Name Game

This is King Hussein of Jordan. Because of my age and lifelong love of history and world events, he was the first Hussein I ever heard of. Thus his face is the image that pops into my head when I hear the name.

Although his career was as nuanced as any Middle-Eastern leader, it was by no means as violent or despotic as others in the region and especially as those who shared his name.

An example of the nuance would be that in the first gulf war he sided with Iraq. But the reason he did so was because he was unpopular with some factions in his country. The reason for this was because he had worked so hard to make peace with Israel. Any other decision at the time would have destroyed his country. Besides this, I believe James Baker, who was the U.S. Secretary of State at the time, would agree that the king’s decision was invaluable. He served as a rational negotiator between Iraq and the U.S. during that time.

This was all diplomacy. I believe his true heart was revealed in the two actions for which I will remember him:

After the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, in November, 1995, King Hussein attended and spoke at his funeral. He did not have to but he did and said the following:

"…my friends, I had never thought that the moment would come like this when I would grieve the loss of a brother, a colleague and a friend - a man, a soldier who met us on the opposite side of a divide whom we respected as he respected us. A man I came to know because I realized, as he did, that we have to cross over the divide, establish a dialogue, get to know each other and strive to leave for those who follow us a legacy that is worthy of them. And so we did. And so we became brethren and friends."


Three years later, in the fall of 1998, when he was fighting a losing battle against Non Hodgkins Lymphoma, he got up out of his hospital bed and made a trip from the Mayo clinic, where he was receiving bone marrow transfusions. His destination was the Wye Plantation in Maryland. His goal was to restart the Mid-East peace talks that had deadlocked there. Among other things he said the following:

''Even if I were on my deathbed, I would have come here to try to help the peace process.''


King Hussein died on February 7, 1999. He was and always will be remembered as a man of peace, and his name was Hussein.


J.A.L.

Lessons of '88 implemented: Part 1

I had intended another posting today but I feel like something should be addressed immediately:

Over the last twenty four hours I have heard from two friends. One lives in Florida and the other in Texas.

The one from Florida told me about how her friends don’t like Obama because he didn’t swear himself into the U.S. Senate on a Bible.

The one from Texas told me that the woman who cuts her hair didn’t like Obama because he doesn’t put his hand over his heart to pledge allegiance to the flag.

Barack Obama is a member of the Trinity United Church of Christ on the south side of Chicago. He has been a member for over twenty years. Yes, he did swear himself in on a Bible when he entered the U.S. Senate.

Barack Obama’s grandfather—the man who helped raise him—was a WWII combat vet who taught his grandson to stand when the National Anthem is playing and to put his right hand over his heart when delivering the pledge of allegiance. He practices both to this day. I should add here that this is what I was raised to do as well. There is a picture circulating that shows Obama standing with his hands at his side while behind him Hillary Clinton and Bill Richardson are standing with their right hands over their heart. This photo was taken while the National Anthem was playing not during the pledge of allegiance.

I’m not writing this to garner support for Senator Obama. In this case it is simply to set the record straight. I know many of you who read this could care less.

The problem is that these are lies and some people believe them and are basing their opinions on them. I hope all of you will be aggressive in stopping such lies in their tracks. I was under the impression that these particular stories had already been sufficiently refuted way back during the Nevada primaries. It seems they were not.

We are, all of us, ALL OF US, guilty of gravitating toward rumors that attack our candidate’s adversaries. I request that all of us be vigilant against such tendencies in ourselves as well as others.

At some point during every election of my life national news shows do stories about mudslinging. Eventually they bring out the ads and articles from the Adams/Jefferson elections of 1796 and 1800. Their point is that elections have always been nasty. My argument is wouldn’t it be nice if we could finally evolve?

There is not a single candidate left in this race—and that includes Ralph Nader—who does not love this country. They all have devoted years of service to it. They don’t deserve to have their reputations tarnished by lies and innuendos.

I invite any of you who support others to use this blog to refute lies being spread about their candidate.

Let’s hold some feet to the fire including our own.

