding the public treasury to save their friends' bacon is oligarchy, not socialism.

Too big to fail

AIG is too big to fail. Enron wasn't. The US Military is too big to fail. That is why there is a bill to declare the surge a success. (Real victories do not require congressional resolutions to be recognized as such.)

With all the bailouts going on, where are the free market faithful railing about socialism. They are quick to incorrectly label Obama as a European socialist, but they do not label Paulsen as a socialist. Of course, a real socialist would be spending money on human needs, not on bailing out wall street billionaires.

In this case, at least, the US gets a cut of the company.

The US is too big to fail.

Wake up America

Paul Craig Roberts lays out the strategic position of the US in stark but accurate terms in Counterpunch:

a country whose foreign policy goal is world hegemony will continue on the path to destruction until the rest of the world ceases to finance its existence

Voters, I can't tell you that Obama would veer from the path to destruction. But there is a good chance he would, and the part of the world that "finances [our] existence" will give him the chance to correct our path. John McCain, on the other hand, has tunnel vision, and at the end of his tunnel there is no light, just the "path to destruction" envisioned by Roberts, ending in an abyss that could make the Hanoi Hilton appear worthy of Paris Hilton.

The rule of Bush-Cheney has messed up this country beyond repair. Obama is our best hope to clean it up.

McCain's son was on board of failed bank

Andrew McCain, John's son from his first wife, and CFO of Hensley & Co., the family enterprise of John's second wife, resigned from the board of Silver State Bank six weeks before it failed.

McCain's RNC Speech

Projected images behind McCain.

Says he stood up to lobbyists ripping off Indian tribes.

NBC shows a veteran in the arena with an "Iraq Veterans Against the War T-Shirt." Another protestor evoked chants of "U S A" from the automatons in the crowd, but I don't know what she was protesting.

The speech is turning into red meat boilerplate.

Standing ovation for attacking public education, and promoting Christian Taliban madrassas.

smears, lies, and calumny

Almost nobody in the country knows anything about Sarah Heath Palin. Last night was her opportunity to show America how she could be a good vice president. She had an opportunity to talk about issues in a manner that shows she knows Zambia from Zimbabwe and Keynes from Kenya. Instead, she read an attack dog speech, chock full of lies, that could have been read by any of Karl Rove's other trained attack dogs.

Unfortunately for Obama, ignorant, negative campaigning tends to work pretty well, especially when the Republican press lets all sorts of whoppers from Republicans go unchallenged, while they jump all over even the mildest, slightly emotional attacks from Democrats.

Maybe he has seen Letterman's "Great Moments in Presidential Speeches," and has been inspired to put together Great Moments in McCain's Speeches. I also hope that his attack squad has been poring over the Keating 5 hearings. Do you think that in the midst of the current financial meltdown, people might find that relevant?

Well, I will watch John Sidney in a few minutes. I got my Miller brewed Fosters cooling in the fridgy.

Grandma Sarah

It really shouldn't be a big deal that Sarah Palin's daughter is going to have a baby. But Palin and her political allies have made it one.

1. It clearly points out the ineffectiveness of the "abstinence only" policy they push.
2. She had to know that it would become national news. Did she really want here daughter to have her pregnancy hashed out in the national press? Is this her family values?
3. Is it possible that getting pregnant was a way of attracting attention from a mom too busy being governor, and a father working far from home?

Now that we covered that, let's talk about Palin's views on the Iraq war. She wants an exit plan, she thinks that it is a war for oil, and she thinks that that oil is for domestic consumption.

From the Time interview:

My son being in a striker brigade in the army has really opened my eyes to international events, and how war impacts everyday Americans like us when we have a child who chooses to enlist and to serve [for] the right reasons.

So what are the right reasons? What about someone who chooses to serve for the wrong reasons? What about Ehren Watada and Camilo Mejia, who decided that going to Iraq was a wrong way to serve?

Back to the baby issue. Another quote from the Time interview:

..the big kids help out so much with the little one.

Not sure what to make of that, except there could be a lot less helping out with one big kid in Iraq and another with a baby of her own.