Barack Obama is a very intelligent man.  Which is why his invitation of Rick Warren is such a confusing move.  Its his latest fuck you note pinned to the hope that swept him into office  (Jesus’ General has a short and brilliant synopsis).  It would also appear to be a fundamentally naive misunderstanding of what Rick Warren represents.  Rick Warren is an ultra conservative Christian who is actively working to put a mainstream spin on fundamentalist ideas.  As Lindsey Beyerstein notes:

Giving Warren even more mainstream cred is not just a cost-free nod to evangelicals. It’s a boost for someone who actively opposes Obama’s agenda and who is eager to influence secular affairs.

That mainstream cred may be cost-free to the evangelicals, but it comes at a deadly cost to the LGBT community…

Read More…

Posted under News, Politics, Religion, Sexuality

“Union boss” is a common epithet used by people who despise unions, seek to weaken unions, or are involved in a particular anti-union campaign. Despite my having observed many campaigns against the leadership of a particular union, and once having participated in such a campaign, I have not heard the term “union boss” used by union members who acknowledge the value of unions, no matter how bitterly antagonistic their relationship with the union leadership.

This suggests that “union boss” is a term of abuse and/or propaganda, not of analysis. My question here: are there circumstances in which the term is legitimately used?

Read More…

Posted under Culture, Economy, Politics, Uncategorized

The controversial Reverand Wright was uninvited on account of his inflammatory sermons.  Pam Spaulding wonders why Rick Warren won’t be:

So apparently Wright can be given the hook when Obama’s doing political risk assessment, but not Rick Warren. You can draw your own conclusions as to why it’s now possible, even in light of the incredible mother lode of evidence of the extreme anti-gay views of Rick Warren, that Barack Obama doesn’t feel politically inconvenienced enough to dump the Saddleback bigot.

Two reasons jump out at me.  One, that team Obama expects Warren to behave during the inauguration.  The idea is for a voice of the religious right to champion causes he shares with the incoming administration.  Obama is consensus building.  Which leads us into the second reason. Obama isn’t a liberal, no matter how fiercely he was championed by liberals (myself included) and vilified by conservatives.  He is a centrist (albeit an unusually pragmatic one with definite liberal leanings).  As such he has a much wider and more optimistic view of “his base”.  Barack Obama wants to bring evangelicals to the table.  By bringing one of their own to the stage and emphasizing where they are natural allies, perhaps he believes he’ll be able to bridge the many gaps between religious conservatives and the political mainstream.

Since there isn’t likely to be an uninvite with all that at stake, time will tell how well this move plays out.  From the painful experience of being a Democratic, Obama is supremely unlikely to mollify the religious conservative leadership no matter how much he reaches out.  But perhaps this one symbolic act in January will speak the rank and file faithful louder than their conservative religious leadership’s weekly sermons and daily rants.  Perhaps it will be worth the alienating the people who worked so hard to get him into office.

Posted under Politics, Religion

President Bush’s actions since November 4th represent a desperate attempt to defend the status quo at all costs.  With voters so overwhelmingly going for change, his actions go directly against the clear will of the American people.  This begs the question: “Why do we have a lame duck President?”.

Prior to 1933 we had a lame duck Presidency for an even longer period of time.  The passage of the 20th ammendment shortened that period considerably to reflect the then modern changes in our electoral process.  There is no reason we cannot make such a change again.

The last minute laws and appointments President Bush is making no longer have the legitimacy of the vote behind them.  The simplest solution isn’t reforming the appointment process (although one would expect that contrary to Musgrave’s opinion, increasing the executive’s power to fire rather than hire would be the common sense move), it is removing or drastically reducing the period in which lame ducks have the opportunity to oppose the will of the people.

Posted under Politics

I am proud to live in Obama’s America too. Long time coming. Let’s work together now to bring us back into the international fold.

- Steve, November 4, 2008

There are many lessons to be learned from the recent U.S. Presidential election – but many more lessons commentators claim we have learned.  It’s been a month since the election, and it’s time to look back with some perspective.

• It was a historic election – this should not be understated.  A Black man was elected to the highest office in a country where 2nd-class citizenship and economic inequality was written into our laws just 55 years ago.  A woman was a serious competitor for the candidacy of one of two major parties in a country where gender inequality is still rampant and largely unaddressed.  This represents progress along racial and gender lines.
• It was a historic election – but this should not be overstated.  Despite the competitive candidacies of a person of color and a woman, racial and gender disparities are real and ongoing.  They are not merely anecdotal, but devastatingly economic.  The average white household made $48k last year; the average Black household made $30k.  The fact of Obama as president is not going to close that gap. Read More…

Posted under Culture, Economy, Politics

Hundreds of laid-off factory workers are organized and protesting in Chicago. They have occupied the Republic Windows and Doors factory where they worked and plan to remain there until they receive what’s theirs–vacation and severance pay.

