PERFECTION: The link below by Jane Smaley in Huffington Post is possibly one of the best, most cogent, correct and spot on articles I have EVER read. It says it all. I agree with every single paragraph 100% and then some. Smaley is a wonderful popular writer as well as a terrific analyzer of contemporary events. I urge you to read it and savor EVERY paragraph. She is EXACTLY correct in everything she says. I could have written (perhaps not as wonderfully as she) the same thing and wish I had!


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-smiley/goodbye-cruel-world_b_138755.html

OOPS: I must have missed the very end of H.D.S. Greenway's editorial when he stated that perhaps Barack Obama is more like Mr. Smith. Now that's more like it. I concur!

Emperor's No Clothes: H.D.S. Greenway's October 28th article Character Trumping Experience comparing Sarah Palin to James Stewart's clean Gene character in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" is ridiculous. While Mr. Smith and Ms. Palin's words may find a home on the populist ear, Mr. Smith really WAS clean. Sarah Palin is a sham. She lies, divides, eschews pork and then takes a big barrel full. She accepts a bridge to nowhere but when it becomes unpopular returns it but keeps the money. Sarah Palin is about glitz with no substance. Mr. Smith was about substance minus the glitz. He stood for something. Sarah Palin's words mean nothing and, therefore, she doesn't really stand for anything. Sarah Palin is much like the rest of her party. She is the, in this case, woman behind the curtain along side the emperor wearing no clothes.

The Tide Is Turning: Today, I stood in rather chilly weather aside a busy highway in my town with others carrying signs supporting Barack Obama. By my estimate, I believe, we heard fifty car honks and thumbs up approvals for Obama to one thumbs down against him. It was, to say the least, for me, gratifying. I, however, do not want to be overconfident, know about October surprises, national nightmares and even the press miscall of the 1948 Dewey/Truman contest. I cannot help now thinking, though, my long dark national nightmare of Republican rule may finally be coming to an end.

If Barack wins it will be for a multitude of reasons. At the top of rationale list is, of course, the nosedive of an unregulated economy gone haywire, government bailouts of huge corporate entitles and an administration which says one thing about the little guy but offers that little guy no relief from foreclosed homes, tanking 401Ks and healthcare burdens while the corporate giants fly away with humongous golden parachutes in hand to California resorts.

Republican candidates never have been about Joe the Plumber. They have always been about AIG and Lehman big wigs and their Senate mouthpieces like John McCain, his good pal Phil Grahm deregulator supreme and Bush & Co. jogging right along side. The genius of the Republican strategy since Nixon has been the brilliant scheme of getting the American public to believe the Republican Party is about the majority of them. The Party convinced them by wrapping itself in the American flag, telling the public that no one is as patriotic as Republicans and that Joe Six Pack and patriotic hockey moms everywhere should come along with them for the morality ride. Many marched to the tune of that cacophonous beat for over thirty years.

Sarah Palin is a metaphor for that party. Her beauty pageant adorable image and her so seemingly patriotic aura is a sham. In reality the woman behind the curtain and her party are incompetent unreflective unqualified hypocrites as they march off, seemingly under the public purview, to Neiman Marcus, Bloomingdales and other high-end stores to dutifully spend $150,000 bucks on clothing for her and her family about which the average American can only dream.

Add to the Republican malfeasance a war on terror gone sour, wasted lives in Iraq and the scandal plagued presidency of George W. Bush the brew has been a toxic Republican stew. For all those reasons and so many more, barring any unforeseen circumstances, I believe the tide is finally turning. I can only fervently hope Barack Obama will be the 44th president of the United States.

This is a response I gave to a friend who had written on her blog which talked about the 'material girl' who is none other than Sarah Poor Palin and her $150,000 wardrobe. She says in her blog 'I do not yet have clarity as to why this woman grates on me so.' I understood her feeling.

http://yomamaforobama.wordpress.com

My response: I share with you an unmitigated disdain for that woman. Its NOT her beauty as I have met plenty of beautiful women and not disdained them. I suppose, if I had to search my soul for the rationale behind my fever it is that the one thing above anything else I value is intellect. I would, if given a choice, pick intellectual ability and a Faustian knowledge of everything over gobs of cash any day. Sarah Palin has less intellectual ability than the third grader whose question of just what a VP does she could not answer. It is shameful. I would be ashamed NOT to have a McCain sign on my lawn with HIS name on it but to have a sign with the name of know nothing Palin right underneath.

McCain's Choice of Palin as VP, as conservative intellectual Peggy Noonan so presciently alluded, has sealed his fate. He will never be President of the United States and I predict Palin's return to ignominious hockey mom governor of a distant state and to the primordial ooze from whence she came.

The Exceptionally Unacceptable: Wonderful article by H.D.S. Greenway in the October 21, 2008 edition of The Globe entitled "The Grand Illusion of American Power." He refers to BU educator, historian, military man and conservative, Andrew Bacevich, who now takes exception to the prevailing myth in American culture of American exceptionalism. Even Sarah Palin, perhaps albeit coached, still talks about American exceptionalism. She, of course, unequivocally believes in it and so do her followers.

