a "victory" for Obama

None of you, none of you is invisible to me. You never have been.
- Hillary Clinton

Obama hung out his Mission Accomplished sign. Again.

Meanwhile, Hillary is just amazing. She's really incredible. She knows she represents people - real people, people who love her. She knows that it is bad - for the party and for the nation - that the DNC was willing to stoop so low as to steal votes in Michigan in order to give Obama his "win". And she knows the reason people adore her is that she is willing to hear us and fight for us.

Go ahead - pretend this makes Obama a "winner".

He does not seem to realize or care that by being so eager to grab, he comes across as grasping.

There is no reason to not be gracious if you can afford to be. That he is so eager - desperately eager - to claim his Mission Accomplished emphasizes that he can't afford to be gracious. The whiny, petulant snob has gone from being the post-racial candidate to being the Affirmative Action candidate* - yet his speech tonight highlighted how he just doesn't get that you can't win a race too close to call by shoving your opponent off the stage and grabbing the gold.

It isn't just that Obama has to win. He has to do it with legitimacy. Hillary understands that in a way that Obama just doesn't seem to care about**.

I want the nearly 18 million Americans who voted for me to be respected, to be heard and no longer to be invisible.
- Hillary Clinton

Clintons have been good for this nation. I am no longer sure I can say the same for the Democratic Party - at least not in my lifetime. At least not at the national level.

Public service is about helping people solve their problems and live their own dreams. This nation has given me every opportunity, and that's what I want for every single American.
- Hillary Clinton

(BTW wasn't Obama supposed to be some sort of miraculously inspirational speaker or something? What ever happened to that?)
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* fuelled by stolen votes and cherry-picked rules.

Don't even think that will go away.

It has only just begun.

It will get worse. Much worse.

Stolen votes and cherry-picked rules.

Stolen votes and cherry-picked rules.

Stolen votes and cherry-picked rules.

Get used to hearing it. The Democratic party had the moral high ground and threw it away.

** any claims the Democratic party might have had on anyone to do what is "best for the party" were made ridiculous by the in-your-face nature of Obama & his enablers doing the gimme-grab.

from the New York Daily News

Hillary: Why I continue to run

BY HILLARY CLINTON

This past Friday, during a meeting with a newspaper editorial board, I was asked about whether I was going to continue in the presidential race.

I made clear that I was - and that I thought the urgency to end the 2008 primary process was unprecedented. I pointed out, as I have before, that both my husband's primary campaign, and Sen. Robert Kennedy's, had continued into June.

Almost immediately, some took my comments entirely out of context and interpreted them to mean something completely different - and completely unthinkable.

I want to set the record straight: I was making the simple point that given our history, the length of this year's primary contest is nothing unusual. Both the executive editor of the newspaper where I made the remarks, and Sen. Kennedy's son, Bobby Kennedy Jr., put out statements confirming that this was the clear meaning of my remarks. Bobby stated, "I understand how highly charged the atmosphere is, but I think it is a mistake for people to take offense."

I realize that any reference to that traumatic moment for our nation can be deeply painful - particularly for members of the Kennedy family, who have been in my heart and prayers over this past week. And I expressed regret right away for any pain I caused.

But I was deeply dismayed and disturbed that my comment would be construed in a way that flies in the face of everything I stand for - and everything I am fighting for in this election.

And today, I would like to more fully answer the question I was asked: Why do I continue to run, even in the face of calls from pundits and politicians for me to leave this race?

I am running because I still believe I can win on the merits. Because, with our economy in crisis, our nation at war, the stakes have never been higher - and the need for real leadership has never been greater - and I believe I can provide that leadership....

read the rest here

I particularly like this:

I am running because my parents did not raise me to be a quitter - and too many people still come up to me at my events, grip my arm and urge me not to walk away before this contest is over. More than 17 million Americans have voted for me in this race - the most in presidential primary history

Yes - the voters are supposed to be what matters. Hillary understands that. Obama fears it.

The DNC will be doing to the Democratic party (and American democracy) what Bear Stearns did to Wall Street (and the global economy) if they keep putting their own short-term personal interests over their obligations. There is such a thing as duty, and it is time we insisted upon its remembrance.

only trust makes the economy grow

...and real trust comes only from good stewardship.

