Not Going to Roll Over and Die, It’s a Gilded Age.” This should be required reading for all Americans. A great summary of the economic turmoil of the Gilded Age as it related to labor and unions.
The following are some posts with images of the American flag, that I have gathered over the years, along with commentary:
In the wake of the Republican’s effort to pass a bill which would defund Planned Parenthood, there has been a concerted effort to portray the Democratic Party and the people supporting it as somehow being against women and their reproductive health. Not only is this an unfair, one-sided caricature of the Democratic Party’s values, but it’s also an insult to women. A party that is supposedly so pro-choice, is not supporting women when they propose a law which would deny health care to the poor, women in the most marginalized communities and women whose lives are in danger because they have no health care and have been exploited by companies that are eager to keep it that way. This is not a matter of politics. It’s a matter of taking care of women in the most vulnerable positions that their culture has placed them in.
I’ve said before, and I’ll say it again, the reason for my support of Hillary Clinton is not because I feel that she will be a better president than Barack Obama. Her record as a Senator shows she has been an advocate of tough-on-crime policies, and she has been on the wrong side of a number of important issues, including a woman’s right to choose, gay marriage and the estate tax. She supported funding the Iraq war and she voted in support of the war in Afghanistan. On so many other issues she is to the right of Barack Obama and that’s what concerns me, at least as much as any of the baggage that seems to define the GOP. I supported Obama because he promised to change the way politics is done in this country. He did this when he was running for President, by standing in front of tens of thousands of young people and saying, “What the hell is wrong with you people?” He did this when he was elected, by running a campaign that was about hope and change. Unfortunately, I don’t think his promise to change politics was just rhetoric. I’m hoping he will be a man of his word and deliver on that promise for a second term in office.
In this election cycle, I feel that Hillary has more to answer for than Obama. In a piece written for Salon by David A. Love, he writes “We don’t know what kind of president Hillary will make — for all we know, she’ll turn out to be the female Tony Blair. But the things she’s done in her political career thus far certainly have given us a blueprint on how to expect her to act if she does. Her record as Secretary of State suggests Hillary Clinton is far more interested in staying on the Democratic right side of the fence and keeping her job than she is in standing up for the rights and dignity of black, brown and poor people.” He points out some of Hillary’s hypocrisy and hypocrisy isn’t acceptable. I couldn’t have said it better myself.
If she were to somehow win the nomination, and become our next President, I would be interested in seeing how it would work. A woman President, a black man President, both African Americans running for President and both born in Hawaii. Would we really see such historic firsts in our lifetime? Or would we be saddled with the Clinton dynasty? The question I’d be interested in seeing answered is, will American voters have learned their lesson about electing dynasties, or is America really not ready for a women President?
In this piece entitled “The Ugly Truth About Gays and Money,” Paul Krugman takes on the argument that conservatives use against gay marriage (as seen in this article by Andrew Sullivan, and this article by Erick Erickson), as well as the argument being used by the Obama Administration. In the first article Sullivan uses some “facts” on same-sex marriage and some data from his son, to give a reason that marriage needs to be “reinvented.” Krugman takes issue with this argument by showing how the logic that led to the argument to repeal marriage bans did not hold up. His second point made is that it is not the same thing as racism and discrimination.
I’ve talked about the need for more black families to talk about Barack Obama as an African American candidate. Here’s a piece by Melissa Harris-Perry entitled, “Black Families, Black Voices” and a piece by Michael Eric Dyson, “Obama and Hip Hop,” as well as the piece from Keli Goff “Pandering to Obama”. We as black folks need to be able to speak on our own behalf and tell our own stories, even in this election cycle. I’m excited to hear from black voters. In the meantime, this is some good information. You might be surprised how well the campaign understands the African American vote.
In this piece by David A. Love, he says, “The same-sex marriage argument is a logical dead end. Opponents of same-sex marriage are at a loss to explain why same-sex couples should be denied the right to marry, while polygamists, cannibals and murderers are considered ‘normal’ citizens. That’s because marriage has to do with adults, and not with people’s feelings about how happy they are in a relationship.” It’s something that needs to be articulated.
In this piece entitled, “Marriage: The Ultimate Battle for the Soul of America” the author says, “As citizens in a democracy, we can each choose the man or woman we consider most likely to make the greatest contribution to our community, our nation, or the world, and it makes sense that these leaders would come from the people who are already most willing to sacrifice for a cause they care deeply about. Marriage — the idea that one man and one woman will give up their privacy, their finances, and their ability to spend time with other consenting adults in order to give birth to, raise, and teach children — is as necessary a component of a strong family and society as the air we breathe.” It is the most important institution on this earth.
There is an old saying about the importance of money and its role in politics, “Money is the mother’s milk of politics.” In a piece entitled, “No Longer Fodder for Fools,” David A. Love gives us the historical context as to why this saying has been around. He says, “The history of money in American politics is a long and bloody one. Politicians spend their entire careers in a bloody battle to win the hearts and minds of wealthy donors — or to persuade well-heeled patrons to donate millions of dollars to their political campaigns. Money is king, and money talks.”
This is an important issue because of the influence that money has in our political system. The people who have earned the most, make the most and are most well off in our country are among the wealthiest in the world. The one percent in the U.S. is at a higher level than it is globally. This is a huge discrepancy. It is not good for us as a country. Money should not be used as a tool in determining the outcome of an election.
This is the first in a series of posts about the role of money in our political system, and how it can be used to influence government policy to the advantage of wealthy donors, as well as why it’s important that our political candidates not be influenced by donors, but represent the interests of the people.
As I begin a series of posts on my thoughts about 2008, this is the first one. My candidate for President of the United States, Barack Obama, was named one of the 10 smartest people in America by Time Magazine. That makes sense, I think. He graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School. He has written two best selling books, one about his life and the other about political theory. He’s spent his career working for the poor in Chicago and in Washington D.C. While working in Washington D.C. he served as a professor of Constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School. On June 11th, when he accepted his party’s nomination, he said, “The race for the Democratic nomination is now in full-swing, and already we are seeing many of the same old Washington policies that got us into the mess we’re in to kick in again. But if we’re going to have a real debate about how we rebuild America, about how we create millions of good paying jobs that help
