Barack Obama

The Real State of the Union (January 25, 2011)

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Tonight’s much anticipated address by President Barack Obama, almost four weeks into the New Year, is a huge test for our Commander-in-Chief. However, unlike last year, the rub isn’t his ability to withstand peanut gallery heckling (House Republican Joseph Wilson’s famous “You lie!” sneer). Rather, a large section of the American public, myself included, is looking to assess Obama’s ability to keep it real – to look that camera straight in the eye and drop all the b.s. about the nation’s “exceptionalism” and “competitive advantage.” We need the President, struggling with staff overturn and the formulation of an agenda for the final two years of his term, to level with his constituents, to give voice to the hard truths that so many of us have experienced for too long.

We are a nation at a crossroads. Despite the amassing of record corporate profits during the last two years, unemployment numbers remain puzzlingly and consistently high. State governments continue to slide into insolvency, and once stable jobs in the public sector (teachers, first responders, etc) are vanishing in unprecedented droves. We don’t need a cheerleader to sell us the “everything’s looking up!” routine. Things are definitely on the upswing for CEOs, for the NYSE, but not for us. We want to know why this happened and we don’t want to hear it from Timothy Geithner. We deserve to know how to fix our structural weaknesses so we never find ourselves victimized by them again, and to experience comfort in the form of a solid plan of action. It’s not permissible to kick the can down the curb anymore, leaving the hard decisions to future administrations. It’s not fine to play the role of the soothing parent. We are adults and we know we’re hurt. I think Mr. Obama’s poll numbers ought to be the first hint that we don’t believe the “measurable growth” fairy tale.

There is still too much rightful insecurity on Main Street. Millions have been out of work for periods of a year or longer. Those of us who have been lucky enough to secure new employment often find it to be of the contract or temporary kind, transient and without livable wages and benefits. We have no idea if the health care overhaul passed last summer to such tremendous fanfare and Tea Party howling will be overturned before the close of 2011. This is not an exercise in political gamesmanship. There are real stakes involved. It’s hard to formulate a five month plan, let alone a five year one, immersed in so much uncertainty.

I am certainly no defeatist. There is a time and place in tonight’s address for a celebration of our progress, to acknowledge how far we’ve come from the days of late 2008 when it seemed entirely possible that American economic and political relevancy could go the way of the Edsel. However, keep that sort of self-congratulation to a minimum. This is the first generation to fare more poorly than the previous in terms of wage growth, home ownership and educational opportunity. Let’s talk about how we arrived here, and what we’re going to do in the next 24 months to help the once-thriving middle class get back on the road to dignity and prosperity.

How DADT Makes America Less Safe (November 30, 2010)

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DADT_1

This morning as I booted up the computer, I took my typical perusal of the Yahoo headlines, and came across this feature from the Associated Press:

Pentagon Study: Gays Could Serve with No Harm

Ladies and gentlemen, we have just wasted 10 months and untold millions of taxpayer dollars “investigating” good common sense. While badly needed unemployment insurance extensions are in the process of being hijacked AGAIN by Republicans lobbying for the retention of Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy, we have no problem dithering and wasting scant resources “researching” an issue which almost every other democratic society has resolved by now. In short: if you are fighting two long, costly and unpopular wars, with brave soldiers who have been on three, four and five tours with little rest, you need all the enlisted men you can get and it shouldn’t matter who they’re shagging when the lights are off.

But will the release of this study finally be enough to silence the pandering savants in Washington, such as Senator John “Shill” McCain, who has appeared on every Sunday talk show and it’s brother arguing that a lift of the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell restrictions could be “dangerous?” The former Maverick has repeatedly called pressure to promote equality within the armed forces “politically motivated.” Yet how is forcing well-trained and patriotic men and women underground on the basis of pleasing homophobic voters any less so?

As a matter of fact, the outdated debate surrounding this issue of basic human respect is what’s becoming a danger to our national security.

Multiple sources, including The Wall Street Journal, are reporting that Army Private First Class Bradley Manning, who may have jeopardized a number of international relationships with his document dump to WikiLeaks, is a gay soldier “frustrated” over the treatment of homosexuals by the U.S. military. Now I don’t mean to suggest that this was his sole reason for releasing the documents, but it doesn’t seem that DADT and an open culture of harassing closeted gays helped make us safer in this situation. By all accounts, until his recent break with military code, Manning was a young and brilliant soldier, exactly the kind of man of which recruiters dream.

Or how about former Army infantry officer, Lt. Dan Choi, an openly gay solider who served two distinguished years in Iraq combat operations before being transferred to the New York National Guard? America can no longer avail itself of Choi’s loyal services, because after coming out on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show, the Lieutenant was summarily discharged. In response, Choi penned an open letter to President Barack Obama and Congress where he queried not only the morality, but the wisdom of the policy, “a slap in the face to me. It is a slap in the face to my soldiers, peers and leaders who have demonstrated that an infantry unit can be professional enough to accept diversity, to accept capable leaders, to accept skilled soldiers.”

