Monthly Archives: March 2008

Why Obama Instead of Clinton

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Listen to a very articulate Obama supporter explain why he chooses to support Obama over Clinton.

I absolutely could not explain it better than this supporter does. It goes a long way toward explaining why Obama supporters are not just Obamaniacs.

If you compare the Obama and Clinton senatorial records, I think you will see an indication that Obama is better at bringing people together than is Clinton. He has demonstrated it more often than has Clinton.

There are numerous videos related to this one to which you can navigate from the above link.

One in particular is a very powerful addition to the first video.

Obama’s Thoughts on Economic Matters

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MSNBC’s Maria Bartiromo interviewed Barack Obama mostly focusing on economic and business matters.

If you follow the above link, you will find videos of parts of the interview and a link to the full transcript of the interview.

The interview shows why I favor Obama over Clinton on these issues. His articulate answers make me believe that he really understands how things work and how they can be made to work better. He shows that he is not dogmatic and is willing to listen to ideas other than the ones that he has settled on at this time.

Specific proposals are always good. However, they may have a limited lifetime and they may get altered as they work their way through the political process. That is why I think it is more important to know that candidates understand how the world works than it is to know that they can regurgitate a specific proposal that advisers may have come up with.

It is important to know that Obama’s aim is to make the economy work for all instead of concentrating the benefits on a few. Whatever twists and turns his proposals have to take due to shifting circumstances, knowing the underlying principal gives me something to hold onto.

The Case Against Attacking Civilian Populations for Revenge

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I stumbled across an article titled The Truth about Colin Powell.

This covers a significant part of Colin Powell’s career.  There is a  large section in the beginning that details some experiences that Colin Powell had during the Viet Nam War.  It is a lesson on exactly why it is stupid and immoral to attack a civilian population to get revenge for military setbacks.

The rest of the article goes into some other fiascoes involving Colin Powell.  If only I had known about this before the Iraq War, I would have been even more sure that it was a mistake.  Even the rest of the country and world would have known not to trust Colin Powell’s assurances.

A Defense Of Jeremiah Wright

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On The Altantic web site, there is a defense of Pastor Jeremiah Wright.  It is actually an introduction to a defense by Martin Marty.

I don’t know how I was drawn into the business of defending Wright.  I just feel that there is no point in having a blog that just echoes what everyone else is saying.  It is only worth commenting when I see trends going astray and they need to be righted.

What If They Fix Iraq and Ruin The U.S.A.

This entry was posted in Periodic Posts and tagged Economy Iraq War on by

I have heard a report that Ford Motor Company is going to sell the Jaguar and Land Rover divisions to Tata Motors of India. It struck me as extremely ironic that a company in a former colony of Great Britain would take over two iconic British automobile brands.

I tried to think of a similar scenario that could occur in the United States to make it more clear to a domestic audience the full import of this chain of events.

What I finally came up with is the United States continuing the war in Iraq until success. This would mean that Iraq would finally stabilize and its economy could once again flourish given their vast oil resources.

Unfortunately the cost to the United States for this success was a hollowing out of the U.S. economy. Our own companies would end up struggling more and more for survival. The dollar would continue to slide and the price of oil denominated in dollars would continue to rise. Eventually a company in the wealthy country of Iraq would have to come to the rescue of General Motors by buying up its Cadillac division.

I wonder if anyone in Great Britain in 1950 would think that an Indian company would ever own Jaguar and Land Rover. I wonder if anyone in the U.S. in 2008 could conceive of the possibility that the downfall of the U.S. began with the Iraq war. What could we do to prevent this from happening? Or is it too late?

The Mortgage Mess and the Economic Meltdown

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Peter Dreier has written an explanation and proposed solution to the mortgage problem. Here is a link to the article. This is the most complete proposal that I have read so far. This is more comprehensive than anything I have read from any of the presidential candidates.

Peter Dreier is E.P. Clapp Distinguished Professor of Politics, and director of the Urban & Environmental Policy program, at Occidental College.

God Bless America

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In the previous post, I said that I did not have anything to counter the propaganda about the infamous “God Bless America” speech of Reverend Wright. Well, the internet provides all.

Here is a link to the 38 minute sermon. The sermon begins at about minute 3.

I have no misconception that anyone who hears this sermon won’t only hear whatever it is they want to hear in it. I hear things that I can “agree” with and things that I “do not agree” with. I hope you can separate the wheat from the chaff even if what you consider wheat or chaff is not the same thing that I consider wheat or chaff. There is no point in my even telling you which is which from my point of view.

The one thing that I can say is that this sermon does not frighten me in the least.

Since first posting this item, I have had a chance to read an excerpt from Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address.

Fondly do we hope – fervently do we pray – that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, “The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.”

According to the book, Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, by James W. Loewen, “When students read this passage aloud, slowly and deliberately, they do not fail to perceive it as a searing indictment of America’s sins against black people.”

Might Lincoln be saying in other words, that if God chooses to damn America that it would be “true and righteous altogether”?

Here is a more detailed analysis of Lincoln’s speech. This link was provided by lurker Richard H.

It’s still a question of Wright and wrong

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In response to my defense of Barack Obama, I received a link to a column in the Boston Globe by Jeff Jacoby. My response was the following:

As I recall, Jeff Jacoby is one of those people that I put in the category of George Bush. I pay no attention to what he says.

However, now that I have read the article you point to, I wonder if you are still not listening to the other side of the argument.

One thing I was going to ask you about a previous email. Like Jacoby, you said what you would do if this were a Rabbi. That is a fine statement of what you would do. Now put your self in Obama’s shoes and consider that you might not know everything that he does about Wright and try to imagine how he might not do what you would do. Remember, even President Clinton welcomed Reverend Wright in the White House. Not that that is relevant, but since we are in silly season, I thought I might add this silly “fact”.

I don’t have anything to counter the sermon about “God Bless America”, but I did send you the snippet about the “Chickens Coming Home to Roost”. Wright was quoting a career U.S. diplomat’s words. His sermon was about the exact opposite of “poisonous teachings”. He was preaching that “Violence begets violence, Hatred begets hatred”. Did you get that part?

He was warning against attacking civilian populations because of what some terrorists did. In our case the terrorists were not even linked to the civilian population that we would attack. He quoted a part of the Bible that warned against seeking revenge against civilians for what an Army did.

In a recent Playboy essay Kurt Vonnegut described the carpet bombing of Dresden that we did in WW II. Apparently he was a prisoner of war in Dresden at the time. I think his message was similar to that expressed by Ambassador Peck on Fox News and quoted by Reverend Wright in one of the infamous sermons.

Either in a biography or in the movie “Fog of War” former defense secretary Robert McNamara was discussing his role in some of the WW II planning of some bombing missions. He said that he knew that what they were planning could be considered a war crime.

Even James Cone mentioned by Jeff Jacoby isn’t as radical as he makes him out to be. I think Cone is wrong about a lot of what he says, but it doesn’t frighten me. Furthermore, it is quite a stretch to hang on Obama what was said by an author that Obama’s pastor has read. That is so many steps removed from what Obama has said and done that it is irrelevant.

I have read many books that I admired even though I may have disagreed with large portions of what the author espoused. One minor example would be,

http://www.ssgreenberg.name/Books.php#Supercapitalism

Also see http://ssgreenberg.name/PoliticsBlog/?s=krugman

At some point we ought to discuss what it is that you are really afraid of. What do you think Obama might do or cause to happen?