J.A.L.

Slate It!

Any time you might spend skimming my blog today, I request you spend reading Michael Kinsley's article on Slate.com entitled: "Defining Victory Downward."

Why Obama. Why, Nader?

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
--George Bernard Shaw

Thus the title of the 2006 documentary, “An Unreasonable Man” which covered the life and works of Ralph Nader.

I voted for him in 2000. I was living in New York, a state that I knew Gore was going to carry easily and I wanted to register my disapproval for the way Gore had abandoned so many of his principles in an attempt to secure votes from the center right.

I don’t regret that vote because it was how I thought at the time. It was a major step in developing my political philosophy. I would never cast a vote so tactically again. I have also never rationally blamed Nader for Gore’s loss. I think he was absolutely right to enter the race. It wasn’t just that there was a great deal of centralizing of positions on the issues by both Republicans and Democrats. The attempt was total.

If I thought the way then that I do now, I would never have cast that vote for Nader. Even though I agreed with his reasons for entering the race I realize now that I have never in my life wanted Ralph Nader to actually be president.

Although I believe the Shaw quote to possess truth, I don’t believe it possesses the whole truth and it also seems to be a bit misleading. First of all, for purposes of progress, let’s change “man” to “person”. While all progress is dependent on the unreasonable person, the unreasonable person does not effect that change in a vacuum. While I believe that reasonable people do adapt to the world, one component of that world to which they adapt is unreasonable people.

While I support and am even passionate about the presence of unreasonable people in representative Democratic government, I know now that I do not want those people to head those governments.

In my lifetime, there have been two arguably unreasonable people who have held the office of president: Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush. I liked Jimmy Carter and by his own admission he was not open to the ideas of others—even those of his own party when he was president. He has expressed regret for that. As a result his presidency was ineffectual. Thus far George W. Bush has expressed no real regret about anything except his daring the terrorists to “Bring it on.” I think most would agree that even though his presidency has been, for lack of a better word, effective, it has also been divisive, destructive and the closest to dictatorial any of us who have grown up in the United States have ever experienced.

No, it is the smart, reasonable person who can recognize the value and validity of the issues of unreasonable people from all sides who will, henceforth, get my vote. It is the reason why Barack Obama is the candidate I have been waiting for.

I waited until after I saw Mr. Nader’s appearance on “Meet The Press” before I began to write this. I would have preferred that he hadn’t declared his candidacy again, even though he has every right to do so. I will however question his reasons for running as well as his timing.

Right from the beginning of the show he mentioned percentages of Americans who cared about issues that had not been mentioned by the major candidates. I admit that had I been handed a questionnaire listing these issues I would have welcomed their inclusion as issues in this election. I believe if Mr. Nader had really wanted them included he would have begun his candidacy, at least in November. I’ve been watching these shows for the last year and I’m well aware that he could have easily been a guest back then. All of the major candidates had been running for months by then and their positions were clearly printed on their websites and were being outlined in their stump speeches. He would have had a better chance of getting these things talked about if he would have introduced them at the outset not after the major issues had been defined. That’s what John Edwards did. Admittedly he had more of a chance of being president than Nader back then but I think the argument still holds up.

Nader also claimed that one of the reasons he runs is to transform our election process into one that more closely resembles the multi-partied, parliamentary elections in Western Europe. I agree with that, but once again I say he should have started running earlier. I also ask if it is simply a case of adding another choice, why is it that most if not all of his communication prior to running is with the Democratic candidates and seems to come in the form of threats that if the candidates do not agree with his issues completely, he will run. His goal seems confused at best. Is it to provide another choice or to transform the Democratic Party? If it is to transform us into a multi-party nation, I have one suggestion; reach out to as far right a candidate as he can find. Even though Keyes comes to mind, someone like Tancredo seems better suited. Although both of those gentlemen probably aren’t interested in severing ties with the Republican party. I do think Nader could find someone parallel to himself who would be willing to pool resources and conduct a debate tour similar to what Barry Goldwater and John Kennedy had intended in 1964. I think such a venture could even be broached at this late date and it would lend credence to his parliamentary argument.

