domesticana

Why He's Winning

I have to share this terrific article in Time Magazine by Joe Klein titled, Why Obama is Winning. Klein describes key moments he feels predict how Obama will realistically and effectively lead our country. An underlying theme in this piece illustrates Obama's intellectualism, his ability to learn and adapt and his superior understanding of economics and the challenges facing our nation.

If you haven't read it, please do. If you know people who are on the fence, please encourage them to read it. We need this man.

Voting Fraud. Nothing we can do about it?

After white-knuckling my way through HBO's award-winning movie, Recount, which manages to portray the 2000 election's Florida recount as a gripping and suspenseful story (despite the fact that we all know how that one turned out), I was incredibly disheartened to read this piece by Marty Kaplan about voter registration fraud and sabotage.

"Josef Stalin is reputed to have said, "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." I think he had it half right. Those who decide who cast the votes also decide everything."

What can we do? Is there any recourse? It seems hopeless.

Yesterday during my jog, I listened to a Bill Maher podcast from the Real Time episode (9/19/08) where Andrew Sullivan, Naomi Klein and will.i.am were discussing the huge part race will play in this election. A great episode, by the way. They all agreed that Obama needs at least a 5-7 point lead in the polls on election day just to break even and overcome the racial prejudice that will play out in the privacy of the voting booth. The odds are so tight—it's staggering.

I feel like all we can do is hope McCain/Palin continue to slip, and the public really wakes up and starts to take notice. And doesn't that feel pathetic. Do we really need a landslide to get Obama into the White House? It sure looks that way.

Schelp!

Sarah Silverman wants you to threaten your grandparents...

The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.

A Risk We Can't Afford

First off, I promise to return to less inflammatory posting soon. But for now, I can't help myself!

After reading through the first hundred or so comments on the latest political post from dooce, I found a link to this objective commentary about whether we can afford elect a woman who can look Americans in the eye and say that her proximity to Russia makes her an experienced foreign policy administrator to the White House.

According to this presentation, Palin is a wildcard, but I don't agree with that assessment. The word wildcard suggests we don't know enough about her to determine her likely positions and actions as VP and even, all gods forbid, President. I think there is a lot of evidence to suggest that she isn't in the habit of making informed decisions after careful consideration, that she doesn't consider our planet's health above or even remotely equal to the wealth of the special interest groups and corporations that are poisoning it, that she believes she is anointed from God to assist in bringing about the end of days...I could go on and on.

In this time of religious extremism informing global security, extreme economic meltdown, unprecedented executive power and constitutional freedoms erosion, can we honestly say that her beliefs, coupled with her vast lack of experience, are a safe bet for our future and our children's future. I hope people will refuse to gamble on those misearble odds.

Debates & Bailouts

This latest ploy to postpone tomorrow's debate seems to have backfired on McCain, but judging from the past few weeks, who knows what people are going to think at this point. I'm constantly stunned that people can watch the limited interviews with Sarah Palin and still think she's ready to be a heartbeat away from the most powerful position on our planet. But continue to support her they do.

Thank you, Obama, for having the balls to call his bluff. Damn straight the president needs to be able to multi-task.

If you look at the logistical nightmare that would result from rescheduling this debate, and at McCain's request to postpone the VP debate as well (isn't it enough that the Dems already agreed to go easy on Palin?), it's clear that this is a very well-crafted political ploy. Postponing these debates ensures that the millions of voters, in swing states no less, who are already casting their absentee ballots will not have a chance to watch a debate before making their decision.

It's sickening.

Excuse me while I ramble just a sec...

I was reminded last week of my infertility diagnosis when the doctor told me that I had no other options but in vitro, and how I immediately took her word as gospel despite knowing of countless other options I had not yet exhausted. All this despite the endless misdiagnoses I've witnessed my husband receive and the empowerment we've felt in finding alternatives that work.

It's natural that we look to our leaders, our trusted elites, to tell us how to fix things in a crisis. It's deeply ingrained in all of us.

When Paulson, Bernanke and Bush unveiled their bailout plan amid extreme fear of economic collapse and global insecurity, America said, "Oh shit, we'd better do what they say." At this point, I don't believe many Americans are doubting whether this has been one of the most corrupt administrations in history, which has time and again fed us lies to enact sweeping, unprecedented changes to the freedoms of our nation and its people.

No matter how much negotiation is done in Congress this week, these people are working within a box that was constructed by the Bush Administration. We're all bound to get totally screwed. Again.

In Defense of Elitism

I've been neglectful of this blog as life has been blazing full steam ahead for months now, but this morning I realized that my current state of mind needs a place to vent. And where better to express myself...

I have been so wrapped up in this election: the politics, the financial crisis, the choices the candidates are making every single day that speak to their ability to lead our country (and the planet) out of the amazing messes we continue to create. Every day I'm left absolutely stunned by the state of my country.

I just finished reading this piece about Sarah Palin by one of my all-time, favorite intellectual writers, Sam Harris. He articulates so many of my thoughts about the state of this election. Please read it and tell me what you think.

Here's a little snippet:

Watching her deny to Gibson that she had ever harbored the slightest doubt about her readiness to take command of the world's only superpower, one got the feeling that Palin would gladly assume any responsibility on earth:

"Governor Palin, are you ready at this moment to perform surgery on this child's brain?"

