The Sarah Palin Mystique

In my view people have been taken with Sarah Palin because she is more actress than politician. In the beginning, Sarah Palin's star appeal was very strong but the latest polls show that her popularity is waning.

Today, NPR interviewed a woman who is very taken with Sarah Palin. Why? Because she likes her girlishness and she admires how her power as a woman will convey to her daughter that a woman can accomplish anything.

Yesterday, Lawrence Eagleburger who was Secretary of State under George H.W. Bush and who is a prominent McCain supporter said during an NPR interview "of course she is not ready to be president" (referring to Palin). Today on FOX, Mr. Eagleburger, admitting that he had been quoted correctly tried to take his statement back.

On the top right of this blog is a is a link for you to read. It is from a woman who has known Sarah Palin since 1992.

For Those of You who are Undecided

Are “more of the same” and “the change we need” cliches to you? For many people they are not.

We are in urgent need of a president who has the intellectual ability to understand the complex issues in today’s world. We need a president with vision. We need a president who inspires us and deepens our hope that the world can be a better place.

This is why Republican Colin Powell called Barack Obama a transformational figure. This is why William Buckley’s son, Chris Buckley said of Obama, that he has “the potential to be a good, perhaps even great leader. He is, it seems clear enough, what the historical moment seems to be calling for.”

This is what William Weld, former Republican governor of Massachusetts said: “Senator Obama is a once in a lifetime candidate who will transform our politics and restore America's standing in the world”..... he has the “intelligence, calm temperament, and ability to unite.”

This is why 65 of our country’s greatest minds and the largest number of Nobel Laureates ever have endorsed Barack Obama to be our next president.

The list goes on and on and if you want to see for yourself, navigate over to Wikipedia and you will see that the list of endorsements for Barrack Obama are almost four times the size as John McCain’s list.

There is a movement of enthusiasm sweeping the nation. After eight years of president Bush, our country is about to turn around. We are on the verge of electing a man of mixed race to be our president. Barack Obama will represent all of us. His election will also raise a beacon of hope for the rest of the world. If you doubt this, talk to anyone who has traveled out of the country.

We need this change. We cannot continue in the direction we have been going. We need to find our place again. On November 4th vote with your mind and your heart.

McCain’s Desperate & Flawed Argument about too Many Democrats

In the final countdown to election day, John McCain has been saying that too many democrats would be bad for our country. It is an argument filled with contradictions.

When Bill Clinton was elected there was a democratic majority in congress: FOR ONE YEAR. If we elect John McCain we are stuck with him a minimum of four years. If the American people are dissatisfied after Barack Obama’s first year they can turn the congress around.

Interestingly, republicans running for the house and senate are using the same argument! Therefore, if we take this argument seriously we would have four more years of Republican rule.

Finally, and this is very important, the president’s role in submitting nominees to the supreme court has a major impact on who is chosen. Members of the supreme court are chosen for life! Currently the supreme court is balanced towards Republican leaning justices. As Colin Powell said during his endorsement of Barack Obama: “I would have difficulty with two more conservative appointments to the Supreme Court, but that's what we'd be looking at in a McCain administration.”

William Weld Backs Barack Obama and...

William Weld, a Republican, was the 68th governor of Massachusetts and was in office from January 1991 until mid-July 1997. He resigned the governorship when he was appointed as the Ambassador to Mexico by Bill Clinton.

...On October 25, the Anchorage Daily News endorsed Barack Obama for president. This is very significant because Sara Palin is the governor of Alaska.

The Anchorage Daily News spoke highly of their governor but felt that "despite her formidable gifts, few who have worked closely with the governor would argue she is truly ready to assume command..." In regards to John McCain, the Anchorage Daily News cited his erratic behavior in this crisis and stated that he is now embracing "the extreme Republican orthodoxy he once resisted and cynically asks Americans to buy for another four years."

John McCain's Joe the Plumber Campaign Doesn't Make Sense

Joe the Plumber is a symbol of one variant of the American dream. In this story, anyone with drive and determination can be a success and those that are not successful are lazy.

But there is another American dream too (yes, there is more than one American dream!). In this story, we are not only here to be make money but to help our neighbors. This is the essence of our country’s religious/spiritual identity.