At one point during the interview with Russert this morning Mr. Nader really showed his hand when he said that the Democrats should win the election whether or not he is in the race. If they don’t they should disappear from the landscape. His claim is that the votes for him will be his votes. Votes that weren’t ever going to go to another candidate, but I have had at least two people tell me that they would be voting for Obama if Nader didn’t enter the race. In a general race that is already shaping up to be very ugly. Where racism, agism, patriotism, and cowardice are already being cited on the fringe and are moving closer to the forefront, this election could be more difficult than Mr. Nader claims to envision.

I will also add here that even though I appreciate the greatest majority of what Ralph Nader has done for the American People, I do not agree with all of the issues he supports even though he considers them self-evident. The first one that jumped out at me was Taft Hartley. I can say from personal experience that Taft Hartley, even though some parts do need to be revised, is vital to my self-interest. Along with that is Mr. Nader’s over-arching claim that all things union are good and all things corporate are bad.

I am a member of one union and have affiliation with two. I have experienced just as much tyranny from them as I have from monolithic corporations. I have no illusions that, if Taft Hartley were completely repealed, un-restricted unions would be just as despotic as un-restricted corporations.

I also am tired of this “them or us” attitude exampled by others including Nader. As if corporations should be painted as the complete and total enemy of the American People. I know for a fact that Exxon as well as other major companies have excellent programs where their retirees work for charities which even the most left of leftists would support. This is not to say that this offsets the evil done in and by corporations but it is something to be supported and appreciated in a way that might illustrate how all organizations, can be refocused to work for the common good. If there is one thing I have learned to be true from life experience, it is that if an entity is labeled as something and is forced into a corner having to prove that it is not, the possibility of it being polarized and fully embracing that quality is just as likely if not more so.

This was also the first time in the interview that I felt Nader misrepresented Senator Obama’s position. He claimed that the Senator’s record was “more pro-corporation than anything.” It has been my educated understanding that Barack Obama’s position is to attempt to work with all sides for the common good. MSNBC’s Howard Fineman stated on Tony Kornheiser’s radio show that Obama has an astounding ability to build coalitions between seemingly irreconcilable groups. It is not that he is pro-corporate. He has been willing to work with corporations to make communities better.

When I consider all the circumstances surrounding Ralph Nader’s present campaign announcement plus some I haven’t mentioned, it seems like that cliché; politics as usual-- At least politics as usual since 2000.

This is not to say that I wouldn’t agree with what a friend said in my comments section on blogspot that he wished Barack Obama would offer Ralph Nader a cabinet position to head off this announcement. But judging from Nader’s appearance, recent history and the statement the senator made on the subject, I’m afraid too much damage has been done to make that a possibility. Plus I’m pretty certain Ralph Nader would never serve in anyone’s cabinet.

Ralph Nader is a great American. In fact, he might have saved my life. Prior to my birth my father owned a corvair convertible and might have sold it in part to Nader’s book. Regardless of what he does from now until he leaves this earth his place in our history and society is secure. That being said, I have never nor would never want him to be president even though I voted that way once in protest. I maintain that all voters should vote their conscience. But in keeping with the intentions of this blog I feel it necessary to make clear my opposition to him.

J.A.L.

(Since publication of this, sources inform me that Nader had nothing to do with my father's decision to sell the Corvair. It was rather my mother's unease with driving it.

I owe Nader nothing.

Not only that, but it seems that the purchase of the Corvair occurred after my birth. This means that, at least my early years were spent being raised by death-defying, moderate Republican Hellions)

HUH?

“That's not change we can believe in. That’s change we can Xerox”…?

Hillary, that’s not an experienced political zinger, that’s a bad open mike night!

