CNN covered this here: http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/11/04/mccain-claims-obama-will-be-like-castro/

In a very, desparate, last-minute appeal to the most stereotypically knee-jerk issue of Cuban Americans, John McCain is making robo-calls that suggest insist that Castro has endorsed Barack Obama in the election.  The content of the call has a misleading tone of “breaking news” to it, in which a slew of Latin American pariahs (supposedly in the eyes of Cuban-Americans) are associated with Obama.  Perhaps most ludicrous of all is the appeal:

Don’t give Castro what he wants. Go vote right now for John McCain and avoid establishing in the United States political policies like those of Cuba.

“Don’t give Castro what he wants”?  Are they serious? Do they truly believe the people they are targeting are idiots?  After calling Obama a left-wing radical (he isn’t, unfortunately), a socialist (nope, sorry), a “redistributionist” (we wish!) and a host of other presumed political epithets, this is what’s thrown at Obama in the final hour of the campaign?  Message to the GOP: McCarthyism is so 1950′s.

The McCain/Palin camp has spent the last 2-3 months making Barack Obama look good – which, as he is a lukewarm, center-right candidate, is pretty hard to do – because Obama has insisted on talking about actual “issues”, even if it is in the non-specific, abstract fashion that has made him famous.  And Obama’s vague politicking, in comparison with a GOP ticket that does virtually nothing other than mud-slinging, has won the day (barring a massive election theft) in this climate of extraordinary political and economic peril.

Cornel West put it quite succinctly in the below recent clip from the show “Real Time with Bill Maher” (minute 0:50)

Well, for me, it’s just an exciting moment to be alive, when you see that kind of desperation.  It really is.  That’s what it is – it’s the last gasp of the conservative era where the economics of greed, the culture of indifference, and the politics of fear have been brought together in such a way that it hides and conceals the plight of poor people and working people.

Now, Brother West suggests that Barack Obama is at the heart of reversing this trend, which is an extraordinary exaggeration – if not wishful thinking.  Obama has ignored the mudslinging, to his credit and to his advantage.  But just as West tells us that popular movements have to come together to compel Obama to live up to much of his rhetoric (a non-trivial task, to be sure) let us not forget that Senator/President-elect Obama is not a champion of the poor nor the working-class. If there is one glimmer of hope in the future of an Obama presidency, it is that perhaps he can be pushed in that direction.

Posted under Politics

Write to Marry Day!

Arguments in favor of California’s Proposition 8 are a fascinating study in hate apologetics.  Just as with the “life begins at conception” anti-choice movement or the pro-creationism lobby, from the start there is an intense pressure to hide the religious foundations beneath the nearest available logic-like substitute.  It comes down to an often hilarious yet very sobering look into the kind of people who think discrimination belongs in the California state constitution.

The favored defenses of institutionalized bigotry are:

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Posted under Culture, News, Politics, Religion, Sexuality

Revolutionary Act is proud to present our first guest post, from RickB of Ten Percent:

The level of discourse from McCain is truly awe inspiring, if by awe inspiring one means lower than whale shit.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Saturday accused Democratic rival Barack Obama of favoring a socialistic economic approach by supporting tax cuts and tax credits McCain says would merely shuffle wealth rather than creating it. “At least in Europe, the Socialist leaders who so admire my opponent are upfront about their objectives,” McCain said in a radio address. “They use real numbers and honest language. And we should demand equal candor from Sen. Obama. Raising taxes on some in order to give checks to others is not a tax cut; it’s just another government giveaway.”

Now I don’t want to worry the passport averse US populace but erm Europe is not um ‘socialist‘ neither are any of its ‘leaders‘. Jeebus knows that if it was we would be in a lot less shit over the Neoliberal created crisis in global capital. Certainly there are remnants of social democracy still persisting in Europe against the free market onslaught by and for the wealthy, but socialist? Not even fucking close. And that’s another thing, McCarthyism may have done its job in the US but socialist is not a dirty word.

So what might the American record on poverty be? Has the ‘wealth creation‘ and ‘trickle down‘ of the Neoliberal policies of Reagan, Bush, Clinton & Bush (W) meant an equal society? The simplest measure is the Gini coefficient-

Click to enlarge

Yes you’re the yellow line, notice how it meandered along until 1980 then it began climbing steadily through both Republican and Democrat administrations. That is because all of them adhered to Neoliberal economic policy. Look at the climbs for other countries and they also coincide with the introduction of Neoliberal dogma. Or how about pay disparity as a rough guide-

In 2004, the ratio of average CEO pay to the average pay of a production (i.e., non-management) worker was 431-to-1, up from 301-to-1 in 2003, according to “Executive Excess,” an annual report released Tuesday by the liberal research groups United for a Fair Economy and the Institute for Policy Studies. That’s not the highest ever. In 2001, the ratio of CEO-to-worker pay hit a peak of 525-to-1. Still, it’s quite a leap year over year, and it ranks on the high end historically. In 1990, for instance, CEOs made about 107 times more than the average worker, while in 1982, the average CEO made only 42 times more.

