The Epic Saga Continues!

12:41pm: I have to say I was impressed with Michelle Obama's speech yesterday.

I'm hoping it sets a tone for the campaign from here on out, because it took the road that I've been wishing for Obama this whole time: McCain is offering you fear, we are offering you hope.

My favorite part:

He talked about "The world as it is" and "The world as it should be." And he said that all too often, we accept the distance between the two, and settle for the world as it is - even when it doesn't reflect our values and aspirations. But he reminded us that we know what our world should look like. We know what fairness and justice and opportunity look like. And he urged us to believe in ourselves - to find the strength within ourselves to strive for the world as it should be. And isn't that the great American story?

I actually do agree with that. Whenever I travel abroad, people I speak with tell me the defining thing about Americans isn't their money, or their rudeness, or any of the other stereotypes...it's that they don't accept the world as it is. Most Europeans I've met, and CERTAINLY most members of the former Soviet Union I've met, seem, even by their own admission, rather cynical about the way the world works.

Americans have defied "common knowledge" so many times, and with it done some pretty amazing (and pretty horrible) things, but the point is, that's us. We don't take "no" for an answer. We created national public schooling, national highways, the internet, an enormous slave-driven economy AND then tore it down...all sorts of things unimaginable to the "authorities" of the day.

Hell, just this morning argued my internet provider out of their latest rate hike by just being stubborn as hell until they gave me the price I wanted.

If I didn't refuse to accept "no" for an answer, I couldn't go into my classroom every day and teach a bunch of teenagers who want to be anywhere but sitting in front of me.

Speaking to this quality in Americans will make them feel GOOD, in an otherwise lousy time.

McCain, when he speaks to Americans, makes them feel AFRAID. That in itself has its advantages. But, at least in America, hope speaks louder than fear.

Yes, Obama has been tossing the word "hope" around a great deal, but in practice most of what he spends his time doing is defending his "patriotism" and trying to show how "tough", in a realpolitik sense, he is. Which is a mistake.

He needs to create tangible visions of a better America in voters' minds. It worked for FDR, with his "chicken in every pot" speech. McCain really has no defense against this approach, other than looking like that crusty old guy who sits on a porch and says, "that'll never work, that'll never work", which is what Obama needs to paint him as.

Every time McCain waves the specter of war and terrorism in people's faces, Obama needs to re-direct the conversation the way his wife did last night, and talk about a focus on people's jobs, health and wallets at home as opposed to guns and tanks abroad.

Every time McCain starts igniting the culture wars with talk of abortion and gay marriage, Obama needs to talk about issues that transcend those allegiances - the environment, health care, etc.

I know I've been saying that for months now, but Michelle Obama finally seems to be doing it. Let's hope her husband follows suit.

If he does, I might even in good conscience vote for him.

-SW

5:05pm: DOWN WITH THE CULTURE WARS!
Ok, in a somewhat Jonathan Swiftian moment, I decided to write "the op-ed piece I could never actually send anywhere." Except the internet, of course. :)

Down with the Culture Wars!

By Sagawizard

I am so sick of the so-called "culture wars". Ever since the 2000 election it seems as if Americans, against all rational thought and self-interest, continue to base their political alignment around a key set of cultural issues around which they become unmovable. They attach to these pet topics like some demented Chihuahua on a raft clutches on a bone, not letting go even though the raft is sinking due to much, much larger reasons.

The American raft is sinking because of high-energy prices, environmental corrosion, soaring health care costs, inadequate schools and an otherwise wrecked economy. Everyone, North or South of the Mason Dixon line, on the coasts or in the heartlands, can agree with this. But the decisions that make them cast their votes? The questions we hear moderators pose to candidates? Abortion. Gay Marriage. Immigration. Gun control.

It boggles the mind, and, worse, it allows both parties to offer candidates that propose no good solutions to the big raft-sinking issues, because they know the only things that turn out the votes are the culture war issues. They stoke these fires because it lets them off the hook for having to actually do anything real.

