The Obama Project@WindonWater.net

Elvis Dingeldein asks a thoughtful question in a post called “Also, Don’t Blame Muhammad“, at bobcesca.com: what we can do to prevent the spike in violent religious extremism whenever the religious right is out of power in the US?  His original post was further clarified in the last segment of his radio show here: (June 4 podcast).

I’m going to take my time answering, because I don’t want to come across as having “the answer” – I don’t think I do.  But the question, now fully articulated, seems to suggest some immediate thoughts, and I wanted to share them.

I think, fundamentally – what CAN be done, is what IS being done, and we need to find ways to follow suit.

First – the beauty and challenge of American democracy is that it is predicated on freedom of conscience.   As long as we reserve the right to our freedom of conscience (expressed in the 1st amendment jointly as a restriction on government making any laws that would seem to “establish” a religion and the freedom from government interference with the expression of religion amongst private citizens), we will always have religious expression in the public square.  People hold ideas, be they religious or philosophical, and they reserve their right to act upon those ideas.

Second – and this is one that really hit me the other day – we need to remember that the howling of those who are now “out of power” is not just because they are out of power – it is because the foundation of their world is shaken.

That second one is a biggie.  I had a small glimpse of it the other day, when I saw the headline “Yankees drop 8 in a row to Bosox.”  Something in my stomach turned – and the world felt just slightly off kilter. Let me put that in context: I’m not a “fanatic” – I typically ignore baseball all year long, and only pay attention the the playoffs if the Yankees are in them.  All the rest of the year, baseball goings on are background noise.  So you see what kind of baseball fan I am.  At the same time, I know a lot of Yankee lore.  I know about the House that Babe built, and I remember  Reggie Jackson as Mr. October, and I know about “The Curse.” In fact, I know enough about the curse to have been worried, when the Yankees swindled Alex Rodriguez from the Red Sox, that the curse would be broken.  And sure enough, it was. As disinterested a fan as I am, this makes me feel a dreadful sense of anxiety.   All is not right with the world.  Perhaps the Yankees are the ones who are cursed now, I wonder.  And I’m angry.  I’m angry about the new Yankee Stadium (don’t like the idea at all).  I’m angry about the Alex Rodriguez deal.  I can’t stand Alex Rodriguez – never have liked him, and what little bit of liking I could have had for him dissipated when the Yankees lost to the Red Sox in the pennant.  All of this emotional investment over…. baseball.

Thinking on this slightly irrational reaction to a simple newspaper headline, I suddenly had a grasp of what the world must feel like to some people.  I’m talking about the people who remember when abortion was illegal, and only “those kinds of girls” had them.  I’m talking about people who remember segregation, and especially who remember when there just was no way a black man OR a woman could figure so prominently in national politics.  I’m talking about those whose foundational understanding of the world includes white men on top, all the time.  I’m thinking about how they must feel every morning when they wake up and think “WTF??” I’m thinking about how their knees must knock a little bit, and their stomachs roil whenever they have to hear on the news that there is someone called President Barack Hussein Obama.  Irrational though it may be, I suddenly had a great deal of sympathy for these who history has left behind.  I suddenly realize that for them, nothing may be more important than restoring balance and order to THEIR universe.  What would it take?

Well – there are a bunch of very wicked people who are playing on their fears.  Understanding that quaking sensation in the belly, these wicked people promote these fears, make it seem justified, for their own gain.  But President Obama has chosen another approach – he’s created safe space for those fearful ones.  He speaks in the language of faith to reassure these fearful ones that the world has not turned upside down.  He invites the religious in – because religion is that last bastion of stability that they hold on to.  In short – he reminds them that after all, they are NOT left behind – he’s bringing them along for the ride.

Many on the left decry these efforts by the President, but I think they are wrong to do so.  The toxic atmosphere can only grow more toxic unless people predisposed to feel displaced are instead empowered – but to do good, and to contribute to, rather than be left behind by the march of history.

To the extent that we can, we who are in President Obama’s corner, need to be reaching out for these displaced people, and showing them how they are empowered by the changes happening, rather than leaving them to the vile intent of those who seek only to manipulate their fears.

I said in a comment on Bob Cesca’s site that I was glad that Pat Buchanan was so thoroughly embraced on MSNBC.  He is one of those displaced people I’m talking about.  Surrounded by people who want to hear his opinion, but who disagree, sometimes sharply, his voice can be a part of the change that is happening, a dialectic that propels us forward, rather than a disruptive and destructive force that pulls us down.  I continually remember the anecdote of the campaign when a young canvasser knocked on a door of a poor white family.  The woman who answered, had to ask her husband who they were voting for… and upon the husband’s reply, repeated for the canvasser “We’re voting for the n*gg*r.”  You know what? I’m sure we were glad to have the vote.

