On the Contrary

The health care debate, if you can call it that, is reaching new lows with Sarah Palin entering the fray with a Facebook message that continues a fairy tale about the government deciding end of life decisions.  Sorry Sarah, that was the Republican Party in the Terry Schiavo debacle.  It is amazing to me that people could think this woman could be Presidential material when she doesn’t know the difference between fact, pseudoscience, and outright misinformation.  She could make decisions almost as well as George did.

But there are some good questions out there, some raised by our gray heads.  One is will the amount of coverage that seniors now have under Medicare be reduced in order to pay for universal coverage?  Another is will there be rationing (see Health Care, Rationing, and the Obvious)?  Can we afford it?  The problem with this whole debate is that we don’t have an Obama Health Care Plan to judge.  More importantly, I believe the whole issue of how it gets funded has missed the point, but let me back up.

Here is what we should all agree on.  The status quo is not sustainable.  So just saying no is not a way forward.  Any way you look at it, in ten years none of us will be able to afford health care.  If you are one of the 73% who likes their present health care, that is all well and good, but you won’t be able to afford it as businesses drop your coverage as the price gets too much to bear.  And that is only the tip of the iceberg.  Now the Republicans say they have good plans but you have to ask yourself when the Republicans had complete control of our government, and unlike the Democrats these guys have discipline, why did they do nothing?

The second thing that most of us can agree on is that it is unconscionable that we have so many people unable to afford health care.  The third thing most of us can agree on is that the data clearly shows that we do not have the “best health care system in the world.”  We may have some of the best doctors and best hospitals, but we do not have the best outcomes and we do have the most expensive system in the world. If you are sick and you get laid off or quit because you are terminal, you are uninsureable unless you qualify for Medicare.  It needs fixing.

Here is where I think the debate misses the point.  We are trying to craft a system that continues the employer based financing system.  Why?  Because it is what we have?  It is what we know?  By doing this, the financing system gets overly complex.  Requiring everyone to buy health insurance doesn’t solve the problem; it just leaves people wondering how they are going to do this.  None of us are required to buy Medicare insurance.  We pay a tax on our income that (barely) supports it.  Why, oh why can we not accept that universal health care is what a civilized country provides to its citizens and we pay for it through our tax base?  Those who say what would happen to my existing coverage?  Well the government could pay a standard rate for each citizen and  establish the minimum coverage.  Hospitals and doctors could negotiate with the government for those payments and coverage.  If you wanted more, then there is a place for the insurance companies.  Why is this so hard?

It is so hard because we are trying to keep the existing failed system in place.  We have no choice but to reform health care.  For profit medicine (insurance companies) don’t work and we are the only country in the civilized world that is still trying to hammer a round peg into a square hole.  Our businesses have been hampered by the cost of medical insurance and it is time to set them free.  We all deserve health care, and we all can’t have everything and expect someone else to pay for it.   That system is a single payer system that allows a reasonable transition period to phase it in and give the insurance companies a soft landing.  Anything else and we are wasting our time and money.

What the debate so far has been about is really protecting the health care industry and their immense profits.  It is time to gore their ox.  Yes there are unknowns and some of us may lose the coverage we have.  Change is hard and the unknown is scary.  The Republicans know this and they are counting on it to once again hobble any attempt to find a new way forward.  Climate change, energy policy, medical care, it is all the same.  We either take a chance on the future or we and are children are going to be trapped in the past as the rest of the world passes us by.

Sometimes I watch the news and then I just have to turn it off.  I walk outside and into a world far removed from Washington, partisan politics, and strife in general.  I live on about 22 acres in the Sierra Nevada forest, three of which has been cleared and I have planted grapes.  The view from my patio is spectacular as I sit on the top of a hill and overlook most of the valley.  It is deadly quiet up here so you can, in fact, hear yourself think.  And that is my saving grace.  I like to think it gives me perspective on much of the political dialogue taking place.  Instead of getting caught up in it, I can remove myself from it and really think about it.  It is funny, but when you are removed from the constant bickering and strife, things can become fairly simple and clear.

So without any further long-winded pontification on my brilliance, here are what I think are no-duh revelations about current events:

• The Gates affair is much a do about nothing except that people do and say stupid things sometimes when we let our emotions get the best of us.  I am sure the officer involved probably wishes that he could have defused the situation better and I am sure the Professor wishes he wouldn’t have over reacted to the situation.  But we are colored by our backgrounds and we are human and sometimes we don’t do the smart thing.  I bet the President wishes he hadn’t characterize a situation he knew little about.  But he is human too and his own experiences colored his view.  Maybe we can all learn something here instead of trying to turn this into some major racial incident.  Maybe we all just need to take a breath.

