Public Enemy

I try to not make this blog about me, but I couldn't resist when I got "investigated" by a right wing blog called RBO (Real Barack Obama). Check this article out attacking me.

Vietnow

We wallowed in the muck of Vietnam for roughly sixteen years with no real purpose. We shake our heads at the domino theory, at preventing Sino-Soviet encroachment. LBJ passed Medicare but is a villain.

We've been wallowing in the muck of Afghanistan for just over eight years with, at first a purpose, and now, no real purpose. We should be shaking our heads at the Global War on Terror, at preventing another 9/11 by paying off and supporting a corrupt, election-stealing, women's rights-destroying dictator. Obama is near to passing healthcare reform. He could become a villain.

If you want an in-depth look at why we can't follow Gen. McChrystal's plan to ship the equivalent of all of Danville to Afghanistan, I suggest you read Andrew Bacevich, Glenn Greenwald, and Ariana Huffington. Above all things though, beyond the strategic mistakes of fighting a war that's not helping, of stealing butter for guns, and of killing others and being killed, I fear the most that Americans are becoming comfortable.

We have been at war perpetually since the beginning of the Cold War. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iraq are the obvious ones. And that's too many obvious ones in 6o years. But how about the less obvious ones? I'll list some: Lebanon, Dominican Republic, Laos, Cambodia, Grenada, Kosovo, Somalia, and the Sahara (yes, we are fighting a war in the Sahara desert and it's still going on).

And America doesn't care. America doesn't give a damn, most likely because they don't know. Or maybe it's the other way around. Even if I, or you, or Obama told them, they wouldn't give a damn about the rampant intimidation, law-breaking, and killing in which America is engaging. It is called war. It is called America.

Communist Cleveland

A Communist is running for office. And he’s not going to call 1% of the vote a victory—he means business.

It’s a race for election to the Cleveland City Council and Rick Nagin, a Communist Party member (though registered to vote as a Democrat), placed in the primary in his Ward 14. He will now face off against Brian Cummins for a spot on the Council. Cummins has already served on the City Council, representing Ward 15, but because of redistricting he has found himself in the intense Ward 14 fight. The voters will choose between the two on November 3rd.

A number of surprises have sprung upon the residents of Ward 14, the first being that this heavily Latino area will be represented by a Caucasian (both Nagin and Cummins are white). But the newsworthy part is that Nagin, a serious Communist, is a serious candidate. While he has toned down and suppressed his affiliation, the facts remain: former Chairman of the Ohio Communist Party and former contributor to the People's Weekly World, the official voice of the Communist Party of the United States of America.

There are plenty of left-wing fringe candidates in all sorts of local, state, and federal elections, but Nagin has not only made it into the final vote, but has received the endorsement of Senator Dennis Kucinich. Of course, Cummins is no reactionary. He is essentially affiliated with the Green Party. But we all know Ralph Nader. The Greens have been around. But the machine, back in the '50s, blacklisted and jailed the Communists, not the Greens (yes, they didn't exist then, but hey).

I'll admit it: the election is considered nonpartisan, which means political affiliation is not listed on the ballot. Furthermore, if Nagin gets elected, he will not be able to nationalize Goldman Sachs, create a single-payer healthcare system, or mandate a living wage. But it will be a symbol.

I'll admit this too: we're the Young Democrats Party and I'm waxing poetic, mesmerized about a Communist. But he's also a Democrat on his voter registration card. More importantly however, as the Young Democrats of SRVHS, we desire less the triumph of the Democratic Party and more the triumph of justice. We value freedom and equality above Congressional victory and a filibuster-proof majority. These things often coincide. But if a man can stand outside the structure we've built up, if he can represent an ideal that the established interests have been endeavouring to squash, then I will support him if his cause is just.

Surprisingly, CNN even covered the election. You can see the video below.

Conservative Teabaggers

A NATIONAL ANTI-TAX MOVEMENT!! 

Or really bitter old white people who hate Mexicans, Muslims, and Barack Obama.  This isn't about taxes.  See photos here and here.

The Uppityest Class

Now that Obama has a Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, the inevitable report of personal tax problems has arisen.  Why do so many of the rich, ruling elite have problems with their taxes?  I'm sure that Tim Geithner, Tom Daschle, and Sebelius are not coincidentally all uniquely and randomly incapable of filing their taxes.  Interesting anecdotes these are not.  There is a trend.  Perhaps it has something to do with declining amounts of IRS audits of millionaires while the number of millionaires has increased.

Bobby

The title of our blog comes from Robert Kennedy, or really Aeschylus, whom Robert quoted in a speech just after Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. 

"Let us dedicate ourselves to
what the Greeks wrote so many years ago
to tame the savageness of man
and make gentle the life of this world.

I've posted below the text to an eulogy for Kennedy that I am giving in speech class tomorrow.

George Bernard Shaw said, “There are those that look at things the way they are and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?” Robert Francis Kennedy was fond of poetically quoting others in order to make a point or express a belief. Robert, or Bobby, as he was popularly known, was a son, brother, husband, politician, and a voice for the weak and disenfranchised. Of his eight siblings, one, John, became President, and another, Ted, became and still is a United States Senator for Massachusetts. John got involved in politics first as a Senator, but Bobby followed him to Capitol Hill, where he became famous in his own right for aggressively prosecuting the corrupt Teamsters union boss Jimmy Hoffa.