Top ten things I wish Hillary Clinton would have done to overcome that horrible one-liner:

10. Lean forward tap the Microphone and say, “Is this thing on?”
9. Look over both shoulders and say, “Who said that?”
8. Stage whisper in Barack Obama’s ear, “Could you get me Deval Patrick’s number?”
7. Repeat the line again—preferably with a faux Yiddish accent.
6. Threaten the audience, “Hey, I’m going to keep saying it until you vote for me.”
5. Point to the back wall of the auditorium and stammer, “Ummm….Bear!” Then run off the stage.
4. Shrug and say, “Hey, it’s not like I write this stuff”.
3. Six words: “Don’t forget to tip your waiters!”
2. “And go ahead and put the kids to bed before the ten O’clock debate, ‘cause it gets a little blue.”
…And the number one thing I wish Hillary Clinton would have done after she served up that terrible one-liner:
1. Slump down, pour herself a glass of water and while she was pouring, mumble something like, “It’s all in my report.”

J.A.L.

Lessons of '88

The summer of 1988 began with Michael Dukakis comfortably ahead of George H.W. Bush by seventeen percentage points in national polls.

It began for me when I drove into Garland, TX to begin my summer job. I was not paying enough attention as I made an unprotected left and a car plowed into me from the right at full speed.

I was at fault.

The summer of 1988 ended with the race between Dukakis and Bush tightened to a dead heat.

It ended for me at a backyard party in Houston, TX. I was just a few days from returning for my senior year at TCU in Fort Worth. At some point that night, I remember talking to Allen, a guy who lived in my dorm.

Allen was one of those cutting edge, looked like a member of an Eighties British band sort of guys. Wore earrings, colored his hair blue or purple, had those slightly over the ankle pointed toe boots, very open-minded.

He asked me who I was voting for. I answered “Dukakis”.

Even though I didn’t expect Houston, Bush’s home, to be a hotbed of support for the former Massachusetts governor, I did expect Allen to be an ally. Instead, he looked down at the ground and said something like, “I’m voting for Bush. Dukakis passed a law that made bestiality legal. I know I’m a pretty sick puppy but there’s no way I’m cool with that.”

The other, more conservatively dressed guys who were standing around us nodded in agreement. I suddenly realized that Mike had only one vote coming to him out of that entire backyard caucus. While attempting to make a left turn I was completely blindsided from the right.

And so the summer of ’88 came to a close. Dukakis was completely trounced in the election three months later. His loss was attributed to several things including the state he was from, a picture of him riding in a tank, popularity of Reagan years, Willie Horton, and, of course, his pro-bestiality agenda and much, much more.

I never quite knew where the bestiality thing came from until the other day. Twenty years ago, I asked a couple of friends and they said they thought it had something to do with a law he repealed while governor. The law mainly had to do with sodomy thus making homosexuality and certain heterosexual acts, which have become rather commonplace, illegal but it also mentioned bestiality. The sense was there were probably already animal cruelty laws on the books that made the out-of –date law redundant. It turns out we gave whoever started the story too much credit. It was pretty much a lie.

After googling many combinations of the words “Dukakis, bestiality, laws, 1988,” etc., I finally came upon two similar accounts of where this story came from. In 1970, when Dukakis was a young representative in the legislature, another more radical rep by the name of Baird introduced a series of laws legalizing, among other things, “sodomy and other acts against nature”. Due to procedure in the Massachusetts state house, legislators had to formally entertain debate on the bill before it was easily tabled. It wasn’t even voted on. According to another account it may not have even been debated. It may have only been introduced. At worst Michael Dukakis was involved in a debate on this bill. More likely, his only transgression was being in the same room as the bill. Regardless of the particulars, Michael Dukakis was never even remotely pro-bestiality. This didn’t stop Jerry Falwell from putting his account of the event in an attack on Michael Dukakis in comic book form and spreading it among the masses.

I am not claiming that this one ridiculous allegation lost the election for Dukakis. I am claiming that it was an overwhelming grapeshot of this ridiculous claim along with others like it that peeled away voters. These huge and small lies and fabrications had a cumulative effect. To paraphrase the Third Reich, “The more numerous the lies, big and small, the more chance people will believe in at least one of them.” I will attribute this adjustment to Lee Atwater.

