Two More Hours!

I am almost speechless with anticipation and excitement of today's transfer of power from a failed presidency to a new one representing hope and change. After eight years of marching backward in time socially, economically, and politically, America is finally ready to move forward again. You know, of course, that the forces of darkness are going to try to bring down Barack Obama at every turn because their focus is political and ecomonic power-- not what is best for our country. Obama needs the solid support of all progressives. Today is a day of celebration for us. Tomorrow we have to join with him in taking steps to repair our country on many levels. Si se puede!

[Author's note: I have to add that Jim Blackwood's show on KXCI today has been an inspiration to me in writing this piece and the one below. Check the music links above. He played these tunes this morning. Also, the image above is Change Has Come to America by Kate Pearson. It is part of Dinnerware's Soup of Change exhibit.]

Soup of Change: Don't Miss It

Art, Politics, and the Soup of Change opened at Dinnerware Artspace last Saturday. I am an artist and a gallery junkie; consequently, I attend many art openings, but this is one of the more provocative exhibits I have seen in a while. It is the perfect show to span this historic time in our country-- the last few days of a failed administration and the first few days of our new dawn. Don't miss it! Here are a few images from the show, which ends January 24, 2009.

At the top is Bushilter, a floor cloth by Greg Schoon. This was a very dramatic piece. I particularly like the cross inside of the swastika and the swastika inside of the cross.

All types of politics were represented in the show, including sexual politics. At left is Brilliant Marketing Opportunity by Jerry Jordan.There were many images that included Bush, Chaney, and the hooded prisoner from Abu Ghraib Prison; they didn't pose together, though. At right is The Ugly Americans by Diane Kleiss Aldrich.Another piece that spoke to me was American Why? by Maurice Grossman. Even though (no offense, Maurice) it looks like artfully arranged pieces that were lying around his studio, I like it-- especially the faces lying in the sand.

As someone who believes watching television is a worthless, mind-rotting past time, I had to include Comfortably Numb by Jim Jones in this blog post.

All in all, a great show. If you're downtown this week, stop by Dinnerware and check it out.

New World Order?

To date, I have resisted the urge to comment on the collapse of the financial markets in the US because the story was evolving too fast for me to collect my thoughts. Now it's not just the US economy but the world economy that is crumbling. This is a fitting end to George Bush's disastrous presidency.

I heard one promising story this morning on NPR. Nicholas Sarcozi, president of France, called for a complete overhaul of the world economic system. The current world banking system was devised after World War II. According to the NPR story, the new world order will rely less on the health of the US economy-- good idea-- and it is likely the Europeans will play a larger role in developing the system-- also probably a good idea, since our politicians seems to have a hard time making politically unpopular decisions that could help the country but cost them their jobs.

Mulling over all of the recent ups and downs and bailouts, there are a few questions I still have:

1) Who ever thought it was a good idea to allow financial institutions to borrow $30 for every dollar they had in the bank? That's not banking. That's gambling.

2) If the banks had been a little more lenient with defaulting homeowners a year ago, wouldn't everyone be better off now?

3) Will our new president and Congress have the guts and know-how to solve the crisis and cooperate with other countries?

4) How many more financial instutions will be saved with taxpayer funds?

5) Who will want a bailout next? I heard one NPR comentator say that unless business turns around in a major way in the next year, GM and Ford will go under. They are expecting the automakers to ask for bailouts next. I really object to this. It was their bad decison to continue to make primarily gas-guzzling vehicles. They should be held responsible.

6) Is capitalism dead?

A final word... here is a link to a thought-provoking NPR story, "Are We Teetering on the Edge of Depression 2.0?", comparing the current state of financial affairs to 1929. You should check it out to see the pictures of the tent cities, if nothing else. Chilling.

McCain-Palin: Can Liars Really Be Reformers?

With all their talk about religion and family values, you'd think that John McCain and Sarah Palin would be just a tad more honest in their campaign strategies. Maybe even follow the Golden Rule.

Since that disgusting, fear-and-smear convention, the two have been spreading lies on the campaign trail, on the Internet, and on television. Are the American people dumb enough to buy these lies? Unfortunately, they believed George Bush's lies, and look where we are now.

Can liars be reformer? Personally, I don't see these two personality traits going together. Is lying a Christian value? They didn't teach it in my Sunday school. Is someone who has been in Washington for more than 25 years, an outsider, an agent of change? Nooooo..... who's he trying to kid?

Blizzard of Lies is a great editorial by Paul Krugman in today's New York Times. Here's an excerpt:

"...I’m talking, instead, about the relationship between the character of a campaign and that of the administration that follows. Thus, the deceptive and dishonest 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign provided an all-too-revealing preview of things to come. In fact, my early suspicion that we were being misled about the threat from Iraq came from the way the political tactics being used to sell the war resembled the tactics that had earlier been used to sell the Bush tax cuts.