Union leaders say the company failed to give workers the 60 days’ notice required by federal law, and that its bank, Bank of America, barred Republic from paying for the 60-day period or for vacations. The leaders also criticized a Wall Street bailout they say is leaving laborers behind.

“We’re doing something we haven’t done since the 1930s, so we’re trying to make it work,” declared Leah Fried, an organizer with the United Electrical Workers.

From the New York Times:

Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois said from the shuttered plant that he would talk to fellow senators about reminding banks that taxpayer dollars are not for dividends or executive salaries.

”We have been sending billions of dollars to banks like Bank of America and the reason we have sent them the money is to tell them that they had to loan this money out to companies just like Republic so that we can keep these companies in business and not lose these jobs here in the United States,” he said.

The governor, meanwhile, said the state plans to pursue a court injunction Tuesday to make sure federal law is followed in giving workers benefits. And state Attorney General Lisa Madigan was investigating the company.

Nezua at The Unapologetic Mexican writes a little about “how this type of strike has long been a function of Latin American worker solidarity” and also points out some of the ways that The New York Times coverage of the story quietly continues to change (their first on-line publication noted that “Most of the factory’s workers are Hispanic.”) Hmm.

In a positive turn of events, Obama has expressed support for the workers.

Posted under Economy, Politics

I’m studying for exams and trying to finish a major paper all in the next few weeks. So instead of posting something original I’ll just post this letter I wrote to the editor of my school paper, and add a comment or two.

This past week was Palestine Awareness Week, when members of Students for Justice in Palestine worked to present facts and viewpoints that run counter to the traditional negative portrayals of Palestinians. As part of the effort, the organization created posters presenting facts about the Israel-Palestine conflict that would surprise most Americans, like facts illustrating the enormous disparities in military strength between the Israeli army and the Palestinian people, and between the magnitude of the crimes committed by Israel against the Palestinians and those committed by the Palestinians against Israelis.

Read More…

Posted under Culture, History, Politics

Via The Ethicurean, here’s a short but interesting segment from NPR about the rural U.S. and what a new administration can and should do for the people that live there. Though rural reform is often thought to be all about new agricultural policies, the rural U.S. needs that and more.

“Reality … for most rural people is that farming is not how we make our living,” says Dee Davis of the Center for Rural Strategies, a Kentucky-based group that tries to attract attention to rural issues. “You’ve only got about 1 percent of rural America making their primary living on the farm. So what’s important is to think about those other 99 percent and what’s possible for them.”

Many rural Americans are challenged by a rural economy that tanked sooner and deeper than the nation’s economy. Thousands of rural manufacturing jobs have gone overseas. High energy prices have made food and long commutes more expensive. And most rural places are losing population.

So while quick agricultural reform is an increasingly urgent necessity, it must be implemented alongside others as well to have a significant and long-lasting effect on rural communities.

“Internet access is not just for watching YouTube. It’s an instrument of commerce and education,” Kozikowski says.

In fact, rural areas lag behind cities and suburbs in access to broadband, making economic growth more difficult. Kozikowski also wants attention given to the basic infrastructure of asphalt and concrete. “Bringing us into the age of technology for new commerce and educational opportunity doesn’t mean anything if you can’t bring your product across a safe road or bridge.”

Both moves would help “overcome the friction of distance. Or overcome the costs that are associated with distance to these locations,” as Gimpel puts it. He wants the new administration to recognize something else fundamental about rural life: “Key to the rural economy really is the notion of self-employment. Self-employment is much higher in rural America than it is anywhere else,” he says.

Davis also points out that there are many exciting possibilities for incorporating rural areas into new economic recovery plans for the entire country, focusing mainly on their potential for growing renewable energies systems and economies.

“We don’t have to think of rural as a deficit. We can think of it as a strength,” Davis says. “We can think of it as the way to begin to reimagine our economy.”

Can, and should.

Posted under Economy, Politics

UMass Amherst Green Energy Conference

I’m at the Mass Mutual Center in Springfield, MA, attending the “Clean Energy Connections” Conference, put together by the University of Massachusetts Amherst (my school). The topic is the new “green economy” – what it is, why we need it, and examples of what it will look like in the future.

The introductory talk was given by Bracken Hendricks, from the Center for American Progress (a Washington Think Tank) and also an advisor to Prez-Elect Obama.  He made some good (and by now, obvious) points, but as he went through the list of economic and environmental benefits of renewable energy, rewiring the grid, building insulation, the crux of what he was saying (that he outright came to in his conclusion) is that the primary reason that our species (and many others) face extinction is the failure of political leadership.  No doubt he’s correct – the effect of carbon dioxide on the atmosphere has been understood by chemists since the early twentieth century, creation of cars with much higher fuel efficiency has been around for at least 40 years, and basic technology to insulate housing has been around since, well, since people used mud to keep the heat in their huts.