ABC news: Bernanke urges more action to stem home foreclosure crisis

A rising tide of late mortgage payments and home foreclosures poses considerable dangers to the national economy, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke warned anew Monday as he urged Congress to take additional steps to alleviate the problems.

Anyone should have been able to see this coming - after "reforming" the bankruptcy laws, the next step is obviously to overextend credit, until we have a bunch of people with more debt than they'll ever be able to repay. Then newly indentured people committing suicide creates the sort of spectacle that makes people afraid to invest, and the economy shrinks up.

Then we remember why we limited liability in the first place.

Yeah - we had bankruptcy laws for consumers for pretty much the same reasons we have limited liability corporations.

And it's funny, too, because moral hazard is all anyone talked about when it was time to push bankruptcy reform. Everyone had a story about the person who maliciously and fraudulently abused bankruptcy law. But nobody ever wanted to talk about moral hazard on the part of the corporations. Of course it was logical to assume even then that what would happen next would involve lots and lots of moral hazard - someone, somewhere, was going to start extending loans to people who could not possibly repay, possibly with lots of fine print that the borrower could not understand.

Hillary's position on foreclosure, from Businessweek:

Clinton offered a series of measures intended to show just what she'd do to bring an end to the crisis were she in the White House. The package is in keeping with her campaign's focus on core issues of importance to the stretched working- and middle-class voters, the group with whom she is doing best....

...Clinton's opponent for the Democratic nomination, Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.), has backed congressional bills that would help stabilize housing prices by providing federal guarantees for mortgages that are renegotiated to better reflect current housing prices, but has not argued for a government role in buying up mortgages that are larger than the value of the underlying home.

"judgement and leadership are not intuitive"

Former US ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV challenges Obama's attacks on Hillary Clinton, in an article that is primarily about what he calls "legitimate questions about Obama's judgment and naivete" (newsobserver.com, by way of Taylor Marsh):

President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell made it clear publicly and in their representations to Congress that the authorization was not to go to war but rather to give the president the leverage he needed to go to the United Nations to reinvigorate international will to contain and disarm Saddam Hussein, consistent with the resolutions passed at the time of the first Gulf War.

With passage of the resolution, the president did in fact achieve a U.N. consensus, and inspectors returned to Iraq. Hans Blix, the chief U.N. inspector, has said repeatedly that without American leadership there would have been no new inspection regime....

...The approach of tough diplomacy backed by the threat of military action was the correct one and it yielded exactly the desired results, a unanimously passed U.N. resolution and the capitulation of Saddam when he readmitted the inspectors.

The betrayal occurred not when the president was given the tools he needed to secure international support for inspections, but rather when Bush refused to allow the inspectors to complete their work and decided preemptively to invade, conquer and occupy Iraq.

I like that Hillary Clinton takes positions and makes tough choices. Sometimes she will be wrong - though it's not at all clear to me she was wrong here, nor do I think Obama would have voted any differently if he were actually required to take action, instead of just talking about taking action.

I believe Hillary is the only candidate who is both willing and able to get us out of Iraq. Good intentions are nice, but if Obama is already wilting - how can we expect him to be able to stand up to Republicans if he can't even stand up to Hillary?

And I do sincerely believe that there is only one reason Obama is continuing to be forcibly propped up - when Clinton is obviously, yes obviously the better candidate. That reason is the civil war in the Democratic party (via Tennessee Guerilla Women)

politics & economics gotta checks-and-balances each other

To those who think the economists' say-so is the only measure of what's good in this world, let me ask you this: if I can prove that child labor is beneficial to the economy, does that mean child labor laws are bad?

ABC reports that Hillary Clinton refuses to name a single economist who says that her gas tax plan is good, from an economists' viewpoint. Well, duh.

ABC News' Mary Bruce reports: Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., declined this morning to name a single economist who backs her call for a gas tax suspension.

"I'm not going to put my lot in with economists," Clinton said in an exclusive appearance on a special edition of "This Week" from Indianapolis.

But, you know, Hillary Clinton isn't an economist. She's a politician. And lucky for us, too, because it's no great secret that capitalism concentrates wealth (and tends toward monopoly). An ideal world according to economic models would be one with no people in it. (People are irrational.)