"And now the team that hopes to form the next administration is running a campaign that makes Bush-Cheney 2000 look like something out of a civics class. What does that say about how that team would run the country?

"What it says, I’d argue, is that the Obama campaign is wrong to suggest that a McCain-Palin administration would just be a continuation of Bush-Cheney. If the way John McCain and Sarah Palin are campaigning is any indication, it would be much, much worse."

Sarah Palin: the Anti-Feminist

Sarah Palin blah, blah, media hype, blah, blah, blah, snappy soundbite, blah. Ever since her scathing pit bull speech last week at the Republican National Convention, I have been mulling over my blog comments regarding the new VP candidate.

I have been a Hillary supporter for a very long time. I believe that many people thought we were supporting Hillary because she is a woman. To me, that shows a lack of understanding and an unwillingness to look at issues--not just at personalities and gender. I supported Hillary because she is and has always been a strong support of women's issues (ie, choice, health care, education, equal rights, equal pay, etc.) She was (and still is) my gal.

When she lost the primary, many pundits said Hillary supporters would vote for McCain. I thought that this was a crock. Obviously, their policies are about as far apart as humanly possible. Apparently, the McCain camp believes that having a woman on the ticket may bring some Hillary supporters over to their side. (We just voted for Hillary because she was a woman, right? Wrong!)

Since the close of the Republican National Conventions, there has been a flood of media coverage about the McCain/Palin ticket-- the illegitimate child, the down syndrome baby, the pentecostal beliefs, the earmarks, the bridge to nowhere, etc. Here is a sampling of my favorite articles and videos.

I see Sarah Palin's nomination as pandering to women voters, and red neck men who voted for Hillary. In The Mirrored Ceiling, Judith Warner talks about Palin's nomination and the trend in American politics to cast votes based upon feelings and likability rather than issues, policies, and what is best for our country. Arianna Huffington also had a great article, Sarah Palin: A Trojan Moose Concealing Four More Years of George Bush. This article focuses on how the Palin media hype has distracted the media and the American people from the fact that the McCain/Palin is more of the same, not change.

In Sarah Palin Gender Card, Jon Stewart shows how the Republicans slammed Hillary when she said she was being unfairly treated by the media, but now say that people are being sexist when they raise questions about Palin.

The maverick/reformer label for the McCain/Palin ticket is ludicrous. In Palin and McCain's Shotgun Marriage, Frank Rich shoots holes in the maverick/reformer lies. Palin is a reformer who hired a lobbyist for her small town; this resulted in $27 million in earmarks. Hmmmm.... someone should ask her what the American people bought for that $27 million investment in Wasila, Alaska. Another part of the Republican shtick is that she "took on big oil" in Alaska. On the radio today, they said that her gubernatorial inaugural ball was paid for my oil companies. Where is the "taking on big oil" part? Maybe she took them as dance partners?

In John McCain's Big Acceptance Speech , Jon Stewart compares McCain's campaign promises to George Bush's 2000 campaign speech. In some cases, they used the same words! It is amazing that people are buying these lies again. McCain has been in the Senate for more than 25 years; he voted with George Bush 90% of the time. Change??? B.S.

In Then There was One, Thomas Freidman reveals the McCain/Palin ticket's anti-environmental policies. I almost puked when the convention goers cheered, "Drill, baby, drill." I also was appalled to learn that Palin sued the feds to take polar bears off the endanger species list. What happened to the all God's children of Christianity? Animals are part of God's kingdom.

Finally, I believe that this presidential election season will change American politics forever. It will no longer be a rarity for a woman or a person of any color besides white to be a viable candidate for president or vice president. Hurray! Maybe we have moved beyond rule by old white men.

All I can say is, Vote Obama! Stop the war. Save our country from irresponsible Republican spending and kick-backs to the rich.

Photo credit: Kodiak Konfidential (Check this blog out to hear what one Alaskan blogger thinks about his governor.)

Bushback Mountain: The Truth Revealed

As the 2008 presidential campaigns gear up for the final contest, it will be interesting to see how John McCain re-invents himself. Although he has been portrayed as a moderate Republican with an independent streak, lately his speeches show how close his policies are to George Bush's policies. The picture above is from Alan Colmes' web log. Many commentators and bloggers continue to support Barack Obama's drum beat: McCain is running for Bush's third term. On multiple levels, the country can't afford Bush's third term.

Blog for Arizona has a very good historical account of McCain's decisions and his past connections to the Savings and Loan scandals of the 1980s (among other stories about McCain). Again, I am disapointed in the main stream media. Story after story about what Obama's minister said but nothing about McCain's role in this 1980s financial crisis.