I have long had a tug of war with my own conscience as to whether I do. Howard Zinn, historian and eminent professor at Boston University, in the late 60's, first introduced me to the concept of American exceptionalism and its folly when I listened to lectures by him in the late 1960's critical of US policy in Vietnam and elsewhere. His influence never left me. I was shocked at that time that American government policy could even be questioned. I assumed the US was always right in everything it did domestically and, most especially, internationally. I believed it was, indeed, exceptional. Professor Zinn , however, encouraged me, to possess an omnipresent doubt NOT of our country's values but of government policy which carries out its own interpretation of those values.

Vietnam, in that era, was the first time I conscientiously asked if our government was doing the right and moral thing. Since then other policies in many other areas of the world including the present day bombing of Iraq I deem not only questionable but immoral. My stint at Boston University at that time began my sojourn which prompted me to question government and speak my truth to power. The United States of America has done much good in the world that, I believe, cannot be denied but its government policy has often fallen short. When the heretofore exceptional becomes unacceptable it is time to reevaluate it and change course.

Worst of the Worst: Responding to Alex Beam's front page question in the Living & Arts Section of The Globe: Is it possible that George W. Bush isn't the worst president in our nation's history?

The answer is NO it is not possible. George Bush has been responsible for killing thousands, horrifically wounding tens of thousands of soldiers some for life, killing and wounding perhaps hundreds of thousands of Iraqi innocents, displacing another million, ruining a country which did nothing to us thereby destabilizing the entire Middle East. He ran up trillions of dollars in debt while taking our country to a war based on lies, giving no bid wasteful contracts to cronies who were failures at doing much of their work, failing to attend to our veterans health issues including the scandals at Walter Reed Army Hospital, failing to prevent 9/11, failing to capture Osama bin Laden, failing to create a prescient foreign policy with which to attend to the war on terror, diverting our attention away from Afghanistan, failing to promote an Israeli/Palestinian peace, losing US stature in the world, employing torture and weakening if not eliminating the Geneva Conventions, spying on innocent Americans wasting taxpayer money, failing to fix problems of infrastructure, failing to act during one of the worst hurricane devastation in US history, failing to change the US health care system -- one of the worst systems in the western world --, presiding over a Republican controlled Congress rife with scandal, using the Department of Justice for political purposes, destroying the concept of habeas corpus the pinnacle of a free society, expanding the powers of the presidency to monarchical proportions, and he is responsible for one of the worst economic catastrophes since the Great Depression plunging our country and the world into significant recession. Add to those indictments the numerous scandals within the administration, the guilt of exposing the identity of a CIA agent to ramp up an unnecessary war and, oh yes, lest one forget, the dubious handling of the anthrax attacks, the 43rd president of the United States has been responsible for the deaths and misery of thousands. George Bush's paucity of intellect, stubbornness and inability to weigh options, make George W. Bush, in my opinion, the worst president in US history bar none!

Palin, Patriotism and Perfection: Sure, if one loves utterly empty-headed mindless blather hiding behind the national anthem and the American flag, Sarah know-nothing and say-nothing Palin is your candidate of choice. I have more qualifications to be president than she and I have none.

That cerebrally vapid, vacuous and meaningless blabbering she utters is responsible for the domestic and international catastrophes we find ourselves in today. The trillion buck debt she talks about was ushered in by her party. Her bridge to nowhere was accepted by her before it was rejected but she kept the money anyway and built a road to nowhere. She is a hypocrite supreme. As long as she says things we love to hear, though, and she looks great saying them she'll get some ardent fans. Could we think for 1 and 1/2 seconds before accepting everything someone says because it sounds and makes us feel oh so good?

Some like her because they don't like to self reflect and critically examine the history and policy of this country. They want the country to be Leave it to Beaver land. Well, reality speaks. The country is not Leave it to Beaver land and it never was. It surely never was if one was black or Indian or female living a second class citizen life for centuries. Maybe patriotism is tinged with a bit more cynicism when those of us who understand history really examine its substance and objectively look at its truth without all the soothing glitter.

If one looks at Sarah Palin and John McCain's audiences they are nearly all older and white. This country, though, is changing its hue and I suspect that group does not like what it sees. So Sarah Palin's rhetoric calms their palpitating hearts and makes them feel so much better. Sure cotton candy looks so good but in truth its empty calories are bad for you. Patriotism without critical reflection is easy but it is distinctly toxic as it values mindless superficialities over substantive analysis. The right wing patriotic supremes had their chance for the past eight years. Their imperfect platitudinous policies are why we are in the mess we are in, that is why picture perfect Palin will not prevail, and that is why Barack Obama with a new kind of patriotism will win in November!