We are a society based on capitalistic principals but this should not be mutually exclusive from moving people out of poverty and into the middle class. This may look like socialism to some but it is not because a strong middle class is good for our economy.

We strive to be kind to others but some people are filled with greed and think little of the heads they trample on as they accumulate far more than they need.

Joe the plumber may be middle class but he symbolizes greed. Joe is in debt and cannot buy the plumbing business he works for. Joe would actually benefit more from the tax break he would get under Barack Obama’s plan! But Joe sees Barack Obama’s proposals to help Americans as government handouts for the less well-off.” He is wrong.

There are Joes’ out there with far less. They are suffering not for any lack of trying but because our economy is sinking. They are losing their homes not because they are lazy or irresponsible but because they have lost their jobs.

Many years ago, John F. Kennedy in his inauguration said: “And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” What did he mean by this?

What is a country? It is a group of people striving to live a decent life. The United States is a place where freedom rings. It is a place which believes in equal opportunity for all people. It is a place where we strive to care for each other.

I am fortunate enough to be solidly in the upper-middle class. Under Barack Obama’s presidency I will not pay any more taxes. Yes, I may not get an economic stimulus check but I did not need this money.

I want to know that I have done all I can to elect a president that cares about all of America. As the middle class is solidified and people are lifted out of poverty by sensible programs (which require people to work who are capable), we will know that we have helped America to be a better place.

Alan Greenspan Partially Admits he was Wrong

On October 23 Alan Greenspan testified before Congress. Dr. Greenspan was the chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006.

Although not fully taking the blame for the current crisis, he says that he was aware of the practices of sub-prime lenders but had "no notion of how significant the problem was."

Alan Greenspan was a champion of deregulation. Because he was so respected and powerful, it was difficult to question him. As we know, John McCain was a champion of deregulation too and was aligned with Phil Graham who was also a champion of deregulation.

In contrast, Barack Obama has always believed that some regulation and oversight was needed to prevent unethical behavior on Wall Street.

Dr. Paul Krugman who has just won the Nobel Prize in Economics has been critical of deregulation and has said "let's praise Alan Greenspan for admitting that he got something wrong." Paul Krugman has endorsed Barack Obama.

Colin Powell endorses Barack Obama

October 19

General Colin Powell, a Republican and former Secretary of State under George W. Bush has endorsed Barack Obama. I will say no more other than ask readers of this blog to watch him on NBC's meet the press.

Growing Concerns

October 18, 2008

My goal in doing blog entries is to be as objective as possible. This is easier said then done. The picture associated with yesterday's blog entry did not come directly from the McCain campaign but it did come from the Virginia GOP. There is no direct indication that John McCain approved this mailing. Nevertheless, the mailing is shocking. My hopes are that John McCain will condemn this mailing. In the meantime, we can vocalize our feelings about this mailing to local newspapers.

October 17, 2008

First I thought that John McCain had crossed the boundaries of decency. Then when he told his audiences that Barack Obama was a good man and should not be feared, I breathed a sigh of relief.

But the relief, I am sorry to say, was short lived. John McCain has rolled out ads that are disturbing in their content and destructive for America. As Arianna Huffington says, "McCain's TV ad brands Obama as dishonorable, dangerous, and too risky for America. That;s right, folks, it is time to appeal to the voters' Lizard Brains." She wrote this on October 6, corresponding with John McCain's first wave of attacks.

Is winning everything? What about waking up with yourself in the morning? How about stopping to think what will happen to America if this election becomes more about a person's race than their qualifications?

The McCain campaign has begun making "robo-calls" in targeted states. The calls say that Barack and his allies want to give "civil rights to terrorists." The Republican leaning supreme court fortunately believes that all human beings have rights: that this is a cherished American ideal. Meanwhile, John McCain called this court decision one of the worst court rulings ever.

This is only a small part of the robo-call message. Look for more on the internet to see for yourself.

There have also been mailings that are even scarier. One mailing shows a picture of a black man who looks very much like Barack Obama with a caption over the lower part of his face that says: AMERICA MUST LOOK EVIL IN THE EYE AND NEVER FLINCH (letter resizing reflects the mailing).

