Good morning, all… Wonk here, with my Saturday reads, independent voter-style.
But, first a few words on my independence from both political parties.
A little over 6 years ago, Obama made a speech at the DNC proclaiming “there is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America.” He went on to say, “We worship an awesome God in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States.”
His oratory underwhelmed me from the start, but I do believe we live in a country that is deeply purple.
Good policies and governance by Democrats bring out the liberal tendencies in more voters, regardless how they self-identify. Bad policies and governance by Democrats bring out the electorate’s conservative tendencies, which is where we are at in 2010. Cue the Democrats’ fierce urgency of punching a hippie to prove how liberal they aren’t, pushing the conversation ever further to the right.
The only way the Democrats will learn to stop punching a hippie is if the grassroots will stop voting for them. This is why I am an independent. It’s not because I have forgotten how terrible the GOP is. It’s because I want the Democratic party to be an actual alternative to the GOP. I don’t want to be punched by two wings of the same corporate-controlled political system. I certainly won’t vote for one “party” over the other to continue punching the grassroots.
And, on that note, let’s take a look at some headlines.
First up… looks like pigs are flying and hell hath frozen over with a glossy Obey poster sheen to it: Shepard Fairey is losing Hope.
From Aamer Madhani at the National Journal, via Yahoo News:
The artist whose poster of Barack Obama became a rallying image during the hope-and-change election of 2008 says he understands why so many people have lost faith.
In an exclusive interview with National Journal on Thursday, Shepard Fairey expressed his disappointment with the president – a malaise that seems representative of many Democrats who had great expectations for Obama.
You can see the Hope check bouncing in the latest polling from CNN as well:
(CNN) – President Barack Obama is contending with the lowest approval rating of his 20-month presidency, a new CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll finds.
The president’s approval rating now stands at 42 percent – an all time low in CNN polling and 8 points lower than where Obama was only three weeks ago. Moreover, 56 percent of all Americans think the president has fallen short of their expectations.
Okay, that Hope check isn’t just bouncing–it’s ricocheting across the electorate and being returned to sender.
Obama came into the WH with a lot of goodwill and the wind at his back, with 8 years of Bush-Cheney Fail to point to as a case study in where GOP governance leads to. Bill Clinton said it the best in his speech at the DNC in 2008:
…the extreme philosophy which has defined his [McCain's] party for more than 25 years, a philosophy we never had a real chance to see in action until 2001, when the Republicans finally gained control of both the White House and Congress. Then we saw what would happen to America if the policies they had talked about for decades were implemented.
They took us from record surpluses to an exploding national debt; from over 22 million new jobs down to 5 million; from an increase in working family incomes of $7,500 to a decline of more than $2,000; from almost 8 million Americans moving out of poverty to more than 5 1/2 million falling into poverty — and millions more losing their health insurance.
When they came into power in 2009, Obama and the Dems had the perfect opportunity to make the case for government that works. Instead, they have made the opposite case and then tried to excuse it by saying variations on the theme that “America is ungovernable.” (If America is so fundamentally ungovernable, then why does it matter if a Democrat or a Republican wins anyway?)
Thanks to the Dems’ poor excuse for governance over the past two years, this is where we are at (from the CNN polling writeup):
The president’s sagging poll numbers couldn’t come at a worse time for congressional Democrats, themselves facing a nine-point deficit in the so-called “generic ballot” question heading into the midterm elections. In fact, the president’s approval rating is the same as that of President Clinton’s in 1994 – the midterm election year that saw Republicans wrest control of both the House and Senate.
In even worse news for congressional Democrats, likely voters say they are considerably more likely to vote for a candidate the president opposes than one he supports. On the other hand, 50 percent of voters said they would be more likely to vote for a Tea Party-backed candidate while a third of Americans said Tea Party support would dissuade their vote for a candidate.
The American grassroots are so profoundly turned off by the tonedeafness from Washington that most of the electorate doesn’t care if a madhatter teapartier gets elected in the process of throwing the bums out. Voters just want to send the DINOs and RINOs we have in Congress right now packing.