Obama’s plans are better than McCain’s who is using a straw man argument of an imaginary pinko Europe and thinks society is best served by growing inequality as the rich become richer than they have ever been. His preferred newspeak for this is ‘wealth creation‘ and his demonisation of even modest stabilising measures becomes ‘government giveaway‘ which tells you his attitude to democracy. Government is the one powerful institution the people have some control over, thus he wants to weaken that tiny speck of power redistribution, also perversely as the government is only spending the people’s money it is not a giveaway, it is returning capital to the populace. That it might in some small fashion do this in a way that does not amplify the growing inequality is what he objects to.

Much has been made of the racism, belligerence and ignorance of McCain supporters at rallies but this is only to be expected for a party that governs in the interests of a tiny elite of the very wealthy. They cannot rule on the votes of 1% of the nation so they very deliberately target the least informed, worst educated who will not be aware they are voting against their own best interests. Of course their polices, in a feedback loop, further create uninformed poorly educated people who cannot share in the wealth of the nation but have been convinced that government is bad and rich people are accorded godlike status. People are encouraged to look upon a billionaire’s wealth not as a theft from the public commons but a sign of achievement and probable moral superiority to the ‘undeserving poor’. It is also not unexpected that conservative religious charlatans have invented the ‘prosperity doctrine‘ which assigns divine right to the pursuit of riches in a remarkable reading of the bible that is akin to walking out of Star Wars with the impression the Empire is the good guy.

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Posted under Politics

Aggressive new anti-choice language is going to be reinforced, not challenged, by the media in the lea dup to the election.  Specifically anti-choicers are doing everything they can to paint Obama as a baby killer.  This line of attack relies on a single bill, the purposely misnamed Born Alive Infant Protection Act:

Back to the bill, it was a crafty attempt by the anti-choice movement to mask their intentions (they seem to have a lot of trouble when they are upfront and honest):

The antis want to redefine these fetuses as “born alive” and require that doctors provide “resuscitation.” As a state senator, Obama saw BAIPA for what it was: an ideologically-motivated ploy to vilify women and doctors who choose abortion. On the state Senate floor on April 4, 2002, he explained, “This issue ultimately is about abortion and not live births. Because if there are children being born alive, I, at least, have confidence that a doctor who is in that room is going to make sure that they’re looked after.”

The horribly misnamed pro-life movement tried to pull a fast one on reproductive choice, and Barack Obama saw clear through it.  The “Born Alive” act wasn’t about protecting babies.  It was about using lies to force a religious viewpoint on a secular nation.  Obama stood up to it.

Given this, it isn’t surprising that Bill O’Reilly is using that language to defend McCain (and surreptitiously attack Obama)

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Posted under News, Politics

When I heard McCain had suspended his campaign to work on the economic crisis, I thought he had made a brilliant move.  McCain is weak on the economy and needs to distinguish himself in a favorable light.  His suspension connected so well with his narrative of “country first” sacrifice, and reinforced his positions on the war and his delay of the convention in the face of hurricane Gustav.  I remember the conversation well.  I lamented Obama’s lack of aggression, and my co-worker agreed with me that the man needed to step things up.

Then he responded (Amanda, Think Progress, emphasis mine):

Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) just gave a press conference responding to Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) suggestion that they both suspend their campaigns, postpone Friday’s debate in Mississippi, and return to Washington to deal with the financial crisis. Obama said that he would like to the debate to go forward as planned because “it is going to be part of the president’s job to deal with more than one thing at once”

That powerful and contained a statement deals a sharp blow to McCain’s sacrifice theme.  Sacrifice only works politically if you give up something important out of necessity.  It’ll backfire in a second if it looks like either the importance or the necessity aren’t genuine.

Which is why McCain’s stumble juggling David Letterman and Katie Couric is devastating (Amanda, Think Progress, emphasis mine):

As part of his plan to suspend his campaign activities, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) today decided to cancel his appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman. McCain’s campaign reportedly told Letterman that the senator was “racing back to Washington.” That, however, didn’t happen. In his show to air tonight, Letterman shows footage of McCain sitting down with CBS’s Katie Couric for an interview at the same time he was supposed to be on his show.

You couldn’t find a brighter color to paint McCain’s campaign politically opportunistic.

Obama’s counterpoint and McCain’s dishonesty play directly to McCain’s weakness and Obama’s opposing strength at the same time.  John McCain is increasingly viewed as the precise stripe of unethical politician he once fought against.  He’s a man who goes for political points at any cost.  Barack Obama is definining himself as a politician who tries to approach problems rationally and seriously, putting the demands of the problem at hand above the political cost of doing so.

A politician’s greatest responsibility alongside governance is maintaining a connection to the people he or she represents.  The debates this friday are a central part of that, and thanks to a quick and effective response, heading in its advantage Obama.

Posted under Economy, News, Politics