• We are going nowhere with health care.  The Senate is full of old, fat, white men who simply are out of touch.  The health care issue is relatively simple, unlike what you hear from these dinosaurs.  The present system is unsustainable and for profit medicine has no workable model in the world.  The profit motive is simply unsuited for providing medical care.  Insurance companies make money by not providing care.  It is as simple as that.  They do it by denying claims or enrolling only healthy people.   See Paul Krugman’s blog for a more in depth analysis.  The only thing that is going to work is a single payer system that WE ALL PAY FOR and endowing that system with the incentives to minimize costs, not pile them on with fee for procedures plans.   And yes there will be rationing.  You can’t have everything and I hate to break to you, but it already exists.  But the reality is that they will pass something token and the truth of the above analysis will finally dawn on the rest of you when the system finally collapses.

• In Afghanistan, we have good intentions, but it is time for the Muslim world to save themselves.  There is no doubt in my mind that we are helping many people, especially women from being victim to 5th century thought.  But the investment necessary to really make a difference would be better spent on our own disasters at home.  Bringing a tribal society into the 20th century is a noble undertaking, but so is providing health care for all our citizens.  My own view is that the Muslim religion and its adherents, except for a very few, live in a world that demeans women and is designed to maintain the status quo of male superiority.  Yeah, Yeah, I know.  You can find verses in the Koran that show women to be equal.  The Koran is much like the Bible in that you can pretty much find whatever you need to justify anything.  The reality is that until they modernize themselves and fight their own battles, we are tilting at windmills.  Governments run by the Taliban have repeatedly failed and are extremely unpopular.  If they harbor Al Qaeda we can do what we did before and set free a few cruise missiles.  Fly away little missiles, fly away.  It is time to take care of our own problems.

• Sadly the economy is not getting better because we have not done anything about the structural problems that are the root of our problem.  Surges in the market are simply a reflection of people wanting to get back to business as usual.  But what was driving our economy before was bundling and selling debt.  Much of that debt is still out there and you have to keep asking yourself, what are we going to bundle and sell to the rest of the world now?  Until that question is answered and we start down that road, what will happen is that the incentives that led to the greed and excessive profit taking are still in place and we will simply repeat our blunders, only bigger.  The issue in this country is unemployment and when we figure how to gainfully employ our nation, all the rest will fall into place.  Green energy anybody?

• Sarah Palin and other like-minded Republicans are intellectually bereft.   Even if you hate “govment”, you have to ask yourself when they babble their fear the government, market place will solve all pabulum, okay, but what is your plan and how will that help?  Even on health care, the Republicans have presented no alternative plan on an obviously failed system and on the economy, they have offered to do nothing as the way forward.  Many Republicans view the Bush Administration as an aberration from Republican governance.  It was anything but.  I look on the Republicans much like I do the Taliban.  Put them back in power and that will be their final undoing.

• Finally compromise among the Democrats on a way forward may be worse than doing nothing.  If by compromise, and I hold as evidence the economic stimulus plan, they mean producing a plan that is so watered down as to be ineffective, they are putting the nails in their own coffin.  It would seem that they have no confidence in their progressive agenda and are doing everything to thwart it.

Okay I will now turn the TV back on and wonder why they can’t see these obvious truths.  I think I am destined to take these ‘truths’ to my grave.

The news is being dominated by the food fight between the Palins and David Letterman about his comments referring to their daughter (which one is still in question).  I will grant you his joke was in very poor taste, but the Palin’s, with the media’s help, are turning this into a globally important battle.  Please!  Between the two of them, bad taste and poor judgment abounds and who cares.  Iran is having a monumental election, North Korea may react belligerently to U.N. Sanctions, and we are focusing on an overblown food fight that is all about political posturing?  No wonder we can’t have rational discussions about important issues and our future.

I listened to Chris Mathews describe how Palin might be a force in the Republican Party in the future after conservative Kathleen Parker laid out why she is not leadership material.  As always, Chris confuses form over substance.  She can take a pretty picture and with a script she can rile up the radical right, but based on her stand on issues and the thought she demonstrates behind them, there is no brain power there.  There is no there there.  We are in real trouble if we get another George Bush in office.

Note Vine/Wine will be late, but sometime this weekend.

I was listening to the political analysts gaming the McCain political strategy and I was appalled.  The advice that was being bantered about is that with only twenty something days to go you might as well even throw everything including kitchen sink at Obama.  After all what do you have to lose?  Lie away, it doesn’t matter.  Maybe one of the lies will stick.  I don’t know but maybe you have your decency and self-respect to lose.  Although I have to say at this point the McCain Campaign seems to have jettisoned that weeks ago.  I guess that winning is everything and if you divide and make this a more dangerous country that is okay because, winning is everything.  As soon as your winning becomes more important than what you are doing to the country, you are no longer qualified.