Obama said the difference between now and ’94 will be him. We shall see about that soon enough. Also, as much as Obama apologists would like to make equal things that are not equal, 1994 and 2010 are two very different animals by virtue of the decades that preceded them. Bill Clinton held down the fort in a Republican era. Obama chose to turn what should have been a Democratic era into a Republican one.
Which brings me back to the National Journal/Yahoo story on Shepard Fairey:
Fairey explained that when he came up with the poster in 2008, he was trying to find a single image that embodied the issues he cared most about — promoting health care, helping labor, and curtailing lobbyists. He likened the issues to projectiles.
“Looking at Obama’s standpoint on various policies, it was like, ‘Why throw all these particular projectiles over the wall… when I could put all those things in one projectile that I could hurl over the wall,’” Fairey said in a phone interview from Los Angeles, where he lives. “Obama was the delivery device in theory. Now, I realize that he maybe is not the correct delivery device, and I’ll just deal with those issues separately.”
Why in the world did Fairey ever think Obama would be any sort of “delivery device” on “promoting health care, helping labor, and curtailing lobbyists” of all issues in the first place? Obama Whole Foods Nation read whatever they wanted to read into the tabula rosa of Barack Obama. But, in truth he was not a tabula rosa. Many of us amongst the supposedly “low-information” grassroots backing Hillary did our homework and paid attention to the fine print of Obama’s campaign and record. We knew Obama could not be trusted to stand up to corporate influence. Maybe if Fairey had not been so distracted by his efforts to inexplicably turn his ironic mock-propaganda brand into a legitimate delivery system for a politician’s campaign message, he might have noticed Obama was a Wall Street tool from the beginning.
More from the article:
Maybe it was inevitable that Hope would fade. Fairey’s blue-and-red image was altered from an Associated Press photograph of Obama, and the artist is embroiled in an ongoing lawsuit over use of that picture. (He didn’t discuss the case with National Journal.) Fairey, who at 40 is no kid himself, said it’s easy to see why young voters are down on Obama and the Democrats. He lamented that health care reform was watered down, Tea Party activists have been emboldened, and his man has fallen short on bold campaign promises like closing Guantanamo Bay.
“There’s a lot of stuff completely out of Obama’s control or any of the Democrats’ control,” Fairey allowed. “But I think there’s something a little deeper in terms of the optimism of the younger voter that’s happening. They wanted somebody who was going to fight against the status quo, and I don’t think that Obama has done that.”
To be sure, Fairey still supports Obama, and he says he would use his talents to assist the president’s re-election efforts in 2012. But he said that he couldn’t design the same Hope poster today, because the spirit of the Obama campaign hasn’t carried over to the Obama presidency.
“To say I feel disappointment is within the context that I know he’s very intelligent, very capable, very compassionate,” Fairey said. “I think he has the tools, and he does not trust his instincts in how to apply them.”
Obama has failed to fight the status quo, so Fairey’s solution is to keep on supporting him and persisting in the delusion that Obama has the tools and just doesn’t trust himself to use them. Has the Occam’s razor explanation for Obama’s failures never occurred to Fairey and the people who bought his Hope posters? Is it so impossible for them in their fragile heartbroken states to even consider that maybe Obama’s goals were never actually the same as the left’s goals? That maybe he is using his tools toward what he actually is willing to fight for?
Obama was willing to fight for a junk insurance mandate that subsidizes the expansion of the for-profit health insurance industry on the taxpayer’s dime. He wasn’t willing to fight for a Medicare expansion or any other public option. When will Obama’s disenchanted left learn to think critically about this? That is when hell will really freeze over.
The only pigs to fly so far are the pigs-in-lipstick that have long flown through Congress, among them the famed pieces of legislation that Obama and the Democrats have passed in the name of “reform.” The American people know that these check marks in the column of Barack Obama and the Dems–mere talking points and opportunities for the political class to have their big bleepin’ deal photo ops–do not translate into meaningful improvements in their lives.