What has quickly become a cliche, Hendricks slapped the iconic red, white and blue image of Obama with the subtitle “HOPE” and “PROGRESS” on the screen, and proceeded to talk about how the country is “turning a new corner”, how the new president allows a “window to the future”, and generally how hopeful he was about the future.  But although he is likely unrealistic about Obama’s capacity to bring sufficient change, he did repeat what I’ve heard (thankfully) from many folks on the left side of the spectrum: We must “hold him [Obama] accountable” to the change that’s contained in the promise of his campaign.  I’m not sure who “we” is, and I’m not sure by what mechanism we have the ability to hold him accountable, but I’m grateful for this small bit of healthy cynicism when referring to the next president.

Other notes of interest from the conference:

• There’s no such thing as “green job” – building and installing wind turbines, photovoltaic panels, solar hot water heaters, installing insulation, and the many other direct and indirect forms of energy conservation and renewability needs accountants, secretaries, IT professionals, managers, and everything else we currently have.  The folks involved in installing and manufacturing might need some training or retraining, but moving to a greener economy does not mean a revolution in how we “do” stuff.  It’s just about changing the impact of what we do.
• The coming greening of the economy – that is, making energy consumption cleaner, more efficient, and utilizing renewable energy – is inevitable.  As one of the speakers mentioned, there’s too much money to be made in the private sector, particularly given the rising price of petroleum and the risks associated with it, to stop investment and innovation in better energy.  The more important question is: Are we going to green our lifestyles just enough to improve the traditional economy, or are we going to green our world enough to prevent the longer term devastation of global warming?
• Growth DOES NOT EQUAL prosperity.  As one of the speakers on a financial panel pointed out, “growing” does not mean we’re going to be better off, it just means that someone, somewhere, is reaping higher profits.  The type of growth that we do, as a country, is important – and the type of growth that has been aspired to has brought us to a dead-end, time and time again.  We need a shift in how we gain wealth, work, and spend money.
• The question of the daunting costs of installing solar panels and other technology came up in the financial panel, and the prospect of taking on debt to facilitate such an investment.  While solar panels are likely still beyond the capacity of many folks, it was pointed out that there are two types of debt: (1) consumer debt that’s used to buy stuff, and (2) self-liquidating debt, that is used to invest in something that will eventually give you a return on an investment.  The debt of type (1) is “bad” debt, which has unfortunately been keeping our economy afloat more and more, whereas debt of type (2) is “good” debt – debt that in the long run produces wealth, returns the cost of the investment, and largely benefits society overall.  Debt of type (2) are things like college loans, home equity loans, and so forth.  Moving from type (1) to type (2) is going to be essential for any sustainable economy.

That’s it for now!

Posted under Economy, Politics

First, apologies for neglecting my duties here at Revolutionary Act last week; I was busy with school stuff and family visits. But on to more important things…

Last week, The Rolling Stone published an article on the Wall Street bailout by an author I think is always well worth the read: Naomi Klein. Klein examines the deals made in the immediate aftermath of the U.S.’ most recent economic disaster and contextualizes them. She points out that the orchestration of the bailout is fundamentally the same as that of the Iraq War and its “rebuilding.” Both adhere to the rules of the Shock Doctrine and allow private contractors to profit from the crises they’ve helped to create*. Again, even if you think you already understand how the meltdown came to be, what’s at stake, and why it will take a long, long time to see real results, I recommend always taking what Naomi Klein has to say into consideration. An excerpt:

It didn’t have to be this way. Five days before Paulson struck his deal with the banks, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown negotiated a similar bailout — only he extracted meaningful guarantees for taxpayers: voting rights at the banks, seats on their boards, 12 percent in annual dividend payments to the government, a suspension of dividend payments to shareholders, restrictions on executive bonuses, and a legal requirement that the banks lend money to homeowners and small businesses.

In sharp contrast, this is what U.S. taxpayers received: no controlling interest, no voting rights, no seats on the bank boards and just five percent in dividend payouts to the government, while shareholders continue to collect billions in dividends every quarter. What’s more, golden parachutes and bonuses already promised by the banks will still be paid out to executives — all before taxpayers are paid back.

And a question:

This raises an interesting point: Has the Treasury partially nationalized the private banks, as we have been told? Or is it the other way around? Is it Treasury that has been partially privatized by Wall Street, its massive rescue plan now entirely in the hands of a private bank it is directly subsidizing?

Read the rest here.

*Read her book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism if you can and haven’t already!

Posted under Economy, Politics