A Divided Nation: I believe we are a profoundly divided nation and have been for a very long time. It took a civil war of decidedly Herculean proportions to unite -- albeit reluctantly -- two sides of the slavery and its secessionist states rights issues. Lincoln's true genius, I believe, resided in his determination not only to keep the country together but his ability, after the Civil War, to try to unite the divide. His plans for renewal and healing during the reconstruction period were dashed, of course, upon his assassination. The elimination of white supremacy and eradication of the sentiments of interposition and nullification died with him. History has meaning and, thus, I believe we pay the price, still, for President Lincoln's untimely death. Race continues to be the Achilles heel, the sore that festers, and the ugliness which shows its face through a democratic facade.

It has been, I think, the tragedy of this nation that leadership in the modern era never emerged which had the ability to galvanize our nation to ameliorate this rancid division and concentrate on the issues of our time. Not only did leadership not have the ability to rectify our seemingly eternal divide it, indeed, exacerbated it by using it to capture one group to gain the power of the presidency. Beginning most extraordinarily with the presidency of Richard Nixon who used his euphemistic moral majority law and order code words against the black civil rights uprisings of the late 60's and ending now with the campaign of John McCain trying assiduously to tie Barack Obama preposterously to a man named Ayers, a sixties radical who committed his misdeeds when Obama was eight years old, Republicans have lassoed and hog tied one-half of a mostly white southern and Midwestern electorate to hoodwink them into thinking the Republican Party is about them. They dupe them to believe only they will save them from the black menace and the BLACK man possibly entering the WHITE house. They do not say that outright, of course, but the message is evident all the same. Just who is Barack Obama John McCain asks stealthily. Sarah Palin, a woman of ethical mishaps and a paucity of intelligence screams, too, in her inimitable way with a wink and a beauty contestant smile, and raises suspicions that Barack Obama cannot be trusted. People at their rallies yell, scream terrorist and ask for Obama's life. His life mind you.

Finally, John McCain has raised his voice against the cacophonous hate -filled rants. Perhaps, he does not want to be accused, if God forbid, there is an attempt on Obama's life, of being responsible for inciting a horrific violence which could end this nation as we know it. Nonetheless, he continues his media ads. His unqualified vice presidential choice piercingly suggests ad nauseum the ridiculous suspicions about Obama.

As patriotic as the right wing would have us believe it is, it is a stew of extraordinarily violent unconscionable beliefs where someone somewhere possibly exists who will be encouraged by a mob -like mentality to commit a dastardly violent act to eliminate a perceived threat and consider himself a patriot by doing so. Our leaders often play with our lives and then think a few words can erase all the damage they have done.

Instead, wouldn't it be nice to finally put our national malady to rest and have a leader emerge to resurrect Abraham Lincoln's quest to erase our racial divide which has paralyzed our nation? It would be nice in our perilous time if a John McCain would emulate his so called "party of Lincoln" and say what Lincoln said in his second inaugural address in 1865: "with charity for all and malice toward none let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds ... ." Wouldn't that be nice?

The Second Debate -- Another Home Run: It was so clear and so evident by last night's debate who is the better candidate to be president of the United States. Now, in our perilous times, electing Barack Obama, is the most important occurrence in the history of our country and, indeed, for the survival of our planet. Government, as entrusted by our Founders in our Constitution, is to provide for the common defense and the general welfare. Without effective government we will not have safety and security, a functioning economy, a healthy population, an intact infrastructure or even a planet. Without government none of these life sustaining mandates will be possible. I submit government has NOT been the problem it has been and is a necessary solution to the huge imperatives of our time.

These problems are so huge that government is the only vehicle we have which can make a difference. Senator Obama was firm, Senator Obama was decisive, Senator Obama was most of all acutely intelligent and correct. He provided clear statements of purpose, did not not ramble in vague generalities and give us an empty cheerleader pep talk as, I believe, Senator McCain did.

Those generations who succeed us and depend upon us to solve the problems of our day will thank us if we elect Barack Obama. By employing government policies in partnership with and oversight of our economic system, we can construct policies that work. A change in leadership through Barack Obama has not only the ability but necessary and, I believe, correct philosophy that will determine our survival. It is THAT important. Our time awaits a new New Deal and I believe Senator Obama can provide it.

Sarah Palin, while surprising some after the debate, did not surprise me. She remains, in my opinion, utterly unqualified for the job of Vice President of the United States, one heartbeat away from an aged man who has had four bouts of cancer. As I watched the debate, I could see how she made a wonderful beauty contest contestant. I could also envision her as cheerleader or majorette in a Thanksgiving Day Parade. Envisioning her as president, however, sent chills down my spine.

Governor Palin did not answer questions and by fact checking one could easily observe she got many answers incorrect or, perhaps, she downright lied. She showed she was excellent at robotically parroting and remembering talking points drilled into her for days by conservative experienced politicos. She failed, however, to generate specifics on issues or show a seasoned understanding of the complexities of policy. Her rote reciting of script at break-neck speed while reading the notes before her made me feel like I had just ingested five cups of coffee. I wanted at times to turn the on switch off or at least ask her to put periods at the end of sentences. The 36 year veteran of the Senate, Joe Biden, unequivocally ruled the debate and showed an understanding and grasp of policy which Governor Palin could not remotely approach.

