Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Nader's remarks about Obama

As a die-hard Ralph Nader fan--I voted for him in 2000 and don't blame him, not one whit, for Gore's losing the election--I'm compelled to say that Nader's statements today about "white guilt" and Obama's failure to address inner-city poverty issues are, to be generous, poorly articulated. I agree with the thrust of Nader's intent, which was, I think, to point out that Obama's positions as the Democratic nominee for President are no different from the articulations of such nominees in the past, namely, nonthreatening pap about hope and change and equality. If Nader had stopped there, I'd agree wholeheartedly, because I've now come to see Obama as "merely a politician," whereas I'd heretofore seen him as a transformative historical figure.

But my support of Obama's candidacy isn't out of "white guilt," nor do I think Obama has appealed to that. True, he hasn't adopted the rhetoric of "black candidates" who've championed the economic and social plight of lower-income, city-dwelling blacks. But he's not running for Congress from a ghetto district, he's running for President of all Americans, and his rhetoric reflects that. I believe Obama's the best candidate in a long time--perhaps since our nation's founding--from the standpoint of representing the interests and aspirations of poor and middle-class Americans. And that's not because I feel guilty, but because I feel, finally, vindicated and hopeful that at long last our politics and our culture can address that burning issue.

Nader's remarks were, I think, too abrasive a means to convey--to remind us--that is that we still have a long way to go before any candidate may point out, as directly as Nader repeatedly does, what ails America--its rampant consumerism, its evil gap between rich and poor, its corporate-dominated culture and economic system. John Edwards (whom Nader endorsed) said some of these things, and look where that got him.

So, I agree with much of the content of what Nader said about Obama's campaign and about the state of the major parties' nomination process generally. I just wish he'd said it with a bit more aplomb.

A repeat of a story

I seem to recall blogging about San Francisco's referendum to name its sewage plant after Bush, but this article is so amusing, as are the comments, that it deserves another post.

("He's done so much for the affluent that he deserves to have effluent named after him." Priceless.)

What a piece of crap

This article by AP writers, including its headline, is so misleading as to be fraudulent. When--not until the middle of the article--the poll numbers are finally disclosed, it may be seen that the difference in responders' attitudes toward the candidates' handling of the Iraq occupation isn't dramatic at all, the difference of six percentage points (39% to 33%). The entire article, however, is canted toward the headline's assertion that McCain is seen as more capable of handling Iraq, even though the percentages don't bear that out, less than half of the responders being of that opinion.

That's biased reporting if I ever saw it.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

What's worse than recession?

What we're entering now: Stagflation.

I hate when that happens

A pro-Coalition city councilman opens fire on American troops, killing two. Will the corporate media carry this story?

The "Brandeis brief"

In law school, we learned that Justice Louis Brandeis, one of the most potent minds ever to sit on the Supreme Court, would buttress his legal arguments with factual recitations--extensive statistical data that overwhelmingly bore out his opinions.

Compare that to Scalia's recent factual fart.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marjorie-cohn/scalia-cites-false-inform_b_108682.html

Says alot about the state of the Supreme Court, and for that matter, the state of the nation, eh?

Monday, June 23, 2008

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Turn out the lights

the party's over--so says a Texas Congressman, whose remarks about light bulbs are right on. Video.

The state of Iraq

Here's Juan Cole's calculation of what the last twenty years have done to Iraq. Read it and weep.