If you want to see the picture, go to the links section in my blog. The picture was found online by clicking on a link in Fox News which brought me to "TPM Election Center ("Used with permission from the TPM websites, a service of TPM Media LLC.")

This message sure sounds like George W. Bush's axis of evil speech but this time it is subliminally linked to Barack Obama. Very frightening. And while we are at it, North Korea is no longer on the list of terrorist nations, largely because we started talking with them.

Today I emailed Congressman John Lewis and suggested to him that he make a balanced statement;-- appreciating John McCain's moment of sanity and showing concern about the return of a nastiness that threatens to reverse years of progress in uniting the many different faces of America.

Thoughts on the Third Debate

October 16

Last night’s debate was a bit of a let down as I was hoping that Barack Obama would defend himself more vigorously. On the other hand, John McCain’s aggressive stance continues to disturb me. Was John Lewis wrong when he drew an analogy between what he saw and the prejudice of decades past?

Barack Obama did mention Sarah Palin’s “palling around with terrorists” remark as something that disturbed him. But while John McCain was asking Barack Obama to defend him against Lewis’ accusations, I think that it is reasonable for Barack Obama to ask John McCain to clearly state that he regrets the remarks Sarah Palin made.

At one point in the debate John McCain defended the audiences attending his and Sarah Palin’s rallies, stating that they are good people. This was a non-sequitur. Of course they are good people and good Americans. The fact is, however, that a number of them were behaving in disturbing ways. John McCain eventually put a stop to it but Sara Palin allowed it to continue, contributing to John Lewis’ concerns.

It seems to me that John McCain is grabbing at straws. While he goes on the attack about William Ayers, people who have done the research know that John McCain’s association with Charles Keating is a much bigger issue. It is documented that the two families went on family vacations together. Meanwhile, a bipartisan investigation of “troopergate” found that Sarah Palin’s actions violated Alaska’s state ethics laws.

News is everywhere and Americans can read it. My hope is that the rest of the presidential race will be about issues. We do not need the candidates to give us their spin on what we can research on our own.

October Updates

October 10 update

Until recently, I felt John McCain was a man of integrity. Starting in early October, John McCain’s campaign took a turn toward a viciousness that is frightening. I had hoped that we would finally get passed the damaging evil empire monologue that the world suffered under George W. Bush. Unchecked campaign rallies that border on mob mentality expresses a negativity that is not good for our country.

October 13 update

Fortunately, John McCain has realized that he has gone too far. He has toned down his rallies and he deserves credit for this. Nevertheless, it is clear that John McCain doesn't understand people. What happened was predictable.

McCain's less than steady campaign has led William Buckley's son, Chris Buckley to endorse Barack Obama!! I encourage you to read the reasons he cites about why, for the first time in his life, he will vote for a democrat.

October 15

Of note, On Monday, Paul Krugman a professor at Princeton University won the Nobel Prize in Economic Science. He has been highly critical of George W. Bush and John McCain's economic policies. Dr. Krugman is the author of twenty books and over 200 papers.

If you are curious about who is supporting John McCain and Barack Obama, go to Wikipedia and type in List of Barack Obama presidential campaign endorsements and then List of John McCain presidential campaign endorsements.

The Way Forward (Main Blog-please read first)

The Way Forward

The United States of America was founded on principals of freedom and the belief that everyone is created equal. Along with freedom, Americans have always had a yearning for peace. These ideals have been the backbone of our national identity but we have lost our way.

What makes America great is our ability to step back and question whether we have been true to ourselves and our values. Far from being unpatriotic, self-examination is a strength.
In a few substantial ways, America is better off. Women have been able to vote for almost a century. Civil rights legislation is slowly expanding the rights of minorities.

But is our way of life better now than in generations past?

My maternal grandfather was born in 1899 into a struggling working class family. When he was about sixteen, he dropped out of high school so that he could help his family out. When my parents met, my grandfather was on his way to becoming a successful business man. Without a high school diploma, my grandfather had educated himself and was living the American success story.

By the 1970s the message had begun to change. A high school diploma was the minimum requirement for earning a decent living and a college degree was becoming the new standard. Many of my peers were being told by their parents that it was a “dog-eat-dog world” rife with intense competition. Case in point: A childhood friend who loved playing a musical instrument told his parents that he might choose music for his livelihood and his parents promptly stopped his music lessons!