It is not just negativity, it’s the out right appeals to racism and jingoism.  I love it when the media pundits point out that both are going negative.  But in number and in pure meanness the Republicans have shown no restraint.  Latest numbers show that McCain is running about 3 to 1 negative ads to Obama.  And it seems the media condones it with expressions of, well it is the silly season.  I think the campaign that the Republicans are now running is ripping at the fabric of our country and they don’t care.

We have all seen the Palin attacks on Obama trying to link him to a Weatherman.  Now any rational human being would disregard these attacks as non-sequitur, but the crowd they are appealing to is getting fired up, dangerously fired up.  If that is your base then I would be ashamed to be a Republican.  I would even be more ashamed that my party is trying to appeal to Neanderthals of our population, people who are neither well read or intelligent.  They are just hate filled and these campaign rallies are stirring up hate.

I am sure you all saw the McCain rally where the policeman (sheriff, whatever) gave a speech in uniform emphasizing the Barack HUSSEIN Obama.  It was not just that they were trying to link him to radical Muslims, there was a true undertone of racism.  The man has probably never heard of the Hatch Act, but he will shortly.  But it was once again playing directly to very stupid people’s fear of anything different.  It was be afraid if you are not white and have a normal name like Bubba.  And yes, there have been calls from the crowd to kill him.  This is country first?  This is an election about issues?  Oh, I forgot.  It’s about that until you are behind and then there are no rules of decency or morality.

Well here is hoping this approach is counter productive.  Let’s hope that the real people who will decide this election that are in that ever shrinking undecided are as appalled as I am about these tactics.  Let’s hope that they reject this kind of jingoism and hate speech.

One has to wonder what happen to John McCain.  But then I think I know.  John thinks he put in his time and now he deserves to be President.  It is owed to him.  That is where that “that one” came from the other night at the debate.  If people don’t see the world as he does, then they are stupid.  How could this uppity black man even compare to me, John McCain.  I DESERVE TO BE PRESIDENT.  And if I deserve to be President, then it doesn’t matter what tactics I use because it is my destiny.  I think people are starting to see this.  And in his arrogance and lack of any consistent morality we see that he is totally unfit to be President.  He is royal and we are peasants.  Good bye John McCain.  You had a good run and then you too got greedy and your greed spoiled everything you touched.  Take the Barracuda and go home.  The country needs to heal and move forward and you are just seeding the seeds of discontent and violence.

I have been reading some of the columns written about the Vice-Presidential debate and I am wondering if they saw the same debate the rest of us saw.  That would include columns by David Brooks (Palin Rebounds), Kathleen Parker (Sarah Palin’s Bridge to Somewhere), and even David Broder (Finally and Fine on Her Own). Comments like she held her own, she was cool as a cucumber, or showed she could handle and respond coherently to questions were, to be kind, wishful thinking.  Maybe you guys need to watch the video a couple of times.  She responded to each question with talking points memorized before the debate that were mere sloganeering and catch phrases without any underlying analysis or nuiance.  There was no spontaneous moment that demonstrated she had any command of the issues or could think on her feet.  In many cases she didn’t even answer the question she was asked as she blurted out a scripted line that was non sequitur to the content of the question.  Watch her closely as she searches for the script before she answers each question (or doesn’t answer it).  Had there been follow-up questions to force her to answer the question that was asked or to question many of her falsehoods, we would have seen a repeat of the Couric interview.  It is amazing to see some conservatives totally gloss over this and see possible redemption.  I wonder what part of their brain is not functioning.  Maybe they are so desperately clinging to the remnants of their conservative philosophy, they can’t see the rats deserting their ship and believe it is clear sailing ahead.  I will leave you with this wonderful video that is on YouTube called “Hey Sarah Palin“.  It says it all.

I am working on Vine/Wine Friday for the three people who read it.  Be Patient.

VP Debate

The TV analysts except for David Gergin, last night, missed the big picture.  The media and the conservatives were amazed and pleased with Sarah Palin and her ability to speak in complete sentences and look perky.  But as always it was form over substance and there wasn’t any substance.  There was a kind of arrogance displayed about the superiority of their conservative credentials that substituted for real policies that differentiate themselves from George Bush.  It may not play too well where it counts, with undecided voters.