Darth Vader had his Emperor. Karl Rove had Lee Atwater. All the swift boating, illegitimate black child, character assassination of a triple amputee vet tricks Karl Rove used in 2000 and 2004 he learned from Atwater who was H.W.’s main strategist.

If you think it’s odd that you might never have heard of him, there’s a reason, he died of a brain tumor within a few years of the election, but not before he apologized to all the people he had wronged during his years as a campaign strategist. Sadly he left an un-repentant Rove behind.

To argue whether Michael Dukakis would have been a better president than H.W. Bush at this point holds about as much point as arguing about whether Cleopatra or the little brother she had murdered would have been the better pharaoh. The point is that both victims were excluded from the opportunity in a reprehensible and criminal manner.

The reason I wrote all that I wrote above is to make past prologue. To prepare for what is coming. To point out what has already begun.

My main reason for supporting Barack Obama for president is not because of all the euphoria surrounding his campaign at the moment. It is a sober realization that his view of how this government should work is so in sync with mine that I would be lying to myself and betraying the personal principles and philosophies in which I have spent 41 years realizing and believing. In short, if the picture is the goals he is laying out for his administration and the method in which he plans to achieve them is the frame, I am buying his candidacy over Hillary Clinton’s mainly for the frame.

A wonderful by-product of my decision has been the wonderful feeling of tapping into the enthusiasm the younger generation both, college age as well as those in their twenties and early thirties are adding to this campaign.

Justified or not I feel a great deal of responsibility to support and defend these younger activists in their passion for this process. It humbles me how after all they have seen and been through throughout their collective adolescence that they could ever be so hopeful and trusting in anyone. Looking back now, I realize that I began to lose touch with that enthusiasm in a backyard when I saw the darkest side of politics.

I have been assured by a friend of mine, who is about ten years my junior, that this is a different time and that young people are very adept at checking their facts. But even if all that I write on this blog has little more effect than one blade of dry grass in a massive bonfire, I guess I still want to do what I can to guard against the blindside.

I would have been much happier waiting to write this until June or July but it seems that the grapeshot is coming from two places already: the Clinton campaign as well as McCain’s.

I would consider this understandable and even respectable from the Clintons. After all, one of the reasons I was so glad to vote for them in ’92 was because they were Democrats who were willing to throw dirt back in the eyes of the progeny of the Atwater doctrine.

The only problem is I know full well what the strategy is behind it. I’ve worked in marketing and have known enough politicos to know that the conversation behind closed doors in the Clinton campaign is to crush the enthusiasm. They could care less if the voter turn-out in the remaining primaries was the lowest ever just so long as she won the nomination. They could care less if this entire generation that has come along with such passion lost its interest in the political process so long as the Clintons got their White House back.

That’s despicable.

All of this is also true of the McCain campaign.

That’s expected, but equally despicable.

Rather than trying to win over these new voters, they’re trying to make them go away. Their intentions make it quite clear to me that their time is past.

The Clintons are actually taking a page out of Rove’s manifesto: attack your opponent’s strenghth. For Kerry in 2004, it was his Viet Nam war record. Rove made secret deals with private organizations and the “Swift Boat” character assassination was born.

For Obama, the Clintons point out that he makes beautiful speeches. He must be trying to trick you. I’ll only write this about that. God forbid we should have a president who has a brilliant command of the English language and can get across his ideas and intentions with clarity as well as beauty. In other words, the Gettysburg Address was great but Lincoln was otherwise a moron.

Second is more annoying. I have heard the word “naïve” uttered several times on the news shows today.

I’ve been hearing the word creep up more and more. An individual I spoke with today used it in relation to Obama’s plan to get the troops out in 16 months. Even after I pointed out and offered evidence that some would argue that it was naïve to think that we were viewed as anything more than the next round of western European crusaders in that region and that even if we did stay there for a hundred years we would have about as much effect as all who came and attempted to stay before us.

Still the individual, a life-long Republican would not waiver from labeling Barack Obama as naïve. I was incredibly annoyed with this person until I realized that within the same conversation they had made the comment that Bush had every intention of reforming education until the war on terror sidetracked him.