QT

As always, Bob Cesca pens a brilliant post. Once a week, Huffington Post’s best poster sheds light on the darkness of our political discourse with humor that makes truth telling bearable…

Except this time I’m not laughing. (Sorry Bob.) This week I’ve seen numerous people who I feel ought to be more reasonable, and knowledgeable, passing along flat out lies picked up from the mainstream media. I’ve heard so called conservatives, with no stake in the elections whatsoever, excoriate our President for doing a less harmful version of what their former champion (Bush II) did, and I have finally had enough with dishonesty and deliberate disingenuousness.

These rich creeps whining on television about “revolution” need to get a grip. Here’s a nice IRS table showing tax rates over the years: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/02inpetr.pdf.

Have a look at key dates:

(If that chart doesn’t show up well, look on page 5 of the link).

The point being – the whiners are complaining about a tax hike that brings them no where near as high as the highest tax bracket during the majority of the Reagan years – and the one year when Reagan cut taxes down to 28%, he left George the First with having to break a promise and raise taxes (thereby likely costing the republicans their run).
Whiners. They want a revolution? While millions of Americans are LOSING THEIR HOMES and their JOBS and their HEALTH CARE… they want a revolution because they are going to lose less than 2% income to taxes – taxes to help get the country they claim to love out of its bind?

They want a revolution? They want to foster an environment where MY President is threatened by their reckless, selfish chatter about birth certificates and tea parties? Oh really? BRING IT.

They might get more than they bargained for.

QT
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Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

http://www.bobcesca.com/blog-archives/2009/02/scarboroughs_re.html#comments

I am an American Soldier. I have served my country honorable in Iraq. After surviving both of my “DO NOTHING” deployments I was eligible for the EITC. The reason I was eligible for the EITC was that all my income in a COMBAT ZONE was non taxable income. This is the same for every soldier, sailor, marine and airperson that makes less than $88,000 of base pay in a COMBAT ZONE. I was extremely grateful to receive this tax credit. It felt like my government was honoring my service. So yes, dodging IEDs and small arms fire is “DOING NOTHING” and running you fat mouth for millions of dollars every morning is “WORK”.

Arianna Huffington talks about the Marie Antoinette attitude of some – wall street/bank/automobile ceo types. But the fact is – it permeates every facet of American life. Even the middle-class has this completely out of touch attitude toward the genuinely poor, or the lower-middle class stuck in slum conditions through no fault of their own.

GItheJoe’s comments are in response to Joe Scarborough’s pontifications on whether or not working people deserve and earned income tax credit. At a time when our nation is suffering – when the well off are watching their shares decline – how much more so are the poor watching their ability to make ends meet decline? Isn’t this a time for openheartedness and opennhandedness? I mean – we don’t have unlimited resources, but this isn’t a time to ask why some are getting. It’s a time to ask – will giving in this way help? Any other question is heartless, and deserving of contempt.

One month after Obama takes office, his administration owes a briefing to the Supreme Court on the subject of torture.

WASHINGTON — Just a month after President-elect Barack Obama takes office, he must tell the Supreme Court where he stands on one of the most aggressive legal claims made by the Bush administration — that the president may order the military to seize legal residents of the United States and hold them indefinitely without charging them with a crime.

The new administration’s brief, which is due Feb. 20, has the potential to hearten or infuriate Mr. Obama’s supporters, many of whom are looking to him for stark disavowals of the Bush administration’s legal positions on the detention and interrogation of so-called enemy combatants held at Navy facilities on the American mainland or at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

I honestly feel quite torn on this issue.  We never should have had this situation – but now that we do – how are we supposed to undo it without creating new, awful precedent, and without creating security vulnerabilities?

Perhaps the only way out of this is to apply Bob Cesca’s fear solution and just try them as best as possible in civilian courts.  Our rule of law has to be more important than any one criminal – terrorist though he may be.

QT

Found this online.

In an otherwise brilliant post, Bob Cesca nevertheless missed a key point.  He quotes John McCain here:

“[Senator Obama is] claiming putting air in your tires is the equivalent of new offshore drilling,” McCain said. “That’s not an energy plan, my friends — that’s a public service announcement.”

Yes, it’s a lie. Yes, it’s ignorant. But most importantly, it’s disingenuous — deliberately ignorant with the intention to deceive. Not unlike FOX News Channel, Senator McCain is not just exploiting the ignorance of his supporters — he’s counting on it. He’s and his cynical strategists are counting on their own supporters to be unaware of the verifiable fact that if we maintain proper tire pressure, we would conserve more oil than would be attained with the McCain plan for offshore drilling. And he’s counting on his supporters to blindly ditto this line — a line that’s specifically designed to be easily repeated for the sake of painting Senator Obama as weak and ineffectual. Ironic, isn’t it.

In point of actual fact – Obama’s support of tire gauges IS a public service announcement – that’s the concession that McCain had to make since, after all, it’s true. The LIE is the idea that this is Sen. Obama’s plan. It is not. Obama gave a full detailed, multi-faceted plan and McCain refuses to acknowledge it or give it a fair debate.

That, my friends, is not a leader we can believe in.

QT

BTW – A link to Bob Cesca’s blog is to the left. He’s both brilliant and funny – so have a look-see.

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Read the Article at HuffingtonPost