But, fortunately for us, politics exists, to bring us quality of life to balance out painful economic efficiency:

In light of fierce criticism from economic experts, Clinton said, "We've been, for the last seven years, seeing a tremendous amount of government power and elite opinion basically behind policies that haven't worked well for the middle class and hard-working Americans. ... I know if we get it right, if we actually did it right, if we had a president who used all the tools of the presidency, we would design it in such a way that it would be implemented effectively."

It seems to me quite clear that a real solution to the energy crisis is going to be a pretty big deal. This is just addressing one of the more untenable symptoms, and in a very short term way.

"This gas tax issue to me is very real, because I am meeting people across Indiana and North Carolina who drive for a living, who commute long distances, who would save money if the oil companies paid this $8 billion this summer, instead of it coming out of the pockets of consumers," Clinton said. "Now, look, I have long-term plans too. I mean, it's a misnomer to say this is all that I'm doing. It's not. I have a comprehensive long-term energy plan that would go right at dependence on foreign oil."

(emphasis mine)

Transport - both the ability to move and the ability to receive - is linked to poverty in numerous ways. And that means transport is also very tied up in the economy. We are already at a point where the high price of gas is already forcing some people to cut back on behaviors that are good for our economy.

Taxing people is not solving the problem. Actually solving the problem means actually addressing the issue of what exactly they are supposed to be doing instead of driving.

What is the alternative? If all you are doing is punishing the end user, you are putting it onto their shoulders to figure out what they ought to be doing to save gas. And you won't like what they come up with.

I have heard many people argue that "we must lead people away from energy consumption". Have such arguments stopped to think how much of an effect rising gas prices can and will have on the working class before it even begins to dent the SUV drivers, the ones whose behavior is truly wasteful? In my opinion, this entire argument makes about as much sense as taxing food to "solve" the problem of overeating. You incidentally solve the problem of overpopulation as well. It's not a real solution. It's not an acceptable solution. It's the equivalent of choosing to throw someone overboard on the totally untested assumption that lightening the load will somehow save the boat.

class hatred is real

Anglachel's Journal has a really excellent post called the Whiteness of the Whale:

The violent rejection of the Clintons on the Left is a rejection of “The South” and the working class by the Stevensonian elite, who see the success of Bill the “Bubba” as both a threat to their power and a repudiation of their policies and actions since 1968. They want to see themselves as simultaneously co-victims with AAs of white supremacy and also as the moral(istic) saviors of the oppressed, redeeming their part of the white population from the sin of racism. (Read the incomparable Bob Somerby’s write up of this phenomenon in his latest post.) Bill Clinton provided a different vision of how to move the party and nation forward, one that refused demonization, and this shook them to their ineffective foundations.

That link (embedded in the quote) has some really good stuff too:

...let’s get clear on what the Times did: They sent a reporter to Tarheel towns to get the views of African-Americans. (Good!) And they sent a reporter to Broad Ripple to get the views of upscale whites. (Good again!) But what did the Gotham paper do to get the views of less affluent whites? Simple! Instead of interviewing such rubes, they simply asked the swells to speak for them! This produced a pleasing second-hand view: Low-income whites, with their racial bad faith, may well be swayed by this story!

This "speaking for me" phenomenon has happened a lot during this campaign. It happened during Obama's beautiful speech, too. He spoke on behalf of working class whites - telling the world something of who we supposedly are and what we supposedly want. He used the opportunity to redefine us, away from the grievances we want heard, such as affirmative action policies that take too much from us and give society too little benefit in return. (If affirmative action really works so well, why is there still poverty today? Why aren't we allowed to ask that question? I have a funny feeling it does not reflect well on Rev. Wright - or his new 10,000sf house.)

In the new, revised view, our grievances are with outsourcing and corporations. We just don't understand the situation fully, is all. (Or so we're told.)

And we aren't qualified to have an opinion because, let's face it, we're uneducated. After decades of scholarships being earmarked for 'need' (meaning 'any color other than white') or 'merit' (meaning 'went to a private day school'), we who are neither black nor rich largely get our education from two-year colleges, vo-tech programs, and especially the military. We are therefore not qualified to have an opinion on anything, but especially not on questions such as whether safety net and poverty prevention programs should or should not be labeled "whites need not apply".