The media analysts were focused on the form and ignored the substance of the questions she did not answer.  They ignored the hypocrisy of her derision of government provided healthcare as being substandard, but her support of the government  bailout.  Is government either good or bad, which is it? They ignored her attacks on Joe Biden while not putting forward any program of her own.  They ignored her questionable claim to executive leadership when she has been shepparding a state on oil welfare.  At least Joe pointed out the hypocrisy of her state’s approach to windfall taxes and John McCain’s approach.  It was the arrogance of ignorance on display.  But she looked confident and that is what counts isn’t it?

The answer to that is not in this economy.  If she had staked out some real policies that didn’t sound like tax cuts for the rich and more marketplace solutions, she might have made a difference.  But they don’t have any. Everyone was happy to see that she did not fall on her face, but the lack of anything new to give conservative philosophy some life support in the crises we are facing was totally absent. These are tough times and people are looking for answers not attitudes.  Change and a new approach has to have some meat on it and all they were seeing was a fresh face and a mind empty of new ideas, just conservative sloganeering.  When the dust has settled, where it counted in that 10% undecided, nothing will have changed.  When you finally strip everything away what you get is a moral superiority that is so sure of their basic conservative philosophy that the details of policies aren’t important.

Telling Americans that we need to win in Iraq missed the whole point that Americans are done in Iraq.  Telling Americans that the central front on the war on terrorism is in Iraq fly’s in the face of the real challenges we face.  Deriding the rest of the industrialized world’s approach to healthcare by just saying “government” controlled healthcare as though government is a dirty word reflects no change at all in understanding the world we find ourselves in.  What I think most of that 10% saw was an attractive and perky woman who did not fail for which we all are relieved.  But what they also saw was that there was no there there.  She was simply spouting the same old conservative ideas that have got us to where we are with a promise to shake up Washington, but no plan to do it.

Vice Presidential debates are really not very important and this one would have only been important if either candidate made a major gaffe.  Neither did and now it is time to refocus on which one can lead us into the future.  If Governer Palin is put out there for more interviews she will again be problematic.  Her simplified view of how the world works and how to “shake-up” Washington will again be tested against reality and it will fail miserably.

As I watch political events unfold I have one of two choices, have a stroke or start laughing.  I decided to start laughing.  Could people really believe what they are hearing and saying?  After eight years of Republican cultural wars, could they want more while we ignore the important issues?  Could they really believe that John McCain and Sarah Palin represent change?  Or as Einstein was purported to say, stupid is when you keep doing the same thing over and over and expect a different result.  It is true that people only hear what they want to hear and they filter out all of the stuff that doesn’t jive with their worldview, but this is getting absurd.  Consider the following:

• Sarah Palin thinks that we should go toe-to-toe with Russia over Georgia.  I wonder where she thinks we will get the military force to do that since they are all tied down in Iraq and Afghanistan.  As I pointed out in a recent blog and Fareed Zakaria on his CNN show GPS reinforced, Russia may find that their military adventures will cause them more grief than they are worth in the world of interconnected economies.  Simple-minded military solutions are how we got into Iraq if you remember correctly.
• John McCain, that stalwart maverick who is going to bring real change to Washington, has flip-flopped on all the Republican policies like taxes, immigration, a woman’s right to choose, and has selected a running mate who is farther to the right than Newt Gingrich.  If he is kowtowing to this far right Republican agenda, just who is pulling the strings and how is this any different than George Bush?  Gee John, we hardly recognize you anymore.
• Anybody check out his campaign organization that is full of lobbyists that represent the status quo.  His campaign manager was a lobbyist for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  Anybody see a problem here?  Why do you think these people are so committed to John McCain?  Think there will be jobs for them in his new administration?  Where is the change?
• While John is talking tough on Russia, he does not want a plan to withdraw from Iraq and wants to send more troops to Afghanistan, and oh, don’t forget, cut more taxes.  Just how are we going to pay for all this?
• The lipstick on a pig has been beat to death in the press as being a totally false claim that somehow this was an aspersion on Sarah Palin, but McCain, seeming to forget his old self keeps this lie alive in the media
• The attack on Obama for sex education for kindergartners was so outrageous that it boggles the mind that people would actually believe it.  Yet responsible adults (Republicans) were trying to scare the simple minded in thinking Barack was some kind of sex fiend.
• Palin states that she lives near Russia therefore she understands the Russians.  I am up close and personal with this computer as I type this, so does that make me an expert on the hardware or the software that runs this thing?  People are morons if they are buying this stuff.
• Palin says that she is the frugal governor that stood up to Republicans in her state to balance the state budget and have a surplus.  Does anyone note that this is an oil welfare state where one-third of the economy is oil, and another third is federal spending?  Meanwhile she is doing everything possible to bury an investigation into her that may just show how she abused her power for political gain and used her husband (unelected) to perform state business.  And you thought cronyism was dead when John and Sarah get to rule.  But don’t worry, this will be the right kind of cronyism.
• Just what is John and Sarah’s plan for the economy?  More tax cuts for the wealthy.  My that has worked well so far.  How do you justify tax cuts when the GAO found that two-thirds of the large businesses in the United States don’t pay any taxes.
• With the cutting of taxes just how are you going to invest in energy development when what it will take is a massive investment by our government in R&D.  That is not just “tax credits”, its real investment in the hard science.  But then maybe they don’t believe in hard science since it is obvious that many believe creationism is just as good a theory as evolution.  No wonder we are falling behind the rest of the world in science.
• Then there is the moronic drill, drill, drill, which apparently the Democrats are caving into that by all knowledgeable standards will do nothing to reduce the price of oil and keep us fixated on oil as a solution to our energy problems instead of innovate, innovate, innovate.  Isn’t change mysterious when we do what we have been doing to no avail and yet we call it change?
• Ah, and then there is Iraq and Afghanistan where I have heard no end game plan from John McCain except stay there as long as it takes.  I guess it will take us going broke and then maybe will we see the futility to that approach.