In other words: Historic…unprecedented…change we could have lived without.
The voter backlash against government is one we could have lived without, too, but it is here now and it is real. Even as Pelosi insists the momentum is on the side of the Democrats, she can surely see November from the House speakership that she’s on the precipice of losing. To the Boehner of our existence no less.
Meanwhile, the Gray Lady is planning a Boehner affair story according to the NY Post:
Insiders on Capitol Hill are buzzing about an upcoming New York Times exposé that will detail an alleged Boehner affair. Sources say the Times is looking for the right time to drop the story in October to sway the election, similar to how the Times reported during the 2008 presidential campaign on an alleged John McCain affair that supposedly had taken place many years before and that was flatly denied by the woman in question.
“Catching Boehner with a mistress is the only way to destroy him politically before the election,” a source said.
A rep for Boehner’s office said, “This is bull[bleep]. The American people oppose Washington Democrats’ job killing, so their desperate liberal allies are resorting to outright lies. It’s low, and it’s dirty.”
Low and dirty. Sounds like Boehner and the DINOs alike. They all deserve each other. Since the NY Post is trying to spin this as the Dems’ big October surprise, I really have to wonder if it’s just going to be a big dud instead. If that really is the best hopes for a gamechanger that the Ds and their media allies (I don’t consider them very liberal) could conjure up, that would be really pathetic.
Speaking as an independent voter, the less I know about Boehner’s love life the better, and nothing about it would be a reason to vote for a Democrat. I already have plenty of reasons to vote against both parties. The only gamechanger would be a reason to vote for a Democrat. Democrats still don’t have one of those. Oh, but they have a new logo you can put a no-D slash through and a redesigned website. Isn’t that energizing?
Here’s some local news from my neck of the woods… that unfortunately affects the nation’s textbooks… this is just embarrassing… from the Houston Chronicle:
AUSTIN — Publishers were put on notice Friday when a divided State Board of Education vowed to reject textbooks with a pro-Islamic and anti-Christian slant, sending a message that critics say promotes fear and prejudice.
The resolution, approved by a 7-6 vote, says that multiple world history textbooks are tainted with views that demonize Christianity and favor Islam.
The move essentially delivers a warning to textbook publishers from one of their largest markets, but it can’t force their hand. Texas schoolchildren wouldn’t see changes in their history books, if any are made, until the board adopts new ones. Adoption is slated for 2012, though likely will be delayed because of budget constraints.
Various religious leaders were split on the issue, while civil-liberties groups condemned the resolution, which the board debated for about four hours.
“I want our students to learn about the Muslim world,” said board member Barbara Cargill, of The Woodlands, who made the motion supporting the resolution. “However, I want other religious groups to be treated fairly.”
The vote – which does not bind future boards – was a victory for the current social-conservative majority, which took a hit in the March primary elections.
The board’s minority bloc tried to kill the resolution, to postpone the vote to check its accuracy and to revise it so Islam wasn’t singled out, but all attempts failed.
“This resolution just seems senseless,” said board member Rick Agosto, of San Antonio. “It makes this board look like we’re cuckoo, which we are.”
I agree with Rick Agosto. Cuckoo!
I’m rather confused by Barbara Cargill’s remark that she wants students to “learn about the Muslim world” but wants “other religious groups to be treated fairly.”
The religious right seems to perceive that even mentioning the existence of those of us who are not Christian is inherently positive while being at all critical of anything related to Christianity is demonization. I’m a first generation American daughter of parents who immigrated from India. I went through the public education system during the eighties and nineties. The slant I experienced was the other way around personally. The bulk of material I had to read was from a Western, Judeo-Christian perspective. I sometimes felt like an outsider reading the curriculum. It didn’t always speak to my experience as a young American woman.
I’m not someone who agrees with the Bill Maher line of thinking whereby all religious people have a neurological disorder, either.