"Of course, Charlie. I have several boys of my own, and I'm an avid hunter."

"But governor, this is neurosurgery, and you have no training as a surgeon of any kind."

"That's just the point, Charlie. The American people want change in how we make medical decisions in this country. And when faced with a challenge, you cannot blink."

Subliminal Advertising

It seems McDonald's is doing subliminal advertising now. I wonder if this will become the wave of the future (of if it's been going on for years unbeknownst to me) now that no one needs to watch commercials  anymore.

Guantanamo

Last night we finally watched The Road to Guantanamo, and I have to admit I wasn't nearly as outraged as I expected to be. Yes, the prisoners were tortured and horribly mistreated, but not really to the extent I imagined. And yes, the American soldiers are ignorant. Perhaps I'm just desensitized to torture and stupidity, or maybe my imagination is extreme. Maybe it was the lack of maiming and brutal beating kind of torture. Maybe the hype killed it for me. It's not that I didn't feel sick watching what they went through—I guess I just expected it to be so much worse than what I saw.

Essentially, I thought this was a sad, rather scary story of a particularly unfortunate case of high-stakes mistaken identity.

A  group of privileged, early 20-something Pakistani Brits decided, on a lark, to take a trip into Afghanistan during the U.S. invasion to see if there was any way they could help the refugees. One thing led to another, and they found themselves in the middle of nowhere dodging U.S. bombs and finally being captured. Only three of the original group survived, and eventually they ended up in Guantanamo together. Separate from my sympathies watching all they went through, on some level I understood why they were detained. Certainly not for the length of time they were kept, without being charged or given access to a lawyer, but still. They were ex-pat Pakistani's from the UK found among Taliban rebels in Afghanistan—it's not too hard to see why their interrogators were confused. The fact that they had alibis in the UK points to a breakdown in the communication of "intelligence," and makes their story even more frustrating and sympathetic.

For me, the most disturbing part of the movie came from a Bush sound-byte in which he smugly described the captives being detained at Guantanamo. "They're killers. They don't have the same values as we do." Excuse me? Different values than whom? Americans? Is he talking about Muslims having different values than Christians? Does he only mean followers of the Taliban? Surely he's aware that many of the people detained had nothing to do with the Taliban. Who's his "we"? That statement is so egregiously single-minded. The mere notion, let alone actuality, that the leader of a nation, any nation, could say something so totally, freaking absurd is laughable and very, very scary to me. The fact that it's the leader of my nation makes me very, very embarrassed.

Gadget Lust

I'm not sure I've ever coveted any techno item more than this new phone/iPod/computer in your pocket. Being a Mac user and a fan, I simply cannot believe what they have created. To me, and maybe I'm naive, the availability of this kind of technology seems like a giant leap into the future. I feel giddy (and incidentally, like a big dork).

Apathetically-challenged

Brooke recently posted a link to the World on Fire video by Sarah Mclachlan, and watching it again brought a flood of emotions down on me. It's not simply guilt or shame or incredulity, although all of those feelings certainly come up for me. Mainly I just feel revolted by my own reaction.

I'm not even sure where to start, or how all of these random feelings and thoughts seemed to culminate after watching that video again. I've seen it before, and I felt shocked and saddened--almost uplifted and motivated and then defeated and discouraged about the world in one instant. But part of what makes it so painful to watch a second time, months later, is that I couldn't remember any of it. Initially, I'd guess I spent an hour thinking about it and then I must have completely eradicated it from my memory. It was selfish and self-preserving and disgusting and absolutely normal.

Last week, I watched Goodnight and Good Luck, and I turned it off feeling so frustrated with the world and politics and money and greed and power. A film like that comes out, virtually daring all of us to take stand, take action, make something happen, and nothing changes. We might talk about it momentarily and entertain some notion of grandeur for a few minutes, but, as with this video, the motivations it might stir up are fleeting and no one really gets off their ass.

Last week Matt and I were talking about some recent pieces of news we'd heard: talk of invading Iran, Bush's doctrine of preemption, civil wars, corruption, etc., and we ended up focusing, the way we always do, on the politics of what we do not know or understand. The immense job of being a world super-power, the political and social implications of falling from that position, and the unfathomable amount of information we don't have to make any real statements in support of one decision over another. It's such a helpless, defeating conversation, and it's not the first time we've had it.

The main thing drudging these feelings of disgust to the surface lately is the fact that we're in the midst of a couple noisy legal battles right now. And after what happened with our previous business, I am just feeling so over it all. I wish we didn't have to fight anyone off to get ahead, but despite all our best intentions and moral actions, if we don't fight back we will get trampled. We've worked too hard to get trampled. So we are forced to pour money down the legal drain despite having done absolutely everything "right." It's screwed up.

When I think about politics or societal structure or wealth and power--all of the things that make up this world of ugliness I feel surrounded by lately--I have this little-girl voice in my ear that says, "The world is a big, bad ugly place. Why does it have to be this way?" I have this instinct to hole up in some cabin off the grid and farm and barter my way through life. Just escape all of it. Get really radical in my apathy. But then there's the voice saying, "Stand up and fight back, you wuss."

I'm glad there are artists out there challenging everyone's apathy about the harsh realities of our world.