So just what “change” do these two bring to the table?  None.  It is absolute travesty when people say they are suffering, but these two will reform Washington and bring back old time values (read conservative values).  But the old times are gone and with over 80% saying we are on the wrong track, how in the world can they say these two represent anything but traveling in the same direction only faster?  Think about it.  These are the same folks who voted for George Bush in 2000, and 2004, and put most of the derelict Republicans into office, but once again they are going to exercise their good judgment and vote for “more of the same” McCain.  The world really is full of stupid people.  But honestly, should we be surprised?  Half the marriages in this country end in divorce.  That says something about the nation’s judgment.  I hope they wake up soon.  They are destroying my country with their ignorance.

Most of the Democrats I know are confused about what is happening on the political scene right now.  Democrats think that if you just put the facts out there, people will see reality and make appropriate choices.  This basic belief was the basis of the Enlightenment and the formation of our government.  As George Lakoff likes to point out in his book, “Political Mind”, this is assuming that we all make rational decisions and emotions don’t play a part.  But they do in a big way and cloud real judgment about what are and are not facts.  If this were not ture then from a Democratic point of view how can you explain the following:

• The country is in sorry shape yet the party in power is successfully running a campaign on change
• The McCain campaign is full of lobbyists and advisers that have been in power and will be in power if they are elected, yet their claim of change has traction with Middle America
• The Republicans have brought us Eron, Katrina, the Mortgage Crisis, firing of Attorney Generals and hiring in the Justice Department that was politically motivated, rendition, torture, ease dropping, an outed CIA agent, runaway spending and largest deficit in our history, real economic problems, increasing inequity between the rich and poor, and stagnant middle class, and yet they are running on reforming themselves and seem to be winning on this issue
• The Republicans have nominated a vice presidential candidate who is a throwback to the old cultural wars, seems totally inexperienced to be the vice president, and has become the rallying point for change when most of her politics are more aligned with George Bush  than 90% John McCain

So if the Democrats have all the above correct, what gives?  Why aren’t Barack Obama and the Democrats running away with this thing?  The answer is that the Republicans understand the emotional game so much better than the Democrats.  It is about so much more than just facts.

What is going on that the Democrats seem to be missing is this is a war about ideology.  It not just change in a different approach, what the Obama campaign is challenging is the whole conservative orthodoxy.  The Republicans understand this and they are in this war to win, at any cost.  If you doubt that you have not been watching what has been going on in the last week.  Remember George Lakoff and the two modes of thought between conservatives and progressives.  Conservatives think in terms of authority and obedience and Progressive think in terms of empathy and responsibility.  And that is the progressives Achilles heel.  Because they are empathetic, they try to work with Conservatives.  Conservatives believe that their path is the moral one, compromise is for sissies, and have tripped up the Democrats every time on this one.  In the process they end up looking strong and the Democrats weak.

Why are the conservatives attacking the press so vociferously?  Because the press is the epitome of disobedience and lack of discipline when they question their policies.  When conservatives talk about change, they do not mean a new approach, they mean getting back to basic conservative values:  guns, religion, church, small government, less taxes, less spending, and less regulation.  They truly believe that these allow people to seek their own self-interest and the moral prosper, and the undisciplined immoral get their just deserts.  If Obama gets elected the whole edifice of conservative thought is rejected.  Sarah Palin is the epitome of this belief and is why she has reinvigorated the faithful.  John McCain was not their view of the perfect leader with the right morals, but Sarah is. That is why, and I think it will become a problem for John McCain, he appears at his events as though he is following her around like a puppy.  It is also why they can;t afford to have anyone discredit her and they will go to any lengths to prevent it.