I go by the actions people use their beliefs to justify. Beliefs (and lack thereof) are passed down through nature/nurture. They are human beings way of trying to understand our world/universe. They are our connection to our past, present, and future.
In the end, beliefs/nonbeliefs (or as in my case… agnosticism) are all what you make of them, what you choose to do or not do with them. Whether it’s a Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, heretical, pagan, agnostic, atheist (etc.) route that gets people to the place where they are invested in kindness and truth and love and fairness and friendship… if it got someone there, then that’s what matters most to me.
That there are so many prisms through which we can get there (as well as the fact that there is so much between the lines when it comes to belief that can be perverted and used to control and tear humanity apart) is what makes the tapestry of human history so rich and textured.
So that’s where I’m coming from on this. I can’t ever relate to the idea that opening up our textbooks to include the stories of more people and of more Americans is some kind of a threat to our historical record.
I’m not suggesting we embrace some fake, processed multiculturalism. That’s why I never fell for Obama’s rhetoric. It always felt hollow and forced, as if electing Obama was supposed to be the alpha and the omega of achieving a more pluralist society. While the election of Barack Obama will always signify important, long overdue symbolic progress, the void of leadership on behalf of ordinary people over the last decade has continued under his stewardship.
Back in May, I wrote a piece called the Audacity of Ordinary People, where I brought together my thoughts on the Texas State Board of Education’s hostility toward teaching the story of ordinary Americans and Obama’s unresponsiveness to the needs and concerns of ordinary Americans. There is a thread there between both that I find very pronounced and at the root of every problem that we face today. The will of the American people is not being heard, as I discussed in another piece back in August.
It may seem counterintuitive to look at Obama and the religious zealots as dual forces bypassing ordinary Americans, but hear me out.
The social conservatives, as a group, work to limit the experience of America to the white Christian male in-group… and to zygotes. (Can’t forget those zygotes. They will likely lose their personhood when they become an actual person, but oh to have that personhood for nine months while living off the life support of a woman who herself has no personhood.)
Most of the political class in DC likewise works to limit the experience of America to the corporations.
Both the social conservatives and the political class are part of a system that serves to keep our public policy and public and private institutions working against the personhood of most ordinary Americans.
It is my hope-against-Hope™ that ordinary Americans will emerge as a force to challenge the system this November and in 2012 and beyond.
I’ve said it before, and I will keep on saying it all the way to 2012: To hell with the malaria that is the Dems and the smallpox that is the teapartiers/GOP. These aren’t choices. Voting for either is ensuring the disease that is the corporate hold on America. Individual teapartiers are trying to wrest control of the GOP to the grassroots, but the tea party is ultimately still an arm of the GOP redirecting disaffected voters back to the D/R system. And, while teapartiers may be representing the grassroots on the right, there is a huge void on the left grassroots, which the left and the Democrats are too stupid to fill. Instead they are too busy elevating Sarah Palin to the level of a George McGovern-like figure. What a mess.
Voting outside the D/R system or conscientiously abstaining is not throwing away one’s vote as far as I’m concerned. It is throwing away the D/R menu.
Before I go, a reminder of a milestone that happened twenty-nine years ago to this day. From Profile America, which seems to have made a couple typos on names, via the Sacramento Bee:
Profile America — Saturday, September 25th. Today marks the anniversary, in 1981, of the swearing in of the first woman Supreme Court justice — Sandra Day O’Connor. She served until retiring in 2006. There have been four women to join the court: O’Connor, Elena Kagan recently, Ruth Bader Gensberg, who joined in 1993 and Sonya Sotomayor, who joined last year. A total of 111 men and women have served on the Supreme Court. The workload of the court has grown. There were just over 5,000 cases on the docket in 1980, while in recent years, that number has almost doubled. At the same time, the total number of cases argued annually has dropped by more than half to 125. You can find these and more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau, online at www.census.gov.
I hope your first weekend of autumn is off to a nice start, and don’t forget to share what you are reading this Saturday morning. I only touched on a few headlines that got me thinking and writing.