Franklin and Jimmy: Where Are You When We Need You?

If you've been paying attention to the news these days, you know that the US is in deep economic do-do (a technical term I learned in Econ 101 at OSU).

Bush, Cheney, and their Congressional Republican minions have run the economy into the ground with their tax-break-and-spend policies. They handily eliminated the Clinton budget surplus years ago and continue to build the LARGEST budget deficit in history. Their oil man perspective on energy and environmental policy has not only led them to ignore international treatees on reducing global warming but also to work against any regulations that would encourage fuel-effiecient cars or meaningful research into alternative fuels. Being "anti-big-government" (except when it pertains to gay marriage or abortion), they also turned a blind eye to risky lending practices, which have now created a stagering mortgage crisis across the country. If all this is not bad enough, gas prices are over $4/gallon in some parts of the US and rising; automakers are closing plants and laying off thousands of people; the dollar has tanked on world markets; the stock market keeps slipping; people are losing their homes and jobs; and the Chinese are beating the pants off us at our own games (ie, capitalism and conspicuous consumption of energy-- not baseball).

Whew.... what a list. So, why don't we have a parilentary system, so we could have voted these self-serving, self-rightous oil barons out of office before they destroyed our country? I digress...

Tonight, my question is: Franklin and Jimmy, where are you when we need you most? Of course, I'm referring to Franklin D. Roosevelt and Jimmy Carter.

In the 1930s, the US was in dire financial straits; there was a banking crisis; people were losing their jobs and homes; and stock market volitlity led to huge loses. Hmmmm.... sounds familiar! Anyway, what did FDR do? Did he send everyone a $300 economic stimulus check so they could buy cheap imported goods? Noooooo.... he created social programs to give poor, sick, and elderly people a safety net and created jobs programs to put people to work. The alphabet soup of public works programs created by FDR went a long way to fix and build US infrastructure-- roads, sidewalks, parks, dams-- while giving people the work, money, and self-esteem to rebuild their lives.

We have people out of work, and we have infrastructure problems. Why not put the two together?
1) Politicians lack political will and long-term vision to take dramatic steps (even if they would benefit millions of people).
2) Sending checks is easier and very popular in an election year.
3) Sending us $300-600 dollars to spend not only helps some citizens but also helps business-- if we buy something.
4) Giveaway gimmicks are good PR amongst the poor and less educated. (Ok, sorry to sound elitist, but given some level of sophistication, you recognize the stimulus package for what it is.)

So, I've made a case of FDR, but why, you ask, do we need Jimmy Carter, too? Those of us who were around in the late 1970s, remember the last "energy crisis"-- long lines at the gas pumps, rising prices. Jimmy made a series of presidential tough-love, tighten-your-belts speeches on TV. He called on the nation to reduce energy consumption and to work together to develop an energy policy that would reduce our dependence upon foreign oil. He encouraged us to buy fuel-efficient cars, turn down our thermostats in the winter (55 at night and 65 during the day), and put on a sweater. (He wore a sweater when he gave one of these speeches.) I drove a Datsun B110 in the 1970s-- 40mph. People used to brag about the milage of their cars!!!! (Check out his speeches on YouTube.)

What is our president doing about our current energy crisis? First of all, you can't call it a crisis or people would really panic (especially since they're losing their houses and jobs, as oil and food prices rise). Are Bush and Chaney (his boss) asking people to conserve? Hell no! (Conservation is for wussies; that's what Ronald Reagan taught us.) Their solution is more oil production and exploration-- here and in the middle east.

What would the US be like today if we had re-elected Jimmy and continued to work toward energy independence? Sigh.....Of course, Americans aren't into sacrifice so we elected Ronny instead of Jimmy. Ronny said that there had been a "malaise" in the country and that now (with him as president) it was "a new day in America". Ronny (the great communicator) was selling us a "Don't Worry Be Happy" philosophy and we bought it. Magically, big cars were ok again, the energy crisis was a thing of the past, and global warming was a theory. Almost 30 years later, gas mileage for most cars is worse than it was in the late 1970s. Thanks, Ronny, George I and George II for allowing us to burry our heads in the sand, while you and your friends profitted from our ignorance.

So gasoline is fast approaching $4/gallon here in Arizona and has surpassed that mark in some states. This will put a dent in summer vacations, most likely, but what will the price of energy be in the winter when people have to heat their homes? This is a very scary thought, but, of course, except for NPR, no one in power is addressing this. (Winter is after the election, and, therefore, too far in the future.)

So, where are FDR and Jimmy when we need them? Will Barack Obama or John McCain be the type of strong, visionary president that we need now?