Bush’s comments about reading Newspapers and what his favorite book was during the 2000 campaign were anything but pro-education. On one hand he supports education, on the other hand, he mocks it and under funds it.

He then puts almost every signer of the Neo Conservative document, “Project for a New American Century”, specifically the 1998 letter to Clinton, in his cabinet or makes them a trusted adviser.

I’m sure the plan for invading Iraq was a completely unseen diversion. I’m sure it came out of the blue.

But I digress…

Such flawed logic about my candidate being naïve coming from such a source would make me laugh except that that person has a vote. That person is more intelligent than my friend from 1988 yet just as susceptible to the grapeshot campaigns.

While false accusations of perversion were Allen's obstacle, condescension and false charges of naïveté were this individual’s.

American Government works best when it is a constant tug of war between what should be and what is. In my lifetime, what is has been on quite a winning streak. It’s time for what should be to get some. I began to lose touch with that in a backyard in Houston in 1988.

****

In the days since I started this entry, new attacks have been lobbed; plagiarism, emptiness of substance, and lack of patriotism. I can’t believe it’s only February. There was a time, not long ago, that primaries didn’t even start until now. When I think about how long it is until the general election and how much more of this there will be to slog through I start feeling a little bit of regret that I got involved in the first place.

Then I realize that’s the effect all of these attacks are meant to have and I can only imagine how they might affect all of these young people who have gotten so excited.

I can only come to one conclusion; if so much resistance is already building up against so much excitement, then what I am witnessing is one of those revolutions that Thomas Paine dreamed of. It is a revolution to be fought with ballots rather bullets. And the debt I owe to all those soldiers in the first revolution is that such a thing can be so and that my suffering is not the suffering of bloody footprints in diseased winter camps or of the horrors of the battlefield. The only sacrifice asked of me is the trivial one of standing up to lies and maintaining my enthusiasm for less than nine months and then making the commitment which is required of the vote I cast.


J.A.L.

First Post

The following is an email I sent out today:

I have spent the last month wrestling with the idea of sending out this email. I have received a few like the one I'm about to write and they have had mixed results on me, so I know the trepidation you might feel as you begin to read this.

All I can say in my defense is that I have never sent such correspondence in my life. With that in mind, I hope you will forgive me if you find this to be annoying.

At some point during my childhood someone very close to me lamented that they wished "just once" they could "vote for a presidential candidate rather than against one." While I have never had such clear cut opinions about the candidate for whom I've voted in a general election, I must admit I've never whole-heartedly supported or have even been excited about the prospect of that candidate being president. There have been a few I have liked during primary season but I have never lived in a state that had a primary early enough for my vote to make a difference.

On Tuesday, February 5, 2008, for the first time after almost 20 years of voting in national elections I will be voting for a presidential candidate:

I will be voting for Barack Obama.

This is not to say that I agree with every issue. What I agree with is the cause he has outlined and the approach to government he has described. Rather than lengthen this email with all of that I only ask you to investigate him for yourself.

In earlier versions of this email I have written my observations and conclusions about the other candidates. After deliberation I have decided to spare you and leave those out after I realized my objective is not to attack. It was to influence you to investigate the possibility.

I have been slow in placing my support behind Senator Obama. I read his first book a year ago and even though I was attracted to his philosophy and persona I didn't allow myself to be completely persuaded. In the year that has followed, I have seen nothing but complete consistency with the ideas and behavior put down in that book.

It is a risky thing to put one's faith in a presidential candidate. It is for that reason that I will not go so far as to say that any of you are wrong for supporting the candidate you may be supporting. But if you are uncertain or lukewarm about your candidate I only ask you to investigate the possibility of an Obama presidency.

If you consider what I have written to be an intrusion, I hope you will forgive me.

With all the demands of my schedule this email may be all I can do in the effort of campaigning for Barack Obama at this time.

I just don't want to look back on this election and regret that I didn't do all I could for something in which I believed.

Jack