In addition, there were many questions which the moderator, Gwen Eiffel, did not address either initially or in follow up. GovernorPalin's religious apocalyptic views are of supreme importance. Her views against abortion, staggeringly even in cases of incest, should have been asked. Of all her qualities which make her one of the most unqualified candidates to ever run for the second highest office in the land her fundamentalist religious beliefs are the most worrisome. Not only are they responsible for an utter lack of understanding and knowledge of scientific veracity on issues like evolution, stem cell research and most importantly global warming but her apocalyptic views of the so called "end times" could, indeed, lead her to believe that by pushing the nuclear button she will usher in the return of Christ. This should give every thinking, rational person who loves science and truth pause when they even consider pushing the voting booth button for Palin!

My economics maven cousin's analysis. Sounds correct to me but then again I'm no math/economics wizard as most of you know!

The Goose and the Gander

The major, overwhelming mistake our government made in the so-far failed bailout is not including the American public in their deliberations. The administration, Paulson and Bernanke, and our legislators, while totally willing to saddle the taxpayers with almost a trillion dollar debt, meet behind closed doors, offering us no transparency on their decisions.

This is exactly what we have been subjected to over the last eight years, especially with the war in Iraq: secrecy, smoke-filled room decisions. There have been no explanations of, or accountability to, their many special interests and corporations who reaped the only rewards from these murky, hasty decisions. So now Joe and Jane America have loudly voiced their disapproval of any bailout. Their (mainly Republican) lawmakers have heeded those warnings because we do have an election right down the road.

This is perhaps the ultimate irony. After Bush, crying “wolf” one time too many, has warned us repeatedly about this crisis or another, the public is very reluctant to believe him about the imminent financial unraveling now. Truth be told, and believe me I DO NOT have a great grasp of this situation, we probably DO need some kind of governmental, regulatory package. Many freighters are sitting in ports all over the globe waiting to be refueled, which can not happen until their line of credit opens up again. The same holds true for commercial airlines: their constant need to refuel is based on a line of credit from their suppliers. Also, many municipalities can not raise the funds needed to make new infrastructure investments or repairs to the existing ones. They need to fund these projects with new bond issues. These new municipal debentures, in this tightened and iffy credit reality, can not get funded. Thus, the repair and new construction of schools, roads and other municipal obligations are not happening. Also, this drying up of municipal funds has serious effects down the road with respect to job creation. So without knowing the extent of specific repercussions of this credit crunch, there is and will be some very negative effects. The severity of this crisis is probably somewhere between the dire predictions of the Feds and the “screw Wall Street” attitude of the public. But how ironic is it that now, when we most likely really DO have a crisis on our hands, the members of Bush’s party refuse to believe him and take action?

Which brings to mind another observation: yes, an unaccountable and greedy government and Wall Street definitely must take a large part of the blame. BUT SO MUST MAIN STREET. Their mindset of take while the taking is good has been just as culpable. Not only has the government been irresponsibly spending money it doesn’t have, but so too have individuals. What is the average American’s credit card debt? $10,000? $20,000? When offered a mortgage that seems too good to be true (damn the small writing that makes those mortgage payments double, even triple, in three to five years), Joe and Jane signed on the dotted line without first doing their homework.

So now Joe and Jane want a bailout too. I do believe that after all of these years of trickle DOWN economics, we should try the trickle UP sort. So start with the public, instead of Wall Street. But know, that just as their must be CONSEQUENCES for greed based, stupid behavior on the monumental scale of the government or corporation, so there must be CONSEQUENCES on an individual basis. It is just like a bratty kid who, in order to change his horrible behavior, must suffer some consequences followed by consistent vigilance.

So of course, help out the average American. Give him some peace of mind by raising the FDIC insurance on bank accounts to $250,000. Do away with some of those taxes that unfairly hit the middle class. But by all means, do not remove all the consequences of his naive, if not greedy, behavior that got him into this predicament in the first place. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. If the government and corporations need to be accountable for their irresponsible behavior, so must the average American.

Let us institute new regulations to stem the possibility of future debacles and do our best to enforce them. For the short term let us indeed put into place those policies that would safeguard our economy and financial well-being. But the greed and foolhardiness, exhibited on a governmental, corporate and individual level can not, MUST NOT be totally erased. Some pain must remain, some consequences must result.

The government, big business AND the regular American must work together on these issues. The American taxpayers must be included on the debate and policy formation, not just handed the bill for it. When that happens, IF that happens, maybe the resulting shared responsibility can lead to shared goals and shared prosperity. Or at least, government, corporate and individual solvency. I would settle for solvency, wouldn’t you?
The goose would, and so should the gander.