In contrast to these prevailing norms, my grandfather’s financial successful provided a little extra cushion, allowing me to ignore the messages my friends were getting. My parents also thought very highly of choosing the helping professions as a career.

Today, many people with college degrees are working as waitresses or driving cabs.

What have we settled for?

There used to be a promise of a better life. We were told that technology was going to make our lives easier and that a four-day work week was looming on the horizon. At that time, fathers really did work forty hours a week and mothers could usually afford to stay home and be with the children. People wanted nice things but there was less of an addiction to material possessions.

As competition heated up people were required to work more and more hours in companies whose bottom line was making the largest profit possible. Fewer companies seemed to care about their employees. This placed greater strain on families. The diminished time with families and the heightened stress increased the desire to escape. Divorce rates skyrocketed. The commercialism of our culture provided additional outlets for escape by encouraging us to buy more and buy often.

It is a human tendency to behave addictively when deprived. For some, technology has become a new “fix.” From Nintendo and X-box for our children to Blackberries and multimedia computers for ourselves, we began to measure our lives by the objects we possessed rather than by the quality of our relationships with each other. Technology tells us that the human race is progressing but the shadow side is evident when our children stay inside watching television rather than being outdoors on a beautiful day.

According to Penelope Trunk’s “Brazen Careerist” the American dream is beginning to shift from having more money to having more time. Generation X and Y especially seem to understand this while baby boomers still tend to work sixty hours a week,-- to earn the extra money,--to buy the things they think they need.

When we don’t have enough money we take out loans. As a psychotherapist working with average American families in middle class neighborhoods, I have witnessed my clients’ tendencies to purchase possessions they cannot afford by taking out loans that they cannot afford to pay back. Not surprisingly, this has made finances the number one problem that couples fight about.

When money is our most important value, we the people blindly accept that banks charge those with poorer credit ratings more for their loans! It is counterintuitive until one stops to realize that the lenders are only thinking about making a profit. These predator lenders have calculated that enough people will successfully pay off their loan at the higher rate. It doesn’t matter to them that more people will default.

Why has our government allowed lenders to discriminate by charging people with less money higher rates? If they are at greater risk than why should we make it even harder for them to pay off their loans?

Why do we allow this to happen?

As values and relationships have weakened, we have increasingly lost touch with what is really important. Some of us have given-up. Instead of looking forward to a better future, we feel fortunate that we are surviving.

We, the middle class. How lucky we are in a world where people are starving. In a country where some of us live on the streets and eat in a soup kitchen. What have we settled for? Do we really think that it cannot be better? Sometimes it seems as if we have stopped fighting for a better life. We have come to believe that this suffering is inevitable. Our confidence that we can make the world a better place has been stripped. We have lost our sense of empowerment.

Where have our values gone when we make the “Almighty dollar” more important than each other? What have we settled for when we only live for the moment and allow ourselves to further exploit the environment? Everyone knows that unrestrained capitalism is not the answer. This is why our government has built in safeguards, such as government intervention to stop monopolies from forming.

Government regulations that were meant to protect Americans have been dismantled and Republican ideology has been mainly responsible. Social programs have become equated with socialism and socialism has become a dirty word, equated with either communism or a population of lazy people who do not work for a living and get handouts while hard-working Americans suffer.

Religion can help us return to our values

What is even more ironic is that America is a religious nation. Judeo-Christian teachings tell us to offer a hand to people in need. Many religious organizations do help on a local level. Why then does the religious right support the Republican agenda?

Several evangelical leaders are beginning to ask the same question. Jim Wallis, author of “God’s Politics” (how the Right gets it Wrong and the Left does not Get It) states that “The real theological problem in America today is no longer the Religious Right but the nationalist religion of the Bush administration-one that confuses the identity of the nation with the church, and God’s purposes with the mission of American Empire (Sojourners Magazine 2003)

Amy Sullivan is an evangelical Christian. She is also a senior editor at Time Magazine and a liberal Democrat. She believes that many conservative Christian evangelicals are feeling burnt by the Republican party. By focusing on the hot topics of abortion and marriage between a man and a woman, Republicans were able to garner the votes of conservative Christians.