In 1961, when John became President, he appointed brother Bobby as Attorney General. Instead of building political capital for his own future, Bobby risked not only his career but his life, pursuing the Mob and fighting valiantly for civil rights. During the potentially disastrous Cuban Missile Crisis, he proved so valuable President Kennedy remarked, “Thank God for Bobby.”

Stricken with grief after JFK’s assassination in 1963, Robert became despondent and depressed. Within time, however, he recovered enough to realize that his duty was to the American people. Therefore, he ran successfully and became a Senator in 1965. While there, he grew increasingly disdainful of the glad-handing, smoke-filled room bargaining style of the Senate, focusing his efforts instead on community revitalization projects in New York’s inner cities, and dragging Senate committees to investigate poverty in the Mississippi Delta and farm labor unrest in California among other things.

The year 1968 marked probably the most significant chapter of his life. That year, Lyndon Johnson’s plans to fight poverty had disintegrated under the pressure of fighting Vietnam, an issue that had consumed public dialogue and even sparked domestic terrorism. The cities were burning and blacks were struggling to be made equal Americans. Robert announced his candidacy in the upcoming Presidential election and began a campaign that would take Americans by surprise. He campaigned against the Vietnam War and against military aggression in general. He was a proponent for the rights of minorities. He railed against the poverty in both cities and rural areas of America. With an almost demonic rage, crowds would swarm his campaign cars, trying to touch him and in the process ripping off his cufflinks, taking his shoes, and once, smashing his face against a curb knocking out a tooth. But he thrived off the crowds, struggling against the divisions in America, promising a new day and new age in a time wrenched apart by social and cultural revolution and discord.

While at a campaign stop in Indianapolis in April, RFK learned off the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. He was speaking to a largely black, inner-city crowd, to whom he had to break the news. In his impromptu speech from the back of a pickup truck, he quoted the Greek poet Aeschylus. “Even in our sleep, pain which we cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.” That awful night, riots broke out in 60 major cities, but not in Indianapolis.

Two months later, Bobby won the California primary, moving from an outside candidate to front-runner alongside Vice President Humphrey. As he left the victory party, a man named Sirhan Sirhan shot Kennedy and killed him. In the aftermath, the Democratic Party became split and Richard Nixon became President.
I’d like to leave you with a quote from Robert himself that effectively summarizes what he stood for.

“Our gross national product ... if we should judge America by that - counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.

"Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it tells us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans."

Three Cheers for the Founding Fathers and California on President's Day

The State of California has the lowest credit rating of any state.  We have a $42 billion deficit and no budget to ameliorate it.  In fact, we haven't had a budget for four months [Bloomberg.com].  Every Friday, employees of the State go on unpaid leave.  A breakdown in republican democracy?  Hardly.

Sure, none of these things are desirable.  But they do prove the vitality of our democracy.  The deterioration of democratic processes is evidenced not in the budget crisis, but in Congress' acquiescence in the invasion of Iraq, the apparent lack of any desire in Washington to criminally investigate the Bush Administration, and the legions of Obama-fixated citizens content with any and everything Obama is and has been doing.

I'm not at school today because of President's Day, a day for commercial sales, reverence for past Presidents, and for me, doing lots of homework (and sneaking in some blogging).  This tradition concerns me however, because the nature of democracy is that of the rule of law exercised by an elected government, not of the benevolence or good nature of our rulers.  While it's safe to revere dead statesmen (they can't come back and tyrannize us), we must be careful not to give this same reverence to our current politicians, most notably to the Office of the unduly-powerful President of the United States.  No good can come out of faithfully adhering to what public officials tell us we should think.  We can adhere, but only if we've critically examined what they've said and know it's valid.  And even then.  In 2003, the WMDs seemed to be valid.  

Nor should Congress really listen to Obama's pleas that the apocalypse will be upon us if they don't blindly pass the stimulus.  We're in a recession.  Solidly.  And a few days or weeks or a month will not make such a big difference.  The stimulus is not going to bring us out.  Period.  Quote me on it.  Sure it'll help, but the survival of America sure doesn't depend on it.

California's legislative issues are much closer to the precipice and also much more tied up.  For four months they haven't figured out what to do.  Though they are close.  But this is precisely what our Founding Fathers, the men we celebrate today, had in mind.

Why do you think they created "separation of powers" between the three branches of government?  Or the delegation of authority between states and the Federal government?  It surely wasn't to speed things up.  The framers of the Constitution were afraid of the abuses they had just escaped with their Revolution a decade earlier.  So they purposely pitted the government against itself in order to slow it down, make it inefficient, and thus make it harder for the government to become despotic.  

This doesn't mean it can't and won't become despotic.  Witness the Alien and Sedition Acts, slavery, Jim Crow, our domestic Holocaust, Californian eugenics, and torture under Bush.  That's what happens when the American public and press sits on its hands and relies on the well-meaning of our officials.

California's budget problem is not a constitutional crisis.  It's a byproduct of comfortable elected officials (redistricting), a result of the global economic recession, and the legacy of our Founding Fathers.