Patriot Post, Post Patriot

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Today, at least 55,805,197 Americans are concerned for the future of our nation’s great tradition of liberty. Some 63,007,791 Americans have been lulled, under the aegis of “hope and change,” into a state of what is best described as “cult worship” and all its attendant deception.

One of our editors, a Marine now working in the private sector, summed up our circumstances with this situation report. It aptly captured the sentiments around our office: “It’s been tough, fellow Patriots; tough to stomach the idea that more than half of my fellow citizens who vote, have booted a genuine American hero to the curb for a rudderless charlatan. What a sad indictment on our citizenry that some are so eager to overlook his myriad flaws — his radical roots, his extreme liberalism, his utter lack of experience or achievement. Barack Obama is the antithesis of King’s dream: He’s a man judged by the color of his skin rather than the content of his character. If it’s God’s will that Barack Obama is our next president, then so be it. We Patriots will pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and wade back to the war front, intent on liberty or death.”

This battle is lost, but the war is not. Let’s roll.

Mark Alexander, Publisher, “The Patriot Post.”

Especially in recent weeks I’ve felt like I am constantly arguing with my relatives about politics. That’s not really the right word, though, because they seem to be caught up in a kind of horror story narrative that has little to do with politics as I understand it. I’m sure this comes from right-wing radio and from newsletters and blogs like the Patriot Post.

It’s a strange but seemingly effective strategy. Turn everything upside down and then repeat it over and over again until it starts to sounds true. Senator Obama did everything right by all of the old standards. He worked hard, got good grades, contributed to his community; by all accounts he’s a great dad and husband. He’s a poster child for traditional values.

Yet listen to the Patriot Post: “Obama is the antithesis of King’s dream: He’s a man judged by the color of his skin rather than the content of his character.” There’s a kind of doubled cowardice here. First, is the way the writer puts these words into a no-doubt fictional Marine. Just as importantly, is the bad faith of the poor looser: if my team didn’t win, it’s becuase your team cheated.

Posted in: Autobiographical, Economics, Writing

McCain, Palin, Education, Class

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Since her selection as John McCain's running mate, the Republican National Committee spent more than $150,000 on clothing and make-up for Gov. Sarah Palin, her husband, and even her infant son, it was reported on Tuesday evening.

That entertaining scoop — which came by way of Politico — sent almost immediate reverberations through the presidential race. A statement from McCain headquarters released hours after the article bemoaned the triviality of the whole affair.

"With all of the important issues facing the country right now, it's remarkable that we're spending time talking about pantsuits and blouses," said spokesperson Tracey Schmitt. "It was always the intent that the clothing go to a charitable purpose after the campaign."

Palin Clothes Spending Has Dems Salivating, Republicans Disgusted.

This story is probably one of the best lessons about class and education all year. I’ve been paying off my degrees for much of my adult life; three degrees, each one a little more expensive. As someone once said, student loans are like having a second mortgage, even before you buy a house.

Since I got deferments through the Peace Corps and by going back to school, I’ll be paying these off for the next dozen or more years. Texas is one of the states that does not help pay students loans in exchange for Peace Corps service. I’ve spent all of my life in public service, as a teacher.

If I had been born ten years earlier, I might have been able to escape much of this debt. The huge rise in tuition, the end of the grants systems, and the death of my father when I was still an undergraduate, all made debt inevitable if I wanted to get my Ph.D. Compare that to Palin.

She claims to be ‘of the people’ and yet has spent more than three times my existing student loan debt in the last month alone, all on clothes for her and her family. The electricity bill for a month or two at McCain’s seven houses would likely pay off much of my debt. That’s class in the U.S.

Posted in: Autobiographical, Economics, Professional, Writing

Republican (Empty) Rhetoric

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In recent elections, the Republican hate word has been “liberal,” or “Massachusetts,” or “Gore.” In this election, it has increasingly been “words.” Barack Obama has been denounced again and again as a privileged wordsmith, a man of mere words who has “authored” two books (to use Sarah Palin’s verb), and done little else. The leathery extremist Phyllis Schlafly had this to say, at the Republican Convention, about Palin: “I like her because she’s a woman who’s worked with her hands, which Barack Obama never did, he was just an élitist who worked with words.” The fresher-faced extremist Rick Santorum, a former Republican senator, called Obama “just a person of words,” adding, “Words are everything to him.”

by James Wood, New Yorker, October 13, 2008

We all have this tendancy to say, “politicians are politicians,” which means, roughly, that politicians as a class will generally say anything if they think that it will get them elected. We like to think, too, that this is a non-partisan complaint pointed at Democrats as much as at Republicans. To some extent, that is true, but I think this election offers a startling contrast.

It’s true that both sides are getting ugly, but the McCain side has begun to draw on a deep well of the ugliest sorts of political rhetoric, actually stooping to accusing Obama of associating with terrorists, if not being one himself. McCain’s crowds are yelling bloody murder, literally, and the candidate is either unaware, or unwilling to challenge them.

I think Wood might have a good explanation for the deeper sources of the McCain campaign’s slide into emotionally charged, even violent rhetoric and xenophobia. (They’ve starting using Obama’s middle name at rallies again, as if to suggest that he is “foreign,” or alien in some way.) For one thing, as I heard a Pundit say the other night, it’s an old political adage: if you don’t have ideas, pick a fight.

Even more profoundly, though, McCain has had to attack the very idea of logic, of words and reasoning and debate, since the start of his national campaign. If people think their way to the election, rather react, he’s lost. That means his rhetoric has to be as dramatically Orwellian as any I have every seen, and as utterly empty. It’s all fists in the air and meaningless chants: drill baby drill!

Posted in: Economics, Language

Balance of Power

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Sen. John McCain wants to cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent; Sen. Barack Obama doesn’t. Obama wants to increase the minimum wage; McCain doesn’t.

It’s hard to mix up the economic proposals of the two presidential candidates. Likewise, when it comes to workplace issues, they tend to lean in predictable ways – Obama toward the employee, McCain toward the employer.

Yet regardless of who’s elected, employment lawyers and Washington-area lobbyists say labor laws could get reshuffled in areas as varied as union organizing and gay rights.

“Some people are saying this could be the most active 'workplace Congress’ in the last 20 to 25 years,” said Mike Aitken, director of government affairs for the Society for Human Resource Management, based in Alexandria.

Where do McCain, Obama stand on labor issues? Philip Walzer, The Virginian-Pilot, September 21, 2008.

Here’s a nicely summarized view of the prospects for some basic changes, most of which, oddly enough, are not fully dependent on a Democrat becoming president. It helps to read this sort of thing, if for nothing else, in order to get some prospective on the frightening prospect of a third Republican term, and the shadow of a fourth.

The piece downplays the role that Palin– or Palin’s politics, and the right wing of the Republican party, might play in any future McCain administration. The idea is that McCain’s “libertarian” side would resurface soon after the election and that he would have little reason to spend political capital fighting, say, gay rights legislation.

I’m not sure how persuasive I find that idea. McCain could also spend his entire term fighting to keep the margins of his party happy; he could be uninterested in governing, like Bush, and leave the messy policy details to his neo-conservative precursors. I doubt Palin would be as powerful as Cheney.

What’s exciting, of course, is the prospect of a Democratic president enabling the rapid passage of all of these bills, especially the Employee Free Choice Act, pushing the U.S. just a few more steps out of the past. That might mean the birth of a unionized and green economic expansion. That could provide the tools for real change.

Posted in: Economics, Union