I think most people want to underestimate the contempt middle+ class America has for its working class. I know class is entirely behind my...shall I say bitterness toward Obama - not because he is upper class but because of the attitude he promotes toward working class.

I've said before and will no doubt say again: to claim that middle America hates Democrats because they are smart makes about as much sense (and follows the same logic) as Republicans saying "they hate us for our freedoms".

And that when Obama talks about race, he emphasizes the 'complexity' of the black experience - but he reduces working class whites down into simple, caricatured stereotypes, and so do most of what Anglachel calls "Stevensonian" Democrats. And it is only one of many stereotypes to assume that if we are poor, we must be stupid; 'cream naturally rises to the top', it is said - so even the smartest self-educated person must be inferior to even the lowest, drunkest frat boy.

My family worked to get our kids out of their inner city elementary school into an affluent, upper middle class high school*. I tell you what, I was ASTONISHED the first time the principle mocked me to my face. It was a shock to my belief that educators - or Americans in general - mostly agree with and approve of "all men are created equal", and all students deserve equal rights, equal opportunities - a fair chance. There is no pretending that low income types like me are welcome - or even human. They see us as lesser, and they don't bother to hide it. And the students take the cue from their parents.

And when a wealthy kid misbehaves, it is made out to be some lower income kids' fault, and I see the same logic that is being used in this Obama campaign. It is sort of like normal logic, only - like the Pirates of Penzance - certain assumptions are embedded. Not open to challenge. All Brits love their queen.

Meanwhile, my kids are pressured to conform - and after all, isn't that the point? Admittedly it usually happens at college, not high school - since high school is usually about being with your own kind, and it is the college you go to determines your social grouping.

So I agree wholeheartedly with Anglachel's post. While I am sure there are other things going on in this election, I think it is absolutely true that class and scapegoating is at the root of Clinton hatred. If you are going to stand 'outside' and pretend that YOU are not responsible for America's sins, then who is?
_______________________
*interesting side note: that while the inner city school we dealt with was largely all a single minority - with both whites and Latinos taking extraordinary actions to get out of those schools, even though there were rules in place specifically intended to make it difficult for whites to get out of black schools, and easy for blacks to get into white schools.

On the other hand. the affluent white school is not at all pure white. There are a variety of minorities - but not many blacks. The blacks who do get 'in' to a school of this sort are not what Rev. Wright would consider worthy of their blackness.

So, yeah, I think Michelle Obama is right - you do have to choose between your "blackness" and your being accepted by mainstream America. But you do not have to lose your "blackness" (whatever that means) to become wealthy in America, clearly.

It is also worth noting that while "blackness" appears to include some voluntary choice that is made (acceptance of a cultural code), "trashness" in the case of vulgar whites is based on something involuntary - mostly not having enough money to put up a good peacock's tail, to buy the right sort of clothes and car (see Karate Kid, first movie).

nuance

Reading about Olbermann's so-called apology I am reminded once again of the big difference between rich and poor this election cycle.

Those who benefit from this difference typically call it "nuance".

I call it what happens when powerful people are given the unlimited right to translate what other powerful people "really meant", for the purposes of manipulating the perceptions of less-powerful people.

The point is to justify what ordinarily would not be excused, of course.

No matter what comes out of someone's mouth, it can be argued that this isn't what he really meant - or, failing that, they can find some reason why the person is entitled to behave badly or say crazy things.

Strip away arguments about gender or race for a minute and you can see power being used according to rules no one would accept if the rules weren't deliberately being obscured. This sort of "nuance" involves the deliberate blurring of boundaries and categories, so as to confuse actions and relationships. The point of it is to get fuzzy about issues of responsibility.

For instance, Rev. Wright gets to say whatever he wants, however politically poisonous, because in the 1950s life was really bad for people like him. (And, anyway, we explained what he really meant. You gotta understand. Context. Context.)

How can you criticize what Rev. Wright said when Obama is our first black Presidential candidate and he explained it all on a great landmark speech about race?

And so on.

So it says in the news that Olbermann didn't mean to suggest offing anyone. I paused. I read. I came away convinced of the man's insincerity - I don't believe he's really apologizing for anything. Let other people explain what he meant.