Okay, you say, I see how that might invigorate the misguided base, but what is the deal with Middle America?  Well I have to think that people can think, like George Lakoff proposed, in either mode and it just depends on how it is activated, read emotional connection or frame.  The conservatives are using class envy through sarcasm to activate Middle America in the strict father mode.  People, especially middle class Americas who are losing ground in their standard of living resent intellect and are afraid of it. They resent the upper class (read wealthy).   That’s why they want the President to just be a guy they might want to have a beer with.  They like to simplify their lives by seeing simple solutions to our problems.  The conservatives have taped into that resentment by painting Barack as the intellectual effete east coast snob that intimidates them.  In this emotional frame, the conservative approach of authority and obedience is activated.  The funny thing is the Republicans really are the wealthy class and the Democrats more represent the middle class.

There is another problem in that the progressive response is usually measured and rational as though rational thought is what is going on here, but for these people it makes progressives look weak. The Democratic Congress and its leaders keep changing their positions (drilling is the latest) and it makes them look weak and that they don’t really believe in what they say they believe.  It feeds the conservative philosophy that the Democrats lack discipline and are immoral.  Although the Democrats may think this is a smart negotiation tactic to get what they want, they have missed the whole emotional impact of the appearance of giving in.  Once again their misunderstanding of the battle lines which has nothing to do with issues or compromise, is the root of their failure.

At the Republican Convention and afterward it was as if the Obama campaign was asleep when it didn’t respond in a tough way to the attacks by Sarah Palin.  It appeared they cowered in the corner.  Once again inaction looks like lack of direction.  Don’t you guys know you were insulted?  The progressives keep thinking rationalism will prevail.  Wrong.  It is time to respond emotionally and understand what is at stake and show how much you care.  This is what middle class fence sitters will respond to.  No, you don’t have to fight the cultural wars, which is the trap the Republicans had laid, just attack their lies and their honor with some vigor.

I believe that if you continue down this “good sense will prevail” road instead of showing real outrage at the outright lies and fighting back and hitting back with a sense of moral outrage, then the conservatives will once again win the emotional battle and you will lose an election.  Remember when you stood up and said “Enough!”  That activated the emotions and got them thinking your way, but then you let it go.  I think at this point in time Democrats would start understanding some of these dynamics but it does not appear they have lost enough elections they should have won yet.  Conservative ideology has failed this country and the fight is over whether we entry the 21st century to compete with the rest of the world or slink back to the 19th century with guns and religion.  It would be nice if you showed how important this is and how much you really care about winning this fight.  Rational arguments are not going to prevail if you don’t start activating peoples emotions with your own emotions.

I once heard a Republican in the Bush Administration say Republicans will define reality.  They may be right.  I found a web page by a Republican, Dick Bush, who said, “We Republicans need to remember our morals make us right.”   Apparently they really believe it because the Republican Convention was about an America that doesn’t exist and facts that weren’t facts.  It would appear that the truth doesn’t make any difference anymore*.  Just get your story out there, the 24/7 press will repeat it over and over, and by the time the truth is known, nobody cares anymore.  You have convinced whom you need to convince.  That was the Republican approach at their convention with most of speeches full of outright misrepresentations to lies.  They invented the liberal eastern establishment that has caused all of our problems even though they have been ruling the roost for 12 years.  The K Street project, a scheme by Republicans to force all lobbyists to be Republican, wasn’t a Democratic scheme.  Then they brought out Sarah Palin with a whole biography that is not holding up to examination.  But my point is it may not matter.  They made their point, although a fabrication, the mainstream press gave it a full airing without vetting, and now it is going to stick even when reality testing shows it doesn’t pass the test.  This is how they won the last two elections and it just may work again. Why do you think she won’t face the press?  The downside is what they propose for our future has not worked in the past.

I don’t think there is any point in going over Sarah Palin’s resumé, the touted one or the real one.  It will come out in the next several weeks from the librarian she tried to fired for not being compliant enough in banning books, to her lack of credentials as a fiscal conservative and how she has lied about her accomplishments (the plane did not sell on ebay and it was at a loss, etc., but it sounded good).  The corrections will probably not matter with a public that only listens to what they want to hear.  What is really important is the politics she could potentially bring to the White House and how John McCain has compromised all of the beliefs we use to admire him for in standing up to the Republican Party in an attempt to win the White House.  The Republican’s strategy will be that with the pick of Sarah Palin, she is real change.  Well here is what we do know about her and her politics so far and I am not sure it is a change we can survive:

• We know she tried to have a librarian fired and that she had approached the woman about the potential for banning some books in the library.  Are they related?  You be the judge.  I would just tell you that anyone who thinks that they can judge what the rest of us can read is not a democrat (small “d”).  Note she also fired the police chief for purportedly not supporting her re-election.  First thing you have to think about is how many librarians do you ever see fired and second, can she work in a government that doesn’t agree with her on every issue?
• We know that she thinks creationism should be taught in the schools albeit along side evolution.  What this tells me is that she does not understand the appropriate separation of church and state, nor does she understand the difference between science and religion.  This mixing of religion and science simply dumbs us down and brings faith and dissention back into the classroom.  By the way, if we should teach creationism, what other religious beliefs about the origin ought to be given equal time?  From her view there is only one true view and that should worry you shouldn’t it?
• We know that she is being investigated for firing the Alaskan public safety commissioner as an abuse of power.  We don’t know if it is true or not but it does smack of good old boy politics which is what Alaska is all about.  So at the lowest level, this raises the specter of same old politics in Washington.  K Street project come to mind?
• She believes that life should be defined as beginning at conception and as a result of this believes all abortions should be banned period.  Joe Bidden also believes this but he understands that this belief is based upon his faith and he cannot and should not legislate his faith on others.  What does Sarah think?  We won’t know until she finally faces the press, which may never happen if they can’t rehearse her enough.  Does this make you nervous?
• She has said she supports a Constitutional Amendment to ban gay marriage.  The California Supreme court overturned the ban on gay marriage in California as being inherently unequal.  You have to wonder who would modify our Constitution to enforce inequality on some of our citizens because of their religion.  Certainly that wouldn’t be the Party of Lincoln would it?

More will come out about her claimed fiscal conservative approach in Alaska and the reality that Alaska is an oil welfare state that has received more federal aid than their population will justify ($4000/citizen in earmarks in her little town).  But one has to wonder why John McCain, the supposed maverick, would pick such a person who is so opposite to his original views on these issues and would bring the religious right back into government.  There are two highly probable answers here that should give you pause.  The first one is that it was not his choice.  And from that conclusion you should realize that he does not have the free reign to implement change and reach across the aisle as he claims and someone else may be pulling the strings.  The second answer is that it distracts the voters from the real issues and we are going to waste our time on all of the above identified cultural wars we thought we had put behind us.

And where are John McCain and Sarah Palin campaigning?  In the hinterlands in Middle America where people really do cling to their religion and guns.  Yes I know it was Barack’s impolitic remark, but that doesn’t make it not true.  These are the voters responsible for our last eight years of misery with their “small town values.”  It is easy to distract these voters with these cultural wars where the real issues of our economy, the mortgage crisis, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, our energy crisis, the climate crisis, Russia’s new found thugism, are all ignored or addressed with sound bites to dismiss them because all these crises happened under the Republican’s watch as part and parcel of Republican policies.  It’s smart politics, but it may be disastrous for our country.  It may even win an election, but will not move the nation in the direction we need to go.   I think on the issues, the real issues, the Republicans lose, but it remains to be seen if we will ever get to discuss them.

* There may be another reason that facts don’t inform reality for conservatives:  If you followed my blog, How Conservatives Think, then you will understand that they view the nation state and authority through the strict father family model.  Work hard, be obedient to the strict father (Authority), you will develop discipline, be successful, and most importantly moral.  Conservatives cannot believe that their philosophy (the rules) could be a problem which is why they truly believe that there is a liberal eastern establishment the wrecked their time in power and is painting a false picture of them.  If you just have discipline, be obedient to authority, and follow the conservative rules, success and morality are guaranteed.  In conservative’s eyes this is what Sarah Palin represents.  She is a conservative Republican therefore by definition she is moral, she is disciplined, followed the rules (in this case the religious right’s rules), and is proof their morality gets rewarded (her success and meteoric rise in politics), therefore she is the incarnate and embodiment of what they believe about truth and justice in the world.  In other words they are emotionally invested in her story and her success.  Facts that discredit that perception of her must be disregarded as untrue or in their mind are untrue.  Like I said it is very similar to religion where when reality denies their faith, it has no impact on their belief.

One note:  On the issues and one we all care about, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, Fareed Zakaria had an interview with Rory Stewart, a Farsi-speaking British diplomat on his show Sunday (CNN GPS) who was appointed deputy governor of Amarah and then Nasiriyah, provinces in the remote, impoverished marsh regions of southern Iraq; who spent the next eleven months negotiating hostage releases, holding elections, and splicing together some semblance of an infrastructure for a population of millions teetering on the brink of civil war.  Here is a man who knows the reality of that part of the world and his discussion was about what is possible over there.  Our political discussion has been about whether the surge worked, who said we should put more troops into Afghanistan first, but not about a realistic endgame.  Whether the surge worked or not, and whether things in Afghanistan are deteriorating, the real issue is what is possible and what should we do.  Neither candidate has addressed our end game strategy and what we can afford or realistically accomplish.  This interview sheds a great deal of light on this subject and oh how I wish the candidates were discussing it.