The sickening views or -- LACK OF THEM -- of Sarah Palin are astounding. Even I, an amateur, formed political opinions after honing them over decades. The opinions I maintain have been determined after much study, much interest and a HUGE amount of continuous reasoning. I did much study in college but continued that study life long. My opinions, too, required standing on the shoulders of many giants who make up authoritative thought on different sides of the political debate. How a Vice Presidential candidate could be SO ignorant and so unable to enunciate a complexity of thought or of any thought is incredible to me.

Some of the questions she was asked could have been finessed easily. She was asked what Supreme Court cases she considers important BESIDES Roe v. Wade. She could not answer. I would have thought the FIRST Supreme Court case for her could have been Bush v. Gore. This case is probably the rationale that she is running on the McCain ticket today.

How about Marbury v. Madison? Any student of government knows this was THE landmark case during the nascent years of our nation in 1803 which made possible the right of judicial review and established the Supreme Court as an interpreter of our Constitution. There are, of course, EASY ones known to high school students such as the Dred Scott Decision reinforcing our most long-lasting racial divide which lead eventually to the Civil War, one of our country's most defining moments.

I thought of the 1962 decision of Baker v. Carr which began the judicial mandate of one person one vote. I also thought of Griswold v. Connecticut establishing a right to privacy not specifically enumerated in the Constitution. Of course, one of the MOST important landmark cases Brown v. Board of Education which overturned the long standing separate but equal decision of Plessy v. Fergusson she SURELY should have known. These cases are basic to the foundation of our Republic. CERTAINLY a vice presidential candidate should know them and it is nothing less than staggering that she knew none.

MOST unbelievably, though, she could NOT name MAGAZINES when Couric asked her which ones she read. At least she COULD have said Time Magazine or Newsweek. Okay, maybe the New Yorker or the Atlantic would be too liberal or Reason Magazine, Foreign Affairs or Le Monde would be a bit cerebral. HOWEVER, Sarah Palin is a Vice Presidential candidate one heart beat away! Perhaps she could have said the conservative National Review reflecting her own alleged point of view. Maybe she does read Field and Stream. What does that magazine have to do with being a Vice Presidential candidate? It has as much to do with being a VP candidate as the foreign policy experience she said Alaska's geographical proximity to Russia gave her. I rest my case.

The following is a post written by my cousin. It says it all. I wholeheartedly concur and hope she is correct. Sarah Palin/Joe Biden debate here we come. I cannot wait!

Taking Back America: Over the last eight years, Bush/Cheney and their Republican cohorts have stolen this country from us. Last night we got a piece of it back.

The first Presidential debate of 2008 showed an urgent need for a forward-looking, future-oriented America. Obama is our future, knows it and will win the fight to take back our country for the benefit of our own people. As part and parcel of this process, America will have a renaissance at home in areas of its economy, heath care benefits and ethics reform. Once we take care of ourselves here at home, out international viability will automatically regrow in stature. Strength on the home front is an absolute prerequisite to strength abroad.

As far as content went last night at the debate, both men did well. One’s opinion hinges on whether or nor not one is backward looking or forward looking. This “tie” is a win for Obama, because many people thought he would not be able to hold a candle to McCain’s foreign affairs experience. Obama did a whole lot more than just hold a candle; he wiped up the floor with McCain’s outdated vision of world events. And for the record, Henry Kissinger DID say that we should have a sit-down with Iran:

http://www.democracyarsenal.org/2008/09/iran.html

War is outmoded. War not only destroys globally, but also decimates the aggressor domestically. The time has come to use our brains, our reasoning capacities, to effect changes for peace. THAT is our future. Barack Obama demonstrated last night the capacity to LEARN, to use his incredibly evolved intellect to soak up the facts and then apply them to affect change. McCain is of the old school. a student of the past. He refused to even look at Obama directly last night. McCain did not say Obama’s name once. An issue can not be solved by ignoring it, by making believe that it does not exist. That is isolationist, not peace-fostering. These actions are indicative of a philosophy of the past, not of the future.

As for the follow-up festivities to the debate, they too were representative of the old versus the new, the past versus the future. Biden was a participant in many post-debate interviews; Palin was nowhere to be found and yet, people still believe that she is qualified to be a heartbeat away from the Presidency. In her stead, the Republicans offered up Guiliani, the hatchet man, reminiscent of Bob Dole when he ran for the Presidency (his antics didn’t get him very far either in that run). The past versus the future.

So good job, Obama. Keep on studying, speaking and laying down the foundation for our future. Your reasoning ability, coolness in the face of adversity and realistic conciliatory demeanor will lead the way . You are a man of the future, not of the past.

The time has come to TAKE BACK AMERICA!