But I did stop and check it out. I did say, whoa, maybe I was unfair. I am not so convinced of the man's guilt that I will not hear new evidence. Did I misunderstand?

The problem is, there was no new evidence. Nothing he said changed anything. He meant to say the world would be better off if this person were murdered and that is what he did. He meant to make Clinton smaller and weaker and vulnerable, and he did. He meant to convey a certain contempt for the decent and civilized processes by which we solve problems, suggesting instead that we should just go the short easy route and use brute force to get our way. The arguments for whether this is or isn't sexist are not what interest me here (though the arguments never hinged on what pronoun you used anyway, Mr. Olbermann).

This exposes a real gap between them and myself. They like to take spin and make things okay. It's not such a big deal if Obama hangs out with with guys who bombed the Pentagon. It's not such a big deal if Olbermann issues some sort of fatwah on Hillary Clinton.

People who actually have to pay the price when there are consequences call this "moral relativism" (or in the more rural areas it's called "what's wrong with them God-damned liberals"). It is a bad thing because it leads to people getting hurt. It leads away from the sort of world where people can assume other people are basically decent and trustworthy. It leads to deterioration of entire neighborhoods. It turns our good children into the sort of adults who get into trouble, real trouble.

Because, of course, it's all about class - poor people just don't get away with the stuff rich people get away with. Look at the uproar when Frey was caught exaggerating on A Million Little Pieces, and then compare that with how the wealthy get to behave - what's a little lie here or there? (Make no mistake: what the Frey uproar was about was class - someone trying to move up in the world was found unworthy. That he was also handy as a scapegoat for a nation increasingly enraged at moral relativism was just a bonus.)

This is the mechanism by which real justice is replaced with cliques and in-groups. It is what we call 'socialization' when we are explaining why people should not be allowed to homeschool their children.

People outside of the clique might be hammered for lying about Bosnia, while in-crowd boys are not hammered when they claim their parents met at Selma (of course he was just trying to cement his credentials with a certain crowd, don't you know?) But tomorrow Clinton could be 'in' while Obama is 'out' - it's all about who has power.

It is the opposite of one standard, consistently enforced - which is the basis of equality.

In the real world, you can't have 'anything goes' - if people disobey the rules, then rules don't mean anything, and what you get is 'crime and blight' (which liberals tell us is just a code word for race - apparently they think that crime is an essential part of being black).

Some of us were raised by mommas who didn't fall for those tricks - we learned from our mommas that when someone gets busted, they're busted. That's not just how the world works, but how it ought to work, because it's fair and because it keeps things peaceful. For those of us with such mommas, there are only two ways out of being busted:

1. new evidence proves the original charge was unfair (conviction overturned on appeal); or
   
   
2. new reasoning persuades or proves that the rules were bad rules to begin with and need fixing
   

That latter point is what happened when Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke. People realized that the rules we were living with were bad rules - sometimes rules really need to be changed. Sometimes people really do grow, and so do societies.

But Olbermann broke rules that don't need fixing. Our society would not be a better place if the discourse were lowered to the point where it became clearly okay to talk that sort of trash.

What you don't see on that list of ways to get out of being busted is
(3) nuance. That is not because poor people aren't sophisticated enough to understand the concept. It's just that we tend to think "nuance" is why liberals are responsible for screwing up this country in the first place. It wasn't their soaring goals of equality for everyone. It was their nasty habit of 'nuancing' criminals right on out of jail.

if everyone hates Hillary, why have so many people voted for her?

Expect to hear that suddenly the popular vote no longer matters:

"After last night's decisive victory in Pennsylvania, more people have voted for Hillary than any other candidate, including Sen. Obama.

Estimates vary slightly, but according to Real Clear Politics, Hillary has received 15,095,663 votes to Sen. Obama's 14,973,720, a margin of more than 120,000 votes. ABC News reported this morning that "Clinton has pulled ahead of Obama" in the popular vote.

This count includes certified vote totals in Florida and Michigan."

(The above is from Hillary Clinton's web site. Emphasis mine.)

Hillary now has a legitimate claim to having won the most votes - therefore, since it is logically impossible that Hillary could win, having the most votes must not matter anymore.