How are we safer by releasing sharp, intelligent and passionate people because of some archaic, uninformed and backward looking trepidation that gay sex will overtake our army bases and combat zones? It’s ludicrous, and I have news for fear mongers like McCain and the Fox News crew: they’re queer and they’re already here. Manning and Choi are nowhere near the first or only Friends of Dorothy to don combat fatigues.

Although military recruitment numbers are climbing, owing in large degree to a terrifically anemic job market, we as a nation simply can’t afford to let a policy that seemed ill-advised even in 1993 stop our armed forces from functioning at their highest capability. And to that, we don’t need divisiveness or discrimination. We have enough problems on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s like cutting off our nose to spite our face.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is a travesty. I was disappointed with Bill Clinton’s cave to the right wing to pass it, even as a 15 year-old high school student. Now a 32 year-old woman, I am disappointed in President Obama’s heavy footed failure to show it the door. Mr. President, listen to the Pentagon, listen to your conscience, listen to the pragmatic good sense you seem to cherish so much.

Obama’s “Bad Blood” with Business (August 5, 2010)

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Much has been made recently of the strained rapport between the Obama administration and corporate interests. Various talking heads and opportunistic Republicans have seized upon the trumped up “war” between the President and Big Business as the cause of everything from the consistently high unemployment rate (“corporations are afraid to hire in this era of policy uncertainty”), to hard times for small business (“Obama’s desire to let tax cuts for the wealthy expire harms entrepreneurship”), and even, to my incredulity, the fallout from the BP oil spill. For example, the UK’s new Business Secretary, Vince Cable has been quoted as saying of Obama’s rampant criticism of BP’s actions before, during, and after the deep well explosion, “the president talks in a cheap way about ‘kicking ass’. Whether or not the American president can kick our asses, he can certainly hurt our wallets and purses.”

Thank you Mr. Cable for your ever so enlightened inclusion of ladies’ “purses” in your corporate lament. We now see you for the truly forward thinking, fair-minded guy you are (cue laugh track).

Even the “liberal media” has enjoyed taking the issue apart. Sunday morning talk show Meet the Press featured a panel discussion this past weekend including New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. Greenspan, while rightly declaring the state of the economy to be “touch and go,” also added “The financial system is broke and I see we just stay where we are. There’s nothing out there that I can see which will alter the level of unemployment.”

As soon as the former Chairman uttered these words, I gleefully clapped my hands together and waited for host David Gregory to give him the what for. After all, that is what the incomparable and disinterested Tim Russert would have done. But the moment never arrived. How can Greenspan credulously state that he “sees nothing out there” to act as a positive force on current unemployment rates, at a time when Big Business is posting record profits, and holding onto wads of cash?

Companies like Adobe, AirTran, Honda – even the once shaky banks and mortgage lenders who needed a taxpayer bailout are suddenly right as rain. With all this good news, why isn’t a stronger bottom line leading to improvements for long struggling job seekers? As I perused The New York Times last week, suddenly the answer became clear:

Industries Find Surging Profits in Deeper Cuts

Writer Nelson D. Schwartz declares, “Many companies are focusing on cost-cutting to keep profits growing, but the benefits are mostly going to shareholders instead of the broader economy, as management conserves cash rather than bolstering hiring and production.” On so very many levels, this makes me ill. Seems to me that instead of focusing on the trumped up antagonism between Obama and corporations, we should be talking about how Fortune 500 establishments have become the tormenter of American families.

So to return to my earlier question, how did the rumor that the Obama administration is the enemy of business get started, and more importantly, why is it being perpetuated? From where I’m sitting, it seems that it’s never been a better time to be a CEO, if not a regular working stiff. In addition to the record profiteering, I don’t recall Obama slamming the door in the faces of banks, automakers and other industries that showed up on Capitol Hill with a tin cup begging for change.

Probing a little further, it seems that the convoluted health care and financial reform bills could be the tacit excuse. Big Business would have you believe that the runaway regulations being passed by the “socialist” President are the root cause of its persecution complex (see first paragraph – “corporations are afraid to hire in this era of policy uncertainty”).

Pardon my French, but what a bunch of horse shit. If anything, President Obama hasn’t done nearly enough to roll back the heady days of Clinton/Bush deregulation. I believe I am not alone in my frustration – having to listen to the tiny violin playing martyrdom of corporations, even as they pop champagne over record profits, commending themselves for delighting shareholders on the backs of the jobless masses.

If the Obama administration has been the arch nemesis of business, how much worse off would the nation be if he acted as a friend?

My Big, Fat Greek Default (May 6, 2010)

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Greece

Greece, that ancient land. What it giveth us culturally, it simultaneously taketh away.

They give us the philosophic wisdom of Socrates, but we must also accept Constantine Maroulis, former American Idol failure, and “star” of Broadway’s Rock of Ages.

They provide us with ouzo, so that we can comfortably endure the amoral, classless legacy of the college fraternity system.

They give us a beautiful vacation spot beloved by tourists for centuries, and then they go bankrupt.

They giveth….Ok, I’ll stop. You get the point.