In 2001 David Kuo was appointed special assistant to President Bush and deputy director of faith-based and community Initiatives at the White House. He left in 2003 and published a book called “Tempting Faith: An Inside story of Political Seduction.” Mr. Kuo claims that the position he held under George Bush was used to garner political support. In an article appearing on www.beliefnet.com Kuo states that the money promised to help those in need barely materialized. In June 2001 these funds were stripped away to make room for the estate-tax repeal that overwhelmingly benefited the wealthy.

Where are our resources going?

A primary function of government is to protect its population from the greed of those who would use their money and power for personal gain. John McCain and Republicans in general have focused almost exclusively on protecting America from threats outside of our country. We have turned a blind eye to the social and economic forces at home that threaten us.

Economic growth has become more important than people’s lives. This is what is wrong with our nation. This myopic view has led to a perilous polarization, causing us to fixate almost exclusively on external threats, while virtually ignoring the threats to our nation from within its own borders.

Democrats tend to understand this better than Republicans and Barack Obama definitely understands this better than John McCain. Recent evidence for this was when John McCain blamed the greediness of specific individuals for the financial crisis we now face. But there will always be people who will game the system. This is part of human nature.

We are a very resourceful country but we have been bleeding these resources for too long and it beginning to show. It seems practically sacrilegious to say this but a major drain on our country’s resources is our Military. Please let me explain.

Before the market crashed, our economy was already massively in debt to the tune of more than ten trillion dollars. Where does the money go? Every month tax payers pay ten billion dollars to keep our solders in Iraq. Our military budget is 583 billion dollars a year! To put this in perspective, most Americans (including myself) are all for having the most powerful military in the world but our military spending is equal to the military budgets of every other country combined! Russia’s military budget at 50 billion dollars is less than one-tenth of what we spend.

A strong military is important and this understanding crosses political lines. But our massive outlays are diverting needed resources from projects at home which require urgent attention. What could we have done with just a fraction of this money if it were spent it on the American people?! Republicans refer to this money as the wasted social programs of democrats. Is education for our children a waste of money? Is an improved infrastructure, healthcare for all and programs to benefit the environment a waste of money?

Our broken health care system

Let’s take a quick look at our health care system as compared with other countries. The United States is the only industrialized nation in the world that does not have guaranteed access to health care for all its citizens. This has led us to the 23rd highest infant mortality rate in the world. We also rank 20th in life expectancy for women and 21st for men, down from the best life expectancy for men and women in 1945. Moreover, the United States spends 40 percent more per capita on health care than any other industrialized country with universal health care (Statistics from The Connecticut Coalition for Universal Health Care).

The only time in recent history that we had a budget surplus were the last seven years under President Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton tried his best to push for a better quality of life for Americans but was thwarted by a Republican congress for most of his presidency. In spite of worries by the Right that three months of guaranteed unpaid medical leave would be bad for the economy, this act was signed into law in 1993.

The Change we need now

The national debt was one-trillion in 1980 when President Ronald Reagan talked about the importance of lowering it. He also popularized “trickle-down” economics. The trickle-down hypothesis states that as companies made more money and the rich became richer, the profits would trickle down to the middle and working class. Instead, the rich became richer and the middle class could no longer afford many things that were previously within its reach.

This must change. Americans have been told by the political right that to question is unpatriotic because it fosters negativity. Yet, isn’t it worse to ignore a bleeding wound than to recognize its existence and attend to it? I think that most Americans have either known directly or had a gut sense that something has been wrong for a long time. John McCain did not want Americans to know this which is why he said our economy was stable when our current fiscal crisis began. When this placation of Americans was no longer working (for obvious reasons) John McCain lied to us by saying that he was actually talking about the American worker. To this we say: We are not as naive as you think. We are strong enough to face the truth and go about fixing it.


Barack Obama has clearly demonstrated that he has better judgement and a more profound understanding of people than John McCain. He realizes that we are all capable of kind and selfish acts. He recognizes that the potential for altruism and the tendency of some of us to behave selfishly, without regard for others is not always separated by country but by the character of individuals. He knows the importance of bringing Americans together. And he knows how to protect us from harm while simultaneously working toward regaining our respect in the world.