It is amazing to me to watch and read about the Republican Convention, McCain and Palin’s speeches, and wonder if they noticed that it was Alice in Wonderland?  Neither the President nor the Vice-President attended the proceedings.  No one mentioned them.  The power structure that put them in place was in that Convention center and they were blaming someone else for the dismal state of our government.  It was the liberal eastern establishment, except that there is no liberal eastern establishment and all those people were the establishment that has run Congress for twelve years and the White House, going on eight.  The lobbying scandal was not about Democrats (simply because Democrats had no power) nor were any of the other scandals about Democrats except for that fruit loop from Louisiana who put the money in the freezer.  Louisiana Democrats are really Republicans lite.  But the speeches went on and on and on and our media never pushed back and said, “Wait a minute, weren’t you guys controlling government for the last eight years in the Congress and Executive?”

It gets worse.  Sarah Palin is being stroked for such a fine speech and a new force on the political front and it was obvious she was mouthing the words someone else wrote, many were outright lies, and we have no idea what she knows or does not know.  When her lack of experience was raised, it was sexism and our brave press folded like a lawn chair.  Oh aren’t they the tool of the liberal media?  Where is she and why won’t she face a press conference to see if she can really think for herself on her own two feet?  She doesn’t like the extreme examination, but as Barrack said, welcome to what I have been facing for 17 months.  Would we say that Geena Davis could be a great politician and ready to step into the White House after she played the part in a TV series.  What pray tell was the difference?

Everybody thought the speech was great in her attack of the Democrats, but many of the facts weren;t just distortions, they were lies, and there was no substance.  If you don’t like the Democrats approach to change what is your plan?  She made mean little sarcastic comments that in polite conversation would be recognized for what is was, a mean spirited attack with no intent other than inflaming hate and intolerance.  No I do not think her small town values have anything to do with running this very cosmopolitan world and the press ought to have enough backbone to pursue that line of questioning.  John Steward did on the Daily Show and it was quite revealing.  Simple country folks like that country bumpkin we have for a President are the reason this country is in trouble.  Appealing to their need to feel valued with simple minded solutions like drill, drill drill, will not solve the complex problems we face.  What she did was guarantee that the message of working together to solve problems would be the furthest from the bases mind as she reinvigorated the cultural wars that belong in the last century.  Great speech though, didn’t you think?  You people in the press are morons.

Then we have John McCain standing up there and telling us, after the hate Democrats speech the night before, we will work with them.  The silence in the convention center and the luke warm response to that line tells you everything you need to know about how great Sarah Palin’s speech was.  She is a great American if you think inciting intolerance is a good thing.  We listened as they claimed they would bring about real change yet they offer us nothing in programs to demonstrate that change other than the same conservative dogma, and will continue with the same good old boys that brought us the last eight years. Fat old white men thinking in the last century and protecting their status quo is what we saw on display.   We are just going to be better conservatives and get rid of the straying ones.  Did it ever dawn on anyone that it is conservative ideas not the straying morons of the party that are really bankrupt?

I am sorry, the emperor has no clothes.  The rest of you, especially the media morons, stood there gaping and commenting on what a great convention it was and I am wondering if we saw the same event.  The attendees were a sea of fat white people totally unrepresentative of this country (except for maybe the fat thing) and you never said a word.  You stood there mute while their political operatives spouted out their talking points that were blatantly false.  Here are the Republicans trying to incite hatred of the Democrats and the liberal eastern media that doesn’t exist, and you guys went along with it.  Their failed conservative philosophy is what has brought us to the brink.

They were the only ones that had the power to change things in the last eight years and the change they brought is for all to behold.  John McCain promised to bring us real change.  His VP is an attack dog radical conservative that wants to ban gay marriage, ban all abortions (and that would be in vitro fertilizations also since life begins with the first cell), deny Constitutional rights guaranteed by the Supreme Court to detainees, and teach creationism in the schools in defiance of the Constitution, and she gave a great speech?  She showed the pluck to be VP?  John himself has changed his position on the major issues of torture, immigration, taxes, and evangelicals to get this nomination, but he was touting himself as the maverick who you can trust?  He will bring about change with the same conservative philosophy and the same cast of character that brought you the change in the last eight years?   We will get change all right, things will get worse.  He is wearing no clothes.  Can’t you see it?  Look closer.  Jesus, pay attention.