I'm sick of it. So I'm proposing a platform for our next presidential candidate, of either party, to end this stupidity once and for all, issue by issue:

1. ABORTION/CHOICE: Outlaw abortion, keep birth control legal and subsidize to make it cheap enough for anyone to afford it. This quiets the pro-lifers and lets pro-choice women still control their reproductive functions.
As a corollary to the abortion ban, however, the country pledges to provide childcare (on a sliding scale, based on net work, up to 100%), and I mean everything, food, clothing, medicine, the works, including special needs for retarded and disabled kids.
Will this increase government spending? Hell's yes. It will be huge. There will have to be new taxes. But when people complain, remind the entire Bible Belt that "savin' babies" doesn't come cheap, and if this issue was really of such shattering, handed down from God importance to you, then put your money where your mouth is and REALLY "save" these kids. You don't like it, go back to the old system and shut up. And if women don’t want to have this many kids, at least they won’t be the ones paying for them.

2. GAY MARRIAGE: Abolish the State role in marriages, all marriages. Replace the marriage license with a "civil union license" in all states and make it available to any non-related couple above age 17 who wants to get "unioned." Unions get all the tax benefits and legal advantages/restrictions that marriage entailed. If you want to call it a "marriage", you've got to get a house of worship to sign on to it. There are more than enough religions and denominations out there that someone will likely do it.
If the religious folk have a problem with someone, somewhere calling two men or two women a married couple, then tough, take it up with that church or synagogue or Rastafarian-ganja-hut that authorized it. Leave the State out of it and let politicians get back to real work.

3. GUN CONTROL and DRUG LEGALIZATION: Two with one blow here. Legalize all guns, everything up to and including howitzers. Legalize all drugs, which then removes the #1 thing that people commit violent gun-crimes over.
Tax the hell out of all gun and drug sales, and use that money to fund the medical bills for the increase in people getting shot or suffering overdoses. Case closed.

4. IMMIGRATION: Anyone inside the US is now a citizen. Congratulations. From this moment onwards, no more immigration, period. If you cross the border illegally, you get shot on sight, Checkpoint Charlie style. Exceptions: really skilled workers with abilities America needs and political refugees. No one else. When and if the population rate falls below a certain rate, or when and if it becomes clear we're lacking a certain vital skill, we might open our borders again. Will this make America weaker or stronger? Will it mar our image as a country that takes in all who come? Maybe. But we've restricted immigration before, and I'm willing to have us do it again if it shuts up the people who are always whining about this issue and distracting us from more important ones.

5. MORE JESUS IN AMERICAN SCHOOLS, COURTS, GOVERNMENT, etc. This one's simple. Set forth a nationwide referendum, one-person one vote, throughout the country, on the question of making America into a Jesus-based nation. Put it all in writing: ten commandments everywhere, teaching intelligent design/creationism in the schools, Christmas pageants and manger scenes in front of all federal buildings. "Merry Christmas, not Happy Holidays." People of other religions have to convert or lose citizenship. All happy?
But here's the catch: you have to dismantle the entire Department of Defense, the Pentagon, the entire military. Trash all nuclear weapons, dry-dock all cruisers, beat all swords into plowshares. Because at every freaking turn of the Bible, Jesus calls for peace, goodwill to men, turning the other cheek, etc. You CANNOT build a nation based on Jesus that has an army. Costa Rica is an example of a nation that has no army, so it's not far-fetched. Get foreign defense treaties the way they do.
Oh, and Jesus talked all about how worldly wealth was not the way to go, and how it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to get into the kingdom of heaven, and how the meek shall inherit. So do a complete state takeover of all private property, Soviet-style, and make it all public.
Write a constitutional amendment than includes all of this, and then vote. And if the amendment doesn't pass, then all of those Jesus freaks are hypocrites because they just want the idols and the perks, and don't want to do the hard work Jesus asked of them, face the hard questions that got the Romans so freaked out that they crucified the man. If America is willing to put themselves through that kind of crucible, then heck, even as a Jew, I'd convert and play along. Otherwise, shut up and let us get to the real issues.


There. All we need is one president to just carry this all out, and then we can actually get to improving out country. By the time the next election comes, candidates would actually have to do real work.
Either that, or a new culture war would form around Coke vs. Pepsi.

-SW-