By now most of us know about the great fiscal crisis currently abroil in Greece. Hitting a little too close to home, given America’s own balloning deficit, and the ’08 collapse of our banking system, it is impossible not to feel empathy for the Greek people. The picture above clearly demonstrates that they are mad as hell about their current fiscal situation. What to do?

However, my issue today is not with Greek folks, or even the nation itself. Instead, I want to talk about Germany and it’s blame in creating the mess that caused the Dow to fall a collective 347.8 points over the course of the day.

Germany, you ask? What does the land of beer and sauerkraut have to do with Greece’s current meltdown (full disclosure: Boop and Jen are half German by lineage)? Didn’t they just approve a bailout package for the struggling nation two days ago?

Yes, they did dear readers, but sadly this vote, which makes Germany look much the proactive benefactor, comes far too late in the game. In fact, the European Union has been aware for quite a long time that Greece was on the brink. And as recently as mid-February, the Germans did not want to do much of anything to help their “spendthrift” economic partners.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/world/europe/16germany.html

So two months of hemming, hawing, “not my problem” isolationism later, here were are. Greece is the new United States, and global markets are in a free fall. Obviously, given that our nation is still muddling through a way to figure out what the hell happened to our own economy, we have no space to start pointing fingers.

But I am not Barack Obama and I have no need for diplomacy. Germany, j’accuse!

The justification for waiting it out was that “Every country has its own debts.” Well yes, in theory that is true. However, when Europe decided to make it a coalition by creating the European Union, they implicitly resigned the right to keep their concerns within their own borders. If Germany is now second guessing the wisdom of the EU, formed during the heady, prosperous aughts, well they are not the only ones.

I realize that blaming Germany for this debacle does not determine its only cause, nor does it do anything to resolve the gigantic crater sitting in the middle of the Greek economy. But we must hope that Germany is paying attention now, and understands that it can no longer treat the Greeks like so many drunken cousins, whose life choices have no effect on its own fortunes.

Friday the 13th (February 13, 2009)

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Reading Jen’s post this week made me realize again how not ready I am for children. I have enough trouble getting myself (and my impish husband) out of bed in the morning, washed dressed and fed, without adding actual dependents into the mix. I think I have mentioned before that the Husband Unit is presently without a job, and has been for 6 weeks now. We are OK, far luckier than many people for certain, but hubby spends enough time agonizing over his failure to provide as it is without the additional stress of having little mouths to feed. Beyond the economic stressors of parenthood, there are random and sudden bouts of illness or infestation (such as Jen is coping with), the constant lack of sleep or time for oneself. I already have to remind myself on a near daily basis that I am 30, no longer 20 (see Atlanta posts from last week). But as I round the corner toward 31, in-laws foaming at the mouth for the next generation of Boops, I often find myself wondering if I will ever feel “ready” or at least capable. I tip my hat to Jen and all the other multi-tasking super parents out there.

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, for some a Hallmark holiday, for others, perhaps the one time a year that they stop and to use a well-worn phrase, smell the roses. The next few days are packed with personal significance for me, so I thought I’d use the occasion to send a couple of blog Valentine’s to my loved ones.

    • To my sister, Jen, who turned 28 1/2 this week: I know you know this already, but it bears repeating. The day you were born was one of the happiest days of my life. Though I was only 2 years old myself, I can recall the day you came into this world with clarity. And that is because there has never been anyone happier to be a new big sister than I was. You may be a career woman, mother of two and all around capable force, but you have and always will be my baby.
    • To my best friend of 17 years, Gary, who is enduring a trying family crisis at this time: you are a rock of good sense and maturity, while still remaining a beacon of good times and belly laughs, the kind that make you feel like you might pee your pants. I don’t know what my life would be like without that.
    • To my husband, who turns 28 years old this coming Tuesday, coincidentally, the very same day we shared our first kiss and I knew I was really in for it. You alternately infuriate, shock, entertain and love me like I have never been loved. You are a maelstrom of chaos and contentment, all in one. I thought I was pretty complex until you and your rock star attitude turned my world on its ear. I have never looked back.
    • To my nieces, undoubtedly the two cutest and sweetest little ladies to ever grace this planet: KK, may you always be the character that has brought sunshine into all of our lives. “Aunt Bucky” felt connected to you from the moment you rained explosive diarrhea on her good jeans at the tender age of three days. Rosebud, thank you for reminding me that if a 20-month old can do 50 squats in a row without fatigue, a full grown woman ought to be able to do 10 pushups without tears. I never imagined a baby could motivate me to get to the gym, but there you go. A big shout out to their father as well, who has more than a small hand in affecting the good natured sweetness of these gals.
    • To all my girls, you know who you are: C, JTho, TWebb, the ghetto fabulous Yee, Di, Jane and the Roux sisters. Holla!
    • To my A.D., who is boy crazy and giggles like a school girl though she is well into her fifth decade. I am without a mother figure and have been some time. Thanks for reminding me to lighten up, and that you will always be there.
    • To Perez Hilton, Barack Obama, Entertainment Weekly, David Sedaris and CNN: I gave up a lot of my spare time and brain power to you folks in 2008, and it was well worth it.