A Question of Heroism: John McCain cares about one thing...John McCain. Is he a hero? I am not so quick to accept propaganda that comes out of extreme nationalism. Our country, as most all nations do, commits certain atrocities which cannot be denied. American exceptionalism in many cases is illusory. Vietnam was one such instance. How wonderful, how heroic was it to drop a ton of explosives on a people killing about a million, defoliating their country to save them from what was a civil dispute? Now they trade with us. So what was that war for?It was for nothing and got nearly 60,000 Americans and one million Vietnamese killed as well. I do NOT see dropping tons of bombs on people who cannot defend themselves as heroic. I see it as unnecessarily risky as well as immoral and I see it as putting us in the mess internationally we are in today. We MUST control our power. Our military power kills. As we go to Starbucks, Wall Mart or a movie we do not see the mess we make. John McCain refused to refuse to drop bombs in Vietnam in that era and voted in this era to fund the Iraq War our nation's present day Vietnam quagmire. The probable perpetual war as the US stays in Iraq, as McCain would have it, a thousand years will cost trillions and millions of ruined lives.

Our actions have consequences. While I understand McCain's suffering and loath anyone suffer what he did, our nation cannot call the proverbial kettle black. In my opinion, it would have been more heroic had John McCain come out in vehement opposition, as John Kerry did, to a war that cost so much, killed so many and was ultimately waged for no damn good reason. Just my opinion.

Postpone the Debate? Phooey: I emphatically state my unequivocal opposition to the utter brazenness of the McCain campaign to postpone the debate. Postpone the debate are you kidding me? To when exactly should we postpone it? Perhaps the debate will ultimately take the place of a SarahPalin/Joe Biden debate since Sarah Palin is so stunningly unqualified for the presidency. The fear, of course, is that she would be demolished in a debate with a seasoned Joe Biden. We do not need a fast learner we need a knower now of the issues?

Obviously, it does not take genius to realize what John McCain is doing as his poll numbers sink. Yet again and again and again John McCain's decisions show just why John McCain does not put country first. From his decision to put Sarah Palin, a colossally, incompetent choice for the number 2 presidential spot to John McCain's suspension of his campaign under the guise of national emergency, John McCain shows he puts country last. May I remind John McCain he is NOT the president. Barack Obama so eloquently enunciated the truth yesterday. He said this is PRECISELY the time in which Americans should and, indeed, MUST see the stuff of which their presidential candidates are made. It is EXACTLY in times of upheaval or crisis that the American public should know exactly who they are getting. This country has gone through many crises during presidential campaigns and the country's agenda continued. May I remind Senator McCain of the Lincoln/Douglas debates. Lincoln danced to the music despite our country's cacophonous discord.

Shame on John McCain as he yet again must think that the American public is utterly ignorant. Yesterday, as Barack Obama spoke of our country's economic woes and as he stood steadfast that he would be there to debate, I truly saw him as presidential. If I had any doubts before they are erased now. The final vote, for me, will be cast after the University of Mississippi debate. I have no doubt who is the better more presidential of the two candidates especially if the Republican candidate's chair is empty!

The Mad Men of Wall Street: "Mad Men" is a popular television series which takes place in the early 1960s'. It is about the people in the New York City Madison Ave. advertising firm fictionally called Sterling Cooper. I love this series for many reasons not the least of which is that I experienced the early 60's and understand the cultural context of that era. There is, in the beginning of each episode, foreboding and ominously sad introductory music. Its sad and haunting melody shows with it a business-suited man in cartoon form falling out of a skyscraper. The song has something musicologists call "chromatic descent" that is it contains notes which move from high notes to low notes a half step at a time. This is indicative, some say, of death.

The song of Mad Men, therefore, is a metaphor for a kind of internal death the characters feel in their me-first, empty, back-biting world. I thought, though, this metaphor applied to the death Wall Street today as it melts down in its own toxic stew. The concept of rugged individualism, the bricks upon which our economic culture is built stirred into a pot where government allows business a free hand without regulatory restraint may be, incredulously enough, the cause of our system's own demise. In a laissez faire system the individual is paramount and the group is cared about only in so far as it can help the individual achieve his ends of money and power. Business regulation by government is to be crushed at all costs. When big business is in trouble, though, now it seems it counts on those whom it does not care a wit about to help restore its confidence. Truly, though, if someone does not care about me why should I care about him? In the wonderful F. Scott Fitzgerald novel which spoke so much to the culture pre the Great Depression with its tremendous material excesses and economic anarchy relevant today, the narrator says of Daisy Buchanan and the 20's rapacious culture in which she lives -- "they smash things and then leave others to clean it up." Yet again, history repeats.

Death is the one thing we will all do alone but in our marketplace filled with other beings we are not units and, indeed, should not be loners. All of us, including the very leaders of our ecoomic opulence, should be in this together. Now, at the moguls' greatest hour of need they rely on us, everyman, to bail them out. Who will bail the everyman out? Will Washington bail us out? No, Bush, with John McCain's consent, remember made bankruptcy even harder for individuals but easier for the corporation. The ones who have most all the money depend on those who do not to free them from debt. We all know, too, these company CEO's will have their golden parachutes to create for them a soft landing. Millions upon millions of dollars have been given to them when they leave the company before and after the company fails and then they simply walk away. Where is our paracute though? Where is our safety net? What happens to us the little guy when his home is foreclosed or his retirement is non-existent? What happens when he takes to the street, lives out of his car in a flop house or even a tent? Where will his children go? Unfortunatelly, not many moguls or those in the seats of government power seem to care.

No matter who is in power, when the state or the corporation does not consider the needs of its people who help create its success it is doomed. Wall Street needs, above all, ethics, regulatory guardians and the will to care about more than just themselves. A partner at a large business for which I once worked many years ago said to me that the other partners in the business resented having to pay the support staff they depended on to make their company run. They, he said, hated to pay them because they were their company's biggest expense. I never forgot that. It mattered not that without these necessary cogs in the wheel of their car their car would not run. That, is the problem. The culture of our business philosophy from the very beginning of our country's history makes the worker feel utterly devalued while his hard efforts make the moguls of that company very very rich. Where is the fairness in that? There is none and there will be no smooth sailing in the ship of state that does not care equally about the group as much as it does about the individuals who possess most of the money and power.

When it's dog eat dog every man for himself world, one dog will eat the bone and leave nothing for the rest of the pack. If this country does not change its logo and care about whether the masses live or die and not simply pay transparent lip service during a presidential campaign it just may end up causing our country's death as well. I greet next week with fear and trepidation as I wonder who will care about me.

A Disaster Waiting to Happen: Placing John McCain and Sarah Palin into office is utterly impossible to comprehend. The qualification of the Democratic ticket is so far and above what the Republican party can offer it extends into the stratosphere. The Republican party has shown its true face over and over again. Some part of the American public fails to see. Voting Republican, for all but a tiny few of the very wealthy, is national suicide. Here is a party who has maintained power over the last eight years, touting the glories of a free market economy but has created one of the worst financial debacles in the modern history. Now all of a sudden they are willing to suspend the cerebral high of its free market philosophy and happily take what could be a trillion bucks from us, the taxpayer, to bail out Wall Street. The blunderings of the financial sector with a nod from a Republican Washington could now, if left unregulated, lead to not only systemic recession but to a worldwide Depression as well. Keep electing those men behind the curtain. They want us to THINK they are country first but they are really themselves first and country last.

Phil Gramm, one of John McCain's dearest friends and advisers and possible Treasury Secretary if McCain should win, has been advocate and architect supreme for the deregulation of the financial industry. According to journalist David Corn in the July/August edition of Mother Jones magazine "in 1999, Gramm pushed through a historic banking deregulation bill that decimated Depression-era firewalls between commercial banks, investment banks, insurance companies, and securities firms. ... But Gramm's most cunning coup on behalf of his friends in the financial services industry was slipping in a 262-page measure called the Commodity Futures Modernization Act, written with the help of financial industry lobbyists." This has been a huge factor in our current financial mess. In addition, as McCain has said many times he "doesn't really understand economics." He would probably rely on those foxes who guard our very vulnerable chicken coop to monitor our money. McCain is about people like McCain and people who would advise him are a mirror reflection of him.

Stir into this toxic brew the extraordinarily unqualified Sarah Palin one heart beat away from this elder presidential hopeful, well, the ramifications are more than catastrophic. This No. 2 woman on the ticket touts openness but she and her cronies, including her husband, refuse subpoenas, go against the law and do not testify before the Alaska legislature on a subject matter about which she heretofore said she would have no problem openly discussing. What does openly mean? It means have Washington high power Republican attorneys shut down the information before the presidential election because ethics and other violations possibly committed in Alaska by Governor Palin might prove dangerous to the McCain/Palin ticket. Why won't they testify if they have nothing to fear on a so called-by-them trivial matter. How many times do we need to see the flagrant abuse of the law? How many times can a party get away with illegalities? How many times will it pull the wool over the eyes of a public not wanting to see? There are no appropriate words in our English language to describe the disaster of the Bush years and yet more years to follow if the McCain/Palin ticket succeeds.

If the McCain/Palin incompetents are elected we will shake our heads in dismay once again and think how on earth did we get into this same mess yet another time. Now the lives at stake, though, may be our very own.

The following is an opinion on our potential if not already occurring economic near collapse and the disastrous Bush/McCain policies. It was written by a relative of mine whose particular specialty is economics and knows FAR more than I on the subject. Feel free to forward to whomever you choose especially if they are on the fence or live in states of Ohio, Florida, Michigan, New Hampshire. Her analysis:


Buckle Up:

It will be a wild ride to day when the financial markets open.

The last eight years, the Bush Administration, has “led” our country with irresponsible abandon both abroad and at home. The war in Iraq was entered into based on a lie and then carried out without forethought or management as to rebuilding and withdrawal. All of this with government experts and appointees who were going to guide us correctly. [McCain voted with Bush on the war] The President has no taste for details and his judgment of personnel was atrocious. All of this AND we have the loss of almost 4500 of our troops. Then, when injured and maimed soldiers arrive home, they are faced with a lack of medical care and mental counseling. Fact: the National Guard forces, who enlisted thinking that their service would be in this country in times of domestic emergencies, have NO MEDICAL COVERAGE for their sustained injuries in Iraq once they arrive home. So Bush, do not talk to me about the patriotism and honor of our troops. Put your money where your mouth is and get these kids better.Furthermore, our international reputation, in the past coming from a real position of strength, is in shambles. Not only is out reputation shot, but our actual standing and influence has dwindled to a slow drip. [McCain voted with Bush 90% of the time including on health aid for our troops]

On the home front, what a disaster! I have written in the past how the Republican’s policies of deregulation will be the downfall of our economy. Buckle up. By reckless policies starting in the lending industry, we have seen repercussions in the real estate market, the banking industry, the investment industry ad infinitum. The lack of oversight, described by Republicans as “capitalism” at work, has hit America in its heartland and will take years to reverse.

Bush, and now McCain, like to use catchwords such as “patriotism” and “honor” as the basis for all their policies, both international and domestic. They never speak of the necessary DETAILS that must underlie possible solutions. Is that because they just have a distaste for any thinking, or are they not at all concerned about finding solutions?

Even those that tutored Palin for her interview with Charlie Gibson taught her big girl words, but as for real details of America’s problems and possible antidotes, well, that seems to be below those who are seeking office. The attainment of office appears to be the end goal.

The Bush administration has essentially raped our foreign policy of any meaning, and is now, through its ignorance of any real economic policy, dismantling our national economy. There has been no oversight, no forethought of what our current deregulation might bring, and then a denial of disaster once the bottom fell out of the markets. Once again, as long as Bush and now McCain get to keep their high office, once Big Oil gets to keep their obscene profits, and once the arms corporations get to make their trillions based on a trumped up war, then and only then is this country described as “the best”.

It is all a facade, a masquerade. Our foreign allies realize this now and our educated masses are aware of this greedy winner-take-all government. However, irony of ironies, it is the downtrodden in this country who are bucking the facts. They think “patriotism” and “honor” will put food on their tables, get them jobs, provide them with heath insurance and put gas in their cars.

Barack Obama, in a sad statement for this country’s present standing, might just have the opportunity of the ages to put back together out international standing and out national economy. What might be needed is a complete overhaul, just like FDR did with the New Deal. I know one thing for sure: that the “old deal” has come apart at the seams. For the life of me, I can not imagine why Obama wants this job. But I believe that he is up to it. I believe he can reinstate out international strength and our domestic viability.

One small example of the conning of Americans by Republicans: McCain came out today and said that his lack of knowledge of computers and technology is due to his disability in his hand stemming from injuries suffered while he was a POW. Isn’t it a fact that senators receive quite a number of administrative assistants who actually do the typing? McCain has taken a hand injury and elevated it into a philosophy of technological stupidity and ignorance. A useless hand has turned into an even more useless brain.

I am going to check on the financial markets now. Buckle up. It is going to be a bumpy ride.

The Perils of Palin: Sarah Palin's ear-piercing but insufficient responses to Charles Gibson's introduction to foreign policy questions were astounding. What astounds me, however, is not the fact that she did not know what was meant by the Bush Doctrine, the foundation of the Bush administration's foreign policy fiascoes for the last eight years. I am astounded that John McCain's first most important decision especially due to his age and bouts with cancer, was the choice of Sarah Palin for the number two spot on the Republican ticket. I am stunned how a man whose campaign motto is "Country First" could put his country last. I understand how the average person might not know the answer to the Bush Doctrine question but I do not understand how a vice-presidential candidate running with a man whose actuarial chances of dying in office are fairly high does not know the answer to that question. It is further indication of my belief, that she knows absolutely nothing about foreign policy issues.

She would, no less, if she felt it justified, go to war with Russia over Georgia. Is she kidding me? Given George Bush's debacle in Iraq and Afghanistan, our forays now into the Pakistan border, compounded by our current economic crises this country does not have the army, the manpower, the money nor the national will to invade yet another country and court a massive confrontational war with a gargantuan Russia. Sarah Palin would take us to war at the bat of her blinking eyelashes and have her fingers on the nuclear button to boot.

Further, it would be laughable, if it were not so devastatingly important to the security of our nation, to think that both John McCain and Sarah Palin think that geographical proximity to Russia entitles them to say Sarah Palin has foreign policy experience. That is like saying I have medical experience because I can see Metrowest Hospital through my window.

This nation is in serious existential trouble if McCain/Palin prevail in November. Think about the fact of more war and the necessity that that would ultimately mean for the re-institution of the draft. Your sons AND daughters would have to go to war. If the aged and infirm McCain is unable to fulfill his role as president, would YOU want a Sarah Palin foreign policy novice extraordinaire to determine the life or death of your child? Sarah Palin is outrageously unqualified to be Vice President much less President if the situation should arise.